Chapter 5

Dwarf of the Snowy Mountain (2)

“Could it still be alive?”

Kaspar prodded it several times with his foot, but Rathead did not move. No—the corpse that had once been Rathead did not move.

“It really is dead.”

Of course it was. There was a massive hole punched through its chest, and it wasn’t even undead.

“This is troublesome.”

Kaspar was genuinely disappointed. Since it was his own spell, he had expected Rathead to withstand at least one hit.

Dejected, Kaspar looked around, but there were no suitable targets on which to test his magic.

Only the headless corpses of the other Beast Walkers lay scattered across the snow.

The situation had been resolved in an instant.

Once Rathead died and the blessings it had bestowed disappeared, the others panicked, lost their morale, and fled.

The slower ones had ended up like this—reduced to headless corpses beneath the dwarves’ axes.

Steam rose from the blood splattered across the snow.

“Hahaha! We owe you a great debt this time.”

Oblivious to Kaspar’s disappointment, the brown-bearded dwarf who had blocked the attack with his shield laughed heartily and pounded him on the back.

“Honestly, I thought you were some kind of idiot. Who would’ve guessed you were a mage? You saved our lives. Hahaha!”

Thump! Thump!

To a dwarf, they were probably just friendly pats. To Kaspar, they felt like blows.

Just as the world was beginning to spin before his eyes, Jacques and the carriage appeared.

“Goodness! So those filthy bastards dug a pitfall and waited for you?”

“…”

“They used their heads surprisingly well for Beast Walkers.”

“…”

“No matter how good a dwarf’s eyesight is, you could never spot a trap buried beneath all this snow. Goodness, you’ve certainly been through a lot.”

“Kaspar, why does this fellow keep talking to us?”

Apparently displeased with Jacques’s constant attempts at conversation, the dwarf who had introduced himself as Wagenhaff spoke bluntly.

“If he wants to talk to us, he can help the next time the Beast Walkers attack first.”

Faced with Wagenhaff’s cold response, Jacques had no choice but to close his mouth.

Still, shouldn’t I be allowed to exchange a few words with them after lending them the carriage?

The carriage was quite cramped with five dwarves packed inside, but Kaspar showed no discomfort as he conversed with them.

Though, in truth, it was closer to Wagenhaff doing all the talking.

At first, the dwarves had been displeased with Jacques and the coachman for pretending not to notice their plight. But after learning that they had returned—albeit belatedly—to help Kaspar, the dwarves allowed them to join the conversation.

“We were transporting firestone to Kal Arak.”

“Firestone? Isn’t that used to make explosives?”

“That’s right. Explosives made from firestone are far more powerful than ordinary explosives, and their strength can be adjusted, making them ideal for expanding mine shafts. We’re planning to enlarge the mines at Kal Arak.”

“Goodness. Kal Arak is a fortress near Wintersteel, isn’t it? Wintersteel will soon be able to receive large quantities of high-quality ore.”

“That’s right—all thanks to Kaspar. Kas-par.”

“Goodness, goodness.”

Of course, that did not mean Wagenhaff was allowing Jacques to participate graciously.

In any case, while the two of them conversed, Kaspar had time to reflect on what had just happened.

What a waste.

He was not someone who normally dwelled on regrets, but this time he could not help feeling disappointed.

He had never intended to kill Rathead so quickly. He had planned to maintain a suitable standoff while thoroughly extracting every spell the rat-headed creature possessed.

I didn’t expect its chest to be pierced in a single hit.

Rathead had been wearing thick leather clothes, and its body had looked as sturdy as one would expect from a monster, so Kaspar had cast the spell without concern.

Nothing in this world ever goes according to plan.

Still, he had not come away empty-handed.

He had acquired four of Rathead’s spells.

Claws of the Wild.

Thorns of Hatred.

Swamp Fireball.

Corpse Mist.

“…”

And even the skull staff Rathead had wielded.

Its appearance was strange—grotesque, even—yet Kaspar neither feared it nor found it repulsive.

If anything, he felt strangely drawn to it. Kaspar reached out and grasped the staff.

