Chapter 4 – The Dragon’s Treasure Vault
Having recovered the Scarlet of Hades, we came back to Svetlana’s vault.
As for my identity being out, Captain Orgren, the one who knew I was a baseborn son of the Alcott ducal house, had fled without seeing the battle, so that’s no trouble. I’d asked Angus-san to keep it quiet, and he’d gladly agreed. There’s no doubt a man like him would never speak a word to my disadvantage, so I’ve no worries there. But there were plenty of other witnesses among the adventurers, and there’s the Dragon Zombie’s carcass, too. On that score I’ve made my peace with it, more or less, as unavoidable.
In short—
—I’ve pinned most of it on Merlin.
Anastasia, Maria, and Sheryl fall, just barely, within the range of ordinary people. So we’ve made it out to be something like a secret weapon of the academy Merlin raised, and as for me, the directly damning parts were seen only by Angus-san, so that’s fine. Merlin and her merry band, cutting it that fine, the affair has settled down. Well, well, a famous disciple is a fine thing to have.
Incidentally, the Scarlet of Hades I’ll hand over honestly to Svetlana, to keep in the vault for us. My basic line is that I’ve no intention of revealing to Svetlana the truth that I’m me. But even if we can’t get hold of this Key of Solomon, which seems deeply tied to curing magic aptitude, Sasha wrote that the orb can serve as a substitute, so it’s a kind of insurance. And so, should it come to needing it, if I reveal the truth that I’m me, Svetlana won’t say no. No, she’s liable to start on about being my wife, so I’m dreadfully reluctant, but.
And so, one way and another—
“All right. I’ll give you leave to view the materials Sasha-sama passed into my keeping. Ah, but I can’t answer for it if you die, so do take care.”
Saying so, in the entry lobby of the vault, Svetlana pointed at a staircase deeper in.
“The inside is a layered dungeon, with any number of anti-thief traps and dangerous creatures. Well, to enter the vault, even with leave, takes a certain qualification, is what it comes to.”
At that Anastasia puffed out her cheeks.
“Ehh?! We don’t even know where it is, and you want us to go search it out?!”
“Now that’s a surprise. Turn it around, did you mean to send Big Sis off to fetch it on her feet?”
“That said,” Svetlana went on, “it’s a request from none other than Junior, so… what to do. But you’ve got that Merlin-chan with you. There’s the one sticking point that keeps Big Sis from being honest.”
And Merlin and Svetlana glared at each other. Dragon and tiger to the life, an ordinary monster would bolt on the spot from the pressure of the two of them.
“…It’s a bother, so please, no fighting.”
“Oh my, Junior looks troubled… fufu, that troubled face is cute too.”
There, there, and she patted my head.
“Fufu, truly cute. From here on I might start wanting to tease you, just to see that face.”
No, knowing the honest, adorable Svetlana of her childhood, this leaves me with genuinely mixed feelings. To think she’d grow into a character like this… but that aside.
“The material’s in a conspicuous spot, the sort you’ll know when you see it, so for now just head down.”
“Know it when I see it?”
“Yes. And, the truth is, there’s a reason besides Merlin-chan that Big Sis is being like this.”
Svetlana settled onto a nearby sofa and set a crystal ball down on the table with a little clink.
“With this crystal ball I’ll watch how Junior does. I want to see your ability… and the possibilities of a mage of the present age. It’s a difficulty far too heavy for the mages of this era, so I’m looking forward to how it goes.”
Ah, so that’s the shape of it, I thought, and nodded.
“Right then, let’s go, Anastasia, Maria, Sheryl.”
At which Svetlana’s eyes went wide.
“You’re taking these dead-weight little girls with you? Well, suicidal, I’d call it, but I won’t stop you.”
“Hm? Weren’t you calling me one of your own? You’ll send me so lightly to a place you take for a place of death?”
“Shouldering a burden and walking through hardship on purpose… well, that’s a man’s training, isn’t it? Big Sis likes that sort of thing… fufu, Junior really does do the things that person would do…”
Ah, this is bad. She seems to be laying my past self over my present self. Best I flee into the dungeon quickly.
“A-anyway, I’m going.”
And as I made to take the three of them along, Svetlana tilted her head.
