Chapter 749: Banquet

The Mage Country’s traitor was discovered three days after archmage Akama’s assassination.

The traitor was Trant Sodar, an archmage of dark witchcraft. He excelled in death summoning and rune creation. He only lacked a convincing research result which was sufficient enough for him to join the Truth Symposium.

It was discovered that he was directly connected to the Chaos Abyss. He received orders from someone high up in the Chaos Abyss to murder his comrade, archmage Akama.

I wasn’t curious at all how the traitor had been discovered. The Mage Country had so many random mages with different specialties. Plus, Bardi’s specialists had also been investigating. The assassin had also acted right under the watchful eye of the dragons. It would be strange for the assassin to have managed to escape discovery.

Rather than cheat-like deductive ability like in detective stories which relied on science, all sorts of magic abilities and spells were of course far faster and more direct in being able to identify the culprit.

Prophecy magic, star reading magic, lie detection magic, and so on. People in this world wouldn’t care about human rights or evidence. Interrogation would only begin after catching and beating a suspect half to death. The suspect would also be force-fed hallucinogenic potions and truth potions and be interrogated while under hypnosis. Nobody would be able to refrain from telling the truth in such circumstances… unless they were capable of committing suicide first.

Of course, such a method which only cared about efficiency would also result in many false accusations. But in the current situation, finding the traitor at the quickest speed possible would definitely be the best way to assuage everyone.

The information that I received was relatively simple. Basically, Trant had confessed that he had been allured by the Chaos Abyss and that he had ambushed archmage Akama.

Indeed, it was possible for Trant to have killed prophecy archmage Akama in a single attack as Trant was a combat magic specialist. However, this conclusion was still difficult to accept for most.

Who was the true mastermind? Did Trant have other allies? There were many thoughts about such things, but the trail of clues had already been cut off. For the sake of not shaking everyone’s morale, a large-scale investigation wouldn’t be possible, as a major battle was upcoming.

A side effect of this was that everyone would likely be highly on guard against each other from now on.

Halent’s request for reinforcements had been quite successful. Reinforcements from all over kept arriving. However, from what I saw, not only did Halent view this battle against the Undead Emperors as an allied battle, he also viewed this as an opportunity to show off Bardi’s international status and power.

“Look, these are Bardi’s allies.”

In a way, this was no longer a war. Rather, it had become a show instead. This was a major business performance that absolutely required a beautiful victory.

Halent had used a huge amount of gold and resources to obtain concrete and powerful reinforcements from Bardi’s allies. Whether this was a good deal or not could be calculated afterwards. At the very least, this current scene indeed seemed quite majestic.

“Nine members of the Truth Symposium came as Bardi’s reinforcements? When counting Akama, that’s a double-digit number. Wow…”

10 years ago, there had only been 28 Truth Overseers of the Truth Symposium. As the Elemental Tide rose, in theory it would be the mage job class that benefited more than any other job class.

Many topics of research which were only theoretical before had now become reality thanks to the Elemental Tide’s activity. The result was that many archmages had gained much power as they became closer to gaining control over their own truth.

The Truth Symposium now had 31 Truth Overseers. Although this number didn’t seem like a big increase, there were actually 12 newcomers… Don’t misunderstand. Mages weren’t gladiators who always wanted to fight, and some Truth Overseers, not wanting the responsibility, had simply retired from their duties rather than died.

The Truth Symposium was the greatest authority in the Mage Country. However, many mages were only interested in their personal research, so they viewed being a Truth Overseer as nothing but trouble. They preferred to use their free time on performing more research rather than boring governmental tasks. Although it was an opportunity to scam more research funding for themselves, overall it was still a bad deal for their time.

Apart from archmages who had tremendous research expenditures, other archmages didn’t value the position of Truth Overseer at all. They were naturally willing to give up their own positions as Truth Overseers to any junior who was willing to take on the job. In fact, many Truth Overseers even intentionally schemed so that their disciples or descendants would take over the duty for them.

However, there were some things that everyone recognized. Arlodant, also known as the Mage Country, had more than doubled in combat strength over the past decade. The Mage Country had benefited immensely from the rise of the Elemental Tide.

It wasn’t only the top-level mages who increased in number. Originally, the mage job class was the most difficult job class to progress in power level for due to requiring control over the power of the elements, but after the Elemental Tide rose explosively, it became ridiculously easy for people to increase in power level as mages. In fact, there was even an abnormal instance when more than 100 mages improved in power level on the same day.

Another effect of the explosive increase in the Elemental Tide was that many taboo or theoretical constructs in ancient texts and diagrams could now be created in reality. Alchemists and magical puppeteers were basically having celebratory parties on a daily basis. Summoners were summoning strange creatures from other dimensions which they were unable to handle. Even the taboo undead mages were increasing in power ever since Hell’s establishment.

The Mage Country was considered on par with other human mega empires to begin with. However, its territory was pitifully tiny in comparison. The Mage Country’s combat strength depended entirely on its mages. Now that the mages’ power level had massively increased, naturally the country’s power also massively increased as well. Saying that the Mage Country’s power had doubled in comparison to a decade ago was only a conservative estimate.

