“I’ve been in this position for almost 10 years, but this is the first day that’s been such a whirlwind.”

After the Tin Knight’s party had left.

Having finished subduing and restraining the pirates who kept reviving endlessly, seizing their ship, and brushing off the diplomat’s threats—or whining—that this matter would absolutely not be taken lightly, the guard captain finally sat down in a chair to rest his weary body.

The guard captain, who drank the coffee brought by his adjutant as if just replenishing nutrients without savoring it, read the dissatisfaction and doubt on his adjutant’s face and said, “You seem to have a lot to say. Are you so displeased that I granted that young lady’s request?”

“…To be honest, yes. While Miss Gale Elilaz’s position is high, that doesn’t mean she can arbitrarily manipulate the rules here.”

The criteria for receiving a high rank in the Tower of Protection was “how excellent a technique one invented, and how much of the invented technique one donated to the tower”.

High-ranking mages were respected as “excellent technicians”, but in other words, that was all.

Unlike the Tower of Control where rank and position meant almost the same thing, in the Tower of Protection, even if one had a high rank, that alone didn’t give the right to freely order others around.

Moreover, this was the border. The position of the person in charge of guarding it was one or two heads higher compared to other guard units.

It wasn’t for nothing that the guard captain lightly brushed off the pressure from the diplomat from another tower.

“That’s just the principle. How many people in the world would ignore a ‘request’ from other 4th rank mages?”

“Miss Elilaz is different from other 4th rank mages, isn’t she?”

“How is she different?”

“Well, others purely contributed to the tower over many years with their skills and experience, but she’s the direct mentee of the Witch of the North…”

“Tsk, it seems you’ve heard some rumors too.”

In fact, there was a lot of talk about the youngest mage promoted to 4th rank—Gale.

Saying things like she submitted techniques developed by the Witch of the North under her own name for promotion, or that the current tower head, who was also a mentee of the Witch of the North, gave preferential treatment to her youngest fellow mentee.

“While the current tower head is a gentle person, she’s not someone who would intentionally favor school connections knowing it would cause discord. In the first place, that young lady isn’t the type to accept such preferential treatment. She earned 4th rank purely on her skills.”

“Even so, openly opposing the Tower of Control is a separate issue. If something goes wrong, it could even escalate to a matter of your responsibility, Captain.”

“That might be true.”

The guard captain nodded obediently.

“But… if it’s the price of confirming whether an ally is truly trustworthy, or a worm disguised as a friend inside our body, isn’t that much something we should endure?”

The guard captain’s hand lightly touched one of the flutes recovered by the soldiers.

《Oh friends! Listen to my story, listen to this tale!》

《You must know the truth that the oppressors tried to hide, this story they tried to conceal!》

《This is the story of an evil and petty conspiracy unfolded by those who dream of control!》

It was difficult to believe easily.

But if this turned out to be true.

The price Control would pay for their deception would certainly not be light.

***

“Hey, do you really have thoughts or not?”

Throughout the journey to the tower, Dorothea’s attitude was sulky.

Compared to the original plan of “scattering flutes around various parts of the Tower of Protection, creating a commotion large enough that the upper echelons of the tower can’t cover up the rumors, and drawing out the tower head”, the current situation was several times more comfortable and easy, yet she was like this.

If the party had originally intended to involve Gale, there was no need for an escape act or anything; they could have just waited with the White Knight until Gale returned and moved together, and that would have been it.

However, Dorothea refused this and made plans excluding Gale’s existence.

She even clearly explained to the White Knight not to get involved without knowing the circumstances.

Yet this White Witch ignored such consideration and suddenly rushed in to join.

Dorothea couldn’t help but feel displeased.

“We’re outsiders in the Magic State, so it doesn’t matter if we cause a big commotion and run, but you’re not like that, right? How are you going to deal with the aftermath?”

“I’m just doing what I think is right,” Gale’s answer was simple. “I’m not completely denying political strife or scheming itself. That’s also part of society. But people have lines they should keep as humans. They supported bandits just to gain some of their own interests, allowed citizens to be plundered by those bandits, annihilated good people who tried to subjugate them, then pinned all the blame on them and trampled their dignity. If I didn’t know, it would be one thing, but staying quiet while knowing this goes against my beliefs.”

The White Witch asserted clearly that it was just that.

“I live like this because I want to live like this. Isn’t Dorothea the same?”

“Don’t treat us the same,” Dorothea cut her off coldly.

The Black Witch’s gaze turned to Adelaide and the Tin Knight, who were walking a little apart, practicing mana manipulation.

“I can’t be such a good person. If this wasn’t related to Adel, I wouldn’t have even thought of getting involved in the first place.”

That was Dorothea’s “line to keep”.

Malice for malice. Goodwill for goodwill.

Empathizing with the pain felt by those in her embrace, but cold to those outside.

Not carelessly involving unrelated people, but not absolutely so either.

Just that much.

“Hmm, well if Dorothea says so, I guess that’s how it is. Inside Dorothea’s circle.”

“…You, someday when a curse strikes, just remember you had it coming.”

“Hmm, when someone with 3 days left until the Rag Curse is established says it, it really has a different weight.”

“Hey!!”

Except for the minor side effect of Dorothea suffering from Gale’s teasing, the journey to the Tower of Protection was truly peaceful itself.

