Chapter 56 : Magic Armour

Chapter 56: Magic Armour

Iodin.

I was startled by that name.

It seemed Lorraine had interpreted my reaction a little differently.

“Yes. Lady Iodin Serom~! The Knight of Blue Thunder. Don’t you know? A man who wields a sword can’t possibly not know the Knight of Blue Thunder~ Are you going to keep making me anxious like this~?”

Iodin Serom.

It seemed that really was the same Iodin. My senior.

But the Knight of Blue Thunder?

‘Come to think of it... wasn’t it the year 4681 now?’

That meant eight years had passed.

Since the time when Iodin and I had suffered together in Glowingsteel.

And in the meantime, she had gained such a splendid epithet?

Then my senior was already thirty-two?

She was older than me.

A rush of mixed emotions welled up.

I had already seen her gravestone in the far future... but here she was, alive and well.

She must have grown even stronger than she was back then. Had she already become a Peak Expert by now?

‘Will I be able to see her?’

Since Iodin couldn’t come and had hired me in her stead... would that make it difficult to meet her?

It left me a little regretful.

Caught up in these thoughts, I forgot for a moment.

Both the woman in front of me, and the situation I was currently in.

“Sigh....”

What brought me back was Lorraine’s sigh.

“Lord Ransen Banroa?”

“Yes.”

I quickly answered.

Either way, from the situation it seemed she was my employer.

“As a First-class Mercenary, your commission fee was quite expensive, you know? You’re even paid weekly.”

“I suppose so.”

I didn’t know the details, but I figured that was how it was set up.

Lorraine beamed brightly.

“But if you don’t earn that money’s worth... you’ll be fired on the spot, all right? You don’t mind, do you?”

I couldn’t help thinking that wasn’t the sort of thing to say while smiling like that...

“Of course.”

I accepted.

The commission fee didn’t matter to me anyway. To be honest, I was confident.

“Good. Then let’s start right away. You’re not tired, are you? Even if you are, there’s no helping it~ Every single second is money, you know.”

Lorraine briskly walked past me.

Even though I was 185cm tall, her height didn’t feel small at all.

She must have been around 176cm?

With such a tall figure, striding with those long white hems fluttering, she cut quite an impressive sight.

Clunk!

She opened a door.

“Ah....”

Only then did I realize.

Why there had been a constant faint vibration and shaking all this time.

Beyond the door lay a half-dug-up mountain.

The scenery shifted little by little.

That meant,

this building I was standing in—

“Welcome! To Lorraine’s Moving Laboratory!”

—was moving along the mountainside.

Good heavens.

A building that could move.

So this truly was the Age of Magic?

But that wasn’t the only thing astonishing.

“You know our laboratory is the one developing Magic Armour, right?”

Magic Armour? Some kind of armor?

But Lorraine must have assumed I already knew, because she skipped any explanation.

“From now on, Lord Ransen will wear our prototype Magic Armour and explore the ancient ruins buried in that mountain.”

A single word snagged in my mind.

‘Ancient ruins’?

Ancient?

That sounded strange.

Because this place was already in the ancient past.

A whole ten thousand years ago.

Searching for “ancient” in the ancient era itself... it felt incredibly contradictory.

But the concept of “ancient” was always relative.

Even ten thousand years ago, there could still exist a past old enough to be called the “Ancient Era.”

“Your mission, Lord Ransen, is to retrieve samples from there that could help with our research. Relics from none other than the Mythic Era!”

Wow.

The Mythic Era.

That I could accept. Compared to the Age of Magic, that was indeed ancient.

Weren’t there those lunatic scholars who sometimes claimed—only to get beaten up—that a civilization far more advanced than the Age of Magic had once existed?

That was what they called the Mythic Era.

....

But it actually existed?!

*         *         *

Here, everything defied my expectations.

This place wasn’t even a mere moving building.

It was more accurate to call it a village.

A moving village...!

Kurururur—

Enormous steel wheels called continuous tracks crushed the earth as they carried it forward.

From tall chimney towers, pure white steam gushed forth like clouds.

Wooden suspension bridges, dangling like ladders, connected buildings here and there.

But what was that?

From the largest central building, a massive hollow metallic rod jutted forward in a straight line!

