“…Is that not a place you lot cannot carelessly intervene in?”
“That is precisely why we could not touch it despite knowing its location.”
Raban did not put on a brazen face. A black mage’s countenance automatically grew harder than steel.
He skillfully slipped a penny’s worth of exaggeration between the truths.
“No. That’s not it. How did you find out something was hidden in a place you can’t even approach?”
“It is the process of elimination. If we, who are capable of searching the entirety of Hikarias, cannot find the Ochanja immediately, there is only one place left, is there not?”
Saramandine scratched her head. The logic was reasonable, but since it was the mascot speaking, even if it claimed beans sprouted where beans were planted, she ought to have doubted it at least once.
“In the end, it’s nothing but a hunch?”
“That is precisely why we could not dispatch magical girls either. As you know, even we cannot carelessly intervene in the Black Forest. Not without special cause, at least.”
The other Four Heavenly Kings would say Saramandine’s intelligence was equal to or less than that of the birdbrain Dyunamis—this was Dyunamis’s own claim—but she was truly not dull.
She simply neglected to think because she possessed the most overwhelming firepower among the Four Heavenly Kings. She was not so incapable as to fail to understand a simple metaphor like this.
“How unlike you. Are you telling us to launch a preemptive strike on the Black Forest first and drag out the Ochanja? Then would that terrible mother of yours grant deployment permission?”
Raban added a line of information to the library inside his head. The mascot could not approach the Black Forest carelessly; this was the Mother Fairy’s order.
*When the time comes to be chased by magical girls later, I’ll have to try a strategy of diverting attention with familiars and then digging a tunnel under the Black Forest.*
“We cannot officially speak of such things. We respect the Mother’s will, after all.”
“How underhanded.”
Saramandine shuddered at the mascot’s vileness. It meant they would treat this as if no agreement had ever taken place here. But it seemed she felt sufficient sense of crisis at the fact that they were joining hands with the Ivory Tower, even in this manner.
“Fine. We didn’t want to go around town bragging that we borrowed your hands either. When?”
“Currently, Charles has returned to the Black Forest. Let us set the date as midnight on the day he departs Hikarias.”
“Hmph. That cowardly human? Got it.”
***
It was a satisfying deception.
Raban smiled to himself as he cleaned up the consultation room. He wanted to go to a corner and put on a sly smile, but if an already gloomy black mage became gloomier for no reason, heaven was bound to strike down divine punishment.
Charles had been like that too. Had he not revealed his suspiciousness for no reason, saying “I am suspicious,” and thus met with divine punishment at the hands of such a righteous black mage as himself?
*It is a bit of a shame that I cannot touch him personally, though.*
This was the appropriate line.
In truth, Raban had not wanted Charles to fight a life-or-death battle with the Ivory Tower. Rather, he had carefully constructed the situation so that an all-out war between Charles himself and the Ivory Tower would not occur.
Charles’s true capabilities—accurately speaking, his financial power, but since the initial consonants were the same, he decided to use it with a similar meaning—were difficult for even Raban to fathom.
If the Four Heavenly Kings, believing the enemy to be solely the Shadow Magician, namely Ochanja, charged in shouting “Yahoo! It’s time for a hero to annihilate the Ochanja!” and were then swept away by the treacherous strike of the nefarious black mage Charles, the situation would become extremely dangerous.
Temporarily, thanks to the absence of the Ivory Tower, a competitor in the Hikarias negative thought harvesting business, Raban’s position might become slightly freer.
*For about three seconds?*
After that, the magical girls—subcontracted employees of the mascot—would commence their black mage incineration operation, shouting “Where did that filthy black mage scum come from?”
The atmosphere was plainly visible: at the mere sight of a black magic monster variant called an Ochanja, they would harden their expressions and worry about whether to discipline it, asking “Does Hikarias look easy?” Yet a black mage capable of producing black magic monsters was roaming free?
*Even I would bombard it with mana.*
Black mages were a species to be avoided. Recalling the torrent of abuse the Demon Archduke had hurled at him, Raban became slightly saddened.
For that reason, revealing Charles’s true colors would bring too massive a backlash. Therefore, the timing Raban designated was after Charles had left the Black Forest.
*From what Naihyeon said, he is someone who comes out of nowhere and leaves out of nowhere. It shouldn’t take too long to deploy Saramandine.*
Because the method to ruin the sacrificial ritual was not limited to killing the black mage himself.
Raban’s goal was the Black Forest itself.
It seemed Charles had intended to imbue Naihyeon with the Black Forest’s black magic, so if the forest were decorated with beautiful lighting (the flames of the Four Heavenly Kings) to increase the amount of light, that plan would naturally fall apart.
*Surely the mountain cabin won’t burn down.*
Though the owner on paper was Charles, the actual resident was Naihyeon, and he didn’t want to burn down someone else’s house for no reason.
His blood-vessel familiars hidden beneath the Black Forest were scheduled to spring up appropriately near the forest’s outskirts the moment the Four Heavenly Kings commenced their activity.
There should be no chance of the fire demon reaching the house located in the middle of the forest.
Probably.
***
“But Uncle. Why did you suddenly come this time?”
Charles shrugged his shoulders. There had been a rather interesting subject of observation, but said subject had not shown so much as a fingertip since arriving in Hikarias.
