Chapter 4: Mage Tower
Debbie Jane.
A mage who wielded fla.
As is always the case with that sort, she was ferocious beyond asure.
Because mages were ones who were fully shaped by the influence of their burning mana.
Fittingly, she and Roan had clashed often, fought often, and made up often.
And he had loved that.
‘She's the one who brings the life to everything.’
Clashing with raised voices—that's when he felt truly alive.
The past, when death had been everywhere.
It was because in the middle of all that, he had loved tasting the reactions of soone still living.
‘She didn't seem to be hurting anywhere, at least.’
The newspaper he was still continuously checking even now.
The front page always had sothing written about Debbie Jane.
Under headlines like [Debbie Jane Invents New Magic!?]
‘She really churns them out at a frightening rate. I have no interest in magic myself, so I don't know how impressive it actually is.’
"Alright, passenger! We've arrived! The Mage Tower!"
The coachman's arrival signal broke Roan out of his reverie.
Roan quickly stepped down from the carriage.
At the sa mont, an imnsely tall shadow swallowed his body whole.
Roan, recalling the Mage Tower that had collapsed in his mories, slowly tilted his head back.
The towers ca into view.
There was more than one.
Four enormous towers, each built to a different number of floors, stretched upward with no regard for the sky.
‘The Red Mage Tower is the tallest.’
It seed the number of floors varied depending on the abilities of the mages affiliated with each one.
Roan's footsteps toward it faltered for just a mont.
Because the mories of his past life had grabbed him by the ankle.
Right here.
Right here was where Debbie Jane's expedition had begun, and right here was where Debbie Jane's expedition had ended.
A heretic's summoning ritual.
Taking advantage of a brief window when Jane—already famous—had returned, the heretics who had grown in power used her as a sacrifice.
Her flesh was consud by flas and beca a conduit.
The mont a being from another world descended upon the continent through her body as a dium.
‘It's your fault. You're the one who got killed. The continent fell to ruin because of you. The people around you—you're the one who killed them.’
Words she had never actually said—the her from just before being offered as a sacrifice began to whisper from sowhere at his feet.
Roan muttered inwardly, as if to reassure her.
‘It's alright. I ca back. This ti will be different.’
He shook his ankle.
The ghost of the past fell away from his step.
Now, it was ti to enter the Mage Tower.
***
Inside the tower it was bustling.
Mages in robes could be seen diligently doing sothing, each of them occupied.
The air was thick with mana, and flas flickered in every direction around him.
Though the colors of the mages' robes varied—being the lobby, it seed visitors from other towers had co as well.
And the gazes of those busy mages briefly landed on 1 particular spot.
A fairly small fra.
Eyes startlingly sharp, belying it.
Beside an open book lay a wand, set with a red gemstone that seed like condensed fla.
‘Debbie Jane. You were born destined to save the world. Beco my companion.’
The cool words he had thought up in advance.
The mont he saw Debbie Jane, unchanged from how he rembered her, those words scattered completely.
"Debbie Jane!!"
Roan bellowed.
With those enormously powerful lungs of his.
Crash!
Bang clatter!
Several people startled by the piercing cry turned to stare blankly at Roan.
"Wh-what… is this a fight?"
"Insane… picking a fight with Debbie Jane?"
The surroundings began to stir.
It was because the students of the Mage Tower were buzzing over the na that had been shouted so loudly.
A prodigy.
A genius of fla magic.
The one who had elevated the Fla Tower.
Because they assud that calling out such a person's na that loudly must an a fight or a provocation.
But they were wrong!
The reason Roan had cried out her na was not a fight!
"She's really… she's really Debbie Jane! Aaah!!"
Roan sobbed as he moved toward her.
He had seen a companion alive and breathing with all limbs intact—of course he would.
The regret and guilt he had suppressed.
All of those emotions began to flood and overwhelm him like a burst dam.
"I really tried so hard…! Nothing like before will happen…! I'll never let you die again—"
A reunion accompanied by weeping.
Seeing that, Jane placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Jane…!"
And at that sa mont—
"I told you not to let strange people in, didn't I? Throw him out."
The sequence he had imagined had co to pass.
***
‘Talking about a previous life only puts at a disadvantage.’
A truth he had co to realize after being treated as a doomsday cultist back in lgen.
But that didn't an he could give up here either.
At the very least, he needed to have a conversation.
At the very least, he needed to make an acquaintance.
At the very least—
"Let out. We're not like this with each other."
"…What do you an, 'like this'? Based on my first impression of you, this seems exactly right to ."
He needed to escape this mana prison.
The 1st basent floor of the Red Mage Tower.
Roan had found himself locked in the place where the Mage Tower's troublemakers were kept.
‘At least she locked in rather than just walking away.’
If she had left without a second thought, he would have broken free out of sheer frustration.
As he stayed still for a mont, Jane swept her gaze over him from head to toe.
"Setting aside the very peculiar personality—what you said is quite interesting."
Having said that, she stood before his cell.
"Basent Floor 10 of the Mage Tower. A heretic's ritual. Its success and the summoning of a being from another world. And the fact that the greatest sacrifice for that ritual is ."
She began reciting, one by one, the things Roan had said.
"It's too specific to call you a doomsday cultist. It's detailed enough to pass as a prophecy."
