Chapter 19

Chapter : 19

To catch Dimagen, there were several indispensable elements.

One of them was securing the cooperation of the Grand Duke of the North. Without his help, catching Dimagen would be absurdly difficult.

Agares Ingrid.

He was the Grand Duke who ruled the North, and a monster who had gained the power of immortality through a contract with a demon.

He cherished his territory and his people to a frightening degree, and if anything resembling crime occurred within his domain, he punished it severely.

Ordinarily, Agares would have been fated to cooperate with Ian, defeat Dimagen after he abducted Bishot from his territory, and become entangled with her that way, but I could not leave things to happen as they should.

So, in place of the socially inept Ian, I set out to meet Agares myself.

My heart trembled the entire time I searched for him. Male leads always seemed to be suffering from at least one mental affliction, and Agares had the worst case of all.

He was the typical Grand Duke of the North type.

Prickly, cold to everyone outside his own circle, and the sort of character who let blood at the slightest provocation.

Agares was exactly that kind of man.

Since the tone of the novel was rather light, scenes of him actually killing people were rare, but even so, he was still a character defined as having neither blood nor tears. He was not someone I wanted to get close to.

“Haa…”

With my heart filled to the brim with complaints, I stood in front of the Divinity Department building and waited for Agares.

Interestingly enough, although he handled demonic power, Agares studied in the Divinity Department. It was because he needed to control the demon that had half melted into his body and prevent its side effects as efficiently as possible.

Agares appeared about ten minutes later.

Even setting aside the cold impression that suited a Grand Duke of the North, he was distinctive. A fur cloak in this weather?

Ah. Right.

In the freezing North, it was an essential item whenever he went outside, and that pure white fur, untainted by any other color, was one of his symbols.

That was why, even after leaving behind the North’s bitter cold, he still insisted on wearing a fur cloak.

When I approached him to speak, he frowned and said,

“What is it?”

The Ingrid territory Agares ruled was far larger than the Isaac family’s lands, and on top of that, he was of higher rank than I was, and stronger as well. So I spoke politely.

“There is something I need to discuss with you regarding the Ingrid territory.”

“Now?”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“Then let us move somewhere else.”

Agares took the lead and walked toward an empty building nearby. His stride was as broad as his great height, and every one of his movements was large.

The truth was that I did not know much about Agares.

The “immortal monster” setting attached to him completely ruined the balance of power.

Every time he appeared, there were too many things the author had to be careful about, so my sister had deliberately reduced his page time. As a result, the descriptions of his personality remained vague.

If I acted rashly, I could easily earn his displeasure.

For the moment, all I really knew was that he treasured his own people fanatically, and was just as cold toward everything outside that circle.

“By the look of you, you are a noble. And you seem to have a territory of your own. If so, then you must know as well as I do that once you start ruling land, you end up hearing every kind of sweet lie and convenient falsehood.”

Agares’s pupils shifted toward me. Tension surged through me.

Good grief, he’s cold.

“I cannot simply accept everything you say at face value and believe it. You understand that, I assume?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Good. Now that you understand, say whatever you like. Carefully.”

I took out the map of the North I had prepared beforehand.

I had worried that if I brought something too detailed, he might take offense, so I had chosen the sort of ordinary map anyone could obtain, one that showed the northern territory split in half by the Demon Forest.

It was a version clearly influenced more heavily by Agares’s side during the previous exchange with the demons.

Perhaps because of that, Agares seemed to be in rather a good mood, though he did not show it openly.

The northern reaches of the Empire.

A land where the snow never melted, even in spring and summer.

Because the environment was so barren, the population was sparse compared to the size of the land, and it was not uncommon for criminals to flee the cities and hide there.

As a result, there were prejudices against the North and even regional resentment.

“A Dark Mage has hidden himself there.”

“So?”

“I have reason to settle matters with him, and I intend to capture him. I would like your cooperation in that.”

The ways for Dark Mages to grow stronger were limited, and every single one of them committed crimes to gain power. Even so, Agares’s response was lukewarm. Perhaps that was only natural, considering he himself was a man contracted with a demon.

“Before fleeing north, he offered human beings as sacrifices to learn dark magic, delighted in human experimentation, and—”

Agares cut me off.

“That is unfortunate. Truly, my heart goes out to you. There, that ought to be enough sympathy. Now tell me why I should cooperate.”

“If you leave him alone, he will certainly harm people in your territory as well. Do you not wish to prevent that beforehand?”

Agares stroked his chin and dragged out his answer as though lost in thought. He let out a long, “Hmm…” and then said,

“The crimes you describe were committed before he fled into my lands, yes?”

“That is correct.”

“A fair portion of my territory’s population consists of criminals who came in from outside. If you include their descendants and families, the number grows even larger. I cannot very well round them all up.”

Huh?

What kind of nonsense was that?

My brain stopped dead, as though someone had smashed it with a hammer.

“I am not saying their crimes are forgiven. If, after entering my lands, they continue committing vile acts just as they did elsewhere, then naturally I will arrest them. Of course I will.”

