『Translator: RainTL』
༺ Remains of the Past (1) ༻
Estelle was treated like a gem wherever she was.
Born with an incredibly high status, she was not only extremely capable but her aura itself gave off the atmosphere of a noble lady.
She was still treated with respect even while she was imprisoned.
Lying down on a comfortable bed of silk, inside the fancy prison cell decorated with classy books, she grumbled about the food.
“Excuse me. If you are going to bring out a steak, shouldn’t it be accompanied with red wine? What kind of blasphemy is T-bone and white wine?”
“…Can’t you just be content with what you get?”
“Red winneeeeee…! 35-year old Duna wine from the southern vineyardssss!”
“Ugh… Alright. I’ll go ask.”
“The meat’s going to go cold so make another one. Ah, I will have the garnish now so don’t take it.”
“Tch! Fine!”
The low-level mage, who was in charge of supervising Estelle, felt like her mind was being eaten away having to deal with this picky prisoner.
However, she couldn’t ignore her requests because the personal command from the Tower Lord was that they had to provide everything that the Saintess wanted.
Aside from the Tower Lord’s command, the mage herself still had some level of faith. She was slightly afraid that she would receive divine punishment if she were to mess with the Saintess, the representative of divinity.
Of course, the faith of the mage was questionable considering that she was a part of the group that kidnapped the Saintess but…
In any case, Estelle’s status as the saintess was still proving to be effective in spite of being a kidnapped prisoner.
“…”
As soon as the mage disappeared from her sight, Estelle got on her knees and clasped her hands together.
“Lord—”
Wishing upon herself was the amplification of her physical strength – a supernatural power that would allow her to escape from this predicament. She could definitely feel divine energy flowing out of her body.
“Good.”
After finishing her prayers, she held onto the iron bars of the prison cell as hard as she could.
-Knng! Nnn! Aahh my palms!
In the end, she gave up before long. Her divine energy and her prayers still weren’t working properly.
‘What’s going on? The Holy Grail… is that the reason why?’
But that was still strange.
Why would the Holy Grail nullify the effects of her prayer?
“Haa… This is where a prince is supposed to show up to save the princess.”
All she could rely on was not the results of her prayers and hopes towards the Lord, but the help of a heroic prince who could guide her out of this hardship.
Of course, the kingdom and the order would have mobilized their troops already to save her, and the Tower of Mages would eventually fall no matter how great of a countermeasure they had prepared.
‘The question is, what are they doing with my blood?’
That was probably part of the reason why Estelle was being treated this well despite being a prisoner. To keep her healthy with as little stress as possible, so that they could take a few drops of her fresh blood everyday.
Adelene and that guy with the Holy Grail called Dun Scaith must be doing something with her blood. She was frustrated that she had no idea what they were doing, but Estelle was just a feeble lady without the aid of her divine energy.
The only thing she could do was spend her overflowing resource of time on self-introspection and habitual prayers.
“Lord, please save me from this predicament, have mercy on the innocent lambs and…”
While continuing with her prayer, the Saintess – Princess Estelle harbored doubts.
If there was a god, and if she really was connected to that god… Why were they just watching this happen?
She ended up harboring that rather natural, yet rather disloyal doubt inside her.
***
It was hard to tell night from day inside the sewage without a single ray of light. Urged by the internal clock of my body, I opened my eyes and found something warm resting on my body.
-Huu…
Hua Ran let out a long breath in the middle of her deep sleep. I rustled her hair with my fingers as she buried herself deeper into my body.
“I guess I’ll let her sleep a little bit more.”
There was still no one else here so I stayed lying down on the bed.
“Oppa?”
That was when the girl slowly raised her head from my chest. The girl with blue eyes lifted her eyes and looked up at my eyes.
“Oh, did I wake you up?”
“Hua is still asleep.”
“Do you guys wake up at different times?”
