Published at 27th of February 2020 5:44 am

Volume 4, Behind the Scenes

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

“What is the meaning of this?!”

Yuuri, the Head Magician of the Court Mage Division, strode into a room full of mages.

The mages inside of the room all looked at Yuuri in surprise because of his unusual mood as he entered the room without knocking and was striding.

“Of what?” However, Airhart, the Deputy Head Magician, replied in a calm manner while not even raising his face from the documents in his hand when Yuuri slammed his hands down on the table before him.

The mood around them instantly worsened and everyone in the room turned pale.

“Don’t give me that! Why have they already left!?” Yuuri said angrily and Airhart raised his head; but he didn’t look upset.

Airhart had predicted that Yuuri would storm in here while yelling.

Sei was being sent to Klaussner, and there was a big dispute on who was going to go with her.

Of course, this extended to the 2nd Knight Order, who worshiped Sei, and the 3rd Knight Order, who had a good relationship with her.

In addition, Yuuri strongly wanted to go with her.

It was extremely rare for both the Captain of the Knight Order and the Head Magician of the Court Mage Division to both participate on a subjugation mission, like they had at the West Forest.

The reason for this was because the power of both combined was too great for missions and above all else, the Royal Palace’s defences would be weaker.

Despite that, there were 3 reasons why both of them were allowed to participate in that mission.

First, the 【Saint】was participating in the mission.

Second, they had received a lot of damage from the West Forest before.

And lastly, the West Forest was close to the Royal Capital, so it was possible for them to return straight away if something were to happen.

Yuuri was able to participate because of these reasons and various alterations.

However, this time the mission was at a different fief.

If something were to happen at the Royal Capital, then they wouldn’t be able to come back straight away.

Thus, it was impossible for two leaders to go.

At that point, Yuuri wasn’t considered as a candidate because he acted independently and wasn’t suited to lead a team.

However, Airhart had predicted that Yuuri wouldn’t give up even if he told him the reasons for this because Sei was participating.

Yuuri was extremely bitter that he hadn’t been able to observe the 【Saint】technique because they had been busy fighting demons in the West Forest.

Even though Sei couldn’t control the technique yet, she was going to Klaussner and there was a high possibility that there was a black swamp there, which meant that it was highly probable for her to activate the technique again.

Yuuri couldn’t miss this chance.

Airhart devised a plan in response to Yuuri’s unyielding attitude.

It was extremely hard to execute, but he accelerated Sei’s departure date so that Yuuri wouldn’t find out about it.

To put it correctly, he only made it so that the day Yuuri was informed was later than her departure date.

However, it was necessary to prepare for the journey and Yuuri might suspect something if he saw that.

Airhart needed to camouflage that in different ways, so he enlisted the help of his younger brother, the Captain of the 3rd Knight Order.

The reward was that he would support the 3rd Knight Order in this mission.

Of course, Alberto was more than willing to cooperate with him.

Alberto wasn’t the only one he’d asked to cooperate with him.

He also asked Sei and Johan, the Director of the Medicinal Herb Research Institute, to help him.

The Research Institute was deeply involved in the preparations for the journey, because they delivered potions to the knights.

Moreover, Sei met with Yuuri a lot because of her magic training.

There was a high chance that the actual departure date would slip from Sei’s mouth, so he had to stop her either by forbidding her to talk about it or by getting Johan to inform her of the wrong departure date.

Fortunately for him, Sei and Johan both knew Yuuri well and readily cooperated with him.

Especially Johan who cheerfully accepted because Airhart was easily swayed by Yuuri.

Probably because someone, who Airhart won’t name, faced a lot of trouble cleaning up his and his subordinate’s mess.

“It appears that they departed ahead of schedule.”

“Ahead? I never heard anything about this.

“You can’t go anyway. There’s no need for you to hear about it.”

“I’m the Head of this department.”

“You usually don’t do any desk work. Is there a need for you to hear about it?” Airhart pointed out and Yuuri held his tongue.

“Argh…”

Yuuri didn’t cling to his position and was fine as long as he had a place to research.

However, he came into an influential position because he was adopted and became the Head Magician.

And, Airhart, the second son of the Hawk House, famous for their military prowess, was appointed as the Deputy Head Magician, since Yuuri, who was originally a commoner, was interested in nothing other than research.

It was well-known that Yuuri was just a Head Magician for show because of political reasons and he knew this himself as well.

Yuuri was delighted that he was able to devote himself to his research and dumped all his desk work onto Airhart.

Airhart did the work that the head of the department did and he faced a lot of hardships, but that all paid off since he was able to hide the departure date from Yuuri this time.

