"'Recreate... the Netherworld of Salvation'? What would that even accomplish...?"
Katia posed a genuinely puzzled question to Ermes's proposal.
If one didn't know the details of his magic, it was a perfectly reasonable question. He began explaining carefully.
"As I've mentioned several times, the effect of my 'Primal Inscription' is the reproduction of magic. This isn't a mere copy — it's closer to a 'reconstruction' carried out after grasping the magic's structure, philosophy, and effect to a sufficient degree."
"Right. So in exchange for it taking time to reproduce, once a magic has been reproduced, it can be used over and over again, correct?"
Hearing those words, the knights behind them who were hearing about Ermes's magic for the first time were struck with astonishment.
But Ermes paid them no mind and continued.
"To put it roughly, in order to reproduce a magic, one must deeply understand the target magic. ...More deeply than even its original possessor, Lady Katia, was able to perceive."
"!"
This was one of the shortcomings of Bloodline Magic.
Just as humans can move their limbs without knowing the mechanics, and breathe without grasping the principles —
The holder of a Bloodline Magic can wield that magic
without knowing a single thing about it
.
The contradiction of taking magic — the pinnacle of construction and accumulation — and making it something innate.
Because of this, they often fail to notice things. Hidden effects of their own magic, misunderstandings of its very essence.
"Lady Katia, the reason you can't use your magic properly most likely stems from there."
But Ermes could see it.
Magic was not a gift from the gods but the crystallization of wisdom. Because his understanding of magic had remained uncorrupted by Bloodline Magic, he could look at her magic and guide it toward what it was truly meant to be.
"In other words, by allowing me to analyze your magic through my own, I can pinpoint the cause of your magic's malfunction. ...It's just a guess, but I don't think the cause is all that difficult."
"...Can you really do it?"
What surfaced on Katia's face as she listened was a mixture of doubt and hope.
Ermes nodded in response to her expression, emotions swirling together.
"Actually, if a rough guess is good enough, I already have a pretty good idea of the cause. ...Well then, let me share something simple that can be confirmed right now."
With that, he whispered the nature of a certain magic into Katia's ear.
At what was, in a sense, an unexpected cause, Katia's eyes went wide — and she moved to test it immediately, when —
"Oh! So the rumors were true after all!"
Once again, an ear-splittingly shrill voice rang out.
Looking toward the source, and sure enough — it was a man so round it was a wonder he had managed to squeeze through the dungeon's narrow corridors, Baron Eldritch.
"There's no mistaking it — this must be the legendary Ancient Magical Artifact!"
What the Baron was gazing at was a small chamber beside the great hall where they had fought the Tortoise-shell dragon, located directly behind the spot where the dragon had initially been.
Inside, there was a single staff radiating a silvery gleam.
Coiling around the silver staff, the source of its brilliance, was an intricate carving of two serpents. At its tip, a pair of luminous wings.
Both its complex, beautiful design and the surging magic power confirmed it — this was without question an Ancient Magical Artifact.
"Fufufufufu! It seems heaven has favored me after all! This was discovered by yours truly first — my achievement, mine alone!"
Filled with the same conviction, Baron Eldritch twisted his face with joy and greed and let out a booming laugh.
"If I submit this to the royal family, the reward will be immense! Whether treasure, territory, or perhaps even a promotion in rank...!"
"...One moment, Baron Eldritch."
Naturally, Katia could not let that slide. She interjected.
Having his pleasant daydream interrupted, the Baron turned toward her with a sour expression.
But soon, that mouth of his curled into a cruel smirk.
"Oh my? And who might this be but the Flawed Lady herself? You're a step too late — I was the one who discovered this Ancient Magical Artifact first!"
"You must be joking. Can you not see the monster over there?"
What Katia pointed at was the Tortoise-shell dragon's charred corpse, from which thin wisps of smoke still rose.
"An artifact this conspicuous in a place that isn't even a hidden room. There was no way we, who arrived first, could have failed to notice it. We simply prioritized defeating the monster — we are the ones who discovered it."
"After-the-fact reasoning. How suspicious."
"Even so, we were the ones who conquered this dungeon. By the agreed-upon rules for dungeon clearing, the priority should be ours."
When multiple houses conducted a joint dungeon raid, the share of spoils was typically determined in advance.
This particular case was irregular — but even so, Katia was right that they had been the first to discover the Ancient Magical Artifact. Ermes had noticed the chamber during the fight as well, so there was no doubt.
Moreover, since they had also been the ones to defeat the monster, there was no question whose priority it was.
But the reward was apparently tempting enough for the Baron to press on.
