The Magic State began to burn.

At first slowly, but gradually increasing in scale.

Undead birds flying in the sky scattered singing bones everywhere, and the bones that touched human hands repeated the same song tirelessly.

While some feared this strange phenomenon of bone flutes singing on their own, just as many were fascinated.

“A fake war? The tower and the lion conspired together?”

“What’s this all about?”

“I don’t know? Was there some fight somewhere?”

When the bone flutes first started spreading, people didn’t understand the meaning of this song.

The Towers of Protection and Foresight, not wanting unnecessary war sentiment to boil over, demanded silence from Control, and Control, while outwardly grumbling, was satisfied with achieving their original goal and accepted their demand.

“Could it be that? You know, they said there was some fight in the border area.”

“Ah—come to think of it, merchants traveling around there complained. They had to take huge detours because all nearby forests were closed off to traffic.”

“But by ‘lion’, could they mean that Lennart?”

However, loving gossip and backbiting was almost human nature.

This was even more so when the subject was the Tower of Control, which usually bore the resentment of the lower classes.

Those who knew even a little related information opened their mouths, rumors gained flesh and became more concrete content, and all sorts of speculation and false rumors intertwined to become a huge mass.

Of course, its accuracy was terrible, but the very fact that such stories received constant attention from people and endlessly rose and fell was enough to turn the stomachs of those in the Tower of Control.

“What the hell are you all doing?!” Valdeus, a 4th rank mage belonging to the Tower of Control and the captain of the public order maintenance unit, shouted at his subordinates with a grim face.

“Rumors against our tower are spreading every moment! Collect those damn bone flutes or whatever immediately, and throw everyone spouting nonsense into prison!”

“I apologize, Sir Valdeus. We are already proceeding with the collection work. The same goes for suppressing the disturbance through the guard.”

“Then why is the situation still like this?!”

“…There’s too much volume,” the subordinate said with a gloomy face. “A large number of flutes were already scattered in the middle of the night when people were fast asleep, and they’re still being scattered even now. Because undead birds revived by necromancy are flying through the sky scattering flutes, we can’t stop the scattering by blocking traffic routes. To snipe each bird in the distant sky, we’d need at least 2nd rank mages, and several of them, but we lack the manpower with just us.”

“You’re telling me this now…!”

Valdeus grabbed the back of his neck.

He was the captain of the public order maintenance unit.

Within the area ruled by the Tower of Control, his role was to detect and eliminate all sorts of subversive elements.

Just the fact that such a situation had occurred was enough to seriously damage his prestige, and he didn’t even want to imagine the repercussions if he couldn’t handle the aftermath on his own and had to receive help from others.

Just as he was about to bark at his subordinates again, the crystal ball on his desk flashed.

《—Valdeus, come to my room right now.》

A sudden and unilateral notification.

Despite the excessively rude order for a 4th rank mage of the tower, Valdeus didn’t dare express discontent.

Far from it, he began to hurriedly move without even thinking of hiding his pale face from his subordinates.

The tower head’s office, located on the highest floor within the Tower of Control.

Towards the servant guarding that door, Valdeus said with a trembling voice, “Valdeus Rognir. I’ve come in response to the tower head’s summons.”

The servant bowed politely, then opened the office door.

The interior of the office was very grand and classic.

It was an office in name only; its structure, which forced visitors to feel unconscious pressure and awe, was more fitting to be called a royal palace audience chamber.

There were already about twenty guests in the office, all of whom were either those inheriting Rognir’s blood or their spouses.

Valdeus’ back was drenched in cold sweat as he discovered bone flutes piled high on the floor in the center of the circle they formed.

Even though they must have known Valdeus had entered, none of the guests turned their gaze towards him or greeted him.

Even those who would normally have made sarcastic remarks about his mistake were like this.

Valdeus wasn’t short-sighted enough to think it was good not to be scolded.

