[V10C10] The King’s Carrot Advisor
Translated by Jodas 10: A Job for a Con ManAfter Julius was arrested for treason, the Apprentice Mages had worked their hardest to free him. With one exception, that group was now under confinement in a locked room on the second floor of the village hall.
While one would usually expect them to be divided into boys’ and girls’ rooms, the Wedge Tower did not have the time for such things now.
To put it bluntly, they didn’t even have the time to properly imprison these Apprentices.
Furthermore, there was no way they would be taking the Apprentices with them on the mission to retake the Wedge Tower.
It would be more accurate to say this confinement was little more than the adults, unsure of how to handle the Apprentices, deciding to isolate them for the time being.
In this room, without anything that could be considered ‘furniture’ aside from a few shoddy sleeping mats, Sophie draped a blanket over her head and pulled her knees to her chest.
“What’s gonna happen to us…?”
A golden chain-like pattern appeared around both of Sophie’s wrists.
These were the seals that Assistant Headmaster Miriam had placed on her using ‘Despina, the Chain of Fools.’ Thanks to these, Sophie couldn’t control mana at all.
Sophie looked over at Rose, who had been sealed in the same manner.
“By the way, Rose, who are you really~?”
“I’m the head of an old mage family in my home country!”
“The head! What about that family? Are they okay?”
Sophie had meant that in the sense of ‘Are they really okay with having a guy like this as their head?’ but Rose had clearly interpreted it as ‘Are they okay having their head be away for so long?’
“Don’t worry, My Sis is taking care of the house while I’m away! I bet she’s probably trying to make herself the real head of the house about now~.”
How could he call that ‘okay’?
Regardless, Sophie secretly felt relieved that Rose was still his same old self even at a time like this.
At that point, Roswitha said something under her breath.
“I’d had my suspicions, but still… to think that it was the Roseberg Family, famous for the Thorn Witch…”
Seeing Roswitha frowning, Gerald hesitated to ask her a question.
“I’m from a family of knights, so I don’t really get what’s going on, but… Is the Roseberg Family something like your family, Roswitha?”
Roswitha’s expression became a little more bitter in response to Gerald’s question.
Sophie could understand why. When it came to Classical Magecraft families and families of Shamans, their political standings differed wildly between the Empire and the Kingdom of Ridill.
“The Roseberg Family, with the Thorn Witch; and the Albright family, with the Abyss Shaman, are some of the King’s closest advisors. The heads of each house have status equivalent to noble counts. They’re a pretty big deal.”
“I’ve heard of the Albright family… My sister married one of them… I didn’t know they were such a big deal over in Ridill…?”
Roswitha narrowed her eyes at Gerald as he muttered.
“Your family’s a big deal too, isn’t it? You’re Margraves and all.”
Right. She almost forgot. Apparently Gerald was actually the younger brother of the Margrave of Warmberg who guarded the western reaches of the Empire.
“Is it true that you’re super strong, Gerald? I didn’t get to see any of it~!”
When they regrouped after last night’s events, Gerald was covered in blood. But it was all hard to believe now that he’d washed off all the grime from his body and changed into a fresh set of clothes.
Despite Sophie’s doubts, Roswitha looked at her with a straight face and spoke.
“…He was a little, no, unbelievably incredible.”
While Roswitha tended to be sparing in her evaluation of herself and of others, she called him ‘incredible.’
Odds were that meant he really was incredible.
“You’re exaggerating… Back at home, I was scolded every day for being such a weakling. My brother can slay dragons with his sword and all, so…”
“Hey, hey, are you sure he’s even human??”
“That doesn’t sound very human to me~.”
Sophie’s comment was quickly followed up by an off-handed concurrence from Rose. This time, she agreed with Rose. Dragons weren’t the kind of thing anyone could slay with just an ordinary sword. Doing so by oneself was entirely out of the question.
Sophie leaned in and stared at Gerald.
The clothing Gerald was wearing at the moment were just some garments he’d borrowed from a villager. He always wore simple clothing, so the things he was wearing right now didn’t look strange on him at all. Adding in his voracious appetite, it was hard to imagine him as the scion of a noble household.