"Hmph, so what! A monster you lot could defeat, I could have defeated too! You got lucky and stumbled here first — don't get cocky, you little wench!"
"Please don't twist the facts. We defeated the monster — that is a fact. If you examine the corpse with magic power analysis, that will serve as proof. The one in the wrong here is —"
"Silence, silence, SILENCE!! A Flawed Lady has no right to talk back to me!!"
At last, the Baron flew into a rage, simultaneously raising his own magic power.
"[Converge, South Wind; cleave, North Wind; the divine gale of the end reaches all places]"
Bloodline Magic — "Four Winds of the Heavenly Demon"!
He activated his Bloodline Magic.
Instantly, a great storm erupted around the Baron. Ermes assessed it — a Bloodline Magic of moderate strength.
"Behold, this is true Bloodline Magic! A privilege of the chosen!"
He whipped the storm into a frenzy, displaying it with relish, and declared in a voice brimming with superiority.
"Listen well — in this country, magic is everything! Which means a lady like you who can barely cast a spell sits at the very bottom! You have no right to speak, and no one will listen to a word you say! Know that defying me in the first place is a crime!!"
"..."
"You say the corpse is proof? Then I shall simply tear it apart, crush it, and scatter it to pieces with my storm! This is a remote mountain dungeon — there are no other witnesses! Besides, the very notion that you defeated the monster is suspicious! You were either far too weak, or you resorted to cowardly tricks — one or the other!"
"R-rectract that! That monster was a Dragon Species, and the finishing blow was undeniably Ermes's own — magic that Ermes himself had built up!"
"Ha! So it wasn't your own power after all! Relying on a servant — how pathetic!"
Puffed up with self-satisfaction, the Baron found himself unable to be refuted on that point, and this time it was Katia who fell silent.
"If you're jealous, then show me your own magic! I heard about it, you know — a horrifying magic that desecrates the dead, and one so crude it's hardly even worth calling Bloodline Magic! Despair at the gap between it and my magnificent magic!"
"You—!"
"If even one in ten thousand of your magic proved superior to mine, I'll admit you were right and withdraw! Well, that's impossible, of course — fufufufufufufu!!"
The Baron let out a lofty laugh, as though he were the embodiment of justice.
But having endured this far in provocation, Katia could no longer ignore it. With more than half-resignation, she stepped forward and was about to activate her magic, when —
"Lady Katia."
Ermes called out to her.
"...Ermes, don't stop me. This is the one time I have to act myself —"
"Of course. I understand."
He wouldn't dream of stepping in when she had been directly provoked to show her own magic.
"Just one thing from me. Please recall what I told you earlier, Lady Katia."
"Oh..."
"It's all right. Your magic is wonderful. There is no way it could possibly be inferior to that brute force of his. ...What are you feeling right now, as you prepare to use that magic?"
The nature of the magic that Ermes had just whispered to Katia — that was —
"Magic is, in its very nature, heavily influenced by the emotions of its caster."
"The caster's... emotions?"
"Yes. And Lady Katia, your 'Netherworld of Salvation' is especially susceptible to this. One of the reasons you've been unable to use your magic properly is that your emotions while casting have been unsettled."
"B-but! I've always activated my magic with complete seriousness!"
"Seriousness is important, but it's not quite the same as channeling genuine emotion."
"...What do you mean?"
"What matters is the 'purity' of your feelings. People, it turns out, are surprisingly bad at truly recognizing the emotions within themselves. They're thrown off by pretense, or so fixated on ideals that they become paralyzed."
That was precisely why, for such people, he asked them once more.
What is the pure feeling? In other words — "What are you thinking when you use that magic?"
And so, Katia asked herself.
(...What am I using magic for right now?)
If it were the version of herself from a little while ago, she would have answered immediately.
"Because Baron Eldritch provoked me. To stop his tyranny."
And she let out a bitter laugh.
(I see. Pretense, that is.)
Then how about: "To protect my subordinates from insult," or "To conduct myself properly as a noble."
None of those were lies. But... were they truly what she was feeling in this exact moment? She wasn't so sure.
If so, something more pure — in other words, something simpler.
(...Ah, I see.)
She had indeed been keeping a lid on this feeling.
It was deeply personal, and selfish.
But it was undeniably pure, this feeling of hers. And it was —
"How infuriating."
The air around her shifted.
"You have no idea how much effort we put into defeating that thing, and here you come swaggering in from the sidelines, doing whatever you please."
Her magic power was quiet but fierce as it surged from within her.
"And on top of that, the sheer shamelessness of contributing nothing yourself and trying to steal the credit. Don't you have any pride at all?"
