Ch.330Episode 13 – There Is No Country for Wizards

January had already reached mid-month, yet the northern wind remained fierce.

Unlike Fatalia, where warm sunshine poured down despite the cool breeze, the sky over the Kien Empire was overcast and gloomy today as well.

Under the brownish sky as dusk fell.

Inside a shop where faint light streamed out.

“You’ve arrived.”

There was a magician.

Episode 13 – There Is No Country for Magicians

In the north, where even the smallest light cannot be lit, only the faint moonlight and starlight drive away the darkness.

Despite the thick, long darkness that engulfs the city, light rushes down to the ground across the night sky.

Silver moonlight illuminates the ruined city. The gentle illumination faintly brightens not only buildings but even the smallest grooves between bricks.

We met at a café in a quiet city.

Martinez, who had arrived first, was drinking coffee. The café he frequented at least three times a week in the north was a simple yet charming establishment. Sitting by the window, watching the frost form on the glass with a book in hand, it seemed like one could spend an eternity of dawn without boredom, forgetting hunger with just a cup of coffee.

I pulled out a chair and greeted him.

“Nice to see you, Mr. Martinez. I apologize for asking to meet at such a late hour.”

“It’s no problem.”

Though it had been two weeks since we last met, Martinez showed no particular reaction. He simply sat there, unaffected.

“It’s been a while since we last met.”

“Indeed. Has everything been well with you, Mr. Martinez?”

“Yes.”

The civil servant of the Magic Tower Secretariat, unremarkable except for his ethnicity, was as bland in his actions as his plain face.

A formal, rigid tone. A stoic expression that felt cold.

It’s strange when someone naturally taciturn becomes even more withdrawn. It makes it difficult to guess what they’re thinking.

“I’m glad to hear that. I’ll get straight to the point.”

I addressed Martinez as he set down his coffee with a solemn posture.

“I understand that an employee of the Magic Tower Secretariat went missing in the north last month. What happened?”

Despite the abrupt topic, Martinez had little to say.

With a composed face, he met my gaze, took a sip of his coffee, and slowly began to speak.

“The details are currently under investigation.”

He didn’t ask where I heard this or who else knew. Instead of such typical questions, he simply gave a brief, concise answer that an investigation was underway.

After observing Martinez for a moment, I took out my mobile phone from my pocket. The time on the screen showed 10:01 PM. Below it, another time blinked from 2:23 to 2:24.

I flipped the phone over, placed it on the table, and rested my interlocked hands beside it.

“You didn’t even report it to Miss Francesca, did you?”

“……”

Martinez kept his lips tightly sealed with an inscrutable expression, either maintaining silence or carefully choosing his words.

The silence broke when I opened my mouth. I spoke to him in a low voice.

“Miss Gabi Schneider came to see the Administrator. While visiting Fatalia for a special lecture by the renowned Tower scholar Professor Niazi, Miss Schneider contacted the Administrator asking for help in finding the missing Secretariat employee.”

“…Schneider?”

As I nodded, Martinez’s expression subtly changed.

“I heard it directly from her. Miss Francesca also hopes for Jean Marbot’s swift return. So, I arranged this meeting to see if you might have any information about the whereabouts of the missing employee.”

“I’d like to help with such a matter, but unfortunately, the specific details are still…”

“…Hmm. Is that so?”

“However, there is a way.”

Martinez swallowed the last sip of his coffee and set the cup aside as he continued.

“I know a magician in the north who can find Jean Marbot’s whereabouts. A magician with very special abilities.”

“Such a person exists?”

“Magicians exist in every country. It took some time to inquire, but fortunately, with the help of local acquaintances, I’ve made contact and asked for assistance. Would you like to meet them together?”

Before answering, I glanced at my overturned phone.

One time on the screen showed 10:49 PM, while the other showed 50:24.

“…Let’s go.”

I gathered my phone and stood up.

*

We went out into the street and walked through the quiet city.

Though a vague expectation that the border conflict would soon end had settled in everyone’s minds regardless of status, the blackout and curfew declared by the military command remained in effect.

I noticed the internal troops standing on the main road, watching the streets where not even an ant could be found.

“Let’s go around.”

We naturally avoided the military’s eyes and navigated through the city’s darkness.

The surveillance of the military police and internal troops, with gaps in their formation due to monster attacks, was extremely lax. Thanks to this, we reached our destination without much effort.

At an intersection where the pitch-dark streets were visible at a glance.

Martinez, who had been leading the way, stopped there.

“Let’s wait until they arrive.”

“Is this where we’re meeting them?”

He silently nodded in affirmation.

“Originally, we planned to meet at their residence, but they’re cautious and agreed to meet outside.”

