Black Iron's Glory Chapter 21

With that, Claude should be able to have a period of peace . After he returned to his attic, he recalled how Arbeit had acted during the meal and couldn't help but curve his lips into a smile .

Arbeit wasn't able to sit still at all . He didn't know how much Claude found out . Throughout dinner, Arbeit glared at Claude for who knows how many times . Even though he wanted to ask to confirm, he didn't dare to do so . He would even subconsciously avoid Claude's eyes when he looked back at him .

He didn't seem to be enjoying the food at all . Even their mother noticed his odd behavior and asked him what was off .

Even though Arbeit said that he was fine, he left hurriedly right after finis.h.i.+ng his meal . Claude suspected that Arbeit was rus.h.i.+ng to the boutique to ask them whether Claude had asked about the time he brought Christina over to buy clothes .

However, he didn't bother with Arbeit . He was anxiously trying to decode the rest of the pages to see what was recorded within the magus's diary .

Date: 15th day of the 8th month, Year 3341 of the Nomadin magic calendar . Weather: Sunny .

Today, three more magi units arrived at Golddew . They had come from Marino, Shaliz and Chilasos respectively .

Luckily for them, they weren't attacked by gunmen like Magus Jones was .

Given how Bota was fooling around day and night with the tavern girls, he didn't look like a n.o.ble magus at all . He seemed more like a vagrant mercenary and alcoholic .

Even Senior Tawari doesn't bother with him .

Oh, and, I heard Krimondo crying alone in his room . When I asked him about it, he merely glared at me coldly .

Aliya said that I was lucky to not know anything . 'Ignorance is bliss' were her exact words .

I feel that they are hiding something from me .

Date: 16th day of the 8th month, Year 3341 of the Nomadin magic calendar . Weather: Sunny .

I heard the unit sent out from town to investigate the location where Jones's unit was attacked had returned . Senior Tawari went to check and said that all seven magi corpses had been brought back . There were another 22 ruined corpses . The ident.i.ty of the attackers was already confirmed . They are the darned brotherhood .

They truly are a bunch of frenzied madmen . I don't know why those gunmen would attack our magus unit . They also seemed to be really organized and disciplined . Jones had said that they won't so much as flinch even as the comrades beside them are being blown to bits .

Maybe I shouldn't have joined in the refinement of guns five years ago .

Another five magi units arrived in town, but they didn't lodge in Fragrant Dew .

I don't know where they came from . Even though I wanted to meet them, Senior Tawari asked me to stay in my room and didn't let me out .

Claude read the decoded sixth diary entry with a furrowed brow . He had finally found a term that he was familiar with: the brotherhood .

In the history of the Freian continent, the brotherhood was the core force in the resistance against the evil magi . As the end of the dark era neared, it was the brotherhood that led the people of the continent to resist the tyrannical magi's despotic reign . After paying a huge sacrifice and enduring much hards.h.i.+p and pain, they finally chased the evil magi away to an island called Siklos and liberated the whole continent .

The diary seemed to have been penned during the end of the dark era during the war between the magi and the brotherhood . Did that mean that it was at least six hundred years old? That was far too extraordinary . While others might believe that it was a hundred-year old cookbook, others would definitely question his claim of it being six hundred years old . Even beastskin was known to last for three centuries at most .

Perhaps it was magic that helped prevent the cookbook from degrading as a result of time, such as the vapor in the air that would cause it to rot or the insects that would consume and damage the parchment . Currently, the cookbook looked to be in perfect condition .

I might as well decode the other three entries I have copied down while I'm at it . When I finish, I'll copy the rest of it down . I have already copied 9 of the 17 pages written on what the magus called 'manticore parchment' . I wonder if I'll be able to copy the rest down tonight .

Date: 17th day of the 8th month, Year 3341 of the Nomadin magic calendar . Weather: Sunny .

A loud explosion could be heard during midnight . There was also a large magical wave .

However, Senior Tawari didn't allow us to go out .

I heard those within the hall of the tavern in the morning that two magi had engaged in a duel yesterday night . It seemed that they were rivals in love fighting for a woman's heart .

