Chapter 163: Receiving a Guest (4)
Argyrion was in a truly peculiar position. It was unusual enough that they maintained rationality despite being Eroders, but their true uniqueness lay in their very existence.
Within this century, no other doomsday cultists had ever rebelled so openly and on such a large scale against the Ten Towers. Yet, despite all that, the Ten Towers still had not managed to wipe them out.
The key point was that they “could not” exterminate them — not that they chose not to.
When the news of a Tower Elder being killed reached Hector, he had been genuinely shocked.
With the power he wielded, killing a Tower Elder wouldn’t have been difficult for him. However, he hadn’t done so — not yet, anyway.
This was because Hector had a “group” to protect.
As an old scholar of history, Hector knew to fear the Ten Towers’ overwhelming capacity for retribution. Killing a Tower Elder would be the trigger that woke that war machine.
No matter how shaky the internal balance of the Ten Towers was, that turmoil was a problem confined to their own society.
The moment an outside force intervened, the Ten Towers’ collective will would unite to crush it. Just as they had done to the Divine Cult for centuries.
So when Hector heard that Talo had been killed, he assumed that the countdown to Argyrion’s annihilation had begun. But Argyrion didn’t stop there. They swallowed an entire Regular Magic Tower, turning it into a forward base for their invasion of magical society.
When that plan failed, Argyrion went further. As if mocking the Ten Towers, they even destroyed part of the foundation stone of Amimone Tower. With the collapse of Amimone’s magic core, dimensional collapse in the surrounding area accelerated.
It was at this point that a “peculiar” proposal was made to Hector.
Form a connection with Argyrion.
Their roots as Eroders made it inevitable that they would have to part ways eventually. But as a means to confront the clear and present threat of the Ten Towers, Argyrion was a valuable asset.
Hector put the proposal on hold. For one thing, the timing was off.
The unprecedented provocation by Argyrion had prompted an equally unprecedented response from the Ten Towers — the formation of an expeditionary force to invade the extra-dimension.
Reaching out to Argyrion was difficult under those circumstances, and the fate of Argyrion amid the large-scale Ten Towers offensive was still unknown.
The second reason was more personal.
He’d seen Orthes in the surveillance footage collected from Algoth City as part of an analysis of Argyrion’s capabilities.
Mages of a certain level — especially those qualified to compete for the title of Tower Master — wrapped themselves in artifacts to the point where video footage often ended up distorted with noise.
Skilled mana-video analysts could correct for most of that noise, but there was always a certain point beyond which restoration was impossible.
There were two possible causes for this:
The presence of an extremely powerful artifact blocking the recording.
The presence of Orthes.
Even in the distorted footage, Hector had spotted a figure in a black suit wielding a high-frequency blade. He’d immediately contacted Orthes.
His only disciple.
Perhaps his final adversary.
“Argyrion’s probably feeling a bit wronged right now. It was me, not them, who had ties to the Divine Cult, but they’re the ones being accused. Same with the Talo incident — I was the one who moved things around.”
Hector listened as his disciple explained that Argyrion had been a complete decoy all along.
“Let me get this straight. You’re telling me you took down Talo?”
“The Argyrion dispatch squad helped too. So, to return the favor, I arranged the scene to make it look like they were the ones who defeated him.”
“And the destruction of Amimone Tower?”
“That wasn’t me.”
Hector nodded. So Argyrion does have that much strength after all, he thought — until Orthes spoke again.
“It was the boss. She’d been biding her time for ages, and then boom — she blew it up with a bomb.”
Hector slowly turned his gaze toward Carisia.
His image of her had been that of a cold and calculating magician, the type who ruled with an iron grip, commanding even a rogue like Orthes with the authority of an iron-fisted monarch.
“…It was necessary,” Carisia muttered, her eyes avoiding his.
She looked more like a scolded child than a fearsome mage at that moment.
“It’s like I mentioned earlier — that explosion was to get rid of the parasitic entity. Boss had been holding back ever since she started Hydra Corporation, but she eventually snuck off to make it behind my back.”
“…The boss? The top decision-maker, the one who doesn’t need anyone’s permission to do as she pleases?”
“Yup. Boss says she’s running a business, and I’m just her secretary, so who am I to stop her? I did try telling her it was dangerous, though.”
At Orthes’ scolding, which was disguised as concern, Carisia lowered her gaze even further. They seem closer than I thought, Hector realized.
“So yeah, the mental parasite ended up cooperating with Argyrion, but after that whole mess, it turned out that both the parasite and Argyrion’s ideology were just proxies for the Mage King’s schemes.”
“Then one last thing.”
Hector narrowed his eyes.
“About this claim that the Mage King will return in 2077?”
“There was a prophecy from the Divine Cult. The current Divine Cult doesn’t know the full details, but the deadline for that prophecy keeps shifting. It’s not exactly reliable.”
“…Heh.”
Hector chuckled. His disciple had always wielded that eerie, intangible presence and a way of getting straight to the heart of the matter.
Now, however, that same disciple had developed a new method of conversation — the casual delivery of earth-shattering truths, as if he were discussing the weather.
“Argyrion’s stock just plummeted.”
“On paper, they’re still a well-diversified terrorist group, you know. Though I did add a bit of seasoning to their image.”
“You’ve become quite the con artist!”
“Haha, I’m still no match for you, old man.”
“No, you’ve surpassed me. Go ahead and leave the mountain.”
“Not sure you can call that mess of an extra-dimensional incursion site a ‘mountain.’ Terrain was all over the place.”
As the two men chatted about meaningless nonsense, Carisia sat quietly, sipping her tea.
Her earlier assessment had been correct. Hector was closer to a real “friend” than the others.
As for their bizarre conversation? She ignored it. No point in paying attention to talk about the flight speed of seagulls or the altitude of extra-dimensional rifts.
“By the way, Orthes, with all this world-shaking news you’ve been dropping…”
“Hm? None of it’s that shocking, is it?”
“I always knew you’d cause a disaster with that mouth of yours.”
“Thanks for the compliment, old man. I’d prefer to make a living with my mouth than with my sword.”
“…Anyway, I’m serious this time.”
Hector’s tone shifted.
“You mentioned hearing something from Talo about a secret order of knights.”
“Ah, did you tell him about that? His imagination’s pretty wild for a guy who spent his life studying magic. Made it easier to read his moves, though.”
“Actually, that’s me.”
“…What?”
Orthes’ brain short-circuited for a moment.
Hector shrugged.
Carisia, sipping her tea, noted the similarity between Hector’s shrug and Orthes’ mannerisms. It’s not just a mentor-disciple relationship. It’s like a full transference of identity.
“The secret order of fallen knights? I’m their leader.”
“Ah, come on, old man. This changes everything.”
Orthes’ tone suddenly grew sharper. Carisia straightened, alert to any shift in tension.
“See, personal negotiations are different from company-to-company deals. You realize I have to recalculate the terms, right?”
Just banter between friends.
Carisia relaxed and sipped her tea again.
“Alright, listen. The order of knights I’m leading? It started with the one knight who failed to kill the Mage King.”
Hector began to recount the tale of a lone knight from a kingdom destroyed by the Mage King’s conquest.
That knight sought to assassinate the Mage King during his moment of triumph — the day of Ascension.
But before he could make his move, he found that the Mage King was already dead.
That knight’s final vow?
To kill the Mage King upon his return.
And to bring down the unjust world born from his blood.
Carisia recalled the words of the Thunder Giant.
“A man from another world, chosen to overturn this one.”
Orthes was a vessel of disorder.