(Both Rose and Gerald come from such well-off families, huh… Wait, wasn’t the Margrave of Warmberg the guy Sevil liked? I can’t believe they share a connection like that…)
Gerald seemed to shrink back as he spoke.
“Dragon raids are common back home, so we were really quite poor… If we didn’t go out and participate in wars, we wouldn’t have enough to eat.”
A Warmberg man couldn’t live without fighting.
Yet, having a distaste for fighting, Gerald disobeyed that family tradition and ran away from the manor he was serving at. Afterwards, it seems he headed straight for the Wedge Tower.
“…I think Rose is way more impressive than me. He’s an advisor to his King and all.”
While the families of Classical Magecraft in the Empire drew some attention within the magical establishment, their political influence was limited. The Schwarzenberg Family of Shamans, meanwhile, were treated as if they were all but exiled.
On the other hand, since previous heads of the Kingdom of Ridill’s Roseberg and Albright Families were exceptionally skilled, they’ve established powerful political influence that has lasted to this day. Influence enough for them to be considered ‘advisors to the King.’
A realization struck her and Sophie lifted her face up with a start.
“Wait, so they let you just talk to the King, Rose!?”
“Yeah! I give him advice on ways to cook carrots and stuff!”
“……”
Could it be that the Roseberg Family was just a family of carrot farmers?
While that thought crossed Sophie’s mind, Roswitha seemed to be nursing a headache as she spoke.
“Anyway, why would someone from the Roseberg family bother coming to the Wedge Tower under a false identity? … If you came to steal the secrets of the Empire’s Classical Magecraft, wouldn’t it have been more natural to present yourself as a member of the Classical School?”
That was a good point, now that she’d brought it up.
As a member of Sombart’s class, Rose would have been studying mostly Modern Magecraft.
“I really did want to study Modern Magecraft. I didn’t know the first thing about Modern Magecraft, so I wanted to try learning it for real.”
‘Even though you’re the head of the house?’ She’d wondered, but she figured Rose specialized in his family’s inherited magecraft. It was a common story among classical mages.
Even Roswitha, for all her talents, hadn’t so much as tried learning Modern Magecraft.
Rose continued to tell his tale, all the while scratching his fuzzy beard.
“A lo~ng time ago, there was this Ancient Magical Artifact at our place called ‘The Chromatic Garden,’ but apparently it was stolen away by a bird monster at some point. We figured it could be somewhere in the Autonomous Territory all the way on the East side of the Empire, so I came to look for it.”
Well, if you were on the hunt for an Ancient Magical Artifact somewhere in the Empire’s Autonomous Territory, it figured that the Wedge Tower really was the best place to start. After all, it was a spire that collected magical techniques from all across the Empire.
Gerald, who was still maintaining a dignified sitting posture for some reason, spoke up hesitantly.
“So your objective is to retrieve an Ancient Magical Artifact, essentially a weapon… And you’re a foreigner, Rose… Couldn’t that cause a diplomatic incident?”
“Just to be sure, my King, your Emperor, and my family had a talk about this beforehand~!”
The King of Ridill, the Black Lion Emperor of the Empire, and the Roseberg Family… This was all shaping up to be an even bigger deal than Sophie had thought.
And yet the Wedge Tower was nowhere to be seen in those talks. The Wedge Tower had cut off ties with the Black Lion Emperor, after all.
“The Chromatic Garden kills any human who tries using it. I’m sure you know how bad that could be… Right, Sophie? Roswitha?”
(Huh? I don’t get it… Are you just trying to say ‘it’s really dangerous, so we should go find it’?)
“…That is concerning. Unlike modern magical devices, Magical beings can use Ancient Magical Artifacts.”
(Oh, right!)
It finally hit Sophie.
A dangerous weapon that humans cannot use, but Monsters can, is somewhere around the Crystal Territory, where Monsters live.
…This was a huge problem for the Black Lion Emperor. There was no knowing when a Monster might get their hands on the ‘Chromatic Garden.’
