"S-So, that's why I have a lot of favors to ask..."
"...Wraith. I believe I told you before, but that is incredibly exhausting. And it hurts."
With a face that expressed a complex mixture of resignation and distress, Master Amelia let out a heavy sigh.
After that meeting ended, I had gone to visit Amelia. With the blue sky stretching overhead as always, I spoke to her while keeping a side-eye on how the kids were doing. Truth be told, just a moment ago the Tactician had asked me to test out a makeshift, simple magic circle—one that was just supposed to glow—and when I poured my mana into it... well, as expected, it unleashed a blinding, explosive burst of light right before shattering into pieces.
So, the only person I can rely on now is Professor Amelia...
"I don't particularly mind you relying on me. But... your mana control has ultimately reverted—or rather, it's worsened. The burden on me is absolutely going to be larger than last time, or I might just die, or something along those lines... Well, we won't know anything until we try, so let's give it a short test. Wraith, give me your hand."
"Y-Yes, ma'am."
Just as my master instructed, I placed my wing over her outstretched palm.
I peeked at Amelia's face, waiting for her to steady her breathing. After that, paying the absolute closest attention, I slowly poured the absolute bare minimum amount of mana I could manage into her. Even before passing it over, I could feel it through the lines of mana running through my wing—the stream of magical energy was absurdly thick and dense. I was trying my hardest, but I couldn't make it any thinner, so I had no choice but to slowly channel it into her as it was.
The exact instant I did—
"Oghhck!!!"
The moment I heard what sounded like a scream or a violent choke from her, I immediately cut off the mana supply. Are you okay?! ...Apparently not. Her face was pale, and her breathing was ragged. I rushed to grab some water from nearby, handed it to her, and rubbed her back. I-I'm so sorry, okay? Are you alright? Calm down and take deep breaths, in and out... Ah! Should I go call someone from the Church?! Recovery magic!
"I-I'm fine, really. Just let me rest for a bit..."
After rubbing my master's back for a few minutes, she finally recovered, and I listened to her speak while sitting perfectly straight on my knees.
"Anyway, that last bit gave me a feel for it. If you let me do it one more time, I can bring it all the way to a perfect activation."
"Um, well. I know I'm the one who asked for this, and you're the one doing it, but... are you really going to be okay?"
Usually, when I'm learning magic from her, I interact with her fairly casually, but I couldn't help but slip into formal, polite speech. She looked like she was genuinely about to die because of me, so my system is completely flooded with immense guilt. I mean, is it really safe to leave this to her? Master is naturally fair-skinned, but just now she went past white and straight into completely blue. It's true that cutting down travel time with the magic circle is important, but asking her to go through something that painful is...
"I'll be fine. I might lose to you in terms of being an absolute anomaly, but even so, I am a mage who has lived for four digits. I won't expose myself to the same pathetic display twice. If taking it all raw is no good, I can manage if I divide it into stages and vent a portion of it out. We're just pouring mana into a magic circle, right? For something of that level, complex mana control isn't necessary, so it's entirely possible."
"R-Really?! That is an absolute lifesaver...!"
"Your mana, you see... perhaps because you're forcing it to stay cooped up inside your body, its compression rate is completely abnormal. Having that poured into me feels exactly like having an incredibly thick log forcefully rammed into every single hole in my body. I'm not saying I can't do it, but I will be completely useless for the rest of that day."
"U-Uwah."
"People often say that 'giving birth feels like pushing a watermelon out of your nose,' but starting tomorrow, they should probably change that to 'having Wraith pour mana into you.' ...Though, leave alone giving birth, I've never even had a partner to begin with."
No, really, I am terribly sorry. Despite being coached by you for a considerable period, I am a completely talentless disciple whose mana control hasn't improved at all... My only fellow disciple, Henrietta—who is apparently a special combat asset for the Empire—is supposedly an incredibly amazing mage, so I really can't face you properly. I am a total stain on the Amelia school of magic...
I do understand the root cause of this, though. My technical skill simply cannot keep up with the continuous growth of my total mana capacity.
(To use an analogy... I guess it's like water pressure?)
You know how when you're watering a garden, if you pinch the tip of the hose, the water shoots out with a lot of force? Intuitively, it's very close to that. By reducing the diameter, the actual "flow rate" of the water escaping gets smaller, but because the volume of water running into the hose—the "water pressure"—remains the same, the water flies much further. In my case, my water volume is so absurdly massive that before we even talk about hoses, the whole thing is at a tsunami level.
