“Old man, what’s going on?”
Saramandine asked, dropping her disguise as Dine Ifrit. Sargasso had summoned the Four Heavenly Kings rather out of the blue.
‘Today’s the day Cafe Rabbit changes its seasonal dessert….’
A meeting of the Four Heavenly Kings could, with bad luck, take all day. There was no way it would end within the cafe’s business hours.
“…First, sit down.”
Saramandine glanced around. Their recently recruited magic advisor, Inian, was nowhere to be seen.
“Hmm, and where might the young lady with the raven wings be?”
Noticing that absence, Dunamis tilted his bird head. Instead of giving a clear answer, Sargasso merely repeated his gesture for them to sit.
At last, the moment Grata took his seat while showing off his heavy footsteps, Sargasso brought up the agenda for the meeting.
“The Ochanja side has proposed an alliance.”
“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Weren’t the Ochanja monsters of an old era who couldn’t even communicate?
‘No. It’s not that they can’t communicate.’
Saramandine was the youngest among the Four Heavenly Kings, so unlike the oldest, Sargasso, she had never personally walked through the old era.
But she knew from experience that the Ochanja possessed the ability to communicate. That unpleasant blood-vessel human.
To be precise, Saramandine herself had never spoken with the blood-vessel human. She had merely heard it praise magical girls as “guardians of order” or whatnot. In any case, it was certain that the thing possessed intelligence.
Which made this all the more baffling.
“Wasn’t that first red bastard sharpening his knife to hunt us down and butcher us? And now, all of a sudden, an alliance?”
Sargasso fell silent. In his mind, he had the clearest answer to this situation, but he could not bring it out into the open.
‘Still, even if not the whole truth, revealing a part of it should make persuading them easier.’
“That one is an extremely old Ochanja. It would be fitting to call it an original strain, one that retained its original form.”
“Original strain? Then are you saying the ones talking about an alliance this time are variants?”
Sargasso nodded.
“Well, Grata, who’s keeping his mouth shut because he finds this bothersome, would know this much. Originally, the Ochanja were essentially the same kind of beings as guardian fairies. Their functions merely diverged according to the purpose bestowed upon them by their creator… that dreadful Mother.”
It was a tale of the old era. Saramandine’s ears perked up. She had always been curious about the old era, said to have been filled with battles far stronger and fiercer than those of the present, but the old men of the Ivory Tower had always refrained from speaking of it, saying, “Children, begone!”
“The function of the Ochanja is to consume black mana and purify it. In that process, those who developed abnormalities from excessive intake of black mana rebelled against the guardian fairies and Mother.”
“Aha. So you called the blood-vessel human an original strain because it preserved its original sense of purpose?”
“Correct. Though in terms of population, that would make it the minority. It may even have been the last surviving original strain.”
Sargasso stroked his wave-like water beard. The blood-vessel human, the primitive Ochanja, appeared to have vanished after being devoured by the crocodile demonic beast beneath the Black Forest.
The disappearance of a remnant of the old era was something to be welcomed, but if asked whether that dreadful weapon was the sort of being that could vanish so easily, doubts remained.
‘There have been no traces of activity since the crocodile demonic beast’s destruction, so the probability that it has truly disappeared is high….’
An irrational unease remained buried in a corner of his mind, refusing to fade. Sargasso shook his head.
“But it seems the blood-vessel human’s activity caught the attention of the variants that had been lying low until now. The bull that walked the sky, which appeared after the blood-vessel human’s disappearance… that one was a variant.”
“Hmm? Then, Sargasso, is the reason you did not invite the raven young lady here because of the previous battle?”
Inian and Dunamis were the ones who had fought the Flayed Bull in a major clash and driven it back.
“In part. The rational decision-making of the organization must not be paralyzed by the ill feelings of an outsider.”
“That is most ungentlemanly conduct! It would be one thing if you persuaded her with proper argument and reasonable grounds, but to plot collusion with a lady’s adversary behind her back!”
“Dunamis. Inian may be our magic advisor, but she is not a member of the Four Heavenly Kings. Judge this rationally.”
When Dunamis disparaged every member of the Four Heavenly Kings except himself by saying, “This is why wingless creatures are hopeless!” Saramandine snapped back, “What did you say, you birdbrain?”
This was why meetings of the Ivory Tower stretched on endlessly without rhyme or reason. Since time immemorial, just as fire spread upon the wind, any clash between Saramandine and Dunamis would expand into a war of words.
