Chapter 5: Duplein (2)
***
Those who saw Derek for the first time in the mercenary world would all wear a questioning expression.
He was far too young, for one thing, and though he was well-equipped with a sturdy appearance, his impression was far too good-natured.
Either young, or good-natured.
Either one of those was enough to get stabbed in the back and cast aside in this world. But Derek's impression encompassed both.
How had such a young and good-natured boy survived so well in the mercenary world? Anyone, whoever they were, was bound to have questions.
However, one truth was clear. Derek had lived the life of a mercenary since he was a boy who was still wet behind the ears.
What that meant could be understood by going out onto the battlefield with Derek.
Fwoosh! Thwack!
Keeeeeeek!
A goblin, struck by a 1-Star magic Mana Arrow, spewed blackish-red blood and was thrown into the middle of the forest.
The outskirts of the Duplein ducal domain, a small path in the forest leading to Ebelstein.
When he pierced the bridge of the unpleasant creature's nose with the longsword in his right hand and split it in half, blood splattered onto Derek's face with a splash.
In the midst of that, a goblin with one arm cut off rushed at him, bleeding, but Derek dodged its axe swing with a single step back, and then grabbed the goblin's face and manifested his power.
Crackle!
Kreeeeeeek!
While the goblin was being electrocuted and screaming, he pulled out the dagger from his thigh and plunged it into its neck.
Crimson blood covered his vision and the smell of blood rose up for a moment, but there was not even a flicker of change in Derek's expression.
That was not to say he was cold-blooded like a machine. Rather, he was the same good-natured and resolute boy he had seen in the tavern. It was just that the blood he was covered in made that discrepancy stand out all the more intensely.
This boy had not even a sliver of reluctance in killing a living, moving creature. It was because it was something he had done as a matter of course, as routinely as eating and sleeping.
"Are you hurt anywhere?"
The boy, who asked kindly while flicking the blood off his sword, was splattered with goblin blood. All around him were the mangled pieces of goblin corpses.
Melvin, who had been guarding the entrance of the carriage, swallowed a dry gulp of saliva without realizing it.
It was not strange for rough mercenaries to tear magical beasts apart without a second thought.
However, a boy of an age to be playing innocently, covered in blood and asking such a question with an expression as if he had seen all the world had to offer, had a way of stimulating a person's instinctive sense of unease.
In an era where magic had become the exclusive property of the noble and refined, the boy was a mage who had grown up on the streets.
It was a scene where anyone could instinctively feel that the path he had walked was different from that of the hothouse flowers.
<><><>
"It's nice to have things get easier when I travel with Derek. It's easy to identify enemies with detection magic, and I can subdue enemies at a distance without much difficulty."
"It's nice that you're wrapping it up nicely, but you caught eighty percent of the magical beasts, leader ahjussi."
"Tsk... you really don't have a single cute bone in your body. You should know how to be happy when someone props you up and praises you."
Jayden clicked his tongue and patted Derek's shoulder a few times.
"..."
Although he had been so rude in the tavern, Melvin's words had become quite few in the returning carriage.
As Jayden had expected, the request brought by the unidentified trio from the ducal house was truly simple beyond compare.
By the time the sun was setting, there were no more magical beasts in sight, so they were able to board the carriage back to Ebelstein right away.
"I have no choice but to acknowledge your skill in handling things."
Melvin still wore a venomous expression, but in the end, he gave a high evaluation.
Jayden gave a satisfied smile and wiped the blood from the flat of his sword while sitting on the carriage seat.
"You flatter me. Now that the problem you were worried about has been solved, please pay the remaining balance."
"Understood."
A down payment of 1 gold coin, and a request completion fee of 2 gold coins.
Considering that most subjugation requests only exchanged silver coins, it was an income that could not help but make the corners of one's mouth rise.
Jayden tossed the gold coins into his leather pouch with a beaming expression.
"You worked hard, Derek. I'll settle your share when we get back to the tavern."
Derek, perched on the seat, gave a rough nod to say he understood, and was staring blankly at the setting sun.
It wasn't a particularly tiring job, but since he had used some mana, a sense of languor remained.
Derek crossed his arms and leaned his body against the carriage wall, intending to get some rest.
"You seemed to know how to handle various 1-Star magics."
However, the inspector in the hooded robe spoke to Derek.
She was someone who had barely spoken up at all throughout the day. The hint of a young girl was present in her clear voice, but Derek answered with his body still leaning, as if he didn't care much.
"I've learned a lot of different things. To make a living in the mercenary world, wouldn't it be better to be versatile?"
"You said you were sixteen this year, right? We're not that far apart in age, you're amazing."
When Derek glanced around, he saw the old man named Melvin and the maid named Delia swallowing dry gulps of saliva.
It seemed they were watching the face of that person called the apprentice inspector. The way they kept fidgeting seemed to indicate they were uncomfortable with Derek's attitude of conversing while casually leaning back.
In fact, Derek was just as surprised inwardly. The girl had revealed that she and Derek were not that different in age.
