Aura lowered her voice before answering his question. “That the reversal only works for targets lacking mana, as I explained before. In other words, the spell functions on corpses, as corpses themselves contain no mana.”
“Ah, right, the issue is the resurrection, but the spell itself works on corpses. Is that the same for magic tools too?”
The queen nodded. “Indeed, it restores their form, but only that. Their abilities as magic tools remain gone. We have gotten off topic, though. Either way, what I shall tell the commander is that if he recovers the priest’s body, I can restore its form.”
Many people would see it as worthwhile to neaten a corpse and properly bury it. Recovering the body would be difficult, but Zenjirou agreed that the very possibility of restoration made it likely that the mercenary would cooperate.
“Right, that makes sense. If Priest Yan is executed as a heretic, he’ll probably be burned at the stake. Commander Yan would almost certainly be willing to risk his life to restore the priest. He’s a follower of the dragon faith, after all.”
“Hm? What do you mean?”
The queen’s question prompted Zenjirou to explain what he’d only just found out himself. “Right, well, people in the church—or I guess those who follow the dragon faith specifically—see a proper burial as the correct way to treat a dead person. Burning someone at the stake is considered a judgment on their soul. It apparently stems from the tradition of true dragons’ breath burning a criminal and their soul away to nothing.”
The church’s traditions for a proper burial were cleaning and purifying the corpse before dressing it in clothes that were treated the same way and placing it in a coffin before burying it in the earth. A damaged or missing body could not be treated like that or the dead person would be lost and suffer. Burning to death was considered one of the most damaging acts to the soul. Naturally, cremation was not a concept they had.
A small smile made its way onto Aura’s lips. “Oh, they balk at cremation? That is a rather significant difference. Still, it is good news for us. It certainly does make it much more likely that Commander Yan will accept.”
In animistic countries like Capua, cremation was the norm. The four main spirits were of the earth, water, fire, and wind. Therefore cremation, and burials—whether in the earth, at sea, or in the sky—were all seen as the dead returning to be one with the spirits, so there was no real aversion to any of them. Sky burials had sanitary concerns and could also attract carnivorous drakes, so they were allowed in very few countries.
Ignoring the emotional side of things and just considering the physical phenomenon, a corpse that had been burned to death would be smaller and lighter than a buried one. It would be much easier to sneak out with such remains than a whole body in a coffin.
“Yeah, winning him over shouldn’t be too difficult. It’ll probably be pretty difficult to remove even the charred remains from the church, though. We can’t ignore the potential that he might get captured and reveal that we’re acting behind the scenes.” Zenjirou’s inability to ignore risks was a good thing, but the way he almost only looked at the risks was also a shortcoming.
“Hm, there is not a way to avoid that. We could potentially entrust communication to a representative with instructions not to reveal us. However, doing so would mean we would be unable to gain his trust. Therefore I see the risk as acceptable. Of course, taking the risk of his capture into account, we must also take measures to render that less likely.”
“Like what?”
“Simple. We persuade Commander Yan to wait until things have calmed down. The people of the church are not monsters with infinite amounts of concentration. However dangerous they believe the priest to be, execution renders him a corpse, a thing. Immediately after the execution would be one thing, but a month, several, or even a year later, I highly doubt they will be as guarded.”
The suggestion was extremely simple. That in itself made it much more effective. In every profession, there were limited personnel available. It was a given that they would be removed from positions that were seen as unnecessary. Containing the priest while he was alive was one thing, but continuing to guard his corpse even after the execution seemed extremely unlikely.
Still, Zenjirou had a concern with that plan. “The spell uses a lot more mana when you have to reverse more time, right? Will that be an issue?”
He wasn’t the most informed about magic, but he did of course remember the top secret information on time reversal. Aura was the one who had given him that information, so she had certainly considered the question herself.
“No. I will use the future compensation magic tool. I do not have as many opportunities for spellcasting as you, so I have stored quite an amount of mana. I should be able to reverse time by over a year for something the size of a human body.”
The magic tool she was referring to was something that Francesco had made in collaboration with her. The spell it was based on was one of the Capuan royal family’s lineal magics and allowed them to pay for a spell with their future mana.
There were several strong spells within space-time magic, but the amount of mana they required was high. Although royals had far more mana than the norm, there were still limitations. Future compensation was one of the methods to surpass that restriction.
If they paid three days’ worth of mana, they could cast something that cost four times the amount of mana they ordinarily had when it was combined with their present mana. In exchange, for the next three days, they would not regain any mana at all.
The spell was powerful but inconvenient, so Aura had commissioned a magic tool from Francesco that greatly improved matters. It particularly excelled in its ability to add to the mana stored within it to a spell. Aura was, for better or worse, bound to the throne, so there were days when she would not use any magic whatsoever. Storing some of her mana on those days within the magic tool meant that she now had a significant stock.
“If I remember right, you can store mana bit by bit, but you have to use it all at once. In which case, it’s the same either way, so we can postpone it by a year, right? I guess that works.”
Of course, Zenjirou agreed with the logic that the church wouldn’t keep a firm watch on a buried or abandoned corpse. Even so, he couldn’t agree with the plan.
“Still, it’s a real worry if Commander Yan fails. He couldn’t negotiate with them, could he? For Priest Yan’s corpse at least.”
“I thought of that as well. The issue is how likely it is to work and what effects it would have on future events. It would be natural for the commander to wish to retrieve his employer’s corpse. Therefore, there would be no issue with attempting negotiations. If they went well, that would be perfect. However, if they failed, the corpse would inevitably be much more heavily guarded for a while. That would make forcing the matter far more difficult,” she answered smoothly.
Succeeding would be the best result, but failure would make the alternative much more difficult. In turn, it made more sense to show no sign of it and simply take it by force after waiting. Zenjirou could understand that.
“Right, that’d be the best result, but it’s not all that likely, and it’d make managing to steal it harder too.”
“Indeed. Besides, even if Commander Yan failed and was captured, it would be unlikely to cause us harm. After all, he is already known as a follower of the priest, no? That means they would be unlikely to assume someone had prompted it.”