Water Magician-Chapter 647: On Foot
Editor: Tseirp
Having parted ways with the Tenth Ship crew, Ryo and Abel decided to head for the Choouchi Empire overland.
With the map they had been given and the alchemy tool for tracking Emperor Tsuin that Commander Tin of the Forbidden Palace had entrusted to them, they should be able to manage somehow.
Anyone could tell it would not be an easy trip.
They would no doubt be visited by terrifying hardships.
Still, the two of them would press on!
To rescue the Emperor!
With that grim, tragic resolve, they departed the port town of Mei-Hei… or so the story went.
Abel would sometimes cock his head.
Traveling on foot was hard.
Even more so this time, since the route was a mountain path, not a paved road.
It would normally be difficult even to procure food.
And yet the two of them were walking while nibbling on rindo.
Was this really a ‘difficult journey’?
“Abel, if you have something to say, say it!”
“No, Ryo, I have nothing to say.”
“That’s a lie! You’ve been glancing at the and tilting your head ever since a while ago!”
As Ryo pointed out, Abel’s gaze wandered.
It was hardly surprising.
Two capable of carrying about three people were following behind Ryo.
Most of what they carried was food.
And, wherever those passed, the road became paved with ice…
“Ryo, your attention to detail is as fine as ever.”
“There’s a saying in my hometown: God dwells in the details. Those who don’t cut corners even in the small things can reach the very top.”
“I see. That sounds like hard work.”
“Somehow I feel I’ve been skillfully bamboozled…”
Ryo frowned.
“From the fourth day, we should be traveling through the forest, right?”
“Yes. We should reach the border in five days, so around the fourth day there’s a chance we’ll run into Peiyu soldiers if we keep to the road.”
“War popping up everywhere, huh?”
“A ruler who can resolve problems without war is an effective one.”
“I completely agree with that.”
Abel nodded at Ryo’s words.
“If it’s going to be like this, we should’ve brought the Andalusia and the Oniwaban.”
“Oniwaban.”
“The golems that clean the garden.”
“Oh…”
In their manor, the garden was kept tidy by Ice Golems.
“But the golems aren’t combat-capable, right?”
“They can’t use a sword like Abel, but just bracing a spear and charging is pretty effective. Captain Lu Yao praised them.”
“They were led by No. 2-kun and defended the Royal Residence to the end, weren’t they?”
“…That was war too, after all. Even inside the capital. I wonder how the golems perceive wars full of human folly.”
Ryo sometimes became a philosopher.
“Is there any answer other than ‘humans are foolish’?”
“…There isn’t.”
A sad conversation.
They headed north while talking like that.
Along the way they chose forks as the map indicated and proceeded.
They should have been on the right path… but on the third day—
“Is this… a road?”
“You could call it an animal trail, but ordinarily animal trails aren’t on maps.”
In front of them was something that could hardly be called a road.
Beyond it was nothing but forest.
Trees densely overgrown.
“There’s a small chance we took a wrong turn.”
“Yeah, we definitely took the wrong turn.”
Both Ryo and Abel sighed.
But neither of them sank into despair.
Why?
“Let’s eat while we rest.”
“Yeah. Shall we grill some fish?”
Yes—they had abundant food.
The trailing Ryo were full not only of meat, vegetables, and fruit, but even fish.
And because everything was preserved in Ryo’s ice, it was fresh!
Of course, they also had flint and other fire-starting tools.
Two of them ate grilled fish in the woods.
Their faces were filled with happiness.
“We must go rescue the Emperor, but… his health seems fine.”
“Can that tracking alchemy tool tell something like that?”
“Yes. He’s been eating properly and taking care of his condition. I think, probably, he’s not in an underground cell but under some kind of house arrest at a manor.”
“They say they need the Emperor himself to open the ‘Corridor’… what on earth does that mean?”
“We don’t know. The ‘Corridor’ is somewhere northwest of Darwei, right? Do they plan to take the Emperor there and do something?”
Both Ryo and Abel shrugged because they didn’t know.
But ideas could still flash up amid uncertainty.
“Come to think of it, doesn’t Knightley’s royal vault only open for the king?”
“It does. The ‘Hall of Heroes’ inside the vault.”
Ryo mentioned something he remembered, and Abel answered.
“King Richard is said to have poured the finest alchemy into it.”
“Right—things that could even unbalance the world are said to be inside. If the king can open it, maybe it reacts to royal blood or something—some sort of alchemy like that?”
“I don’t know the details either. But since registration is required, I don’t think having royal blood alone is enough.”
“Ah, I see.”
So it didn’t necessarily read royal genes or DNA.
That made things even less clear.
“What about the Emperor is needed…?”
“At least they need him alive.”
“Indeed.”
After eating grilled fish and resting a while, the two set out walking again.