The process of tightening the main valve at the faucet or changing out the hose to make the "flow rate" larger is what 'mana control' is supposed to be... But if I use too much magic, the main water bureau at the source goes, 'What! If you're using that much water, let's send you even more!' and aggressively balloons my total mana capacity. In other words, whatever adjustments I had managed to make up until that point completely lose their meaning.
(My body seems to possess a force that tries to restore things back to how they were whenever a part is missing... Perhaps my mana behaves the same way.)
Just like how my brain exploded when I regained the memories of my past life and reconfigured itself to handle more information processing, it's possible that my body interprets 'expending mana' in the exact same category as 'losing a limb.' Meaning, the more drastically I use it, the more my body attempts to adapt to that demand by raising my total baseline mana capacity. ...Saying I'm not happy about it would be a lie, but the honest truth is that I wish it would stop, because every single time it happens, the sensation of mana control I painstakingly built up is completely reset to zero.
"Haa... Your sheer volume of mana is an overwhelming strength that no one can ever overturn. I have no intention of denying that, but I do wish... something could be done about the rest of it..."
"Yeah, me too..."
As she looked thoroughly depressed, she formed a stark contrast with my kids, who were playing happily a short distance away. Come to think of it, if Amelia was making such a pained expression, Dele would usually come flying over instantly, so where on earth was she...
"Cheapskate—!!!"
"N-Nuuh. Lord Ostrich? This happens to be an exceptionally important item of mine, you see?"
"No—!!! I want it~~!!!"
"T-Tactician. Help me?"
"Your Majesty... Now, Lady Dele, you will have to wait for a short period, but how about I personally send you something very similar at a later date? His Majesty's crown is for men, and it is quite aged as well. Surely a brand new one would be..."
"No! Also, I hate you! Go away!"
Ah, so they were still fighting over the crown. Wow, look at the Tactician, he's practically spitting blood from his mouth. Well, Dele looks and speaks like a tiny child, after all. Being rejected by a child must cut deep. Leaving behind the thoroughly traumatized Tactician, Dele was rolling around on the ground throwing a complete 'No, No' tantrum... Oh well, let's just leave her be as a little payback for his behavior during the meeting earlier.
"...Wraith, once things calm down, why don't you buy Dele something?"
"Ah, that sounds like a good idea. She probably saw my 'thing' and wanted to try it out herself, so I'll give it some thought."
"Count me in on that too."
"Of course."
That 'thing' was the collection of accessories for my Chieftain Form that Amelia helps me put on every time. It's a set of jewelry that upgrades a dancer's outfit into something with a layer of royalty—or rather, a more elegant feel. Initially, it was just the pieces I received from Alan-san, the royal merchant who handled the "food" back in Plaque, but before I knew it, Amelia had apparently kept buying more, so a considerable number had gathered.
Dele might be starting to develop an interest in fashion, so I suppose I'll think about various options for that. ...Should I ask Lucia to call over one of the royal merchants from the Kingdom of Hide? A merchant backed by a country would likely be able to source all kinds of premium things. For now, once all this annoying business is wrapped up, I'll revisit the idea.
(...Well, even though I'm worried about Amelia, if she says she can do it, we should proceed with that strategy.)
My master is someone who possesses a rock-solid grasp of what she can and cannot do. Whenever she teaches me something, she always attaches the words, 'Always maintain an acute awareness of your own limits.' By accurately understanding what you can achieve in the present moment, you can instantly make the correct choices even when backed into a corner. It's a mindset that thoroughly matches the way of thinking that was ingrained in me back on the high plains. Since a person like her says she can do it, I should absolutely leave it to her.
(According to the Tactician's deductions, the enemy has been focusing on turning the capital into a fortress ever since they occupied it. In other words, we cannot afford to give them much time. The moment preparations are finalized, we should immediately teleport and launch the assault.)
Whether by sheer luck, or because the Tactician had engineered it all in advance—indisputably the latter—the necessary preparations on that front seemed to be completely finished. Thanks to the King of Nagan who had temporarily fled to the Kingdom of Hide, the provisions, military supplies, and vanguard troops required for the invasion were already fully secured. Meaning, the only variable left was for us to teleport.
