The Extra Strategist’s Royal Road Chapter 112
On the way back to Rainpol.
Eo and Yumir, who came to meet me at Alphensard, have serious expressions as if they’ve heard the passing story.
“Young master, this matter…”
“It wasn’t my intention. It seems the king found my mother and father’s features in my face. Through that, he probably realized I’m of Fensillon bloodline.”
“The faces of Lady Rizna and Lord Maios?”
“It’s not strange. King Gareth was a senior official of the Fensillon Empire.”
“This matter seems to require a consultation with everyone gathered. It’s not a small issue.”
“We should do that. Moreover, it seems it’s time to explain to the family as well.”
The family only knew that they had adopted me, but they didn’t know the secret of my birth. I decided to explain everything this time, including Wade’s part.
After boarding the carriage, I first took out the book I had packed in my bag.
“Eo! I’m going to read a book for a while, so drive the carriage slowly.”
“Yes!”
The cover of the book was titled [Magic Research Journal -1-].
‘There are three more volumes of this, right?’
I didn’t have much thought about the revival of magic, but I decided to read it anyway.
The book started with someone’s monologue. It seems to be the person who wrote this journal.
‘The author says he’s Azkiel Rodios.’
From what I can gather, he seems to have been the head of the magic research department.
[–We, who started magic research under the emperor’s orders, decided to analyze healing magic and lighting magic. Magic that heals wounds as if washing them away, and mysterious energy crystals that emit light for long periods. We thought that if we dug into this origin, we could learn about magic.]
I would have done the same. It’s natural to find the origin from existing magic.
[–My hypothesis was correct. The two types of magic were clearly related to the origin. The problem was that there was a foreign substance included. The foreign substance was the presence of divine magic. The power that enables the use of these two types of magic is called divine magic. It seems to be a power that combines pure magic and divine power. If divine power is based on faith, then healing magic is truly a miracle by god, and lighting magic can also be said to be light given by god. Through this, we speculated that the aura used by martial artists is also similar. Isn’t aura a combination of pure magic and the energy of martial artists? So far, it’s going smoothly. It seems we’ll be able to find a clue soon.]
However, such a positive flow didn’t last long.
[–We thought too simply. We thought we could obtain pure magic if we just separated the divine power, but it was impossible. I suspect that it’s impossible to separate because the combined form of power is closer to fusion rather than simple combination. Therefore, we decided to put aside obtaining pure magic for now and interpret the structure of healing magic. It’s like dissecting a completed magic in reverse order.]
It’s similar to dissecting a completed clock to understand its structure, for example.
[–We decided to call this work magic studies and create a related research department at the Fensillon Academy. If this research is completed, we believe we can solve all the problems facing the empire.]
The content that followed next was a consideration of magic studies, but as there were no significant results, the content gradually became shorter.
At the end, as if frustrated, the content became disorganized.
[–It’s absolutely impossible! It was useless to try to understand these things without knowing how to handle pure magic. Pure magic! If only we could figure out how to handle it!]
In terms of time, it seems about 10 years have passed since the start of the book. During that time, Azkiel was going mad.
[–We decided to shift our focus. Magic is not the only mysterious existence. Yes, there are also beastkin! And elves! Races different from us. They might have some secret. Due to the empire’s founding policy, the rights of beastkin have fallen to the ground, so it wasn’t difficult to gather many test subjects, but it wasn’t the case with elves. There were no longer any pureblooded elves in the empire. Or rather, even quarter elves are now hard to find. So I focused on the Holy Kingdom of Kuravel. A strange kingdom located in the mysterious mountains in the northeast. It was a mysterious kingdom that we only recently came into contact with. I heard that its history goes back hundreds of years, and that pureblooded elves, who have now disappeared, also reside there. I suggested to the emperor the conquest of the Holy Kingdom of Kuravel to gather test subjects. Kuravel is just a small kingdom, so I thought we could conquer it without much difficulty.]
The war between the Holy Kingdom of Kuravel and the Fensillon Empire. It was the first time I heard about it.
[–We set out to conquer Kuravel with an army of 300,000, but we were defeated. It was a strange war. Some units got lost in the mountains and never returned, while others went insane as if their souls were stolen and killed their comrades. In the midst of this, a mysterious female general attacked our army’s main camp. With this surprise attack, Prince Melian, who was in charge of the overall expedition, went missing. The disappearance of Prince Melian, who was renowned to become a wise ruler in the future, might make the future of the empire gloomy. But there was still a result. I was convinced that the mysterious phenomena that occurred during this expedition must be related to magic.]
The following content was even more shocking.
[──As we were defeated in the war, we had no choice but to change our approach. We sent diplomats to convey our apologies and formally request cooperation. It was brazen of us, the invaders, to do so, but what a surprise. Prince Melian, now a member of the Kuravel Holy Kingdom, received our diplomats. It is said that he fell in love with the female general who had attacked our army. That female general, as the captain of the national guard, was called a Valkyrie.]
I lifted my head.
“Eo! Can you come into the carriage for a moment? Yumir, you take over driving.”
Perhaps due to the scorching sun, Eo entered the carriage drenched in sweat.
“Did you call for me?”
“Yes, I wanted to ask you something quickly. Eo, do you know someone named Melian?”
“How do you know that name, Lord Ars…? He was my master’s husband.”
“I see.”
I had secretly thought he might be Eo’s father, but it seems that’s not the case.
Well, they said the Valkyrie was a half-elf between a pure-blood elf and a human, so a child between the already half-elf Valkyrie and a human wouldn’t be possible. That would make them a quarter-elf, not a half-elf.
I was about to ask more about Melian, but it seemed Eo didn’t know much either.
