We approached the place said to be the house where a mage lived.
Using mana sight to examine it closely, I could see mana of considerable density pouring out from various parts of the house.
It was a stone house with a roof roughly patched over with wood. Moss clung here and there, and vines had grown up along the walls, so from the outside alone it could have passed for an abandoned house.
But even the vines hanging on the walls were plants that, if properly processed, could be used as the highest-grade medicinal ingredients. It certainly seemed to be a house where a mage lived.
And not some middling mage, either, but one who had reached a fairly high realm.
I told Cassian to knock on the door.
Mages who possessed mana could recognize one another as mages at a glance, after all.
Besides, unless mages were sworn enemies, the basic principle was not to show hostility toward one another.
Cassian did as I said and approached the door to knock, only to hesitate, look back, and say,
“But if that’s the case, wouldn’t it be better for you to knock, Master?”
“Enough. Just do it.”
If the mage inside had been the director of some magical institution, or perhaps the master of some mage tower, it would actually have been better for me to step forward.
But in the eyes of most mages, I would just look like a child with neither mana nor talent.
Cassian glanced at me for a moment as if asking whether he really had to do it, then said nothing and knocked on the door a couple of times.
But when there was no response, he clenched his fist and knocked three times a little harder, with a bang.
We waited for a short while. Even so, I sensed no response from inside.
Cassian frowned as if he found it strange, then turned to me and said,
“Master, I don’t think anyone’s inside.”
At that moment, the door flew open with a rough bang and struck Cassian squarely on the side of the head.
“Uaaagh!!”
“How many times, how many times do you intend to knock?! A person ought to know how to wait!”
The one who appeared from inside the house was an elderly female mage, her long white hair folded back and tied up.
Instead of a robe, which was said to be the symbol of mages, she wore comfortable white clothes woven from cotton, and a monocle hung over one eye.
Yet unlike the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, her blue pupils still held a sharp intelligence, and her posture was straight enough that the passage of time did not weigh heavily upon her.
‘She’s strong.’
They said mana wasn’t everything, but even just the mana I could see seemed to be easily more than ten times Cassian’s.
She was a little lacking to be called an archmage, but she was not the sort of mage who should be in a countryside place like this. If she had been at an academy, she would certainly have been a professor; if she had been in a mage tower, she would have been an elder.
She looked down at Cassian, who was rubbing the side of his head with his hand, swept her eyes over him from head to toe, then began clicking her tongue.
“What are you… Hmph. From the looks of it, you’re a traveler, and perhaps that’s why you have no manners. Well, your mana is passable enough, I suppose.”
Then she pulled the staff stuck in Cassian’s backpack out as naturally as though it belonged to her.
“Ah! My staff!”
Cassian shouted as he twisted his body at the sensation of the staff slipping from behind him, but her movement had been so natural that the staff was already in her hand.
She turned Cassian’s staff this way and that, then glared at him again and continued speaking.
“What is this staff? Something far beyond your station… Do you think the skill raised by an artifact like this is your true realm?”
Cassian’s face plainly showed the thought, “What is this old lady saying out of nowhere?”
But she did not seem to have any intention of stopping. This time, the mage pointed at me and shouted.
“And what is that child? Do you truly think you’re someone important? Dragging around a powerless child like that just to suit yourself—do you have any sense at… all…”
The mage’s words gradually trailed off. The finger pointing at me began to tremble, and a line of cold sweat trickled down her forehead.
Cassian looked up at her, wondering why she had suddenly stopped speaking mid-sentence, but as if she had no room to care about that, her eyes remained fixed on me and shook like aspen leaves.
Then she slowly lowered her hand and said quietly in a trembling voice,
“For now, please come inside.”
Wow. She actually recognized it.
◇
“Please, have some.”
I did not bother refusing the tea that the mage, Morwen, served, and took a sip. It was brewed from leaves steeped richly in mana.
It was exactly to my taste.
“Urgh… This is really bitter.”
“Drink it. It’s hard to find anywhere.”