“It usually depends on how tired the body is, but generally, the person that wakes up first has control over it.”
“Ohoh.”
In other words, even if Hua was in control over the body, it seemed that Ran could gain control over it if she were to fall asleep.
“Shall we get up then? We need to make sure they aren’t lost either.”
“Umm…”
Even though she was usually the first to actively help out with cleaning the house and such, Ran seemed hesitant to wake up.
“What’s wrong?”
Instead of replying to my question, she wrapped her arms around my waist and rubbed her nose on my chest.
“Ran?”
“I just… want to stay like this for a bit.”
I was momentarily lost as to what to do, but before long, I started giving her a few gentle taps to the back.
“It feels very warm and nice here.”
“That’s because Claiomh Solais gives out the Yang energy-”
“No, even if that wasn’t there, it would have still felt nice. I am sure.”
“I see.”
Ran never concealed her feelings for me. In fact, she was even more proactive compared to Marie.
-Grip.
I wrapped my arms around her waist and returned a tight hug. Ran muttered in shock.
“O, oppa?”
“Thanks. For liking someone like me.”
“…There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Even then, thank you. Thanks for everything.”
Like that, we continued hugging each other for a while.
………
……
…
Leaving the control room of the sewage, I patrolled around the area and engraved a few runes throughout the sewage while I was at it.
Thanks to my mana capacity that was now above 10,000, engraving runes was no longer as taxing as it used to be. In fact, I got greedy from the overwhelming supply of mana and got caught up with creating large and accurate letters that I only wrote 40 today.
“Welcome back, Oppa.”
I came back after engraving the runes and saw Ran preparing the meal with dried jerkies and Korin Potato.
“Ohh~ Korin Potato.”
“You invented it, right Oppa? It’s super popular!”
Korin Potato was the military munition I created during the food tech lesson last year. The thin layer of pressed potato was something inspired by the military supplies from World War II.
“I even got an award and a prize from the military for making it, you know.”
“Wow~. That’s amazing!”
She clapped to demonstrate her admiration while cooking Korin Potato on a pot with a wooden ladle.
“Mashed potato?”
“Yes. And this here is from a canned stew.”
On a different pot was a bubbling stew that gave off an incredibly appetizing scent. It was usually a bad idea to cook something with a strong scent during an operation, but the sewage outside the control room would offset the smell with its disgusting odor so it was probably alright.
“Let’s enjoy ourselves when we can.”
The beef stew and mashed potatoes that Ran made were quite tasty despite being a modified form of military supplies. Although it wasn’t at the level of unknowingly screaming out, ‘Amazing!’, this was a magnificent meal considering the environment around us.
“That was great. It wouldn’t have been easy to make this, right?”
Objectively speaking, her cooking skills were quite good. From the people around me, she was second only to Marie. As for Alicia… she was just a professional eater.
“Oppa. I’m learning how to cook these days. As well as making flowers and supporting parents-in-law.”
“Huh?”
Cooking I understand, but why would she be learning how to make flowers and how to support parents-in-law…?
“Why are you—”
“Tada!”
As soon as I opened my mouth for that question, Ran shoved a spoonful of mashed potatoes into my mouth. With an alluring gaze that you couldn’t find from Hua, she adorably gazed up with a bashful smile.
“To learn how to be a bride for one, and only one person in the world.”
It was adding too much burden to my heart. At this point, this was pretty much a confession.
Ran tended to approach me like this quite often – despite pretending like it was a joke, she had a very serious look in her eyes… as she conveyed an unwavering and certain intention.
Hearing that passionate confession of love, I unknowingly lifted my hand.
“Ran—”
It was right when I reached my hand out to the passionate girl. She suddenly took a big step back after slapping my hand away.
“E, eeek…!”
Her cheeks flushed red like autumn leaves. Her eyes quivered as if there was an earthquake as she protected her head, which had almost been touched, with her two hands.
“Y, you… Just then…”
What were you trying to do?