Four houses in the west of Golddew was ruined as a result of magic and 17 people ended up dead with almost a hundred injured .

Had it not been stopped sooner, even more people would've died or gotten hurt .

What b.a.s.t.a.r.ds . . . How could they fight in a location so dense with people?

Senior Tawari came back and he said that those two were punished for a gold coin each to the dead and one silver coin each for the injured .

He said that the reason those two didn't dare to fight further away from town was that they were afraid of being ambushed by gunmen . So, they decided to fight near the plot of empty land in the west of town .

But I feel that the punishment was a little too light . They only paid one shaliun for each life lost . Those two fellows ought to be d.a.m.ned . I realized that the looks the townsfolk gave us were filled with hate .

Three other magi units arrived in town today . I couldn't be bothered to ask where they came from .

Date: 18th day of the 8th month, Year 3341 of the Nomadin magic calendar . Weather: Sunny .

I've already stayed in Golddew for eight days, but the messenger has yet to arrive . I don't know when they'll let us head for the city of Symposium either .

I've already stayed in Golddew for eight days, but the messenger has yet to arrive . I don't know when they'll let us head for the city of Symposium either .

The number of magi are gradually increasing in town . However, the atmosphere here is worsening by the day . I found that quite a number of magi have started to act up in a frenzy . I heard that many of them start fighting after mouthing each other off for a bit without caring whether they were at the center of those towns or not .

Fortunately, the temporarily formed enforcement unit is capable . They are all five-ring magi and they were quickly able to stop those hot-headed fellows and limit the damage done to the down .

During the afternoon, I heard something shocking . Those two b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who dueled in the west of town really died . One of them died from eating smoked mutton poisoned with jimsonweed extract and the other was stabbed to death by a female courtesan of a tavern .

The two who committed the act were caught . All the family members of the male chef and female courtesan was said to have been killed during the magical shockwaves that spread out from the duel . That was why they decided to take revenge with their lives .

Those two were hung from the gallows at the center of town and they even had their souls burned by magical fire slowly over three days and nights before they properly died . That was a warning for the townsfolk to deter the daredevils among them from harming any more magi .

This time around, the people in town avoid us whenever they see us or shut their doors and windows  tight .

Date: 19th day of the 8th month, Year 3341 of the Nomadin magic calendar . Weather: Sunny .

The temporary enforcement unit has decided to forcefully move the townfolk from the town center to a distant plot of land to camp there . They would expropriate those houses for use by the magi .

More and more magi start to inspect their food with magic before they eat .

I heard a rumor that the magic council didn't summon us to fix the magical inscriptions of the sky-piercing tower . Instead, we are going to use the tower's transference runic magical array to transfer us to the newly discovered Kenpus plane . It's said that manpower and resources are in high demand there .

I asked Senior Tawari whether this rumor was true, but he didn't reply me and only regarded me with a dark expression .

Didn't they say Kenpus was a world of high-magic combat? I heard that even a wild rabbit there could take on a five-ring magus . What would sending a magus like me who only specialized in alchemy and runes do? I'm just a four-ring magus who can't fight well .

That rumor must be false .

That rumor must be false .

However, the owner of our magic tower, Magus Loenk, did indeed go to the Kenpus plane a year ago . Since he's a seven-ring magus, I believe he should be fine over there .

Another large unit arrived in the afternoon . There are around 50 thousand people and seven thousand carriages . They camped near the fields east of town and it's so packed that I can only see heads without end! How majestic!

I heard that they are transporting some magical materials, such as black crystals, to Symposium by the order of the magic council . Oh, and they also got a unit of properly enlisted gunners, about 8000 of them in total .

The contents of the seventh, eighth and ninth entries are quite dense . . .  thought Claude as he stroked his chin . He managed to confirm that the author of the diary was a magus, a low-ranked one at that being only a four-ring . He specialized in alchemy and runic inscriptions and didn't know how to fight well . There also seemed to be higher ranking magi like five-ring and seven-ring ones . The rings seemed to indicate the level of the magi .

