"Mm. That's right. I knew all along." Adam admitted the fact as lightly as if it were nothing at all.
But those few words set off all the others at once.
"If you knew all along, why didn't you stop it sooner? So many people—so many people died!" Cristel covered her mouth, her voice thick with tears. Hearing this news on top of the sight of the Mage Continent, the girl—already driven to the brink of collapse by the deaths unfolding before her eyes day after day—finally burst. She suddenly felt that she had been an idiot this past month, played in the palm of someone's hand.
The others all stepped back at once, closing Adam in the middle. This time Adam's conduct had crossed a line in their hearts; they could not bear it any longer.
Adam watched their reactions and found them interesting, so for once he spoke at length. "You seem to think it's my duty to act with your interests in mind?"
Quentin said furiously, "With our interests in mind? What nonsense are you dreaming up! There are only six of us left now, and only now do you end the beast tide. Ha—is it because there's no one left to die in your place? You despicable bastard."
Adam was not angry. "I never made anyone die in my place."
Quentin was so furious he laughed instead. "Then how do you figure you're still alive? Without everyone's help, on your own?"
"You've got it wrong. My surviving to this point has nothing to do with any of you. If anything, the reason you're standing here talking to me instead of being a corpse eaten by magical beasts is my help." Adam said it without the least courtesy.
At that, Quentin's face went red and he could not think what to say. He bellowed a few furious times and turned his eyes on the others.
Adam paid him no mind and went on. "You should learn to take responsibility for yourself instead of shifting it onto others. I have the strength to survive, so I get to decide my own methods. But I have no obligation to look after your feelings."
Quentin could not take any more. He gathered a Fireball, meaning to risk his life against Adam; Randy, quick as could be, canceled the magic. For some reason, he felt that what Adam had said was not wrong.
"Quentin, forget it. Let's go." Randy was on good terms with Quentin and could not stand by while Quentin clashed head-on with Adam, especially when even the two of them together were no match for him.
"No—stop!"
"Look out!"
No one had expected Adam to retaliate, and to go straight for the kill: ten Fireballs in all. If they struck Randy and Quentin, there would be no bones left of them. But there was nothing they could do; neither their casting speed nor their numbers were enough to cancel Adam's magic.
Quentin and Randy went white. They smelled something familiar—the smell of death—and this time it was thicker than it had ever been. They had even closed their eyes, hearts full of grief. We made it, we finally made it all the way here, right on the doorstep of the Mage Continent—and now I'm going to die. At the hands of a "companion."
Just then a curtain of water fell from the sky and blocked Randy and Quentin. The screen looked like the thinnest of films, yet its defense was beyond imagining; the ten Fireballs winked out like sparks.
Then Mage Irene appeared on the deck out of nowhere. No one had seen how she moved; it was as if she had been standing there all along.
"Well, well. Only six little ones left? I couldn't very well stand by and watch you kill these two."
"It is an honor to meet you, honored Mage Irene." All six bowed in unison. Quentin and Randy, snatched back from death, looked at Mage Irene brimming with gratitude, then fixed venomous eyes on Adam.
Adam found it very strange. Human values really were strange. It never once occurred to them that it was the Mages' decision that had caused all those deaths; instead they laid the whole blame on Adam's head.
What's this called? Picking on the weak and cowering before the strong? Or choosing the lesser of two evils? Adam thought.
"Honored Mage Irene, I request that Adam be punished. He—" Quentin could not wait to lodge his complaint, like a ridiculous clown.
Mage Irene glanced at him, her brows knitting slightly. "Mm. That's enough." With that she paid Quentin no further attention; in her heart she had already crossed him off. A temperament like that plainly could not survive in the Mage World.
"Adam, you're quite good. Since you knew all along that the rune group had a flaw, why wait until now to shatter it? Tell me the answer, and those secondary ether crystals are yours." Mage Irene questioned Adam with a smile. At present Adam was only an apprentice while Irene was already a Mage, and the gap between their levels of life was vast. Yet Irene was almost certain that, so long as Adam did not die young, he would inevitably become a full-fledged Mage.
Which was why her attitude was so agreeable.
"First, the flaw was too obvious. I don't believe the wisdom of Mages would leave a loophole like that."
Mage Irene nodded. "Correct. If you had shattered it at the very start, what awaited you would have been an even harsher test. For instance—swimming to the Mage Continent." Irene covered her mouth and giggled wickedly, apparently finding the picture very amusing.
"Of course, apart from Adam, people with wisdom will always be given preferential treatment."
