A world of complete darkness.
There was an enormous red sun that had completely engulfed one side.
No.
It was a great red eye.
The red eye looked at me and spoke.
[Isn’t it strange?]
It was a voice that gently awakened my hazy consciousness.
[What?]
The eye moved to the side. Due to its massive size, it sounded as if the world was vibrating.
Where the eye was looking, there stood a dead horse.
[That horse. Why did it accept your death magic?]
[What?]
[Think about it. Those you’ve killed hold grudges against you. That’s why it’s difficult to control them with death magic.]
[That’s right. Master Avana said the same thing.]
[But why did that horse listen to you?]
[Huh?]
[Why did that horse accept your death magic? Even though you killed it.]
I looked at the dead horse.
The dead horse was staring at me intently with its lifeless eyes.
There wasn’t even a hint of resentment in them.
The horse slightly opened its mouth.
“Neigh!”
A sudden sense of reality.
The scorching sunlight forced my eyes open involuntarily.
I rubbed my eyes and looked around.
My vision was strangely high up.
“You, you?”
I was on top of a horse.
The horse’s neck was completely broken, with its head barely attached by flesh.
It’s the horse I revived with death magic.
“Neigh!”
The horse moved its lips again.
Perhaps out of habit from when it was breathing, it’s still breathing even though it’s dead.
But since the dead body has no use for that air, it just goes back and forth.
As my vision gradually recovered, I could tell where I was.
“Count Furst’s mansion? You. Did you bring me here?”
The horse moved its lips again as if in response.
“Neigh!”
The last thing I remember is shattering Merlin’s familiar that had turned to ice.
Suddenly, a feeling like my heart dropped.
The familiar’s egg!
I quickly reached into my robe. I could feel the egg Speria had given me.
“Thank goodness. I must have kept it safe even unconsciously.”
Just then, my body tilted.
The horse was slowly falling sideways, but it was trying its best not to let me get hurt.
After I got off, the horse collapsed sideways with a thud.
I took out my staff and sent psychic power to examine the horse’s condition.
There was hardly any magical power left that I had injected, and the corpse’s inherent thoughts were extremely faint.
“You. You said your last wish was to run, right? But why did you bring me here while I was unconscious?”
The horse rolled its eyes to look at me.
They were so cloudy that I couldn’t tell what emotions they held.
The horse finally closed its eyes.
I looked down at the horse for a moment.
This horse deserves a proper funeral.
I have an obligation to give it a funeral.
I raised my staff and pointed to a spot a little away from where the horse lay.
Then I used psychokinesis to create a hole slightly larger than the horse’s form.
After putting the horse in and covering it with dirt, I said softly:
“Rest in peace.”
I turned around and walked towards the entrance of the mansion.
The first person I encountered was the mansion’s butler.
“M-Mage!”
“Hello. What was your name again?”
“Clark. It’s Clark.”
His eyes were as wide as the full moon.
As if someone who couldn’t return had come back.
I said to him:
“The Count is here, right?”
“Yes. Y-yes.”
He seemed unable to shake off the shock, which was unusual for his age.
Given how surprised he was…
“How long has it been? Since Count Furst met Duke Balkan?”
“A-about half a month?”
As I thought.
In that amount of time, Count Furst must have been certain of my death.
I smiled brightly.
“May I see the Count?”
Butler Clark nodded repeatedly, still looking dumbfounded.
The butler first guided me to an empty room. I lay down on the bed without even washing up, as my body was quite exhausted.
Not long after, Count Furst flung open the door.
Bang!
Although he didn’t kick it open with his foot like before, it had no less impact.
“Ran! You’re alive!”
I turned my head towards him.
“Yes, somehow.”
“We searched the entire area. We combed through all the burnt forests here and there. But we couldn’t find you.”
“Really? Did I get swept away by the river? Hmm. I’m not sure.”
“What do you mean you’re not sure? Where on earth have you been and what have you been doing?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“I don’t know, really. When I came to my senses, I was in front of the mansion. I don’t remember anything in between.”
“What? It’s been nearly a month! You’re saying you don’t remember anything for almost two weeks?”
“I think I was unconscious on a horse. Don’t look at me like that. Mages are different from ordinary people, we can survive for quite a long time without eating or sleeping. Don’t ask too much about the details. A mage’s affairs are not to be inquired about lightly, Count.”
“……”
The Count seemed very curious, but he only opened and closed his mouth silently.
He knew very well how dangerous magic was, and how much more dangerous it was to get involved in it.
I asked nonchalantly:
“Anyway, how is the current situation?”
Count Furst took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
He brought a chair from the side and sat down by my bedside.
“Everyone sold their company shares. Since I knew in advance, I was able to buy them all, but all the support I was receiving from other nobles has been cut off. Both materially and politically.”
“So has it become difficult to run the company?”
“The important thing is that we need to recruit soldiers, but we can’t. If we try to recruit regular troops, Duke Balkan interferes, and if we try to hire mercenaries, we don’t have the money.”
He must have spent it all buying shares.
“But you’re not the type to just sit idle for two weeks, are you, Count?”
Count Furst reluctantly nodded. He cautiously glanced at me and spoke carefully.
“I came up with one clever move.”
“What is it?”
“I requested help from Franche.”
“Pardon?”
“The princess of Franche herself has agreed to come. She should arrive within three days.”
I knew he was a smart person.
But I didn’t know he was this bold.
To the point of being dumbfounding.
“You mean you’re trying to receive support from a foreign country? Is that even possible?”
“Of course not. The entire family would be exterminated for treason.”
“Then?”
“If it’s the princess’s private army rather than support from the Franche state, there’s no legal issue. It’s just a transaction between companies after all.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Moreover, since I alone hold all the shares, it’s not even a public company. I’ve converted it to a privately held company.”