"Wraith, where are the blueprints for the teleportation magic circle?"
"I believe the Tactician has them."
"Understood. I want to check what kind of design it is, and it's probably best to begin the physical installation early. I'll head out."
"Please do."
In the end, the Kingdom of Hide officially authorized the participation of the Beast Kingdom's forces. Although it was practically a vassal state now, it was a nation where the entire citizenry functioned as soldiers. If a massive riot were to break out, Hide would find it highly difficult to suppress it single-handedly. Consequently, they needed to "humor them" to secure the necessary temporal window to finalize the occupation. Well, in short, the total headcount requiring teleportation consisted of our 300 combat ostriches, plus 500 other humanoids. Combined, we had to send a massive host of nearly 800 units to the alternate base.
Transporting that many individuals required an absolutely astronomical volume of mana, and while I was the source of that power, I lacked the capacity for mana control, meaning we absolutely required Amelia to handle the micro-adjustments for me. That was the operational framework. ...I have zero baseline concerns regarding my energy metrics, and Amelia has already fully recovered. While she will undoubtedly need to rest after the spatial translation, we are entirely capable of flying out at a moment's notice.
(The second we land on the other side, it will be a lightning-fast war.)
The exact moment of arrival, we will initiate the assault without granting the enemy a single fraction of time to organize their defenses.
"Fortunately, the entity authoring the strategy is the Tactician, and he is currently categorized as an ally. It shouldn't devolve into anything excessively troublesome. ...Though it's strictly best to maintain a healthy layer of vigilance regardless."
◇◆◇◆◇
The Kingdom of Nagan, the Capital.
The sovereign monarch who was originally supposed to occupy the central throne room had officially fled into exile to a foreign superpower, leaving the lone woman who had become the new master of the palace to slowly tilt her chalice.
"Fufu, being able to indulge in alcohol while the sun is still high in the sky... This truly is a magnificent quality of life."
Within the royal courtyard gardens that had been meticulously manicured to entertain high-profile guests of state, she was casually savoring her liquor while admiring the delicate, cultivated flora. The bottles were a shared collection discovered directly within the private chambers of the King and the Tactician. They were absolute masterworks that would drive any connoisseur wild, sourced not only from the exclusive breweries under direct royal patent to the Nagan Crown, but also systematically gathered across neighboring continents by global espionage networks acting under the direct orders of the Tactician. Of course, a steep price point does not automatically guarantee superior flavor—a metric you could comfortably comprehend if you analyzed Wraith's past internal reaction when she was presented with a bottle from that exact vintage stock. However, evaluating the woman's current micro-expressions suggested she found the asset profoundly satisfactory.
Shortly after orchestrating the total occupation of the royal palace, her automated undead scouts had flagged the discovery of the collection, prompting her to immediately march her chassis down to the storage vaults. The facial expression she wore as her optical sensors scanned the endless rows of aged spirits lacked any trace of her standardized, provocative sneer, replaced instead by a pure, almost childlike smile. Reviewing the brands one by one, she systematically executed a total asset seizure. Bottles whose combined financial evaluation could comfortably purchase multiple localized castles were promptly relocated straight to her primary command headquarters.
The liquid the Necromancer was currently enjoying was one of those exact prizes.
"A 200-year-old vintage wine authored by the Elves of the Northern Continent... the sheer scale of the craftsmanship operates on an entirely different dimension, doesn't it?"
Her baseline operational parameters dictated that after inflicting a sufficient threshold of structural chaos upon the kingdom, she would immediately execute a clean, high-speed retreat. Consequently, every single spatial gateway linking back to her auxiliary research outposts had already been completely dismantled. Even the decoy circles left behind as systemic camouflage had been hardcoded to displace any intruders directly into lethal environments—such as open volcanic magma fissures from which zero biological platforms could return alive. In short, reclaiming the stolen assets she had reallocated was a tactical impossibility, even for Nagan's grand Tactician.
It marked the total, absolute termination of a coveted collection that the King and the Tactician had meticulously built together over a span of nearly twenty years, dating back to before either entity had even assumed their modern executive roles.
"The Tactician seems to have pre-emptively evacuated all the top-tier artifacts and essential national treasures from the primary vaults, but he completely abandoned basic food stores and minor luxury items, didn't he? Now that I've comfortably harvested all of those materials as well, whatever shall we execute next?"
