Chapter 73: The Fourth Force
“The seriousness ends here.”
Ascal declared. Sushia turned her head with a puzzled look, wondering why he suddenly changed his tune.
“This isn’t the way to Windwall, is it?”
“Sushia.”
“…?”
He had been swayed by this dream-like reality until now, but no more.
“I get what you were trying to show me. It must have been hard to outright say that the Duke’s family were traitors, and the dragons too.”
“What are you talking about all of a sudden? Are you possessed by a demon?”
“I’ve seen all I needed to in this dream. From now on, I live for myself.”
People had become strange suddenly. Sushia seriously considered whether she should run away now.
“I have a friend. And a beloved horse, too.”
“I understand less and less, Ascal.”
“First, we find Fer.”
Ascal had raised Fer for a long time.
He knew what environments Fer liked, and what food he preferred.
Of course, he couldn’t be sure if Fer would be there.
He was just trusting his luck.
‘If I fail, I might as well kill myself.’
****
“Neigh!”
Ascal found him. Fer was hiding in a carrot field near the empire. He often used to stroll to this area.
“Ah, you’ve gotten so skinny. Poor thing.”
The carrot field had been devastated by the war. Fer was hiding there, abandoned.
Ascal held out a bunch of carrots he had brought.
Trembling, Fer slowly approached and ate the carrots.
Ascal gently stroked Fer’s head to make him less afraid.
‘Originally, Sirius would have found this guy and ridden him in the battle of Windwall… But now he’s mine. I can’t hand him over to anyone.’
Three-quarter time, stroke with the grain to the left.
It was Fer’s favorite way to be petted.
Fer seemed puzzled.
He didn’t understand how this human, whom he was seeing for the first time, could be so familiar with the exact way he liked to be petted, almost like a petting master.
“Right. Here’s your carrot.”
Sushia held out a carrot.
Fer kicked it away with his front hoof.
“Yikes! Why my carrot!”
“You didn’t shake off the dirt. Fer is sensitive about that.”
Having eaten his fill of carrots for the first time in a while, Fer made a content little whinny and bowed slightly, enough for someone to mount him.
He had acknowledged Ascal as his master.
“Mount up, Sushia. Next, we head to the Kingdom of Kelli.”
“Why there?”
The wings of the Pegasus unfolded grandly. Sushia was taken aback.
“We’re flying!”
“While I struggle, there’s someone out there sucking honey in peace. I can’t just leave him be.”
The battle of Windwall was still a bit away.
With a new means of high-speed transport, Ascal used the power of flight. Their destination: the Kingdom of Kelli.
****
“Ah, bliss. This is what life’s about.”
The hot springs of Kelli Kingdom.
A young man relaxed in the bath, a tray floating on the water beside him.
And then, a sip of liquor.
“Kiyaahaa!”
Sometimes, moments like this brought back memories of years ago in the empire.
A ridiculous streak of luck had everyone calling him a divine inventor, a genius, a saint.
But Bernstein knew better.
Easily gained fame is just as easily lost. And it was clear that the empire was on the brink of collapse.
He couldn’t sink with a failing ship.
Bernstein had been planning since then.
While pretending to proceed with an airship plan commissioned by the empire, he created a golem to serve as his double.
The airship would crash, and the golem would be executed in his stead. Meanwhile, Bernstein would enjoy a peaceful retirement in the Kingdom of Kelli.
He changed his voice deliberately and shaved his mustache clean. Not even his relatives could recognize him now.
“You look good, Bernstein.”
“You must be mistaken. My name isn’t Bernstein.”
“You looked better with a mustache.”
Still, there were occasionally annoying people who recognized him.
Bernstein looked up at the other person.
Bernstein broke out in a cold sweat.
“Are you the devil from the empire? Have you come to capture me?”
The man with black hair flashed a grin.
He was the infamous “Devil of the Empire” who could stop a crying child with just a look.
After Yulia Barba, the empire’s tyrant, he was the next in power and her right-hand man.
There was no escaping this situation, no matter how much Bernstein tried to feign ignorance.
Bernstein looked around frantically for the emergency smoke bomb he had prepared for such moments.
“Looking for this?”
“How did you—!”
“Did you think I wouldn’t know your patterns? It’s obvious.”
The Devil of the Empire chuckled as he toyed with the smoke bomb in his hand.
