That horse did a fantastic job too. Sazaki didn’t actually drink, but he raised his alcohol bottle to the fine horse that had once pulled their carriage, and which had been praised as the best horse of its time. But even the best horse in the world couldn’t fight against the passage of time, and that animal Sazaki and the rest called a comrade in arms was no longer in this world. And it wasn’t just the horse. In the seventy years that had passed since the end of the war, a lot of people had died, and with the exception of long-lived races such as elves, most of the generation involved in the great war had already passed away. Sazaki and the others, who had been young at the time, and those born a little later after them would be the last generations who recalled the war. Once they were dead, the great war that had split the entire world would be relegated to the pages of history.
It sure is peaceful. Everything Sazaki saw around him was tranquil. A young man yawning. A woman gazing at the scenery. An elderly couple who looked like they were on their way to meet relatives, just like Ferd and Elrica were. This was the peace that Sazaki and his friends had won.
The sky had grown rotten and collapsed on itself. The earth had burned. People were dying out. The natural order had come undone. And darkness had descended. Those days had been governed by fear and despair. It was an apocalypse no one would possibly forget.
“But, so what?!”
All until Ferd—the small, frail old man with a smile plastered onto his wrinkled face, who was sitting right in front of Sazaki—had risen to the occasion.
I know he’s my friend, but he’s one crazy guy. Who else could have been so confident that they could do something to fix the situation? Most people would say those were the ramblings of a madman.
Sazaki had only been a child at the time, but he still remembered it vividly. Mankind’s living space had shrunk in an instant, and the sky had turned red. It was a time of absolute chaos, when champions, sages, military masterminds, knights, and even kings had been powerless to do anything. During those uncertain times, a single boy had raised his sword to the sky and declared that he would do something about it. Those had undoubtedly been the nonsensical words of a naive child. Then, the boy grew into a young man, and just like he’d said, he did something about it. The sky became blue again. The blazing earth calmed down. He freed the people from certain demise, restored natural order, and tore the darkness apart.
Oh boy. I got myself involved with a real weirdo. Blind to his own shortcomings, Sazaki always saw Ferd as an oddball. All of their party members were eccentrics and oddballs, but in a sense, Sazaki was especially bizarre. With neither cause nor ambition, he’d accompanied his friends into the realm of darkness just because he’d felt like tagging along, and had even participated in the final battle. Gone straight to the land of death out of simple friendship—what would one call that if not bizarre?
Lara and the others had a sense of purpose when fighting... Oh maaan, I really have no idea how to face her... Sazaki thought about his allies, who, unlike him, had all fought in the great war with a clear objective in mind. Suddenly, he found himself at a complete loss about how to deal with the wife he was on his way to visit, after having already sent her his embarrassing last will. Although Sazaki was an easygoing person who spent all his days drunk on the ground, he had surprisingly normal worries. That was why, just as Ferd and Elrica had imagined, he was embarrassed that his will, which contained all kinds of memories and words of love, had been read by anyone while he was still alive.
Wh-Whatever. It will all work itself out! Sazaki was practically desperate as he thought about his wife Lara, but since their destination wasn’t that far, he didn’t have all that much time to prepare mentally.
“I can see Malgad now, Sazaki,” Ferd said.
“Great, I can drink now.”
“I guess so.”
After spending a few days rattling around inside the carriage, Ferd looked out at the town ahead of them, ignoring Sazaki, who was swinging his alcohol bottle back and forth. The place looked uncanny, with several large towers protruding from the massive castle walls and strange red and blue smoke rising all over the place, making some people hesitate to enter the town. This was Malgad, the Town of Magic. Just like the name implied, it was a town where mages gathered to conduct research day and night. This was where golems carriages had been invented.
“It feels like Malgad hasn’t changed at all.” The bizarre smoke brought back memories for Elrica, and she assumed that the town hadn’t changed.
“It hasn’t. It’s full of weirdos, the same as ever,” Sazaki said in affirmation.
Even back during the great war, Malgad had been a base for mages—a shady place where shady people constantly conducted shady research. In other words, both in the past and present, the general public believed that everything about this town was suspicious, and that it was likely to go up in flames at some point.
“We’re here!” the driver announced.
“Finally!” Sazaki jumped off the carriage, opened his alcohol bottle, brought it straight to his mouth, and poured the alcohol down his throat. “Man! Booze tastes as good as ever!”
“Shall we go in, honey?” Elrica suggested.
“Yes, dearest,” Ferd replied.
The two of them ignored Sazaki—who wasn’t addicted to alcohol, just an appreciator of it—and walked toward the town gate.
“It’s really crowded. Are those merchants?” Ferd wondered.
“They must be dealing in magic tools,” Elrica replied.
As the pair continued walking slowly, they spotted a group of people gathered in front of the gate. Although they seemed like commoners, they were well-built and well-dressed, so the old couple assumed they were probably merchants who’d come to sell magical products.
“I hope those don’t blow up on us on our way back out,” Sazaki muttered after having his fill of his drink.
“It’s not like we’re still at war or anything, so I doubt— Wait, we aren’t, are we?” Although Ferd denied the idea at first, he suddenly grew anxious as he thought of the past.
“Well, it’s probably gonna be fine. Probably.”
During the great war, the residents of this town had developed powerful magic tools, but there had also been frequent incidents that demonstrated their lack of understanding of the concepts of safety and reliability.
“Do you think they might be checking the people leaving for dangerous items?” Given how eccentric this town was, that sounded quite likely, so Ferd leaned out of the line to check.
“Out of the way, geezer!” a man in his thirties shouted at Ferd from behind.
“Whoops, my apologies.” Although Ferd apologized, he was puzzled if he’d really been that much of a nuisance, since he was pretty far from the man.
“I’m a Progressive. Let me through.” The man ignored the line and continued walking until he reached the gate, where he arrogantly gave only a few words of explanation, as if to say, “I don’t need to say more, do I?”
Mages were divided into six layers based on ability: Coastal, Surface, Middle, Progressive, Deep, and Hadal. The Coastal layer included all novice mages, the Surface layer referred to proper mages who’d finished their training, and the Middle layer were the veterans. The fact that one was considered a veteran after reaching the Middle layer showed just how steep the path of magic was. The Progressive layer was synonymous with the most elite mages, the Deep layer consisted of only a handful of geniuses that represented an entire era, and only a few people in history had ever reached the Hadal layer.