"What exactly is a warlock?"
I had only vaguely known it as something like a black mage, but the meaning of it in this world felt a little different.
Of course, judging only by her appearance and the magic she used, she wasn’t all that different from the image I’d had in mind.
A gloomy atmosphere, a strange way of speaking, and even an appearance like a witch.
But looking at what she’d done so far, she didn’t seem particularly malicious.
If anything, she was the only person who had treated Bill, so it was hard to jump to conclusions.
'She looks like a black mage, but... she doesn’t act like one.'
Was this why prejudice was dangerous?
Of course, even so, she was still scary.
"Tsk, tsk. You don’t know a damn thing."
She clicked her tongue and scolded me.
Just how many times had I heard her click her tongue today?
Ignoring my question, she rummaged through a wooden box in the corner of the storage room with a weary air.
What she soon pulled out was a small green porcelain bottle that seemed to contain some sort of liquid.
Pop!
She pulled out the stopper, put the bottle to her mouth without a word, and gulped it down.
The liquid trickling down the corner of her mouth had the thick viscosity and color of moss boiled into a decoction.
The smell was just as awful as the visual.
The damp stench of a sewer mingled with the pungent scent peculiar to medicinal herbs, to the point that even breathing became painful.
"Ugh, what is that?"
I asked, reflexively pinching my nose against the terrible smell.
"Hm? This?"
The old woman rolled only her eyes with the bottle still in her mouth.
"A potion I made."
"...A potion?"
Was it that potion thing I’d seen in games?
Those actually existed?
"What does it do?"
"Why does this brat ask so many questions? What do you think? Obviously, it’s for recovering mana."
"...Recovering mana?"
If there were potions like that in this world, why had I never seen one until now?
...No, now that I thought about it, I felt like I’d heard of them in passing.
Maybe it was during the carriage escort mission.
I hadn’t seen one for myself, and I wasn’t sure if it had been something like this.
I had seen things in shops a few times that were like medicines made by boiling herbs,
but this was the first time I’d seen an item clearly worthy of being called a “potion” right in front of me.
At most, I’d only seen things on the level of folk remedies, like boiled extracts or bitter herbs steeped in water...
"Was that made with magic too?"
"Hah, what a stupid thing to say. If you could make everything like this with magic, who would bother learning alchemy?"
The old woman glanced at me with a look that said, “You don’t even know that?”
"Besides, I don’t know how much of the world you’ve traveled, but if you go near the capital, they’re everywhere. You country bumpkin."
...A bumpkin.
It wasn’t exactly wrong.
The only city I’d been to so far was Mondak, and even that place had developed thanks to its location as a key trade point, not because it was a great city on the level of the capital.
I had heard that before. That there were cities far larger and more splendid than Mondak all over the place.
'...I really don’t know anything.'
Should I seriously go look for a library or something?
Feeling needlessly bitter, I silently sniffled once.
"You, over there."
"Hm? Me?"
At the sudden call, Baldik pointed at himself and asked back.
"You. You’re a religious type, aren’t you?"
"I am, but... why?"
"Because at a glance, you look like you were chased out after doing some foolish crap, just like this one. So, what can you do?"
Whether it was intuition born of experience or not, the old woman saw through Baldik’s history at once.
"Well... I can do hemostasis, more or less?"
"Hah, none of you are worth a damn. Don’t tell me the god you serve is..."
"Ulgran."
"Damn it. So it was that idler after all."
The old woman spat a curse.
At a glance, it seemed that god was far removed from healing or recovery.
I hadn’t expected Baldik to have that sort of ability in the first place, but it seemed he definitely didn’t.
"Is it all right to talk like that?"
In this world where magic existed, gods might exist too.
Was it really okay to commit blasphemy so openly toward such a being?
"Well, if a god is petty enough to come down just because I said one thing, then that’s no god at all."
Now that I heard it, she had a point.
Baldik didn’t seem to care much either.
"Anyway, when that one wakes up, take him and get lost."
"...When will he wake up?"
"How would I know that?"
Her tone was utterly irresponsible, but by now I had no choice but to accept it.
After saying that, she was about to leave the room when she glanced once more at the broken door.
"Fix this before you go, too."
"......"
Damn it.
***
In the end, Baldik decided to take charge of fixing the door.
I said I would try, but he insisted he was confident because he was a dwarf.
