[V10C21] The Pretty Boy Song (Composer: Wren Bayer)
Translated by Jodas 10: A Job for a Con Man“I wanna know, so I’m gonna go.”
“Well said,” Sevil nodded to Tia’s words.
Sevil had probably been waiting Sophie — or anyone else — to bring up having a talk with Finn.
Until they worked out what they wanted to do, they would never be able to figure out what they should do.
Sophie’s brave statement was the first step towards formulating a plan.
The Apprentices’ goals were to have a talk with Finn and to triumph over the Primordial Beast.
And, although it couldn’t be brought up here, Tia had a goal of her own.
Sevil surveyed everyone’s faces as if evaluating each person’s will to fight.
“Now that our objectives are decided, I would like you all to share the fruits of your intel gathering, starting with Ella.”
It wasn’t as if Ella had been doing nothing the whole time she was waiting for Sevil and the others to return. Being the only Apprentice with the freedom to move about, Ella eavesdropped here and there, doing her best to gather information.
“First, the crystal rivets. Those are apparently made out of crystals from the Crystal Territory. Who made them is unclear. By impaling these into a Monster’s body, they allow a Monster to survive in areas with low mana density in exchange for weakening their powers.”
Roswitha and a few others tensed up as Ella spoke.
After encountering the Primordial Beast and witnessing his strength with their own eyes… Knowing that it was but a fraction of the Primordial Beast’s true strength surely filled them with a whole new sense of dread.
Yesterday, they’d made it out in one piece thanks to Gerald’s good showing, but it was doubtful that would work another time.
(Even if I turned back into a Harpy… I still probably can’t beat the Primordial Beast.)
As a Monster born directly from the Abyss, the Primordial Beast had extremely high resistance to all forms of mana. That meant any mana-based attack such as magecraft or magic swords would have a hard time piercing his defenses. Tia doubted her songs would be that effective either.
But any ordinary swordsman would find themselves overpowered by the Primordial Beast’s overwhelming strength.
There was no question that he was one of the most terrifying assets in the Monsters’ camp.
“Right now, the Wedge Tower is affected by crystal contamination. It’s speculated that this phenomenon is caused by a crystal rivet impaled somewhere in the Ancient Magical Artifact ‘Chariclea, the Wedge Tower.’”
“Um, excuse me…”
Gerald interrupted Ella in an apologetic tone.
“Go ahead,” Without showing any signs of displeasure, Ella gracefully offered the floor to Gerald.
“I don’t know a whole lot about Ancient Magical Artifacts, but… What exactly are we talking about when we say ‘Chariclea, the Wedge Tower’? Is it the Wedge Tower campus in its entirety?”
Tia had been wondering the same thing.
Having seen the Wedge Tower’s campus from above, Tia had a decent grasp of how it was all laid out.
Starting from the main gate in the south and working up, there was the Second Spire: Golden Needle, the First Spire: White Smoke, and the Third Spire: Water Bubble. Then, to the east was the gardens, and to the west, the dorms. Stone walls surrounded the whole thing.
As it stood, it was said that crystals had covered everything up to and including those walls.
Then how much of the stuff within those walls was the Ancient Magical Artifact?
Surprisingly, it was Rukiye who offered an answer to that question.
“At least, I think it’s safe to assume the Third Spire is part of that Ancient Magical Artifact.”
“Piroro…” Tia murmured, before carefully asking:
“What makes you think that, Rukiye?”
“Put simply, it’s because the Third Spire: Water Bubble is the oldest of the three Spires. Unlike the other Spires, that one keeps getting extensions added on to it, remember?”
Just as Rukiye said, the Third Spire had many new wings added to the sides of the original tower over the years that served as the Management Office’s workshops.
“Also… There’s the mana forge in the Management Office. You can’t make one of those unless you can pull mana from somewhere with a fair amount of mana density. But it would make sense if it was drawing mana from the Ancient Magical Artifact underground.”
Following on from what Rukiye said, Julius now spoke up.
“…I know the underground room where the contractor to ‘Chariclea, the Wedge Tower’ was being kept.”
The secret beneath the Wedge Tower was something that Julius had been investigating for a while in collaboration with Tia and co.
It sounded like Julius had managed to find the entrance while Tia was out on the mission to Darwock.
Roswitha whispered, her expression showing that the pieces were fitting together in her mind
“…That was why you were arrested for treason, wasn’t it?”
“Ku, ku. Precisely. That room is reached by descending a staircase under the groundskeeper’s cabin in the gardens, then walking through an underground corridor. Judging from the distance and direction I was walking… I figure it was around where the ‘Water Bubble’ is located.”
Hearing what Rukiye and Julius had to say, Sevil nodded.
“I see. Certainly, the Third Spire and that underground room are most suspicious.”
That underground room was probably the same one Tia had been locked in back then.