“Do you see it? That thing attached to the Academic Hall! That’s it! The weapon that neutralizes any threat! The pride of our laboratory—our Mana Cannon of the 10-Refim class~!”

Ah, so it was a cannon. A weapon, apparently.

I decided to leave it at that. I wouldn’t understand it anyway.

In Glowingsteel, being a city of knights, most things were recognizable at a glance... but here, in a place devoted to the study of magic, everything was unfamiliar.

Even,

the long white garment Lorraine wore—it wasn’t a design I had ever seen before.

But it looked quite stylish.

“Nice, isn’t it? My outfit?”

Lorraine spun around to face me.

Hm. Sharp instincts.

But her mood suddenly seemed brighter.

Just a moment ago, she’d been subtly mocking me—so why the change?

“This is from the Mythic Era. Well, to be precise, I reproduced it after studying an actual relic from that time. Fufu. The great magicians of the Mythic Era all wore clothes like this, you know?”

The Mythic Era.

That word carried a resonance all its own.

Excitement?

Radiance?

She spoke it filled with a trembling fervor.

Before I knew it, I blurted out,

“You seem to like the Mythic Era.”

“Of course! Isn’t it incredible? A civilization fifty thousand years ago that was unimaginably more advanced than now.... Isn’t that mysterious?”

Whoosh! She came so close I could smell her hair.

But... fifty thousand years?

Then by the reckoning of our Continental Calendar, that would be sixty thousand years ago?

‘The so-called Mythic Era... wasn’t it absurdly ancient?’

And yet, a civilization from that long ago was said to have been more advanced than this brilliant Age of Magic?

Could that be possible?

No wonder scholars of my time dismissed the Mythic Era as a figment of imagination, fiction at best. Whenever someone dared to believe in it seriously, others would descend on them and tear them apart.

But ta-da.

Now they said it truly existed.

“After all, Magic Armour originated from a Mythic Era relic! Master Dalstein is a true genius! Can you believe he analyzed a relic from the Mythic Era—something no one had ever understood before—bam! And established that great theory at the mere age of twenty?”

Once the subject she loved came up, Lorraine grew ever more fervent.

“They say the moment Master Dalstein thought of it, he ran out of the bath stark naked. Do you know what he shouted? [Rising! Thunder! Kick! Risingthunderkick!!] He kept going around like that. Isn’t it hilarious? Like, what on earth was that, hahaha!”

Chatter, chatter.

“He was probably so excited he just screamed whatever came to mind, right? But still, Risingthunderkick... pfft!”

Babble, babble.

It was as if she had turned into another person.

Her tone was different from earlier.

She was extremely talkative.

“Anyway, thanks to that, they were able to analyze the armor the warriors of the Mythic Era wore—and that was the beginning of Magic Armour! That’s why the magician I respect most is Master Dalstein!”

Lorraine never stopped talking the entire time she guided me.

The history of Magic Armour. The great magicians who laid its foundation. The theories applied to Magic Armour, and even their limitations.

Drowned in that flood of information, I was left with only one thought.

...I’m hungry.

Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t eaten.

Of course, since she was my client at the moment—

my mouth just mechanically put in responses.

“Oh.”

“Amazing.”

“Hmm~”

“I see.”

“Excuse me.”

Suddenly, Lorraine called out to me. The eyes that had always been smiling, even when she mocked me, now looked sharp.

“You’re not listening to me, are you?”

Ah.

Busted.

*         *         *

I stood together with a slightly sulky Lorraine in front of a building called the “Prototype Testing Chamber.”

She cleared her throat with a hem-hem before smiling brightly again.

“Now, do you see it? That hollow spot in the mountain.”

I followed the direction of her finger, and there it was.

The mountain looked as though someone had scooped out one side with a spoonful, like pudding. Inside that hollowed section, a building had been wedged in.

On another angle, on the opposite side of the mountain, there was another small hollow. Inside that too, I could glimpse a building.

Lorraine pointed toward the smaller hollow.

“That’s the newly discovered entrance. We found it using exploration magic infused with new technology.”

She must really love the Mythic Era.

Lorraine’s voice grew fervent again.

“Going in through there lets you reach much deeper into this vast ruin! And it’s so astonishingly well-preserved!”