Unfortunately, some things still hadn’t changed. For instance, how the Mage Country had such a loose organizational structure…

According to current estimates, after the past decade of accumulation, there were now more than 200 mages from the Mage Country who had achieved Truth emblem power level. However, there were less than 50 mages of such a power level whose contact information was known. It was likely that less than 30 of them would be willing to be sent out to fight. Additionally, the ones who were willing to fight would only do it as a favor or in exchange for some type of knowledge.

With that being the situation, sending out 10 Truth Overseers at once along with several Truth level archmages who weren’t Truth Overseers as reinforcements to Bardi counted as having sent out more than half of the Mage Country’s highest-level combat strength.

“The Mage Country is being so generous. Just what benefits did Halent promise to them? I doubt that it would be something like giving additional territory to the Mage Country. Territory is nothing but a burden for the Mage Country. Halent probably promised some type of ancient knowledge. Nothing ordinary would possibly lure so many old mages into all working together at once,” I muttered to myself while observing the archmages before me.

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Currently, I was at a banquet that Halent had organized for the reinforcements who were being treated as guests of honor.

Due to certain events in the past, such as my acting ridiculously and arrogantly several times at the Truth Symposium… erm, I meant having friendly discussions with the Truth Symposium, many of the reinforcements were archmages who I knew already.

Aloso, ice magic archmage from the Mystical Blade mage organization. He was truly a nice person, a rarity among archmages. He also had a big belly. He was currently licking a strawberry-flavored ice cream bar, a specialty of Bardi’s, with a serious expression… His face then reddened when he saw me. He turned his pudgy body around to face away from me as he lowered his head and continued to lick the ice cream bar.

Amala, who was Margaret’s mage teacher. She was from the Star Revelation mage organization, and she always liked to pretend to be really young… ahem, I meant that Amala was forever young and beautiful. Please, put back that monster you’re hiding in the shadows!

Meanwhile, an old archmage with a white beard I didn’t recognize was smiling at me. He was even proudly pointing at the Truth emblem on his chest…

“Who are you? Stop acting so familiar with me.”

“Y-you… Roland!! I’m Kaid! I’m earth magic archmage Kaid, your fellow classmate for many years!”

“…Lolicon Kaid? You’re still alive? Are you here to return the 100,000 gold coins that you owe me?”

“Of course I’m still alive! I wouldn’t die even if you became nothing but ashes! No, wait, it was clearly only 100 gold coins! No, wait, you were the one who owed me money! I was almost fooled by you! Aaah! You’re doing this yet again! I’m not a lolicon! There’s nothing wrong with liking young girls! No, wait, I’m not a pervert!”

“Such a familiar chain of comments. You really are lolicon Kaid, after all.”

I sympathetically looked at the white-bearded old man, and then handed him a drink in a friendly manner.

As he was getting older, he had said too much in one go, which caused him to constantly cough. He didn’t notice that the other mages around him were silently backing away from him. It was likely that all little girls would be staying far away from him when Kaid returned to the Mage Country.

“Hah, hah, you do have a conscience, after all… Ptui, what is this!?”

Kaid immediately collapsed before he could say anything else. His face was really red and burning up as he collapsed.

I checked the tag on the drink I had handed to him. Oh, this was Dwarven Ent Wine? The wine famous for being able to defeat even dragons? Who left such a drink out at the banquet table?

Kaid was now smiling mysteriously while lying on the floor and constantly grabbing at nothing in the air with his hands. Seeing how everyone else was looking at him with strange expressions, I felt that from tomorrow onwards, not only would young girls and misses stay far away from him, all women would be staying far away from him.

“Pitiful Kaid…”

I made a cross on his chest as if praying for him.

“The most pitiful part about him is that he met you.” As always, Harloys’ retort came just on time. However, she looked much different from usual today.

Her pretty face had a happy smile. Her shiny silken smooth golden hair reached her waist. She was wearing a black formal dress and golden moon earrings, a perfect match for her that made her seem noble yet mysterious.

As she was the Elven Empress as well as a Truth level archmage, Harloys was naturally the center of attention. When considering how she was the diplomatic representative of the Elven Empire, she could only appear like this in public.

Of course, people would take her more seriously only if she took on an adult form.

For me, I only recognized some among the Truth level archmages who had come to Bardi. However, Harloys knew almost all of the archmages.

It was quite simple for her to easily call out an archmage’s nickname from their younger days, or mention embarrassing moments from their acolyte days without being too damaging to their face, causing ripples of laughter among the crowd.

It was to be expected as Harloys had lived in the Mage Country by herself for so many years already. Now that she appeared to be really young, it helped her to soon get along with the archmages. Everyone exclaimed over her astonishing knowledge and connections. She was soon surrounded.

Considering how most archmages had rather “special” personalities, it was quite rare for them to all get along so well with someone.

Actually, I was also quite well known in mage society. Not only was I a top-level undead mage and ice mage, I had also previously prophesized in public at the Cloud Tower about the danger of the Holy War, along with spreading the new technology of magical engineering. I had left the mages with a deep impression.

As my prophecies were proved to be real, and as magical engineering proved its limitless potential, I was viewed as an astonishingly talented prophet and received the fame that I deserved.

After I “killed” Kaid, the archmages who had originally wanted to chat with me decided instead to wisely keep their distance… Sheesh, in this day and age, even a magical pet was more popular than her master.

Even though this was such rare free time for me, I suddenly felt a headache when I heard a familiar young female voice speaking to me from behind my back.

“Father. Mother is inviting you to come over.”