Chapter 277. Climbing the Beanstalk
“Cough….”
Page, the Family Head of Wisdom, wiped his mouth with a handkerchief after coughing.
Fresh red blood stained the pure white cloth. There was not much, and it was the last of the blood that came from his mouth, but it was clear evidence of an internal injury.
The backlash had struck when the connection was forcibly severed while he was using dream magic to interfere with a mind.
Yet a connection made by an 8th Circle mage was not something that could be broken easily.
And someone had invaded the mental world he had created with dream magic.
Wiping his mouth, Page braced himself against the glass throne, rose, and stood straight.
By the time he had wiped away the blood and composed himself after collapsing when the dream magic connection broke, the intruder had arrived as well.
Page tucked the handkerchief inside his clothes and turned to her.
“Why in the world did you do that?”
“I should be asking you. Why did you do such a thing, Page?”
Arasil, who had vanished in cold mist and returned in cold mist, spoke with a voice full of sorrow.
“She is the daughter you brought into this world. Your daughter loves you and loves your family. Is this all you can give her in return?”
“They are Millesdusk. They have far more ways to tamper with a mind than we do, and they are far more ruthless. Rather than let her suffer all of that, I would, with my own hands—”
THOOM―!
An invisible shock wave snapped Page's jaw to the side.
It was the mana of a dragon approaching an Ancient Dragon, but the 8th Circle mage did not even try to dodge.
He accepted the blow as punishment, and far more blood than before burst from his nose and mouth.
He put just enough strength into his legs as he staggered backward to keep from falling.
Arasil drew back the hand she had moved as if slapping his cheek and thundered,
“There are things a person can say and things he cannot. You are a father, and you say it would be better to kill her with your own hands?”
With an impassive face, Page wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and continued.
“I am fated never to reach the 9th Circle.”
“…What does that have to do with this?”
“My method of discarding emotion opened a path only as far as the 8th Circle. That means my very premise was wrong.”
“…….”
Page looked down at his hand, now wet with his own blood.
If Arasil had not stopped him, traces of blood like these would soon have appeared at Pia's mouth and ears.
“My past decisions were made by a man who ran madly down the wrong path. There is nothing I can undo now.”
Arasil shook her head at once.
“There is. There are certainly things you can put right. Even now, you need only open your heart and treat your children as your children.”
“I am no longer a man who can do that.”
Page laid his bloodied hand over his Core. He could feel the eight rings around it as vividly as a heartbeat.
He had discarded his emotions one by one to gain nine rings, yet the path had granted him only eight.
As he walked that path, the Family Head had made many choices, wounding the feelings of many people and driving daggers into them.
This time was no different.
“I will have to divert a little of the power—the mana—concentrated in Majia.”
“…Page. Surely you do not intend to cast a grand spell?”
Sky Island, fixed in place, was little different from a target. No one knew its position better than Wisdom.
For a Magic Tower full of geniuses at organizing information and establishing formulas, aiming a grand spell at it would be no trouble at all.
“Did you not say the enemy would be shaken greatly if I killed the Fifth Son? There is no need to kill only him.”
“Have you already forgotten that Cos, whom you cherish so much, has gone to rescue Pia? She could be caught in it.”
“That is a variable with a negligible probability. As a 7th Circle mage, Cos is capable of sensing a grand spell before it strikes and getting away.”
“…Nothing I say will reach you now.”
Arasil gave up trying to persuade the descendant of her old friend. Page had gone too far to bring back with words.
The Western Family Head sat down once more on his dark blue glass throne.
“I apologize. I will say nothing more about your aiding the enemy and even making a contract with them. Please leave now.”
Arasil silently looked at her forearm.
It was as white as chalk, yet an 8th Circle mage's eyes and a dragon's could clearly see the indelible mark of the contract upon it, like a tattoo.
“I do not know whether to thank you for trusting me or apologize for failing your expectations.”
“I am the one who should apologize. My vision was clouded, and I let things go wrong.”
The blue eyes she had called clouded shone coldly as they regarded Page. Before long, though, she lowered her head.
Arasil pulled down her sleeve to hide her arm and turned away.
“I will protect your children. If you dislike treating them as your children so much, I hope you will at least protect this family well.”
“…Thank you.”
Arasil vanished from the 101st floor.
Afterward, the Magic Tower Master gave the mages an order: calculate the path of a grand spell that would reach Sky Island.
It would take roughly three days. After those three days, the Magic Tower's grand spell would cover the sky over Sky Island.
The spell would draw not only on the mana of the 8th Circle mage but also on that of the Magic Tower, an enormous reservoir of mana.
“Using the tower's mana may leave me weaker when I fight the Family Head of Millesdusk, but….”
For now, something else came to mind before that concern.
The smile that young bastard had shown in the dream was seared into his mind. Whether his eyes were open or shut, he could see it before him.
That confidence with no discernible foundation, and those eyes as red as blood.
CREAK―
He gripped the glass throne as though he might break it.
“Fifth Son Dante Black Millesdusk…. I will not let you leave this land alive.”
***
Three days passed.
Three days after they left Majia, Sky Island began to come into view with the naked eye.
