[V11C26] One who Gives Everything for Peace
Translated by Jodas 11: Envoy of the AbyssThe woman climbed the staircase. Her legs and waist, aged and frail, confidently treaded each successive step.
The woman’s name was Augusta Abel, Spiremaster of the First Spire: White Smoke.
To her, the Wedge Tower was her entire life. Since she was a little girl, she had always, always, given everything she had to the Tower.
“Abel, tell me about the outside!”
When Abel was twelve, the first person she served was a girl two years older than herself. Sibylle, contractor to the Ancient Magical Artifact ‘Chariclea, the Wedge Tower.’ It was Abel’s duty to care for her.
Sibylle’s skin, never exposed to sunlight, was pale; her arms and legs were frail; and anyone could tell that her body was wasting away. Once contracted to the Artifact, it seemed the contractor’s life would not be long. After all, the room she lived in was always filled with unusually thick mana.
Abel underwent mana resistance training in order to even be able to step foot in this room, finally being able to last thirty minutes inside.
To Sibylle, those thirty minutes were the highlight of her day.
“Sibylle, your food is getting cold. Please, enjoy it while it’s still warm.”
“I don’t care about the food, I want to talk with you, Abel! Can we play with the plushies today?”
Sibylle may have been two years older than Abel, but trapped in this room as she was, her way of thinking was quite immature for her age.
Sibylle rushed to pick up the plushies sitting in the corner of the room and held them out to Abel.
“I’ll be the bear, and you’ll be the bunny. The bunny is my favorite plushie, but you’re my favorite too, Abel.”
Abel wasn’t sure how to interpret her carefree kindness.
It was pitiable, and she wanted to sympathize with her, although there was some tiny part of her that may or may not have felt a little jealous of her.
Abel was talentless, someone who was unneeded in the world of mages. So she couldn’t help but be a little envious of Sibylle, who was chosen by the Ancient Magical Artifact to be the savior of humanity.
At the same time, she understood the circumstances Sibylle was in. Sibylle knew nothing. Not even that the Artifact was sapping away her life.
The adults were all just deceiving this blissfully ignorant girl. And Abel herself knew she was part of that deception.
Guilt, inferiority, envy, pity… All of those feelings stirred inside Abel, yet she still considered Sibylle to be her friend.
If she truly considered her a friend, perhaps she should have grabbed her hand and helped her run away from this place. But without her, the Western Wall would disappear. Still a young girl herself, unable then to determine right from wrong, Abel chose to believe what the adults were telling her.
This was necessary. This was for the good of the Empire. This was our duty.
A year later, Sibylle died. She was a mere fifteen years young.
The artifact Chariclea wept and sobbed in grief, but the adults promptly presented it with the next child. Once again, the duty fell to Abel to care for said child.
It being Abel’s first time caring for an infant, naturally she had a difficult time of it, but the sense of purpose that was caring for the Ancient Magical Artifact’s contractor kept her going.
Her peers out there were constantly improving themselves as mages. Seeing that genius Alto perfect the art of choral magic, Abel quietly envied her. Regardless, she consoled herself with the knowledge that she had a critically important duty.
Even if no one knew the truth, she gave everything she had in the name of the Empire’s peace. She was the protector of the Wedge Tower.
“Ms. Abel, I am smitten with you.”
One day, Abel received that confession from a younger man named Schacht.
Schacht said “Please let me support you.”
Schacht was young, with a bright future ahead of him. He was perceptive, and had real talent as a mage. Yet he expressed his affection for Abel, who by this point would no longer consider herself young at all.
Had she taken his hand, how different would things have been?
—No, they wouldn’t be any different at all.
That was what Abel had thought at the time. She still thought so to this day.
By then, Abel had already been wrapped around the Headmaster’s finger and bore his child in her womb.
“I appreciate the sentiment. Thank you.”
Half a year later, just as ‘Chariclea, the Wedge Tower’s contractor passed away, Abel gave birth, and that child became the new contractor to Chariclea.
Abel raised her child, unable to call herself her own daughter’s mother the whole time. Because ‘Chariclea, the Wedge Tower’ would rage if it heard the child call Abel her mother.
Despite everything she had been through, and despite everything the Wedge Tower was, she never thought it was wrong. All of this was necessary to guard humanity against a Monster invasion.
She gave everything she had in the name of the world’s peace.
Abel’s daughter lived for eighteen years. As far as the Artifact’s contractors went, she was on the longer-lived side of the scale.
First was a girl older than herself. Someone she thought of as a friend.
Second was a baby she raised, one she thought of as a daughter.
