"So Your Excellency is the lord of Gaderia? A genuine pleasure. This old one is Qual."
"Nothing but an old man with one foot in the grave. What tea do you take? Black? Green? Or just plain water?"
"This old one isn't fussy."
Two aged voices, one after the other.
Qual, in a white coat, nudged his monocle straight and settled onto the sofa with an air of complete leisure.
A hand as gnarled as the roots of an ancient tree held out a cup of black tea.
"The black tea here is a little better."
Grey-haired Glück sat straight-backed across from him.
"Macht, if that's who you're after — he's still out handling business. Has something happened again?"
Glück lifted his own cup and took a sip, as though he already knew why Qual had come.
At that, Qual hooked one thick finger through the handle of his cup and drained it in a single swallow, heedless of the heat.
"Not bad." Having delivered his verdict, he went on. "This old one has a premonition. A war is about to begin — a conflict aimed at Gaderia."
And with that, Qual split his mouthful of shark teeth into a grin.
"Whoever the enemy turns out to be, Weise will stand with Gaderia. If not for that person, my whole family would already be dead at the hands of the Empire's assassins."
Glück's face stayed calm.
Just as Qual was about to say something, the office door swung open and a young man with a proud, striking bearing stepped inside.
"Grandfather—"
The word died halfway. The young man's gaze landed on Qual, seated there on the sofa, and his expression curdled.
"Why is there a Demon Race member in here?"
"Denn. Mind your manners."
Glück regarded the grandson he had raised with weary resignation.
The boy's attitude toward the Demon Race hadn't shifted an inch. He had none of Denken's tolerance.
"This is my grandson. You may have seen him before, back when he came to Gaderia."
"Is that so?"
Qual rose from his seat, grinning at the young man who had walked into the office.
"Stand right there. Don't move."
He raised the Black Staff he had been gripping all along, and something murderous surfaced in his narrow eyes.
"Er — what's this about? Grandfather, isn't this Demon Race member being unbelievably rude?"
Denn stopped where he was, his face full of anger.
"Lord Qual... what exactly is this?"
Then, half a beat too late, it hit Glück. "You're not Denn! Who are you?"
That grandson of his had never known caution in his life. Since when would he freeze in place merely because a Demon Race member pointed a staff at him?
And this was their own domain, with Glück himself sitting right there.
"Huh? Didn't expect to be found out this fast. Care to tell me how you noticed?"
The lively expressions on "Denn's" face collapsed all at once — cold and empty, as though he were one of the Demon Race.
"I caught the smell of blood on you. The one scent this old one knows best."
Even as he spoke, Qual set Killing Magic in motion.
But with the Mana barely gathered, he stopped.
"This old one... now what was it I meant to do?"
Glück's aged pupils shrank to points. What had just happened? Qual had been an instant from attacking — why had he stopped?
And in that brief span of confusion, "Denn" cast a different spell.
"Ah. This old one remembers now. Enemy."
Qual realized that a few seconds of his memory had been deleted without his ever noticing.
He'd been hit with it right in the middle of the standoff.
But when he readied his attack a second time, the enemy in front of him was simply gone.
He stood now on a boundless prairie, an unbroken sweep of green in every direction — the give of soil beneath his feet, the high plateau wind against his face. Every detail of it perfectly, impossibly real.
An illusion?
The reach of his Mana Perception had shrunk to barely more than a meter.
"Qual? What's wrong?"
Glück watched Qual turn his head this way and that in front of him, as if he had gone blind.
"It's no use. Even the Sage of Corruption, dropped into my Illusion Arts without warning, couldn't find his way out that quickly."
After all, Brother Miracle's Emotional Magic could deceive Demon Race and elves alike — everyone except followers of the Goddess with monstrous mental resistance, the likes of Heiter.
With the whole of his Emotional Magic apparently poured into the illusion binding Qual, Grausam let his disguise fall away.
"Right. We'll go around him and finish you off first. And how convenient — a Demon Race member from Gaderia, standing right here. Gaderia's representative murders the lord of its ally Weise. Betrayal between allies. Demon ambition. Excellent fodder for public opinion."
Grausam was already strolling closer as he spoke.
The nearer one drew to a target caught in an illusion, the easier it was for their Mana Perception to catch one's presence — all the more so for a monster like Qual.
And while sustaining the Illusion Arts, Grausam seemed unable to use anything highly offensive.
"It seems I really have gotten old."
Glück, still occupied with the question of whether the impostor's appearance meant his grandson was in danger, hadn't managed to form any plan for the situation in front of him.
Watching Grausam draw a dagger from behind his back, Glück understood that these old bones of his might well be buried here.
Even without magic, the Demon Race outmatched Humans in raw strength by a wide margin — let alone an old man who had never been fond of exercise.
"Miracle. Your magic has grown. Deleting a man's memory without so much as touching him, through conversation alone — this old one took quite a loss there," said Qual, who until a moment ago had been standing there peering blindly around like a headless chicken.
And in that same instant, an invisible barrier closed neatly around both Qual and Glück.
"Barrier magic?!"
Grausam drove the dagger twice into the empty air, and twice an unseen wall turned it aside.
"This is magic refined out of the spell the Humans once used to seal me. Let's see which burns Mana faster — you keeping up that illusion, or me keeping up this barrier."
Qual grinned, that vast reservoir of Mana of his flaunting itself without the slightest restraint.
The entire illusion shuddered.
And more than that — genius that he was among the Demon Race, he was picking apart Grausam's magic even as he held the barrier.
He was a Demon older than the Seven Sages of Destruction. In sheer volume of Mana, there were few in this world who could stand beside him.
"Demon. You talked far too much just now. Had you moved a little faster, you might really have killed me."
Satisfied that he was safe, Glück actually drew a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, shook one loose, and unhurriedly fished a box of matches out after it.
He lit up and smoked it right in front of Grausam.
"So I was the careless one after all."
There was no breaking Qual's barrier, no matter how he tried — and releasing the mind-illusion on the old Demon now would only invite Killing Magic straight back in his face.
"Qual, in Weise, of all the coincidences. My luck really is rotten."
...
Elsewhere.
Macht and Schlacht stood facing one another.
"I'm not stopping you. Won't you try rushing back to save your lord?"
"You can see how the future turns out. Whether I head back sooner or later changes nothing."
Somewhere north of ten minutes passed.
Schlacht closed his eyes.
"I concede. You win. The next time we meet, we'll be enemies."
The two Demon Race members turned their backs on each other and walked off in opposite directions.
____
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