Chapter 67 - The Tower Master

"Dogs, you mean?"

"That's right, little brother. You can't just catch a fox on your own."

Romans folded his arms and declared proudly, "You need hunting dogs to follow its scent."

"I see."

"They're called foxhounds."

... I see.

Hounds.

"Well, let me know whenever you're interested! We can go together!"

"Yes, I'll do that."

After making that noncommittal promise, I looked at my place at the table and found a slice of cake that hadn't been there before. Chocolate cake topped with a cherry.

Was it dessert time already?

"Mother, I should be..."

"Sit down and finish eating."

When was this ever going to end?

"I'll eat it... later."

"Then you can have it in your room."

Mother called the chef over and had the cake boxed up. She quietly arranged for an entire cake, rather than a slice.

No matter how much room I made later, I didn't think I could manage that.

"I'm sorry, but I have to leave right away."

"Leave?"

"I have to head back north."

My parents would assume I'd been staying in the royal capital lately, so I gestured north as I spoke.

"I only stopped by briefly because I had something to tell Father. I'll make time for a longer visit next time."

"You came all this way when you have to leave again so soon..."

For some reason, Father seemed delighted by that.

"Well, what did you want to tell me?"

"Father, I..."

As I began, he raised his hand.

"Wait. Let me speak first."

"Oh, of course."

"I was waiting because I had something to tell you in person as well. That's why I kept asking in my letters when you would visit, but you never replied."

"... I'm sorry."

"Never mind that. I've calmed down now."

Calmed down? Had he been that upset before?

"Daywin."

"Yes, Father."

"You must take Hasgard's spirit."

His tone had suddenly turned serious.

"..."

That was exactly what I'd wanted to discuss, and the reason I'd stopped by home.

"Your mother, your brothers, and I all agree."

Hasgard's spirit.

The iron spirit.

"Yes. My contract is nearing its end. It's time I passed it on."

"You would give me the family treasure..."

"I know full well that none of you wanted to inherit it. After all, the iron spirit has traditionally passed to the head of House Hasgard. To think my sons would be so lacking in ambition..."

Father cleared his throat and continued.

"But what choice do we have? We must choose a successor before the contract ends."

There were two ways to pass down the iron spirit: its contractor could designate a successor, or the contractor could die before the contract expired.

In my previous life, it had been the latter.

There had been no one to pass it on, nor anyone to receive it.

Only me.

"We've chosen you, Daywin."

Not "I," but "we."

My brothers, who could have inherited the spirit themselves—and had a stronger claim than I did—had yielded it to me.

"So don't even think of refusing..."

"Yes."

"Hm?"

"I'll inherit it."

"H... hm?"

"As it happens, that's what I came to discuss, Father."

I looked straight into Father's eyes, the very same color as mine.

As the third son, I was last in line, with the weakest claim of all.

Even so, shameless as it might be...

"I must have it."

For a moment, silence fell.

"You've made the right choice. You really have, little brother."

Then the eldest Hasgard smiled and nodded.

"And I'm sorry. You'll have to shoulder that weight."

Weight.

A characteristic of the iron spirit.

Spirits acted strictly according to their contracts. My contract with the light spirit allowed me to use it however I wished until I died, without paying anything in return.

The terms favored me so heavily that only the Goddess's benevolence could explain them.

It was an unfair contract.

But the light spirit contracted to me was the sole exception.

If ordinary spirits had one defining trait, it was that they were a pain in the ass in exchange for the power they granted.

Veronica's Spirit of Abundance demanded money from its contractor, while Hasgard's iron spirit made its contractor a slave to the battlefield.

Its contract required the contractor to keep moving and preparing for battle.

To keep the iron from rusting.

If the contractor failed to fulfill those terms, it crushed them with weight.

Absurdly enough, it made them gain weight.

That was why Father could never be thin.

In my previous life, I'd lived on the battlefield just as the iron spirit wanted, so I'd never had to pay that price. This life was a little different.

As Dyer said, I might find myself having to shoulder that weight.

I would have to keep moving to stop the iron from rusting. That would take me further from the life of indulgence I wanted, but I had some contract terms in mind.

"I'm aware of the terms of the contract. Even so, I can't give it up."

"... Good."

Father nodded slowly.

"Daywin, I'm glad to hear you say that. And to see you like this..."

