I’m the idiot for daring to hope for a real answer, he thought. Glancing at Julius, who was facing away from Lion with his hand over his mouth as his whole body shook with repressed laughter, Lion got straight to the point.
“Can magecraft be used to control corpses?” he asked.
“Magecraft to control corpses?” At once, Heaven’s face took on a look of cool intelligence, making her seem like a different person entirely. Lion thought he saw her glasses flash, but it had surely been a trick of the light. “Magecraft is what I live for,” she went on warningly. “I won’t stand for anyone making a mockery of it—not even you, Leo baby.”
“The thought never entered my mind. But if that’s how you feel, so be it. Killing me should be a breeze for a mage, if she were so inclined.” Lion spread his arms wide and grinned.
Heaven gave him a searching look. “To be honest, I’ve never heard of magecraft so fantastical. Such magecraft—if that’s really what it is—would have to be the work of a unique-type mage like me...” She paused. “If you’re not making fun, why the sudden interest?”
Lion told her everything he had been able to learn. In a flash, Heaven threw herself into his arms. He and Julius stood there frozen in surprise as she buried her face in his chest.
Then, her head shot up, and she said, “I want to see.” Her face kindled with delight like Lion had never seen before.
“You what? You mean the ghouls?”
“Obviously! There’s nothing else I could mean, it’s so obvious!” She shoved Lion away, as though suddenly irritated by him, then began to pace back and forth, issuing a stream of dark muttering.
The whole day was going to slip away while he stood here quietly waiting to see what Heaven did. This was not acceptable to Lion.
“The ghouls are definitely a mage’s work, then?” he asked.
Heaven came to an abrupt halt. “Maybe...” she said at length.
“‘Maybe’? What do you mean, ‘maybe’?”
“As I think you know, in order to use magecraft, one needs a power source—which is to say, mana. Now, mana is generated within the body, but one’s capacity for wielding it is fixed at birth. At present, there is still no established method for acquiring a greater reserve of mana.”
“You told me once that just having deep mana reserves is enough to make someone extraordinarily gifted.”
Heaven nodded, then resumed her restless pacing. Every now and then she also pulled at her hair, making her look like a madwoman.
“I could see making a few corpses move, but controlling fifty thousand at the same time is absolutely impossible, by the laws of magecraft.”
“You’re trying to say that the mana would be massively insufficient?”
“Massively? Try entirely insufficient. You see how hard I work, don’t you, Leo baby?”
A little annoyed by her patronizing tone, Lion nonetheless looked past her at the enormous, clear vat that overshadowed everything else in the room. It was close to ninety percent full of a yellowish green liquid that glowed dully.
“And that’s why you can’t say for sure there’s a mage involved...”
“Just so. Maybe if there were someone even more powerful than a mage, but as far as I’m aware, no such person exists or has ever existed.” Heaven’s hair was now a hopeless tangle.
I suppose the only thing to do is wait until the Wolfpack returns with... he thought, then stopped as a memory came to him. Hold on. Within his vast personal library, there was a volume that told of a creature, worshipped as a sacred beast, that had been able to use magecraft. At the time, he had laughed it away as a bit of fantasy, but now that the borders between fantasy and reality were growing less and less certain, he found he could not dismiss it so easily.
“Heaven, do you know about the sacred beast?” he asked. Heaven stopped pacing again.
“The sacred beast...” she murmured. “Yes, perhaps, with the sacred beast...”
“You do know about it, then?”
“If anything, I’m shocked that you know about it, Leo baby. Though I hear these days they call it the ‘Cataclysmic Maw, class three dangerous beast.’”
Lion had heard of the Maw. But it had never entered his mind that the sacred beast and the Maw might be one and the same.
“Maybe we should consider the possibility that the sacred beast is pulling strings behind the scenes,” he said, voicing the idea as it came to him.
Heaven’s expression grew dark. “All right,” she said, “assuming you’re right and the sacred beast did this, what would its purpose be?”
“How should I know how a beast’s mind works?”
“When you don’t know, it’s best not to go jumping to conclusions. You’ll only end up further from the truth. On which note,” Heaven went on, “make arrangements for us to go see these walking corpses.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, ‘no’?!”
“I just told you that the ghouls laid waste to the Sixth City. You might be a mage, but I don’t see you taking on tens of thousands of those things. How could I give permission when I know your life would be at risk?”
Besides the staggering sum of gold he had invested in Heaven, Lion had not the slightest intention of giving the ghouls more to feed on—especially not a rare mage.
Julius too tried to persuade Heaven, but she wasn’t budging.
“It’s not as though I want to die, not when I’m still so young and perky, not to mention adorable and gorgeous. I swear I won’t do anything dangerous. Plus, if I see them in real life, I might be able to tell if it actually is a mage controlling them. See, Leo baby, there’s something in it for you too.”
Lion considered for a moment. “True, there is,” he admitted. “But you’ll have to wait a little. At the moment—”
“Why do I have to wait?!” Heaven shouted, rounding on him aggressively. “I want to see them! I want to see them right now! If you tell me no, I’ll just go myself!”
Lion had had enough. “Let me finish. At the moment, I have the Wolfpack inspecting the site. I also gave them orders to catch me a ghoul while they’re at it, so all going well, you’ll have the pleasure of its acquaintance in the next few days.”
“You’re serious?!” Heaven exclaimed, suddenly beaming. Next, she wormed her arm through his. Lion extricated himself from her, somewhat forcefully.
“I know it’s no good lying to you,” he said. “So wait.”
“Oh yes, of course. I’ll wait until your Wolfpack gets back. But if they fail to catch a ghoul, I will go get one myself, and you won’t stop me.”
“Yes, fine. Works for me.”
“Excellent!”
“After we catch the ghoul, we’ll need to run tests. Can you get it ready by then?”
“Leave it to me. I’m really going to pull out all the stops.”
“I appreciate it. The vessel will be ready soon too.”
Heaven tore off her white coat and tossed it aside, then turned back to the contraption, licking her lips. Julius averted his gaze, looking embarrassed as her petite yet still voluptuous figure came into full view.
Still so innocent, Lion thought as he called to Heaven’s back, “I’m counting on you.” She gave him a careless wave, then, facing the contraption before her, began to intone something in an unknown tongue.
“No one can get through to her when she gets like this.”
“So long as she devotes herself to the work, that’s all that matters. The rest will have to wait until the Wolfpack returns.”
“I expect the Council of the Thirteen Stars will be convened at once, won’t it?”
“It’s a massive nuisance—but I can hardly say no after Rue Shalla was destroyed.”
Two days passed. The Wolfpack was successful, returning safely home with several of the ghouls held captive. But the report they brought him left Lion reeling with shock. For they had learned that the ghouls flew the banners of the imperial army.