"A prophecy…"
Right.
A prophecy.
But no matter how much Roan proclaid his innocence, he had no way of earning her trust.
"However. There is one part that's wrong. The Mage Tower only goes down to Basent Floor 9."
That would be what the Mage Tower's people knew.
No.
That's not right.
A little lower than Floor 9.
There is a hidden space.
But saying that earnestly right now didn't seem like sothing the Debbie Jane of today would listen to.
Roan went quiet for a mont, and Jane closed the book she had opened.
"Hmph. You want to say it's not delusion. Coming from a doomsday cultist."
‘It's not!’
Roan cried out inwardly.
But the words Jane continued with were headed in a different direction from that jab—
"Even so, there's so persuasiveness to it, so I'll give you a chance."
She snapped her fingers.
With that, the mana chains binding Roan's body fell away.
"Persuade ."
And she gave Roan a chance.
The eting that had stumbled from its very first step was moved back into its proper place. There was no need to even look at Roan's reaction.
"…How do I persuade you?"
"A mana crystal."
A rare material imbued with mana.
"One of those lies dormant on Basent Floor 9. But I can't go there."
"Why? Because it's the dark mages' territory?"
"…Because it's dark."
The murmured voice was too small to reach Roan's ears.
Well, regardless—if she was giving him a chance, that was enough.
"I'm not forcing you, of course. If you don't want to, you can just turn back."
"Of course I'm going! So, you're coming with , right?"
"No? Why would I? I need to stay here and elevate the Mage Tower further. Do you have any idea what kind of value I have here?"
"You really haven't changed at all. Still so prickly."
‘How aggravating…’
Jane muttered inwardly.
How could he just toss out words like that, as if he knew sothing.
And with that relieved, softened expression on his face, no less.
For so reason it felt like being poked in a sore spot.
"Anyway! The Mage Tower will assign soone to keep watch over you! So go get it from Floor 9! Do that, and I'll listen to you at least a little more seriously!"
"Alright, good."
Since he could just dig out the seed hidden deeper inside while he was at it.
"Ha! What's with that confidence? Are you thinking sothing like 'it's the Mage Tower, so they'll use teleportation for if it cos down to it'?"
"No."
No need for that.
"I worked far harder than before."
Because now there's absolutely no breaking through.
***
"You're… the one being monitored?"
A red robe.
The man wearing it looked Roan over.
He was the Red Mage Tower mber Debbie Jane had assigned to the monitoring role.
His na was Velrog.
At least he was soone who had gone in and out of the Mage Tower's basent a few tis.
"Yes! My na is Del Roan! Pleased to et you!"
Roan greeted him with full energy.
But it didn't land with him at all.
"Introductions aren't necessary. Down here, it's one of 2 things: you die, or you run. That's it."
A tone oozing with blunt disinterest.
But that reaction of his was actually what surprised Roan.
"Oh? You're not going to mock for being a country bumpkin, or my shabby clothes?"
"I don't care about that. Just know that I won't help you even if you're in danger. My role is to carry what's left of your half-corpse back up."
"Oh, is that so? Then you won't have anything to do."
Roan laughed with an easy air.
‘Annoying guy.’
That got under his skin sohow.
The way he reacted with such detached composure, like soone who had seen it all.
"Enough. I'll open it."
As if there was nothing more to say, Velrog opened the iron door.
The old door let out a spine-chilling screech as it revealed the interior.
A darkness where you had to feel your way forward with the faintest of light.
Through the gap, the cold of sowhere deep underground could be felt.
"You've been told."
"That it's the dark mages' territory?"
Velrog nodded.
"Failed experints turned monsters, stray mana, corpses and homunculi. Everything cos together down here. Basent Floor 9, where you're headed, is even worse."
The dark mages themselves were only found down to Floor 3 at most.
"Once you go below the dark mages' territory, nothing but endless darkness and screaming will welco you. Even I, with experience, had Floor 5 as my deepest record."
"I see. Understood."
Having heard the explanation, Roan stepped forward without hesitation, as if it were nothing.
With each plodding footstep—rustle rustle.
Dark mages vanishing like mice could be seen.
‘…Perfect. After getting what I need from Floor 9, I'll search for where Floor 10 is.’
Roan himself didn't actually know where Floor 10 was located.
Which was why he planned to brute-force his way through and search one by one.
Not a single mont of hesitation—a swift, unbroken advance.
At the end of it, Roan's party reached the entrance to Basent Floor 4 in an instant.
―Thud.
"It certainly feels different from here."
No answer ca back.
Only the hollow echo of his own voice bouncing off the walls.
‘It really is dark down here. Jane always hated the dark, even back then.’
With that irrelevant thought, Roan took a step forward.
And at that sa mont—
―Splat!!
―Bubble…
"It's begun."
Along with Velrog's murmur, the remnants of a failed dark art—
KABOOM!!
"Huh."
…were erased by a single blow from Roan the instant they revealed themselves.
The bubbling, boiling gelatinous thing splattered instantly to the floor.
Its core had been split, making it impossible to maintain its form.
‘But I shouldn't be making that much noise.’
Velrog readied himself to flee.
Squirm…
―Bubble gurgle…
Kiiiii…!
Everything else began to reveal itself.
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