Now that the threat of the great givleon had passed, the monsters remaining in the stampede began to scatter. Perhaps their wild instincts had told them the danger was gone.
This exodus could be seen from the fortified city of Slaiste, where the unprecedented disaster had come to an end.
The city had escaped with minimal damage, though the surrounding settlements had been decimated. The streets were filled with celebration, and the many refugees from nearby settlements were relieved, even though a full recovery would take time.
Still, the main threat had passed, and Ado and Zelos—the two mages who, unbeknownst to the public, had faced off against the great givleon—visited the mercenaries’ guild to give their report.
The battle had occurred on a plain along a highway north of Slaiste. Solistia had escaped almost unscathed, but a section of that highway that passed through the Holy Land of Metis had been completely torn to pieces, which would affect trade. Zelos and Ado would have to report that, at the very least.
Before all this, Metis had unilaterally severed its diplomatic ties with Solistia. But merchants still needed to use the highway, so the road needed to be repaired as soon as possible.
However, since both the damaged road and the huge crater were in Metis’s territory, Metis was the one responsible for repairing it. Solistia wouldn’t provide any aid for the repair work either.
And given how things were going in Metis lately, it seemed like the road wouldn’t be getting fixed anytime soon.
That didn’t have anything to do with the Sages, though. They were only responsible for reporting what had happened; they weren’t paid to care about what came next.
“So you’re saying the highway leading from here to Metis has been damaged so badly as to be unusable?” Aleph asked.
“Mm-hmm. We did think a demon lord might appear, but a demon lord with power rivaling the Dark God? I certainly wasn’t expecting that,” Zelos said. “It seemed to have beef with the Four Gods more than anything, though, so we should be safe for now.”
“It... It is still a monster, though, isn’t it? Are you sure it’s fine to just leave it alone?” Aleph asked.
“Can’t be too sure, but yeah, it should be fine,” Ado replied. “It just kept chasing the Four Gods—well, there were only three of them, but you get the idea—and ignoring the two of us. Didn’t seem to care too much about humans one way or the other.”
“What a strange monster,” Aleph said. “And you said it understood language? I’ve never heard of a monster like that.”
As Aleph listened to Zelos and Ado’s report, he was clearly bewildered by their description of the mysterious Jet-Black Meteor Givleon.
Society hadn’t even considered the possibility that a monster with humanlike intelligence could exist.
Sure, things like that featured in legends, but nobody had ever witnessed such a creature with their own eyes. Expecting someone to come to terms with it so suddenly was a tall order.
“Well, there haven’t been too many merchants using that highway lately, so I doubt His Majesty will do a thing to help unless Metis absolutely begs us,” Aleph said.
“Jeez. Seems like everyone hates the Holy Land,” Ado said.
“From what I’ve heard, they do some pretty horrific things in the name of the gods,” Zelos said. “And they charge ridiculous fees for healing magic, even if it’s to mend a tiny little scratch.”
“So they’re running a racket? Yeah, makes sense why everyone’d hate them, then,” Ado said. “I would’ve thought they’d at least make their fee proportionate to the severity of someone’s injury...”
Until recently, priests had been the only ones who could use healing magic—or holy magic, as they called it. But now that mages could use healing magic too, priests had plummeted in value.
Recently, a new job skill called Medical Mage had been discovered, and many alchemists were working to reskill as one of those.
Medical mages had less potent healing magic than priests, but they could supplement their effectiveness with healing potions—their mage backgrounds came in handy for that. In a sense, medical mages were more valuable than priests now.
The Magic Kingdom of Solistia was, after all, overflowing with unemployed mages—more than it knew what to do with. Countless people had gone through all the effort of training as mages and failed to find any jobs that put those skills to use. Most of them ended up living lives unrelated to magic.
Finding a way to utilize all the magical skills of these people who’d missed the boat was a big deal economically.