“Oh? You’re not bringing Merlin-chan? Whatever else, I’d think the little chicks need a minder.”
“Well, there’s no need for me to go.”
At Merlin’s words Svetlana made a dubious face.
“Hmm… say, Junior?”
“What is it?”
“If you’re in danger… say ‘help me, Big Sis!’ and I’ll come save you. Fufu… truth be told, I’m saying this partly because I’d thought Merlin-chan would go too. Letting cute little Junior die on me is honestly more than I could bear.”
No, say a thing like that to Svetlana and Merlin would laugh at me the rest of my life. Even if real danger came, that alone is out of the question.
“That occasion won’t arise, but I’ll take the thought and thank you for it.”
“Oh, how cold. But… seeing Junior scream and cry mightn’t be so bad, either. Fufu, Big Sis… if I saw a Junior so cute and so pathetic… I might get excited and start to ache.”
Twisting her body bewitchingly, Svetlana sent me a smoldering look. She really is alluring, though… if I hadn’t known the adorable girl she once was, I might have gone a bit weak at the sensuality.
“Well, whatever happens, lean on Big Sis if it comes to it. I truly think of you as my cute little Junior, so I’d be sad if you died.”
“No, this one has no need of that, Svetlana. Most likely… should the difficulty of this dungeon force him to fight in earnest, it’s you who’ll be surprised.”
“Hmm…?”
What’s this fellow on about?, Svetlana tilted her head, puzzled. And Merlin wore a fearless smile, and even Maria, Anastasia, and Sheryl wore easy little grins. No, everyone seems to be picturing that scenario, but I’ve no intention of going in earnest. Svetlana doesn’t mean to cause any deaths, and this whole thing is partly for Anastasia and the others’ experience anyway. There’s a worry these girls are just starting to get carried away—I’m strong, after all their fights with the foreign tribe.
⁂
“I-I-I’m dying! I’m going to die! Save me, Ephthal!”
“Just avoid dying outright, Maria! Dead I honestly can’t fix!”
“M-M-Master! That really is too cruel!”
Now then, we’re on the fifth floor of the Dragon’s Treasure Vault. A forest zone despite being inside a dungeon, an oddly uncanny sort of place. But the Dragon’s Treasure Vault, dungeons themselves are the very picture of things that have made no sense since ancient times. So there’s no point objecting to it.
By the way, on the first floor Anastasia and Maria were surrounded by five orc berserkers and beaten flat. And, with me backing them with healing magic, it turned into a long, drawn-out slog of a mud-fight, the two of them pummeled all the while. On the second floor they were pummeled by an evil demon too, and this went past half-dead to the very brink of all-dead, so I backed them with a touch of attack magic. On the third floor they were chased about by a herd of over five hundred river-horses. And on the fourth, Anastasia’s quick wits told, they gave a one-sided beating to four minotaurs stuck fast in a trap.
And now, the fifth floor.
Just now the girls are strung up in the air, caught in the vines of a man-eating tree. And, more than that, several—
—acid slimes are clinging to them and dissolving their clothes.
Half-naked, with a fair portion of even their underthings melted away. Young girls in a scandalous state, so it’s not quite proper to study it too closely. But I can’t very well look away either. When it comes down to it, I do mean to save them just short of death.
“Damn it… I’m not going to end here, dissolved in a place like this! Level 4: Explosion!”
A blast spell centered on herself. Well, in this situation it looks a fair move. But—
“It’s not working?!”
Slime-kind have high magic resistance. Say “slime” and in a Japanese RPG it’s a byword for a weakling. But in overseas games it’s actually a fearsome foe. And in this world, slimes go by the overseas standard. Four hundred years ago slimes were called adventurer-killers, if I recall. Just past your rookie days, a full-fledged adventurer starting to get cocky, that’s when this tricky foe would often turn the tables on you.
The thing is, in most cases a slime pairs with a fixed-installation, trap-type monster like a man-eating plant, the man-eating tree here, for instance. In this case, first the man-eating tree binds the target with vines and stops it moving. Then, after the slime dissolves and eats the target, it supplies magic power to the tree… a symbiosis of that sort. By their nature, slimes are often set up together with an underhand approach, an ambush or a trap, and that’s the trouble. Fall into the trap, and by the time you notice… deaths in that pattern were without end. In short, inexperienced young adventurers prone to leaning on raw power made the slime’s ideal prey.