Bernstein swallowed hard.
“How did you know I was at this hot spring?”
“We’re cut from the same cloth. I would have done the same, relaxing here in the hot springs.”
“It’s baffling. We’ve never even spoken, yet you seem to know me so well…”
Bernstein hadn’t given up yet. Though the smoke bomb was taken, he still had one last resort.
He couldn’t just be dragged off by the empire’s devil now that he had found freedom.
“I’m not here to capture you.”
“And why should I believe that?”
“Don’t you want to build a giant golem, Bernstein?”
Ascal knew well the joy Bernstein felt when he acquired the rainbow stone in the north, how he’d gleefully locked himself in his lab.
Ascal had visited, curious about his activities, and Bernstein, excited, had shown him the blueprints.
“Look at this, Ascal. A giant golem. This is why I became an inventor. It was an impossible plan, but with the rainbow stone you provided...”
He was truly an engineer with a pure heart.
“Did you snoop around my lab? Hmph. Such a thing is but a fantasy. It’s beyond human capability to create.”
“Because there’s no rainbow stone, right?”
“Exactly. How could one find such a mythical substance?”
“But what if it could be found?”
“Ha, such bluster. If you find it, I’ll be your son.”
Ascal pulled a rainbow stone from his pocket.
Bernstein’s eyes bulged.
“Father!!! How!!!”
“I did a little bartering.”
Just then, a petite girl with white hair emerged from behind Ascal’s legs.
She reached eagerly for the orb Ascal held.
“Give it back, give it back, I just put it down to nap. My orb, sob.”
Ascal patted the girl’s head.
“I found the rainbow stone, so I’ll return the orb if you help me out a bit more.”
“Really? You’re not lying?”
“Of course.”
Ascal handed Bernstein the rainbow stone.
“Can you make it? The giant golem.”
“Do you think a giant golem can be made just like that, with only a rainbow stone? It requires ample time and facilities...”
“You have your lab here too, right?”
Bernstein nodded as if surrendering.
“Yes. But it will take at least a year. That’s only possible because I have some pre-made parts for tinkering.”
“We will make it in a week.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
Ascal grinned, looking toward where the white-haired girl stood.
“A week that feels like a year should do.”
****
“Kraaaaak! Save me!”
Bernstein screamed in agony within his laboratory, the sound of a man being literally torn apart in real time.
Ascal had recently discovered something. If the Cloud Dragon could stop time, then the White Dragon could slow it down drastically. And in this slowed time, Bernstein was being thoroughly dissected.
“You really are a genius, Bernstein.”
Ascal acknowledged him. The empire truly needed Bernstein.
He could never let him go.
****
In the Dark Room.
The leader of the Spider smiled.
“The moment has come when our long-held plans bear sweet fruit.”
They had waited for a very long time, carefully concealing their identities, just for the empire’s downfall.
“Everyone has done remarkably well. Seventh Leg, the assassin. You splendidly assassinated the Minister of Magic.”
A masked shadow nodded in the dark.
“And the Forger has dragged the empire’s reputation through the mud.”
A figure with one leg missing chuckled coldly.
“Witch, you are truly cruel. Using even your own children for revenge. The dispute between the two princesses has pushed the empire across a point of no return. Ah, consider that a compliment.”
The witch looked down at the mummy with bloodshot eyes. The mummy, wrapped in bandages, was barely clinging to life.
-Kill me, please...
“Watch the empire fall with your own eyes, Kamalon Barba.”
The leader rose from his seat. Eight legs kneeled before him.
The Spider spun its web. In this web spun over such a long time, the empire would never be able to escape.
****
“Flying!!!”
“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
At that moment, Ascal and his group were soaring through the sky.
Ascal and Sushia were riding on Fer, while Bernstein and the parts of the giant golem were mounted on the transformed body of the White Dragon.
“You know, I’ve been thinking... if we have this White Dragon, do we even need the giant golem?”
<There’s a contract I have with the Cloud Dragon. I can’t show my power within the empire. I can only help with transportation.>
That’s the typical cliché.
The seemingly powerful ally can’t join the party due to some constraint.
Ascal said,
“The Cloud Dragon has lost most of its power now. Even if you went all out, it couldn’t stop you.”
<...Really?>
“Cross my heart, it’s true.”
<Hehehe.>
The White Dragon joined the party!