“Even if I don’t do desk work, I do subjugate demons, so you can tell me about the subjugation missions can’t you?”

“You’re being really persistent. Don’t tell me you were planning on sneaking off with them?”

Airhart glared at Yuuri, who flinched for a second, and then looked sour.

This was proof that Airhart had hit the bullseye.

Airhart was shocked and relieved at the same time as he sighed.

“I fully intended to explain why you couldn’t go on the subjugation mission…”

Yuuri didn’t look sulky even though he was receiving a condemning glance from Airhart.

Airhart sighed again and decided that it was great that Yuuri didn’t throw a fit.

And he told Yuuri to do desk work once in a while before handing him some work to do.

The Court Mage Division continued on with their days as normal after that dispute.

This situation changed when Alberto, who was in Klaussner, sent a scheduled report to the Royal Palace.

“The demons in Klaussner have also increased greatly after all.”

“Yes. But, they’re still able to deal with it right now.”

“They haven’t discovered a black swamp…?”

“It appears not. However, we have received a report stating that there might be one.”

The Prime Minister responded to the King.

The Prime Minister called for Airhart the day after they’d received the report.

The Prime Minister explained the situation in Klaussner when each of the Knight Captains and department heads were gathered in the designated room.

They had called me here instead of Yuuri because it was better for me to hear about this rather than him. This was what Airhart had thought when he heard the information.

“In regards to【Saint-sama】, it has been reported that she is able to activate the technique that she’s been having trouble with.”

“That is good news.”

A smile appeared on the King’s face when he heard that the 【Saint】could activate the technique at will.

The people who were with him also had smiles on their faces.

And they were all able to guess why Yuuri wasn’t summoned to this meeting.

Basically, Yuuri was good at acting like a wolf in sheep’s clothing in public, but it was widely known that he would run wild when it came to things that interested him.

Yuuri was so enthusiastic about magic research that he was ridiculed as a magic idiot and would often head out alone to subjugate demons that needed several people to defeat for the sake of his research.

The thing that Yuuri was interested in the most right now was the 【Saint】technique.

It was natural for everyone around to fear that he might head to Klaussner alone if he heard that Sei could now activate the technique.

The Prime Minister asked, “Are there any questions?” after he finished explaining the situation in Klaussner, the 2nd Knight Order Captain, Rudolph Aiblinger, raised his hand and everyone turned towards him, “They haven’t discovered the black swamp yet, but do they require aid?”

“They probably won’t need aid. They’re receiving help from the local mercenary team and are searching every nook and cranny of Klaussner for it. It’ll only be a matter of time before they find it,” the Prime Minister answered Rudolph’s question.

His tone sounded a little amazed because he knew what Rudolph’s motives were.

A lot of people from the 2nd Knight Order started to worship Sei when she stopped hiding the fact that she could use holy magic.

The first time Sei had used her magic was to heal all the injured knights who had returned from Ghosh Forest.

The 2nd and 3rd Knight Orders had participated in this subjugation mission together, so Sei had also healed a lot of knights from the 2nd Knight Order.

The magic that Sei had used had enough power to heal lost limbs, which is said to be hard to accomplish; and most of the knights who worshipped her in the 2nd Knight Order were those who had their limbs restored by her at that time.

And the person leading them was the 2nd Knight Order’s Vice-Captain.

It was well-known that the Vice-Captain collapsed in public when it was decided that the 3rd Knight Order would be going on the mission.

Rudolph, the Captain of the 2nd Knight Order had accidentally heard the Vice-Captain and knights curse him when he wasn’t around and wanted to do something about it.

And he wanted to bring it up at this meeting.

Of course Rudolph wanted to dispatch some people from the 2nd Knight Order so that he could relieve their resentment, if only just by a little.

No one wanted their subordinates to hate them.

This information was leaked to the Prime Minister since he knew a lot about the Captain and Vice-Captain of the 2nd Knight Order.

“Do we not have to find it quickly?”

“The demons’ spawn rates have been suppressed by 【Saint-sama】being there, so there’s no need for us to quickly provide aid.”

“I heard that a lot of demons appear around black swamps, so do you need to send more people there?”

“The 3rd Knight Order, who are accompanying her, were able to deal with the swamp in the West Forest. It is dangerous, but everything should be fine since they already have experience in dealing with it.”

Rudolph looked down when the Prime Minister refused him curtly.

As the Prime Minister, he didn’t want to send more personnel to Klaussner than needed.

Because they needed various resources to dispatch people.

They decided to maintain and keep an eye on the current situation and the meeting ended.

A few days after the meeting, Airhart felt uneasy because he hadn’t seen Yuuri all morning.