“Level 5: Muscle Powered!”
Still, good instincts, the pair of them. The moment they saw the high magic resistance, they switched at once to a temporary all-out boost of physical ability. This spell is a kind of primer for Merlin’s Divine Enhancement. After using it your usual body-strengthening weakens for a while, but it puts out real force. And, thrashing their limbs for all they were worth, they tore the vines free.
“Right, escape successful!”
Then Maria, hauling the clinging slime off by main strength, bolted and put distance between herself and it.
“Now, take this!”
Well, she raised the smoke-signal of a counterattack with her specialty, a barrage of fire arrows. Anastasia backed her with wide-area fire magic too, and the fight against the man-eating tree and acid slimes was decided. Slimes and man-eating trees are sluggish, the tree can’t even move at all. Get your distance and it’s nothing to fear.
Ah, incidentally, the two of them have been drilling their daily magic practice with tremendous focus lately. Fired up by the fact that Sheryl can use Level 5, and having found something worth learning within real fighting over these last two weeks against the tribe, it seems. Thanks to that, their talent’s been blooming by leaps and bounds, and at last they’ve reached the lower-tier Level 5 range. Their non-magic fighting’s coming into its own too, and in ability they’d reach the level of a full-fledged adventurer even four hundred years ago.
And so, watching the one-sided attack, I waited a few minutes. Worn to the bone, Anastasia and Maria came tottering over.
“You really do put us through it…”
Sheryl and I tossed them cloaks, which they each caught and wrapped around their half-naked bodies.
“Well, it’s necessary, so there’s nothing for it.”
“But we went through all this, so we’ll get stronger, right? Surely there’s a reward like suddenly being able to use Level 6 or something?”
“Eh? There’s nothing like that.”
At my words the two of them froze, eyes flung wide, mouths agape.
“H-hang on… what are you saying? After making us cross this many life-or-death lines?”
“Strength is a thing you gain one step at a time, at the end of dizzying, repetitive drilling, up a long grind of plain, steady work. However many death-lines you cross, that kind of experience alone won’t make you strong. A thousand effective drills beat a thousand real battles, that’s the truth of it.”
“Th-then why make us do this? Since we came in here I’ve nearly died over and over!”
Of course there’s a meaning to it. They have built up real fighting against the tribe, true. But they haven’t crossed a death-line. Because, in all seriousness, the gap in strength was simply too great.
“When a true crisis comes to you, there’s no way you’ll handle it without having had this kind of experience, is there?”
“What do you mean?”
“What matters is that you can move as you drilled in the midst of a crisis. Take now, Maria, do you think you could have shown your true strength at that fort, without me?”
“Hah? That goes without saying, doesn’t it?”
“You went pale at the sight of a savaged corpse. If, that time, the tide had turned against you and your life were in danger, could you swear you’d put out your usual strength without losing to fear?”
At that Maria thought something over and made a chastened face.
“No, that’s…”
“Building the experience of crossing a death-line means exactly that. Which is why I have you fight on the edge and go through hell.”
“Then what about Anastasia? This one, I’d say, has had her nerve steady from the start?”
“In Anastasia’s case, it’s the very resolve to face an enemy that I’m having her learn.”
“The resolve… to face an enemy?”
“In your case you’re over-specialized in the ambush. Even when you meet an enemy, unless the foe is quite weak… you think first, in your head, of running, don’t you?”
“That’s… true. Yes, there’s that in me.”
“Basically that’s fine, but you’re too specialized in it to think flexibly. Run and run, and the last place you reach can be a dead-end where death is certain, it can go like that too.”
“I see. Um, so… Master? Then what about Sheryl-chan? Why is she lazing along beside you without a care?”
“Sheryl’s a child.”
“…Mm.”
Sheryl flashed the two of them a V-sign, and I set my palm on her head with a little pat.
“Ehhh?! That’s not fair!”
