Just as he was about to leave the sacred mountain, Du Yi halted his body.
It wasn't that anything was blocking his way out, but that actually going out would only make more trouble — one had only to recall his exchanges with Lightbringer to know it; he'd never imagined that simply leaving the mountains would set ten thousand beasts stampeding, and frighten Lightbringer's own father to death besides.
Of course, the mountains were empty now, with no ten-thousand-beast stampede to speak of, but the place he was bound for now was a pasture — a place stocked with a whole crowd of sabertooths.
Catch sight of his figure from afar and those sabertooths would surely scatter in panic, likely bolt clean out of sight.
"So I'll wait here, and the two of you just go and bring the sabertooths back."
Slinking over in stealth wasn't impossible, but given how much trouble that was, having the mage — the pasture's own owner — go and lead the sabertooths over was rather simpler.
"Too big a body really is so inconvenient."
The thought made Du Yi sigh.
As one who'd lived it, Du Yi could hold forth from noon till dusk on just how inconvenient an enormous body was — but the two things that nagged at him most were these: being too conspicuous, which scared off so much, and being so huge that he couldn't savor a great many delicacies.
Just like now: because his body was so vast, he could only take large beasts like mammoth or sabertooth for food, whereas if his body were a few hundred sizes smaller, his menu could expand into far wider territory.
Cattle and sheep, say; chicken; pigeon; fish and shrimp and crab...... especially fowl, and seafood like fish and shrimp and crab — he hadn't gotten to eat anything like that in ages.
Now that he thought of it, he rather missed it.
"And besides — molt once and grow a size, molt once and grow a size...... keep growing like that, and what happens the day even mammoths look small?"
The thought of that possible future misery had Du Yi thoroughly worried; in this moment he wished dearly for some way to shrink, rather than just growing bigger and bigger.
Of course, if he could grow and shrink at will, that would be better still.
But Du Yi knew well enough you can't have the fish and the bear's paw both; he couldn't get all the perks for himself. Having enjoyed the conveniences a huge body brought, he'd just have to bear some of the corresponding inconveniences.
"If I could only settle at a steady size...... actually the size I was last time I woke would do nicely."
Du Yi remembered how, not long ago, a whole herd of mammoths down his gullet had only filled him eight parts in ten.
But the time before, back when he'd known Lightbringer, a mere few mammoths had been enough to fill him.
He rather missed that time, when his appetite wasn't yet so vast......
"......hm?"
It was just then that Du Yi noticed the mage — the savage in the hide cloak — seemed to be shouting something at him.
"A farewell, is it? Off you go."
Still not fully come round to himself, Du Yi flicked his long tail, motioning for the man to be on his way.
And he stayed where he was, and began turning over methods that might let him get some control over his size.
***
On the way out of the mountains, the mage was rather crestfallen.
He'd meant to ask the Snake God whether he might, on the pretext that "one man isn't enough to bring the sabertooths over," have the deserter come out of the mountains with him — that way he could blast the deserter dead with a fireball along the road, and simply say the deserter had been dragged off by a sabertooth.
Yes — bearing in mind that Ignis City could have no two kings, he'd resolved to do away with this potential rival.
But who could have guessed the Snake God wouldn't answer him at all, only gaze off into the distance, lost in who-knew-what thoughts.
And then He'd simply sent him off, without a single word about the deserter.
"Could it be the Snake God has seen through my intentions?"
"Or could it be the Snake God didn't catch what I was saying at all?"
By how things had gone just now it looked, every which way, like the latter — but given the wisdom the Snake God had shown before, the mage would sooner believe it was the former.
"Perhaps I shouldn't pull these petty tricks anymore...... it'll make the Snake God despise me."
So the mage thought.
As a mage he ought to be more magnanimous; as a Sage King he ought to be more magnanimous still. A mere rival — what was there about that he couldn't accommodate? He had to have faith in himself.
So the mage comforted himself.
"After all, as a mage my heart should be broad...... hm?"
Just back at his pasture gate, he froze all over.
For there in his sight, outside the pasture gate, stood a man of broad heart — and not just broad of heart; broad of belly as well.
That high-swollen belly had even stretched apart the finely stitched hide cloak draped over him, leaving the great paunch bared.
So vast a frame, and that enormous belly above all — this was, without question, the form only the strong could possess.
A high-tier mage.
A single glance, and he recognized who had come.
Almost in the same instant, he turned on his heel to flee — for he knew well enough what these high-tier mages had lately been up to: these power-obsessed strong ones had, in their pursuit of greater strength, even launched an assault to slaughter the Snake God.
And now, he himself had thrown in his lot with that Snake God.
A guilty conscience had him desperate to leave at once, terrified of giving himself away — for though he had the Snake God at his back, even the look of a Sage King about him now, that Snake God was not, at this moment, truly standing behind him, but far off inside the sacred mountain.
Which was to say: if he really gave himself away, no one could save him.
That high-tier mage across the way need only clap his palms, and he'd be burned to drifting ash on the spot, dead beyond dead.
But even wanting to flee now, he could no longer get away.
A high-tier mage's keenness was hardly his to guess at; the very instant his glance flicked over, the high-tier mage in the distance had already turned his gaze too.
"Crimson Shadow? You're back?"
The high-tier mage spoke.
The voice wasn't loud, yet it was perfectly clear, and across all that distance it still carried straight to his ears.
His trail already spotted, his very name called out — even across so great a distance, he already knew he couldn't get away.
That high-tier mage had locked onto him; he could even feel it, the man's two palms already gathering their charge.
"It's me. I stepped out for a bit earlier."
The mage called Crimson Shadow turned back around, forcing toward the high-tier mage a smile meant to look as though nothing were amiss.
"You've come all this way from Ignis City — that must have been quite a trek; why not step into the pasture first and sit, have a bite to eat......"
"It's me, Crimson Shadow."
Hearing Crimson Shadow's invitation, the high-tier mage only laughed.
"Have you forgotten your own mentor?"
"You're...... Mentor Zadok?"
Looking at that broad figure, Crimson Shadow was, for a moment, struck dumb.