Usually, he didn’t care if Yuuri holed up in the training grounds, but he had a hunch that something bad would happen.

He instructed the nearby mage to go to the training grounds and look for Yuuri and then went to the room where the mages were.

He looked around the room and confirmed that Yuuri wasn’t there.

He asked the mages if they’d seen Yuuri and received a surprising answer.

“He’s heading to the subjugation?”

“Y-yes.”

“By himself?”

“No, he took other mages with him too.”

Airhart frowned when he heard the mage’s answer.

It was common for Yuuri to go to the nearby forest alone to improve his magic.

However, he seldom went with others.

Airhart frowned deeper when he heard the names of the people Yuuri took with him, because Aira was amongst them.

Yuuri had concluded that Aira wasn’t the 【Saint】, but it hadn’t been made public yet; so there were still people who thought that Aira, who was summoned along with Sei, was a 【Saint】and gave her special treatment.

Those people thought that Aira was assigned to the Court Mage Division so that she could improve her 【Saint】abilities.

That didn’t mean that there weren’t people in the Court Mage Division who gave her some special treatment.

The people who saw that Yuuri was acting out of the norm were a little worried.

However, none of them stopped him since Aira was involved and they thought that there was a special reason behind this.

Airhart put his hand to his head when he heard this because he was coming down with a headache.

Then, Rudolph, the 2nd Knight Order Captain, rushed in.

The mages all concentrated their attention at Rudolph, because he looked flustered.

Rudolph, who looked grim, caught his breath at the entrance before walking towards Airhart.

The bad feeling swelled up within Airhart and he stared at Rudolph.

“What happened?”

“My knights went to the subjugation with the mages.”

“They did?”

“Yeah. I heard that they were going to go to the West Forest to subjugate demons, but they aren’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re heading towards Klaussner.”

A vein popped up on Airhart’s head when he heard the name of their destination.

The nearby mages noticed this and stepped away from him.

Airhart thought that Yuuri was the culprit behind this but Rudolph didn’t think so, because the knights who’d disappeared from the 2nd Knight Order were all those who had wanted to go with Sei.

Rudolph thought that the knights had planned this and took the court mages with them so that it would seem like they were going to subjugate around the Royal Palace.

The person who planned this would probably be punished if this were to be made public, but they had probably prioritised Sei over punishment.

Honestly, faith was terrifying.

Incidentally, they had left the Vice-Captain behind.

They couldn’t be sure if this was because the knights thought that it would become an even more serious matter if the Vice-Captain were to come with them.

“I’m sorry that our knights got your division involved in this.”

“No, we might be the ones behind this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our Head Magician is missing,” Airhart said and Rudolph froze with his mouth opened; but he quickly closed it and suggested that they inform the Prime Minister.

Given the circumstances, Airhart could only nod meekly to Rudolph’s suggestion.

Thus, the two quickly left the Court Mage Division building.

◊♦◊♦◊♦◊

Rewind time a little.

Aira was at the Royal Palace standing at the place where they often gathered for subjugations.

People from the 2nd Knight Order were busy piling supplies onto the wagon in front of her.

She was supposed to be doing desk work all day at the Court Mage Division.

And yet, she was here in the plaza because Head Magician Yuuri had instructed so.

Yuuri suddenly took her out while she was doing her work at the Court Mage Division and lightly said, “We’re going on a subjugation.”

Aira wasn’t the only one that he had called out to.

She felt as if she had been chosen because she happened to be close to him, since he had dragged several nearby magicians with him as well.

And Aira was correct.

Yuuri hadn’t been selective about who he had chosen.

She felt anxious as she looked at the people who were preparing for the subjugation.

This feeling wasn’t directed towards the subjugation.

She was more optimistic about the subjugation than usual.

She joined the Court Mage Division after graduating from the Royal Academy, so she had participated in subjugations many times.

She had grown quite used to it compared to the first time she was confronted with a demon.

She was nervous but she had nothing to be anxious about.

Moreover, they were going to Ghosh Forest, also known as the West Forest, located to the west of the Royal Capital.

The West Forest was famous for the amount of demons that spawned in it, but that had decreased ever since Sei went on a subjugation mission there.

Even if demons did appear, they didn’t appear in great numbers like what Sei and the others had encountered during their mission.

This time, they were going on a subjugation because a large demon had been spotted at the edge of the forest and the Head Magician would also be coming along.

He wasn’t interested in anything other than magic, and he was definitely skilled in anything to do with magic.

Even if a large demon had appeared, there should only be one or, at most, several.

As long as Yuuri, the rumoured battle maniac, was here, then she didn’t think that anything hazardous would happen.