Anastasia raised a protest, but I paid it no mind. Well, what I want to teach Anastasia and Maria is, in short, to look at their own lives from a vantage above. I want them to learn that sense in the body. Not to be swayed by fear or other negative feelings, but to think coolly about what gives the best odds of surviving, I want them to have eyes that see that way. For instance, take a lethal poison on a fingertip, can you decide, without hesitation, to cut off your arm at the elbow, then and there? A judgment like that is, in a sense, something you can’t make without casting off part of your humanity. In that respect, Anastasia and the others are surely inferior to the adventurers at that fort. And honestly… I realized it at the fort the other day, but Sheryl seems already to have that resolve complete. Whether it’s the spirit blood in her, or her sad upbringing from childhood, as if something in her feelings is broken. She burned the tribe with magic without twitching a brow, without her heart stirring at all. Well, an odd one, I’d say.
“Still, how far down do we go…”
“…You said it was placed where I’d know it, didn’t you?”
We’ve already been descending the dungeon for half a day. We’ve no camping gear, and I’d rather be spared a night in the open. Well, it’s not that we couldn’t scrounge everything on-site from scratch. And there we stepped into an open patch of the forest, a zone of lake and grass. There a great stone monument stood, and on the ground beside it I could see a staircase leading down to the next floor.
“Well, if he hadn’t set out a monument this easy to spot, there’d be a chance of missing it.”
Studying the monument, the letters were worn and unreadable, however I looked. Left to the weather for a few hundred years, by the feel of it, but that aside.
“Svetlana’s no ogre. If it took many days, she’d have said so at the start… so the road left can’t be so long! Come now, one more push, everyone!”
“…W-we’re still going?!”
“I’m all worn out… my legs are shaking… have mercy, Master…”
“No. The enemy on a battlefield won’t wait just because you’re tired!”
“…Usually he’s kind, but the man’s an ogre…”
“…Ngh, and I like it when Master’s kind…”
“Kind and soft are different things.”
“I heard from Merlin-sama… and I begin to see a little why the Thunder God Emperor got badmouthed by his disciples in the old days. If this is him after mellowing…”
And so, one way and another, the two of them, teary-eyed, began walking toward the stairs.
Svetlana’s Perspective
KABOOM.
KABOOM.
Blasts rang out, and at the intermittent shaking that came rolling in, I cried out despite myself.
“Eh? Eh? What is this?! What in the world?!”
Until a moment ago I’d been watching them with Merlin-chan through the crystal ball. And the black-haired boy and his party… had skipped straight past the fifth-floor monument Sasha-sama donated. And then they began descending to the floors below, but. Down to that floor I’d lowered the security level, on the grounds it was too dangerous, so, naturally, I was surprised. I truly hadn’t meant to kill those children. So if they set foot on the sixth floor or below, where death is all but certain, that would be a problem, and, well, I was in a real, frantic panic. But—
—from there it was astonishing.
The moment they set down on the sixth floor. The instant an ancient monster appeared, the kind that would kill the little girls outright, Junior’s whole air changed.
“Svetlana… this isn’t the deal! They’re out to kill, plain and simple! Maria! Anastasia! Sheryl! Don’t get away from me, not for a second, understand?!”
“Level 7: Cocytus!”
“Damn it! Magic resistance hard as rock! Then how’s this, Level 8: Thor Hammer!”
In the blink of an eye Junior slaughtered the ancient monster, and at the sight of him wielding Level 8, I flung my eyes wide in sheer shock. No, but this is the child who endured the Dragon Emperor’s aura. Beyond what I’d imagined, but it’s no wonder he can do this much. And so, relieved there’d be no instant deaths, I set my lips to my teacup.
“Fresh ones? And an ungodly number… what a pain. Level 10: Thunder God Emperor Ephthal!”
And I sprayed my tea clear across the room with a great pfft.
Knew you’d do it, across from me, Merlin-chan dodged my tea with teleport magic, and only grinned and grinned my way.
“Hang on, hang on! What is this, Merlin-chan?! I-I-I wasn’t told anything about this!”
“Aye, no doubt. Seeing as I said nothing.”
Well, from there on it was Junior on a rampage. As one walks an empty field, that’s exactly what it was. He tore through top-tier monsters and flung them aside, tore and flung, descending the floors at blistering speed, it was a shock, I tell you. And when he reached the bottom floor and became a raging Fierce God—what the hell is going on?! Sasha’s materials aren’t here!, he started back up the floors, again tearing through top-tier monsters and flinging them aside, at a ferocious pace.
