Ankoku Kishi Monogatari ~Yuusha wo Taosu Tameni Maou ni Shoukansaremashita~

… … …

◆ Black-haired Sage, Chiyuki

While flying above Kisonia Great Prairie, I could see people running across the prairie below me.

The ones running across of the prairie possess the upper body of a human and lower body of a horse – centaurs.

Those centaurs are looking at us in panic.

The cause might be me. I’m currently riding on a griffon, after all. They might be afraid of the griffon.

There are many races inhabiting this Kisonia Great Prairie. The representatives of them are the centaur race below us and the satyr race who have the lower body of a goat and upper body of a human.

Though I felt excited at first when I saw those races which only came out in a myth, that fantasy of mine was smashed by the current cruel reality.

Centaur race is a lustful race who rush at us upon seeing us, save for one part of them. Though we can drive them away, it seems their race is composed of nothing but men, and thus will assault female human for the sake of perpetuation of their race.

Though that was one of the reasons that smashed my fantasy, when I think about it again, they also have that kind of personality in the myth about them.

Though I was deeply moved when I saw the dragon from the myth, those dragons are fiendish existences for human of this world. That characteristic also doesn’t change from the myths in my original world.

It’s the difference between hearing the story and seeing the reality. Though we can just laugh it off due to our power, in fact, this world is a cruel world for humans to live in. I must never forget about that fact.

And properly speaking, the griffon itself is a huge demon beast after all.

「Even so, they’re cute, aren’t they…」

I slowly brush the griffon.

The griffon is a demonic beast that is a composition of the body of a lion, a pair of wings, and the head of an eagle. They’re usually living in the middle of mountain range, and their field of activity covers a large area from the westside of Minon plains all the way to the west of Kisonia prairie.

In a mountain range without any dragon inhabiting it, the griffons become the strongest existences. And these strongest demonic beasts of the Kisonia prairie is obediently letting us ride on their backs.

By making the full use of the powers of Nao and Rino, we successfully made four hippogriff-like creatures and griffons as our mount. We can also summon them at any time by making full use of a dwarven summoning tool.

With mediation from Rena regarding the matter of flying in the sky, we were treated as exceptions regarding the ban of flying in the skies of territories of Elios. For this reason, this griffon also can fly away from their original habitat.

Our field of activity also expanded even further due to the presence of the griffon.

Currently, we are riding on the back of a griffon toward a certain place.

After riding a while on the griffon, I can see a tall and steep mountain ahead.

This mountain is the one that splits the continent into eastern and western parts.

When we fly near the middle of the mountain range, I could see numerous harpies flying around.

Harpy is a race that has the upper body of a female human, pair of eagle wings as arms, and the lower body of an eagle. And they’re not too friendly toward humans.

But they’re not coming to attack us since we’re riding on a griffon which is stronger than them, or should I rather say that they’re running away from us, instead.

Different from the centaur race, harpies are composed of nothing but females. They’ll attack male humans for the sake of sustenance of their race.

By the way, in case of cross breeding, the child will be of the mother’s race if it’s a female and will be the father’s race if they’re male.

Though it might be a good idea to pair centaurs with harpies, unfortunately both races prefer human race. However, it’s not like I’m making the chart of their most preferred race, it seems most of them simply prefer humans.

Though I felt it was strange, I couldn’t help but accept such facts.

While I am pondering about such things, we pass through the middle of the mountain range. From here on lies the westside of the continent. And then, after leaving Minon plain, there’s Saria Academy, our destination that is located a little ahead of Ariad inlet.

The reason we’re going toward Saria Academy was to investigate a certain matter.

The identity of Dark Knight Diehart was the childhood friend of Shirone. He might have been summoned by the demon king.

But, there’s something that we couldn’t understand. Why was he cooperating with someone like the demon king?

While it was true that he was summoned by the demon king, it’s not like he needed to abide by the demon king’s orders.

According to Shirone, there’s no way he would cooperate with the demon king due to his kind personality. [TL: ….]

In that case, he is probably being manipulated with some kind of skill or magic.

The Saria Academy, to which we’re heading right now, is the gathering place of the scholars in this entire world; it’s a university-like place where one could learn and research about magic.

There are records of various magic in Saria Academy. They might have information related to the means of controlling people. That’s why I am heading to the academy by myself.

The reason why I came alone was because no one but me could do this kind of investigation. The other member weren’t suited for this kind of boring and plain job. Though Kaya would be able to help me in this case, she stayed behind since she was worried about the other members. That’s why, it was decided that I, Chiyuki would go to Saria Academy alone.

Though Shirone wanted to come along, the current Shirone couldn’t think calmly and was obviously nothing but a hindrance to me. That’s why she chose to go to Holy Republic Lenaria.

She might be venting her frustration by exterminating the demons in the vicinities of the city around this time.

Therefore, I rode on the back of the griffon and flew straight toward Saria Academy.

=== === ===

◆ Black-haired Sage, Chiyuki

Magic City Saria is a city built on a basin surrounded by mountains.

Though each city of this world was often considered as a separate country, Saria couldn’t be called as such. That’s why something like a Saria citizen doesn’t exist.

In the first place, Saria is the city that governs over the Magic Association and has spread its branches across the entire world. One could say that every magician who belonged to the association are essentially citizens of the city.

The magic association created by Saria Academy was for the sake of nurturing magicians and researching the profound ways of magic.

When I reached the surroundings of Saria, I release the griffon and head toward Saria.

Though it’s better if I could establish a teleportation magic circle in this Saria, they are yet to grant their permission to do so. It appears that I need to possess considerable status in the association to be granted with such permission.

