While I was distracted, a massive ball of light flew in my direction. A paralyzing shock ran through me and knocked me onto my back. My body was numb—an immobilizing magic spell.
Dammit. I got sloppy. Shit. Move!
Before I could even use my inner tenacity to break the spell, the witch was standing before me. They crouched, grabbed my arm, and looked at my palm. Then they rummaged around in my pocket and took the handkerchief with the pills inside.
“You…bitch…”
I just barely managed to sit upright when they thrust the staff into my face. Beatings and slashings were no problem for me, but magic was a different matter altogether. A whole incantation would take longer, but the power it delivered would be that much greater. I didn’t know what kind of spell it would be, but all signs suggested they meant to blow my head off. My body was tough, but even I would die if my head came off. I mean, I assumed. Never tested it out.
I couldn’t even fight back, because I couldn’t move. I couldn’t raise my voice to call for help, either.
Even as a non-mage, I could tell the jewel on the tip was pulsing with power. I knew that whatever this was, it would easily kill a human being. Maybe my time had finally come. But I had too many lingering attachments to allow the grim reaper to sever them all with its grisly scythe. I couldn’t give up and die there. There was a princess knight trembling in fear of her past mistakes who needed my help.
But the stone’s light only got brighter and hotter, mocking my bold attempt to struggle. A flame spell, then. The kept man would end up as embers.
“Hey, what’s going on over there?” someone behind me said.
Instantly, the light vanished from the jewel. The witch leaped back, then turned on their heel and vanished into the darkness of the alley.
“What happened, Matthew?”
Fresh footsteps approached. It was the Paladin duo—the guy with the mustache and the other one with tanned skin. They were originally town guards but got transferred into the Paladins. Apparently, they’d taken well to their new posts.
The princess knight was well-known around town. Her house had been robbed before, and attacked as well. In the wake of that, stations for both the town guard and the Paladins had been built in the area. They performed regular patrols as well. There were times I found that annoying, but in this case, it had saved my ass.
“You drunk…? Don’t look it. Bandits have their way with you?”
“Hard as it is to believe, yes.”
The magic spell was wearing off; perhaps it worked only with the caster in close proximity. Now that I could move again, I put a hand to the wall to get to my feet.
“An enormous ox-like woman just beat me black and blue with her teats. She ran off with a handkerchief meant for my girlfriend. I’d be grateful if you could get it back.”
“Not in the job description, I’m afraid,” said the mustached one. The purpose of the Paladins was preventing major crimes like robbery, murder, and drug dealing. They wouldn’t drop everything to help an unemployed gigolo who got shaken down.
“We’ve got our hands full with this underworld gang war right now, thanks to the damn stampede.”
The influx of monsters had killed many members of the Devil’s Alliance and the Spotted Wolves. That led other groups to attempt to seize their territory. Naturally, they weren’t going to roll over and allow that without a fight, so the competition and bloodshed were fierce all over.
“Get on home. Don’t make things any harder for the princess knight.”
Satisfied with their taunting, the two continued on their way. I slammed my fist against the wall.
“Shit!”
I’d really fucked up.
The pills I’d meant to give Arwin were gone.
What did someone do in Gray Neighbor when they’d been robbed? I’d already seen what service the Paladins offered, and it was pointless to rely on the guards. Sorry, pal. Just a bad break. If you were rich enough, they might pretend to do a search, but you weren’t likely to get your stuff back.
Some thieves fenced their stolen goods to a reseller, but if they found out it was just medicine, they might throw it away. Pawn shops would sell medicine, too, but usually only if it was something even an amateur could identify, like such-and-such tails or dried herbs. They wouldn’t touch pills and liquids. There was no way to tell what it did without using it, and more importantly, no one was going to pay for something like that.