Honestly, Derek had thought she was at least an adult. It was because a strange maturity was present in her demeanor.
"How did you learn magic?"
"I learned it while trying to make a living on the streets."
"It seems you haven't even had your coming-of-age ceremony yet, I think you're truly amazing. How many 1-Star magics do you know how to handle?"
She was strangely full of questions. Derek felt a sense of unease, but acted as if he didn't mind.
'It seems you haven't even had your coming-of-age ceremony yet,' huh...
It was rare for ordinary commoners to hold such a grand coming-of-age ceremony.
"I can handle four or five 1-Star magics."
"If it's four, it's four, and if it's five, it's five... It's a bit strange to express it as 'four or five'."
As Derek, still leaning back, looked toward the inspector, he saw a faint smile appear under her robe's hood.
"Surely, you must know how to handle more than that, right?"
"..."
"You don't need to try to hide it so much. I'm just asking out of pure curiosity, because I find it amazing that you can handle magic to that extent at such an age."
Derek's master, Katia, used to say it like a habit. That an overly extraordinary talent could incur the hostility of the nobles.
The other party was, no matter what anyone said, a person with deep connections to the Ducal House of Duplein, one of the greatest magic families. Derek felt that it would do him no good to reveal his skills as they were.
"The reason I expressed it ambiguously like that is because I am not a mage who follows the theories of the Scholastic school, which is the mainstream school of the current magic world."
"Pardon?"
"I am from the Wild school. While the Scholastic school strictly distinguishes the system and rules of magic, the Wild school is a bit detached from such things."
Derek sat up and then began to speak in earnest.
As he spoke of the distinction between the schools, the girl in the robe's eyes shone with a brilliant light, as if she was interested.
"The Wild school...?"
"It has been a long time since the noble class's Scholastic school has been firmly established as the absolute mainstream, but the magic research of minor, non-mainstream schools has continued in local areas."
Derek's magic master, Katia, had also been a mage of the Scholastic school, but Derek himself was a person who was free from such rules.
When he had first learned magic from the old man and had to choose a school, Derek had chosen the Wild school.
"The Wild school, rather than caring about rules and regulations, focuses on learning practical mana utilization and magics necessary for direct survival. The mainstream is magics used on the path of adventure, which is full of all sorts of variables, and they are adept at improvisation, twisting and bending the methods of mana utilization according to the situation."
"I had heard that there were mages who use magic from such a perspective, but this is the first time I've met one in person."
"Well, it's not like I use particularly high-level magic... I'm just speaking of the theory. As I said, I am just a 1-Star mage of commoner origin."
Derek tried to lower himself as much as possible, but the eyes of the robed inspector were already filled with curiosity.
She is very interested in magic. He had that intuition.
"Of course, the magic of the noble class's Scholastic school has been researched the most, and its system is well-developed. There's a reason why the non-mainstream is non-mainstream."
"Still, there must be a reason why you, Derek-ssi, chose the path of the Wild school, right? May I ask what that is?"
Why on earth was she curious about such a thing? The strangely interview-like atmosphere was uncomfortable, but the other party was a client who had paid a large sum of money, so it was awkward to treat her rudely.
Considering the work they had done was too easy for the money they received, it might be better to think of this as part of the service.
Thinking so, Derek gathered mana in his hand.
"Since you seem to be a person with a deep knowledge of magic, to put it simply, it is because it is advantageous for survival."
As Derek gathered mana in his hand, a small flame began to burn on his palm.
The flame, manifested using mana, burns in the air without fuel. To those ignorant of magic, it would be a wondrous sight, but if one knew even a little about magic, they would know that it was not such a high-level utilization of mana.
Neither Dispatch Officer Melvin nor Maid Delia showed much surprise upon seeing that flame.
The two people who worked for the Ducal House of Duplein must have seen magic of this level many times.
However, the girl called the inspector's eyes went wide as she looked at the flame.
"Oh?"
Even though she must have seen magic of this level countless times in a noble house, the girl was looking at Derek's flame as if it were strange.
"...Somehow, the process of drawing out the mana seems very simplified, doesn't it?"
'Look at this one.'
Derek was inwardly surprised upon hearing the girl's observation.
She can sense the movement of mana. In short, it meant that the other party was also at least a 1-Star mage.
"Yes. In the Scholastic school, the process of mana utilization is thought of as being divided into four stages: perception, extraction, manipulation, and manifestation. However, the Wild school does not make such detailed distinctions. The process of utilizing mana itself is lumped into one and relies on instinct."
"...Have you always used magic this way?"
"Yes. There are advantages, but of course, there are disadvantages as well. If I were to explain all the details, the story would become too long, but..."
Derek did not want to continue with a long-winded explanation here.
They were people he would see once and never again. Derek tried to gloss things over appropriately and quickly wrap up the story.
"In short, you can just understand it as the field of magic being a little different."
The difference between schools was not something that could be so easily divided as if cut with a knife.