Swallowed by that pressure, the Baron — despite everything he had been told — could produce no response.
"— You even mocked Ermes and the others! Have some shame, Eldritch!"
And then she declared in a ringing voice.
"[Sing of peace on the eve of the end; dawn shall no longer come here; the age of salvation lies behind reality]"
Bloodline Magic — "Netherworld of Salvation"!
And what manifested was a horde of undead.
But there was one decisive difference from before.
"Wh-what... what is that magic power...?"
The quality of the spirits.
They were no longer a chaotic mass. Every single one was channeling the overwhelming power of a singular emotion — rage — toward the Baron.
Her magic called forth the dead through their lingering attachment to the world, that is, through a powerful emotion as medium.
By giving those spirits a sense of direction with which they could resonate, she was able to summon them far more powerfully and in far greater numbers.
The hall overflowed with a raging storm of vengeful spirits, and before that, even the Baron's storm seemed woefully inadequate.
And Katia, commanding them all, exuded the presence of nothing less than a queen of the underworld.
"— Now then."
She spoke.
"You said 'If my magic proves superior to yours, I'll admit I was wrong and withdraw.' Well? How does this look, Baron?"
"I-it's... it's just for show, obviously! All surface, nothing more! My eyes cannot be deceived!"
The Baron still struggled to resist.
"A-are you going to attack me with that magic!? If you do, it'll be a huge scandal! Your reputation, already so low, will hit rock bottom — you'll be disowned without a doubt! A-are you fine with that!?"
Moreover, he even resorted to arguing that she shouldn't use magic that was clearly stronger than his.
He had freely wielded his superior magic as a shield to do as he pleased, yet the moment he was outmatched, he conveniently invoked the rules. Quite the change of tune.
...And it was about time.
"So as long as no one finds out, it's fine, right?"
The ranking between Katia and the Baron had been settled. Deciding there would be no problem if he stepped in now, Ermes interjected.
"Wh-who are you? That servant brat again — hii!?"
He cut himself off with a scream, because he had seen it.
Hovering above Ermes as he approached — the massive shell of the Tortoise-shell dragon, lifted by some manner of magic.
"Indeed, if Lady Katia killed you with her magic, traces of magic power would remain. ...But what about being crushed by this? Won't that do?"
"Ha — move that away immediately!"
"Oh, trying to blow it away won't work either. This thing is incredibly heavy and hard — magic of that level won't budge it at all. So if you were crushed by this, everyone would just assume you were tragically sacrificed to the monster."
"Hii... hiii!"
"'This is a remote mountain dungeon — there are no other witnesses.' Those were your words too, weren't they?"
"Y-you lot! What are you doing — hurry up and restrain this insolent—!?"
The cornered Baron turned to the knights he had brought for help, but —
"Sorry about this, Baron's knights! We hold no grudge against you, but we've had enough of our master being humiliated like this, and our patience has run thin!"
All of them had already been subdued by Katia's knights. The gap in their respective training had been evident from the dungeon entrance — this was the natural result.
And at last, with no allies remaining, Ermes smiled sweetly at the Baron and asked:
"Pl-please — help—"
"If you want help, I trust you understand what needs to be done?"
The force of his smile, combined with the pressure Katia exerted from behind —
It did not take long for the Baron to bow his head, admit his wrongdoing, and agree to forfeit the reward.
After his massive frame wobbled away in a panic —
"...Just now."
Katia, having released her magic, stared at her own palm as though she couldn't believe it.
"Ermes, did you just do something?"
"No. That was entirely your own power. ...Just as I saw before — it was a beautiful magic."
Right now, in the Royal Capital, there were probably countless cases like this.
People who could not grasp the true value of their own magic, who did not understand its worth.
Ermes could see it. He could guide it in the direction it was meant to go.
"Magic becoming this much stronger so easily..."
"That's because you've been diligently refining it. Besides — [it's not just this much]. You know that, don't you?"
"...You're right. That was powerful, but... as the Duke House's inherited magic, it's still not enough."
She raised her head and looked at Ermes.
"Can you draw that out of me as well?"
"I'm confident I can. I'd very much like to try — and speaking personally, I also want to use your wonderful magic for myself."
In truth, that was more his primary objective. For him, analyzing magic was tantamount to acquiring it.
When it came to magic, he was exceedingly greedy.
"...Fine. If that's my reward, it's a bargain. No need for modesty, then."
With a soft smile, Katia agreed.
And so the number of magics Ermes would reproduce since coming to the Royal Capital grew by one more.
The tempestuous dungeon raid had come to its end.