I’m currently passing through the entry procedures at the gates of the rampart. Then, I take out a silver plate-like card that displays my status as the magician of the association to the gatekeeper.

Saria is a city where anyone could come in and out as much as they like as long as they’re magicians who belonged to the association. I belong to the Magic Association of Holy Republic Lenaria branch. This silver plate-like card is something that was issued there.

I enter Saria and keep walking toward my destination.

It’s my second visit to Saria. I came for the first time to satisfy my own curiosity after I knew about the existence of Saria. I was confirming the general outline of the location at that time. But now, my destination is Saria Academy’s library.

When I walk to my destination, I pass by some people that do not seem like magicians. They might be normal people who live in this city.

A magician could easily be distinguished amongst the normal people since they’re always wearing a black robe.

As one might expect from the city of magicians, there were at least a few hundreds of magicians living in Saria.

Nevertheless, just because it’s being called as city of magicians, it didn’t mean that only magicians might live in this city. The palace guard in the rampart who are protecting this city from demons and monsters are normal people who can’t use magic. It seems that they’re employing the power of free fighters, too. And there were also some shopkeepers who were dealing with daily necessities.

60% of the citizens might be ordinary people.

Finally, I arrived at the library. I start performing the procedures for entering.

Unlike the gatekeeper of the rampart, the receptionist of the library had to be a magician. Using a magician like him as the receptionist of this library was indicating the importance of the library.

And just like before, anyone is allowed to enter the library as long as they’re a magician of the association.

Just like the case with the gatekeeper, I show my silver plate to the receptionist. Upon viewing the plate, the male receptionist has a strange smile on his face. Is there something strange with my card?

「Uhm, could it be that you are… The one called black-haired sage? 」

The male receptionist was asking that with a timid tone.

「Though I never call myself by that name, some people do use that name to refer to me」

I replied so after knowing the reason for his surprised expression from before.

I never referred myself as a [Wiseman]. But, I should still reply appropriately since denying it would cause a problem, too.

「I just guessed since you are a real beauty; on top of that, the presence of the silver plate issued by Holy Republic Lenaria, you really are the black-haired sage, Chiyuki-dono herself, huh. Meeting you right now is—」

「Uhm… I want to enter the library if possible….」

I interrupted his talk since it seemed this would be going to be a long one.

「Ah, my deepest apologies. Please go ahead, Chiyuki-dono」

Though he seemed like he had more to tell me, I ignored him and went ahead.

I’m currently searching for a certain location for the book that I had located from the catalogue near the entrance. The book is the one that holds the information regarding the type of magic that could manipulate humans from the inside, like manipulating their soul.

Confusion and sleep magic also fell under such category. So, there should be a similar type of magic that might be able to manipulate humans in the same way.

Walking in between the shelves that was used to store the books, I reached my destination before long.

It seems that the documents about the type of magic that could manipulate soul was located in this entire region of shelves.

Though the title of the book was written with the letters of this world, it’s not a problem.

This world letters weren’t that complicated

The basic letters are composed of 63 letters separated into three different category of lower case letters, middle case letters, and uppercase letters, with each having 21 letters. Moreover, few symbols were added when writing sentences. Moreover, the syntax was easier to learn for us since it’s closer to the Japanese language.

Naturally, it’s easier to say than doing it, and the matter of reading the letters of another world was quite the challenge. Besides Rino who has already given up, it seems it’s still hard for someone like Shirone or Sahoko to read the letters. I doubted my ears when Kyouka said that she could read the letters. It seemed Kaya mastered the letters in her own way.

The exceptions were Reiji and Nao. The learning speed of those two was incredible.

Especially in Reiji’s case, his learning speed was breathtaking. Though he didn’t seem to be putting much effort in his study, he could read the letters at the same level as me. It really pissed me off since even I had to put in several late nights to be able to read the letters with ease. This was why a guy like him really pissed me off.

Though Nao possesses those incredible physical abilities of her, she’s in fact quite a smart ass, too.

As a result of my great efforts, I could read and write normally now. But, I still keep having this strange feeling while reading even until now. It feels like all roman letters have turned into Japanese letters.

Well, I guess I’d get used to it immediately. Moreover, though it’s still difficult for me to read the book that written with profound and archaic words, I have no problem in reading normal books.

I took a few books. As for the book that were placed out of my reach, I would use《Magic Hand》 to pick it.

This magic hand skill creates a transparent hand with magic to pick something that’s out of my reach.

Though normal magicians were limited to 2-3 《Magic Hand》at the most, I could make up to 100 hands with each one’s length could extending upton 100 metres at maximum.

But, the weight that could be supported by magic hand was limited to the weight that could be supported by the caster’s own hand power. That’s why a twerp can’t carry a heavy load even if they’re using magic hand. But then, I became quite powerful in this world, thus heavy luggage wasn’t such a big problem for me. If I really wanted to, I could even crush a human cranium.

After taking out about 20 books, I looked for an empty desk.

According to the guide, this library wouldn’t lend any of its books. For this reason, anyone must read the book within the library. For the same reason, the management has prepared several desks for reading the books in the library. Thus, I brought several books with me since I needed to transcribe the contents of the book.

After discovering an empty desk, I started reading the book. First was the magic about domination magic. The contents of the book was about the experiment about how much one could control a hostile demon of different races. This might be useful for something.

I read the contents of the book.

「Black-haired sage, Chiyuki-dono」

Someone suddenly called my name with low voice when I was reading the book.

When I turned around, it was the receptionist from before.

「Uhm…. Do you need something?」

I replied with a small voice since we must not speak loudly in the library.

「Uhm…. Chiyuki-dono. Actually, Vice President Tarabos wants to meet you but…. Do you have some spare time to meet the Vice President?」