“There are times when one suddenly wants to return home. Worrying about the pets left behind, or wondering if one left the air conditioner on—those sorts of ordinary reasons.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m sure you’re so ordinary. Ordinary people don’t tour the entire nation every year like you, Uncle.”
Touring the entire nation.
What a deceptive phrase. Charles curled up the corners of his lips.
In this era, touring the entire nation and touring the entire world were used with the same meaning.
This grotesque world where the Guardian Fairy had forcibly stitched together what was originally a world divided into many nations. How could one stand by and watch such a place?
“Naihyeon.”
“Hmm?”
“Nothing much happening these days?”
Nightmares, or signs of a cold. As if he were a relative he had not seen in a long time, Charles offered various pieces of advice. He closely observed Naihyeon’s reaction.
“Nope. I’m healthy. My calves are just a bit sore from having to ride my bike over because you suddenly said you were coming, Uncle?”
“Oh dear. A good child growing up so delinquent. Uncle is sad.”
Naihyeon answered with a joke to ease her uncle’s worry. Charles hid his deep disappointment.
He had rejoiced when he learned she had been chosen as a magical girl. She would be able to hold both the mana of the Mother Fairy Gaiahart and black magic simultaneously.
But the problem was that her talent as a magical girl exceeded his imagination. The black magic had to balance with Gaiahart’s mana, but it was still far from reaching it.
*I had expected that leaving her in this city would cause negative thoughts to accumulate and increase the speed of black magic buildup.*
The duty of a magical girl assigned during the period when she would receive the most negative thoughts. Normally one would be crushed by the pressure, but Naihyeon was different. Instead, she seemed to dilute the negative thoughts through communication with her fellow magical girls.
*As expected.*
I must work on Magi White.
For the convenience of the work ahead.
Charles decided to prepare a surprise gift for Hikarias to coincide with the day he left. It was a carefully chosen souvenir for his niece.
The very day Magi White would betray Magi Black would be the time he returned to this land.
*It is a bit of a shame. Had that been a mage who handled the magic of the old era… I would have liked to meet them once.*
***
Charles quietly prepared to depart at dawn. Leaving Naihyeon—who slept heavily in the early morning—behind, he boarded his private jet and moved to the next location.
The employees of the foundation he organized served their master. The humans of this era were unspeakably foolish, but he liked the diligence they showed once the work was set.
*Well, this too is probably Gaiahart’s manipulation.*
Rumble rumble rumble—BOOM!
A thunderous roar suddenly shook the city.
Charles felt that something had gone terribly wrong.
The demon beast he had prepared in the Black Forest had already been unleashed and was advancing toward the city.
That was not a tool meant to grow in such a form or move in such a manner.
***
A demon beast in the form of a deformed crocodile, roughly colored in a purplish black. If one looked only at its appearance, the crocodile demon beast was quite cute.
If it had not been gigantic enough to rival a building.
“What the hell is this, crazy!”
Saramandine swung her flames. Her gaze turned toward the mascot standing among the magical girls.
It was an interrogation demanding, *“Where did the Ochanja go and where did this thing pop out from?”*
“Papyrun! Wasn’t Saakping not supposed to appear in Hikarias?”
Magi Black’s covering fire was added.
[W-We don’t know either, mofu!]
A demon beast grown this enormous—was this not practically its final growth stage? They said the Black Forest was a place beyond the fairy’s sight, but not noticing it until it reached the final stage was absurd!
*Damn it, so it really was exactly the way he said in the consultation room!*
Saramandine gritted her teeth at Papyrun’s cold-blooded response.
The implication that the mascot would treat this operation as “something unknown.” When an unexpected incident occurred, Papyrun ruthlessly cut off all responsibility.
“Everyone, please look here…!”
Magi White stood at the front lines against the demon beast. In both her hands were formed the magic circles for miasma absorption she had learned in the previous battle.
Something bizarrely shriveled and twisted, resembling a piece of string, was stuck to her fingertips.
It was a substance that had gotten on her hands while fighting desperately to stop the demon beast’s advance.
[This is… the Shadow Magician’s blood vessels from before?]
“I figured it out! The reason the Ochanja suddenly commenced activity!”
Saramandine shouted as if she had realized everything. Before the city of Hikarias was even built, a fragment of the Ochanja that had survived through the old era had attached itself to a slumbering colossal demon beast and absorbed its negative thoughts.
The demon beast had awakened in the process, but because the Ochanja was absorbing its negative thoughts, it had likely fallen into a state tantamount to being sealed.
Having absorbed negative thoughts and regenerated over a long period, the Ochanja had finally reached the point of reassembling its ego in the modern era.
Having regained its intelligence, it felt threatened by the demon beast’s awakening and planned to collect sufficient mana, proliferate itself, and devour the demon beast in one fell swoop.
However, just now, Saramandine’s own flames had incinerated the Ochanja’s cells, and the demon beast of the Black Forest had awakened from its seal…!
*Tch, those fairy bastards. Did you not even know something like that was in the Black Forest!*
In truth, the cause and effect were the opposite.
***
*What is that.*
Raban muttered blankly. He had seen something interesting beneath the Black Forest and carefully poked it with a blood-vessel familiar.
It devoured all the mana dwelling in the familiar and began to move.