I wanted to learn the spell that strengthened the Beast Walkers’ muscles too.

But he had been too distracted by Wagenhaff to observe it properly.

Even so, there was no denying that he had profited greatly.

He had simply wanted to wring every last drop out of Rathead.

“By the way, which Magic Tower do you belong to?”

Kaspar raised his head. Wagenhaff had finished talking to Jacques and was now watching him with subtle interest.

“A Magic Tower?”

“That’s right. I belong to the Black Iron Guild of Kal Arak Fortress. You appear to be a remarkably skilled mage. I intended to send a formal letter of gratitude to your Magic Tower later, so tell me which one you belong to.”

“I don’t belong to one.”

“You don’t…?”

The brown-bearded Wagenhaff looked puzzled for a moment, then smiled gently as understanding dawned on him.

“Ah, are you an unaffiliated mage? A back-alley mage, perhaps? Or a street mage? You seem extremely talented, so I assume there must be some reason you never joined a Magic Tower.”

“That isn’t it either.”

“Hmm?”

“I’m neither a back-alley mage nor a street mage.”

“Hmm…? Then what do you mean?”

“Well…”

Kaspar gave Wagenhaff a rough explanation of his circumstances. Wagenhaff nodded.

“…Remarkable. To think you have yet to receive any formal instruction. I was certain you were a mage from a Magic Tower. Hmm. I had hoped to repay you properly later, so that is unfortunate.”

“Your gratitude alone is enough.”

Wagenhaff waved his hand dismissively.

“No, no. A debt must be properly acknowledged. In that case, I’ll have to repay you here and now, inadequate though it may be.”

Wagenhaff slipped a hand inside his clothes and pulled out something gleaming.

“What is this?”

Resting on the dwarf’s thick palm were three glittering gold coins.

Strangely, silver had been inlaid diagonally across them in a fine, comb-like pattern.

Even Kaspar, who knew nothing about craftsmanship, could tell that the coins had been minted with extraordinary precision.

“They’re Tokens of Remembrance.”

“Tokens of Remembrance?”

Wagenhaff smiled and stroked his beard.

“We dwarves never forget a debt or a grudge. If you examine these Tokens of Remembrance closely, you’ll see that ‘Black Iron Guild’ is engraved inside them. Can you see it?”

It was exactly as he said. The name of the Black Iron Guild had been engraved in incredibly fine lettering along the bottom of each coin.

The craftsmanship was so astonishingly intricate that none but a dwarf could have even attempted it.

“Kaspar, you are the benefactor who saved my life, my property, and my reputation. If you ever present one of these tokens as payment and ask for assistance, the Black Iron Guild will never turn you away.”

Wagenhaff’s voice was filled with goodwill.

Kaspar bowed his head.

“Thank you.”

“We’re the ones who should be thanking you. And you said you were going to Wintersteel, didn’t you? Take this as well.”

Wagenhaff then held out a thin iron plate.

“It’s a travel permit issued by the Black Iron Guild. I originally brought it along as a precaution, but since you’re headed to Wintersteel, I hope it proves useful.”

The words Black Iron Guild were inscribed on the iron plate, which gave off a subtle black sheen.

“Hmm… I appreciate the gesture, but we already have a travel permit given to us by our lord.”

“Ha! Unless your permit was personally issued by the human emperor, this one will be more useful. Take it with you.”

Jacques nudged Kaspar in the side.

He was clearly urging him to accept it quickly.

“Then… thank you.”

“Hahaha! I told you to stop saying what we should be saying!”

Once the dwarves had warmed themselves sufficiently, they climbed out of the carriage.

“Then I hope we meet again, Kaspar. May your journey to Wintersteel be a comfortable one.”

Wagenhaff continued smiling warmly.

At that moment, Jacques approached, rubbing his hands together.

“Um… Lord Wagenhaff… Might I receive something as well?”

“What did you do?”

“Didn’t I provide you with a carriage so you could warm yourselves in this bitter cold?”

“Ah, that’s true. Here you are.”

Two copper coins dropped into the eagerly smiling Jacques’s palm.

