v1c4 - 3
“The ‘Demon King’s’....daughter?” Toru muttered, frowning.
It was a completely unexpected revelation to him.
It could even be called shocking. As an admittedly immature saboteur, his face likely betrayed his surprise—Knight Gillette, nodding at Toru’s reaction, continued.
“Exactly, Five years ago during the Battle of the Gaz Imperial Capital, Arthur Gaz himself was struck down, but his daughter—Chaika Gaz—escaped, alone.”
“…Alone?”
To Toru, Chaika appeared to be in her mid-teens, meaning five years ago she would’ve been around ten, a mere child. It was hard to imagine her escaping alone from a scene where the monstrous Arthur Gaz was felled. But if vassals or allies had helped her, where were they now—why weren’t they at Chaika’s side?
Had they perished from exhaustion?
Or had they abandoned Chaika and fled?
Or—
—“Impossible, you’re supposed to be dead!”
Indeed, that’s what the lord had said upon seeing Chaika earlier.
Did that mean some miraculous coincidence had allowed her to survive a situation where death was certain?
“We don’t know the details,” Knight Gillette said. “In any case, we can’t leave her be.”
“And the reason for that?” Toru asked.
From what he’d seen, Chaika was just a clumsy girl who could use a bit of magic. She didn’t seem like someone who warranted being hunted by knights, mercenaries, and assassins but… Toru’s thinking was apparently naive.
“There are still many who revere Emperor Gaz. The very fact that the great powers could form a coalition to attack the Gaz Imperial Capital was, in itself, almost a miracle.”
Ordinarily, the great powers were rivals… but due to various circumstances, they’d managed a temporary alliance by chance. That alliance had made the Battle of the Gaz Imperial Capital possible. Should the Gaz Empire rise again, such a coalition would likely never form, Knight Gillette explained.
“Even in death, the ‘Taboo Emperor’s’ influence is too great. There are those who would rally behind Chaika Gaz to restore the Gaz Empire.”
……
“At the same time—” The knight Gillette’s gaze shifted to the cylinder in his hand. “This ‘Monster,’ whose life spanned three hundred—no, perhaps five hundred years—his remains are undoubtedly a potent magical fuel. The accumulated magical power is immeasurable. If integrated into a <magical staff>, it could create an unparalleled weapon.”
The driving force of magic—magical power—was, in essence, the thoughts of living beings and the corpse of an intelligent being, having accumulated residual thoughts over its lifetime, could be processed to extract magical power. Many magical devices used fossils or corpse wax for their material stability. By shaping the extracted magical power with spell formulas and using a mage’s thoughts as a “spark,” the magic was “ignited.”
In most cases, beast fossils were used… but in theory, a preserved human corpse could also serve as a magical power source.
Like that—the wrist.
“…I see,” Toru said.
Indeed, there was the matter of the large-scale <magical staff> that had encompassed the lord’s entire mansion.It wasn’t merely the size of the <magical staff> that made it possible, but the presence of the ‘Taboo Emperor’s’ wrist, a supreme mage which was there, that enabled such technology.
That’s likely why Arthur Gaz’s remains were divided into multiple parts and stored separately. Who knew what kind of magical weapon could be created if they were all gathered—let alone what would happen if they fell into the hands of those plotting to revive the Gaz Empire? Those behind Knight Gillette surely feared such an outcome.
“Understand now?” Knight Gillette said, a hint of impatience in his voice. “Chaika Gaz is a seed of calamity, threatening to plunge this hard-won era of peace back into the vortex of war. We cannot absolutely let her collect her father’s remains!”
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