While the party didn’t have the leisure to enjoy sightseeing leisurely, even just passing by briefly was enough to see how prosperous the Tower of Protection and its ruling territory were.

Magic waterworks, magic streetlights, magic air conditioners, and so on.

So much so that the Tin Knight said.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ expresses doubt, wondering if they’re not mistakenly thinking everything sounds plausible just by attaching the word ‘magic’ to it!]

Well, there was some validity to the Tin Knight’s doubt.

Despite being the same country, the areas ruled by the Tower of Protection and the other towers looked at least half a century to a century apart in time.

However, strictly speaking, the other towers were also enjoying that level of cultural benefits.

As could be seen from how the Tin Knight’s party easily solved all sorts of problems that travelers should face, such as meals, maintaining cleanliness, pest control, etc., previously with Dorothea’s magic and currently with the special magic carriage, the living conditions of mages who could borrow the power of magic and spirits were on a different level from ordinary people.

The Tower of Protection had simply spread those benefits more widely to the public in the form of magic tools.

In other words, that could be said to be the key, but among the party, only Sophia paid such detailed attention.

“If I get the chance, I’d like to leisurely tour this place once.”

“Well, we’ll have to stay for a while anyway to reform that guy’s taste, so we can do it then. After all, the moment our plan succeeds and we receive the Witch of the North’s approval, all that’s left for the Tower of Control is destruction.”

Considering that they would have to deal with another mess in the Empire afterwards, replenishing their strength here for a while wasn’t such a bad plan.

It was even more so because Adelaide was mentally stable enough to clearly distinguish between when to release her anger and when not to, rather than being in a state of grinding her teeth to annihilate all related parties with revenge-crazed eyes.

While having such conversations, they finally arrived at the tower.

Thanks to prior communication, meeting with the tower head wasn’t such a difficult task.

“…Gale, you’re really harsh on an old woman. How can you bring such a heart-wrenching matter?”

The head of the Tower of Protection was an elderly woman with impressively graying hair and subtle wrinkles.

Her gentle and dignified facial features truly deserved the evaluation of a gracefully aged noble lady, but considerable fatigue was settled in her eyes.

Gale shrugged her shoulders, “I’m just a supporting role in this matter, at best just a helper.”

Saying the real protagonists were over here, Gale passed the credit to Dorothea’s party.

The tower head’s gaze swept over the Tin Knight, Dorothea, Sophia in order, and then stopped on Adelaide.

Golden hair and violet eyes.

After what happened in the forest, she was no longer hiding her eye and hair color.

“My, my. Adventurers accompanying a descendant of the Lion Duke come to report corruption in the tower. And the counterpart of that corruption is the same Lennart family, you say?”

Originally, Sophia or Dorothea would have led the conversation, but this time, given the nature of the matter, Adelaide opened her mouth.

“I think it’s not unreasonable for you to be suspicious. But just as not all towers are one tower, not all of the Lion Duke’s bloodline are one either.”

“I know about the direct and collateral lines. How could I not? However, I can’t believe it just because you claim a conspiracy theory,” gently, as if showing the composure of an elder, but firmly as the head of a faction, the tower head continued, “It seems you intend to see the Witch of the North and have her certify the ‘evidence’ you’ve brought, but currently, you are extremely suspicious and subversive individuals. Without Gale’s attestation, it would have been difficult to even have this conversation.”

Even faced with a negative response, Adelaide didn’t panic.

“What do you want?”

“Can you show me that evidence too?”

Adelaide looked at Dorothea, then nodded.

Dorothea took out a fairly large crystal ball about the size of a fist and placed it on the table.

It was an object that had been edited to remove some private parts from what the party had seen in the forest and reorganized to make the overall flow easier to understand.

“You know the magic that makes people dream what they want, right? The basic principle is the same. When you put mana in, mist flows out, and if you inhale that mist, you fall into a dream.”

The mages of the Tower of Protection frowned at Dorothea’s blunt words, but the tower head remained calm.

“It’s quite risky for the recipient. Wouldn’t it have been more stable to make it into a video and have it displayed in something like a crystal ball?”

“We didn’t have the capacity for that while being chased.”

More precisely, it was out of consideration for Adelaide’s feelings, who would have to see her family’s tragedy being played like a movie everywhere, but Dorothea feigned ignorance about that part.

“Yes, well, seeing how the Tower of Control is having a fit, it’s amazing that you’ve brought such evidence this far. But we have our position too, so I’ll review it. That’s fine, right?”

“Do as you please. We haven’t set up any suspicious devices.”

At Dorothea’s affirmation, the tower head had her subordinates bring several magic tools.

Only after magic tools in the form of magnifying glasses, plates, and sprinkled powder each played their roles did the tower head directly touch the crystal ball.

It was hard to say she was excessively cautious.

Rather, if the head of a group lacked even this level of preparedness, that would be truly worrying.

The black mist generated from the crystal ball entered the tower head’s nose and mouth, and she fell asleep.

And, about 10 minutes later.

The eyes of the tower head who woke up were still calm, but the chill leaking from her voice was undeniable.

“…At least from what I’ve seen, it doesn’t seem to be a disguise or manipulation. I’ll need to go through a few more verification procedures to be cautious, but if by any chance it turns out to be true, the Magic State will be turned upside down.”

Adelaide asked, “Does that mean you’ll allow us to meet the Witch of the North?”

The head of the Tower of Protection answered, “Yes, I’ll convey the message to her.”

***

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