After lumping it all together and summarizing it like that, Derek leaned his back against the carriage wall and sat down again.
Even so, in the eyes of the nobles from a prestigious family, he would be nothing more than a 1-Star mage. To people who lived seeing 4-Star and 5-Star mages in person, the magic of a 1-Star non-mainstream school would be nothing more than a cheap trick.
Thinking so, Derek gently closed his eyes and was relieving the fatigue of his weary body, but.
A strange sparkle was lingering in the eyes of the girl looking at Derek.
<><><>
He had thought he would never see that strange trio of vassals again, but the following week, they came to the tavern again.
The request they brought was similar. It was that a tribe of magical beasts was appearing again on the outskirts of the ducal domain.
They were generous spenders. Naturally, Jayden responded with a grin from ear to ear.
However, because they once again set the condition that a mage must be brought along, Derek had no choice but to continue to accompany them.
And so, they subjugated the magical beast tribes, parted ways, and then they appeared again the next week to make another request... and so this repeated.
Each time, they hunted and killed demi-humans, and on the way back in the carriage, they would share some conversation about the current state of the world or about magic. It was just formal conversation they shared because it was awkward to just sit in silence.
Even so, they were always faithful in the task of killing magical beasts.
Goblins, trolls, kobolds... to the inexperienced, they would be perilous enemies, but to mercenaries who were already seasoned, they were enemies that posed no great danger as long as they were dealt with carefully.
And so, they went back and forth to the ducal domain several times, dealing with the magical beasts in the outskirts and making quite a handsome sum of money.
Jayden reached a point where he was humming with a grin on his face all day long, and Derek, too, could not help but feel quite good after receiving his share. The thing called money was always right.
It was around the time he was enjoying a prosperous life, eating some expensive meat dishes for the first time in a while and having all his equipment serviced.
"Seeing you subjugate the magical beast tribes all this time, it seems your skills are trustworthy. For this request, the ducal estate has offered fifteen Aidel gold coins."
"...Fifteen coins? I didn't mishear that, did I?"
The Aidel, the most widely used coin in Ebelstein, could fill a whole room with freshly baked bread with just one gold coin.
Fifteen coins was an amount that, without exaggeration, could replace this entire tavern building with a new one.
"Hahaha, how generous of them! It seems this time it's a magical beast that's a bit hard to handle? Don't you worry! You've seen for yourselves over the past two months how cleanly this Veldern Mercenary Corps handles its work! If you just give us enough preparation time, we'll bring you the head of a demon from hell! Kehaha!"
The flush of color on Jayden's face had gone beyond mere cheerfulness and reached a state of ecstasy.
Seeing an old ahjussi in a state of ecstasy was a rather rare sight, but thinking about the share that would fall to him, Derek could not help but swallow a dry gulp of saliva.
He had heard stories about the spending habits of nobles here and there, but he had never imagined it would be to this extent.
"It's a little different from the usual requests. Still, you'll have to accompany us by carriage as always."
"Yes, the carriage has already been arranged. It's not like we've only known each other for a day or two, now. Hohoho."
"Then, let me introduce myself first."
"Aren't we already in a special relationship! Ahaha! What's with the introductions all of a sudden! Please be comfortable! Comfortable!"
"I am Delon, the general manager of the Duplein ducal estate."
The smile of Jayden, who had been laughing amiably, abruptly cut off.
The name Melvin was an alias.
Derek had already predicted to some extent that the other party was using a lower status. However, what did it mean for them to reveal that at this point?
Before he could even organize such thoughts, the maid next to the general manager also bowed her head and offered her greetings.
"I am Katarina, the head of the ladies-in-waiting of the ducal estate."
Not a dispatch officer, but a general manager. Not a scullery maid, but the head of the ladies-in-waiting.
The general manager was the third-highest-ranking person among the servants, and the head of the ladies-in-waiting was the person right below the head maid of the mansion.
They were, in effect, the leaders of the servants, who would not normally leave the ducal estate. They were people who earned in just a few months the salary that an ordinary commoner would have to work for decades to earn.
And the girl who had been called an inspector also demurely lowered the robe hood she had been wearing, and said with a graceful smile.
"Aiseline Eleanor Duplein."
A clarity that shone in eyes that were both gentle and firm. That brilliant gaze seemed to be directed at Derek.
As always, an unknowable dignity was present in the voice of the girl who was looking straight at Derek like that.
"..."
"Oh my."
The girl, who had been quietly looking at Derek, quietly added a question.
"...You're not surprised?"
Well, it couldn't be helped.
It was because Derek already had his own conjectures about her identity.
He had known that their identities were not ordinary and had pretended not to know. Derek had only intended to continue doing the work as it was and receive gold coins.
Why were they revealing their identities now, of all times?
The reason was obvious.
"If you would be so kind, could you accompany us to the Duplein ducal estate?"
The Ducal House of Duplein was one of the three great noble houses renowned throughout the entire Empire.
The girl was speaking as politely as possible, showing the utmost courtesy, but there was no way Derek had the right to refuse.