So why am I so anxious?

Aira didn’t know the reason behind this feeling.

However, as she gazed at the wagons, she thought that the amount of provisions being placed onto them were too much for the West Forest.

After a while, the preparations finished and everyone left for their destination.

The West Forest was a distance away from the Royal Capital, so some people were sitting in the covered wagons.

The Court Mages were all in one wagon.

There were benches inside of the wagon and a canopy at the back.

The seating arrangements hadn’t been decided beforehand, so the mages got on and sat from the back first.

Aira sat in the middle.

While they were moving, she talked with her colleagues about which type of demons they would encounter the most during this subjugation.

Once they finished talking about that, they began chatting idly.

She suddenly became curious about something and looked at Yuuri who was sitting in front of her.

Yuuri hadn’t said anything even though the other mages had been talking and he was contemplating about something.

(What is he thinking about?)

When she had first met Yuuri, she couldn’t take her eyes off him because of his artificial beauty, but she had gotten used to it ever since she started working at the Court Mage Division.

She might have been attracted to him if she saw him from afar, but she wasn’t because she saw how he interacted with Airhart every day.

It could also be said that her illusions were destroyed earlier on.

Who said that he was someone to be admired…?

That was why she wasn’t fascinated by Yuuri’s face, but he met her eye probably because she had been staring at him.

“What is it?”

“Ah, nothing…” Aira was too embarrassed to reply to Yuuri.

This time, it was his turn to stare at her even though she had quickly averted her gaze.

She ignored him for a while, but she couldn’t endure the gaze that was piercing at her side, so she timidly turned back.

Even though they both worked at the Court Mage Division, Yuuri was the Head Magician and Aira was only a mage, so they rarely interacted with each other.

Although she was summoned together with Sei through the 【Saint Summoning Ceremony】, Yuuri wasn’t interested in her because she couldn’t use the 【Saint】technique, so he had never initiated conversation with her.

And Aira wasn’t the type of person to talk to her superior if she didn’t have any business with them, so they hadn’t interacted much at all.

Therefore, Aira was hesitant to ask Yuuri the question that was on her mind, but she couldn’t come up with a good answer so she asked what she thought without reserve, “You seemed deep in thought so I was wondering what you were thinking about…”

“Oh. I was thinking about magic.”

Only Aira and Yuuri’s voices resounded throughout the wagon that had now become quiet.

The mages, who had been chatting up until now, stopped to pay attention to Aira and Yuuri, since they were an unusual pair.

The mages had expected Yuuri’s answer and Aira accepted that the answer he gave was exactly like one a rumoured battle maniac would give.

“About magic?”

“Yeah. About the 【Saint】technique.”

“The one Sei-san can use?”

Aira remembered about her older friend who had come from the same world as her when she heard the word 【Saint】.

This time, Yuuri’s eyes slightly widened at the name she had unintentionally said.

“You know her? Or rather…” Yuuri noticed something while speaking and stared at Aira’s face.

Even though Aira had friends at the Royal Academy who had beautiful features, she felt uncomfortable at being stared at by her male boss who had an even more handsome face.

However, that feeling quickly faded.

After a second, Yuuri put his hand to his face and nodded as if he had just remembered something.

“You’re the girl from the same world as her.”

“I am…”

“Hmmm.”

It appeared that Yuuri was satisfied with his question and once again sunk into the sea of thought.

Aira was flustered, wondering what was going on and Yuuri asked her another question, “Do you talk with Sei often?”

“Huh? No… I wonder? I might talk with her more than others… We have tea together every once in a while.”

“I see. So, you do.”

Objectively speaking, Aira didn’t know if she talked to Sei a lot or not.

In fact, she had less chances to talk with Sei than her colleagues at the Medicinal Herb Research Institute did.

However, if she included everyone at the Royal Palace, then she did talk to Sei a lot.

At any rate, the only places that Sei visited apart from the research institute, was the Court Mage Division and the library.

So of course, she didn’t associate with many people.

And within that group of people she associated with, someone who she had tea with often could be considered close to her.

Sei didn’t associate with anyone in the Court Mage Division except for Yuuri and Airhart.

Yuuri concluded that Aira and Sei would be close since they came from the same world.

“What do you talk about when you’re together?”

“Well… We talk about the things we experience in our days. And also Japan… We talk about our previous country.”

“Your day… Does that also include magic?”

“Yes. We meet at the training grounds sometimes so we do talk about magic.”

“Did she say anything about the 【Saint】technique?”

“… She did. She was very annoyed that she couldn’t activate it at all.”

