Chapter 150 - Episode Twenty-Four - Alchemy Division (6)
“Abel, Abel! Are you okay!?”
“So…… somehow……”
I hear Mea call out to me and I struggle to stay conscious.
The unexpectedly large number of stagnant clouds around us, and the cloud cover was too effective, resulting in a torrential downpour.
I managed to dissipate and adjust it with magic, but even so, it will likely take a little longer for the heavy rain to stop its momentum.
Rinoa and others have prepared an umbrella and lent me a spare one, but the rain was too horrendous to completely prevent it.
The heat from my body is being lost in the heavy rain.
The cold air was definitely taking its toll on my strength.
If Mea hadn’t lent me her shoulder, I would have been knocked down by the raindrops.
“I, it’s cold……really cold……”
Unlike me, the sorcerers were in quite good spirits.
“It’s raining! Ahaha, it’s really raining!”
“That guy, Icarus is going to be very disappointed! I have to be the first to see his face when I get back!”
…… Why are those people so energetic?
I thought sorcerers were all more frail people, but is it just me?
I wave my wand at the empty space.
“Carry”
A magic circle floats and a large black Ortem appears.
It is the familiar Asura 5000 every time.
I remove my arm from Mea and enter the mouth of the Asura 5000.
There is a small amount of empty space inside the Asura 5000.
In this place, the rain and wind won’t hit me.
“Abel…?”
“Deploy Barrier”
The Asura 5000 clads a warm light.
With that, the temperature inside rises as well.
I’m sorry that I’m the only one who is completely defenseless, but I’m going to back in this state.
I put the Asura 5000 into automatic mode as it is and headed to the village in the Fage territory with the Alchemy Division.
Being in a lukewarm Ortem with a wet body has a terrible feeling, but it should be much better than walking out in this heavy rain.
Combined with the rattling and shaking, though, it wasn’t very pleasant.
Next time I’ll carve an Ortem that scrapes the ground and does constant velocity motion.
“…… Oh, Rinoa-san.”
On the way home, I called Rinoa from inside the Asura 5000.
Rinoa approached and peeked at me through the mouth of the Asura 5000, somewhat alarmed.
“What?”
Rinoa frowned slightly and continued in a whisper, “It is somewhat warm……”.
“No, I just wanted to make sure that you didn’t spread the word too much, if possible, that there might be someone from the outside planning something in the Fage territory.”
I said in a hushed voice so the others wouldn’t hear me.
Rinoa seemed to be dimly aware that there was an obstruction to the cloud gathering magic.
Seeing that blatant movement of the clouds would have been completely corroborated.
“If you look at that sky, it wouldn’t be surprising if a residents with good instincts would have started to notice it, though?”
“I want you to keep moving while hiding it as much as possible. There’s a guy I personally suspect, and if I’m right, it’s a bit tricky. He’s in a position where you don’t know what he’s going to do if you track him down badly. I’d rather let him swim and get him to run away voluntarily, or if I’m going to kill him, I want to kill him all at once.”
“…… Who’s that?”
“I don’t want to talk about it yet, because I’m only suspicious of it personally, and if it’s off and spreads badly, it’s going to be a big problem. Also…… I want you to keep it from the lord, too.”
I can’t specify what kind of process it was, but there is no doubt that the operation decided between the lord and the private army was leaked in advance.
That’s why the rendezvous point was targeted by Hamelin.
It might have just been leaked by accident, but it’s not necessarily true that the enemy hasn’t sneaked into the people on the lord’s side.
“…………”
Rinoa was silent for a bit, but said, “Okay. I’ll tell the members of the group accordingly,” she replied.
Maybe I gained some trust with my achievements earlier.
When I returned to the village, the residents had gathered under their umbrellas.
Although the rain is beginning to show the effects of the adjustment and is getting better, I’m surprised that so many people have gathered in this weather.
Everyone’s expressions are uniformly bright.
“Rinoa’s party is back!”
“I knew they’d send it down! They finally did it!”
I can’t see much of what’s going on outside, but there are cheers, often mixed in with praise for Rinoa.
