Dorothea frowned as if displeased.

“What an unpleasant fairy tale.”

“It is a bit unpleasant, isn’t it? Although no specific ending is mentioned, that makes it feel even more unpleasant.”

“Was there no other material?”

“At least, that was the only material I received. My mentor seemed to know something more, but she appeared to be careful with her words. Do you know what she said?”

“How would I know something I didn’t hear? Stop beating around the bush and just say it.”

After clearing her throat with a small “Ahem,” Gale spoke as if imitating someone, “—I don’t know well. And if I carelessly talk about something I don’t know well, the East will get angry.”

It was a tone lacking in dignity for an imitation of a legendary great witch, but Dorothea had no energy to pay attention to that.

What actually caught her attention was a different part.

“The East?”

“Yes, I could only think of one person my mentor would refer to in that way. The Witch of the East. In other words, Dorothea, your teacher.”

“My teacher is related to this guy?”

Dorothea fell into thought for a moment.

It wasn’t to the extent of calling it an absurd connection. Her teacher was a figure whose age was impossible to even guess, and she was also a long-time resident of the eastern part of the continent.

A great witch who had been settled in the eastern part of the continent for a long time.

A Tin Knight who had been sleeping in an old castle in the eastern part of the continent.

Listing it like this, it would be more natural for there to be one or two connections between them than none at all.

But.

“This guy didn’t seem to know anything about my teacher, though?”

They had traveled together for quite a long time, after all.

While Dorothea didn’t go around talking about her teacher to her companions, she also didn’t extremely refrain from speaking or hide information.

And every time the Witch of the East was mentioned, the Tin Knight’s reaction was too unfamiliar to be towards someone he knew.

“Well, we can speculate about that in various ways.”

Gale calmly laid out her conjectures.

The Tin Knight didn’t know, but the Witch of the East unilaterally knew about him.

They knew each other, but the Tin Knight didn’t know that his counterpart was the “Witch of the East”.

Or there was actually no connection between them, and the Witch of the North had misunderstood something.

Simply put, the Tin Knight had forgotten about the Witch of the East.

“I originally guessed the last one. After all, human souls can’t endure for such a long time. There might be some differences depending on the surrounding environment and the will or mental strength held just before death, but usually, souls dissipate after about 10 years after death, and even if they somehow endure, they go mad, according to what I’ve read in books. Ah, is talking about this in front of a soul expert like showing off in front of a silkworm?”

“Hey, wait.”

Dorothea hurriedly stopped Gale’s words, then covered her eyes with her hand and spoke with difficulty, “You, did you know that what’s inside this guy is a human soul?”

“Well, I’ve been speculating from before. After all, no matter how I looked at it, this person’s operation period seemed to exceed at least 800 years. Maybe even 1000 years? And in that era, neither the Tower of Protection nor the artificial souls developed by the Tower of Protection existed. If that’s the case, what else could in there, you know?” Gale shrugged her shoulders playfully. “Above all, at the point where you entrusted me with this modification work, I thought Dorothea was prepared for it to be discovered.”

“…Tch.”

Gale’s guess was only half correct.

Many doll technicians had examined the Tin Knight in Tik-Tok, but only Smith among them had recognized that part, so Dorothea thought it might just pass depending on Gale’s skill.

“So? Continue what you were saying.”

“Well, so, for a magic doll that has endured for such a long time, moreover if its contents are human, to be honest, I speculated that it wouldn’t be strange for it to be mad. Losing part of its memory would be rather tame. But recently, while traveling with you all, another conjecture came to mind.”

Gale carefully touched the core of the magic doll, the part where an artificial soul would be in a “normal” magic doll.

“If this conjecture is correct, it can explain both why the Tin Knight doesn’t know the Witch of the East, and why the state of the soul is relatively fine compared to the state of the body.”

Pop!

As Gale snapped her fingers, a small magic character appeared in the air and illuminated the core with light.

Dorothea realized that this light was not just simple light but light that illuminated the soul that normally couldn’t be seen, but she didn’t understand the intention.

However, a moment later, Dorothea’s eyes widened.

The inside of the core was empty.

Leaving only a very faint trace like a thread leading to somewhere unknown.

“—If the soul that was inside, or ‘was inside until just now,’ is a different person from the ‘knight’ in the story.”

***

After receiving the letter from the Lennart dojo, on the way to the tower.

Adelaide realized.

We’re being watched.

It wasn’t particularly that they were being trailed.

More precisely, trailing was unnecessary.

The opponent’s “gaze” was always watching the entire city.

Whoosh.

The watchtower in the south that was visible when they first entered the city. The bird made of flames on top of it flapped its wings.

Crackle.

The second watchtower in the northwest. The bird emitting electric currents from its entire body flashed its fierce eyes.

Shhhh.

The third watchtower in the northeast. The bird exhaling a faint chill like breath quietly preened its feathers.

The Tower of Annihilation in the center of the city. Three watchtowers arranged in a Y-shape with the tower as the axis, and the bird-shaped spirits guarding those watchtowers.

Adelaide realized her misconception.

Neither the watchtowers nor the birds on them were for watching external enemies.

No, they might watch for external enemies usually, but at least not at this moment.

This was because Adelaide could clearly feel the spirits’ gazes directed at her with each step she took towards the Tower of Annihilation.

To be precise, only the flame bird was staring intently at Adelaide and Sophia, while the lightning bird and ice bird didn’t seem to be paying much attention yet.

“Hmm, it’s strange. I certainly feel like my chest is getting tighter and tighter.”

Sophia, who was beside her, tilted her head.

She also seemed to feel the gradually increasing pressure, but didn’t seem to have noticed what its source was.

