The Shadow of Prudeck

Most of them had no practical use, but they were certainly fun to look at. Frey picked up another necklace that looked identical to the one around his wrist, except for a different gemstone embedded in the center.

“This one is still a prototype, but I’ll show it to you anyway.”

As Frey wrapped the necklace around his other wrist, his hand vanished. This was accompanied by another enthusiastic “Ta-da!” He rolled up his sleeve to show his forearm, and it was completely hollow. Seeing the fabric move along with his arm, it was clear his limb hadn’t actually disappeared.

“Does it make you transparent?”

“Exactly. I can’t make the whole body transparent yet… there’s a limit to the maximum surface area. For someone your size, Llewellyn, it might cover you from your head to your thighs.”

Staring at the necklace swaying in the air, a thought occurred to me. I asked as calmly as possible, pretending it was just a casual curiosity.

“Then, Frey, are there any magic spells or items that can erase one’s very presence?”

Ever since I saw that masked man on Weedsill Street, I couldn’t recall his appearance no matter how hard I tried. Was he tall or short? What was his build like? What color was his hair? Even when we were face-to-face, his image felt blurry, as if something was caught in between us, and the impression vanished rapidly the moment I turned away.

I tried to dismiss it as just a chance encounter with a stranger, but an uncomfortable lump of doubt remained. I had searched the library afterward, but to no avail. Perhaps the Academy or the Magic Tower would have been different, but the Imperial Palace library rarely held books that dealt with magic in depth—and even those were mostly restricted to the Imperial family. I could have asked Erkel to look into it, but I didn’t want to burden him while he was so busy, so I had put it off.

“For example?”

“Well, like… someone who clearly exists, but those around them can’t perceive them.”

“Not just being transparent?”

“No.”

As Frey tilted his head, his glasses, which had been barely hanging on, slid down again. His pale blue eyes—light enough to be silver—rolled in thought before he finally answered.

“As far as I know, there aren’t any. I might find something if I scoured the archives… but even so, there probably aren’t.”

His tone was quite firm. Yet, Frey continued to tilt his head in doubt. Eventually, clawing at the sofa in a state of nervous energy, he stood up and began rummaging through the books. The process of pulling a book, flipping through it, and tossing it aside was both natural and incredibly fast. Even for speed-reading, it was an impossible pace.

“I’ve memorized most of the important items and spells created since the founding of the empire. A case like the one you mentioned would most likely be used for crimes. Things like that are usually manufactured as objects rather than spells, and their movement paths must be recorded.”

I hadn’t expected him to search with such intense focus. If word of Frey’s investigation reached Abel’s ears, there would have been no point in asking Frey privately.

Feeling anxious, I approached the tower of books he was building. I picked up the one on top, but the title engraved on the soft, worn leather cover was in an ancient language I couldn’t read. Its unfaded gold leaf sparkled brilliantly depending on the angle.

“I’m not that curious, Frey…”

But Frey was already lost in his own world. He was so focused that he was muttering incomprehensible words under his breath, and his wide-open eyes seemed to emit a faint glow as if he’d forgotten to blink.

Ah. I had forgotten because of his timid demeanor, but Frey was indeed a mage. An elite mage with a lab on the upper floors of the Magic Tower, serving as the Tower Master’s assistant. While he wasn’t “cranky” in the way Abel described, it was only natural that he had his eccentricities. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be creating new inventions and claiming to be happy amidst an endless mountain of work and research.

“Magic can’t do it… it doesn’t exist… but if it’s a Relic, it might be possible.”

“A Relic? You mean an object from the Era of Myth?”

As seen by the Imperial Palace—which maintained its original appearance despite thousands of years passing—items that had merely survived a long time weren’t considered truly “old” by magical standards. Especially when a mage used the term “Relic,” the scale was entirely different.

Frey nodded without taking his eyes off the book. Biting the tip of his pen, he seemed to recall something; he tossed the book aside and pushed at a bookshelf. The shelf, which looked like a simple design, was actually a set of four units with five rotating sections each. The books crammed into these twenty shelves varied in size and wear, but all of them were thick.

“Found it! I found it!”

Frey hopped with joy while leafing through an exceptionally large volume.

