Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 49 At first, he thought he was hearing things, but the voice was far too loud and clear for that.
More importantly, alongside that sound, his body's ability to absorb mana began to weaken rapidly. It was the sensation one gets after gorging on a meal until the stomach is ready to burst—the intuitive knowledge that even one more bite would make him vomit.
He could instinctively feel that he had reached his limit as a mage.
In the moment he felt a dizzying sense of despair at that fact, the power to absorb mana returned to normal, as if mocking him. Instead, the growth limit he had just felt shifted to a noble standing beside him.
"Oh."
A light green glow scattered into the air in front of the noble, who let out a short exclamation. It was the same phenomenon Turan had seen back when he hunted with the mages of the Baltas family.
Seeing this, Kadram clicked his tongue lightly and asked, "A limit, then. Is this your first time reaching one?"
"Yes..."
The noble's face contorted as he answered. Any mage who reached a growth limit was bound to feel such emotions without exception. Turan could empathize with the man's feelings. Even though Turan himself was far stronger than that noble, he had felt a massive wave of frustration only moments ago.
"It's alright, Viken."
"Chin up, man. Still, this is better than where I'm at!"
While his comrades chattered away to comfort the discouraged man, Turan realized that a change had occurred within his own body. Should he say his sense of touch had become several times more sensitive?
No, it was a slightly different feeling.
The sensation of fabric brushing against his skin or his hands rubbing together felt the same as usual, but he felt the flow of the wind grazing his skin with much greater sensitivity. He could even sense the subtle vibrations created by people walking nearby and the fierce turbulence whipping through the upper reaches of the canyon.
Everything that he couldn't feel just a moment ago was now flooding into his senses.
Could it be...
He wanted to verify the nature of this sensation immediately, but there were too many people in the canyon right now—especially the nobles of Arabion. If his hunch was correct, testing it here would be far too dangerous.
Turan postponed his confirmation for a bit. After retrieving the holy relic he had buried using earth manipulation magic, he went to find Meisa. She was preoccupied, staring intently at a stone tablet.
"Ah, Turan. Did you have any trouble absorbing the mana?"
"It was a great help, thanks to you. But... may I ask why?"
Turan asked in a slightly vague tone, wary of others overhearing, why she had gone to such lengths to distribute mana to him. He knew Meisa wasn't particularly fond of her own kinsmen, but this was excessive. Turan had already received a high-capacity pouch in advance, so he wouldn't have had any grounds for complaint even if she hadn't left him a share.
"That's a bit difficult to explain right now. For now, please just think of it as a personal favor from me, not from Arabion."
Meisa said this while slightly averting her gaze. Her tone was somewhat peculiar, making him wonder if she had romantic feelings for him, but even when he focused his sense of smell, he didn't detect that kind of scent.
"Very well. If it's a favor from a friend."
At those words, a faint smile played on Meisa's lips. Turan quickly changed the subject, pointing to the tablet she was holding.
"More importantly, what is this?"
"This? It's a detection magic device that can find intelligent beings in the vicinity. I'm checking to see if there are any survivors left... but mmm, it looks like there are none now."
Just as she said, over a hundred blue dots were moving around on the tablet. In the center, two dots were close together; those seemed to be Turan and Meisa.
"It's a fine item."
Judging by a glance, the detection range seemed to be several hundred meters, comparable to the functions of his Mimic Relic. Of course, there were many differences in terms of showing things indirectly versus granting direct sensory perception, as well as the convenience of carrying and using it.
Meisa smiled at Turan's praise and replied, "I heard it was made using a Zahar noble captured during the last war."
Knowing how difficult it was to capture a noble alive, Turan could guess that the manufacturing process was likely far more complex and gruesome than she made it sound.
Suddenly, he recalled something Keorn had told him—that there were a few top-tier magic devices capable of seeing through Zahar's stealth abilities. Perhaps this was one of them.
As they were talking, a knight approached Meisa and reported.
"My Lady, the prisoners are ready."
"Lead the way. Would you like to come along?"
"I will."
When Meisa turned her head to ask, Turan agreed immediately. He was quite interested in the relics of the dwarves himself.
*
At the place they headed to, several battered dwarves and dark elves were huddled together, surrounded. Judging by the blood covering their bodies, it seemed they had been tortured for quite some time.
"Devils... stop... hurts..."
Turan felt a strange discomfort at the sight of the dwarves begging in their slurred speech. Even though they were nothing more than man-eating cannibals...
Was it because he was reminded of Armani, the mermaid prince he had met in the North Sea, who was also a non-human race?
"Listen well. I'm going to ask you again. If you answer truthfully like you did before, I won't hurt you. But if you lie or keep your mouth shut, it will hurt much worse than before. Understand?"
"Understand... did, did!"
At the noble's intimidation, the dwarves nodded, answering in their clumsy tongue.
"Good. First, what is this object?"
"Ancestors' thing... Blackie found it... told us how to use."
"By 'Blackie,' you mean the Necromancer King? The head of the dark elves... their leader."
The dwarf tilted his head, perhaps finding the word 'leader' too difficult, but eventually nodded. Meisa had clearly asked for the smart ones to be picked out earlier; did this mean this one was considered intelligent among dwarves?
After slapping a nearby dark elf to secure the same answer, the noble thrust a dwarven magic device forward.
"Right. When you lot pull this, a piece of iron comes out. When we use it, nothing happens. Why is that?"
"It ours... Blackie can't use... Devils can't use... when all used, can't use again..."
Listening to the dwarf's testimony, Turan picked up one of the dwarven relics—a magic device—lying nearby. When he shook it lightly, he could feel liquid sloshing inside a rounded tube attached to the side. Come to think of it, hadn't a massive amount of steam poured out when a larger version of this thing exploded?
