bookpower Chapter 245 : Chapter 245
Chapter 245 : Chapter 245
“It is hot. So hot.”Inette grumbled as she wrapped her face with a cloth.
She was currently supervising the Lizardmen.
Perhaps because she had experience teaching Lizardmen how to pull weeds back in Raviedel, Inette handled them skillfully.
Just then, one Lizardman climbed up a rope ladder stretched across the pit.
Below, the other Lizardmen were digging the ground while enduring the oppressive heat.
And now this one dared to forget his place as a prisoner and try to escape?
Inette’s eyes swept over the Lizardman who had climbed out of the pit.
She asked sharply,
“Wait. Why are you coming up?”
“Bathroom! I am going to the bathroom!”
“Are you joking? You just went. Did you think I would not notice?”
Inette could even distinguish individual Lizardmen, who all looked the same to human eyes.
It was a skill honed through years of shopping in the capital.
The Lizardman who had tried to slack off by pretending to use the bathroom was caught red-handed and stammered in panic.
“T-that is… actually, my hand! My finger is injured!”
“Oh, really?”
With a terrifying smile, Inette called out toward the back,
“We have a patient here!”
At that, Gusto emerged from a tent set up behind them.
A sign on the tent read: Supreme Deity Order Temporary Treatment Room.
It was where Lizardmen who collapsed from dehydration after failing to endure the desert heat were brought for treatment.
Once they received Gusto’s powerful Heal, even those who had collapsed would spring right back up.
“This is not how this is supposed to go!”
The Lizardman staggered backward, but it was too late.
Gusto quickly grabbed him by the shoulder.
“Please come inside with me for treatment.”
As he was dragged away by Gusto, the Lizardman screamed internally.
“No! If I go in there, the sermon… the endless sermon will begin!”
In fact, that tent had already become infamous among the Lizardmen.
Of course, not in a good way.
The healing itself was welcome, but the problem was that the apprentice holy knight with the expressionless face would endlessly repeat sermons to the patients inside.
The sermons about the Supreme Deity’s grace were tolerable.
After all, their own god, Nava, was also a child of the Supreme Deity.
What the Lizardmen truly feared were the sermons about Radel, the 8th Prince.
The Miracle of Three Days brought about by Radel, his brilliant feats in defeating heretics, the sublime image of Radel conquering a dungeon filled with undead all by himself without Divine Power…
With Gusto’s passionate delivery, complete with questions interspersed throughout, frightened Lizardmen would bolt out of the tent the moment they recovered.
Meanwhile, Radel, the very subject of those sermons, was filling canteens with water using water element magic under a shade canopy.
Since people were working in the scorching desert, proper hydration was essential.
“Rise!”
Water trickled down from the tip of his staff.
As Radel held a canteen under the stream, Inette, exhausted by the heat, stepped under the shade.
“Are you sure there is really water under here?”
She fanned herself with her hand and asked Radel.
No matter how deep they dug, only waves of heat rose up, and not a single drop of water appeared.
At her question, the Spirit of the Library, fluttering around Radel’s shoulder, snapped angrily,
“Hey! Of course there is! This place was personally chosen by me!”
Startled, Inette shot a glare at the Spirit of the Library.
“W-what? When did I ever say you were wrong? I was just curious… You do not have to bite my head off like that.”
Nearby, the third-year seniors who were waiting to carry the filled canteens felt as though they no longer knew where to begin criticizing anything.
“That spirit… it is that spirit, right?”
“It has to be…”
There had been rumors about a first-year at the Academy who had contracted the Spirit of the Library, but the lazy third-years had never paid attention to such talk.
Yet the spirit before their eyes was real.
“More importantly, is it really okay to make Lizardmen dig like that? Slavery was abolished ages ago.”
“I do not know… is that really the problem? We are basically slaves ourselves right now…”
The third-years’ vision blurred.
There was no need to be shocked at the Lizardmen’s situation.
What they were seeing was a mirror of their own.
“Seniors, we are all done here. Please pass the canteens down.”
As Radel handed over the canteens filled with water, the third-years found themselves bowing instinctively.
“Oh, Your Highness… You really did not have to fill the canteens yourself.”
“You even go down and work with the Lizardmen.”
“Using earth element magic a few times is nothing. Hahaha.”
“Well then, Your Highness, we will head down now. The Lizardmen are waiting.”
After only a few days in the desert, the seniors had changed considerably.
They carried the canteens Radel gave them into the pit without showing any sign of hardship.
“All right, water is here!”
When they reached the bottom, the seniors called out to the Lizardmen.
“Good work, human mages!”
“Thank you! We were wondering when the water would come!”
The Lizardmen chatted with the third-years as if it were routine, taking the canteens.
“There is salt too, so mix it properly when you drink. Otherwise, you will collapse.”
“Right. Unless you want to end up in that tent up there.”
“Gah, what are you talking about? If I hear that sermon any more, mice will start nesting in my ears!”
As they bantered with the Lizardmen, the third-years suddenly realized they were smiling.
They realized they had always worn grim expressions back at the Academy.
“When was the last time I could smile this easily?”
