Upon hearing the word artifact, Lucian paused for a moment. But it was only for a moment; he quickly nodded, as if he understood everything.
At such a subdued reaction, Marius blinked.
“What? You’re not surprised? Aren’t you curious about what kind of artifact it is?”
“Of course I’m surprised. And I am curious. But not long ago I had a major disappointment related to artifacts, so I don’t plan on getting my hopes up unnecessarily. Besides…”
Lucian paused briefly and spoke with a faint smile.
“If even with an artifact, you still decided to come to me, then that artifact must have some flaw. Isn’t that right?”
“Well I was hoping to provoke you a little, but it didn’t work at all. You’re spot on.”
Marius’s confident smile faded, and he let out a long sigh.
“To be precise, what I found wasn’t the artifact itself, but the phenomenon it was causing. When I was fleeing from my pursuers and arrived at Laugrad, I noticed something strange about the cold there.”
After investigating while enduring a chill that pierced to the bone, he discovered that around Laugrad, the magical energy was severely distorted.
It was as if the phenomenon that happens temporarily when using Celestial School magic had become fixed in the environment—something completely outside the bounds of logic.
Marius discovered that, if done correctly, that distortion could be stabilized, at least temporarily.
“From that day, I threw myself into research like a madman. If I could stop the cold even for a moment and flee beyond the glacier, the pursuers wouldn’t be able to follow me.”
“That sounds reckless. Even if you escaped beyond the glacier, without a way to survive, you’d have starved to death.”
“Do you think I cared about that when I had a sword hanging over my neck? I just interpreted everything in the most convenient way.”
If someone had blocked the path on purpose, then beyond the glacier, there had to be people living.
If he could cross it, somehow he could survive.
Clinging to that idea, Marius gave it everything he had until he finally managed to open a passage.
It was unstable and narrow, but wide enough for a person to pass through without freezing to death.
“I didn’t look back even once and crossed the glacier. Fortunately, I had prepared well, so even sleeping out in the open, I managed to hold on. I’d also learned many useful spells.”
“It’s over ten days from Laugrad to here. How did you survive? Back then there weren’t even the cabins you later built.”
“Survive? I wandered aimlessly, stopped when I was exhausted, slept, and woke up just before freezing. Again and again. If I hadn’t been able to use magic, I’d have died long ago.”
In the end, Marius didn’t make it across the glacier and collapsed from exhaustion.
Had he not been lucky, he would’ve died right there, but fortunately, a tribe living beyond the glacier found him.
They had also come to investigate the strange path that had suddenly appeared.
Reaching that point in the story, Marius closed his eyes, as if reliving the past.
“After that, many things happened. Some welcomed me, others tried to kill me. Some looked at me with suspicion, others with curiosity. They were turbulent days, but after many difficulties, the tribe eventually accepted my presence.”
The fact that Marius’s Celestial School magic was a great help in the glacier also played a role.
In particular, astrology and weather magic were invaluable to people living in these lands.
Thanks to the magic he learned from his master—and a string of lucky breaks—Marius came to be known as the tribe’s guide.
“Guide?”
“Something like an advisor to the chief, prophet, and seer. It’s more of an honorary position with no real power, but as a prophet, the intangible authority and influence that come with it are considerable.”
“Wow. For an outsider, you rose pretty high.”
“Rose… you say?”
Marius let out a bitter laugh at Lucian’s words.
He seemed to regret his situation—or maybe he was suffering from his own emotions.
“Yes, you could see it that way. I could have settled down and put down roots here. But I couldn’t. This place was too small to satisfy me.”
If he had never known the outside world, maybe he could have been content.
But to Marius’s eyes, this land was nothing more than a miniature garden.
Perhaps for an imperial court mage it would have felt different, but here, no matter how much they revered him as a guide, all he felt was emptiness.
“But I couldn’t do anything about it either. If I left, the pursuers would come after me again. So, though unsatisfied, I had no choice but to keep living.”
“For someone who says they’ve settled, your ambitions seem quite large.”
“Because some damn bastard lit a fire in my heart when I was on the verge of death.”
“A bastard?”
“The Red Axe, Ivar.”
Marius pronounced every word through gritted teeth.
“He’s the current chief of the Blue Dragon Tribe.”
“Guide!”
Gunstein shouted without thinking.
No matter how revered the guide was, insulting the chief of the tribe was crossing a line.
But Marius didn’t react at all.
Lucian stopped Gunstein and asked,
“What did the chief do to make you speak of him like that?”
“When he was still a brat, he came to me with a deal. He said that if I helped him become the next chief, he would give me anything I wanted. So I asked to be allowed into the sacred sanctuary, which only the chief may access.”
“Sanctuary?”
“The altar where the Dragon Heart is kept. At first glance, it doesn’t look like anything special, but if someone enters without the chief’s permission, they’re executed on the spot.”
The Blue Dragon Tribe guarded the Dragon Heart, and only the chief had the right to oversee it.
Marius didn’t fully believe the story, but if there was even the slightest chance—it was something he wanted to see at least once.