He also confirmed that magi could be easily killed by common people . For instance, those two love rivals were poisoned and stabbed to death respectively . Naturally, that happened when they were off guard . But even so, magic sounded like it was really powerful . A single duel between two four or five-ring magi could cause such huge casualties with the magical shockwaves alone .

Additionally, the magic council seemed to be gathering those low-ranked magi and sending them to a plane called Kenpus . Even though the author said that it was only a rumor, he sounded a little more naive than the rest . His other magi companions didn't seem too willing to go to that plane either .

This started to read more and more like some webnovels Claude had read before . There seemed to be different categories between worlds, such as a high-magic one and a low-magic one . Given that a wild rabbit on the Kenpus plane was said to be able to take on a five-ring magus, Kenpus must've been a world of high magic . That was why the low-ranked magi were unwilling to go there . However, they had no choice but to gather at Golddew because of the magic council's orders .

A new name also appeared in the diary: the city of Symposium . It sounded like it was the destination the gathered magi were about to be sent to . Over there was a sky-piercing tower with a transference magical array that could send people to other planes, such as Kenpus .

The author of the diary, a four-ring magus, was under the impression that they had been summoned to check and fix the runic magical arrays . That suggested that the formation array's scale was really large and required people to maintain . That was why the author didn't suspect the huge gathering of low-ranked magi one bit .

Claude also realized that the magi didn't seem to have a good relations.h.i.+p with the common people . They should've been aloof and arrogant people that the common folk had no chance of standing up against . For instance, the magi thought that each life lost during the magical duel was only worth one shaliun, their name for a gold coin .

And it appeared that even the common folk had to respond to the summons of the magic council . The last part of the ninth entry stated that there were about 50 thousand people and seven thousand carriages in the unit that was transporting magical materials to Symposium . THey even had a properly drafted force of eight thousand gunmen .

It was apparent that the common people also played a managerial role of some sort . Otherwise, a huge unit of 50 thousand men and seven thousand carriages would crumble if food distribution wasn't properly handled . That was especially the case with the gunmen unit . At the very least, it was a sign that there was a local or national government that was able to effectively manage the people .

What confused Claude was this: even though he had read many historical records about the dark era, not once was a national or local governing body mentioned . All that was recorded was that the continent of Freia had been ruled by evil magi and the common folk was suffering as a result .

.  .

With that, Claude should be able to have a period of peace . After he returned to his attic, he recalled how Arbeit had acted during the meal and couldn't help but curve his lips into a smile

Arbeit wasn't able to sit still at all . He didn't know how much Claude found out . Throughout dinner, Arbeit glared at Claude for who knows how many times . Even though he wanted to ask to confirm, he didn't dare to do so . He would even subconsciously avoid Claude's eyes when he looked back at him

He didn't seem to be enjoying the food at all . Even their mother noticed his odd behavior and asked him what was off

Even though Arbeit said that he was fine, he left hurriedly right after finis.h.i.+ng his meal . Claude suspected that Arbeit was rus.h.i.+ng to the boutique to ask them whether Claude had asked about the time he brought Christina over to buy clothes

However, he didn't bother with Arbeit . He was anxiously trying to decode the rest of the pages to see what was recorded within the magus's diary

.

Date: 15th day of the 8th month, Year 3341 of the Nomadin magic calendar . Weather: Sunny

Today, three more magi units arrived at Golddew . They had come from Marino, Shaliz and Chilasos respectively

Luckily for them, they weren't attacked by gunmen like Magus Jones was

Given how Bota was fooling around day and night with the tavern girls, he didn't look like a n.o.ble magus at all . He seemed more like a vagrant mercenary and alcoholic

Even Senior Tawari doesn't bother with him

Oh, and, I heard Krimondo crying alone in his room . When I asked him about it, he merely glared at me coldly

Aliya said that I was lucky to not know anything . 'Ignorance is bliss' were her exact words

I feel that they are hiding something from me

Date: 16th day of the 8th month, Year 3341 of the Nomadin magic calendar . Weather: Sunny

I heard the unit sent out from town to investigate the location where Jones's unit was attacked had returned . Senior Tawari went to check and said that all seven magi corpses had been brought back . There were another 22 ruined corpses . The ident.i.ty of the attackers was already confirmed . They are the darned brotherhood

They truly are a bunch of frenzied madmen . I don't know why those gunmen would attack our magus unit . They also seemed to be really organized and disciplined . Jones had said that they won't so much as flinch even as the comrades beside them are being blown to bits

Maybe I shouldn't have joined in the refinement of guns five years ago

Another five magi units arrived in town, but they didn't lodge in Fragrant Dew

I don't know where they came from . Even though I wanted to meet them, Senior Tawari asked me to stay in my room and didn't let me out

.

