Chapter 84 - Threat and Response, Cause and Consequence
That single remark caught us completely off guard. Light streamed through the narrow window of the office, casting its glow upon him. For a fleeting moment, it felt as if we were witnessing the descent of some divine emissary.
“Hey... this thing’s a serpent-type magical beast, right?”
“It is. What of it?”
“Then why not freeze it? No, even just lowering the ambient temperature should be enough.”
“...What?”
“Serpent-type beasts are fundamentally susceptible to cold. Even if the creature has undergone a ‘metamorphosis,’ its core instincts—those traits inherent to its base species—remain unchanged. You do know that serpents are cold-blooded, right? When it gets cold, they can’t move. And listen... hey, you.” He turned to my adjutant. “Let’s say the bit viper underwent a ‘metamorphosis’ and mutated from a ‘magical beast’ into a full ‘monster.’ Try to guess—what sort of creature would it become?”
Suddenly, My Friend’s words took on the tone of a sharp interrogation. My adjutant, normally a man who considered his words carefully, was so caught off guard that, for once, he spoke without thinking.
“The lair was found near the deepest watch post in the Shallow Forest. That area still retains a high concentration of subterranean toxins. We’ve done what we could to neutralize them, but... it’s far from complete. Over time it’ll dissipate, but for now, I believe it’s still heavily contaminated underground. After all, that’s the site where we buried the corpses of cyclopes—a giant-class species. Even its blood is poisonous to humans. A metamorphosis triggered by a sudden surge of mana, surrounded by miasma and toxins... In that environment... wait. Of course—a hydra!”
“Well, if the environment’s thick with poison and miasma, it’d lean that way, yeah. So that’s where we’re heading. Now then... what would be effective against it?”
“Holy water... that would do it.”
“And the enchantment on the bullets used by the guerilla unit—what was it again?”
“Holy Water Summon.”
“Then all we’d need to do is freeze it, douse it in holy water, and it’s neutralized.”
“Wait, that’s... that kind of plan—could it really work? You mean to say we could neutralize a hydra like that? No, not just neutralize it... you’re saying we could slay it?!”
“Neither spell is particularly advanced. The only real challenge is that the caster needs to have internal mana reserves equivalent to a marquis. But my dear friend—when he develops magitech tools, he builds them not to draw power from the mage’s own reserves. So the answer is right in front of us. It’s simple, really. Why not start by choosing what medium to inscribe the spell onto, hmm?”
My Friend’s brilliance—both genius and eccentric—conjured vivid images from the map before us. He blended existing “knowledge” that we took as common sense with the details of the guerilla unit’s magical equipment, and through a kind of mental alchemy, produced a solution that was both low-risk and highly effective. I was dumbfounded. And before I could recover, he threw another question my way.
“You mentioned something earlier... about cyclopes. What was that about?”
“...It’s not a matter fit for public discussion.”
“Oh, come on. It’s just the three of us here—you, me, and your adjutant. And if you tell me to keep quiet, I won’t say a word. As a magitech engineer, it’s my duty to uphold confidentiality to the death. So talk. Without full information, I can’t make an accurate threat assessment. Hidden risks translate directly into danger for the soldiers who serve you loyally.”
“...That may be true. But the matter is bound under a secrecy pact with His Excellency the Chancellor. I can’t disclose it lightly.”
“Then give me just the essentials. The fact that something was buried. What was buried, how much, and what was left behind. If I know the local conditions, my speculation will be far more accurate. I won’t ask why it came to that.”
“...Very well. If it’s only the circumstances on-site and the plain facts, that falls outside the secrecy clause I agreed upon with His Excellency. But I will report this to him. I’ll tell you what you need to know—but I’d ask you not to speak of it elsewhere. If that’s acceptable, I’ll share.”
“Agreed. Now talk.”
I relented to My Friend’s forceful persuasion. The ‘solution’ he presented had been so clear, so elegantly simple, that I had been overwhelmed.
The explanation was kept brief. The area in question lay close to where we had once responded during the Imperial invasion—near the clearing just below the waterfall. After the battle, we hadn’t simply left the carcasses of the large monsters to rot. We had needed to build a watch post above the falls, and after allowing some time to pass, we finally returned to deal with the remains of those massive monsters and beasts.
There was no trace of the Imperial soldiers left—well, to clarify, no living Imperial soldiers. The entire area had fallen into decay and filth. The once-pure air of the forest had been scattered, and when we saw the gruesome scene of poison seeping from the corpses of monsters, it filled us with a profound sense of despair. If left unattended, the environment around the falls would have been irreparably altered. We had to act quickly—to purify the land and renew it.
Our first priority was to extract the magic stones from the cyclops corpses. Fifteen bodies lay scattered, each heavy, shrouded in miasma, and partially decomposed. Even their blood had turned to venom. The task was far from easy. In the end, we weren’t able to recover stones from all fifteen. Some of the corpses were so far gone—bent grotesquely, already crumbling into toxic mounds—that they’d begun spreading miasma and poison into the surrounding area.
Using anti-toxin spells, we managed to recover a total of nine magic stones from the cyclopes. Six were unrecoverable.
The Forest Striders, twenty-five of them, presented fewer complications. Being a semi-crustacean species, they had little actual flesh. However, their magic stones were located near the head, and only thirteen of the twenty-five yielded intact stones. The remaining twelve were shattered. Still, the fact that we could recover the fragments at all made them preferable to the cyclops remains.
As for the materials from these giant monsters and magical beasts—we had no choice but to abandon them. Too much time had passed; decay had spread everywhere. Even the engineering corps agreed it was impossible to process or transport the remains. We had no choice but to destroy them on site.
We gathered those who could wield earth magic. Each cyclops was buried in its own deep, wide pit. The Forest Striders, being smaller, were buried in groups. Into each pit, we threw magical crystals etched with amplification runes, fearing that the toxins might otherwise seep into the groundwater. Then, I cast my own meager beginner-level flame spell atop them.
The flame, amplified by the runes within the magic crystal, erupted into a mid-level wide-area conflagration. The corpses of magic beasts and monsters alike were reduced to ash within the holes. Even so, some charred remains lingered. For those, we entrusted their return to nature, drawing upon the power of the earth. I lacked the internal mana needed to perform a total incineration spell.
Once the burning was complete, we buried what was left deep in the soil. In the contaminated areas, we attempted purification using the Holy Water Summon spell—and succeeded. Slowly, the Demonic Forest began to return to its original, clear purity. Of course, it would take time. All we’d really done was drastically shorten the process. But that too was part of our responsibility—those who had defiled the forest. I remember complaining then—cursing how the Empire always left us with such damn messes to clean up.
...And now, this situation could well be called a lingering consequence of that very incident.
My Friend listened quietly the entire time. A faint glimmer of intellect lit his eyes. Knowing him—this self-proclaimed genius—he had likely pieced together the full picture just from the rumors circulating in the royal capital and the story I had now told him. Yet he didn’t comment. He merely acted as if he had only asked what he needed to know. Not just a genius, My Friend possessed deep insight. I was certain that, in his mind, he had already deduced exactly what had transpired in the Demonic Forest. And yet, he never once pressed me for the cause. He focused only on learning what we had done.
That, I believed, was his way of... showing consideration—a deliberate effort not to place any additional burden on me.
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