Third was her actual daughter… But this contractor’s death overlapped with the assault by the Monster with an obsession with war. At the worst possible timing, they chose another baby and named her Fiene.
Just as the three who proceeded her, Abel cared for Fiene with love. With all the respect due to a contractor of the Ancient Magical Artifact.
(And yet I must kill her.)
Because Fiene had already joined the side of those who trample on the peace she defended.
(I must kill her, and prepare the next child… I believe Director Eigen’s daughter was born not too long ago…)
Her legs shaking, Abel pressed her arm against the wall.
It was because she had been walking around too much in this unbearable mana density. She had built up a resistance since she was young, but her thirty minutes would soon be up. It wouldn’t be long before it started having a real impact on her body.
(I don’t care if I die here… I must give everything in the name of the Wedge Tower, until the moment I die… I must defend the Empire’s peace…)
About half of the trees in the Wedge Tower’s gardens were coated with ice. This was the power of that Monster of Winter who took the form of a young boy.
The boy, flitting through the sky without a care in the world, dropped a rain of icicles down below. Rikard swatted them away with his axe and searched for an opening to launch a counterattack.
“…You know, this isn’t going great.”
“It’s so sad… My ‘Eurydice’ isn’t made for this…”
As Helena sobbed, she willed her water magic to form a rope of water that tried to ensnare the Monster. However, said Monster effortlessly floated away from its reach.
Rikard wasn’t suited for aerial combat, and the bubbles from Helena’s ‘Eurydice, the Cackling Foam’ did not move very fast. On top of all that, there were other Monsters surrounding them, so the bubbles would naturally drift off in that direction instead. At least that meant they didn’t have to deal with Lesser Monsters interrupting them, but it wasn’t much help for the main battle.
Monsters that could float around like that were much better targets for Frederik, with all his expertise in flight magic.
Director Haydn and all the others who specialized in flight magic were currently busy dealing with the bird Monsters overhead. Unfortunately, they were too far away to help Rikard and Helena.
The best they could do here would be to withstand the Winter Monster’s onslaught until they could find a way to rendezvous with an ally who could use flight magic.
None of the flight magic users were willing to drop to a low enough altitude yet. All of them stayed up high, unsure of where the limits where the mana density became dangerous.
(But now the crystal contamination has stopped and the vines are sucking up all the mana… I don’t think the mana density is going to be rising any more.)
In that case, they should be fine to go deeper in. With that in mind, Rikard tossed a stone to distract the Winter Monster as he spoke to Helena.
“Helena, I think the mana density has dropped enough. Let’s get moving and meet up with our allies.”
“……Hold on.”
Helena stared to the North with strangely hollow eyes.
With an expression that looked like a priestess receiving a divine oracle, her gaze lingered on the Third Spire: Water Bubble.
“The mana density is… increasing again?”
In response to Helena’s muttering, the Winter Monster giggled.
“A Font of the Abyss is being born. Before you all get swallowed by the Abyss… won’t you give me your warmth?”
Particles of ice sparkled all around the Winter Monster.
The air chilled suddenly and dramatically. Each cloud of white dust floating into the air froze the nearby trees solid.
Realizing that the plan was to freeze them from a distance, Rikard immediately searched for an escape route.
“Helena, we’re getting out of here.”
“Ehehe, you’re too late!”
‘Ah!’ By the time the thought struck him, Rikard’s boots were already frozen to the ground. Helena’s too.
Rikard tried to shatter the ice around his feet with his axe. Despite his efforts, perhaps due to the mana infused in the ice, it didn’t so much as leave a crack. Each grain of ice had a mind of its own, weaving together to keep Rikard and Helena frozen still where they stood.
This was nothing like the ice magecraft humans used. All of this ice was a part of the Monster itself.
(Crap. This Greater Monster isn’t weakened at all…!)
The temperature around them continued to plummet, and before long he lost all sensation in his fingertips. He tried to shake himself for warmth, but his clothes made a crackling sound. They too were frozen solid.
The Monster of Winter smiled from up above where their attacks couldn’t hit him.
“Ehehe, I looove warm ones! Good night!”
“Yeah, good night.”
There was another voice from above the Winter Monster.
In an instant, the Monster’s head exploded into mist. A spear wreathed in howling winds pierced straight through his head.
Even after obliterating that head, the spear continued down, tearing apart the Monster’s torso. In place of blood and gore, particles of ice shimmered in the sunlight as they scattered across the sky.
“Don’t ever wake up again.”
Spitting venomous words of unrestrained hatred stood a lone spearman — Frederik Lange.