Then Ryo noticed something.
“Abel, people are coming from the north.”
“What? Along this animal trail?”
“I’m not sure… six people? Ah—these aren’t people, they’re Phantomkins.”
“Seriously? We’re still inside Peiyu territory, right?”
“Sabotage or reconnaissance, maybe.”
Both Abel and Ryo were surprised.
They were still within Peiyu; they had one more day’s walk to the border.
Had Choouchi Empire forces advanced even this far?
“Contact will occur in five minutes. Five minutes…but…”
Ryo cocked his head.
“What’s wrong?”
“I said six Phantomkins, but while two are definitely Phantomkins, the other four are odd.”
“Odd?”
“Yes. I don’t know the details, but they’re different from the Phantomkins we’ve met so far.”
“Hmm.”
Ryo analyzed the information obtained by the while tilting his head.
Abel wondered inwardly.
There were two ordinary Phantomkins.
The Phantomkin General Yun they had fought at the Rondo Manor had been a formidable swordsman.
These two might be of that caliber.
Not an opponent to be taken lightly.
“Okay, let’s leave the two ordinary Phantomkins for later.”
“Hmm?”
“From their gait, the other four seem slower.”
“Is that so?”
Abel accepted Ryo’s suggestion.
Ryo had collected and analyzed the information.
Therefore, Ryo’s proposed tactic was probably the most appropriate.
“What formation are they advancing in?”
“In a single file. The regular Phantomkins at the front and the rear.”
“Then I’ll strike the second and third.”
“I’ll take the fourth and fifth.”
They had already gone through many hellish situations together.
In a couple of words, they settled the division of labor.
That was the bond of comrades-in-arms.
Even those who hate war can be comrades.
In fact, precisely because they are comrades, they may understand war’s horrors.
Six members of the Choouchi Empire’s First Army, Second Reconnaissance Squad had already advanced south more than a day from the border.
“Take the head of the visiting Grand General at the Peiyu rear camp? The boss always gives reckless orders.”
Captain Sonjang of the Second Recon Squad grumbled as he ran at the head of the group.
He casually raised his right fist and the squad stopped. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂
“What is it, Sonjang?”
Deputy Captain Lara, who had been following at the rear, came up and asked.
“Just checking the map.”
“I see…”
Lara looked like she wanted to say something.
The other four stood in line.
“What’s wrong, Lara?”
“I just… have a bad feeling…”
Deputy Captain Lara looked around as she answered Captain Sonjang’s question.
Sonjang frowned.
Lara’s instinct at times couldn’t be dismissed.
“Give them some water. The Peiyu are a horse-riding people. I don’t think a large Peiyu force would be in the forest like this… But we should be prepared for anything.”
“Understood.”
Lara instructed the four standing soldiers to drink water and drank herself.
Exactly what it was, she couldn’t say.
But she had an uneasy feeling.
One worse than she had ever felt before.
“Sonjang, shall we stop advancing?”
Lara surprised herself by saying it aloud.
She had never experienced saying such a thing.
Sonjang’s eyes widened at the suggestion.
“Ah… sorry.”
Lara hurriedly apologized.
“What’s wrong, Lara?”
“I just… have a very bad feeling.”
“Bad enough to say it so bluntly?”
“…Yes.”
Lara nodded with a grimace.
Hearing that, Sonjang had to think.
Lara’s intuition was usually right.
This was the first time Lara had voiced such a strong warning.
But…
“An order is an order.”
“Yes…”
Sonjang made the decision, and Lara complied.
Truth be told, the Choouchi military was newly formed, still groping in many areas.
But disobeying orders invited punishment.
Since they were all Phantomkins, execution did not exist in the usual sense, but still no one was eager to defy commands…
“Let’s complete the mission as quickly as possible and return to the main force.”
“Yes.”
Thus the six resumed running south.
Ten minutes after the First Army’s Second Recon Squad began running again.
It happened suddenly.
When Captain Sonjang looked back, a man with a crimson magic sword had felled one of the ‘vessels’.
The swordman’s speed was not only in the blade but in his body.
He took down the second ‘vessel’ in an instant.
Both felled ‘vessels’ then vanished.
The swordman looked slightly surprised at that, then turned his gaze toward Captain Sonjang.
As if the other three were not his concern.
Sonjang, who had already drawn his sword, could not move.
He felt overwhelmed by something like sword-ki emanating from the swordsman wielding the magic sword.
Beyond the man, Sonjang saw two more ‘vessels’ vanish at the same time.
There seemed to be another enemy.
That enemy was wearing a pale robe… a magician or sorcerer perhaps?
The robed figure held an azure sword and faced off against Lara.
This opponent did not look like an easy target either.
Still, Sonjang had a question.