It was probably because Icarus had pushed Rinoa and the others to beg for rain and spread the word to evade responsibility, so it was easy to see who it was that had achieved the opposite.
“With the help of this person…… This person……”
Rinoa broke off the words she was about to say.
She seemed to be confused, or rather, hesitating about something.
I can’t see what’s going on outside, so I’m not sure what’s bothering her.
Wondering what has happened, I bend down and try to get my head out of the Asura 5000.
“Person…?” “Instead of a person, it’s…… what, a person?”
“What’s that creepy doll.”
“That’s the God of War who saved my life!”
…… I’ve got a pretty good idea.
I quickly pulled myself out of the Asura 5000.
“Uh … can someone bring an umbrella for me?”
As if in response to my call, a large figure pushes the other residents away from the other residents and comes forward.
The residents who were knocked down by his violent hand try to complain, but when they see the figure, they hold their mouths in their hands and shut up.
It was a man who looked familiar to me as well.
It was Icarus, the leader of the Alchemy Division.
I thought he might be in a very bad mood, but his face was wrinkled and he was making a big smile.
It’s uncanny.
With the crony sorcerers behind him, quickly approached us.
“Oohhhhh! Excellent! I didn’t know you could pull off the cloud gathering magic that was so difficult to pull off! To let one drifter add to your success, well…my lack of education seems to have been highlighted, so unworthy…don’t you think so, Deputy Commander Rinoa?”
Icarus says in a loud voice.
The atmosphere is getting worse even for the residents who were in a cheerful mood just now.
“But with all that continued drought…… and the way the clouds have been flowing…… we should have expected it to start falling soon, even if we didn’t do anything about it…… but that’s not the point! This is definitely something to be celebrated! “
The heat that had dominated the place had almost cooled off.
I’ve never seen Icarus’ magic skills, so I can’t say for sure, but I’ve often reminded myself that his harassment is top-notch for now.
Dragging this guy down in a short period of time is going to be harder than I thought.
If we move forcibly, if they all die, it is likely to leave us with a great deal of trouble.
No matter how much success we try to achieve, it’s unbearable if we’re crushed like this every time.
The majority of the residents are not very knowledgeable about sorcery, so in the end, they’ll be misled by the authoritative Icarus after the fact.
This is a place where people have gathered.
I want to make some kind of an opening to take advantage of them.
“…… You say it well, even though you didn’t want to suffer the responsibility until now, and you’ve been pushing it on Rinoa-san.”
I say as I crawl out of the Asura 5000.
The rain hits my body.
Mea quickly moves to my side and holds the umbrella out to me.
“Hmm?’ I pushed it on Rinoa? Hahahaha! That’s how you heard it all! Look, I’m busy providing water for my people with magic and developing new crops. This one is more pressing, after all. But you’ve screwed up so much…… and now you’re telling me that I’m the one who forced you to do it, Rinoa-dono! Really, I’m not impressed……”
Icarus said, looking back at his crony sorcerers.
They, too, were ministering to Icarus and directing disgusting sorts of laughter at Rinoa.
Rinoa’s subordinate sorcerers look at me and desperately gesture to me to step back.
“Abel-dono! I know what you’re thinking, but you’d better step back……”
Indeed, it’s going to be difficult to win over Icarus’ cryptic old man with his mouth.
But if I don’t prepare here, I won’t be able to deal with a short-term conclusion.
I bit my lip as if to say that I couldn’t hold back my regrets, and then I lash out again.
“You, you think it’s going to take that long!? That…… development of the crops. I’m not very bright on that side of things, so I don’t really know, but……”
At first, he was enthusiastic, and then in the middle of his speech, he weakened his tone slightly.
One moment Icarus’ mouth seemed to loosen up, and the next moment it changed to a form of anger.
“If you don’t know better, then you should keep your mouth shut! Are you insulting me? Is it strange that it takes so long to develop a crop? Huh?”
Icarus bent my words arbitrarily and repeated them.
I didn’t say it was strange.
