Chapter 22

At Ciel’s insistence, we moved to the Master of the Mage Tower’s room, where he immediately dropped to his knees before me and begged for forgiveness.

“I’m really sorry……! For not recognizing you right away…… I wouldn’t even blame you if you called me the head of a rotten, stinking fish……”

“……How many times are you going to say that? Stop already. If I hear it one more time, my ears are going to grow calluses.”

“O-Okay.”

I stood from my chair and helped Ciel, who had been kneeling awkwardly in front of me, back to his feet.

“More importantly, don’t we have a lot to talk about?”

When I showed him the front-page article from the Imperial Daily News that I had carefully brought with me from my homeland, I saw sweat bead nervously at Ciel’s temples.

“Th-That…….”

“What were you thinking when you contacted those dark mages? Is this really true? What kind of contract did you make with them that an article like this ended up being published?”

I hadn’t intended to scold him, but now that Ciel had finally accepted that I was truly Hiaquin, my irritation came bubbling out, making my words sharper than intended.

Seeing me like that, Ciel fidgeted anxiously before mumbling in a tiny, dejected voice.

“I don’t know their exact identities either…… They appear and disappear like the wind……”

“……You don’t know, despite being the Master of the Mage Tower?”

As the Master of the Mage Tower, Ciel should have connections throughout the entire continent.

And yet he couldn’t uncover their identities?

That’s far too suspicious.

Seeing my serious expression, Ciel dropped to his knees again.

“I-I’m sorry. I should just slam my head against the floor and punish myself—”

He wasn’t someone who enjoyed being bullied, so why had he suddenly become this pathetic, teary-eyed mess who kept trying to punish himself?

The sheer absurdity made me yell.

“Stop! Don’t make me into a horrible person! I didn’t come here to torture you!!!”

Ciel…….

They said his personality had gotten terrible after becoming the Master of the Mage Tower, but seeing how he turned into a puppy in front of me, I supposed his fundamental nature hadn’t really changed.

I made the troublesome Ciel sit back down and began talking to him properly.

“So, when did those dark mages and necromancers who contacted you first appear?”

“It was…… roughly fifty years ago.”

Ciel briefly but thoroughly explained what had happened that day.

“People wearing long black robes that covered their entire bodies barged into the Mage Tower in the middle of the night. As the Master of the Mage Tower, I went out to defeat them, but for some reason, they didn’t seem interested in fighting and surrendered almost immediately.”

“And then?”

Ciel’s eyes kept darting nervously to the side as he continued.

“The moment I tried to interrogate them as the Master of the Mage Tower, they easily and quickly dispelled the restraints I’d placed on them and offered me something I couldn’t refuse.”

“……”

“They asked me whether I wanted to resurrect ‘Hiaquin,’ who had been brutally killed fifty years ago. They said that if I wanted to do so, I would have to gather the materials required to reconstruct Hiaquin’s dead body.”

“Haaah……”

It was an absurd proposition just hearing about it.

I covered my eyes with one hand, leaned back against the chair, and asked Ciel:

“……So you agreed?”

“A-At first, I refused. Reconstructing a human body is considered one of the most heinous taboos in magic. I thought they were simply the worst kind of scammers among the countless people who had tried to impersonate ‘Hiaquin.’ But……”

“They showed you something, didn’t they?”

Ciel hesitated before slowly nodding.

“Those lunatics…… killed one of their own companions and erased the corpse without leaving even a trace of ash behind. While I was shouting at them, demanding to know what they were doing, they placed the materials they had brought into a reconstruction array and revived their dead companion right before my eyes.”

That’s quite astonishing.

Human reconstruction belonged to the realm of forbidden magic, so it wasn’t something that could be successfully performed with ease.

I’d vaguely heard at the academy that it was primarily a magic pursued by mages who had lost someone precious and gone mad with grief…… but its success rate was said to be practically nonexistent.

And yet they succeeded?

It was incredibly difficult to believe.

“Are you sure? Did you personally confirm that it was real and not some illusion created by magic?”

“……It was real. I suspected it might be an illusion the moment I saw it, so I immediately used a truth-detection spell…… The person really had been resurrected.”

“That shouldn’t be possible……”

“I thought so too. But after seeing someone who had died come back to life with my own eyes, I couldn’t deny what I’d witnessed. So I eventually accepted their offer. They told me that if I wanted to bring you back, I had to gather the materials for human reconstruction, and I agreed.”

Ciel lowered his head, perhaps overwhelmed by guilt.

“I’m really sorry. But…… I missed you so much that I couldn’t bear it.”

“……Ciel.”

“It was even worse after we unexpectedly attained the rank of Transcendent. We might have to live for countless ages from now on, while you…… You sacrificed yourself for us and never received anything in return.”

Sadness poured from Ciel’s silver eyes like rain, falling endlessly to the floor.

“If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have survived…….”

“Hmm……”

It was an extremely awkward situation.