Why was the enemy here?
They were indeed more than a day inside the Peiyu border.
Move a bit further south, and there would be the rear camp where the Peiyu forces were concentrated and where the Grand General had arrived.
The recon squad’s role was to assassinate that Grand General.
Though a recon squad, as Phantomkins with overwhelmingly superior physical ability compared to humans, two scouts accompanied by four ‘vessels’ could well succeed.
A sound plan.
A forest ambush would be especially effective against the Peiyu army, as people who disliked entering forests.
That was the plan.
Sonjang also thought so.
And yet they had encountered the enemy.
Moreover, they were counter-attacked.
By astonishingly powerful foes.
“They vanished as soon as I struck them down—are those the ‘vessels’?”
The magic-sword man remarked to no one in particular.
“Looks like it. Those two are just like ordinary Phantomkins.”
The robed man replied.
Hearing that exchange startled Sonjang and Lara—whom were referred to as ‘those two’.
(Did they say ‘Phantomkins’? How do they know we are Phantomkins? Wait, the magic-sword man called them ‘vessels’ too—how could Peiyu know about Phantomkins and ‘vessels’? Where did the information leak from?)
Sonjang thought through those questions.
And his face twitched slightly.
The magic-sword man, facing him, spoke.
“What’s the matter, Phantomkin? Something on your mind?”
The magic-sword man was red-haired and quite tall.
His black cloak’s lining looked as if it had been dyed with blood.
Above all, it was obvious just by facing him—
He was unbelievably strong.
Sonjang could not form words.
He did not want to admit it, but he felt overwhelmed.
He, a Phantomkin who should be far stronger than a human, was being pressured by a human swordsman!
“They must be surprised by how well our Peiyu Empire intelligence has tracked them.”
The robed man said to Lara.
(So we were tracked after all! Otherwise they couldn’t have attacked us in this forest. I never heard Peiyu’s intelligence was so good… Wait, Peiyu…)
Sonjang thought, then decided to put his doubt into words.
And should at least gather information and return even if they had to pull back to the main force.
“Has Peiyu declared itself an empire?”
“Huh?”
The robed man looked surprised at the sudden question.
He hadn’t expected that.
He glanced at them.
“M—More importantly, I’m surprised you’ve come this far past the border!”
The robed man replied.
For some reason, the magic-sword man shook his head slightly, which Sonjang couldn’t understand.
For a moment, he thought something was being concealed…
But the magic-sword man then charged, as if to stop him from formulating his thoughts…
“Ugh—”
Sonjang couldn’t help the sound that escaped his mouth.
The sword flash was acute.
Not only the blade.
But the man’s movement was fast, like when he knocked down the ‘vessels’.
But Sonjang was the leader of a recon squad.
In a numerically small Choouchi army, the recon squads were trump cards.
They slipped into the dark, launched surprise attacks on the enemy main force, and took out commanders… a decisive strategy.
An army without its commander is fragile.
The north of Peiyu was said in the Eastern Countries to be uninhabitable.
But that only meant it was hard to feed large populations; ‘states’ of several thousand people.
A few states of several hundred still existed.
Yes, existed.
Those had all been conquered by the Choouchi Empire and no longer existed in name.
The people still lived there and sent tribute to the Empire…
The recon squads had been active in those conquests.
Thus, the recon squads were confident in one-on-one combat.
Both Sonjang and Lara were among the squad’s best individual fighters.
They couldn’t use magic or sorcery, but they had achieved results without it.
Yet the magic-sword man Sonjang faced was…
“You’re strong…”
“You’re not bad yourself.”
Sonjang found himself saying, the Magic-Sword man replied, praise escaping his mouth as well.
But Sonjang understood.
The Magic-Sword man wasn’t fighting at full strength.
Why?
Even if the man got serious, Sonjang thought he wouldn’t be defeated so easily.
He would fight stubbornly, looking for some gap to exploit and reverse the situation.
He wouldn’t lose that easily, so why wasn’t the swordsman in front of him going all out?
He even seemed to be buying time.
But why would there be any reason to stall here?
At that moment.
“It’s over.”
The robed man’s voice reached Sonjang.
When Sonjang glanced toward them, his thoughts stopped.
But they were still in battle.
So he leapt well back to put distance between himself and the Magic-Sword man.
And then he looked closely again at what had frozen his thoughts.
It was a block of ice.
Not an unfamiliar sight to those who lived in the Choouchi Empire.
True, a single block of ice about two meters long was rare…
But that wasn’t it!
Inside that block of ice was…
“Lara…?”
Sonjang could not believe it—the deputy captain Lara had been frozen in ice…?
“You must be shocked, but she’s still alive.”
“Huh?”
The magic-sword man said. Sonjang could hardly comprehend.
Alive?
Still alive?
