Adela wasn’t one to just take a beating. Without a beat of hesitation, she struck back.

“Spouted off about retiring decades ago, and now the dirty old peeper’s gotten worse!”

This time, Grania’s brows twitched hard.

“Hah! ‘Peeper,’ is it? Since when were you so interested in my proclivities? If you’ve got feelings for me, put them away. A runt that won’t become a woman even after centuries? Absolutely impossible.”

“D-did you just call me a runt?”

“Am I wrong? Are you gonna stand there and tell me that I’m wrong? I once read that gnomes never top one meter even at death. Seems that paper was quite accurate.”

Two of the continent’s foremost powerhouses were trading barbs, one would expect from third-rate mercenaries. Cardinal Adela and the former Archmage Grania were names that alone could make people tremble, but here they were, now engaged in nothing more or less than a childish spat between an ill-mannered brat and an old man who didn’t act his age.

Their quarrel only got nastier.

“You hit on an elf and got told you stink! Bit your tongue mid-chant and lost an arm, you cripple!”

“W-what!? How far back are you digging! And it wasn’t a smell—the Empire’s spices back then were—”

“Hm? Can’t hear you. She said you stank, hm? Told you not to come within ten meters, hmmm?”

“Gah!”

Grania clutched the back of his neck and staggered when his old shame was dragged out, but with the famous willpower of a Grand Mage, he managed to endure it. His left arm—the one once cut off and reattached, just as Adela said, seemed to throb for no reason.

He had somehow become one of the Empire’s eldest. With so many years piled on, he had no close companions and spent his days quietly, like a plant.

“Hmph.”

Setting aside the distaste of having his past exposed, he wiped his face blank and spoke as if denying that he’d found the bickering the least bit fun.

“What’s past is past. You hog-wench, why did you sneak into Portroi?”

“Do you hear yourself? I snuck in. You think I’ll tell you why, dumbass?”

“Y-you rotten...!”

While Grania shook with anger, Adela said lightly, “I didn’t even use a disguise artifact to avoid tipping you off, but I didn’t expect you to sweep the whole domain with detection magic. You really didn’t develop a peeping kink, didn’t you?”

“No! What do you take me for!?”

To that retort, Adela replied as if she had waited for this exact moment, “An old virgin shut-in who got dumped by his first love—an elf—and holed up in the Tower, never marrying?”

“P-please, no more of that...”

When the grim-faced Grania pleaded, Adela seemed disinclined to poke that again and changed the subject.

“Whatever. You’re not here to fight, it seems. So, why is a so-called retiree in Gateway City? You’re not loyal enough to come running just because the Emperor called.”

Grania’s face hardened at that, then he looked past her at Leon’s group behind. With a long sigh, he lowered his staff.

“I’ve no reason to answer. If you’re bound for the Capital, hurry on. I’m too old to break my bones fighting.”

“A Grand Mage backing out on his own turf?” Adela tried her taunt.

“Spare me the cheap bait. You’ve brought three Church ‘secret weapons’ with you.”

Even with their presence suppressed, the disguise would never hold in such a close range. A Grand Mage’s insight worked on a different axis than an Aura Master’s. Even Karen, hidden in shadow, hadn’t escaped his gaze.

Sensing how firm he was, Adela asked, “You’re not staying here of your own will, are you? Did they take a hostage, like they did with Dayton?”

At the mention of that name, Grania’s perennially bored expression turned to shock.

“What!? Dayton? Hostage? What do you mean?”

“Yeah. With a son he had late in life, I think?”

Not knowing the details, Adela glanced back, and Leon stepped forward to explain.

“Yes. They promised to cure his incurable condition. Though it turned out to be an exolaw that would transform him into a non-human.”

“You’re speaking in the past tense. What happened to him?” Grania asked.

“Sir Dayton was eaten by a monster the exolaw wielder summoned. We put the monster down, but he and his son...”

“I see,” Grania muttered, and, as if mourning his friend, he closed his eyes and opened them before giving Leon a slight bow. “Thank you for preserving my friend’s honor. Even if the exolaw worked, he couldn’t have lived with the guilt. Who knows? With his stuck-up ways, he might have even hung himself as soon as he confirmed his son’s survival.”

He glanced toward the distant watchtower, drew a small pocket watch from within his robe, and continued, “Sorry, but I can’t talk further here. I left an illusion at the tower. Let’s meet again somewhere out of their sight.”

“What’s this pocket watch...?” Leon asked.

“After sunset, the hour hand will move like a compass. When the hour and minute hands point in exactly the same direction, come find me there.”

Before Leon could answer, Grania’s body melted into the air as he activated his teleportation skill. Such spatial magic required the user to be at least a sixth tier to even begin training, only becoming usable at the seventh, and true mastery at the eighth.

Adela watched the spot where he vanished, snorted, and said, “Hmph. Mages and their vague directions. He could’ve just said where and when.”

Leon’s eyes naturally dropped to the pocket watch.

***

A few hours later, Leon’s party wound their way through Portroi’s alleys, following the pocket watch’s guidance. The Marquisate of Portroi, known as Gateway City, was a great domain that was easily one of the top three in the Empire by area. Its alleys were long and labyrinthine.

After much wandering, the four finally arrived. Adela ground her teeth before the door.

“Bet he did this just to mess with us. When I get back to headquarters, I’m printing ‘The Black Ledger of Archmage Grania’ and blanketing the continent...”

It was a truly wicked vow. Regardless, when Leon reached for the knob, the pocket watch in his other hand began to shine. Light streamed from the watch, sketching a magic circle across the shabby door, and the true form revealed itself before them.

“This is...!”