Mother, as well as Father, spoke with a satisfied expression.

With that, I finished dinner and rose.

It was time to join Amelia and Chiron.

Oh, but before that...

"Paris, take care of this for me."

"Isn't that the cake the mistress packed for you...! Take care of it? Absolutely not!"

"No, I don't mean throw it out."

"Then please eat it. Quickly, before the mistress gets angry."

"I don't have time right now. And I can't afford to carry luggage. Just send it to the address I give you. Oh, it might spoil, so we'd better use a courier."

I took money out of my wallet and pressed it into Paris's hand.

"Ah, you mean to eat it once you return to your residence. Very well. Though I do worry whether the courier can time the delivery properly."

"Excuse me."

I took the pen from the breast pocket of Paris's suit and scribbled on the cake box, writing on both the inside and the outside.

"Send it here."

"That's quite a... long address. At any rate, I'm glad you aren't throwing it away, young master."

Paris lowered his voice.

"Of course not. I'm not confident I could survive the fallout."

"No, I suppose not. Indeed..."

I returned the pen to his pocket.

"I'm off. Take care."

"Until next time, young master. I shall await your return."

With my back to him, I gave a casual wave.

It was time to head to the mage tower.

Ever since seeing the fox's face, I'd felt a burning in my chest.

The Death God's cult's five lamps.

The Five Lamps.

Five officers.

In my previous life, there had only been four, since I hadn't joined. One seat had remained vacant.

A snake, a fox, a ghost, and a demon.

A medusa, a nine-tailed fox, a banshee, and Chiron.

If I'd joined, would my role have been something like a fallen paladin?

An angel did seem like a fitting addition after a demon, but surely they wouldn't have written something that cringeworthy.

The developers seemed to have based the Five Lamps on monsters and supernatural creatures from myths and folklore.

The strange thing was that they'd turned all the beings usually depicted as women into men.

Was that what my junior was into?

Earlier, that bastard had said the tower master was dead.

But judging by his attempt to "stab" the Houndry operatives to death, he probably hadn't eaten the tower master yet.

It did seem he'd managed to eat the first prince, then use that power to kill the tower master.

The fox absorbed those he ate and stole their abilities, though he had an extremely nine-tailed-fox-like cooldown of one hundred days.

Clearly, a hundred days hadn't passed since he'd eaten the first prince. He might have killed the tower master, but he wouldn't have been able to eat him.

It would be dangerous if he'd already eaten the tower master, but that hadn't happened yet.

In other words, he was weaker than when I'd met him in my previous life.

He hadn't eaten the tower master or Blash.

I checked [Ending Preview] to see if I could find any more information. The ending featuring the nine-tailed fox was one of the landmine endings.

Ending (28) – Only Rebecca

That ominous ending, the only one in bold.

Daywin and Esther.

Chiron and Amelia.

The nine-tailed fox and Rebecca.

Except for Veronica, the only one without a landmine ending, the heroines were connected to the Five Lamps.

Rebecca, the nine-tailed fox, the first prince, the mage tower, the experiments.

It felt as though everything was intertwined.

And all of it had to end.

* * *

"This... is the mage tower?"

The first floor.

Amelia covered her nose against the foul stench. The interior was pitch-black, but it didn't take long to identify the smell.

Blood.

It rose from the pools of blood beneath the mages' bodies strewn everywhere.

"Hello! Is anyone—!"

"Amelia."

Chiron stopped her as she tried to call out.

"Don't... make noise like that."

He spoke while feeling along the first-floor walls. Touching a finger to the blood spattered there, he turned to Amelia.

"... It hasn't been long."

Then he examined the bodies. Their wounds varied so much that he couldn't determine what weapon had been used. Some looked as though they'd been struck with a blunt weapon, while others appeared to have been slashed.

The only thing he could tell was that, whether bludgeoned or cut, each had died from a single blow.

"Hmph. It seems something really did happen, just as Hasgard predicted."

Without a word, Chiron took her hand and placed it on his waist.

"Ngh."

"... Let's go up. Stay close."

"Damn it, again..."

Amelia followed him, looking aggrieved.

"You've been acting strange for a while, Brother."

"...?"

"You seemed on edge ever since I brought up the mage tower. Even now, you're being rather jumpy."

"..."

The two climbed the stairs slowly, keeping their hands against the wall.