“I said I wasn’t told! What is that boy?! He used Level 10!”
“For that matter, I wasn’t told either! In a place like that I’d have gone at his side, that’s a difficulty where even Ephthal-sama might take a wound!”
“Merlin-chan? Wh-what… did you just say?”
“Ephthal-sama… I said.”
“…That name wasn’t a joke?”
“Turn it around, do you think I’d let anyone else give that name, in jest?”
A silence, for a while. A hesitation, of a sort. And to me, frozen in place, Merlin-chan gave a great nod, all finally caught on, have you, fool.
Thump.
My heart leapt without my leave. Ah, so that’s… why. Whenever I caught sight of that person, before all else I’d rush headlong to his side. And then, and then—
—arms flung wide with a beaming smile, I’d hug him with all my might.
So, all but unconsciously, I’d thrown my arms around that child. Even if my head didn’t understand, instinct knew that child for that person… that’s what it was.
“Fufu, well then… no wonder I’d catch sight of Junior and hug him on reflex.”
And there Merlin held out a handkerchief to me.
“What?”
“Don’t hold back the tears. There’s no shame in it… I cried, too.”
“Ah…”, and the tears overflowed as if a dam had broken, and spilled down. That tears come when you’re happy, it turned out, was true.
“That’s the way. It’s not as if you and I stand on ceremony with each other.”
“…You really don’t change, do you, Merlin-chan.”
“To hear Ephthal-sama tell it, you and I have both changed a great deal.”
Ah, it’s no use. No words come. I want to see that person more, and yet—
—the tears blur the crystal ball.
My beloved Ephthal-sama. Ephthal-sama, who is also my master. The promise of a distant day, from that time to now, unchanged, the Ephthal-sama I’ve gone on adoring, all this long while.
“Give me… a moment…”
A great, deep breath. Little by little, I felt the turmoil in my heart come loose. And once it did… I could grasp the present situation, a little, with a cooler head.
“Still, he’s truly furious, isn’t he.”
“Aye. As you know, that man shows no mercy when his own are put in danger. It wasn’t your intent, but you’d best brace yourself, Svetlana.”
“This kind of anger… in the old days, a hundred smacks on the bottom… would it be?”
“No, this could well be the three-hundred course.”
“Fufu, those truly did hurt. Long ago, when I played a prank on the alchemy pot, people can die from that, you idiot!—”
“Aye, I’ve a like experience. I once cried my eyes out a whole night through.”
And there, watching the crystal ball, I caught my breath. He’s coming, already that person has come back up to the stairs joining the first floor and here. And—
“Svetlana! The old you was one who never told a lie! What in the world is this outcome?!”
Not through the crystal ball, for the first time in four hundred years, I came face to face with a furious Thunder God Emperor.
Ephthal’s Perspective
“Won’t you give me three hundred smacks on the bottom? Ephthal-chan!”
“No, I won’t be doing that.”
“Please! I’m begging you, the spanking! For pity’s sake, for pity’s sake!”
Hearing the exchange, Merlin seemed to turn something over for a while. And then, after a moment, her face went to pure revulsion. “Ah… so this is what you’ve become…” And she turned on Svetlana a look reserved for something regrettable, and only went on turning it her way. As for the me on my side—
—I’m your wife. And since I’ve lived four hundred years, I’m the elder now. So, with all my love, I’ll call you this… Ephthal-chan!
—at Svetlana’s opening salvo, even the rougher me, still simmering from the dungeon, threw up his hands—right, the rest’s on you, and beat a hasty retreat, leaving it to the softer me.
“For a start, ‘Ephthal-chan’ takes all the starch out of me… could you at least settle for something like ‘Junior,’ Svetlana…”
“…All right.”
Svetlana was sulky and put out about it. But this is a hard one to handle. Originally the Dragon Emperor’s daughter, and my old station was human duke, well, her rank is the higher. And even totting up my whole span, my Earth life before included, she’s the elder. So there’s a grain of reason to the “Ephthal-chan” treatment, grain of reason and all.
“So, Sasha’s research materials. Was that the fifth-floor monument, the one with the unreadable letters?”
