Free Web NovelChapter 451: Chapter 448: Epilogue of the Second Fortress Battle
「Six days after the Second Battle of Moncado Fortress.」
Inside a magnificent, luxurious manor, a maid gently knocked on a bedroom door. She stood outside and announced, "Young Master, I’ve brought your breakfast. And the newspaper."
The door opened, and Richard stood in the gap, showing no intention of letting her in. "Thank you," he said, his voice low and gentle.
Her young master—tall, handsome, gentle, and a Mage, no less—was home recuperating for the first time since he’d joined the army. He now had a certain indescribable quality, a hint of melancholy in his steady eyes... The maid forced herself to remain composed in his presence, but once she was in the empty hallway, she couldn’t resist skipping away.
’With a young master like him around, all the romance novels popular among the maids and young ladies suddenly seemed so dull.’
BANG. The door closed. Richard set the meal aside, his attention fixed on the newspaper.
Regarding the Second Battle of Moncado, both sides pushed their own narrative. The Republic focused on the first half of the battle, proclaiming that the heroic National Guard had routed the Empire Army, forcing them to abandon their armor and flee, unable to even defend the fortress. The Empire, meanwhile, touted the second half: it had all been the New Marshal’s plan to lure the enemy in deep, after which the Airship fleet dropped massive payloads of bombs and destroyed the fortress in a single stroke.
So who had actually won? In any case, the National Guard had suffered heavy casualties. The Republic’s National Salvation Committee condemned the enemy for using an immoral, even evil, large-scale ritual of mass destruction. Propaganda about the Empire colluding with an Evil God was already being broadcast throughout the streets of Valuva. For its part, the Empire had not retaken the Kongdi Region it had all but surrendered. Instead, its main forces had moved east, as if to avoid the bizarre territory altogether.
The truth of what happened was buried with those who had witnessed it firsthand. Some of them didn’t know the full story, while others were unwilling to relive the experience.
Richard belonged to the latter group.
The strangest victor to emerge from the event was a previously unknown Military Mage from a technical division. While serving as a temporary formation commander during a "debugging" phase, he had audaciously launched an attack and dealt a heavy blow to the enemy.
His sortie, which should have been a violation of common sense and military orders, ended up saving face for the Empire’s mysterious retreat. The Imperial newspapers attributed all the "credit" for the Necromancer Master and Mother Earth’s actions to this technical officer, who was then granted an audience with the New Marshal, given commendations, and awarded a series of extraordinary promotions.
The newspaper featured a picture of the two of them with brilliant smiles. This newfangled thing called a "photograph" had finally made its way into print, rapidly replacing the hand-drawn woodblock illustrations that usually accompanied headlines.
Anyone with a discerning eye could see that the New Marshal was making an example of him. The Marshal subsequently delivered a series of speeches encouraging officers of all ranks to seize tactical opportunities and act with flexibility.
’Hmph... The Empire’s Hell Angels...’ Richard found the hyperbole utterly ridiculous. ’The reporter who wrote this must have read too many chivalric romances or third-rate melodramas. No, this could be part of the Empire’s propaganda strategy. The common folk eat this sort of thing up...’
He moved his weakened body. The signs of his grueling military training had mostly vanished. Even several old scars and internal injuries had healed. But his Casting ability had severely regressed; he couldn’t even cast the most powerful spell he once knew, the Dragon Breath Skill.
’Side effects...’ Richard realized he was no longer a Middle Level Mage. What worried him most was the fear that he might never regain his peak strength. He didn’t for a moment doubt his old classmate and great benefactor, Rorschach. He just never imagined Rorschach was so powerful he could reverse the corpsification cast by the Necromancer Master.
Rorschach had never demonstrated any powerful Magic in front of Richard, but the miraculous nature of his healing was proof enough.
’Should I have chosen to pursue my studies at a Magic Tower back then?’
Just as Richard was lost in these stray thoughts, a crackle of electricity sounded in his ear, followed by a harsh, staticky voice. "Hello? Hello? Office of the Chief Military Mage’s Assistant, calling the Colonel... Calling the Colonel..."