“He had a short life. I only saw him briefly when I was young. Come to think of it… For some reason, he seemed to resemble you, Lord Ars…”
“Don’t say such nonsense. More importantly, Eo, do you know anything about magic?”
“…!?”
Eo flinched unnecessarily. Sure enough, it was written all over her face.
“You do know something, don’t you.”
“N-no, no!?”
“Oh? You’re hiding something from me. That’s unusual. Well, if that’s the case, I can’t help it. It’s disappointing, but everyone has secrets. It’s disappointing, but…”
Perhaps I was being a bit mischievous. Eo’s face fell at the word ‘disappointing’.
“W-well…” Finally, she seemed to make up her mind and said, “I used it once on you, Lord Ars.”
“…What?”
What an unexpected thing to say. Not only does she know about magic, but she used it on me?
“It’s a magic of oath between master and servant, passed down only among Valkyries. If the distance isn’t too far, it allows one to know the other’s location, and if the master dies, I would die too…”
“You cast magic on me? You!?”
“Ugh…”
Come to think of it, during the last war, Olaf had said something.
He said that Eonia suddenly knew my location and ran like mad. And that turned out to be correct.
“Why didn’t you tell me until now?”
“I was afraid you’d find it creepy if you knew…”
“Hah…!”
The Kuravel Holy Kingdom is related to magic. Azkiel’s hypothesis was correct.
“Is that all?”
“There’s also barrier magic protecting the Holy Kingdom. It’s magic that prevents outsiders from discovering that the nation is in the mountains, and ensures it’s not dangerous even if enemies invade. I heard that the barrier was only lifted once, to interact with a unified empire called Fensillon.”
I quickly lowered my gaze to the book.
[──Did they read our intentions? Kuravel expelled all of our diplomatic envoys, and Prince Melian, greatly disappointed, cut ties with the imperial family. Kuravel locked its doors again. We tried to make contact, but it was impossible. Damn it, it was our only hope for magic research! I requested the Emperor to subjugate Kuravel again, but this time it wasn’t accepted. It seems they decided to respect Prince Melian’s wish to live peacefully. Thus, the matter of the Kuravel Holy Kingdom and the elves fell into a maze.]
That was the end of the first volume of the journal.
I closed the book and met Eo’s eyes.
“You were hiding something like that so well?”
“Uh… I’m sorry…”
“Just out of curiosity, what’s the tracking range?”
“I can find you as long as you’re within Rainpol.”
About a 3km radius. Quite wide.
“Can I learn that magic too?”
“I’m not sure. I learned it without understanding the principles. Besides, if you accidentally used it on someone else, it could put your life in danger, Lord Ars.”
“I see. Hmm… I heard there are no more pure-blooded elves in the Holy Kingdom of Kuravel. When did they disappear?”
“The Holy King said that after giving birth to me, the last Valkyrie, they all vanished.”
“The fact that they all suddenly disappeared might also be due to the power of magic.”
It made sense.
“So were the people of Kuravel completely isolated from the outside after contact with the Fensillon Empire?”
“No, there were still people going out to gather information afterward. General Feradin, who worked under you in the Madon War before, was one of them.”
“I see. They decided to at least check on the outside situation after that incident.”
That Kuravel has now been forcibly opened by Crossing. I became interested in that place that Fensillon couldn’t explore.
“Can we visit the site of the Holy Kingdom of Kuravel later? Are there any qualifications needed or anything like that?”
“Yes, now that the barrier is gone.”
“Ah! So that’s why.”
The reason Kuravel was destroyed by Crossing.
“It was because the barrier disappeared due to the elves vanishing.”
However, Eo answered immediately.
“No. The barrier was still functioning. It was a permanent barrier designed using the terrain and ley lines, so it continued to work even after the elves left.”
“Huh? But how did Crossing…”
“Juras Pamilion. He appeared and broke it. He artificially destroyed the terrain that was the core of the barrier, thus destroying the barrier. Once the barrier was gone, we couldn’t withstand Crossing’s army. We tried to hire a large number of mercenaries by emptying the national treasury to somehow protect it, but we couldn’t. It was all because of my incompetence… *sob*!”
Eo started sobbing, probably recalling those times. Since I was essentially the one who made her cry, I moved closer and patted her back to comfort her.
‘It would be better to ask Juras about that barrier magic.’
Juras, who single-handedly accomplished what the 300,000-strong army of the Fensillon Empire couldn’t do. Well, since he did it, it didn’t even feel strange anymore.
“But isn’t it odd that you die if your target dies? The Holy King of Kuravel is already dead, right? So you should…”
“The Holy King was already very old, so he refused, saying he didn’t want to shorten my lifespan. He told me to use it when I found a new master…”
“So that’s why you used it on me. Oh my, I don’t want you to die because of me either.”
If I had died in the last war at the hands of Fischer Partin, Eo would have died along with me.
“It just makes me feel burdened.”
“But, but this is like an honor for a Valkyrie…”
“Well, what’s done is done. From now on, it’s probably best if we don’t separate as much as possible.”
“Y-yes! For the sake of my life, I’ll stick close to you, Lord Ars!”
A truth revealed in an unexpected place.
One question that comes to mind is why Eonia, who has such a backstory, was a conditional recruit character in the game.
‘Could it be that recruiting Eonia was the branching point for the true ending?‘
In that case, what doesn’t make sense is that the protagonist is a science faction that rejects magic.
Contextually, it would be more natural to consider Eonia as Ars’ character.
‘Well, there are still many unclear points about that part…’
Still, there was one thing I was speculating about.
The series of mysteries that appeared one after another.
The revenge of the western people and the birthplace of Master Ilya. Lysithea of the Florand tribe and Ash whom she serves. And the secrets of the Holy Kingdom of Kuravel.
That these must be related to each other in some form.
TL NOTE:
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