A day passed quickly when all they had to do was dig without thinking.
The feeling that their magic was actually helping others.
How fulfilling that was.
The third-years were discovering a new world.
***
Trudge, trudge.
In the middle of the Carmine Desert.
Someone cloaked in a robe staggered forward through the heat-filled wasteland.
Pale skin. Plain glasses.
It was Armandy Stein, an agent of the Ability Management Bureau.
He was an elite among elites who had infiltrated the Academy as a first-year under the alias Almond Plain.
Despite being in his mid-twenties, he had flawlessly passed himself off as a teenage boy and attended the Academy.
It was all to monitor the imperial family members at the Academy.
That was also why he was now in the desert.
“I did not want to come…!”
Armandy swallowed hot tears inwardly.
This time, he truly did not want to come.
Who in their right mind would choose this kind of desert for major practical training?
Yet people had gone.
Not just ordinary students, but three members of the imperial family.
“Why did three imperial family members apply to the Horizon Knights?!”
Armandy felt like he was about to explode.
As a secret agent of the Ability Management Bureau, he went wherever his surveillance targets were.
The desert was no exception.
To be precise, he could not afford not to go.
“Haa…”
Whooosh!
A blast of hot sand swept past.
The wind was dry, but Armandy’s eyes grew moist.
Because the Horizon Knights accepted trainees regardless of major, this whole disaster had occurred.
No, if it was a knight order, they should have accepted only Combat Magic majors.
Why had they allowed someone like him, a Transmutation Magic major, to apply as well?
Once the Ability Management Bureau learned that, there was no way they would leave Armandy alone.
“They said you should go check it out.”
When Pirenzo had delivered the order from above with an infuriating grin, Armandy had nearly exploded with anger.
“What, you do not want to? Too bad. If you hate it that much, why not become an Academy professor yourself?”
Holding onto a fervent wish to someday blast that irritating former assassin colleague with Combat Magic, Armandy set out for the desert.
Should he curse his fate as an agent of the Ability Management Bureau, or curse Radel for choosing the Horizon Knights instead of a closer training site?
As Armandy struggled with whom to resent—
Rustle.
The sand beneath his feet began to shift ominously.
As if something were about to rise from below.
And then it happened in an instant.
BOOM!
A thick-bodied monster burst out right before his eyes.
“A death worm!”
The massive, earthworm-like creature was a monster that hid beneath the sand and hunted by sensing vibrations on the surface.
“But why…?”
Armandy stared up at the death worm in a daze.
“Why me, walking alone…?”
He was alone, so the vibrations should have been small.
There were merchant caravans moving in groups somewhere in the desert.
Why him?
Armandy felt deeply wronged.
KIEEE!
As the death worm writhed, Armandy had no choice but to pull a staff from his robes.
This was not the Academy, so there was no need to hide his magical ability.
“You are dead.”
Just as Armandy was about to chant a spell—
“Kuh-hah! Looks like another traveler in trouble here!”
WHOOSH!
With a rough laugh, a massive sword flew through the air and embedded itself in the death worm’s body.
As if on cue, the Horizon Knights swarmed in.
From there, things ended quickly.
THUD!
The death worm, split cleanly in two, crashed onto the sand.
“Hey.”
Armandy looked at the commander of the Horizon Knights, who approached him after dealing with the monster and held out a hand.
“A handshake?”
As Armandy raised his own hand, the commander arched an eyebrow and said,
“Life fee.”
There really was not a single sane person here.
Armandy could only let out a hollow laugh.
***
Armandy arrived at the base area with the Horizon Knights.
Thankfully, Shartea recognized him, so he did not have to pay the life fee.
“Even though I am using an artifact that hides my presence, Her Highness still recognized me.”
She had recognized him because she had seen him many times in Raviedel, but being remembered by a member of the imperial family was something a secret agent needed to be wary of.
Resolving to keep an even lower profile from now on, Armandy headed toward where Radel was.
“He said he came for knight order training, so why is His Highness not fighting and instead…”
Then he saw it.
This was not Raviedel, yet the scene before him felt strangely familiar.
“Put more strength into it!”
“Warriors, we can do this!”
“Do not tire! Dig one more shovel before you rest!”
The Lizardmen were each holding a shovel and digging a pit as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
He had already seen Lizardmen farming and swinging pickaxes in Raviedel, but Lizardmen shoveling dirt was a different kind of shock.
As Armandy stood there, speechless, Radel, wearing a straw hat, waved calmly from the distance.
“Armandy, you are here. I was waiting.”
Armandy asked in a daze,
“You… you knew I would come?”
“Yes. With this many imperial family members involved, someone had to come. I thought the chances were high that it would be you.”
It was just like Radel to see straight through the internal workings of the Ability Management Bureau.
“Anyway, good work getting here. Knowing you are here with us now is reassuring.”
“Ahem. Are you not placing too much expectation on me?”
Armandy cleared his throat and looked away.
But Radel’s gaze remained completely serious.
“Of course I am relying on you a great deal. I am always grateful.”
“Honestly…”
Then Radel smiled at him brightly.
“Then shall we start working now?”