So her commission was for me to go in there and bring back relics.

While also testing the laboratory’s prototype Magic Armour, by wearing it inside.

‘Ah... is this it?’

The moment I heard the explanation, certainty struck me like lightning.

In there, inside those ruins...

Couldn’t there be something related to the Cultists?

The Book of Fate never sent me to any random place.

Something would happen. Something tied to the Cult. And it would surely happen inside those ruins.

“So, here’s the thing~”

Her black-gold hair suddenly leaned right into my face.

Those faint green eyes curved in a smile.

Her attitude shifted once again.

When speaking of the Mythic Era, she had been giddy like a child, but now her gaze was once more that of an adult calculating gains and losses.

“Since you’re a First-class Mercenary, I won’t question your sword skills. But handling Magic Armour is different from swordsmanship, isn’t it~? So, we’ll start with a test. The Magic Armour Aptitude Test!”

She was truly mercurial.

“Let me warn you in advance~ Even if you’re offended, there’s nothing I can do. If, by my standards, you fail, the contract will be terminated immediately, all right? Naturally, since the fault would lie on your side, no penalty fee would be imposed. On the contrary, we might have grounds to claim damages from you, so I should make that clear~ But don’t take it personally—it’s just business~”

The conditions were downright vicious.

Still,

“Fine.”

It wasn’t my concern.

I answered indifferently and stepped into the building.

It was a wide, circular structure.

By the entrance stood rows of racks, displaying sleek breastplates in neat alignment.

Beyond them stretched a spacious area, scattered with all sorts of obstacles and metallic training dummies set generously apart.

“Director, you’ve arrived?”

A man suddenly appeared, greeting us.

His bow carried discipline.

An old man with snow-white hair, elegantly dressed in a fine suit.

‘...He reminds me of a royal chamberlain.’

The royal chamberlain... the one who had stayed behind until the very end to cover our escape.

This old man, with his disciplined posture and manners, reminded me of him. It made me feel an unexpected sense of fondness.

“Yes. Master Eodran. Are the preparations ready?”

“Of course.”

“We’ll begin right away.”

“Yes.”

The old man called Eodran approached me.

“Lord Ransen? It is an honor. My name is Eodran. Please, this way. I shall help you put on the Magic Armour.”

I followed him and looked at the Magic Armour,

and felt a bit disappointed.

‘It’s just a breastplate...?’

Of course, if it were an armor imbued with magic, even a breastplate that only covered the chest would have great value...

Other parts could be supplemented by acquiring separate pieces...

But still, it was disappointing.

‘If it were a full suit of armor, it would fetch a much higher price.’

The truth was, right now my only thought was to bring this so-called Magic Armour back to the present.

Whether Lorraine gave permission or not, I planned to sweep up as many as I could and take them to the future.

What could they do?

To me, this place was nothing less than a vast treasure vault.

If I wanted something, I would take it.

If they resented me, they could live ten thousand years and come after me.

That was exactly why Lorraine’s talk of wages and firing me hadn’t made me bat an eye.

If it came to bad intentions, I was probably worse.

Still, it was a pity.

If I sold it, a full suit of armor would be far more valuable, and yet all I had was a breastplate.

“First, we’ll test with this one.”

Eodran lifted up a plain white breastplate—the dullest-looking of them all.

‘The fit isn’t bad.’

Wearing the Magic Armour, I stood at the center of the testing chamber.

But when had the old man moved over there?

Eodran was already offering a refreshing-looking lemon drink to Lorraine.

His devoted, respectful service to Lorraine truly evoked the image of a chamberlain.

...It made the tip of my nose sting again for no reason.

Lorraine took a long sip of the drink and began her explanation.

“This is your first time with Magic Armour, right?”

“Yes.”

I had worn magical armor from ancient times before, but from what I had heard on the way here, Magic Armour seemed to be something very different from ordinary magical armor.

“Then let’s activate it first.”

“Yes.”

I answered flatly, but in truth, my heart was racing.

The Magic Armour that Lorraine held with such boundless pride.

From the explanations, it seemed to be something far beyond a simple piece of magical armor.

What kind of performance would it show?

If I brought this back to the present, would it strengthen our forces?

My heart thumped with anticipation.

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