"Second, it was interesting—an experience I've never had before. I can collect a great deal of new information and observation from it, especially since it posed no danger to me."
Mage Irene nodded again and again. In a Mage's eyes, the value of lower life-forms lay entirely in whether they were useful to Mages; as for whether those lower lives lived or died, no one cared. The more she considered it, the more interesting Adam seemed: setting aside the gulf in level of life and in power, his way of thinking was already much like a Mage's.
Ophelia and the others felt a chill run through them as they listened. Even though the past month had made them expect that so-called academy life could never be as peaceful and pleasant as they had once imagined, hearing this conversation "between Mages" still stirred regret and fear in them. They doubted they could adapt to such a life.
Mage Irene said, "Interesting. They're yours." Then she clapped her hands. "Well then, little ones, here's some good news. Starting today, you may go back inside the cabin and enjoy life. The Mordo Academy will reach Karachi Port on the Mage Continent in three days, and from there we'll take a short-range teleportation formation to Mordo Mage Academy. Your brand-new lives will begin very soon."
This was obviously the best news they could possibly have gotten. The apprentices' taut nerves let go all at once; strength seemed to vanish from their bodies and they nearly collapsed where they stood. No one cared about appearances now; everyone gulped down the air greedily—the air called safety.
A month of high-intensity battle, a month of death arriving at every moment, had left them not a single instant of comforting rest. Even if spiritual power could replace sleep, the weariness of the heart could not be made up for.
That one month left a deep shadow in the hearts of the five besides Adam: the original sin called weakness. Every one of them, from the bottom of his heart, longed for power, longed to hold his own fate in his hands—at the very least, to be able to choose to live in peace.
Still, it was not entirely without benefit. At least they were far more mature than before: they understood that being fortunate enough to set foot on the path of the Mages did not mean being lucky—it meant they must strive all the harder for knowledge and resources, with everything they had.
Having said her piece, Mage Irene left in that same incomprehensible manner. Clearly, saving Quentin and Randy had been incidental; her real purpose had been to collect those few chunks of the substance called secondary ether crystal. In other words, the days of fighting magical beasts should have ended today in any case.
Adam's relations with the other apprentices truly hit rock bottom. Ophelia and Cristel no longer kept him company; William maintained the distance he had always kept; Quentin and Randy made no secret of their hatred, and Adam judged that given the opportunity, those two would strike at him without a moment's hesitation.
Of course, they would get no opportunity. Life was the foundation of Adam's pursuit of knowledge; whatever threatened Adam's life, no matter what it was, ought to be destroyed—before they ever made their move.
Adam became the forgotten man. During those three days even Cristel was accepted, and Ophelia agreed to attend the reception—but no one invited Adam.
The sailors appeared once more. They no longer looked at the apprentices with that strange, faintly mocking gaze; in its place was pure awe. The magical beasts had been a trial, and the apprentices who had passed it now held a status far above their own. They had to show awe—or pay with their lives.
During those three days, apart from eating, Adam never once left his room. He kept optimizing the spiritual power solidification rune and studying the secondary ether crystals.
This was a kind of high-energy crystal, and to an apprentice it should be a very important thing.
Secondary did not mean the crystal's purity was low; it meant it was better suited to an apprentice's use. So long as one held a fragment, one could turn into a gun emplacement, casting magic continuously without pause until the energy within the crystal was exhausted.
"No wonder Mage Blake said an energy vein is only the lowest grade of usable resource. It seems that, among apprentices and Mages alike, ether crystals are the energy that carries real value."
Adam stopped his experiments and put the three fragments away. A small amount of this stuff could not be all that precious, but in an apprentice's earliest stage it was enough to provide enormous help.
The three days passed in a flash. With a shrill blast of the whistle, Adam came up on deck. A great many ships had abruptly appeared alongside the Mordo Academy; during the previous three months Adam had never once caught sight of a single vessel passing them, and only now, just before they reached port, did he see them—which made one marvel at just how vast this ocean was.
"A continent where Mages live. A city where Mages dwell." Everyone was full of anticipation. The long voyage, the countless lives—all of it was for the sake of setting foot on this land of miracles. They all hoped to catch their first sight of it.
The four Mages all came onto the deck at once. They no longer needed to breathe, and yet they still drew a breath of the Mage Continent's air with relish.
Mage Blake said softly, "Now this is a place fit for living, isn't it?"
At the same time, at the very front of the deck, Cristel cheered, "I see it! I see it! The Mage Continent—it's amazing!"