“Red Mage Sharen has become the Cron family’s exclusive mage?”
The news that Red Mage Sharen had become an exclusive mage of the Cron family spread across the entire continent in an instant.
The ones most shocked upon hearing it were the Blackrose family, a great lordly house of the west.
Count Mordic Blackrose, the head of the Blackrose family, could not hide his astonishment when he heard the news.
“It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen you so surprised, Father.”
“It is news that that idealistic mage has settled down somewhere. Even I cannot help but be surprised.”
Sharen had also stayed in the Blackrose territory for about three months.
Though it had been a short time, the magical ability she displayed was astonishing, and they had tried to make her the family’s exclusive mage with compensation more than ten times that of an ordinary mage.
However, she left the territory after saying, “The darkness of the Blackrose family runs too deep.”
“The Cron family… She truly went to a house I never would have expected.”
“I know. I thought she would go to the Tarwin family of the north or the Seraphin family of the east.”
“I thought the same. Considering her disposition, there seemed to be no other choice.”
Mordic had spoken with her several times.
Because of that, he knew a little of how she thought, and he had believed that only those two families suited her inclinations.
And yet she had gone to the Cron family of the south, a house he had never even considered.
“I thought they were nothing more than salt peddlers selling salt in the south, but it seems I underestimated the Cron family far too much.”
The image of the Cron family was that of the south’s salt peddlers.
They had earned vast sums through their monopoly on salt, but they had neither hired knights in great numbers with that money nor engaged in politics by actively lobbying the imperial family. They had merely hoarded it like nouveau riche, and people called the Cron family the salt peddlers of the south.
For such a Cron family to recruit Red Mage Sharen, who possessed enough power to upset the balance of power in a territory, was astonishing to Mordic, who knew what the Cron family had been like in the past.
“It seems this lord of Cron is special, Father.”
Ivy Blackrose, Mordic’s daughter and the chief steward of the Blackrose family, spoke of the information she had investigated.
In truth, she had already known about the information coming up from the south for some time.
She had learned that a new lord of Cron had taken office and that he was carrying out various reforms.
The reorganization of laborers’ wages, the improvement of equipment for knights and soldiers, tariff reform, and so on—the new lord of Cron had carried out extremely aggressive reforms, and he was producing numerous results accordingly.
The greatest of those results was the recruitment of Red Mage Sharen, but even if he had not recruited Sharen, Ivy’s evaluation of Calix Cron, the lord of Cron, was that he had already become a truly formidable figure.
“His name was Calix Cron, was it?”
“Yes, that’s right. Father, they say that among the people of the south, he is now being called the Silver Dragon of Cron.”
“The Silver Dragon of Cron… For such a young man to already possess such a dangerous epithet.”
Five hundred years ago, when the empire had still been a kingdom.
For the sake of unifying the continent, the Kingdom of Novarens began a war of conquest.
That age of war left behind the tales of countless heroes, and one of them was Dragan Cron, the great general of the Kingdom of Novarens and the first head of the Cron family.
In honor of his superhuman exploits and bravery, people called him this:
The silver dragon blessed by Cron, god of the sea.
The Silver Dragon of Cron.
“Ivy, investigate the Cron family and the south closely.”
“Yes, Father. I will double the number of investigators from before.”
In truth, she was already in the process of increasing the number of investigators.
She had thought her father would give such an order, and more than that, her own curiosity was great.
“I can truly feel the beginning of the game drawing near. I am quite looking forward to seeing who the victor of this game for the imperial throne will be.”
Mordic said this as he gazed at the moon beyond the window and savored a fine wine.
Ivy felt she knew the words her father had left unsaid.
‘The ones laughing at the end are always us.’
That was the family motto of the Blackrose house.
* * *
Red Mage Sharen had become our family’s exclusive mage.
When Hart and Noah heard the news, they rejoiced and said,
“Everything went according to your plan, my lord. To think you understood Lady Sharen’s dislike of extravagance and gave those instructions because of it… You truly are remarkable, my lord.”
“I was surprised as well, my lord. When I saw you leaving Lady Sharen alone, I thought that, just this once, you had made a mistake.”
“Hahaha… Th-that could never be, Hart. Hahaha!”
“Indeed. Hahaha! There is no way you would make such a mistake, my lord, yet I doubted you. I apologize.”
“It’s fine. It is all in the past now, is it not? Hahaha…”
My heart truly stung again and again.
And so Sharen officially became the Cron family’s exclusive mage.
I could feel my fame value rising like mad in the invisible game UI window.
No doubt, far away in places like the Blackrose family, they were whispering among themselves and beginning to send investigators after me.
Ha… Just thinking about the future gave me a headache.
It feels like the surrounding territories are going to start keeping me in check like crazy now. What should I do…
Ah, whatever!! If problems come up later, I’ll think about them then!!
And so I tried to turn my eyes away from reality.
“My lord!!! Urgent news!”
“What is it?!”
But this damned world would not leave me alone.
Honestly, on a human level, I think it is too much to not let me rest for even one second.
“Deeprocks! A swarm of Deeprocks has appeared!”
“A swarm of Deeprocks has appeared?!”
Deeprock.
A monster with the body of a fish and limbs, living in the deep sea.
These monsters gather in groups at regular intervals, breed like mad, and when food grows scarce in the deep sea, they have the habit of surging out of the water.