“…”

“Do you have a complaint?”

Then what was this strange stiffness Kaspar sensed from Jacques?

After their brief but heartwarming encounter came to an end, the carriage picked up speed.

Kaspar glanced at Jacques.

His demeanor felt strange. He appeared the same as always, yet something was subtly different. He seemed nervous—or perhaps troubled by something.

Is he still bothered by the way Mr. Wagenhaff rejected him?

But on second thought, that could not be it.

Thanks to Jacques’s persistent efforts, he had managed to secure a promise from one of Wagenhaff’s fellow dwarves—not Wagenhaff himself—to bring a merchant caravan to the Dantert territory in the future. There was no reason for him to be particularly upset.

Two days after parting with Wagenhaff, the carriage finally arrived at Wintersteel.

“Wow.”

Looking down at Wintersteel from above, Kaspar exclaimed in pure amazement.

The carriage was halfway down the snowy mountain. Beyond the steel walls, castles and buildings towered into the sky, shining brilliantly beneath the sunlight.

“It’s enormous.”

Kaspar had spent his entire life in a remote monastery near a small village. The dazzling majesty of a vast city capable of easily containing a dozen such villages was an entirely new shock to him.

“Wintersteel… the northern city of the Empire.”

Kaspar murmured as he stared at it, entranced.

“That’s right. It’s also known as the City of Ice and Steel,” Jacques said.

The carriage descended along the mountain road.

Following the main thoroughfare, the carriage carrying the two of them approached the city entrance. Countless people were already lined up to enter.

“To defend this place…?”

“Defend it? What does that mean?” Kaspar asked Jacques.

“They’re refugee soldiers.”

“Refugee soldiers?”

“That’s right. The city gathers vagrants, prisoners, and runaway slaves, gives them basic weapons, and makes them live outside the walls. They’re issued just enough food to keep them from dying. And because it is quite literally only enough to keep them alive, they’re always begging like that.”

Beyond the towering city walls stood shabby huts and tents. People lined both sides of the road, stretching out their hands like beggars.

“Mercy… Please, I’m starving!”

“Please! Even a single copper coin!”

“We’ll defend this place with our lives, so please spare us just one piece of bread!”

Kaspar’s gaze momentarily lost focus as he realized what Jacques meant.

“‘Refugee soldiers’ is merely a pleasant name for them. In reality, they’re human shields—nothing more and nothing less. They’re there to buy time whenever monsters or barbarians invade. I’ve heard they’re sometimes hired for disposable labor as well. For vermin like them, I suppose this could be considered merciful treatment.”

Kaspar spotted a brother and sister among them. They could not have been any older than he was.

The two stood beside the road, clutching scraps of coarse cloth around themselves as though they were warm furs, even though they offered no protection from the cold. They stared at Kaspar in the carriage with lifeless eyes.

Eventually, the carriage passed through the refugee soldiers’ settlement and reached the entrance.

“Halt. Where have you come from?”

The guards blocking the main gate radiated vigilance.

Kaspar and Jacques climbed down from the carriage, and Kaspar presented the travel permit issued by the Black Iron Guild.

“Hmm? Ah, you’ve come from the Black Iron Guild. Go right in.”

The guards’ attitudes changed immediately.

Beside them was a long queue of people who were still waiting despite having presented their own travel permits. Some openly glared at Kaspar and Jacques.

They arrived after us. Why are they being allowed in already?

However, when the guards looked back at them as if asking whether they had any complaints, they hurriedly turned their heads away.

“The Black Iron Guild must be quite influential,” Jacques remarked casually.

The guard nodded.

“The Black Iron Guild has traded with this city for many years. Normally, first-time visitors must wait at least half a day even if they possess a travel permit. But the Black Iron Guild is different. They can be trusted, so we dispense with the bothersome identity checks.”

“Hmm. So it’s an established custom.”

“You could say that. Credit is another form of trust.”

“As a former merchant, I wholeheartedly agree with that.”

No wonder Mr. Wagenhaff was so confident about it.

Kaspar watched the guards’ transformed attitudes with fascination.