"Received." Recently, all Military Mages had been required to learn a strange spell—the Radio Communication Skill. It was even more bizarre than the machine Richard had personally captured. It somehow mashed together the unrelated fields of Thunder Magic and the Communication Skill, and it was being heavily promoted, with relay stations being built to support it in imitation of the Guild’s Communication System.
The intermittent voice continued, fortunately repeating itself enough for Richard to get the message clearly: "The Chief’s backup bodies #1, #3, and #4 have all been released from their stasis fields and moved to cold storage... Please confirm the status of #2 and #7."
The "backup bodies" were shells the Necromancer Master had prepared to transfer his consciousness into, products of the Ninth Ring Spell, the Static Cloning Technique. There were nine in total, and the Chief would periodically recreate these "Respawn Points" when conditions permitted. As a favored student of the Chief, Richard knew the locations of backup bodies #2 and #7.
He had even witnessed the nauseating process of their creation.
"Both have completely decayed. Over."
"What? What was that, Colonel? Please repeat..." ZAP. Richard cast an Electric Claw. The resulting burst of uncontrolled electromagnetic energy would likely give the person on the other end a nice little shock.
The man was really dead. Now, Richard finally believed Rorschach had been telling the truth.
He took a crumpled piece of paper from his Storage Ring. On it was a message from Rorschach: "If you have trouble with your Casting later on, activate the Magic Array below. You’re welcome to come find me and Bart in Bayern. Please be sure to keep this confidential."
Below the message was a crudely drawn diagram of a Magic Array. Judging by both the drawing standards and the material used—a mere scrap of paper—the array couldn’t possibly work as it was. But Richard could redraw it on a Scroll using Alchemy Ink.
So he did. His knowledge of magic arrays told him it was likely a portable Communication Array.
...
"Hanna, don’t grab the wrong one!"
"I won’t. The caller’s ID corresponds to the *Newly Compiled Middle and Low Level Spell (Open Source Edition)* and the *Developer’s Manual*... I’m sending them now." Hanna picked up the printed Scrolls and placed them on the Teleportation Array. It was the first time either of these two Scrolls had been sent out.
...
’This is...?’ From a single Communication Scroll, Richard had received two new Scrolls. He unrolled one and tried to infuse it with his Magic Power. After a moment, it responded sluggishly. The ink shifted to form the text.
"What is this?" It seemed to be a textbook, but what did "Open Source" mean? He followed a prompt and infused his Magic Power. The ink shifted again: *Analyzing Magic Power signature... Registration successful!*
From that moment on, Richard’s eyes were glued to the Scrolls. He devoured the contents of both until the ink displayed a new message: *Congratulations, you have reached the end. To return to the main page, infuse Magic Power into the bottom-left corner. To return to the previous page, infuse Magic Power into the bottom-right corner. To return to the table of contents, infuse Magic Power into the top-left corner...*
When he put the Scroll down and it could no longer sense his Magic Power, the text immediately changed to display Chapter One of *The Three Royal Commanders*.
’A disguise?’ Richard didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ’But publishing a common novel on an expensive Alchemy Scroll... that’s just bizarre.’
His mood inexplicably lifted. He picked up his cold breakfast and began to eat while perusing the Scrolls. The part that interested him most wasn’t a method for recovering his strength, but rather the strangest and most fascinating of the bunch: the Developer’s Manual.
...
Rorschach was having brunch with Kano and the others in the sky restaurant of the Starlight Torch Tower. Also seriously injured and having trouble moving, Paul could only feed himself using Mage’s Hand, while Pascal merely had to open his mouth for someone to feed him.
The senior disciple had won this round!
Rorschach suddenly froze, and a piece of shrimp coated in scrambled egg rolled off his fork.
"What’s wrong?" Caroline asked.
"It’s nothing."
’Someone just uploaded a new spell to the Spell Cloud...’ Rorschach learned from the Tower Spirit’s feedback that the new spell was called the Radio Communication Skill.
