Chapter 10.1 – It Won’t End Cleanly

A mage has been peddling illegal drugs. When the lord’s troops tried to crack down on him, he annihilated them—and then murdered the lord himself.

Resolve this problem.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha… ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Gaikaku, who had taken the assignment, let out a bone-dry, self-mocking laugh.

He hadn’t seen the battlefield with his own eyes, but the idea of two outlaw mages splitting into “sides” and killing each other struck him as the height of absurdity.

“Ha-ha-ha! What a joke, huh? And if I win this mess I get promoted to Knight Commander? Incredible—I can only laugh! Are they making fun of me or what?!”

After skimming the written orders he’d received from the garrison he was relieving, he wondered how best to tackle the job.

Outlaw mages brewing and selling contraband potions wasn’t all that rare.

In fact, most outlaw mages did that sort of thing.

But to beat back the lord’s soldiers in the process—that was anything but normal.

Of course, if it weren’t that serious, the Knights wouldn’t have been called in at all.

“They say I can get the details on site… but I don’t have time to go there, interview everyone, and come back. I’d better assume the worst and prepare in advance.”

Mages research and develop every field that uses mana—medicine, pharmacology, engineering, you name it.

Because magic follows recipes that always produce the same results, dabblers from other disciplines often pick up a little pharmacology and start manufacturing black-market drugs. It happens all the time.

In every world, contraband sells.

“Still… this one’s probably a pharmacology specialist. If you don’t care about the fallout, drugging your own troops for strength is the easiest shortcut. But picking a fight with the lord? Idiocy. Even if he wipes out my squad, the real Knights will just show up next.”

Gaikaku Hikume, who fancied himself a genius, said it with iron confidence born of knowledge.

A lone outlaw mage can kill a single knight—but that’s the limit. A company of knights is impossible to defeat.

Unless a noble poured in a fortune and a full retinue of personnel, no one could build magical weapons to fell a Knight Order.

And if a noble did that, he’d bankrupt himself anyway…

…Without a doubt, an idiot.”

He wore an openly contemptuous sneer.

“A man who calls himself a seeker of magic yet commits crimes with no plan? To be lumped in with fools like that—even I, who know my own limits, tremble with rage.”

The pot calls the kettle black, the sinner laughs at the petty crook.

A hardened criminal sneering at a rookie.

Gaikaku, convinced he stood deeper in the abyss of magecraft than anyone alive, couldn’t laugh off the upstart’s tantrum.

He burned with furious indignation.

“Fine, then. Call it fate… I’ll show him what real magecraft looks like—before I kill him.”

※

After leaving the fortress, Gaikaku’s party returned to their base once, dropped off the elves and dark elves, and set out for the mission site.

They loaded ogres and beastkin into their own wagon, marched human infantry alongside it, and spent about a week on the road.

Their destination was a tiny estate ruled by Baron Borealis.

By noble standards, the manor ranked dead last in size—smaller than the home of a moderately wealthy merchant—and that was where Gaikaku now arrived.

It was a modest noble’s house, hardly rich by any stretch.

Granted permission to enter the bedchamber, Gaikaku met the master of the house—and thus the lord of the domain—there.

In keeping with the manor and the fief, the lord himself was small.

“Th-thank you… for coming to our… fief…”

The boy before him was even younger than Count Borick’s son.

Gaunt, pale, and bedridden, the child mustered all his strength just to greet Gaikaku. The butler standing beside him was misty-eyed at the brave effort.

“I-I’m sorry… to receive you in such a state.”

“Baron Arla Borealis-sama, the honor of meeting you directly is mine. Even on your sickbed, you labor at your duties—a true paragon among nobles.”

The child spoke haltingly; Gaikaku matched his pace so the boy could follow.

“However… the privilege of speaking face-to-face with Baron-sama exceeds my station. Butler-dono, if you would?”

“Very well…”

Up close, the aged butler was wrapped in bandages—as if he’d walked off a battlefield only days ago.

