30. How to Handle Mages
Today, Arwin looked very serious.
Looking at the documents piled up on his desk, he sighed several times. The study was on the verge of being covered entirely by his sighs sooner or later.
"Marquis, do you have a worry?"
I asked him while pouring hot tea, which Arwin liked, into a teacup. Although I didn't say it expecting a kind answer....
"Yeah, I have a worry."
Arwin answered readily.
"Is it okay to ask what kind of worry it is?"
Only then did he lift his head and look at me. His face facing me looked haggard.
"The canyon. A matter arose where I have to go there. But the terrain there is steep, so it's not easy to traverse. The means to get there are vague."
He laid out his worries at length. I lost my words for an instant at his kindness.
To think such a kind answer returned. Arwin, you said you weren't a kind person. His words seemed to need correction.
"The canyon. The canyon, huh."
I murmured Arwin's worry quietly. Probably he means the canyon behind the Marquis's residence. That canyon where the old dragon was said to live.
Even seen from afar, the two sheer cliffs looked only rugged. There was no way one could go to such a place by carriage. Thinking if going by ground is hard, how about flying through the sky... suddenly someone came to mind.
That person who wandered in the air freely as if on the ground. If it were him, he might solve Arwin's worry at once.
Even the thought that I wanted to follow along occurred. As soon as the thought occurred, my sincerity popped out of my mouth. There was no time to stop it.
"Can't I follow along too?"
Arwin tilted his head.
"You?"
"Would it be unreasonable?"
I held out the cup half-filled with hot tea to Arwin.
Arwin tapped lightly on the desk with his finger and peered intently into my face. He seemed to be weighing whether there was a need for me to follow his journey or not.
"The way there is quite far."
"...."
"And I enjoy drinking tea."
"...."
"So I do need a maid to serve tea."
He was spitting out words that made my heart flutter without expression. I answered him with a flushed face.
"If it's serving tea, I am confident."
"...."
At my confident answer, Arwin didn't make any retort. He just drank the tea I handed him elegantly.
But I know his silence means affirmation. I had already experienced Arwin's silence countless times. I seemed to have mastered what his silence meant.
"Thank you."
Arwin remained silent again. It was a perfect affirmation. An unconcealable smile bloomed slowly on my face.
"Ah, and regarding that means of transportation, I also have a good brilliant idea."
Arwin put down the teacup he was holding and stared at me questioningly. Recalling my appearance in the air this morning, I suddenly smiled a smile full of ulterior motives.
That smile was a smile exactly resembling someone's smile.
Dalton's magic was a very magnificent and beneficial thing.
Because his magic made it possible to go on a path impossible to go on foot. By using the sky.
We were walking in the air quite far from the ground. It was thanks to Dalton's magic that allows not only himself but also others to fly in the air together.
A tea set for Arwin was held in my hand, and Arwin and Dalton were walking in step on my both sides sequentially. The appearance of stepping on the air in a straight line was also a bit funny.
"To make two people walk on the air, the mana consumption is too big."
Dalton, who was walking well, grumbled for no reason. He pouted his lips as if it were hard, but on his face seen by glancing, there was not a single sign of hardship.
It was then that Arwin, who had been walking in the air silently for a long time, answered.
"But Dalton. Because it's you, this kind of thing is possible. Since you are a competent mage."
It was very generous words. Although I agreed entirely with Arwin's words, I couldn't quite believe the fact that Arwin praised Dalton in such a way.
Whether I wasn't the only one thinking so, Dalton was also seen staring at Arwin with a bewildered gaze. Dalton pouted his lips with a softened voice.
"Tch, well, I am indeed the Kingdom's best mage."
As soon as his words fell, Arwin lowered his head to me and whispered in a tiny voice.
"This is exactly the method to handle mages."
Although he raised his head after finishing what he had to say, I had an illusion that his breath remained stickily in my ear. My toes curled for no reason, and faint goosebumps broke out on my arms.
To feel Arwin's breath even at the moment of walking in the air. Once cast, the goosebumps did not disappear easily.
I nodded my head belatedly. I agree with Arwin's words. Because Dalton, who was grumbling, became quiet with Arwin's single word.
So, does the method to handle a mage mean to praise him soullessly first?
"Hey, you two. What did you whisper just now?"
Dalton seemed not to have missed Arwin's small movement that passed in an instant. How can he be so quick-witted.
I wanted to try the method to handle a mage learned from Arwin by watching over his shoulder. So I answered Dalton just like Arwin did.
"Dalton. We were talking about how magnificent you are. Because the Marquis was a little shy to praise you openly to your face continuously."
I wondered if he would fall for such words hook, line, and sinker, but.
"Hahaha, next time do such praise openly to my face. Since such things are always welcome."
"...."
Dalton laughed heartily enough to shake the clouds. Is he a fool, or innocent?
Despite using great magic enough to make as many as three people walk in the air, looking at times like this, his soul looked excessively pure. It was unbelievable that he was the same person as the man who often showed suspicious signs.
I tilted my head to Arwin's ear next to me and said in a small voice audible only to him.