The air warped like a summer heat haze. No, quite different from haze. Heat haze was mere shimmering air; this was space itself distorting, orders of magnitude apart, a violation of physical law that could not occur naturally. It belonged to the realm of High Magic.

“Looks like the watch was the key to this door,” Leon murmured.

As Adela stepped into the portal with a dissatisfied look, they realized that there was no discomfort or pain at all.

“Doesn’t seem like a trap. Should we go in?” Adela said.

“Yes, let’s go ahead.”

At Leon’s decision, the four of them entered the gate.

Ugh?

A strange sensation struck. It was like falling from a great height and rising from the depths at the same time. It felt like an inertia beyond human comprehension. Even with eyes open, nothing could be seen; even with ears alert, there was only absolute silence. When their senses finally returned after a few seconds, a familiar voice greeted them.

“Welcome. You arrived sooner than I expected.”

Grania sat before them in an armchair, sipping coffee leisurely. Leon couldn’t help but glance around. It was an old-fashioned room furnished with bookshelves, chairs, and volumes with elegant, weathered covers. It felt less like a wizard’s workshop and more like a scholar’s study.

“For a workshop, this seems awfully defenseless. What if we’d come to kill you?” Adela asked.

Grania replied, “Even my best workshop couldn’t handle four Masters at once. I see no point in flailing just to buy a few extra seconds.”

After a graceful sip, Grania set down his cup and flicked his finger twice. Instantly, four cups of steaming coffee floated over from a tray and landed neatly before them. The aroma was rich; they were freshly brewed, not a hint of cooling.

He added, “I’d offer scones or cookies to go with them if I had any left. Forgive the poor hospitality.”

“That’s quite all right. We didn’t come for tea, after all.”

That polite yet blunt tone of Leon—clearly urging him to get to the point—made Grania chuckle faintly. The fiery vigor of youth had a way of reminding an old man of his own glory days, back when he too brimmed with the conviction that anything was possible.

He nodded once and began.

“I can guess what you want to ask. Why I revoked my retirement and remain in this domain, and if it’s against my will, who’s behind it.”

“Yes. Will you tell us?”

“There’s no reason not to.”

He hadn’t been silenced, after all. And so Grania began to explain.

It wasn’t a long story. Once his disciple reached the seventh tier, the former Archmage, Grania, had ceded the position and retired to a remote place. He’d grown sick of politics and power struggles, and even before the Mad Emperor’s rise, he’d felt an unshakable sense of foreboding.

Even after the Emperor’s coronation, life had been peaceful. The great purge had broken the nobles’ arrogance, and few bothered him anymore. However, that was when things took a turn for the worse.

“The Evil Order... They laid their hands on my disciple.”

“What do you mean, ‘laid their hands’?”

“My disciple, Edgar, was a talented young man, but he was soft-hearted. The weight of the Archmage’s title, the responsibility of inheriting my mantle, wore him down.”

The Evil Order had exploited that weakness perfectly. While Edgar was away, they forged Grania’s handwriting and planted a book in the Tower’s library. At first glance, it appeared to describe High Magic—spells of the seventh-tier and above—carefully fabricated to look authentic.

When Edgar, crushed under guilt and anxiety, happened upon it by chance, the incident began.

“The contents weren’t magic—they were exolaw.”

Believing it to be a trace of his master’s work, Edgar activated it, and the exodimensional power corrupted him, leaving him in a coma. The Evil Order then contacted Grania with an offer: Serve as the gatekeeper for this city. When the term ended, they’d return his disciple safe and whole. It was a type of proposal he’d heard too many times before.

“Of course, it’s not to be believed,” Grania said in a resolute voice before anyone else could beat him to it. “I even bound them with a pact, but the Evil Order may have ways to nullify that. If possible, I’d rescue my disciple before their plans bear fruit, but...”

He had tried, surely more than once. Grania’s tone was soaked in helplessness.

“My magic couldn’t undo the exolaw ensnaring him. It traps the target at the soul level. Spatial magic can’t touch it.”

“Wouldn’t Holy Law solve it?” Adela asked, but at the suggestion, Grania immediately shook his head.

“Impossible. By my calculations, it would take the divine power of at least five Cardinals to dispel this exolaw. The Holy Church wouldn’t move for one man—and even if they did, they couldn’t hide it. Maintaining the current state is the best I can do.”

It would be absurd indeed. Each Cardinal was a strategic weapon, capable of altering the course of an entire battlefield with a single Holy Law. Even the one standing here—Adela—was such a being. With some effort, she could breach a fortress like Alger all by herself.

Sending five Cardinals—just to save a single mage, even an Archmage, was, both politically and strategically, unthinkable. Adela was just about to say how unreasonable such a thing would have been, but she cut herself off.

“Wait...”

And she wasn’t the only one. Leon and Karen, too, turned instinctively toward the same person. Grania, puzzled by their sudden reaction, followed their gaze. Four pairs of eyes fell upon Elahan.

“Ah!”

Realizing it herself, Elahan’s eyes widened, and she clasped her hands. If anyone could meet the requirement Grania mentioned, it was her. The strongest Saintess in history, a being born with purer, greater divine power than ten Cardinals combined.

El-Cid also chimed in, grumbling from Leon’s waist.

—Ahem. I’m still here, you know.

Oh, right. El-Cid can nullify lower exolaws and weaken higher ones.

So, Leon spoke without hesitation.

“Master Grania.”

“Hm?”

The old mage, long resigned to reality, turned toward him. Resignation was second nature to the elderly. That was why he didn’t expect what Leon said next.

“If we could meet those conditions, would you lend us your full cooperation?”

The Grand Mage’s eyes widened in astonishment.