He handed Gaikaku a small, ornate vial filled with liquid.

“This, sir, is the ‘panacea’ that’s been sold in our lands.”

“A panacea—now that’s bold. May I test it?”

“By all means. Truly, we’d like to toss it in the river.”

“That would only pollute the fief…”

Gaikaku dipped a test strip into the vial.

It changed color slightly, and from that hue he identified the drug.

“Just as I thought… it’s a painkiller. Amazing what people claim cures every disease.”

“Yes… its efficacy is real—but only as an analgesic!”

The butler all but spat hatred at the so-called panacea—mere pain meds.

“A certain mage came here, called this brew a cure-all, and sold it across the territory. The unlettered peasants… even my lady—the late Baroness, whose health was fragile—took it.”

…I see.”

“Everyone felt better, yes. But the moment the drug wore off, the agony returned tenfold… By the time we learned it was only a painkiller, it was too late…”

Believing herself healed, the Baroness pushed her body too hard.

For a sick, unrecovered body, that stress could be fatal.

“The late lord led us against the mage. Had he merely sold it as pain relief, perhaps it could be forgiven, but to pass it off as a panacea… Unforgivable. We intended to slay him. Yet there… we found creatures not of this world.”

“Let me guess—flesh-swollen monstrosities?”

“You know of them?”

“It’s my field.”

“Then you understand… those monsters slaughtered the late lord, and more than half of us who followed him… We failed even to avenge him…”

Tears rolled down the butler’s cheeks.

The bedridden boy, seeing it, spoke gently to comfort him.

“Truly… I, the heir… ought to have risen myself. But in this state… I cannot even mount a horse…”

“Baron-sama! Please, no more!”

“Knight-dono… I beg you… show this land that justice still lives…”

The boy looked ready to breathe his last.

Gaikaku bowed, as always.

“Leave everything to me.”

“Ah… thank you…”

Having said that much, the child seemed to relax into sleep.

Given how weak he looked, he might not wake again.

“Butler-dono, by tomorrow we shall have it all… settled. We depart at once, but I have a request.”

…Anything, sir.”

“Remain at Baron-sama’s side. Guarding this manor is beyond my men’s reach.”

Gaikaku made the request without showing his face.

“Until I return, hold the line—literally. To the death.”

…You need not tell me twice!”

“Heh-heh-heh… Indeed, there was no need.”

His words dripped malice—enough to prove he was smiling viciously.

“The dirty work is mine. Butler-dono has a butler’s duties. Now then, if you’ll excuse me.”

It was a dark promise: nothing here was going to end cleanly.

Frankly, he resented that the Knights had sent him to clean this up.

But against this opponent…

“How reassuring,” the butler murmured, smiling just as darkly.

※

Within Baron Borealis’s domain lived a crooked mage.

He’d passed off a simple painkiller as a panacea, swindling the populace out of a fortune.

The baron knew where the man was holed up.

When he’d marched on the place with his own troops, he’d been angry—but he hadn’t expected a battle.

A baron might be the lowest noble rank, yet he still commanded soldiers; crushing a cheat of a peddler should’ve been easy.

Should have been.

Lord Tania Borealis, father of Arla, was cut down in the attempt.

Terrifyingly, the mage already commanded real fighting power.

Troops that treated the baron’s soldiers as insects.

His base now verged on a military fort: wooden palisades instead of stone, no great keeps but rows of barracks and armories.

Against that stronghold, Gaikaku brought twenty ogre heavy infantry, a hundred human foot soldiers, and ten beastkin grenadiers.

A hundred thirty men in total, a mixed-branch, mixed-species force—an impressive formation.

With no elves or goblins this time, he couldn’t field archers or night-raiders.

On the upside, every last soldier could be thrown into a frontal assault.

Normally, they could simply charge and win.

The enemy might even surrender outright.

Yet from the fort strode a skinny man brimming with confidence.