“So she hasn’t found the activation conditions after all……”

Other people would be interested in hearing about Japan, a country from a different world, but that didn’t apply to Yuuri at all because he was a magic idiot.

He had noticed that Sei had been trying to hide the fact that she was the 【Saint】ever since he had appraised her status.

From that, he thought that it was possible for Sei to declare that she couldn’t use the technique even though she could.

After interacting more and more with her, he felt that she was probably telling the truth, but he wanted to ask to make sure.

He also thought that she would spill the beans to someone she was close with, who was from the same world as her even if she couldn’t tell it to him.

Aira-chan also noticed that Yuuri had forcibly changed the subject to magic half way through because he wanted to hear about the 【Saint】technique.

Aira knew that Sei didn’t like being put up on the pedestal as a 【Saint】, so she said innocuous things.

Although, Yuuri did know about most the things Sei and Aira talked about.

In fact, her telling Yuuri about Sei not being able to use the 【Saint】technique was in line with this.

The thing she remained quiet about was how Sei would complain to her about how strict Yuuri’s training was.

Yuuri hadn’t obtained any new information, but he was able to talk about different things because he had confidence when it came to magic.

The conversation got really lively when they talked about magic manipulation.

Aira informed him that Sei had said magic manipulation was really useful in potion production, to which Yuuri nodded and the mages got noisy because this was the first time they’d heard about this.

They proceeded on the road in a peaceful manner and then the mage sitting near the entrance of the loading area raised his voice in suspicion, “Hey, aren’t we going the wrong way?”

“We are?”

“What’s wrong?”

The other mages near the entrance also looked outside and their expression changed.

They had been to the West Forest many times and they weren’t familiar with the scenery before them.

However, the coach of the other wagon didn’t look shocked.

“What’s going on?” The inside of the wagon became noisy.

The panic around her reminded her of the anxiety she had felt before leaving and she frowned as she felt a bad feeling swirl within her.

It’s probably better to ask the boss about this, right?

She thought and when she turned to face Yuuri, he had a small smile on his face as he rested his hands on his chin.

“Head Magician?” Aira asked dubiously because she found Yuuri’s expression to be suspicious and then all the mages looked at Yuuri.

The noisy wagon fell silent when they saw how calm Yuuri was.

“Do you know where we are right now?”

“… I’m not too sure, but we seem to be heading further west than Ghosh Forest.”

A mage near the entrance had answered when Yuuri had quietly asked this question and his smile grew deeper.

The mages all looked at each other because of Yuuri’s reaction.

“Head Magician, do you know where we’re going?”

“No, I don’t. But I can take a guess.”

“Where are we headed?”

“Probably Klaussner.”

The mages began to make a commotion at Yuuri’s answer.

They had heard that they would be going to the West Forest when Yuuri informed them that they were going on a subjugation mission.

There was no doubt in this because several mages remembered hearing it.

And it didn’t seem like Yuuri had tricked them.

In fact, Yuuri had replied himself that he didn’t know where they were going.

“This is a request from the 2nd Knight Order, so we should be heading to the West Forest, right?”

“That’s right.”

“So why can you predict where we’re going?”

“They took too much provisions with them for the West Forest and this is a request from the 2nd Knight Order.”

(I knew it…)

When she heard his words, she definitely remembered that there were a lot of provisions packed for the trip.

People weren’t goods, so she asked about the other reason.

“What do you mean by the 2nd Knight Order?”

“Because there’s a lot of people over there (2nd Knight Order) that love the 【Saint】~. Don’t you think they miss her a lot because they couldn’t go to Klaussner with her?” Yuuri answered while laughing cheerfully and the mages looked at each other.

Some of them were now pale because they understood that the current situation was a bad one.

“I was curious when we got the request, but I’m glad I joined in.”

The mages were deeply troubled when they saw Yuuri smiling cheerfully while thinking about what would happen next.

They had noticed that their destination had changed, but they wouldn’t be able to return to the Royal Capital while Yuuri was acting like this.

It seemed likely that Yuuri had accepted the proposal because like the 2nd Knight Order, he had also wanted to go to Klaussner with Sei.

In the first place, Yuuri had said he didn’t know where they were going but they couldn’t be sure that he hadn’t guessed the 2nd Knight Order’s plan.

He might possibly be conspiring with them.

Either way, they had no choice but to continue on to Klaussner.

After all, Airhart, the person who could stop Yuuri, wasn’t here right now.

Even if it becomes a problem later, their easy-going boss will take all the scolding.

Even if they don’t say anything, their excellent Deputy Head Magician will be able to guess it all.

The mages all shared their thoughts with a glance and sighed. They gave up on trying to change their destination.

Translator: Blushy

Editor: Sam

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