…She thought back to it That windowless room where she could not see the sky. The weight of the metal on her neck and wrists. Those multicolored wings, robbed of their flight feathers — Yes, she hadn’t yet lost her color back then.
(I’m sure Kai knows about that underground room…)
Her chest ached with frustration, but she had a feeling those emotions were a sign that she was getting closer to the truth.
“Pefu–” Tia let out a long breath, then asked:
“If you pulled out the crystal rivets that were stabbed into ‘Chariclea, the Wedge Tower,’ would that stop the crystal contamination and make the mana density go down?”
“I’m not confident, but I think it’s worth trying… For what it’s worth, the higher-ups are planning to do the same thing.”
As she spoke, Sevil tapped her fingertips on the paper she was holding.
“Therefore, we will act before the adults make their move. The problem is, however: how do we get into the Wedge Tower? At present, the mana density is comparable to that of the Crystal Territory. Even with your high mana reserves, Julius, Roswitha, you could suffer from mana poisoning at that density, would you not?”
Tia hesitated on whether to speak up or not.
As a Monster, Tia would have no issues traipsing about even at the highest mana densities… but explaining that would mean exposing her true identity.
“Mmmm…” Tia grumbled, when Wren raised his voice,
“Oh, right! I’ve got something for that!”
Wren dug through his pockets and pulled out a small bottle filled with candies.
“Piyo?” Tia puckered her lips. Those pale yellow candies were the ones he got at from the Witch, weren’t they?
The mana was dense at the Witch’s house, so while it was handy for Tia, as a Harpy, to recover, there was a chance that Wren, a human, would suffer mana poisoning if he stayed there too long. Thus, the Witch gave Wren candies to neutralize the mana.
“Eat one of these three times a day and you’ll be fine no matter how high the mana density is. With these, we can get in to the Wedge Tower even with the crystal contamination!”
“Wren.”
Surprisingly, it was Rose who interrupted Wren in a soft voice.
Beneath his fuzzy red hair, his eyes were wide open, staring at the label on the bottle.
“…Those candies are a magical medicine imbued with magic that neutralizes the effects of mana inside the body for a certain period of time, right? Where did you get your hands on these?”
Wren froze as Rose rattled off the effects, speaking unusually fast.
“You can tell just by looking, Rose?”
A strange feeling hung in the air between Rose and Wren. To break the silence, Roswitha quietly piped up.
“Oh right, we didn’t tell you guys yet, did we? About how Rose is actually one of his country’s Seven Sages and a member of the Roseberg Family?”
For whatever reason, Wren’s face went pale.
Desperately suppressing the urge to hold his head in his hands, Wren screamed internally.
(Why don’t you say stuff like that soooooonnnneeeerrrr!!)
This was a failing of the way they shared information. There had just been too many details that were more important than Rose’s identity. That stuff about the Wedge Tower being an Ancient Magical Artifact, how the contractor was Otto’s daughter, how Finn and Röhm had turned traitor, or how Gerald was the brother of Sevil’s (prospective) darling.
(Isn’t the Roseberg Family the name from the book the Witch had me rewrite!?)
The First Thorn Witch, Rebecca Roseberg and the loathsome Roseberg Family who twisted her death and turned her into the Ancient Magical Artifact ‘Rebecca, the Chromatic Garden.’
To think that Rose, of all people, was their descendant!
(Oh crap, this is bad. I haven’t even told Sevil about how I met the Witch yet!)
In this case, it wasn’t because of an abundance of information. It was simply a matter of timing.
Information about the Witch connected directly to Tia’s true identity. That in mind, he wanted to share those details with Sevil in private. Yet, ever since making it back to the Lange Hamlet, either Hütter or Rukiye had been with them just about the whole time, so he hadn’t had the opportunity to bring it up.
(I was planning to tell her all about it once we made it back to the Wedge Tower and things calmed down a little! What kind of pretty boy could imagine the Wedge Tower would be taken over in that time!!?)
Sevil knew nothing about his encounter with the Witch or how he got those candies. In essence, he could not count on Sevil’s support to talk his way out of this.
Instead, Wren had to find a way through this by himself.
(How much does Tia know about the Roseberg Family!? …Probably doesn’t have a clue, I bet! The Witch didn’t seem the type to talk about this stuff very much.)
How would he make an excuse for how he got his hands on those candies?
Desperately, Wren weaved together all of his knowledge. He weaved, and weaved and, ultimately… sang. It was the middle of the night, so he sang in a whisper.
“One day, In the woods, a pretty boy met a witch~. The witch liked him, so she gave him some candy~♪ Oh, pretty boy~ lalala pretty boy~ Be happy, pretty boy~”
He’d done everything he could with the knowledge of a brainy pretty boy, so in the end he opted to try and push through with sheer pretty boy power.
“Piyo!” Tia chirped, then joined in with a harmonizing “lalala~!”
Tia, please. Now is not the time.