could gather it together. As though there was nothing left to wait for, he began casting.
“Warp.”
With a brilliant cluster of light, Gedenhide’s body vanished from the spot. And he
appeared, at almost the very same instant, in Verkis’s lair some ten kilometers
away.
“What? Lord Gedenhide.”
When Gedenhide, their leader, appeared in the magic circle looking utterly discomfited, the liches
looked bewildered. As far as they knew, there were very few beings who could dare reduce
Gedenhide to such a state. There was only one kind of being capable of doing that to a Ninth Circle
lich. A dragon, in other words. But Gedenhide had absolutely no intention of leisurely conversing
with them.
“Move.”
After shouting the liches aside, Gedenhide headed straight for Verkis’s quarters.
Though he staggered, the desperate way he forced his steps forward seemed to speak plainly
of his urgent state of mind. But Verkis’s quarters, located deep underground, were truly far away.
If a spatial distortion field had not been spread out, he would have cast Warp even at the risk of rudeness.
But since he could not, he had no choice but to stagger onward. As he moved his feet as quickly as he could,
bronze golems slowly began to appear in the distance.
“Then does that mean that no matter what happens, Naidelhark’s sealing orb must not be
broken?”
“That is correct. Naidelhark is being suppressed by the magic circle engraved upon the sealing orb. If
the magic circle is broken, Naidelhark will awaken from his sleep at once.”
“Hmm.”
Damon nodded as though it made sense. Right now, he was hearing everything he had wanted to know
from the mouth of the green dragon Zikrate.
Zikrate had already been completely subdued by the Ghost Spirit Soul-Subjugating Art. The dragon, a progenitor
of magic, was being controlled by a sorcery of the Central Plains, yet he was utterly unaware of that fact.
That was precisely what made the Ghost Spirit Soul-Subjugating Art so terrifying. Even after escaping
the spiritual restriction, one would remember nothing of what one had done during that time.
His eyes were bloodshot red. The eyes of the enormous dragon were filled with nothing but murkiness.
Watching him, Damon finally decided it was time to get to the main point.
“Now, then. I will ask about the most important matter.”
“Ask whatever you wish……”
Staring fixedly into Zikrate’s gleaming eyes, Damon opened his mouth.
He had already confirmed that Naidelhark’s sealing orb was here.
“Show me the magical treasury, Incresia.”
“Understood.”
Zikrate showed not the slightest hesitation in answering. That alone revealed how deeply
he had been subdued by the Ghost Spirit Soul-Subjugating Art. He slowly raised one hand. A sphere of light
formed in his palm and began to radiate a dazzling brilliance.
Papapapat.
It was an extraordinarily luminous light. The light lasted for exactly a quarter of an hour. Afterward,
the cluster of light gave off a fierce radiance and began to disappear. Because of that, Damon had to cover
his eyes with his hand.
When the light vanished, a black shadow about one and a half meters square was cast before
Damon and Zikrate. It was a distorted space that seemed more fitting to call a dimensional gate.
The magical treasury Incresia had finally revealed itself before Damon. Its appearance was so simple
that it was impossible to believe it was Incresia. Damon blinked in disbelief.
“This is Incresia?”
“The magical treasury Incresia does not exist in the present world. It only appears when
I recite the spell. At all other times, it merely sleeps in a gap between dimensions.”
“Interesting. Then how do you put things in and take them out? Do you have to go in yourself
to store them?”
Zikrate shook his head as though that was not the case.
“Impossible. There is no atmosphere at all inside Incresia, and it maintains an extreme temperature.
Therefore, items stored there do not rot or decay, but one cannot enter it. Living beings
cannot go inside Incresia. Even I could not endure a single minute inside it.”
Having finished speaking, Zikrate stared fixedly at Damon.
“Come to think of it, you would be able to enter. You are an undead, a lich—alive, yet not alive.”
“Damn it. You overgrown green lizard……”
Damon grimaced and spat out a curse. In any case, being called an undead monster
was not exactly pleasant.
“Then how do you take items out?”
Zikrate raised a hand and tapped his head. To Damon, of course, it looked like a foreleg.
“Putting items into Incresia and taking them out are both done through magic. The location
where an item is stored is remembered in my mind, and if I recall that item together with a certain
magic spell, Incresia unfailingly brings it out. It is the same when storing something. If I command
it to put something in, Incresia receives the item into its vast inner space and stores it safely.
And the coordinates are remembered in my mind.”
“That’s extremely complicated.”
After hearing the explanation, Damon frowned. At this point, he had learned almost everything he needed to know.
Never in his dreams had Damon imagined that he would end up interrogating a dragon.
“Ah, now that I think about it?”
A sudden urgency appeared on his face. He had realized that by now, the magic circle
binding Gedenhide should have run out of power. Once that fact came to mind, he had no choice
but to grow anxious. Zikrate’s story had been so fascinating that he had lost track of time.
He hurriedly looked at Zikrate.
“Where is Naidelhark’s sealing orb being stored?”
“If you wish, I will take it out for you. However, finding it will take a considerable amount of time.
Since there was no reason to retrieve it, I erased its coordinates from my memory. It is meant to exist
inside Incresia forever. This was something Lord Kranus personally ordered.”
“Damn it…… I don’t have time.”