It meant that this incident was so serious that even such mockery or sarcasm couldn’t be easily offered.

“As a result of checking with detection magic, the number of undead currently transporting bone flutes to various places exceeds 2,000, with the highest proportion being bird-type undead, but there are also undead using rats or stray dogs.”

“Calculating backwards from the time bone flutes were discovered in each region, the location where they first started spreading appears to be the Utgard Forest where Jeras was carrying out his operation.”

“We currently can’t contact Jeras and his subordinate troops, and probably—“

“—They’ve already been annihilated.”

At the calm words of the gray-bearded old man, the others all closed their mouths.

The old man’s gaze turned to Valdeus.

“What are you and your subordinates doing now?”

“We’re collecting all the bone flutes. Also, in cooperation with the guard, we’re arresting all the rabble spreading rumors!”

“On what grounds?”

“Pardon?”

At Valdeus’ question, disappointment settled on the gray old man’s face.

He lightly tapped the bone flute at his feet.

“You must have heard what this flute is blabbering about. It said to hide it if you can. When people already know all that, what do you think they’ll think if we show signs of hastily trying to cover up the story? Even when collecting, it’s natural to prepare at least one plausible justification or cover story.”

“I-I’m sorry! My thinking was shallow!”

“Enough. It was my mistake to entrust an important task just because you’re the eldest son.”

It was a cold cut off, as if no longer expecting anything.

Valdeus bit his lip at the cold indifference that felt like it would have been easier to be scolded and reprimanded.

“Teur, what’s the current situation with the pursuit team?”

“Traces of over dozens of people moving south have been revealed. It seems they intend to move to the Empire’s side across the Garden to shake off pursuit.”

“It’s a disguise. Leave only the minimum pursuit team, and divert the rest elsewhere,” the gray old man asserted nonchalantly.

“If a group of necromancers of that level had been wandering in our territory, there would have been signs in advance one way or another. The enemy is few in number.”

“However, Tower Head. It’s an operation of simultaneously controlling over thousands of undead. We have several quite skilled necromancers in our tower, but even among them, those who can handle over a hundred undead simultaneously can be counted on one hand.”

“The Queen of the Dead can recreate a nation’s military force single-handedly. Would a mere few thousand be a big deal?”

A moment of silence fell.

The meaning of the silence was largely twofold.

The Queen of the Dead… does that mean the Witch of the East has turned against us now?

Even if she’s the culprit, can a single mage do such a thing?

Especially among younger and less experienced mages, the latter proportion was higher.

They couldn’t easily grasp the concept of an individual rivaling a nation.

But the gray old man was different.

He was someone who knew well what divine status the Witch of the North, now almost in seclusion, had shown when she was active, and what monsters the other witches called her equals were.

“Of course, the possibility of it being the Queen of the Dead herself is low. If it were her, she wouldn’t have used such expedient methods.”

“What do you mean by expedient methods?”

“Undead rapidly lose their power the further they get from the necromancer. Moreover, if the range covers not only our ruling territory but the entire Magic State, even more so. To overcome this, the opponent seems to have used special materials. If it’s the corpses of 4th rank mages and their elite subordinates, well, they would be unparalleled as catalysts.”

It meant that the raw material of the bone flutes now causing a stir in the Magic State was Jeras and his subordinates.

People were shocked once again.

The gray old man’s eyes gleamed coldly, “Send envoys to the other towers. Somehow persuade them that this incident is just a baseless rumor and slander. Also, put all ships in the east under a sailing ban. Don’t let anyone cross over to the island where the Tower of Protection is. Have the pursuit team focus on searching port cities. Hurry. This is a critical matter on which our tower’s glory and prosperity depend, I will not tolerate failure.”

The head of the Tower of Control.

To the words of the king inheriting the legitimate line of the old kingdom, his kin all responded in unison.

One of the four heads of the Magic State began to bare its teeth towards the enemy, without carelessness or arrogance.

***

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