“If we could develop crops that could be grown so easily and efficiently, we’d have the whole world covered! Spawning new species through magic is…… an alchemy that violates the realm of the gods, you know? Are you trying to be a god or something! Not only does it require an in-depth knowledge of magical formulas, but also of the natural world! With my knowledge, which is called “wise”, I can finally get to the starting line! But it’s a lot of trial and error, making even more vast hypotheses out of vast amounts of knowledge and considering every possible outcome from that! Since plants grow slowly, it also takes time to know the results. This kind of alchemy difficulty is mentioned in various books, from history books to grimoire books, yet……”
Icarus yells at me loudly.
I’m so surprised that I forget to return the words and listen, stunned.
“Are you saying… that this taking a long time is strange? It is your head that is strange. Are you really a magician? I mean, what have you been doing in your life? Ohhhh…… this, this…… haaa~…… You picked up Nalgarn’s head, and you also helped thinning out the magic beast, so I would have thought you would be more or less competent…… but your awareness of magic is shallow, shallow, and your knowledge of magic and your fundamental knowledge of it is also very poor…… Haaa~……”
The way you say that I picked up the head, implies that “you didn’t ‘beat it, did you?” It seemed as if he was trying to say that.
Rather than being suspicious himself, it seemed that his purpose was to guide the residents thinking towards such suspicion.
“N, no, um……”
“Oh, enough, enough, don’t talk. Haaaa~……”
Icarus shows his disappointment to the residents, turns his body around, and leaves.
The sorcerers following him and his cronies follow him.
“Really, as a fellow sorcerer, it is embarrassing right, Icarus-sama.”
“There’s a big difference between a sorcerer who can adjust his magic circle as he pleases and a sorcerer who can’t, but I wouldn’t expect him to be this ignorant.”
He left with sarcasm until the very end.
The gazes of the residents pierces me.
…… The worst atmosphere in this place, what shall I do?
One of Rinoa’s subordinate sorcerers, Jaguar, lightly touched me on the shoulder.
“Abel-dono, I know can understand you’re upset of him, but there’s no way in hell you can win against him. If you argue with him, this is what will happen.”
Jaguar’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile as if he has experienced it before.
“That way, it’s always a good idea to create an opening with an exchange of sarcasm and then yell at them to take away the pace.”
I knew that deliberate yelling was an act.
When I feigned weakness, the corners of his mouth smiled, so I knew I was suspicious.
“…… Really, he was a jerk. But for Abel, he pulled off early. From Mea’s point of view, I felt that Abel would be a bit more angry if it was about magic…… no, I didn’t want you to stick around.”
I held back, too.
Earlier, I dared to create an opening in order to get a word out of Icarus.
I didn’t expect him to hit me so hard here and there, but the more he said it, the more convenient it was, so I wasn’t too upset.
“”It wasn’t a waste of time. I did my best to keep my word.”
“Oh? your word…… what do you mean?”
If you can’t win with your mouth, you can move with the assumption that you’re going to lose.
I figured that if I could see a winner, if I didn’t think it was a land mine, they would pounce on me.
I deliberately acted as if I had no knowledge of the development of new crops in magic in my earlier argument.
Icarus, on the other hand, took the opportunity to explain to me how difficult it is to create new seeds through magic.
“Tomorrow, we will develop a new crop before Icarus’ group does.”
Crop development is the last fort of Icarus’ authority.
Lark, as I recall, had said it that way.
It is because of the challenge of crop development, which is the hope of the people of the territory, that all the previous behavior has been tolerated.
If this point is broken, Icarus’ faction and support will collapse.
The promised date for handing over Nalgarn is the day after tomorrow.
The only way to deprive Icarus of his authority before then is to ripen the crop development by the end of tomorrow.
In order to eliminate any excuses, I asked Icarus to tell us how difficult it would be to develop the crops, and by the same token, I asked him to clarify our rivalry.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t completely pissed off too, so I’ll let him suffer through the consequences of his own words.
“W-Whaaaaat!? Tomorrow!?”
Hearing my words, the sorcerers of Rinoa’s faction are all surprised to hear my words in unison.
For now, I’m worried about the gazes of the residents and the rain, so I quietly go into the mouth of Asura 5000 and hide.
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