Hua asked, looking extremely agitated unlike her usual self.
“A, are you Hua?”
“…”
She silently looked at me with a resentful gaze. Even though Hua had an indifferent look on her face by default, there were times when it was possible to glimpse at her emotions.
“D, don’t touch!”
“Huh?”
Seeing the dumb look on my face, Hua hurriedly collected her breath and expressed herself again.
“Don’t… touch me.”
“But why…?”
Umm, aren’t we as close as brother and sisters to have physical contact without restraint?
“I feel… bad when you touch me.”
“Is it that bad?”
This big brother will be hurt if you say that, you know.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, I mean…”
It was then.
“Woof…!”
An enormous dog-man busted into the control room after a fierce kick on the door.
“Woof woof! Krrrrhh!”
Doggo unreservedly let out a ferocious howl as always. The fact that he was here meant that Marie had also arrived.
“Ugh~ Doggo! Can you smell your daddy? My nose is blocked, and I can’t make out anything. Hnn?”
3 days after entering the Steel Archipelago, we were joined at the save point by Marie.
***
That same afternoon, Master Erin and Lady Josephine also arrived at the control room of the underground sewage.
“I will stay here and prepare the teleportation so that we can leave whenever we are ready.”
Lady Josephine was in charge of the escape plan. Even though she would have normally been an incredible help in most fights with her teleportation, her abilities were rather restricted in the Tower.
As mentioned before, during the Witch Revolution, the Tower of Mages had been absolutely demolished by the Dimensional Witch. Because of their memories of the past nightmare, not only did they install an interruptive device that covered the entire archipelago, but they also had such artifacts jam-packed inside the Tower itself.
Actually, elevators were invented by the mages because they needed a mechanical device to travel between the floors of the Tower, because the interruptive devices stopped them from teleporting between floors as well.
In any case, Josephine was unable to use any teleportation spell inside this place without being interrupted, apart from the long-distance teleportation to the marker on the other side of the ocean.
With that being the case, it was a better call to have Marie be the mage fighting with us in the battle, while leaving the escape to Lady Josephine.
“Student Hua Ran. You are going to leave behind as well. Our job will be to protect this place.”
“…Nn.”
That was something we had decided on beforehand, so Hua stayed behind at the control room without raising any complaints. However, she was constantly looking into my eyes without turning around.
She was probably worried, so I patted her head.
“…!”
It wasn’t even that rough, and yet Hua lowered her head and was unable to lift it back up. She was a little strange today, ever since morning.
“…”
Meanwhile, for some reason, Marie was vacantly staring at Hua on top of that.
“Korin. Let’s go.”
Marie urged me with a cold look in her eyes so we quickly left the control room and started climbing up towards the Tower.
***
Tower of Mages was like a tranquil paradise to those with an elitist mindset.
Except for the Prohibited Forest, which was cultivated to become a forest where they could harvest and experiment with magical herbs, the entire archipelago was exposed to the severe cold and the harshness of nature.
Because of that, the mages had to invite some outsiders to import food and goods, but those people could only live in a small village on the outskirts and weren’t even allowed to set foot near the Tower of Mages.
These elitists were so secretive and did not let anyone set foot inside the Tower. Even the chores inside the Tower were done by the mages… either the mages of the lower floors or their familiars and spirits.
It was like a postgraduate student of a university preparing the food for the professors and cleaning the rooms. There was even a mage, who had been working in the Tower for 20 years, that escaped back to the main continent to create the Tower Restaurant.
Both the previous world and this world were full of people who were forced to take a roundabout way when seeking wisdom and knowledge.
“Hmm… It’s a bit big. Maybe I should have looked for a smaller one.”
“It can’t be helped because you’ve always been quite petite, Master. I can give you mine if you want.”
“Mhmm… I will be alright, my disciple. You are so tall; even the biggest robe looks small on you.”