What am I supposed to do about this?

I felt incredibly—no, extremely guilty about telling him the truth.

How am I supposed to explain that I harassed the Supreme God day and night until he gave me an absolutely amazing deal: fulfill my duty as a Saint, and I’d get reincarnated as the wealthy son of a noble family?

If I told him that, the overly serious Ciel might immediately decide I was trash and tell me to crawl straight into a garbage can.

Considering the rude, Master-of-the-Mage-Tower version of Ciel I just met…… that’s entirely possible.

So I selectively told him only what he needed to know, embellishing the truth just enough.

“Don’t worry. The Supreme God took pity on me and gave me a chance to be born again. That’s why I’m able to meet you now.”

“Hiaquin……!”

Overwhelmed with emotion, Ciel pulled me into another hug and burst into tears.

As I patted the back of the crybaby Ciel who had apparently developed this habit while I was gone, I winked at the Supreme God in his chick incarnation.

Don’t ever tell Ciel the whole truth. If he finds out, we’re both screwed.

-……Fine. I understand.

The chick incarnation puffed out its little beak and glared at us.

Once Ciel had calmed down somewhat, I immediately asked him:

“So, where are the human reconstruction materials provided by those suspicious dark mages?”

At my question, Ciel rummaged through one of the drawers in the Master of the Mage Tower’s room like a dog eagerly fetching a Frisbee, then pulled out a sack tied with a black cord.

“Here. I’ve already removed the security magic so no one can accidentally get hurt. Go ahead and look through it.”

“Thanks.”

I untied the black cord and examined the contents of the small pouches inside one by one.

Wyvern horn powder, a bottle of fairy tears, blue deer-horn mushrooms, hundred-year-old moss that grew in a swamp, pegasus tail hair, eight recordings of an evil spirit’s screams……?

They really gathered a lot.

I was admiring the collection when the Supreme God, who had quietly fluttered over beside me, spoke in a suddenly stern voice.

-……Are these truly what those dark mages told you to gather in order to resurrect Hiaquin—the Saint?

“Hmm? Yes. That’s right……”

The chick’s expression became frighteningly sharp.

A tremendous pressure radiated from him.

-These wretched creatures…… How dare they!

“What’s wrong, Lord?”

The Supreme God could no longer contain himself and began shouting furiously.

-None of these are materials used to resurrect a human being!

“……?!”

“What……?”

-In short, Ciel, you were deceived. They exploited your desire to resurrect Hiaquin, your former companion and fellow Hero!

“No…… That…… can’t…….”

At the Supreme God’s words, Ciel’s knees buckled like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

I caught him before he fell and asked the Supreme God:

“Then what are those reconstruction materials for?”

-Those are…….

I leaned closer, listening intently because this seemed like important information.

But the chick suddenly staggered and fell from my shoulder.

“Whoa!”

Fortunately, I caught him before his head hit the floor.

The Supreme God’s incarnation was burning hot, as though he’d come down with an extremely high fever.

“Why are you like this? You’re burning up!”

-It’s the price for attempting to intervene in a matter that violates causality.

“What does that mean……?”

-I’m sorry I can’t help you much, but I need to sleep here for a while…… We’ll meet again once the restrictions imposed by causality have been lifted.

The chick went limp.

His tiny heart no longer beat, and his body became cold in my hands, almost as though he were dead.

“Violating causality…….”

I muttered absentmindedly.

Beside me, Ciel spoke.

“If even the Supreme God can’t interfere with this matter, then whatever those dark mages are trying to resurrect in place of Hiaquin…… might be something capable of destroying this world.”

After all, dark mages worship and revere powerful dark gods and entities.

“……One thing has become certain.”

Something serious was happening under the guise of resurrecting Hiaquin, the one weakness of the absurdly powerful Heroes.

I hated getting involved in dangerous situations.

But I hated even more the thought of my former comrades being exploited by an evil force, having their hopes dangled in front of them without knowing the truth.

I stood and asked Ciel:

“Ciel, can you summon those dark mages tonight?”

I’ll get my hands on their tails.

Late that night.

The mages of the Mage Tower had all fallen asleep, leaving the tower shrouded in darkness.

Figures completely wrapped in black robes entered the tower and instantly used warp magic to reach the 101st floor.

They knocked on the Master of the Mage Tower’s door.

“Master of the Mage Tower. We’re here.”

Ciel soon opened the door and greeted them.

“……You came looking for me faster than I expected.”

“Wasn’t it you who summoned us?”

“That isn’t important…… Anyway, can you resurrect Hiaquin tonight, as I requested?”

A petite woman who appeared to be the leader grinned.

“Of course. All you need to do is bring us one final ingredient for the human reconstruction process—a living young human as a sacrifice.”

At the woman’s words, Ciel immediately presented the man he’d been keeping behind him.

“Will this be enough?”

The person he presented was none other than Hikan Robaires, who was pretending to be tightly bound.