“If you do not act now, your people will die.”

Agares’s thick brows twitched.

“You speak almost as though you can see the future. How would you know that?”

“Well, the thing is…”

I swallowed my bitterness. It was not as though I could tell him I had read it in the Original Work.

When I fell silent, Agares took a golden pen from his pocket and marked across the map I had brought while explaining the situation between the North and the demons.

The North bordered the demons’ territory.

It was a minor matter that monsters sometimes pushed into the land and caused trouble, or that occasional skirmishes broke out with demons.

Because of that, many soldiers stood on strict watch in the bitter cold.

And they often died.

They froze to death.

They died when caught in sudden violent weather.

They died to the tricks of demons, or to their secret ambushes.

They died and died and died.

Agares said he had found their lives precious. He wanted, no matter what, to reduce the loss of life.

To achieve that goal, he had devised several plans, and among the most representative were keeping watch without using people, and subduing demons and monsters with only a small elite force while suffering no casualties.

Unmanned sentry systems that functioned without human hands.

As a method for that, Agares had turned his attention to the familiars controlled by Dark Mages.

If he could command creatures with senses several times sharper than a human’s, like bats, then there would no longer be any need for soldiers to suffer in the cold.

And it did not necessarily have to be bats.

He intended to experiment with various kinds of familiars one by one, evaluate their efficiency, and then produce them in large numbers.

For that, there was one thing he needed.

“There must be several capable Dark Mages. And if what you say is true, then this one sounds fairly skilled.”

Agares said that, when he found the time, he intended to track down Dimagen himself and meet him in person.

When I argued that it was dangerous, he simply grinned and declared that a Dark Mage could never become his enemy.

Yes, well, that was probably true.

I bit down on my bitter tongue and nodded.

Persuading Agares here was going to be difficult.

“So someone close to you fell victim to him? That is truly regrettable.”

He patted me on the shoulder. The gesture was so absent-minded, as though he were tapping a piece of furniture to test how sturdy it was, that it only irritated me more.

“I will not tell you to forgive Dimagen. Even for me, that would be presumptuous.”

Agares slipped the golden pen he had left on top of the map back into his pocket. Then, in a firm tone, he said,

“But regrettably, I cannot help you capture him.”

“I understand.”

In other words, he would not help me, but neither would he stop me if I caught Dimagen on my own.

Fine.

I would be satisfied with that.

No matter what logic I brought forward, persuading Agares here was impossible.

Right. He was a male lead. Of course he had to be carrying at least this much insanity. It was my fault for hoping he might not be mentally unwell.

“I will come find you again.”

After I prepared several better ways to persuade him.

---

“Does that sound sane to you? A criminal slipped into his territory, and he says he won’t arrest him.”

“Is that so?”

“That’s insane. The man’s completely mad.”

“I see.”

“……”

I had tried to relieve my frustration by talking behind his back, but Ian only nodded.

He was like a vending machine. Every time I grumbled, he just dispensed the same canned replies. Yes. I see.

He says he won’t help us catch the man who killed your master, and that’s all the reaction you have?

Then again, maybe I ought to be impressed that this psychopath was at least humoring me.

Agares’s way of thinking was unique.

“Of all the people to get stuck with, why did it have to be someone like him? Ugh…”

“So what do we do now? How do we kill Dimagen?”

“What do you mean, how? We either persuade Agares, or we catch Dimagen without his help.”

If Agares were with us, capturing Dimagen would be extremely easy.

Dark Mages borrowed power from demons, whereas Agares had made a direct contract with one as an equal and shared its power.

In a sense, Agares was a higher-order existence than any Dark Mage, and when facing one, he became infinitely stronger.

In particular, he was all but immune to the Dark Energy used by Dark Mages.

Unlike ordinary mages, who used mana, Dark Mages wielded Dark Energy.

Dark Energy was a force created by corrupting the primal power of life itself and magnifying only its destructive might.

Its mere existence eroded the surroundings, and especially for living beings, simply approaching it drained their vitality while exuding overwhelming destructive force.

And yet even that Dark Energy could not exert more than the effect of ordinary mana against Agares, who used demonic power directly.

Since Agares’s body was partly demonic, he handled Dark Energy better than any Dark Mage alive.

If Agares were there, he could neutralize most of the traps laid throughout the dungeon, as well as all of Dimagen’s curses and dark magic.

Indeed, that was exactly how it went in the Original Work. In the campaign against Dimagen, Agares carried out the entire defensive role.

So what if we handled it without him?

We would need to prepare many things.

And accept enormous risk.

We would have to devise some way of dealing with the traps swarming throughout the dungeon, and at the same time face the endless torrent of dark magic pouring from the dungeon’s energy head-on.

Ian would have to handle both attack and defense alone. On top of that, he would have to worry about curses as well. Was that even possible?

It seemed unlikely.

By around volume three, he underwent a major leap in growth, and the Ian from then on might have managed it, but the Ian of now could not.

For the moment, let’s focus on persuading Agares.

That was the goal I settled on.