She had already finalized the broadcast of her strategic directives to her subordinate undead forces. Unless she manually injected a continuous stream of cognitive processing data, undead units lacking a powerful, individual ego were mathematically incapable of executing complex analytical tasks. However, provided a specialized Commanding Unit was stationed within the sector to function as a localized server, their collective logistical efficiency scaled upward exponentially. Those specific commanding platforms had already been fully encoded with comprehensive fortification methodologies and tactical defensive blueprints. Meaning, as it stood on the active board, there were zero administrative tasks requiring her personal intervention.
Under standard conditions, she would have long since returned to her primary hidden laboratory to advance her academic research or run modifications on her undead legion to optimize them for her next destination, but the current parameters of the field denied her that choice.
(After all, when it comes to the information warfare campaign, I am currently suffering a continuous string of total defeats.)
Given the reality that the primary hostile combat elements—specifically, the grand Tactician and the supreme ostrich fleet—remained entirely functional on the board, she was structurally bound to anchor her personal profile directly within the capital. Her chosen master scenario dictated that she maintain this exact positioning. To counteract her blindness, she had continuously deployed waves of undead scouts across the regional perimeters to harvest localized data streams, but the vast majority of those channels went instantly dark. They had been systematically crushed out of existence by stray ostriches who mistook the hidden scouts for either "food" or "toys." Consequently, given that accurately simulating the Tactician's operational movements was an absolute statistical impossibility right now, she could not afford to leave the capital vacant.
"If I were to transport all my critical research data and classified texts over here only to casually misplace them during a sudden deployment, it would be an absolute disaster, wouldn't it? Individuals operating within the deep underground like myself are structurally forbidden from permitting a single layer of intelligence leakage, after all."
She possessed zero structural intention of securing an absolute, long-term victory in this localized conflict, but she had identical zero intention of absorbing a continuous loop of total defeats either. To ensure she could comfortably crush the entities who bested her when they encountered each other again in the future, she had to aggressively prevent them from seizing her proprietary research files or analyzing her unique biological formulas to engineer counter-measures. Standard, low-grade anti-undead strategies popularized by regional temples were a non-threat; however, her network controlled some of the most sophisticated, high-tier reanimation methodologies, highly specific casting habits, and an extraordinary depth of anatomical comprehension regarding the humanoid chassis—vital data streams that mandated absolute, permanent concealment.
"Which means I am completely left with nothing to do but kill time————っ!!!"
The exact millisecond the word formed within her vocal processors, her internal sensory arrays picked up a colossal, un-ignorable surge of raw mana.
The energy signature was far too perfectly structured and highly refined to be categorized as the activation of a standard offensive spell matrix; furthermore, it was a precise frequency her own body had personally registered on an intimate level multiple times.
It was a Teleportation Magic Array.
"---So, they successfully reverse-engineered and hijacked my asset, have they? I went to considerable lengths to embed complex safety locks to ensure the geometry couldn't be replicated, you know? I suppose I must extend my compliments to the grand Tactician."
Directing a microscopic fraction of her internal mana to circulate through her vascular pathways to instantly burn away the lingering chemical effects of the alcohol, she smoothly rose to her feet. Within her central cognitive core, a high-speed data transmission array had already initialized, firing off emergency commands to her subordinate network; throughout the city, the undead forces that had been actively fortifying the structures instantly ceased their labor and pivoted into an absolute, high-alert defensive deployment grid. When operating against the Tactician, conventional rules of engagement were entirely discarded, but applying baseline military logic suggested the enemy would execute an instantaneous, high-speed siege assault to breach the walls before her defensive layers could achieve maximum stabilization.
"Now then, my darling Beast King? It is officially time for your platform to clock in and execute your operational duties, yes?"
"......."
〇 Wraith
Time to launch the invasion—!
〇 Amelia
This is physically excruciating.
〇 Dele
Yay—! Crown! Crown!
(She ultimately won her war of attrition and was granted authorization to wear it as a loaner asset for the duration of the reclamation deployment.)
〇 The King of Nagan & The Tactician
Our... our prized alcohol collection was completely plundered... The sadness is unmitigated.
〇 The Beast King (Currently stationed in front of a low dining table on the other side)
Execute my operational duties? Hold your parameters for a moment, I am currently in the absolute dead-center of a critical cognitive simulation to brainstorm the most incredibly badass name for my ultimate technique...