“From here… to here.”

Frey drew a large circle on the page with his pen. Don’t people like him treasure their books? Judging by how he was tossing them on the floor, maybe not—but taking a pen to the paper was another matter entirely. As I watched in surprise, the section inside the circle floated up as if it had been copied into the air.

I stood there agape at a function I hadn’t even seen in the Imperial Library. Did Frey create this too?

“There aren’t many records, so it’s hard to say if it truly existed… but you know the story of Sarbazan’s Sacred Treasures, right?”

I have been tutored by Arnilan, a scholar of the highest authority. I nodded confidently.

“Besides the four Sacred Treasures recorded in myth, there are several other important Relics from that era. According to the Tower’s records, 1,423 of those are named, 672 are estimated to still exist, and 221 have been located. And among those, the ones used by Sarbazan’s party… how should I put this? The ones that are particularly special among Relics…”

“A brand?”

“Ah, yes! Exactly! You can think of it that way. Let’s call them ‘Sarbazan’s Relics’ for now. There’s a hierarchy among the Mythic Era Relics. Sarbazan’s Sacred Treasures are at the top, followed by Sarbazan’s Relics, then other named Relics, followed by those only known through oral tradition, and then those with no records at all. Some are discovered by chance and match the Mythic Era timeline, but have no surviving documentation.”

I listened quietly to Frey’s explanation, thinking that if Arnilan heard that Frey explained things much more clearly than he did, the Imperial Historian would probably clutch his neck in sorrow.

“But a Relic similar to what you described is right here.”

His slender finger touched one of the floating pages. It was a mix of Ancient Tongue and Imperial Language, so I couldn’t read it properly.

“The Shadow of Prudeck. Some call it the Mask of Prudefender, though some argue they are two separate Relics. Because the records are sparse, we don’t know its exact form, but it possesses the function you’re looking for: ‘The existence sinks into the shadows. It exists but has no substance; it is encountered but not felt.’ The ‘shadows’ here can be interpreted as darkness.”

“Doesn’t this word mean ‘wearer’?”

My experience with elite Imperial tutoring didn’t go to waste. I pointed to the words ‘wearer’ and ‘conceal’ that I could barely recognize. Frey looked impressed that I could recognize the Ancient Tongue.

“As you said, this word is usually translated as ‘wearer,’ but there’s a lot of room for interpretation. While it’s correct to use it for things that are truly ‘worn’ like accessories or clothing, it’s occasionally used broadly to include things that are consumed, like potions.”

I was already half-convinced that the man on Weedsill Street was using this Relic. It didn’t seem likely that there were other items with capabilities that current magic couldn’t replicate. If the Tower Master’s assistant—not just some student—said so definitively, there was a reason for it.

“If the Shadow of Prudeck and the Mask of Prudefender are truly the same Relic, wouldn’t it be in the form of a mask?”

“Hmm… Relic names are often less than intuitive. There are cases where the name is ‘Mirror’ but it’s actually a book, or it’s called a ‘Bottle’ but it’s actually a necklace. It might be called a ‘Mask’ but be a cloak. It could even be something completely unexpected, like a sword.”

Having found something to research, Frey looked as fresh and lively as a weed after a rainstorm. He ended up scouring the rest of the bookshelves. Fortunately, when Abel returned and tried to drag me out in disgust, Frey was too busy whining and clinging to him for it to come up that I had been asking questions. It seemed common for Frey to suddenly get obsessed with something.

I watched Frey, who had returned to his foolishly smiling self, and smiled back.

It is the day of the final battle.

Standing before the mirror, I took a deep breath. I thought I couldn’t possibly be any more nervous, but my heart was racing faster than expected. I reached up to touch my hair but stopped myself. My blonde hair, having already passed through the hands of a professional, sparkled more than usual. The white jacket, chosen as today’s protagonist after defeating many other candidates, felt a bit burdensome, but it suited Llewellyn well.

If I’m like this, Erkel must be even worse.

He might be looking for a sedative right about now. I looked forward to seeing Erkel’s face; he must have been the busiest person during the time leading up to the banquet. The two of us hadn’t even had a conversation, let alone me going anywhere near the 4th Prince’s palace.