The second floor, the third, the fourth.

Dead mages lay on every one.

Things changed on the fifth floor, where a lone candle provided a feeble light. Chiron led the way toward it and found a dead mage clutching a matchbox.

He took the matchbox from the mage's hand and examined it closely.

"Not a single... match used... How is the candle..."

At that, Amelia hopped up and snatched the matchbox. She nodded after reading the cursive writing on it.

"Naturally. These matches aren't for lighting fires. It's a communication magic item. The name of the shopkeeper next to the academy is on it. I never expected to find one here."

She stuffed the matches into her pocket as she spoke.

"A communication... magic item?"

"Yes. He was probably trying to call for help. Hmm, yes. Brother, it seems we're thinking the same thing."

Keeping her hand in her pocket, she turned to Chiron.

"They were killed before they could even alert anyone outside."

Chiron bit his lower lip.

"From the first floor to the fifth. In one go."

"..."

"There are no holes in the ceilings or floors. Which means the killer must have taken the stairs, just as we did. Far too fast for that."

"... Let's go."

With a troubled expression, Chiron headed to the next floor.

The eighth floor.

Amelia found and picked up a matchbox made by the same person.

"This one has been used. From the eighth floor onward, it seems they at least had time to call for help. And..."

Amelia pointed sharply at the stairs.

"Something definitely changed on the eighth floor."

A trail of blood ran up the stairs to the ninth floor and beyond.

Following it, they reached the top floor.

The fifteenth.

"You said you'd found me, but I didn't expect you to come so soon."

A man sat beside a corpse with both legs severed, his fox ears twitching.

That corpse was clearly the source of the blood trail stretching from the eighth floor.

He'd cut off both legs and dragged the victim all the way to the top.

Such was the tower master's ignominious end.

Still lounging there, the fox raised only his eyes to stare at Chiron's face as he impersonated Daywin.

"I knew it would be you."

He gave a little laugh.

"I had Karma do it, but he failed. Then they sent the twins, and I heard they failed too. I thought I was the one chasing you all this time. Who would've guessed you were chasing me too?"

"What are you talking..."

"I love this so much...!"

The fox's high-pitched voice cut through Amelia's.

"If I'd known you were this good, I'd have come to meet you sooner, Daywin!"

Amelia frowned at the name.

'This bastard... can't see through the ring...'

"It's such a shame. Really. If things had gone according to that snake bastard's plan, we wouldn't have met like this. We might have been raising a toast together to celebrate taking over the mage tower."

"Amelia."

As though he'd heard enough, Chiron stepped in front of her.

Just then, the nine-tailed fox whipped a wand out of the tower master's coat pocket.

The instant he waved it, the mage tower twisted grotesquely, and the floor beneath Chiron vanished.

CLUNK!

With nothing left beneath his feet, Chiron fell.

Not merely to the floor below.

Down.

Further down.

The sound of his fall echoed for a long time.

"Bye!"

The fox staggered to his feet and shouted into the gaping hole.

Then he slowly turned his head toward Amelia.

With all trace of laughter gone, he radiated an eerie presence, as though he were a different person.

No.

He wasn't even human.

"Oh, I've got one of those too."

He abruptly pointed at Amelia's finger, then held up his own right hand.

A Royal Ring encircled his finger.

"You bastard. My eldest brother..."

"Yeah. I needed him to kill this fellow."

He gave the tower master's body a light kick.

"Needed him?"

"You know, I wasn't planning to kill any royals besides the first prince. His ability was the only thing I needed. But I've just changed my mind."

The fox spread his tails and took a step closer.

"I think I can take Daywin with me if you're out of the way."

"No need for them, you say? It's not as though I have this ability because I need it either."

Amelia brought the back of her hand to her mouth and bit down.

Blood streamed out, soaking not only the back of her hand but her palm as well.

"Oh?"

"What an admirable father I have. They say he took any woman to bed, whether barbarian or demon."

Amelia gripped her hammer's handle with her blood-soaked hand.

"Though I was born thanks to that, as you say, I don't much care for it. Hardly an ability fit for royalty."

Her autumn-colored eyes blazed crimson.

At that instant..."

BOOM!

Amelia swung the hammer one-handed and drove it into the fox's head.

"After all, isn't it vulgar for royalty to possess such monstrous strength?"