The only reasons to steal pills would be to swallow them or give them to someone else to take. Even if I found that witch again, it would be too late. It was a shame the medicine I’d gained was going to waste, but that wasn’t my real concern. If they were really a witch, as they appeared to be, they would know a lot about medicines. If they realized the identity of the fool they’d stolen it from and the nature of the medicine, it would naturally lead them to Arwin. I needed to silence them.
They hadn’t spared a thought for my wallet or the magical temporary sun. It was as though they’d been after the pills from the start. How had they determined I was in possession of them anyway? I hadn’t noticed anyone following me. Had they used magic to track me down?
I wasn’t all that knowledgeable about magic and magicians. I knew magicians weren’t allowed to teach magic to anyone but their own kind. Therefore, anyone who wanted to learn had to apprentice under a master and take their last name. It was a kind of pseudo-family structure. They were reclusive and kept many secrets.
The best tactic now was to ask an expert. If Arwin was back from the dungeon, then they were, too.
“Yo, good to see you.”
Their usual haunt was the Wandering Gray Serpent, west of the Adventurers Guild. It was a typical pub and inn, with rooms upstairs and a drinking area downstairs, but with an emphasis on quality in their furnishings and food. Therefore, it cost more, and usually only four-star-and-higher adventurers stayed there. Two women whose faces looked exactly alike sat in the back: Cecilia and Beatrice, the Maretto twins. They had originally been the leaders of a different party called Medusa, but after losing their companions, they’d joined Arwin’s Aegis instead.
I sat down between them without waiting for a response.
“Running an errand for the princess knight?” asked Cecilia, the elder sister, with a glare. Her younger twin, Beatrice, rested her chin on the table and idly played with her beer bottle. I could guess why she looked bored.
“We were almost down to the eighteenth floor.”
“How many years will it take before we actually finish the dungeon at this rate?”
Based on Arwin’s reaction earlier, it was clear they had prematurely returned to the surface. Now the sisters were upset they hadn’t gone as far as they’d hoped. They wanted to conquer the dungeon to raise their own infamy, so this was an unexpected setback. Now they were sulking about it.
“I’m sorry about that. I’ll let Arwin know how you feel,” I said. I had no reason to apologize to them, but they were not rational people. By way of apology, I ordered another round of drinks for them.
“So what do you want?”
“I wanted to confirm something with you.”
I told them about the witch-like medicine thief I’d encountered earlier—all the details except the nature of the medicine. Instead, I just said it was an energy booster.
“I was wondering if you might know who would do such a thing.”
Cecilia made a show of thinking it over.
“Based on the spell you’re talking about, it sounds like a member of the Latimer school, but I’ve not heard of any of them coming to this town. Their territory tends to be much farther to the west.”
Beatrice spoke with her cheek plastered to the table. “But wasn’t there one of them who was kind of a dreamer? You know, right around when we first came here.”
“That one went missing after their party got wiped out in the dungeon before the stampede. Nothing’s been seen of them since.”
“Oh, right,” said Beatrice with a yawn, uninterested.
I asked for the person’s name and features, just in case, and it turned out I recognized them. It was someone I’d seen around the guild, but after a while, they had stopped appearing there. I hadn’t thought of them since the chaos of the stampede.
“So basically, it’s the work of this whatever-it-is school?”
“From what Grandma said, they’re a noble family. They wouldn’t stoop to stealing from people,” Cecilia commented. “But if they’re coming to this town, this person’s probably an orphan. Either disinherited or disowned. But they can still use spells, so they haven’t been banished.”
“What’s the difference?”
“In short, it’s whether you can come back or not.”
These were all methods of expulsion in mage society. A master imposed punishments on pupils for committing crimes. Disinheriting meant severing the tie between master and student. Mage society itself was one gigantic family. Losing those ties meant being unable to live within that society. However, one could still apprentice under a different master. It was common for disinherited mages to seek the help of other masters from the same line.
Disowning was the next level above that, banishing a mage from the entire school. However, one could still transfer to a different school. This happened sometimes, too, though it was much less common.