“Well, well… Having beaten the baron’s troops, I expected the Knight Order next, but…”

Spectacles of obvious quality, a filthy white coat, all the hallmarks of a scholar.

Far too out of place to lead the vanguard. Mid-forties, maybe.

Despite his age, a childish smugness bled through his face.

“You hardly look like Knights, do you?”

“Yeah, well. The Knight Order’s busy. They don’t deploy for small fries like you.”

Gaikaku also stepped to the front, speaking with a lazy drawl, eyes full of the patronizing calm of a superior.

His men behind him stayed silent, but their anger was palpable.

Villains this blatant were a rare sight.

“So, junior apprentice. Think you can introduce yourself? I heard your name, but I’d rather it from your own lips.”

“Apprentice…? Kuh-kuh-kuh… Seems your parents never taught you to respect your elders. Very well. Elders must show generosity.”

With a childish grin, the scholar declared:

“I am Tanlou—a mage.”

Hearing the name, Gaikaku’s troops stiffened a little.

They’d known the enemy was an Illegal Mage, but still—the reality hit hard.

That scrawny man suddenly seemed to radiate unfathomable menace.

“Gaikaku Hikume. Mage.”

“Oh? I thought so.”

“Unlike a third-rate con man fleecing bumpkins out here in the sticks, I’m a genius mage personally commissioned by Supreme Knight Commander Tistria-sama.”

Gaikaku said it with exaggerated disdain.

“Don’t lump me in with you.”

It was a childish taunt—no adult would take it seriously.

“Huh?!”

Surprisingly, Tanlou exploded.

“Genius? Genius?! Who—the likes of you?!”

“Facts are facts. My presence proves it. Unless I were related to the baron, the only reason for me to be here is that the Knight Order dispatched me.”

“That radiant Tistria-sama—she trusted a green boy like you and sent you here? Impossible! Absolutely not!”

His agitation, his indignation, his fury—couldn’t have been clearer.

“‘Genius’—that word belongs to her!”

“I’ll grant you that.”

“Don’t grant it! Someone like you… someone like you could never meet her! It can’t be!”

“Hmm… So you’ve seen her, but never spoken to her, have you?”

“!!!!!!!!”

A voiceless shriek burst from Tanlou’s mouth.

He stamped the ground, flailing his arms.

Soon he was out of breath.

“Huff… huff…”

“Enough chatter. A grown man shouldn’t waste time on trash talk. Let’s get to it.”

“Yes… yes!”

Catching his breath, Tanlou proclaimed:

“I will display my power to the Knight Commanders-dono—to Tistria-sama herself! If I crush the Knight Commanders who dare stand at her side, they must acknowledge my strength—my existence—my magecraft!”

…

“And you, of all people, are not worth my effort! Come forth—Tanlou Squad!”

At his signal, monsters poured from the fort.

Human-sized, yet their muscles bulged grotesquely.

A well-trained human’s build was nothing compared to these—it was obscene.

To flaunt those muscles, they wore almost no armor.

Hardly any underwear, either—practically naked.

“Finally, our turn…”

“Fine by me. I wanna cut loose.”

“Having this body and never fighting would be a tragedy…”

Muscle-bound abominations no longer human.

Gaikaku’s soldiers shivered at their revolting forms.

“A muscle-enhancement drug… A prohibited substance. It was sealed away ages ago because reckless use leads to death.”

“Exactly! It shortens life, carries the constant risk of sudden death—yet I resurrected it in this age! A deed worthy of genius—of a mind to rival Tistria-sama’s!”

Tanlou trembled, moaned, and laughed.

“Well, leaving that aside… Apprentice boy, fine. But you men—are you really okay with that? Those swollen muscles must cripple daily life, and you’ll all die soon. I bet you already feel awful.”

Enhancing muscle with magic drugs carried obvious dangers: a dance with death.

Gaikaku asked anyway.

“So what?”

The twenty-odd “mighty” men looked back as if to say, and?