“You are leaving out the important part.”
The voice that stopped the two from squabbling was an unexpected one. Grata, who usually found even opening his mouth too bothersome, had uttered a complete sentence rather than a simple yes-or-no answer.
“Sargasso… In exactly what respect did the Ochanja propose an alliance?”
Saramandine blinked.
“Wow, he could talk that long?”
“Grata was originally quite lively. He spoke less as he aged.”
“Birdbrain, why haven’t you grown up at that age?”
“What did you say?!”
Ignoring the two as they seemed ready to go at each other again, Sargasso voiced the proposal that the Ochanja—or perhaps whoever was manipulating them from behind—had sent.
“The Ochanja wish to eliminate the magical girls.”
“Is the reason they proposed an alliance with us because we are the magical girls’ enemies?”
“…Something like that.”
Grata fell silent once more. His rocky face made it difficult to read his expression. He looked as though he had fallen into deep contemplation, or perhaps as though he was simply staring into space with no thoughts at all.
“That’s surprisingly rational, huh? I thought they’d have completely lost their minds from gorging themselves on black mana.”
Saramandine’s deduction was correct. The variant Ochanja of the era Sargasso knew, those who had completely fallen, possessed no such reason.
It was not entirely impossible for such a change to occur naturally. The mutations and distortions caused by black mana were truly endless, after all. But in practical terms, one could safely say it had no real possibility of happening.
Mutations that had a positive effect on intelligence occurring again and again—how low were the odds of that?
Behind this change, one had to assume there was an archmage capable of correcting Ochanja corrupted by black magic and implanting intelligence in them.
And as far as Sargasso knew, there was only one archmage capable of such craftsmanship. Sargasso buried his own confusion in his heart.
“Correct. They are rational. Their demand as allies is appropriate as well. They are asking us to hold down Magi Black.”
“Split them in two and take down one side each? Well, magical girls are the sort who turn a one-plus-one result into something like five when there are two of them together. If we divide them, we’ll have the advantage.”
Now, with Saramandine showing a relatively neutral reaction, was the right moment. Sargasso formally announced the matter.
“We shall now begin the vote on whether or not to approve the Ochanja’s magical girl hunting plan.”
***
“Now then, our operation name is the Plan to Eradicate Charles.”
“Is that not far too direct a name? If the operation name were to leak, the entire rest of the plan would be smashed to pieces in an instant.”
“You’re a grand duke, but isn’t your vocabulary way too crude?”
“After being ambushed more than once while communicating politely with someone, I decided to pursue concise vocabulary.”
“Well, ain’t that just perfect!”
Raban shrugged and summarized the plan. They would use Na I-hyeon’s hair as a catalyst to locate Charles.
Then Inian and he would give Charles a thorough beating and seal him away.
“…Seal him?”
“A high-quality black mage is originally a good source of black mana.”
“Wait just a moment. Is sealing not something only possible when we hold an overwhelming advantage? Do you think Charles, who commands the Ochanja under him, will simply let himself be taken so easily?”
Raban nodded. Charles, having obtained an alibi through the Ochanja’s staged kidnapping, would undoubtedly try to act alone.
“If he wasted a golden opportunity to use black magic without worrying about outside eyes, he wouldn’t be a good black mage. Even if he simply put on an Ochanja mask and committed acts of terror from behind the scenes, just think how much negative sentiment would accumulate.”
In Raban’s opinion, this was a matter of opportunity cost. The sort of person who would waste time freely operating as a black mage by shutting his eyes, lying down, and sleeping would never reach the heights.
The easiest way to create profit in a limited amount of time was, naturally, sabotage.
If Hikarious itself was viewed as a supply base for magical girls, then launching a large-scale attack across the entire city to force them to expend magic power was the optimal tactic.
“Whose magic power do you think is used for the Hikarious restoration barrier? If I really had to have it out with Mother Fairy, I’d first make a mess of the city, then tangle up the barrier circuits and start a magic-power consumption burning event.”
And for such large-scale sabotage, a diversion was essential.
“The Ochanja would handle the army for the diversionary operation. Set Hikarious on fire the moment the magical girls clash with the Ochanja—what a perfect plan, isn’t it?”
Inian was at a loss for words.
Because it truly was a plan perfectly befitting Raban.
There was, however, one part she found difficult to accept outright.
“Do you truly believe there are two people like you in this world?”
“Ha! I told you, I’m the average black mage.”