“Yes. Going by what you say, perhaps it had weathered away. It was before I managed this place, the previous keeper’s era, a matter of four hundred years back.”
“Four hundred… years ago?”
“Yes. The story from right after you died, Junior.”
If so, then, the same period as when the Fire God Emperor established the magic-aptitude theory? Or perhaps Sasha knew all sorts of things from before the Fire God Emperor. But by the maid’s account, the cure was established only recently… In any case, that the material had weathered to the point of being unreadable is a real bother.
“This is bad, Merlin. Back to square one, it seems.”
“Yes. We’d come so close, too.”
Truly, this is… “Downhearted” is the only word that comes. Just when I was about to touch the very heart of curing magic aptitude. And there Svetlana asked, puzzled.
“But, Junior? Why do you want to see a thing like that so badly? That’s a fairy tale every child in the ducal domain knows.”
“A fairy tale…?”
“Yes. I’d thought your way of saying ‘the materials’ was odd, too, but that’s the heroic fairy tale told of the Thunder God Emperor. The author’s unknown now, and it’s handed down in the Alcott ducal domain.”
The heroic fairy tale of an unknown author. That, I know. Or rather, there ought to have been several copies at the ducal mansion. Being tales that extol an ancestor, that sort of thing has a room’s worth of space set aside as material connected to the founder. Naturally, folk-tales and the like, fairy tales included, are kept there too.
“Merlin, what do you make of it?”
“Most likely, some form of encryption, I’d think.”
To protect their research, mages will sometimes lay an encryption over the text, so that only their own kin can read it. The method of decryption is passed by word of mouth alone, and naturally I, as Sasha’s disciple, have had that sort of lecture too.
“So Sasha scattering it far and wide, in public, means…”
“That he feared it might be taken by someone, I’d say. Or, when danger closed on him, foreseeing, in this case for instance, that Ephthal-sama would reach it. A measure that couldn’t be announced openly, yet would reach the one who ought to receive it.”
In fact, that’s exactly the situation we’re in, so Merlin’s reading carries weight.
“Still, round and round in circles, and the answer’s at the ducal mansion.”
Darkest at the foot of the lighthouse, this is that to the letter. At my rueful, exasperated smile, Merlin shrugged and laughed too.
“Then, as first planned, shall we make for Ephthal-sama’s birthplace this life?”
“Aye,” I said, nodding, and put a question to Svetlana.
“So what will you do, Svetlana?”
“Oh my, Junior. A wife waits at home for her husband’s return, that’s the dragonkin way. And there’s the vault to manage… a few days is my limit for leaving it, really.”
Plural marriage, so perhaps that’s the dragonkin custom. In any case, I’m glad Svetlana, who carries the possibility of being a runaway train worse than Merlin, won’t be forcing herself on us like an uninvited bride.
“Still, Big Sis wants to be spoiled by Junior too, so try not to make me too lonely.”
“Well, you’re not a stranger to me either.”
At the words Svetlana froze a while, colored in the cheeks, and gave a small nod.
“Mm, that’s so, isn’t it. Because Junior is the husband… and Big Sis is the wife.”
“Just so,” I began to say, then hastily corrected myself, “No, I’ve no memory of making you my wife!”
“But, Junior?”
“Hm? What is it, Svetlana?”
“That Big Sis is the first wife… if you forget that… I’ll be angry, you know.”
Ah, this child’s hopeless. She isn’t listening; my words don’t reach her at all. And so I let out a deep sigh.
“Well, I’ll say I’m grateful you’re fond of me, at least.”
“But, Junior?”
“Hm? What is it, Svetlana?”
“The dragonkin are long-lived. Living long is, unexpectedly… a thing with many hardships in it. Grown weary of living, did you know the top cause of death among the dragonkin is suicide?”
“A common enough tale for a long-lived people.”
“Honestly, for a long while… I’d seen only the ugly parts of weakened humans, grown disillusioned with all manner of things, and part of me was already… tired of it all.”
“But,” Svetlana said, and smiled.
“Because I could meet you again, I came to feel that living long isn’t so bad. So—”
And with that, Svetlana threw her arms around me and said it.
“Stay my number-one beloved from here on too, won’t you, Junior.”