“I hear farmers have started growing medicinal herbs on their farms too,” Aleph said. “Going forward, I expect we’ll see a rising number of medical mages and an increased demand for medicinal herbs. I’m going to recommend a nationwide initiative to cultivate medicinal herbs and anything else that might be needed.”
“I’d bet medicine’s gonna advance too,” Ado said. “After all, when priests had a monopoly over healing magic, Solistia couldn’t afford to anger Metis, so they could probably only do so much to influence foreign policy. And now that that’s not a problem anymore... Oh, by the way—who sold these healing spell scrolls to the Solistian government in the first place?”
“Good question,” Zelos said, doing his best to feign ignorance. “As far as I know, they were the result of a joint development effort between Solistia and some other countries.”
Zelos was the one who’d started the project to get back at Metis, but he’d never publicly revealed his involvement.
“Well, wherever it came from, we knights are grateful to have mages who can use healing magic,” Aleph said.
“Yes, it’s a little scary to rely entirely on potions, isn’t it?” Zelos said. “Oh, by the way—I heard the number of augmentation mages has been rising too?”
“You heard right,” Aleph said. “Mages who specialize in support have been proving valuable in combat. With the country adopting those Wiesler students’ reforms, those sorts of mages have already achieved results—though it’s all on a trial basis for now, mind you.”
“Ah—Zweit and his buddies, eh?” Zelos nodded. “I did teach them a bunch of stuff...”
Back when Zelos had been working as a private tutor for two young mages, he’d taught them the roles a mage was supposed to serve in combat.
Mages were typically categorized into three broad groups: attack mages specializing in offensive magic; support mages (also known as augmentation mages) specializing in buffing and protecting their allies; and crafting mages, who use alchemy and other fields to create magic tools, potions, and more.
When the Order of Mages went to war, attack and support mages fought alongside the knights, while crafting mages did their work outside the battlefield.
More recently, the circulation of healing spell scrolls had given rise to a fourth category of mage: medical mages.
Zelos and Ado didn’t have a specialization. They were all-rounder combat experts, but beside them, very few mages had mastery over offense, support, and crafting.
The Order of Mages, as it existed, was composed mostly of attack mages. Its composition was incredibly lopsided.
Until recently, Order mages had fought like artillery units. While the Order of Knights protected them, they’d blast their enemies with powerful attack magic at crucial moments. They’d occupied that role with a certain smugness too.
Zweit and his fellow Wiesler students, however, had proposed a different, fairer strategy. Unlike the old approach, mages would be embedded within knight units according to their specialty; that way, all members would use their specific skills to optimize each unit.
Essentially, Zweit had incorporated Zelos’s game-derived knowledge of combat tactics into reality.
And now, with the addition of medical mages who could heal injuries and more, that strategy was becoming even more effective.
The knights would fight in the vanguard, while attack mages would fire off spells from the rear.
Support mages would use their augmentation magic to support the knights and mages alike.
Crafting mages would be positioned nearby, ready to replenish supplies and craft anything that the situation called for.
Finally, medical mages would heal injured allies.
Units comprising these four types of specialized mages would combine with knights to operate efficiently on the battlefield.
When the king had received the report proposing this strategy, he’d had the Order of Mages—which had been focused on its own factional disputes more than anything else—stop completely in its tracks.
The heads of each faction, who sat at the top of the Order, had of course lodged objections to these sudden plans for organizational reform. But the king had responded with, “Do you actually think I can trust advisers who do nothing but use their positions within our nation’s army to drag each other down and bicker with opposing factions?”
What was more, the people behind the restructuring had been mere students. And the king had used their status to further intimidate the Order into complying. “Even the youngsters from the academy are worried about the direction our country is going!” he’d said. “And then we have you fools. What have you been doing?!”
Solistia’s court mages were well and truly peeved at the students who’d submitted the reform proposals. But on top of that, they were concerned—concerned by these outstanding young mages threatening to rise through the ranks and take their positions.