Fine. If he said so himself, there was no reason to stop him.
And so, using tools we’d somehow dragged out after rummaging through the storage room, the door we managed to make was—
Creeeak... scrape, scrape-scrape.
"This is finished?"
"......"
It wasn’t even the right size, scraping against the floor, and the sides were cut unevenly so it wouldn’t close properly.
Rather than a door, it was more fitting to call it a lid.
So not all dwarves are good with their hands.
In the end, only after the two of us tore it apart and fixed it again did we barely manage to complete something that could serve as a door.
Just as I was wiping away sweat, fairly satisfied with the result—
"Uuugh..."
I sensed movement.
It was Bill.
At last, he had regained consciousness.
"Mm... mm...?"
Bill furrowed his brow and shifted around, then slowly opened his eyes.
His gaze still couldn’t focus, but soon he slowly looked up at the ceiling and blinked.
"...An unfamiliar ceiling?"
At those words, I stepped closer and asked carefully.
"Bill? Are you awake?"
"Eek! M-Mister?"
Bill laboriously turned his head, recognized me, and showed a look of relief.
His voice was still weak, but it seemed his consciousness had definitely returned.
"Are you all right? Does anything hurt?"
"Yeah... Aside from my body feeling a little stiff... I think I’m okay."
Baldik also came over and checked Bill’s face.
"What a relief. When you suddenly disappeared, everyone was in an uproar looking for you."
Bill stared blankly for a moment, then flinched as if he’d recalled something.
"Ah... Back then, in the forest... some old lady..."
"Right. That’s what we need to talk about. Do you remember anything?"
When I asked carefully, Bill slowly nodded and said,
"Yeah... A dog I was walking with ran off in a strange direction, so I followed it... and there... I picked up a weird stone. It was black and shiny, but the moment it touched my hand... I don’t remember much after that."
That must have been the “demon stone” in question.
"After that... I came back to the village, but an old lady approached me and said I’d be in danger soon, then brought me here."
I glanced back at Mallei for a moment.
She was sitting in the kitchen, sipping a cold drink.
Then it really was that eccentric old woman who saved him.
"So you weren’t kidnapped after all?"
"Kidnapped?"
Bill tilted his head.
"...Never mind."
...Yeah, this little kid might not know.
Just how dangerous his situation had been.
"I’m really glad. You’re all right now. Don’t worry."
Bill nodded and closed his eyes again.
Soon, deep breathing could be heard.
It seemed fatigue still remained.
"Thankfully... he seems to be all right."
"Then in the end, everything that old woman said was true."
"That’s right."
"Damn it, that’s the bigger problem. It means this kind of thing is already happening all over the place!"
Baldik muttered through clenched teeth.
He was right.
I had already seen a similar sight once before.
Back then, I had simply thought it was “just that village’s problem,” but... now that I looked at it, that might have been the beginning.
'This isn’t just this village’s problem.'
The kingdom—no, perhaps something happening across this entire world.
Something spreading secretly and stealthily.
Only now was the beginning of it starting to feel real on my skin.
But had she... already known?
The very fact that she was doing such strange things in a remote place like this was odd.
As if she were someone who had anticipated a situation like this from long ago and acted accordingly.
In truth, if that wasn’t the case, there were many things that couldn’t be explained.
On top of that... the knowledge she had didn’t seem ordinary.
Seeing as she had mentioned not only magic but even the Magic Tower, she clearly knew a lot.
But was it really a coincidence that someone like that had been hiding until now?
...It was dangerous, but at this point, it might be a risk worth taking.
I needed to try talking to her.
I carefully approached her.
Still with the bottle in her mouth, the old woman had been gulping down the potion, but perhaps sensing my gaze, she rolled her eyes slightly.
"What. Why are you looking me up and down like that? Stop acting ridiculous and say what you want."
...She really did have such a lovely way with words.
"...This isn’t the first time you’ve experienced something like this, is it?"
Her hand, which had been setting down the bottle, paused briefly.
"I don’t know what you’re talking about, but from the way you’re asking, I can roughly guess."
The old woman glared at me with her deeply wrinkled eyes, then let out a short sigh.
"Yes. I’ve seen it. From a very long time ago, I’ve seen plenty of similar bastards. At first, they lose their minds and rampage like beasts, and later, before you can even do anything, they burst and die. That little brat was lucky."
I swallowed lightly.