Even though she was encased in ice?
“Really?”
“Yeah. If you don’t believe me, come closer and see.”
The Magic-Sword man said, then stepped aside.
Captain Sonjang walked slowly toward the ice-encased Lara.
He looked at her face.
Her eyes were wide open…but they did move.
“She moved…”
Sonjang breathed.
“If you answer a few questions for me, I’ll thaw her out alive.”
“! ”
Sonjang was shocked by the magic-sword man’s words.
“But if you don’t answer, or if you resist further, she will…”
“No, I’ll answer!”
Sonjang did not hesitate.
Military orders were important.
The nation did well for them.
But the person he trusted most and cared for above all was Lara.
Nothing else compared.
“What do you want to ask?”
It seemed the magic-sword man would question Sonjang.
The other robed figure stood a little apart.
“Why were you running through a place like this? You’re well inside the border.”
“We received word the Grand General had arrived at the rear camp. Our purpose is to assassinate that Grand General.”
“Ah—ah, I see.”
For some reason, the Magic-Sword man looked a little flustered at Sonjang’s frank answer.
So they hadn’t tracked Sonjang’s movement and ambushed them?
Sonjang wondered, but his concern for Deputy Captain Lara was paramount.
He wanted to free her from the ice as quickly as possible.
“What’s the next question? I want to free her as soon as I can.”
“R—right. Next… how long does it take to get from here to the Choouchi Empire capital?”
“Capital? Why would you ask such a thing?”
“Is that an appropriate question? You want her freed as quickly as possible, don’t you?”
“Damn it! From here to the border… two days on foot. From there to the capital is four days on foot.”
“That’s fairly close.”
“This is the north, you know? Go further north, and even we couldn’t survive there.”
Abel’s candid reaction made Sonjang frown.
“I want a map to the capital.”
“Here! Take it.”
In a gamble, Abel had blurted the question, and Sonjang immediately produced and handed over a map from his pouch.
He seemed to want Lara freed that quickly.
“Is it true the Choouchi Empire kidnapped the Darwei Emperor?”
“How do you know that? The way you asked about directions to the capital… is Peiyu cooperating with Darwei?”
Sonjang tilted his head and asked.
Abel nodded.
The captain of this scout unit believed they were Peiyu people.
“You shouldn’t ask about that. It will make freeing you harder.”
Abel said, lowering his voice.
That had the desired effect.
“Sorry! I won’t ask anything more—forget I said that.”
Sonjang hurriedly said.
Abel gave a generous nod in response.
“The Darwei Emperor was indeed abducted. He’s at the summer villa, not in the palace.”
“Are you sure you can say that?”
“Any Choouchi person would know.”
“Is that summer villa in the capital?”
“Yes. It’s adjacent to the south of the capital. Just head for the capital.”
“Do you know the scale of the garrison guarding that villa?”
“That I don’t know. But it shouldn’t be large.”
Sonjang answered with a grimace.
He wanted to answer everything frankly because Lara’s life was at stake, but he couldn’t speak of things he didn’t know.
“The Emperor and His Majesty the Phantom King both have their main forces deployed near the Peiyu border.”
“Emperor… Phantom King…”
Hearing Abel’s muttered words, Sonjang’s face registered dawning realization.
He thought perhaps speaking of the Phantom King was revealing too much.
“T-The Phantom King…”
“We know of his existence. And the authority he wields over Phantomkins.”
Abel said clearly.
He went on.
“I’ve heard the Emperor’s aim is Darwei, and the Phantom King’s aim is the Central Countries.”
That remark must have been unexpected.
Sonjang’s eyes widened.
“We have more information than you think.”
Abel said, and Sonjang, apparently resigned, and replied.
“The ‘Emperor’ aims to rule Darwei; the ‘King’ intends to advance into the Central Countries. We were told that… but not the reasons. We can only follow orders.”
What was revealed there was the familiar sight in any age: citizens tossed about by those in power.
He provided a few more small pieces of information, and the interrogation ended.
As promised, Deputy Captain Lara was freed from the ice.
“Lara!”
“…Sonjang, I held you back.”
“That’s fine! As long as you’re safe.”
Sonjang hugged Lara.
They were inside a fairly spacious ice enclosure.
The ice was not perfectly transparent but slightly bluish.
“We’ve enclosed you in ice covering a radius of ten meters. If you do nothing, it will open on its own in six days. We’ll leave water and food here too, so please remain calm and wait if possible.”
“All right.”
The robed man explained, and Sonjang nodded.
There was indeed a generous amount of water and food placed inside the ice vessel.
Enough for two people to survive for six days without problems.
Then the magic-sword man and the robed man walked north.
TLN: Please read my translations at tseirptranslations.com, I did not give permission to any site to host my translations.
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