The Arm-Spitting One had, of course, believed the One Who Soars High’s words.

There were two reasons.

The first was that the One Who Soars High had absolutely no reason to lie to it.

To begin with, the Arm-Spitting One already belonged to the faction of the One Who Stares into the Abyss.

Even without trying to win it over with lies, it would have protected the Star Eater anyway.

And the other reason was this.

It had heard that what the One Who Soars High said had come from the One Who Stares into the Abyss.

Of course, even the Arm-Spitting One had the faintest sliver of doubt.

That was only natural.

No matter how it thought about ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) it, the Star Eater’s ability was too absurd.

Of course, even if the Star Eater’s ability turned out to be different from what it knew, that would not change its intention to protect him.

Even so, it was true that it was curious.

And even if the Star Eater’s ability was not actually real, if it could draw all their attention to one place, then dealing with at least one of them in a surprise attack would not be difficult, which was why the Arm-Spitting One had opened the void.

And there, it saw it.

The Star Eater’s power.

[Impossible—]

The Burned Vegetation’s murmur reached the Arm-Spitting One.

Funnily enough, the Arm-Spitting One that had opened the void felt exactly the same way.

It had certainly known in advance.

But simply knowing it and seeing it with its own eyes were far too different.

[......Hah.]

Without realizing it, the Arm-Spitting One let out a dry laugh.

Soon after, the void it had opened closed.

[.......]

[.......]

[.......]

[.......]

The Divine blood stared at one another with blank expressions, not saying a word.

[We didn’t see that wrong, did we?]

[Of course not. That was clearly the Poison-Eater’s power.]

[......Are you saying it is possible to grant a Divine blood’s power to some ordinary life-form of this world?]

[Then what the One Who Soars High said...... was unquestionably the truth.]

They exchanged words with expressions that made it clear they could not tell whether this was a dream or reality.

Then, after a moment—

[B-but even so, there is no reason for that power to be shared with us, is there......?]

The Burned Vegetation voiced its opinion once more, but—

[......No. Thinking about it rationally, I do not think that is the case.]

The Piercing Eye flatly rejected the Burned Vegetation’s view.

[Why not?]

[With His power, He will obtain the achievements of other Divine blood sooner or later anyway. And if that happens, then the things gained from those lower down will only lose their luster the higher He rises.]

At some point, the Piercing Eye had changed the way it referred to the Star Eater, now calling him “He.”

At those words, the Vegetation found itself unconsciously falling silent.

Because in truth, it had been thinking the same thing.

And so—

[It seems we need to make our choice again.]

The Burned Vegetation made its decision.

[......Would it be possible for you to arrange an opportunity for us to offer Him our greetings?]

[Regrettably, I have no authority whatsoever to do that. To begin with, I have never met Him directly either.]

[Why not?]

[From what I heard from the One Who Soars High, He does not wish for His identity to be exposed—]

[Then what are we supposed to do—]

[Well, is there really any need to worry so much about that part?]

[......Why not?]

After all, it is not particularly difficult to show Him that you mean to follow Him—after adding that, the Arm-Spitting One disappeared back beneath the sea, as though there were no need to hear anything more.

[......Hm. Now that I think about it, there were quite a few others besides us heading toward the kingdoms.]

The Piercing Eye muttered without meaning to.

And then—

The Burned Vegetation—

[Indeed......!]

—nodded as if it had realized something.

####

It had already been three weeks since Alon came to the Central Mage Tower.

In truth, when he had first come to the Central Mage Tower, he had never intended to stay this long.

But after hearing a clue about will from Heinkel, he had remained at the tower to learn even a little more about magic.

And together with Heinkel and Penia, he had begun seriously researching the magic of the True Mages.

That time had already stretched to three full weeks.

“Hoo—”

Alon let out a breath.

Fatigue was washing over him.

In truth, sitting in one place and researching was not especially difficult.

But the problem was magic.

With that astonishing mind of hers, Heinkel had grasped the essence of incantation phrases without much difficulty, but even so, that did not mean she could understand the entire structure of magic.

The same was true for Penia.

In the end, the only one who could actually cast the magic was Alon, so throughout the entire course of the research he had to keep using magic himself, and because of that, he was thoroughly exhausted.

“Are you very tired?”

“A little.”

“Because your mana hall is small, you have to keep using Reverse Heavens.”

Penia nodded as if that were only natural.

“Sparrow, was it? It would have been nice if that person had been of some help.”

“Seriously.”

At first, Alon had never imagined he would suffer this much.

Naturally, that was because of Sparrow.

Though trapped inside a jewel, Sparrow was still undeniably a True Mage.

Alon had thought he would at least be able to hear an explanation of the principles behind incantation phrases, but unfortunately, Sparrow had been no help.

No, if anything, Sparrow had been even less helpful than Heinkel.

The reason was simple.

[Why can’t you do that?]

Because Sparrow was the kind of being that, if one had to classify it, was closer to a “genius.”

Sparrow kept skipping over the first few things that were most necessary, as if they were too obvious to mention, and on top of that, Sparrow was terrible at explaining things......

So Alon had long since given up on getting help from Sparrow.

“Well, even so, it’s fine. We’ve been getting results worth the effort.”

“That’s true too.”

Still, perhaps because they had suffered through so much, they had achieved quite a lot over the past three weeks.

“We’ve more or less laid all the groundwork now.”

“We have.”

For three weeks, Alon had been rebuilding the fundamentals of magic—no, of incantation phrases—from the very beginning.

Strictly speaking, “from the very beginning” was not even the most fitting phrase.