The eccentric image is one of the typical stereotypes of magicians.

Shutting themselves in workshops, abstaining from food and drink to focus on research, dedicating their lives to glimpsing fragments of truth, and obsessively passing down ancestral knowledge until their dying breath.

That’s roughly how the public viewed magicians. And while personalities varied, most magicians generally lived up to this image.

For example, they might strictly prevent outsiders from entering their workshops or homes to avoid disrupting their research, or conceal their identities to prevent exposure.

Even magicians living in countries with magician registration systems occasionally display such cautious tendencies.

I nodded my head, deliberately showing Martinez a gesture of understanding.

“……”

Two men approached on the dark, deserted road. The hazy moonlight fell upon their heads.

The distinctive blue-tinged uniforms of the internal troops. The two men with rifles slung over their shoulders stopped in front of a flower bed near the intersection.

Despite noticing Martinez and me violating the curfew, the two men showed no particular reaction.

Positioned beyond the darkness, they lit cigarettes and exhaled smoke with indifferent postures.

Martinez began to quietly observe these unexpected uniformed visitors. From a distant alley, the strange cry of a cat could be heard.

I took out my phone to check a message and casually asked him a question.

“May I ask you something?”

“Feel free.”

With his ready acceptance, I posed my first question.

“What kind of person is Administrator Francesca to you, Mr. Martinez?”

The Magic Tower Secretariat employee answered.

“Someone I respect.”

“Respect?”

He nodded with an expressionless face.

“Lady Ranieri is undoubtedly the pride of our Secretariat. While all the great founding fathers are respected figures, few magicians among their descendants have earned the respect of all people.”

“You’re saying the Administrator is a magician worthy of such respect.”

“Indeed.”

Martinez continued with a tone suggesting he was looking up to a truly remarkable person.

“Since the veil of mystery was lifted, the magical community has stagnated for the past hundred years. Magicians, even senior members of the schools, merely search for lost heritage without thinking to explore truths beyond that.”

“Hmm.”

“But Lady Ranieri is different. She has the qualities to achieve greater feats than her family’s founder and to lead magicians to a better future.”

If she were to aspire to the position of Tower Master, I would gladly support her.

Martinez concluded his statement with that stoic tone.

“Francesca is certainly an impressive individual.”

Nodding continuously, I asked another question.

“What will you do when you find Jean Marbot?”

“An investigation will be inevitable since he left his post. Depending on the circumstances, the case might be transferred to security. For now, I simply hope for Jean’s safe return.”

“Were you close?”

“Somewhat.”

Flap! A pigeon landed nearby after persistent wing-flapping. The men in uniform paused their smoking and took out snacks from their pockets, scattering them on the ground.

As the pigeon pecked at the snacks scattered on the ice, I looked around the quiet street and began speaking.

“A few days ago, an official document arrived at the embassy.”

“What kind of document was it?”

“An investigation report from the Inquisition.”

The Church’s Inquisition, along with the Imperial Magic Department, investigated a series of incidents in the north. This was the result of the Grand Duchess, a great magician and the Emperor’s aunt, permitting the Inquisition’s investigative activities.

Considering the tremendous impact this had among magicians active in the north at that time, one can imagine how unprecedented the Grand Duchess’s measure was.

That investigation has only recently borne fruit.

“According to the joint investigation by the Inquisition and the Imperial Magic Department, clues have emerged about the demons and monsters that appeared in the north two weeks ago.”

December 31st. Monsters from hell revealed themselves.

The monsters were undead revived by demonic energy. People attacked by them rose from death to assault civilians and the military, turning Orbentsk into a sea of flames.

However, Orbentsk wasn’t the only city where monsters appeared.

“Monsters appeared in major cities, including Novo Nikolayevsk. They were all found to have emerged from underground sewers.”

The north has been building and expanding cities for hundreds of years. The underground sewers formed a vast labyrinth.

Since the conflict began, the imperial government had difficulty maintaining the sewers and entrusted their maintenance and management to Tower magicians. Francesca gladly accepted this and delegated the task to trusted elite magicians.

That magician was standing before me now.

“Mr. Martinez, did you notice anything unusual while navigating the underground waterways?”

“Something unusual.”

Martinez, the person in charge of sewer maintenance, murmured vaguely with a rather calm expression.

“I didn’t notice anything suspicious. Neither I nor other magicians observed any unusual phenomena during the month we frequented the sewers.”

“Very cunning.”

“It’s a demon that has existed since ancient times, after all.”

The magician shrugged.

As I examined his profile, I turned my gaze. Despite considerable time passing, the men in uniform were still standing guard.

