Approximately a month had passed since the clandestine meeting between Aura and Yan.
Yan’s opportunity had come much sooner than expected. The mercenary had boasted that even within the church itself, there had been people who followed Priest Yan, and that had proved true. Capua had no idea who exactly had done what to arrive at the current situation. Whatever the case, though, Commander Yan was currently standing in front of Aura with a white wooden box in his arms.
They were within the stone room again, and Zenjirou had once more sent the mercenary over from Logfort. Nothing about the room had changed from the previous meeting. It was stone on all sides, the lighting coming from a brazier at the center. The sights didn’t change by the day, nor by the year. Last time there had been a small table and two chairs, but instead there was a simple bed in its place.
“Welcome, Commander Yan,” Aura greeted him. “I am pleased to see you have accomplished your goal.”
Indeed, she had a smile on her face as she spread her arms in greeting. The one-eyed mercenary, however, maintained his stony expression.
“His Majesty’s aid in arriving here was invaluable. If I may, though, my goal is yet to be accomplished. I am here to rely on your gracious aid to do so, however,” he said, dropping to one knee on the stone floor.
While his manners were as fine as any could ask for, the fact that he maintained his hold on the white box showed just how precious it and its cargo were to him, and it almost seemed like he was shielding it with his body.
That was unlikely to be far from the truth. While he had an iron core, it was clear that he was at his limit and had no capacity for joking at present. The war meant that it was not the first time Aura had seen such a person. Therefore, she kept her tone completely unaffected to avoid any provocation as she spoke.
“I shall proceed with the restoration. Remove the corpse from its box and place it on the bed.”
The mercenary gave a short affirmation and moved to do so.
He opened the box and carefully, gingerly, removed several blackened-red items, laying each of them on the bed. They were likely human bones. The majority of them had been carbonized and were misshapen. At a glance, it was hard to see them as bones, let alone human bones. To be blunt, they looked like lumps of rock stained with dirt.
And yet, the mercenary treated them as if they were babies, carefully arranging them on the bed. It was an act that would take less than a minute without care, and Yan took nearly ten. Frankly, minor damage to the bones would do nothing to influence the outcome, but this was neither the time nor place to say such a thing.
“That is all of them, then. Indicate the bone you have the greatest confidence in being correct. If there is no difference, then I shall choose.”
A single item would be the focus of the spell, and it would take in anything that was originally part of the same whole. If the initial target was wrong, it would change what was included. In this instance, if one of the bones Yan had brought belonged to anyone else, the time reversal would produce that person’s corpse.
Yan had a face like thunder upon hearing that there was yet more to consider, then carefully checked over all of the bones before indicating a large fragment.
“Start from here.”
His voice and finger alike were shaking noticeably. No one here would laugh at him, though. If anything, they were impressed at his courage picking so quickly. In fact, Aura herself had a greater estimation of him because of that, and her wariness of him grew in term.
“Very well. I shall cast the spell. You may watch, but attempting to hear the incantation is out of the question. Move back.”
Yan inched back. He wanted to watch from as close as possible, showing his loyalty. While his retreat was almost unbearably slow, Aura simply waited in silence, unmoving, for him to be as far back as she wished.
If he stopped before she told him he could, she would just stop herself. It was not a threat or unfaithful. Instead, it was a natural precaution for using such secret magic. While only those of the bloodline could cast the spell, the incantation was a source of much information.
Pushed back by her unflinching stare, the commander continued his retreat.
“That will do,” she said eventually. “I shall begin. I put you to use.”
Her final sentence was mumbled in the language of magic as she gripped the magic tool in her left hand. It was a simple construction, a marble surrounded by eight equilateral triangles of metal. In truth, though, it was one of the most powerful magic tools in the world.
Future Compensation was a space-time spell and, as the name implied, one that allowed you to pay for spells with your future mana. It let you use both the mana you had today, along with the mana you would have in the coming days. In exchange, though, you would be unable to recover mana for that length of time.
While it had originally acted as an advance on your mana, making it into a magic tool turned it into a spell for you to accumulate mana to pay with. On days where Aura knew without a doubt she would not be using mana the next day, she would use it to store the next day’s mana.
As a result, in exchange for being unable to recover mana the next day, that mana would be stored within the magic tool. In addition, it was made so it could be added to over time.
Perhaps fortunately, Aura was bound by the crown and throne, so there were many days she was unable to use magic freely. As a result, she had managed to store vast amounts of mana over the past several years.
With the words spoken, all of that mana was now released for use. She temporarily had access to hundreds of times her capacity. It was akin to being hooked up to a huge external battery. In her current state, she could cast time reversal on a huge scale.
With her left hand gripping the magic tool, she directed her right palm to the bone Yan had indicated and cast the spell.
“Let time’s flow reverse upon this object by fifty-three full days. As compensation, I present...”
The tool had enough mana that she could reverse the body’s time by more than a year, but the speed at which it had been retrieved limited how much she needed to do.
The magic tool released all of its mana at once, however much was actually used, so it was a waste in some ways. If her plan went as she wished and the priest was actually resurrected, she wanted him to remember the church capturing him. Therefore, she carefully calculated the time from when he had been captured and was still definitely alive and used that number of days.
Just like the rabbit before, the results were dramatic. A ball of light seemed to engulf the entirety of the bed, and then it went off like a camera flash.
Once the light abated, the bones had vanished from the bed. In their palace was a nude man. It was unclear whether his position on his back was just good luck or part of the magic. After all, it wasn’t clear what way around any of the bones were supposed to be, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if he’d shown up face down with either his lower half or head off the side of the bed.
Aura felt that considering this, it might have been more appropriate to use a wide enough area of the floor rather than a bed, but it mattered little now. She spoke in a calm voice, as though everything had gone to plan.
“The spell was successful. Commander Yan, if you can confirm his identity.”
With that, the commander had permission to approach, having looked almost like he was about to pounce forward regardless, his single eye bloodshot.
“Priest!”
His voice was loud and heavy with emotion as he ran towards the bed. Given how he was acting, there was little doubt that this was indeed the priest.