Gluttony Demon King with the Swampman ~A Man with No Magic Power Who Dreamed of Magic, Wielding Knowledge from His Past Life Through Steady Research and Hard Work to Become the Most Vicious Final Boss~

Chapter 4: The Carriage Journey

“Let’s make sure no one steals these tower documents ever again.”

With Noiche’s words, the stacks of papers piled up in various places in the room vanished into a leather bag in an instant.

It was a black leather pouch, tanned carefully, tied to Noiche’s waist. It seemed too modest in size to hold all those stacks of papers.

“Is that a magical tool for space magic? How luxurious…”

It was not just limited by size; it ignored weight too, making it the highest-grade item. If sold, it would fetch enough to build a small castle, by market value.

“I’ll let you examine them as much as you like later.”

“We’ll go before it gets light!”

Ah, I was really interested—

I left the tower, pulled along by the two of them. Right away, Noiche began chanting.

“Sleep, rabbit, cradle, come, night’s silence.”

I felt something cling to me softly, all at once.

At first, I did not know what it was, but as we passed through the woods and went right by the Moscaneyra family home without stopping, and even the guards did not glance our way, I finally figured out the magic.

“A magic for concealment and blocking presence… Dark attribute? No, the Levi family is a renowned house of astronomical magic that worships the night sky, right? It’s a magic that borrows the stillness of night.”

“Correct, you’re knowledgeable.”

Noiche smiled softly.

Well, that’s a duke’s family for you. Even in this rural town, their reputation reaches us.

More than that, my parents are eager about my older brother’s marriage prospects. They are desperate to snag a young lady from some famous house.

In this world, where bloodlines greatly affect magical aptitude, marriage hunting is a harsh survival competition—getting married at twenty is already considered late.

“How about it, Haro? Isn’t our Noiche amazing?”

“Yeah, she is. It’s advanced. Is she good at support magic like this?”

“No, Noiche is more lively when she’s shooting down monsters.”

That’s scary.

Is this girl the berserker type?

Noiche responded with a peace sign, saying nothing.

And just like that, we slipped out of the mansion in no time and reached the town right away.

The plan was to pick up their luggage at the inn where the two of them were staying and escape the town altogether.

Even though he was lower rank, it would not look good if anyone saw a duke’s family taking the second son of a baron’s house without permission—the scene of it, that is.

At the earliest hour of morning, we approached the largest trading company in town and got a ride in their carriage.

“All right, escape successful for now!”

“Amazing, I never thought we’d slip out this easily…”

In the end, no one noticed us, and we hit the highway in a flash. How efficient they are.

We left the driving to the day-hired coachman and slumped down in exhaustion inside the carriage.

“I wonder how long it’s been since I rode in a carriage.”

They discovered I had no magical power when I was five.

In this country, noble children report their birth to the capital at age five, and at the same time, they measure things like magical aptitude.

As far as I remember, that was my first and last long trip.

We traveled a highway that was not properly maintained, just leveled by foot traffic.

The bumpy, jolting carriage ride was far from comfortable, but the blue sky peeking through the small window was clear and bright.

On the idle journey, what we talked about was, of course, my daily life or past magical experiments… especially the latter, and the two of them were very interested.

“The bottom of the documents is nowhere in sight…!”

Zaria, rummaging through the documents in Noiche’s subspace pouch, was stunned again by their sheer volume. Well, they were ten years’ worth of records.

Meanwhile, Noiche showed interest not in the documents but in the tools.

“You make your own experimental tools too, Haro. What’s this bottle?”

“Oh, that’s a microscope.”

“Microscope?”

It was low precision, but homemade.

I taught her how to use it, and when Noiche peered in experimentally, she tilted her head. Probably because no observation specimen was set, she saw nothing.

The magnifying glasses common in this world were at best a loupe or hand lens.

The idea of “analyzing things as fine as cells” does not seem general… probably because fields like medicine, biology, and chemistry have not developed much.

Because there is magical treatment, biomedicine does not advance, and because alchemy exists as a branch of magic, synthetic chemistry does not develop.

On the other hand, some fields grow in line with magic. For example—

“We have similar tools at our house too. Look, like this one.”

“Oh, a telescope.”

—What Noiche showed me was what you would call an astronomical telescope. In other words, the field of astronomy.

Just as the Levi family turns faith in the night sky into magic, in this world, faith in and observation of great nature are valued highly, and that greatly advances specific fields like astronomy. And then physics around architecture.

“It’s a proper reflecting type.”

“Yeah, a reflecting mirror made of From spirit silver. You can even see the color of magical power.”

“For real. One expensive thing after another…”

There are two types of telescopes: the refracting type that uses lenses and the reflecting type that uses mirrors, but for astronomical telescopes, the latter is better suited. They had this part solid too.

By the way, From spirit silver is a liquid magical metal, and it has a mirror surface that reflects light and magical power. Needless to say, it’s an ultra-rare item.

Well, even so, since I have no aptitude, I could not perceive something like the hue of magical power anyway.

We spent the journey just chatting idly like that, taking occasional breaks for the horse and coachman, and meal times, and around evening, the carriage stopped again.

Peering out the window, we were still in the middle of a flat country road, but the coachman called out, “This spot good enough, miladies!” and Zaria and the others nodded to that.

“What, is this the destination?”

“No, a detour.”

“There’s a place we want to stop at before reaching the city, so Haro, come along for a bit.”

I did not know the details, but if that’s how it was, I did not mind.

I nodded to Zaria’s words and followed after the two of them as we got out of the carriage.

It was a grassy plain-like area.

Trees grew sparsely here and there, and big rocks lay scattered, but for now, the view was good, and to the right, a small hill of a mountain looked fresh and green.

We walked a little through such a place, and what we reached was—a camp site in utter ruins.

“What is this place? It’s terribly wrecked…”

At first, I thought wild animals had rummaged through leftovers, but with all these fresh scratches and dents, and traces of dried blood scattered around, this felt like… signs of battle?

As if reading my thoughts, Zaria said,

“Yeah, that’s right. We ran into it on the way here.”

“…Monsters?”

“Yeah, a big herd. We’re pretty good as mages, but we have zero real combat experience. And on top of that, there were kids who couldn’t fight.”

…No way, did they die?

The unnaturalness of them, ladies of a duke’s house, traveling without guards or maids, just the two of them—

The chill of realization that this explained it made Zaria nod, and Noiche took over the story.

“They appeared suddenly from the darkness in the middle of our night camp. The most skilled butler was blown away first, and after that, the panicking maids scattered. By the time we finished beating the monsters, no one was left.”

“…………”

“It’s a common story, though.”

Noiche spoke flatly, but she was probably not feeling nothing at all.

In the tattered camp remains, she sprinkled water from a bottle. Offering food or alcohol would just attract more monsters, so this was about the most she could do for a memorial.

The two closed their eyes and pressed their palms together in front of their chests in prayer. I followed suit, and after a little while, opened my eyes.

“All right, let’s head back to the carriage!”

“Yeah. Let’s head for the city.”

The sisters nodded to each other. So this was their detour.

It was dutiful, or perhaps endearing… I felt a little puzzled by how different they were from the nobles I knew.

But as I hid such inner thoughts and tried to follow after the sisters—that was when I heard a horse’s whinny and the sound of wheels right nearby.

“Whoa, what!?”

“A carriage is coming this way.”

We had asked him to wait, but—

Soon, we spotted the carriage heading toward us. A horse running desperately, and a coachman with the same desperate look on his face.

They were being chased by huge wolves.

“M-miladies! Help us out!”

“Huh!?”