“From the first time ever” would have suited better.

He had used incantation phrases until now, but that had been closer to using a kind of blessing than to using magic.

“Mm. Still, if we stay another three or four days, you should be able to properly use at least one incantation phrase.”

“It’ll mean suffering a little longer, though.”

“If only I could use incantation phrases too, that would be even better—”

“Thank you for the thought.”

“It’s nothing. Look at us.”

Alon smiled for a moment at Penia as she spoke with a grin.

“Lord Alon.”

“Evan.”

Evan opened the library door and entered.

“Is the research going well?”

“More or less.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Yes. Where are Blackie and Basiliora?”

Just this morning, Basiliora had buried itself in the ring to hide from Heinkel, and Blackie had been looking bored, so Evan had taken both of them out.

At Alon’s question, Evan shrugged.

“They’re outside in the carriage playing right now. By the way, are you on a break at the moment?”

Alon nodded.

As if pleased to hear that, Evan stepped closer.

“As it happens, there are a few things I wanted to tell you.”

“Is it about Divine blood?”

“Mm—that too, but there’s other news as well.”

“......Other?”

“Yes. It’s about the marquisate—or rather, Palantia.”

For a moment, Alon tilted his head.

There was no reason for something to have happened in Palantia right away.

But then something occurred to him, and he let out a small sound of realization.

“Don’t tell me it’s about the castle.”

“Oh, how did you know?”

“Because that is the only sort of news Palantia could produce right now. So—has the castle already been built?”

At first glance, Alon’s question sounded absurd.

To begin with, it had not even been two full months since he had ordered the castle’s construction.

The question was half a joke.

And half because he had heard that two mage tower masters had joined the construction to help with it.

‘To be honest, I still don’t understand why they joined in the first place.’

In any case, at Alon’s question, Evan shook his head.

“No, not that.”

“Then?”

“Yes, but how should I put this......”

Evan scratched his head for a while, unable to continue.

“To start with the conclusion, they’ve only just begun creating the foundation.”

“That’s faster than I expected.”

“And Palantia’s territory has become Palantia’s southern district.”

“......It has...... wha?”

Then Evan said that.

“......What do you mean, Palantia’s southern district?”

“Well, just what it sounds like.”

“No, but that territory is all there is, so how......?”

Alon’s mind was not working properly.

At that, Evan scratched his head once more—

“They say the castle they’re building is that large.”

“???”

—and answered that way.

Which only made Alon feel even more lost in the maze.

“And there is one more thing I should tell you, about Divine blood as well.”

“No, wait......”

Before he could sort out his thoughts at all, Evan brought up an entirely new topic.

In the end, Alon shoved the questions filling his head off to the side for the moment.

“......Go ahead and tell me that first.”

“It seems battles have recently been breaking out frequently among Divine blood.”

“......Among Divine blood?”

“Yes.”

For a moment, Alon felt puzzled, but he soon understood the situation.

Through his conversation with the One Who Soars High, he already knew that some Divine blood had taken his side.

“I see.”

Because of that, Alon was naturally about to nod—

“About eight of them.”

“?”

—but then those words made him blank out once again.

“......Eight?”

“Yes.”

“......Not two or three?”

“......Yes, well...... judging only by the ones that have been confirmed, it’s eight.”

At that completely unexpected number—

‘......What is going on?’

—another shadow of confusion fell over Alon’s face.

And around then—

In Tlian, the capital of the small city-state Chronosax, the place looked quite appetizing to the Divine blood that had crossed the sea, the Wrath of the Whirlpool.

People were packed densely together in one place.

And given the nature of the Wrath of the Whirlpool’s ability, people gathered like that were convenient tools that could be put to use with a single act of brainwashing.

And so, before carrying out the Rotten One’s request, the Wrath of the Whirlpool, intending to build itself a small support base first—

[Stop.]

[?]

—turned its gaze toward the solemn voice that rang out before it could even get close to the capital.

[......The Burned Vegetation?]

—and came face-to-face with the Burned Vegetation there.

The Wrath of the Whirlpool froze for a moment.

But soon, as if it understood something—

[I see—so that’s it. You arrived here first, then?]

—it twisted what looked like a shell-like mouth into a smile.

That fishy expression was full of certainty.

To begin with, it had fallen to the southern side of the Empire together with the Burned Vegetation.

And it knew why the Burned Vegetation was heading toward the Allied Kingdoms.

So— 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

[Since meeting here is fate, let’s form an alliance. As you know, no matter how many gather, all we have to do is deal with the Star Eater.]

The Wrath of the Whirlpool made the offer naturally to the Burned Vegetation, and—

[What kind of bullshit are you spouting?]

[?]

—was rejected emptily, and with absurd ease.

[......What?]

The Wrath of the Whirlpool asked back in confusion.

But the Burned Vegetation—

[How dare you carelessly speak His name. You’re out of your mind.]

—growled, flames blazing hotter all over its body as if it were genuinely enraged.

At that, the Wrath of the Whirlpool instinctively panicked and tried to respond, but its mouth—

[No, why all of a sudden!? Back when we fell, you were talking about roasting the Star Eater alive—]

[Shut up!]

—never got the chance.

[He and I are in a state of unity, no different from a single body. In other words, an attack against Him is the same as an attack against me! As the leader of Star Root, I will not forgive it!!]

And at the sight of the Vegetation, drenched in the madness of rage as it shouted out a group name that sounded like it belonged in a children’s cartoon—

‘Wh-what is this......?!’

—the Wrath of the Whirlpool began to feel a very strange kind of fear.