Claude read the decoded sixth diary entry with a furrowed brow . He had finally found a term that he was familiar with: the brotherhood

In the history of the Freian continent, the brotherhood was the core force in the resistance against the evil magi . As the end of the dark era neared, it was the brotherhood that led the people of the continent to resist the tyrannical magi's despotic reign . After paying a huge sacrifice and enduring much hards.h.i.+p and pain, they finally chased the evil magi away to an island called Siklos and liberated the whole continent

The diary seemed to have been penned during the end of the dark era during the war between the magi and the brotherhood . Did that mean that it was at least six hundred years old? That was far too extraordinary . While others might believe that it was a hundred-year old cookbook, others would definitely question his claim of it being six hundred years old . Even beastskin was known to last for three centuries at most

Perhaps it was magic that helped prevent the cookbook from degrading as a result of time, such as the vapor in the air that would cause it to rot or the insects that would consume and damage the parchment . Currently, the cookbook looked to be in perfect condition

I might as well decode the other three entries I have copied down while I'm at it . When I finish, I'll copy the rest of it down . I have already copied 9 of the 17 pages written on what the magus called 'manticore parchment' . I wonder if I'll be able to copy the rest down tonight

.

Date: 17th day of the 8th month, Year 3341 of the Nomadin magic calendar . Weather: Sunny

A loud explosion could be heard during midnight . There was also a large magical wave

However, Senior Tawari didn't allow us to go out

I heard those within the hall of the tavern in the morning that two magi had engaged in a duel yesterday night . It seemed that they were rivals in love fighting for a woman's heart

Four houses in the west of Golddew was ruined as a result of magic and 17 people ended up dead with almost a hundred injured

Had it not been stopped sooner, even more people would've died or gotten hurt

What b.a.s.t.a.r.ds . How could they fight in a location so dense with people?.

Senior Tawari came back and he said that those two were punished for a gold coin each to the dead and one silver coin each for the injured

He said that the reason those two didn't dare to fight further away from town was that they were afraid of being ambushed by gunmen . So, they decided to fight near the plot of empty land in the west of town

But I feel that the punishment was a little too light . They only paid one shaliun for each life lost . Those two fellows ought to be d.a.m.ned . I realized that the looks the townsfolk gave us were filled with hate

Three other magi units arrived in town today . I couldn't be bothered to ask where they came from

.

Date: 18th day of the 8th month, Year 3341 of the Nomadin magic calendar . Weather: Sunny

I've already stayed in Golddew for eight days, but the messenger has yet to arrive . I don't know when they'll let us head for the city of Symposium either

The number of magi are gradually increasing in town . However, the atmosphere here is worsening by the day . I found that quite a number of magi have started to act up in a frenzy . I heard that many of them start fighting after mouthing each other off for a bit without caring whether they were at the center of those towns or not

Fortunately, the temporarily formed enforcement unit is capable . They are all five-ring magi and they were quickly able to stop those hot-headed fellows and limit the damage done to the down

During the afternoon, I heard something shocking . Those two b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who dueled in the west of town really died . One of them died from eating smoked mutton poisoned with jimsonweed extract and the other was stabbed to death by a female courtesan of a tavern

The two who committed the act were caught . All the family members of the male chef and female courtesan was said to have been killed during the magical shockwaves that spread out from the duel . That was why they decided to take revenge with their lives

Those two were hung from the gallows at the center of town and they even had their souls burned by magical fire slowly over three days and nights before they properly died . That was a warning for the townsfolk to deter the daredevils among them from harming any more magi

This time around, the people in town avoid us whenever they see us or shut their doors and windows  tight

.

