“Good morning, Lady Agnes.”
“Good morning.” Agnes was one of the council members, an old mage in her seventies with all the gentle elegance of any elderly noblewoman. She politely greeted even people much younger than her as she walked through the council building.
“Good morning, Lady Agnes.”
“Good morning.” Agnes greeted another group of young mages.
In the Magic Council, which was full of eccentric people, Agnes was not only said to be its one shred of conscience, but she was also a leading figure in the manufacturing of golem carriages, which had been popularized throughout the world. This earned her tremendous fame and respect. She was also a mage of the Deep layer, not only skilled in research but a proficient combatant as well, which made her the portrait of perfection.
Agnes then came across an old man she could speak on equal footing with.
“Hmm? Agnes, it’s been about a week, hasn’t it?”
“Yes, it has, Aldrick.”
Aldrick the Incinerator, an elderly mage whose eyes were brimming with wisdom and conviction, struck up a conversation with Agnes. The two had an almost familial relationship.
“It’s Lady Agnes and Lord Aldrick...” The young mages who noticed the scene from afar caused a stir.
If one were to pick the mages who’d made the greatest names for themselves since the end of the great war, Aldrick and Agnes were sure to come up in the running, and they were also extremely influential in the council—even if Aldrick did seem to regress to a child when it came to the Hero.
“Oh good, the two of you are together. Could you come to my office for a moment?”
Another elderly man appeared before these two titans of magic. At around ninety years of age, he was older than them. He had long, distinctive white eyebrows that drooped all the way down to his stomach and covered his eyes, and his long hair and beard joined together, covering most of his face. Because he also stood relatively tall for his age, his back straight, he gave the impression of branches and plants hanging from a dead, rotting tree. However, his strength hadn’t waned at all. He was a sage with mana and intellect overflowing from every one of his wrinkles, whose narrowed red eyes were said to be able to see through everything in this world.
“Greetings, Master Derry,” Aldrick said with a bow.
“Good tidings, teacher.” Agnes similarly bowed as Derry’s disciple.
Derry was the current chairman of the Magic Council and one of the very few mages in history to have reached the Hadal layer. He also happened to be Agnes’s mentor. The position of chairman was periodically rotated among council members, but Derry was like a living encyclopedia of the council, who’d served as chairman multiple times.
“Ha ha. Let us go, then.” The sage, whose every word in even such a short sentence felt like it contained great power, headed to his office while the surrounding mages bowed to him. But the moment they entered the room... “Miss Lara just contacted me to say that she’ll be here in about three days, but she’s not gonna snap at me or anything, right? Right?!” After a pause, Derry started to panic.
“Maaan, you worry too much, you old geezer. Right, Aldrick?” Moreover, Agnes started to speak like a thug from the streets.
“Don’t let the mask slip too far, Agnes.” Aldrick looked up at the ceiling as the other two revealed their true natures.
Derry and Agnes had a history that wasn’t very widely known. In Derry’s young days before the great war, he’d been a back-alley thug struggling in poverty, when he’d once picked a fight with a slightly older girl. That girl had been none other than Lara, and she’d naturally beaten him black and blue, but by some coincidence, Derry had caught the attention of Lara’s mentor and ended up starting on the path of the mage. But his position as Lara’s junior remained the same, and he still hadn’t broken free of that mentality. Meanwhile, Agnes, Derry’s disciple, had once been a young hoodlum herself, so there was a gap between the public and private behavior of the members of the Derry School that would shock most.
“There’s nothing wrong with the Magic Academy’s curriculum, right? I’ve reviewed it this year, as usual.” Derry turned over the contents of his desk and started searching for documents related to the Magic Academy that Greer was so proud of. Lara had also been involved in rebuilding the Magic Academy after the war. If she concluded that there were flaws in the current academy’s instructors or curriculum, she might get angry with Derry, he imagined.
“As you already said, chairman, you look over the Magic Academy every year. Right, Agnes?” Aldrick made eye contact with Agnes.
“Right. Ha, the geezer really can’t stop acting like an underling.”
“I know, but I still need to be on my guard!” Derry shouted.
Derry was doing his job properly, though, and even when Aldrick or Agnes occasionally came to secretly inspect the Magic Academy, there were no problems to be found, so the chairman was worrying needlessly.
“You guys are lucky. You didn’t know Miss Lara back when she was at her scariest. When she was young, she... Actually, scratch that. Please don’t tell her I said any of this. She’d kill me for real.” Derry had a faraway look as he reminisced, then suddenly started looking all around him, as if he thought that a monster might appear and attack him if he let the wrong information slip. “Ahem. All jokes aside, the budget and various other reports have been roughly compiled. I’d like you to give them a quick look.” Derry returned to a serious topic after clearing his throat.
“Very well.”
“Just say that from the start, geezer.”
Aldrick also collected himself, as did Agnes.
However...
I kind of want to know, but at the same time I don’t... No, it’s better if I’m left in the dark. Aldrick and Agnes both tried to imagine Lara back in her scary days and shivered slightly, then focused on their work. They were truly sensible people.
“Come to think of it, I received a report that the Hero’s sword might be going up for sale.” A short time later, Aldrick told Derry about a rumor he’d heard about recently.
“Mm-hmm. I hear that it’s a sword he only held and threw once.”
“Did that actually happen a lot?”
“Apparently yes. I only did odd jobs in the back at the time, but I sometimes saw lights rising into the air and striking down monstrosities. When I asked Miss Lara about it later, she told me that the Hero would just throw random swords he’d picked up from somewhere. So, it’s impossible to say with certainty whether the sword being sold is fake or not,” Derry explained with a nod.
“Don’t go throwing all of your money away to buy it,” Agnes teased the Hero-obsessed Aldrick.
“But still, the Hero’s sword, huh? Even if it still has power remaining in it, it might not react at all if an ordinary person were to hold it,” Derry said.
“Ha ha, is that how it is?” Aldrick asked.
“Mm-hmm. If there are any vestiges of the light of all life left in the sword, it might even have a will of its own. And sentient weapons usually hate being used by anyone besides a worthy wielder. Taking that into account, a sword thrown by the Hero would probably only respond to someone with true courage.” Derry thought deeper about the sword that had been imbued with power just once, around seventy years ago.