Their intelligence is about goblin level, so individually they are not much of a threat, but when they surge out all at once like that, they emerge as a truly unmanageable legion.
According to Calix’s memories, even during the previous lord’s time, because of a Deeprock attack, not only the knights of the Cron family territory but also knights from the surrounding territories had all mobilized, and only then had they barely managed to suppress it.
As soon as we confirmed the appearance of the Deeprock swarm, we entered emergency response mode.
We evacuated the people and dispatched scouts to grasp the exact situation.
The situation we identified was as follows.
“The Deeprock horde is coming up from the Ragh coast at the eastern edge of the Cron territory. The number currently confirmed appears to be five to six thousand, and it is continuing to increase, so rapid suppression is necessary.”
“Five thousand… It is close, but not a scale our territory cannot handle.”
“I see. That’s a relief.”
If it was around five thousand, the current knights of Cron could deal with it.
However, that was only if we could deploy the knights of Cron in full.
Just as a bad feeling came to mind, the door was flung open and a soldier entered.
“My lord! We have a serious problem!”
“What is it this time?”
“The Lion family… has begun deploying knights.”
“What! Knights?!”
The news the soldier brought was about the Lion family.
After the Deeprock horde appeared, the Lion family began deploying knights along the territorial border of the Cron domain.
Their stated reason was to exterminate any Deeprock monsters that crossed over from Cron.
But unless one was a fool, anyone could tell what the Lion bastards were aiming for.
“My lord, this means the Lion bastards are openly planning to invade our territory while we’re fighting the monsters!”
“That’s right, my lord. If it’s those lion bastards, they’re more than capable of doing something like that.”
The Lion family had done such things countless times until now.
Whenever they had the chance, they invaded nearby territories and made them their own, or demanded enormous restitution.
In particular, it had grown worse over the past few years, to the point that none of the surrounding territories trusted the Lion family.
“Has Lord Hadam come out on the Lion family’s side?”
“Yes! As always, he is standing at the front.”
He came out after all.
As befitting a war fanatic, if there was ever a real chance to fight, Lord Hadam always stood at the head of the war himself.
The fact that he had come in person like this was also a signal that, if he found the opportunity, he really would invade our territory.
“I will go speak with him myself. Prepare my horse.”
“Yes!!”
I sent out a messenger and headed to the territorial border together with Rikain and the knights.
Meeting a Lü Bu-like Lord Hadam could be extremely dangerous.
However, since the lord on their side had come out, it was proper for me to go as well.
If things went wrong, the head of our innocent messenger could go flying.
When we arrived at the place on the territorial border where the Lion family’s knights were gathered, Lord Hadam, with his gleaming bald head and an axe in hand, approached alone from afar.
Seeing Lord Hadam with my own eyes, not only his appearance but even his behavior was truly like that of a berserker.
I had come with ten knights and Rikain, yet he came alone. In many ways, it was truly impressive.
“Lord Hadam, it has been a long time. Have you been well?”
“Yes, I have been well, Calix.”
As we were neighboring territories, it was not as though Hadam and Calix had never interacted.
However, as one could tell from Hadam’s tone, he looked down on the Cron family and on Calix.
I went straight to the point.
“I will speak frankly. Withdraw your knights, or fight the Deeprocks with us.”
At my words, Hadam seemed slightly taken aback.
But soon, as though amused, he said,
“To think you would speak so frankly to me. You have grown quite a lot, Calix.”
“I am a lord. If I do not grow, my people will suffer.”
In Hadam’s memories, I must have been the weak young brat from before my possession.
But the current me was me.
Whether the original me had been weak or frail, I had to say what needed to be said.
“To try to become strong for the sake of the weak—that is why you are still a brat.”
Hadam lightly dismissed my words and answered.
Then he drove his axe into the ground and said,
Crunch!
“You know my answer, don’t you?”
At the end of the axe, a snake had been split cleanly in two and lay dead.
I answered his words.
“The weak are devoured. So do not become weak.”
“Yes. You know it very well.”
The family motto of Hadam’s Lion family was, “The weak are devoured. So do not become weak.”
In a word, it was the law of the jungle.
In other words, Hadam was telling me that if I became weak, he would devour me, so I should prepare accordingly.
I had expected it, but for him to come out like this really was like a berserker.
But then Hadam said something I had not expected.
“However, if you come under me and say you will fight together for His Highness the Prince… it is not as though we cannot fight together.”
This man is making a proposal like that?
The Hadam I knew was not someone who would make such an offer.
He looked at me as though he found this extremely amusing and said,
“What will you do, Calix?”
Like a lion… more precisely, a hairless lion, Hadam stared at me like a beast of prey.
I sighed, then answered.
“You already know my answer, don’t you?”
“You mean you will remain at the very bottom?”
“Look toward the highest place from the very bottom.”
That was the family motto of the Cron house, and the life principle I had set for myself in order to survive here.
I answered Hadam’s words as the beloved lord of Cron.
“It is not that I am at the very bottom. I merely know what is most important.”
“Very well. If that is your choice, then it cannot be helped.”
Hadam lightly pulled out the axe, which was as large as I was, and rested it on his shoulder as he said,
“I will watch from here and see how the weak collapse.”
With that, he turned his horse around and went back.
I answered so as not to be cowed by Hadam.
“Watch to your heart’s content. You will be able to enjoy a very interesting spectacle.”
Yes, he would see a very interesting spectacle.
It was time to show the flames of the Red Mage to a fearless lion.