"...Then this sort of thing is happening elsewhere too?"
"What does someone like you need to know that for? Why do you think I’m living alone, holed up in a remote place like this?"
At the end of her words, she flung the bottle toward the wall.
With a thunk, the bottle rolled across the floor, wobbled, and then stopped.
"The whole world already reeks of rot. I don’t know where that rot started. But listen, that lump writhing inside the brat’s body. Its roots run very, very deep."
Even after that, she said nothing for a long while.
Her face looked as though she hoped I wouldn’t ask.
But I couldn’t stop.
"A lump...? What exactly is that?"
Hadn’t she called it a demon stone?
What was this lump?
The old woman glanced at me once more.
"...I’ll answer you. But only once. If you ask again after that, I’ll slam you into the wall. Got it?"
"Yes. I understand."
"...An ‘Evil Seed (惡種).’ What had attached itself to that brat was one of its seeds."
Evil Seed.
The word alone was enough to send a chill down my spine.
"Is that... related to demons?"
"It would be stranger if it weren’t. The first time it began spreading was also because of a strange mineral that surged up from underground."
She pointed with her fingertips at the place where Bill was lying.
"Inside that mineral are things you could call the seeds of demons. To be precise, they’re lifeforms in the form of mana."
"So that’s why they’re called demon stones..."
In other words, should I think of them as something like germs?
If I had to compare, they seemed closest to a zombie virus.
"What that brat picked up must have been a fragment of that mineral. It didn’t enter on its own. Those things always ‘choose a person’ and burrow inside their body."
As if a seed chose soil and put down roots.
She muttered quietly.
"There aren’t many people who can stop it. And among them, you can count on one hand the number who can stop it properly. If that had been a complete one and not a fragment, even I wouldn’t have been able to stop it."
She slowly put her weight on her staff and stood up.
The creaking wooden floor gave a small groan.
"So... that’s why I’ve come all the way to a countryside place like this, handling magic that’s like children’s play. Don’t poke around with useless curiosity, and just go on your way. That’s the best option for a half-wit like you."
As if calmly spitting out the truth of her own reality, she said that and turned her back.
In the end, she too had come here to avoid it.
Seeing that even someone who looked far stronger than me was trying to keep her distance from this problem... if I got involved, I really would be finished.
For a moment, I kept my mouth shut and watched her back as she slowly moved away.
This might be a far deeper and more complicated problem than I’d thought.
Still, for the sake of surviving from here on, I needed to find out more.
"I’ve seen a similar stone in another village too. I’ve even broken one."
“Hm?”
The old woman stopped walking and narrowed her eyes, looking at me with interest.
I briefly explained what had happened in Delhar Village.
“Tch. Lucky bastard.”
“Lucky?”
The old woman smirked.
As if it were the most obvious thing in the world, she snorted and continued.
“Yeah, luck. What you ran into was probably just one that had eaten some ordinary hunter. That’s why it was in such a hurry. And because it was that sort of thing, it went and got itself caught by a half-baked fool like you. You were lucky.”
“…Those things can be in a hurry?”
Even as I said it, I could hardly believe it.
Did that mean they could “act” to that extent?
The old woman brought the bottle back to her lips, took a swig, and smacked her lips.
“They may look like mana on the outside, but in truth, they’re practically half-living things. If they’re left alone too long, they grow increasingly unstable, and eventually start moving on instinct. Then they burst out in ways like that.”
The moment I heard those words, a scene flashed through my mind.
Mondark. Those self-destructing weapons I had seen atop the city wall.
The bandits who had swallowed the stones, their eyes mad, before bursting apart.
“Then what was it that I saw on the wall before?”
The old woman narrowed her eyes and turned back toward me.
“The wall?”
“It was in a city called Mondark. Bandits chewed up and swallowed those stones, then exploded like they were blowing themselves up. Were those the same things?”
She froze with a slight flinch.
For once, she didn’t even raise that wretched bottle, and for a while she kept her mouth shut, seemingly lost in thought.
Then slowly, she looked at me with heavy eyes.
“…Is that true?”
“Yes. It really happened.”
A brief silence. Then a mutter mixed with a sigh.
“If so, that whole area’s done for. Damn it… Don’t set foot anywhere near there. It’s already beyond anything you can handle.”
There was clear resignation in her tone.
That only made me even more uneasy.