“Sophia, actually…”

Adelaide told Sophia about the spirits, and Sophia made an “Aha” sound.

“I see, so ‘feeling pressure as if facing a large beast’ was really meant literally. Well, even if I look at the watchtower, I can only tell that there’s something at the top.”

In fact, it wasn’t that Sophia was dull, but rather that Adelaide was excessively sensitive.

Adelaide’s detection ability, which enhanced her already excellent five senses with mana and then further enhanced them with the Belt of Amaryllis, had reached a realm that even fairly skilled individuals couldn’t dare to approach.

In Tin Knight’s terms, it was like she was doing ABC while others were doing A*B.

“How did they find out we have a letter? Are they listening to our conversation now too?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t have abundant knowledge about spirits, so I can’t say for certain, but they probably don’t know about the letter yet. They’re just paying attention to everyone who enters and exits the Lennart dojo. Among them, they’re applying pressure to those heading towards the tower.”

The two fell into contemplation.

The mysterious fainting incident. It was good that they had figured out the cause, but they didn’t have a proper means to prevent it.

“Hmm, what should we do? I feel like it would be quite difficult for me to take down those spirits alone. It’s like their quality is different from other spirits on the street, or maybe their scale is different.”

The bird-shaped spirits weren’t particularly showing hostile emotions towards Adelaide, but just their presence was emitting considerable pressure.

If ordinary spirits were connected one-on-one with mages, these birds seemed to be connected not to individual mages, but to this land, specifically to the Tower of Annihilation itself.

“Ah, but if Sophia helps from the side, maybe we could handle one…?”

Adelaide’s sentence ended in a confused tone because of the strange look in Sophia’s eyes beside her.

Huh?

Adelaide was momentarily puzzled.

“Um, did I say something strange?”

“No, I just thought you’re indeed Sir Tin’s disciple. Usually, people don’t think of ‘taking down’ the guardians of a magic tower when they’re interfering.”

“Ah.”

Adelaide realized her mistake.

It was the result of being unknowingly influenced by the mindset of knocking down anything that gets in the way.

“P-please forget what I just said…”

Adelaide bowed her head deeply, her face red.

Come to think of it, trying to deliver a letter as a peace lion while knocking down spirits managed by the tower would be putting the cart before the horse.

“Well, there’s also the option of getting help after joining up with Dorothea.”

At Sophia’s suggestion, Adelaide shook her head.

“They’ll be busy with the modification work. Above all, this is a process to prove whether I have the ability as an heir or not, so I want to accomplish it on my own if possible.”

“Then, the remaining method is a frontal breakthrough. I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but I’ll go with you.”

With the policy decided, all that remained was to execute it.

Adelaide and Sophia advanced towards the Tower of Annihilation, and the closer they got to the tower, the more they felt a sensation as if a huge pressure was weighing down on their bodies.

However, it wasn’t pressure that was unbearable.

Adelaide approached the main gate of the tower.

Unlike the Tower of Foresight, what was guarding the door was not a person, but a spirit made of sand.

Adelaide bowed her head to the spirit in greeting.

“I’ve come with a message from the Lennart dojo.”

Immediately after uttering those words, the pressure on her body doubled.

Not only the flame spirit that had been staring at her from the beginning, but even the lightning spirit that had been pretending not to notice began to turn its gaze and glare at Adelaide.

Adelaide felt her fingertips and toes tingling, and while Sophia’s expression remained unchanged, her breathing noticeably became shallower.

After about 10 seconds of silence, the sand spirit quietly nodded and then dropped one of its arms to the ground.

The fallen arm slipped through the gap under the main gate as if it had a will of its own.

And then, time passed in waiting.

The pressure, far from becoming familiar, gradually intensified, but Adelaide didn’t lose her composure.

The spirits were certainly strong.

If judging purely by the magnitude of power, they were among the top of those she had met so far.

But that was all.

It’s not like I’m being directly attacked.

No matter how great and intense the intimidation was, Adelaide’s journey so far hadn’t been light enough for her to cower from just that.

Something that could be called the instinct of a living being kept ringing alarm bells telling her to run away, but Adelaide knew.

This wasn’t a real alarm, but a sensation artificially induced by the other side.

Unless she was suffering from vigilance of not knowing when she might be attacked while completely unaware of the opponent’s identity, there was no reason she couldn’t endure when she knew the opponent’s identity, location, and the fact that they wouldn’t attack.

A moment later.

The main gate opened, and a robed mage appeared.

“I heard you’ve come from the Lennart dojo. What is your business?”

It was a calm tone, but because of that, the underlying desire to win and caution were clearly felt.

Just as Adelaide was about to open her mouth, the ice spirit from the third watchtower gazed at her.

Boom!

If physical force were given to the aura pressing down on Adelaide’s surroundings right now, it was such a pressure that it felt like huge craters might form around her.

She wondered if this was what it would be like to subdue an opponent with fighting spirit alone, which the Tin Knight had tried to teach her but she hadn’t learned yet.

“Phew.”

Adelaide took a deep breath in and out.

She was slightly worried when she realized that Sophia beside her hadn’t been breathing for a while, but thinking about it, there was nothing more useless than worrying about such a thing for her.

Adelaide put strength in her stomach, smiled like a noble young lady, and said, “I’ve brought a letter in the name of Norman von Lennart, the representative instructor of the Lennart dojo’s Trudvangar branch. Please deliver it to the head of the Tower of Annihilation.”

The mage stared blankly at the letter Adelaide held out.

Beneath the impassive face, doubt, agitation, displeasure, and a bit of admiration and acknowledgment were revealed.

“—I have certainly received it.”

***

https://ko-fi.com/genesisforsaken