The Count spoke as if it were no big deal.
But he’s walking a very thin tightrope.
“Come to think of it, Count, didn’t you use pirates to sink Franche’s regular troops? Is that okay?”
The Count explained in a low voice.
“Franche is a very large country. There are various interests within it. The Second Princess who has agreed to join hands with me is a heavyweight that even the King or Crown Prince can’t handle easily, and she’s even eyeing the throne. The Franche regular troops I sank were the Crown Prince’s forces.”
“So the enemy of my enemy is my friend, is that it?”
“That’s right.”
It may sound like a clever move at first, but it’s clearly a decision made after being pushed to the edge of a cliff.
One wrong move and he could be abandoned by both sides.
“Are you sure about this? At this point, wouldn’t it be better to just submit to Duke Balkan rather than go this far?”
Count Furst gave a faint smile.
“I heard that Mage Merlin fell off his horse in front of the nobles that day. He hasn’t shown himself in public since then. Rumors are that he died.”
There’s no way a mage like Merlin would just fall off his horse.
The moment I killed his familiar, he must have received a considerable shock and at least lost consciousness.
Judging by Count Furst’s satisfied expression, he seems to think I killed him directly.
It’s similar, but not quite.
“So?”
“So Duke Balkan is in a situation where he can’t exert much power either. He usually overestimates the power of his mage and has made too many enemies.”
“I suppose. Come to think of it, he treated the other nobles like servants at the Dragon Ranch.”
“Dragon Ranch? What’s that?”
The Count seemed completely unaware.
Ah, I forgot that they lost their memory after leaving it.
But since he remembers meeting the Duke, it seems he only lost the memory of that specific place.
There’s no point in explaining since he wouldn’t understand anyway, so I just continued.
“It’s nothing. Anyway, so you’re saying you won’t submit to Duke Balkan?”
“If I marry the Duke’s daughter, all of his numerous enemies could become my enemies too, and…”
He trailed off, but I knew what he was going to say.
“Don’t worry. I was planning to go out tomorrow anyway. I’ll definitely find out who was responsible for the unfortunate incident with your wife, Count. Even if I can’t find out exactly, I’ll at least be able to confirm whether it was Duke Balkan or not.”
“Alright, I trust you. I’ll leave that matter entirely to you. Not only do I have company affairs, but there are also many internal matters in the domain. There are important issues that Butler Clark can’t decide on his own.”
“Since you’ve been away for so long, it must be even more so. The approval documents must have piled up.”
Count Furst nodded slightly and said:
“Butler Clark is truly an indispensable person.”
After saying that, he just sits there quietly.
Normally, he would have jumped up to get back to work, but now he’s feeling apologetic.
It was inevitable.
The Franche royal family is my sworn enemy.
They are the ones who killed my innocent mother.
The Count must have reached out to them as a last resort, thinking I was dead.
“I want to rest for now. Let’s talk about the rest later.”
The Count, unable to meet my eyes, mumbled:
“I understand. I’ll come again.”
There was still a hint of apology in his back as he opened the door and left.
Once his footsteps had completely faded away, I whispered softly:
“It’s okay. You can come in.”
No sooner had those words fallen than the sound of rapid footsteps was heard from outside.
Soon the door opened slightly, and Fabre poked his head in.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Fabre smiled brightly and quickly came inside.
“Mage! Hehe. I knew you’d be alive!”
He’s always so pure, no matter when I see him.
I raised myself slightly to sit up against the headboard.
“Did you?”
“Yes! Jangsir told me!”
He stretched out both hands upwards, and on them was the two-horned fire-winged unicorn beetle I had seen before.
A strange magical power could be felt from the two horns of that beetle.
It felt more intense and refined than what I had felt before.
Fabre’s words can’t be dismissed as mere child’s talk.
He is a mage too, after all.
“How did Jangsir tell you?”
Fabre smiled broadly again, climbed onto the bed, crossed his legs to sit, and brought Jangsir close to my nose.
“This little one can see far away. That’s how I knew. It showed me you unconscious on that strange horse.”
Since he says he saw me unconscious on the strange horse, it’s not an illusion.
Then the magical power of the beetle Jangsir must be clairvoyance.
I wonder if he unconsciously used this little beetle’s power to discover the assassins who infiltrated the mansion in the past.
I need to confirm.
“Can I see too?”
“Hmm. It should be possible. After all, it was you, Mage Ran, who taught me how to put psychic power into beetles.”
“I told you to call me senior.”
“Hehe.”
Fabre just laughed cheerfully without responding.
I’ve told him several times, but since he doesn’t follow, he must have his own reasons.
I don’t intend to force him.
I asked:
“Then may I try?”
“Yes. Jangsir likes you too, Mage Ran, so it should be fine.”
I took out my staff from inside my robe. It’s very difficult to put psychic power into a beetle without a staff.
The fact that Fabre does this easily is probably due to innate reasons.
“Wow.”
Fabre’s eyes sparkled as he looked at my staff.
I brought the staff close to the beetle’s two horns. The moment the tip of the staff touched those horns, an amazing sight entered my vision.
A huge nest full of feathers.
Inside, Merlin was curled up, clutching a dark red jewel.
Snow-white hair and beard, and a gray robe barely covered that frail body.
No.
It’s not hair or beard or robe.
They were all feathers that had grown from his body.
His hands had become wings, and his lips had become a beak.
Just then, Merlin suddenly raised his head.
Eyes filled with deep murderous intent pierced through me.
“Kuhup.”
At that moment, a sharp pain shot through me, and a bitter lump rose up my throat.
In an instant, everything before my eyes was dyed completely red.