“What…? What do you—”
“I told you, didn’t I? They’re not simple mana stones, but a kind of living thing. Once one of them explodes, it spreads through the surroundings like an infection. That self-destruction isn’t simple destruction. It’s more like ‘sowing seeds.’”
I could only gape blankly, unable to continue.
My mind went hazy.
Something I had thought was just a stone was actually a disgustingly dangerous infectious agent.
She lifted the bottle again, took a swig, and grumbled.
“And if they were abusing them like that, they must have had quite a lot. So don’t go poking your nose into that city out of some softhearted sense of justice. Right now… it’s not a level you can concern yourself with.”
I had never intended to go in the first place, but hearing her state it so flatly made the danger feel real.
It really did seem like it was an incredibly dangerous matter.
“Then… is there no way?”
“Was there no church in that city?”
A church…
“There was an Order of Sereon.”
“Then, well, it probably won’t blow up immediately.”
“…Do you mean the Order can do something about it?”
The old woman let out another long sigh and looked at me.
There was clear, weary irritation in her eyes, but by now I was used to that sort of expression.
I simply nodded in silence and waited.
“…If there were proper priests there, they’d have at least managed a first-stage containment. Whether by pouring holy water over it, scattering divine power… or whatever method they use.”
“Then divine power is their weakness?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“…What?”
With the bottle between her lips, she took another swig.
Then she slowly continued.
“Those things react to ‘foreign energy.’ Whether it’s mana or divine power, anything out of the ordinary serves as a stimulus. Divine power is just one of them.”
“Then…?”
“It does stimulate them. But it doesn’t end there. Some of them grow even more violent if you just provoke them and leave them be. If you’re unlucky, some might even turn it against you.”
It was a scale I couldn’t quite imagine.
One thing was certain. The current me was not at a level where I could get involved in this board.
“Then… that city…”
“If their luck is bad, it’ll happen in an instant. If even one of them awakens and contaminates everything around it, that place is finished. Not many people truly know that.”
“…That’s the worst.”
“Exactly. The problem is the fools who treat those damn things like mere stones.”
After saying that, the old woman tapped the bottle a couple of times.
Unlike before, her expression now carried a strange mixture of fatigue and resignation.
“…By the way, that city you mentioned earlier. How did it end, in the end?”
At the sudden question, I was momentarily at a loss for words.
I hadn’t expected her to ask me anything.
Why was she suddenly curious about that?
“…A Gold-Plate mercenary came and cleaned it up. The corpses gathered together and… created some strange flesh monster.”
The sight from that time flashed through my mind.
Twisted arms and legs, tangled faces, flesh writhing like maggots.
That nauseating form remained vivid in my memory even now.
No matter how much I tried to forget it, it was a scene I couldn’t erase.
“A Flesh Golem… Looks like those filthy demon worshippers were involved too.”
“…Demon worshippers?”
The moment I heard it, a chill ran down my spine.
The words themselves were simple. Worshippers of demons.
But in a world where demons might actually exist, their meaning was not simple at all.
“What, were you ostracized at the Magic Tower or something? Why don’t you know anything? Are you even really from the Magic Tower in the first place?”
“Ahem…”
I had nothing in particular to say.
After all, even the fact that I was a mage was, in truth, half the result of an accident.
But just as I was about to offer some kind of retort, she sighed and turned her head away.
“Tch, well. It’s none of my business. Looking at the state you’re in, I can already tell.”
Then she continued, as if uninterested.
“Those bastards are vermin that came out of the old Black Magic Tower. They touched a taboo within the Magic Tower, and a fight broke out. After that, they split off, and eventually turned completely to demon worship.”
“Then… are they still active?”
“They scattered. Some changed their names and hid themselves inside other organizations, while others went underground. And the rest… are making things like Flesh Golems, just like this.”
She said it as if it were nothing, but what those words contained was anything but light.
And I realized something.
This old woman knew far more than I had thought.
Her mouth was foul and her personality eccentric, but she gave information clearly… an oddly kind teacher.
Were all mages like this?
Or was this person simply that unusual?
Whatever the case, one thing was certain.
If this woman hadn’t been here, Bill would already be dead by now, or he would have become something else.
In fact, not just Bill—the entire village likely would have turned into a complete mess.
Once my questions ended, she said nothing more.
She merely swirled the liquid left in the bottle, staring blankly at some point on the floor.