Thanks to the permit, they had saved a considerable amount of time.

“Wait inside, and someone will come for you. This is as far as I accompany you.”

After finishing his conversation with the guard, Jacques handed Kaspar a letter of introduction and three silver coins.

“What are these?”

“A special allowance granted to you by our lord. Be grateful for it.”

At the monastery, the tithe collected from an ordinary adult man amounted to two copper coins. In other words, an adult man’s monthly income was approximately two silver coins.

Holding the substantial sum of three silver coins, Kaspar bowed his head.

“Thank you.”

“…And Kaspar.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t reveal it indiscriminately.”

“…?”

“I’m telling you not to openly reveal that you can replicate magic the instant you see it—or even that you possess such an ability at all.”

“Why not?”

Kaspar raised his head at Jacques’s warning. Jacques’s expression had become unusually serious.

“This may be presumptuous meddling on my part, but if you truly can see those patterns… if you can really see them… then take my advice and hide your talent.”

Before continuing, Jacques briefly recalled the past two days he had spent being repeatedly dumbfounded by Kaspar.

That absurd talent…

He had already heard what had happened at the monastery.

However, he had never believed the part about Kaspar copying the hostile mage’s spell and immediately returning it to him.

Jacques was not a mage and naturally knew little about magic. However, during his days as a merchant, some of his clients had been mages. Through the drunken ramblings he had heard while entertaining them, he had acquired a basic understanding of how magic worked.

According to what they said, Kaspar copied his opponent’s spell formula.

That was why Jacques had been unable to believe it.

A mage drew in the mana that permeated the world, refined it according to its flow with an activation phrase, processed it through their own spell formula, and then released it.

Utter nonsense. And if he supposedly saw it floating in the air, that makes it even more ridiculous.

Kaspar certainly possessed magical talent—the corpses of the cultists had been real, after all. But Jacques had assumed that the claim had been either a hallucination brought on by the urgency of the situation or a modest exaggeration on Kaspar’s part.

If it had truly happened, Kaspar should have seen the spell formula itself, not some inexplicable pattern.

That was what Jacques had believed.

Or rather, what he had believed.

Even when two mages used the same activation phrase, their spell formulas were different.

That was because each formula reflected the caster’s understanding of the spell, their personal experience, and the unique adaptations they had developed as a result.

At least, Jacques had believed that until Kaspar replicated the Beast Walker’s magic.

A spell formula was the culmination of everything an individual mage had accumulated regarding a particular spell—their own proprietary knowledge.

For Kaspar to copy it meant that the other mage must have exposed their spell formula to him.

And not some half-baked mage, but one from the Imperial Capital’s Magic Tower?

The thought made Jacques’s head spin.

This time, he had witnessed it clearly with his own two eyes.

A Beast Walker was a monster, yet Kaspar had reproduced the monster’s spell immediately after seeing it cast.

So it was all true?

It was a talent that defied common sense.

That changed everything.

If the mages of the Magic Towers learned of it, they would come running with bloodshot eyes—whether to protect their own magic or steal the magic of others.

If that happened, Kaspar’s future was obvious.

No matter how terrifying his talent might be, he was still nothing more than an inexperienced boy from the rural territory of Dantert.

Mages—especially high-ranking members of a Magic Tower—overwhelmingly surpassed the young Kaspar in connections, experience, and magical artifacts.

If they truly wanted to, kidnapping a boy who possessed nothing but talent would be effortless.

If that happens, he’ll spend the rest of his life imprisoned as a test subject. Even in the best possible scenario, he’ll become a Magic Tower’s pawn. They’ll drain everything from him down to the marrow and discard him once he’s no longer useful.

“Mages are greedy creatures. That never changes, regardless of which Magic Tower they belong to. There’s nothing wrong with displaying your talent, but you should keep your copying ability a secret—at least until you’re capable of protecting yourself.”

As a retainer, Jacques did not want to stand by and allow such a fate to befall Kaspar, who had received the chance to begin a new life through their lord’s kindness.

“I understand.”

“…Then may fortune accompany you on your journey, Kaspar Hauser, Mage of Dantert.”