Just in case, he pointed the part where the metal would exit toward the sky and pulled the lever on the side, but nothing happened.
"Does it fire even if a dwarf only pulls the handle?"
"Let's check. You there."
When Meisa responded to Turan's murmur, a knight immediately dragged a dwarf over and ordered him to pull only the lever of the magic device the knight was holding. When the creature pulled the lever, steam hissed out with a psshh, and a metal fragment was launched.
"Oh."
"It really does only fire when a dwarf pulls it."
"What kind of magic is this?"
"I wonder if it would fire if we used a severed hand?"
Contrary to one creative noble's idea, the device seemed to detect if the hand was severed, as it wouldn't fire that way. They conducted several more experiments after that, but the results weren't very satisfying.
The metal fragments fired from the dwarven magic devices weren't just simple pieces of iron but had undergone some special process. Furthermore, the moment they tried to pry open the internal structure, steam would explode, mangling the components and making it impossible to understand. Even worse, after firing several times, the liquid inside would run out, rendering it useless, and the dwarves said they didn't know how to refill it.
In other words, they were single-use tools.
"You said the Necromancer King gave these to you? Where did he get them?"
They tortured and questioned the few surviving dark elves, but they didn't know the details either. All they knew was that the Necromancer King, who was originally just one of the royals of the underground kingdom, had one day obtained a silver crown and gained immense necromantic power. While fleeing, he had supposedly found those magic devices and provided them to the dwarves to make them his allies.
Hearing this, one noble clicked his tongue with a look of regret.
"It would have been quite useful if we could manufacture and use them ourselves."
Turan observed the device being used a few more times and recalled the laws of nature he had learned from the Librarian back at the library. Hadn't he said that when water becomes steam, its volume increases...?
Is that liquid inside turning into steam and pushing the metal fragment out?
He didn't know exactly how pulling a single lever caused that to happen, but he suspected that was the principle. A few of the more knowledgeable Arabion nobles reached a similar conclusion, but no one knew how to replicate it.
After organizing all the information obtained by threatening the prisoners, Meisa asked those who had returned from scouting the inner canyon.
"Did you find anything like books inside?"
"Nothing, My Lady."
"There were quite a few human bones. Most of them were old, though."
"Then we can wrap things up."
As if understanding the meaning behind those words, the dwarves and dark elves flinched and trembled.
*
Fortunately, the boulder at the canyon entrance opened automatically if someone tried to leave from the inside, so they didn't have to wait a full day. As they stepped out into the open, Turan felt his newly acquired sense for detecting the wind activate fully.
"Phew..."
"Finally, I can breathe. It was so stifling in there."
"You can say that again."
A few Arabion nobles grumbled, having felt similarly. Turan spoke to Meisa, who was walking beside him.
"Then I'll stop by the barracks, pick up Bije, and head out first."
"That sounds best."
Meisa, who wasn't pleased with Turan building rapport with other Arabion nobles, agreed immediately. As she did, she left a small opening in her words.
"I'll see you again, won't I?"
"I will be sure to repay the debt I owe you next time. And..."
Turan hesitated for a moment, wondering if he was overstepping. But since they were friends exchanging favors, he felt he could at least offer a word of concern.
"It's good to keep your body light for flight, but you should still eat something. I'm worried about you."
Meisa gave a bitter smile at his words.
"I'll think about it."
Turan was certain she wouldn't listen to him, but he couldn't force her if she didn't want to.
After parting ways with Meisa, Turan walked briskly and arrived at the barracks first. There, he saw Bije and Keorn engaged in some strange game involving wing flaps and hand gestures.
"You look like you're having fun, Elder."
"Oh, you're back! Are you hurt anywhere?"
"I'm perfectly fine. More importantly..."
[Turan! Keorn is fun!]
Bije, who had looked at the old knight with such disapproval when they left, now seemed completely absorbed in playing with him.
"The subjugation ended well, and there were few casualties. I think I should be on my way now."
"Leaving already? At least have a meal..."
"The situation doesn't really allow for that."
When Turan briefly mentioned what had happened inside the canyon, Keorn let out a small groan. Certainly, staying here any longer would only cause the atmosphere to turn dreadfully sour. There were likely more than a few people who felt dissatisfied with Turan right now.
"I suppose it can't be helped, then..."
"What will you do now, Elder?"
"I'll have to go back and think about it. I'll probably retire and spend my time doing odd jobs. My joints are starting to ache, and I've done enough traveling."
Looking at him now, Keorn certainly looked noticeably older than when they first met. Was it due to the toll of their travels and the time spent in the subjugation war?
Turan remained silent for a moment before offering a blessing, though he wasn't quite sure what he meant by it himself.
"Live a long life."
"I intend to."
Fortunately, Keorn's face as he smiled in response looked a little less aged than a moment ago.
*
On the way back, Turan activated the senses of his holy relic to check if anyone was nearby. Bije tilted her head, seemingly wondering why he wasn't riding her.
"Just a moment, I have something to check."
After calming her down, Turan made a light gesture to summon the wind. It was just like when he had swept away those vagrants in the past.
However, the wind that rose this time was entirely different from back then.
If at that time he could only strengthen the wind's power and adjust its direction slightly, now he could control the rising winds as freely as his own fingers, wrapping them around his body. Even the mana consumption for it was barely a tenth of what it had been before.
Turan was certain. He had obtained a bloodline ability to manipulate the wind.
"I had a feeling it might be like this, but still..."
With a troubled heart, he made a gesture, and a gust of wind rose, flattening all the grass in the surrounding field.
In this era, the ability to manipulate the wind was a privilege held solely by the Arabion of the Storm Bloodline.
In other words, Turan's parents were descendants of two rival families: Zahar and Arabion.
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