Naturally, the Tower of Mages robe was one of the crucial requirements when infiltrating into the Tower of Mages, which was obviously filled with mages. We were wearing the robes that we found from the main continent to disguise ourselves as mages of the Tower.
My robe had a badge that symbolized my status as a mage of the 4th floor. That was pretty high, but it seemed that even a mage of that level had to be in charge of cooking meals in the Tower.
The Tower was such an inefficient and secluded organization, if anything.
“So… What are we going to do now? We have come up to the 4th floor but…”
“Korin. Doggo says the Saintess is at a place that’s much higher than here.”
Doggo was chasing after Estelle’s scent from Marie’s shadows. It was to be expected that they wouldn’t keep the Saintess on one of the lower floors.
“The 4th floor is the highest we can climb without any problems. From the 5th floor onwards, we need the rights of a mage that’s at the level of an ‘assistant professor’ at the very least. It’s quite high-tech, actually, because they check your fingerprints.”
The 5th floor required the rights of an assistant professor; you had to be a professor for the 6th, and… the 7th floor onwards were only accessible by the elders of each cult.
“We don’t have to worry about it though, Master. We have an amazing mage that is going to help us with the process.”
“Hmm?”
Marie soon proved my words with her action. She said one word as a humanoid figure started to climb up from her shadow.
His skin was wrinkled-up, and his fingers quivered non-stop due to the physical labor he was forced to undertake. The old man, who had been anxiously looking around the surroundings, gasped for breath immediately after finding us and Marie.
“Hello, Chunsik.”
“Hiiik…! Lady Dunareff! I, I mean, master…!”
Chunsik quickly got on his knees and kowtowed in fear.
Who would possibly guess upon seeing this shabby old man, that he used to be one of the 7 top mages of the Tower, Elder Admelech of the Red Cult?
Now, he was nothing but a ghoul and one of Marie’s numerous familiars.
“Chunsik. Like I said before, we need to hurry so quickly use your fingerprints.”
“B, but…!”
“If you don’t want to, then I can cut off your hands and do it for you.”
“I, I will do it immediately!”
Marie had an extremely cold-hearted and ruthless attitude against him. To be fair, he was someone who was trying to kidnap her to use as a test subject so there was no need to be compassionate for him, but there were times when she would spook me a little.
In any case, thanks to him, we easily strolled through the 5th and the 6th floor.
“Go back inside, Chunsik.”
“Ah, yes! Yes miss!”
After putting him back into her shadows so that he wouldn’t be a nuisance to our secret mission, we wandered around looking for the stairs heading to the 7th floor.
The 7th floor and above were the territories of elders.
If I remember correctly, Estelle would probably be at the special unit of the 8th floor – the place where Adelene the Tower Lord stored demonic beasts that would be used for his experiments.
Dun Scaith was probably here along with the Lord of the Tower. We had to try our best not to come across them at all cost—
“Oi. You over there!”
Turning around, I found a mage who was wearing a golden badge with 7 gems attached.
He was a mage of the 7th floor; a professor of the Gold Cult.
‘What do we do, Korin? Do we attack?’
‘Wait. One second. It will get tedious if we create a ruckus here.’
What should we do? Kill him? I was thinking most of the higher-grade mages would be at the battlefront, and was thus not expecting to be discovered already.
“You guys are…?”
The mage slowly walked towards us. It was right when I was about to take out my spear which I had hidden beneath my robe.
“Hello, Professor Airac!”
Master suddenly called out his name while taking a step forward.
“Huh? A, and you are?”
Professor Airac instinctively took a step back when she unhesitatingly walked up to him.
“I’m a postgraduate from the 5th floor, and my name is Aylea. Elder Blayne told me to get BF 1207FF3801 from the laboratory on 6-8.”
“Uhh… Okay?”
“Sorry, but can I please ask where 6-8 is?”
“Right… Go that way and go three blocks to the left.”