But the island they saw again after those few days looked very different from the last time.
“What… is that?”
Cos murmured the question, but no one could answer it. At best, they could only say what they saw.
“…They look like trees.”
“I've never seen trees that big.”
As the blood relatives stood openmouthed, Messenger Paras added,
“They look just like the trees elves live in.”
“…Elves?”
“Yes. According to the records, the trees grown by elves shoot up in an instant and have almost no limit to their size.”
“But Millesdusk came from the East. They cannot have an elf. A Dark Elf, perhaps.”
Paras nodded at the Third Son's words.
“Yes. I think this may be the work of the Forest Witch, known as the East's Second Great Witch.”
Paras had investigated the Fifth Son's camp even more closely than the First Daughter or the Third Son, and he had an idea whose work it was.
“The Forest Witch….”
Cos murmured the name for a moment, looking at the four trees growing around Sky Island.
To be honest, they looked less like trees than columns made from thick plant stems twisted together.
The twisted stems spread out sideways and grew enormous leaves, as though giants had planted them.
The huge plants were arranged around Sky Island, with stems branching out in various directions.
After studying them in silence, the Third Son said,
“They are walls. Whatever these things are, trees or plants, they are serving as walls.”
“To guard against mana bombardment from aerial warships and mage corps.”
“You're right, Eldest Sister. As we saw on the way here, they're using the Towers of the Sky as a surveillance network and preparing a separate direct defense.”
“The Eastern sorcerers probably cannot operate the Towers of the Sky properly anyway. They did not catch us just now, after all.”
The Towers of the Sky scattered at a distance from Sky Island were all lit.
But their surveillance network was looser than when the West had operated them. It seemed they let anything smaller than a fleet pass through.
The reason was clear from the undead in the towers.
“It looks like they're operating them remotely with undead instead of people. There must be limits. That's good for us.”
“Now we only need to find a way to climb safely up to Sky Island.”
“Night is coming soon. It's time.”
By using the cover of night, they could escape the enemy's direct sight to some extent.
The rescue team hid in the night and approached the ground beneath Sky Island. Traveling by land, they reached the great plants before they reached the island.
“…There doesn't seem to be any magical treatment or mana treatment. They're just trees.”
Ryan, who was also skilled in Earth Attribute magic, found nothing unusual in the ground where the plants had taken root.
Cos, a 7th Circle mage whose sensitivity to mana was exceptionally keen, nodded too.
“They're enormous plants. Up close, they look even more as though someone pulled them from a fairy tale.”
“Eldest Sister. This isn't the time to admire them. We need to choose the best of the ways we thought of to reach Sky Island.”
“I think I know which is best.”
Cos ran her hand over one of the great plants. It was reasonably soft but bumpy, and the vines held firm even when she tugged hard.
“Let's climb this.”
“…Are you serious?”
“Do you truly mean that?”
Two questions came at once.
But the First Daughter only blinked her innocent eyes, as though she could see no problem.
“Look. These stems and vines are easy to climb, and climbing will use far less mana than flying.”
“That's true, but….”
“You know the less mana we use, the less likely the enemy is to detect us.”
The Third Son still seemed uneasy. He approached the plant, set a foot on it, and took hold of a vine.
Even if they fell, each of them had a way to deal with it, so safety was scarcely a concern. All they had to do was make up their minds.
“I'll go.”
Paras raised his hand first and stood behind Cos.
“Flying would be fastest, but I understand there is a dragon on this island. The mana waves from Polymorph would be too great a gamble.”
“What about you, Ryan?”
“…What do you think? I'll climb too.”
Cos gave a small smile as she watched her youngest brother grip a vine.
“Thank you.”
“Let's get climbing. The longer we wait, the more alert they'll become.”
“Yes. Let's.”
The rescue team began climbing the plant stems. They circulated mana through their bodies to increase their strength, so the climb itself was not difficult.
“We have to reach Sky Island before sunrise. That's our goal.”
“Yes.”
“Understood.”
Cos raised her head and looked up at Sky Island, still only the size of a fist.
Everything she wanted to rescue, everything she was curious about, and everything she disliked was up there.
‘First, let's rescue Pia. Once she's safe, I can act a little more boldly.’
The leader of the rescue team naturally wanted to carry out the rescue, but one member had a slightly different aim.
‘How can I leave the group halfway without raising suspicion? I've come this far. I want to find Josephine somehow.’
Yet the island held more than just the blood relative he wanted to see.
‘All the Millesdusk blood relatives are there, and even a dragon. I don't know where Josephine is, so I can't rely on Polymorph alone.’
But difficult or not, he had to do it.
He had resolved himself from the beginning and had not the slightest thought of turning back now.
‘I'll meet her somehow—or at least leave her a note and apologize.’
Going back without doing so would only make him suffer more.
***
“…Dante. Why did you bring me here?”
When the youngest son said he needed to go somewhere for a moment, Josephine had let him take her by the hand to a room.
The person already inside stiffened at her question, as though it were a question she herself wanted to ask.
“J-Josephine….”
“…Pia, Big Sister.”
The two who had once been sisters met again across the long years between them.
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