By all means, he should have reached out to the Wedge Tower in the Autonomous Territory and asked them to retrieve and seal the Artifact. However, the Wedge Tower had cut off communications with him.
(That was why he had to request the help of the foreign Roseberg Family!)
From the Black Lion Emperor’s perspective, this would mean handing a dangerous weapon over to the Kingdom of Ridill… but no human could use that weapon anyways.
That being the case, it made sense to get the Ancient Magical Artifact as far away from the Monsters as possible.
And chosen to take point on this mission was the Fifth Thorn Witch… Rose,
“So, wait… The Black Lion Emperor gets to have this danger dealt with, the King of Ridill gets to have the Emperor owe him a favor, and the Roseberg Family gets their prized treasure back, it’s a win-win-win! …Am I close?”
“Yeah, that’s it! You’re real smart, Sophie!”
“Thanks for the compliment, but… That doesn’t change the fact that you’re a threat to the Wedge Tower, does it~?”
“I guess that’s true~. That’s why they put those seals on us, after all.”
Rose lifted his arms and shrugged his shoulders.
He’d come to the Wedge Tower after having a Shaman he knew seal his mana. Yet almost immediately after Sophie undid the curse sealing his power, Assistant Headmaster Miriam used ‘Despina, the Chain of Fools’ to seal that power once again.
Rose was on the side of the Black Lion Emperor. From the Wedge Tower’s perspective, he should be thrown out just like Julius.
Gerald asked Rose another question.
“So, have you found the ‘Chromatic Garden’ in question?”
“Nope. I’ve heard some promising rumors, but just as I was thinking ‘maybe I should look in to that~’ this whole thing kicked off. Sheesh, it’s a real shock, isn’t it? Right, Julius?”
Rose ended his sentence by awkwardly calling Julius’ name.
There was no reply.
Rose scratched his cheeks, unsure what to do.
Julius remained silent, curled up in a blanket in the corner of the room. He’d been like this ever since they’d been brought here.
In truth, it wasn’t just Julius. Everyone was thinking the same thing.
(I can’t believe Finn is a Werewolf, and Ms. Röhm is a traitor… It’s all just way too much.)
The two of them had probably been waiting for the best chance to steal away the contractor to the Ancient Magical Artifact ‘Chariclea, the Wedge Tower.’
She thought back to the time she recommended a book to him at the library. Finn had taken the book that Sophie recommended with a promise to tell her what he thought of it.
(…Was that a lie, too?)
The more she thought about it, the sadder she got. Sophie bit her lip and hung her head.
As an uncomfortable silence fell across the room, Gerald quietly muttered:
“When Finn started his whole plan last night… Could it have been because something unexpected had happened?”
Sophie lifted her head and looked at Gerald.
Everyone was looking at him now. Only Julius kept his head down, unmoving.
Roswitha said a curt “I agree.”
“If their plan was just to take the contractor to ‘Chariclea, the Wedge Tower,’ couldn’t they have just done it in secret? I don’t think there should have been any reason for him to stand out howling like that.”
Right. That wolf kept howling and howling. As if to tell the whole world that he was there.
Sophie’s voice trembled as she spoke.
“T– Then! Then! Finn really was trying to let Julius escape when…”
“Stop it.”
Julius’ voice interrupted Sophie’s exclamation.
“…Please stop.”
Repeating himself, his voice sounded a little shaky. Considering what he must have been feeling, no one blamed him for it.
(Julius was the closest one to Finn, after all… He taught him how to study and everything.)
Sophie and Rose had their powers sealed. Agniol was injured. Julius was completely out of it. … Heck, it wasn’t just Julius. Finn’s betrayal had taken a huge hit to all the Apprentices’ morale.
Finn wasn’t a terribly potent combat asset on his own. He wasn’t the one who supported everyone or kept the team together either.
Nevertheless, that tiny little boy had wormed his way into everyone’s hearts. His simple kindness and the bursts of courage that came when things were most dire had been a precious memory and a saving grace to everyone.
Losing that was… painful.
(Come on, get back soon, Rukiye, Tia, Sevil, Wren~!! Do something about it, Ella~!)