The two men, who had discarded numerous cigarette butts on the ground, made no attempt to stop us for violating the curfew. I looked away from them.

Martinez asked me.

“Was there anything else in the document?”

“There was.”

I summarized the contents of the document provided by the Inquisition.

“There was information compiling the activities of demons from each continent, as well as information about monsters that attacked the rifts. Both demons and monsters were linked to the Moritani continent.”

“Moritani is a dangerous continent.”

“I heard you visited there during your adventurer days. What kind of place is it?”

“A place where the danger of civil war lurks everywhere. It’s also a place where attacks from monsters inhabiting deserts and plains occur daily. Personally, I didn’t find it a pleasant region to live in.”

The magician with an adventurer background discussed the Moritani continent.

“Everywhere you went, anything was possible if you paid. Corrupt police and military turned a blind eye to smuggled goods, drugs, firearms, and slaves in the market. Merchants had no qualms if you placed gold coins in their hands.”

“Can you also obtain monsters from these merchants?”

“There’s a saying among adventurers: If you can’t get something, it’s because you don’t have enough money.”

It was an extremely capitalistic maxim. I smiled slightly and added.

“Is that why you quit being an adventurer?”

“I got sick of it. Money wasn’t my goal to begin with.”

“It seems you had something more important than money.”

“Sometimes there are values that can’t be measured in money. I had a goal more important than money. I still do.”

“What is it?”

“The revival of the Magic Tower.”

I turned to him with a slight smile.

“Power and glory?”

Martinez, who had been listening quietly, began to glance at me. Beneath his composed face, a cold flame flickered.

“I think you would know that better, Sir. Coming from Abas as you do.”

It was a question about whether I knew why the Magic Tower, which dominated the magical community, was still caught between major powers.

I couldn’t possibly not know. As a history graduate and an Abas civil servant, I certainly knew why the Tower had become half-crippled.

I responded with an apologetic tone.

“I meant no offense. Please don’t take it to heart.”

“……”

Martinez glared at me as I smiled brightly, then turned his head away. Beside him, with his rare display of displeasure, I began to list the joint investigation results he couldn’t have known.

“Information about the demon was also in the document, but it was classified so I couldn’t see it in detail. Just that it was active on the Moritani continent? But there was something puzzling.”

I brought up the investigation site in Orbentsk examined by the Inquisition, specifically about the destroyed sealing formation left there.

There were two types of formations to seal demons.

The demon-sealing formation developed by exorcist priests hundreds of years ago. And the barriers and artifacts meticulously created by numerous schools of the Magic Tower.

Since barriers were traditionally the domain of the Guardian School, they took the lead in developing barriers to seal demons, surpassing the three major schools. Given the influence the three major schools had wielded over Tower politics for a hundred years, this was a remarkable achievement.

However, the barrier developed by the Tower with such dedication was a failed creation. Along with the demon-sealing formation, the Guardian School’s barrier failed to seal the demon.

But the most interesting part of the report wasn’t the secret history of the barrier, but that it had collapsed due to external impact.

So, I spoke up.

“The chief priest’s final inspection of the demon-sealing formation was at 18:32 on the 30th. After completing the inspection, the chief priest handed over to the duty priest, and then you, Mr. Martinez, went to the collapse site to inspect the barrier, correct?”

Martinez nodded.

“That’s right. The Inquisition and the Secretariat agreed to manage the demon-sealing formation and barrier separately.”

“Indeed.”

But both were damaged by external impact.

So I asked.

“On the 31st, the day the demon appeared, where were you and what were you doing, Mr. Martinez?”

The Secretariat magician’s gaze rested on me. After briefly looking at me, Martinez turned his head and bluntly stated.

“I was sleeping in my quarters.”

“Hmm.”

“It was my oversight. I should have checked more thoroughly.”

I waved my hand.

“I’m not trying to blame you. I brought this up to ask where the sheets documenting the demon-sealing formation, barrier, and artifacts are.”

“…The sheets?”

“Didn’t you supervise the collapse site on the day of the operation? I noticed you kept detailed records of the work status of both the Inquisition and the Secretariat. It would be good to submit them as supplementary material for the investigation, but where are they now?”

The magician’s gaze flew back to me.

Meeting his gaze, I smiled slightly and added.

“Looking at the hotel’s accommodation log for the 31st, there was a record of you going out. I thought you went out to organize those materials. But Mr. Martinez.”

The spy asked the magician.

“Who told you that demons have existed since ancient times?”

“……”

“I don’t remember saying such a thing.”

Our gazes intertwined in the empty air. After looking at each other, we immediately turned and began running in opposite directions.

“Kill him!”

“Open fire!”

Magic and tracer bullets illuminated the darkness of the quiet intersection.