In his urgency, Damon sprang to his feet. It was obvious what Gedenhide would do after being freed.
The bastard would surely run to Verkis. To get at Damon’s Life Force Vessel.
As Damon fidgeted in agitation, the magical treasury Incresia came into view. At that moment,
a brilliant idea flashed through Damon’s mind. Looking back and forth between Incresia and Zikrate,
Damon clapped his hands.
“Good. That will do it.”
“What do you mean to do?”
Zikrate asked back with a dull expression. At the moment, he did not look dragon-like at all.
“You don’t need to know.”
As he looked at Zikrate, a smile of triumph spread across Damon’s face. But Zikrate, who had no idea
what was going on, merely blinked.
“What is it, Gedenhide?”
When a resonant voice sounded from beyond the wall, Gedenhide’s face brightened. Until now,
he had been waiting literally with his neck stretched out for Verkis to awaken. Unlike humans,
dragons could not fall asleep instantly and wake immediately. Since they needed a certain period of preparation,
they had to sleep behind such sturdy barriers.
“Th-this is serious, Lord Verkis.”
“Serious?”
Gedenhide soon began to explain in detail everything that had happened. When he heard that Damon,
whom he had turned into a lich for amusement five hundred years ago, had somehow become a Ninth Circle master
and subdued Gedenhide, Verkis could not conceal his astonishment.
“How could such a thing…… Are you saying his mental strength overcame my brainwashing magic?”
“I do not know the details, but it seemed likely. The problem is that I have no idea
how he became a Ninth Circle master.”
“I do have some idea regarding that matter. Wait a moment.”
Verkis seemed to concentrate for a moment. Soon, a voice filled with extreme rage burst out from beyond
the wall.
“So that was it. All the alarm spells in my magic library have been dispelled. That bastard
must have learned magic with my spellbooks. I’ll make him……”
“B-but there are more than ten liches stationed in Lord Verkis’s magic library. Moreover,
liches should not be able to enter the magic library under any circumstances.”
“If he overcame the brainwashing magic, then it could happen. Astonishing. To think there was a human
capable of overcoming Tenth Circle magic……”
Perhaps judging that there was no benefit in letting Gedenhide know the circumstances, Verkis merely
glossed over it briefly. After keeping silent for a moment, Verkis asked about something else this time.
“So. You say he went to Zikrate?”
“That is correct. When I contacted them a little while ago, they said he had indeed arrived at Lord Zikrate’s
lair. It was confirmed that he entered his quarters while pretending to be a messenger, but after that
the door was sealed shut, so even the guardians there do not know the details.”
The thought occurred to Gedenhide that there was a chance, however slight, that Zikrate had been defeated by him,
but he never voiced it. That would have been an insult to the race known as dragons. Even without knowing for certain,
it was obvious that Verkis would fly into a rage. If it had been a sword master’s ambush, perhaps, but there was simply
no possibility that a lich, whose specialty was magic, could handle a dragon in a head-on confrontation…… As expected,
Verkis did not consider for even a moment that Zikrate might have been defeated.
“Interesting. What in the world is that bastard’s objective?”
“The guardians are breaking down the door with all their might, so the truth will soon be revealed.
Lord Verkis. More importantly, I believe ending him first should take priority.”
“That would probably be best. He is quite a dangerous fellow……”
Verkis seemed to have finally made up his mind. It was somewhat regrettable to lose a good experimental subject,
but it could not be helped. There was nothing more foolish than leaving alive someone who had overcome
his brainwashing magic. Thus Verkis opened his enormous maw wide and spat out Damon’s Life Force Vessel,
which he had been storing inside his body.
Verkis’s eyes, as he looked down at the vessel containing the life force of the lich Damon, were filled only
with coldness. Having been awakened in the middle of his sleep, there was no way his mood could be good.
“Bastard. I do not know what you are scheming, but you will soon depart this world.”
Gripping the vessel in his hand, Verkis began to apply pressure.
Jijijik.
Fine cracks began to appear on the vessel. Feeling it, Verkis relaxed his strength slightly. Before he knew it,
a cold smile had settled at the corners of his mouth.
“It will probably be quite painful.”
If the vessel was broken, the lich would be annihilated at once. That was a fate one could not avoid,
no matter how far one fled. Of course, Verkis had no intention of killing him in a single stroke.
His plan was to apply and release pressure, inflicting extreme agony before finishing him off. When cracks formed
in the vessel, the life force stored inside would slowly leak out, and that would impose tremendous pain
upon the lich. That was exactly what Verkis had in mind. It was the price for waking him when he should have
remained asleep.
“Kugh.”
A sudden scream burst out in the pitch-black darkness. It was a primordial darkness without a single point of light.
“I-I must have been discovered. J-just a little more and the great art will be complete…… Kuh.”
Groans continued to burst out. Even so, the owner of the voice seemed to be stubbornly focused on something.
As though his lifelong desire depended on it.
“Kugh, still, it’s fortunate. It doesn’t look like he intends to kill me right away…… Kkeok.”
From the screams that broke off intermittently, it was impossible to imagine just how much pain was being inflicted.
Yet the figure in the darkness tenaciously endured the agony and concentrated on his work. In truth,
he was a man long since inured to pain.