If a real Dragon Heart existed, it could become a weapon capable of standing against the Empire.
Using the influence he had built up, Marius decided to help Ivar to satisfy his curiosity.
“I used all my influence to make Ivar the chief. And once he was, he kept his promise and let me enter the sanctuary. And then…”
Marius entered the sacred land with his heart torn between doubt and expectation—and nearly fainted.
The moment he crossed into the altar, an explosive amount of magical power, imperceptible from the outside, surged through his entire body.
Within the sacred land were actual remains of a dragon, including its heart—and an artifact still functioning, fueled by that heart’s power.
It was the first time Marius had ever seen an artifact like that, but he understood it instantly.
That object was, without a doubt, the force controlling the northern climate and sealing the tundra in perpetual snowstorms.
“Can you imagine what I felt? Not only was there a dragon’s heart, but also an ancient artifact powered by it. An artifact capable of controlling the weather at will, able to freeze an army of a million soldiers!”
“…”
Lucian’s eyes widened.
In his mind, he recalled the blueprints of the climate control artifact hidden beneath the White Palace—an artifact impossible to reproduce, but one that, had it been constructed, could have dominated the entire Empire.
And now, that very type of artifact was still functioning, powered by a dragon’s heart.
Lucian realized—just a second too late—that he’d failed to control his expression. Fortunately, Marius, lost in his own excitement, didn’t seem to notice.
“I told Ivar that with that dragon heart and the artifact, there was no need to remain trapped in the tundra. That he could leave for a land flowing with milk and honey and become king.”
“And what happened? Did the chief accept your words?”
“What do you think?”
Marius’s cold tone made the answer obvious. If Ivar had accepted, Marius wouldn’t be venting like this.
After grinding his teeth for a long moment, Marius let out a sigh.
“That bastard only wanted to enjoy the power he had just obtained. Instead of aiming higher, he chose to keep ruling as chief in this cramped land. Desperate, I left the tundra and went to the Empire.”
But leaving the tundra didn’t bring him a life of ease.
In the Empire, the hunting dogs of the imperial palace still had their eyes wide open. As soon as he returned, Marius had to live hiding from imperial surveillance.
During that time, he took in some talented disciples—but the simple joy of training apprentices wasn’t enough to survive in such an environment.
In the end, after more than ten years, he had no choice but to return to the Blue Dragon Tribe.
“When I returned in such a pitiful state, Ivar openly looked down on me. He abandoned even the minimal respect he once showed and told me to live out my days spouting prophecies that suited him.”
Left with no other option, Marius was forced to comply with Ivar’s demands.
But once born, hope never truly disappears. Over time, that hope began to rot and turn into obsession.
One day, as that obsession festered within him, Marius sensed a change in the stars.
“I was just performing a reading as usual… but I was shocked. Beside the Emperor’s star appeared a new one—one I had never seen before. A hero’s star so radiant it looked like it would devour all others.”
“…You’re saying that star is me?”
“I won’t ask you to believe in astrology. That’s your choice. But I believed in it—and I wanted to help that hero’s star.”
A hero inevitably brings forth a new era. And there was no reason that new era couldn’t also mean a rebirth for mages.
Convinced that it was his final chance to achieve his life’s ambition, Marius acted swiftly.
“At first, I thought of leaving it to Colin. But I soon realized that wouldn’t work. With his personality, the moment he secured a stable position, he’d choose the safe path and forget all about the magic tower.”
“Master!”
“What? Are you going to say it’s not true?”
Colin, who was about to object, lowered his head under his master’s gaze.
In fact, moments ago he had been on the verge of protesting with exactly that mindset—that serving Lucian would be enough to revive magic, with no need to cross such a dangerous bridge.
But thinking about it now, what his master said was the same as admitting that he was already too late, and only Colin would benefit from a better era.
Marius clicked his tongue and continued.
“So I used every means available to bring you here. I sent Helen to leak information about the dragon heart, opened the path just when Gunstein’s anxiety peaked, and in the meantime, I spread the prophecy of the king who would unite all the tribes of the tundra.”
“You also calculated that Gunstein would lose his position to me?”
“Calculated? Don’t exaggerate. A guy who wants to be chief with no clear accomplishments will obviously poke around the moment a new opportunity appears. And I figured that if my guest showed up right then, he’d definitely pounce.”
Spoken so casually, those words hit Gunstein like a hammer.
He had believed everything to be a string of coincidences, only to realize he had been dancing in the palm of an old prophet’s hand.
Before he could say anything, Marius spoke first.
“Do you hate me?”
“Guide…!”
“I didn’t order you to do anything. I simply opened the path, as always. You’re the one who prowled around looking for merit. And you’re the one who, trying to win me over, provoked my guest.”
“…”
“Tell me then—whose fault is it that things turned out this way?”
Gunstein trembled and lowered his head. Blaming someone who hadn’t even approached him would’ve been pure shamelessness.
Just as Marius was about to continue, Lucian raised his hand to stop him.
“That’s enough. Stop playing the puppeteer.”
____
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