Date: 19th day of the 8th month, Year 3341 of the Nomadin magic calendar . Weather: Sunny

The temporary enforcement unit has decided to forcefully move the townfolk from the town center to a distant plot of land to camp there . They would expropriate those houses for use by the magi

More and more magi start to inspect their food with magic before they eat

I heard a rumor that the magic council didn't summon us to fix the magical inscriptions of the sky-piercing tower . Instead, we are going to use the tower's transference runic magical array to transfer us to the newly discovered Kenpus plane . It's said that manpower and resources are in high demand there

I asked Senior Tawari whether this rumor was true, but he didn't reply me and only regarded me with a dark expression

Didn't they say Kenpus was a world of high-magic combat? I heard that even a wild rabbit there could take on a five-ring magus . What would sending a magus like me who only specialized in alchemy and runes do? I'm just a four-ring magus who can't fight well

That rumor must be false

However, the owner of our magic tower, Magus Loenk, did indeed go to the Kenpus plane a year ago . Since he's a seven-ring magus, I believe he should be fine over there

Another large unit arrived in the afternoon . There are around 50 thousand people and seven thousand carriages . They camped near the fields east of town and it's so packed that I can only see heads without end! How majestic!.

I heard that they are transporting some magical materials, such as black crystals, to Symposium by the order of the magic council . Oh, and they also got a unit of properly enlisted gunners, about 8000 of them in total

.

The contents of the seventh, eighth and ninth entries are quite dense .  thought Claude as he stroked his chin . He managed to confirm that the author of the diary was a magus, a low-ranked one at that being only a four-ring . He specialized in alchemy and runic inscriptions and didn't know how to fight well . There also seemed to be higher ranking magi like five-ring and seven-ring ones . The rings seemed to indicate the level of the magi

He also confirmed that magi could be easily killed by common people . For instance, those two love rivals were poisoned and stabbed to death respectively . Naturally, that happened when they were off guard . But even so, magic sounded like it was really powerful . A single duel between two four or five-ring magi could cause such huge casualties with the magical shockwaves alone

Additionally, the magic council seemed to be gathering those low-ranked magi and sending them to a plane called Kenpus . Even though the author said that it was only a rumor, he sounded a little more naive than the rest . His other magi companions didn't seem too willing to go to that plane either

This started to read more and more like some webnovels Claude had read before . There seemed to be different categories between worlds, such as a high-magic one and a low-magic one . Given that a wild rabbit on the Kenpus plane was said to be able to take on a five-ring magus, Kenpus must've been a world of high magic . That was why the low-ranked magi were unwilling to go there . However, they had no choice but to gather at Golddew because of the magic council's orders

A new name also appeared in the diary: the city of Symposium . It sounded like it was the destination the gathered magi were about to be sent to . Over there was a sky-piercing tower with a transference magical array that could send people to other planes, such as Kenpus

The author of the diary, a four-ring magus, was under the impression that they had been summoned to check and fix the runic magical arrays . That suggested that the formation array's scale was really large and required people to maintain . That was why the author didn't suspect the huge gathering of low-ranked magi one bit

Claude also realized that the magi didn't seem to have a good relations.h.i.+p with the common people . They should've been aloof and arrogant people that the common folk had no chance of standing up against . For instance, the magi thought that each life lost during the magical duel was only worth one shaliun, their name for a gold coin

And it appeared that even the common folk had to respond to the summons of the magic council . The last part of the ninth entry stated that there were about 50 thousand people and seven thousand carriages in the unit that was transporting magical materials to Symposium . THey even had a properly drafted force of eight thousand gunmen

It was apparent that the common people also played a managerial role of some sort . Otherwise, a huge unit of 50 thousand men and seven thousand carriages would crumble if food distribution wasn't properly handled . That was especially the case with the gunmen unit . At the very least, it was a sign that there was a local or national government that was able to effectively manage the people

What confused Claude was this: even though he had read many historical records about the dark era, not once was a national or local governing body mentioned . All that was recorded was that the continent of Freia had been ruled by evil magi and the common folk was suffering as a result