“Really? Thank you so much!”
Master skillfully dealt with the professor-level mage. Or rather, maybe it was more correct to say that she bewitched him.
“K, kuhum…! You over there… Aylea was it? When you’re free… w, would you like to go for coffee?”
“Hnn? Sure?”
“R, right. Come to my office when you’re done.”
Master hopped her way back in joy, as we turned around and pretended to head towards 6-8.
“How did you do that?”
“I know all the important mages of the Tower, because I’ve been here as Eriu Casarr a few times.”
“Right~”
No wonder she knew the face of Airac, who seemed to be at the level of a professor who would tend to stay holed up inside the Tower the whole time.
“Then let’s walk around the place for a bit before heading upstairs.”
“Korin… He’s still staring at us.”
Airac’s eyes were still on us. In order to lower his guard, we turned left towards 6-8 and escaped his line of sight. He would be able to hear us walking down the corridor so we decided to enter one of the rooms for the time being.
The place we went to was the closest laboratory immediately after turning the corner. As expected of the laboratory of the mages, the room was extremely dark and gloomy all around starting from the entrance.
“Master. What was that just then?”
“Nn? Oh, you mean the code number? I just made that up because the mages of the Tower tend to give serial codes to their items.”
“No, I mean, that guy called Airac was head over heels for you in that short span of time.”
“Hnn? Stop it, Korin. What are you saying?”
She said while gently slapping my shoulder. Wait, did she not see that just then? That Airac guy had a pretty serious look in his eyes though?
“Hmm. For some reason, everyone has been very kind to me ever since the past. It’s probably because they are all kind at the core, right?”
“Ah~. I think I know why.”
“Nn? What do you mean?”
“It’s because you’re beautiful. People are always weak to beauty, after all.”
“Oh dear…”
“…Korin?”
“Don’t you get that as well, Senior Marie? People always feel like doing something more when they see someone beautiful, you know?”
“Haht…!”
Instead of staying there and doing nothing while waiting for the echoing footsteps of the corridor to disappear, I decided to look around the laboratory.
-Woof! Woof woof!
That was when Doggo let out a restrained bark from Marie’s robe.
“Doggo?”
“What’s going on?”
“Doggo… sounds a little scared.”
“Scared?”
“Is there something here?”
It was my first time coming to the Tower during this point in time so I also had no idea what it could be. For now, I looked around, searching for a clue.
What you would find at a laboratory was very random. Some labs were extremely normal and carried out experiments about household equipment, while some labs had human and demon experiments going on.
If even Doggo was frightened by it, it was probably something serious, although I couldn’t possibly guess what kind of crazy experiment it must be.
“Let’s have a look… just in case.”
Even if everything was to go well, a full-frontal battle against the Tower of Mages was no longer avoidable, so we had to do whatever we could while we were here.
“…”
“…”
This laboratory… appears more like a whole building than a single room.
Although the Tower of Mages was divided into 9 floors, each of the floors were much taller than that of normal buildings.
It was like 9 huge department stores put together, with each of them being referred to as a single floor.
The faint green fluorescent light was the only source of light inside the lab, and the floor was slippery as if covered with sludges of oil.
“Master. Have you… been to a place like this before?”
“No. They never showed what was inside a laboratory to the chairman of an academy, and even during the Witch Revolution, we were too busy destroying everything that I do not remember being here.”
“Korin… Doggo is saying we should go over to the other side.”
Unlike us, Doggo seemed to have sensed something odd.
The lab was reeking of the scent of dried blood, and the mixed odor of old oil and rotten flesh. It was surprising that Doggo could smell something through all these disgusting scents…
“Ah.”
My feet came to stop as my heart instinctively lowered its rate.
“Korin…”
Something was staring at us.
Something enormous…
“It can’t be…”
Master uttered in shock. We turned our eyes to the right and…
“———”
Found a gigantic eye looking directly at us.
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