An ominous air hung over the imperial capital. Merchants not based in the city were leaving like rats fleeing a sinking ship—those who couldn’t were battening down the hatches. The Explorers’ Association received at least two or three times their usual number of protection requests.
The public hadn’t been informed of the Astral Divinarium’s prophecy, but they could still tell something was up. So much had happened in succession. There was the Sword Saint’s apprentice, who had gone on a rampage with the Devil Sword, that fiend that had appeared at the Zebrudia Academy of Magic, and then the Alchemists at the Primus Institute fighting over that potion. Any one of those would have been a major incident, but since they had all happened so close to one another, only the densest people hadn’t grown suspicious.
Franz’s team had tried issuing gag orders, but word of mouth wasn’t so easily silenced. After constantly being flooded with questions from nobles and merchants he was acquainted with, Franz was beginning to reach his limit.
“What the hell does that man plan to do next?! I can’t understand it!”
He had finally established a task force for dealing with Nine-Tailed Shadow Fox and was ready to get to work when this prophecy suddenly appeared. The continuing series of incidents and the prophecy that nonetheless persisted were both beyond Franz’s comprehension.
Though perhaps it would be unfair to assume that someone else could have handled this situation any better. Things were happening too rapidly, and connections were only revealed upon closer examination. They were cooperating with the other knight orders, but still didn’t have enough hands. There wasn’t much they could do when a new incident popped up while they were still investigating the previous one.
Then there was the incident at the Primus Institute, the worst one so far.
“Strawberry milk?! Does he think we’re fooling around here?!”
It was something right out of a nightmare. The seasoned practitioners of the capital’s greatest Alchemical institution had all been tricked. That they had all lost their minds over a bottle of strawberry milk was an embarrassment history certainly would not forget.
Every Alchemist involved in the fighting had been arrested. Even if there was truth to their claims that they had been deceived, that didn’t change the fact that that potion was an illegal substance.
On top of this, they couldn’t punish the Thousand Tricks for his involvement. They could perhaps charge him with fraud, but Franz was concerned that that man might say something to the effect of “If what I did was fraud, then I’ll just give you the real thing.” Even if the chances of that were slim, he didn’t want to risk it.
Franz had indeed told that man to stop with the curses, but that wasn’t a suggestion to cause other forms of mayhem! It didn’t help that he probably did this while fully cognizant of what Frand had meant.
“But Captain,” another knight said when they heard his expletive muttering, “if the prophecy remains despite multiple disasters having occurred and been resolved, does that mean it’s indicating something even more lethal?”
“Personally, I hadn’t even imagined that the Sword Saint was holding on to something so deadly.”
With so many Relics and people, it was only natural that the imperial capital had a plethora of dangerous items. Magi and Alchemists were both prone to keeping secrets, and even nobles found themselves owners of all sorts of objects. The vault in the imperial castle was no exception; a check of its contents was bound to reveal something or another. The items exposed by the Thousand Tricks were likely just the tip of the iceberg.
The outlawed thrall potion, Strawberry Blaze, had turned out to be a fake. According to their investigations, Sitri claimed they had obtained it at the magic academy, but Franz wouldn’t have been surprised if she were secretly holding on to the real potion.
Right after the appearance of the prophecy, Franz had dispatched knights to scour the capital for dangerous items, but they hadn’t uncovered much. They had also looked into the Sword Saint, the Zebrudia Academy of Magic, and the Primus Institute. Nothing had come up. The knights had authority, but not the sort that would allow them to mandate a search without proper evidence.
If they lacked manpower, they also had obstacles in their way. The most they were able to do was conduct interviews. Meanwhile, the Thousand Tricks was getting info through means off-limits to them.
More often than not, curses required specific circumstances to activate. Many people who possessed cursed items were unaware of it. In this case, the Sword Saint hadn’t realized the danger that staff posed. It wasn’t clear how the Thousand Tricks had learned that thing was cursed when not even its owner knew it, but he had taken his usual helter-skelter approach once he had obtained it.
Could it be that the Thousand Tricks was trying to ascertain the subject of the prophecy? Was he applying his preterhuman artifice to root out each likely candidate?
With a grunt, Franz shook his head, wiping this terrifying thought from the back of his mind. The Franz of the past no doubt would have ordered that the Thousand Tricks be questioned. But things were different now. In the past few months, Franz had endured all sorts of trouble through interacting with that man. He had already ordered Hugh to deal with him and had no further resources to spare on him. The Thousand Tricks would just shake him off, so Franz wouldn’t bother.
“We’re going to direct some of our men to the church,” Franz said in a low voice. “On the off chance the cursed item runs rampant, the damage might be far greater than—no, it might even extend to civilians.”
Marin’s Lament was one of the most terrifying cursed items of which they were aware. Created through a vile rite carried out by a Magus of ancient times, Marin’s Lament had killed people across the land, eventually taking the life of its creator. It was most likely what the Divinarium’s prophecy was referring to.
However, Marin’s Lament had unleashed its wrath a long time ago. Being spawned by powerful emotions, curses tended to weaken with time, and the church’s barrier and purification techniques had improved over the years.
What’s more, apparently, the church had already been making preparations to purify Marin’s Lament. This operation had simply required them to move the date forward a bit. Now, with the full cooperation of the empire, failure was inconceivable.
“We’ve enlisted the aid of the necessary organizations,” a knight reported. “We’ve also been in contact with Ark Rodin, and the Immutable will be there as well. We’re ready for anything.”
The Immutable was the best Paladin in the imperial capital. He didn’t come from a noble family, nor had he attended a knight academy, yet he had been deemed worthy of a special offer to become a knight. His exceptional skills in combat and healing had made him as highly regarded as Ark Rodin. On top of that, he was also a member of Grieving Souls.
Come to think of it, Ark Rodin is also a member of First Steps.
“How does that man make his friends?” Franz wondered aloud.
Perhaps he had good luck in this regard; perhaps everyone who got involved with him grew from his trials. It didn’t matter to Franz. It didn’t change the options available to him. If it was for the glory of the empire, he would have to endure whatever came his way.