“Ugh…”
I lifted the steaming teacup, savored the fragrance for a moment, then set it down lightly on the saucer with a clink.
“You don’t mind if I speak comfortably, do you?”
“Of course not.”
I picked up one of the cookies Morwen had served with the tea and took a bite as I spoke.
“How did you know? You didn’t seem to be at that level.”
Ah, this is good. It was sweet, and went very well with the tea.
“Though my own attainments are lacking, I have spent my entire life observing. That is why it was possible.”
Morwen moistened her throat with a small sip of tea, then spoke again.
“It was my first time actually seeing a great being, so I was uncertain at first, but once I noticed it, I could not help but be certain. A vessel with not the slightest trace of mana, as if it were utterly empty.”
Cassian, his face scrunched up as he sipped the tea little by little, listened to the conversation, then cut in with an expression that said he did not understand.
“Master, I don’t really get it. What does that mean…”
But under Morwen’s sharp glare, he could not finish his sentence and swallowed his words.
Morwen narrowed her eyes and looked at Cassian for a moment, then gave a small cough and took another sip of tea.
“Child, I can see your mana very clearly. Can you not see mine clearly as well?”
“Yeah, no, yes…”
“Your master must have told you this, but mages are not the only ones who possess mana. Even a newborn infant with not the slightest talent has a tiny amount of mana. If it is a living being, that is only natural. It is merely that the amount is too small for the unskilled to sense.”
After hearing that, Cassian looked at me and said,
“Uh, but… I don’t feel anything from Master at all. Could Master be a dead person…?”
“Of course not. It is simply that one cannot know how vast the sea is while inside it. Wherever you look, there is only water, so you mistake it for emptiness.”
“Now that you mention it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Master run out of mana…”
“Even an archmage can only make one sense their power. For one to feel absolutely nothing to this extent… that is something only great beings possess. Child, you must understand just how great a fortune you have obtained.”
Cassian looked at me with a face that still did not seem to grasp it. Morwen said no more and quietly drank her tea.
Strictly speaking, it was a little different, but overall, it was an accurate explanation.
“But well, that doesn’t really matter.”
I gently stirred a finger, drawing aside the curtain that had been covering the outside, and pointed to the summit of the hill that was burning.
“I came to find out what that hill is.”
“You mean that burning hill? …Please wait just a moment.”
Morwen looked slightly surprised, then rose from her seat and walked over to the bookshelf on one wall.
Following her movement with my eyes, I saw that the bookshelf was filled with all manner of books.
What stood out ranged from reprinted editions of books written more than a thousand years ago, to original copies of rare grimoires that even I had seen a few times, though I had no idea where she had obtained them.
However, there were only a few dozen such books, and most of the rest were filled with things like research journals Morwen had written herself.
Even at a rough glance, there seemed to be more than three hundred volumes, and from the ones most recently shelved to those that looked somewhat older, they were arranged continuously, making it clear that her research had continued until recently.
Morwen scanned the shelves, then took out a book lightly covered in dust and carefully set it down on the table. On its red-finished cover was written a date from forty-six years ago.
When Morwen opened the book and turned the pages, densely written research notes appeared. There were not many illustrations; most of the pages were filled with complex formulas and magic circles.
And on one page, Morwen stopped turning.
“Please look at this.”
On the page where Morwen had stopped, an egg was drawn small. The egg, colored red, was covered in a pattern that was complex but not disordered.
It was the shape of an egg I had seen many times before. There was no way I would fail to recognize it.
“I observed it from afar while wrapped in flame defense. It is in the very center of that hill. This is what is setting the hill ablaze. At first, the flames were smaller than they are now, but they have grown larger with each passing day.”
Morwen looked out the window as she spoke.
“For now, the groundwater has dried up a little, and the river has grown a little shallower… That is all. But if twenty, thirty more years pass…”
“So what do you think that is?”
“You know already, do you not? To put it bluntly…”
Morwen quietly swallowed and continued.
“It is a dragon’s egg.”