"This is the right way, correct?"
Arwin nodded his head slightly. No error was seen in his nod. I, too, had truly perfectly cooked the mage's heart.
I giggled. Thanks to that, the tea set I was holding in my hand shook as if it would fall to the ground soon. Although I quickly withdrew the laughter lingering on my lips, Dalton spoke as if he didn't miss my laughter either.
"Somehow I feel like I'm being deceived."
Dalton was strangely quick-witted in weird ways. However, if there was a problem, it was that his wits were only half-witted.
He looked at me and Arwin alternately as if suspicious, but he didn't interrogate. Because Arwin offered one more word to Dalton.
"Who would deceive a perfect mage like you."
Arwin recited so in a serious tone, and Dalton grinned as if his mood improved again. Arwin must have perfectly mastered the method to handle Dalton without a doubt.
After walking a bit more like that, the appearance of the canyon began to be seen. Although it didn't look that big when seen from afar, looking at it up close, its area was really wide.
The cliffs of the canyon facing each other feel only fierce. Should I say they are cut so sharply that if I touch there, my soft skin would be sliced off?
Following Dalton's gesture, we came down carefully from the air to the ground. Walking in the air not bound by gravity, then stepping on the ground, my body tilted.
As I lost my balance and staggered small, Arwin held my shoulder. He approached indifferently as always, held me swaying for a moment, and left indifferently.
Ah, an indifferent person as expected.
"Phew, thanks to you guys, I visit this canyon after a long time too."
Unlike me, Dalton didn't stagger his body at all. Having descended aloofly to the ground, he walked a few steps ahead without shaking.
The place Dalton stopped walking was near the precipice of the canyon.
Whether he wasn't scared of the nearly vertical cliff of the canyon, he stretched his neck out and looked down below. A deep smile lingered on Dalton's face looking down.
Soon turning his head toward us, he said.
"Since it's the dry season now, there isn't much water flowing between the cliffs of the canyon. We can go down and see."
Dalton's smile I faced was never pure.
Dalton had eyes where his inner thoughts could be easily read. In his odd eyes drawing a soft curve with a smile, dangerous signs were full.
The current him was not the innocent him who fell for mine and Arwin's clumsy trick. At least, it felt so to me.
I regretted it.
It was me who informed Arwin, who was worried because he had to go to the canyon but the means to go were trivial, about Dalton's magic. I had suggested going on horseback until the terrain was flat, and then using Dalton's magic where the terrain was rugged.
Arwin agreed with my words, and persuading Dalton wasn't a difficult task. Dalton accepted our proposal immediately without asking reasons or arguing.
At the time, I just thought it worked out well. But looking back now, a doubt arose whether Dalton was a person who purely granted someone's request.
'Because he is a cold-hearted mage regarding what he wants.'
Suddenly, the words Arwin said at the masquerade ball came to mind. It probably wasn't words that came to mind without any meaning.
Did Dalton accept our proposal readily because he had what he ultimately wanted?
There was only one thing Dalton wanted, at least to my knowledge. Heart. A living heart that can save his dead lover.
However, I couldn't be sure that was Dalton's ultimate intention. Only, whatever his intention was, there was one certain fact. That without him, we couldn't have come to the canyon.
To come to the canyon, we had to endure his suspicious signs, and wouldn't Arwin have already known that?
"Good. Then let's go down together."
Arwin was accepting Dalton's words without particular suspicion. There's no way Arwin overlooked Dalton's suspicious points.
Although Arwin is indifferent, that was limited to emotional parts. He wasn't a person to let Dalton's suspicious moves slide vaguely.
I stared intently at Arwin's broad back walking past me. Did you pass Dalton's suspicious signs as if they were nothing?
I bit my lower lip small at the anxiety rising without basis. The desire to go back to the Marquis's residence became strong as a chimney.
But it might have been too late to turn back. We had already started walking in a single file on the narrow path on the outskirts of the precipice.
The path was incredibly narrow. How narrow was it? To the extent that only one person could barely walk. Although I didn't have acrophobia, the bottom of the canyon looked down by glancing sideways was quite dizzying.
Between the narrow passages at the bottom of the steep cliff, water streams were seen sporadically. Whether it was the dry season as Dalton said, the water streams were very thin.
Looking down there continuously, my legs trembled on their own. If I step even a little wrong, I felt like I would fall to death.
"Iphoe. If you fall here, you'll die. Right?"
Dalton, following silently behind me, whispered to me. It was a small voice that would absolutely not reach Arwin walking a few steps ahead of me.
"You are stating the obvious."
I answered nonchalantly. No, I tried to do so. I didn't want to be caught by Dalton feeling dizzy looking at the steep cliff.
It's not that there was a visible reason. However, I instinctively thought I should do so. That I shouldn't let him discover my anxious heart.
At that moment, the footsteps of Dalton following me stopped abruptly. I didn't look back. Let's not care. Let's not deal with him anymore.
I closed my lips tight. The closed lips trembled minutely without reason. Dalton's words continued.
"Iphoe Bell. Do you want to try dying here?"