The AI Archmage - Chapter 81

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

AI Grand Mage, Episode 81

“I am grateful for your parental heart.”
Sion finally affixed his signature to the contract and offered his thanks to the Marquis, tucking the document into his breast.
“I had steeled myself for rather heated deliberation, but to my surprise, we found common ground.”
“……Is that praise?”
“It is, indeed.”
Had the Marquis attempted any further schemes, Sion had been prepared to insert considerably more punitive clauses.
He simply hadn’t needed to.
“What—Brother, what are you doing! How could you sign such a contract……! Surely not just to see that mongrel……!”
“Such a thing?”
In that instant, the Marquis’s face twisted.
He had barely managed to contain his brother’s reckless conduct; hearing those words pushed past the limits of his forbearance.
“This entire situation exists because of your damnable impulsive actions, Kaildus!”
The Marquis fixed his brother with a piercing stare.
“Owing to your senseless behavior at the Blue Tower, the Main House has no grounds whatsoever to refuse this demand!”
“That is…….”
“When we return to the clan, I will have you brought before the tribunal immediately. Mark me well. From this day forward, you will no longer hold the position you once did within the family.”
As a secondary heir, he would wield no further power within the clan.
That was what the Marquis had declared.
“Ah…….”
Understanding as much, Kaildus hung his head in dazed defeat.
Turning away from his brother with cold indifference, the Marquis spoke.
“……Now, shall I make my request?”
“By all means, however you wish.”
Sion smiled faintly.
This was how he’d planned it from the beginning anyway.

* * *

[I have learned a lesson today, Human.]
“Learned what?”
[The potential of humanity truly knows no bounds. I feel the inadequacy of my nature as an Artificial Spirit.]
Akasha shook her head as though speaking from the depths of genuine conviction.
Sion could not fathom what he had done to warrant such a response.
‘All I did was acknowledge the Marquis as Nerin’s parent and present the contract in proper form.’
[Precisely.]
‘What’s wrong with that?’
[In your very question, I learn once more.]
Human malice remained something an Artificial Spirit such as herself could not yet hope to touch.
Akasha grasped this truth with sharp clarity.
In any case, with the contract now secured, Sion guided the Marquis to Nerin’s room.
“Hmm…….”
Standing before the door, the Marquis hesitated a moment.
Beyond it lay his daughter.
Yet courage eluded him.
On the way here at Sion’s urging, he had heard the rough outlines of what had transpired.
While he remained ignorant that his daughter still lived, she had been fighting—truly fighting—for her very survival.
He felt utterly without honor as a father.
How could he possibly lift his eyes and face her now?
Sion pressed him forward, sensing the Marquis’s inner turmoil.
“Why do you linger?”
“……Now that the moment arrives, I wonder if I possess the right to face her at all.”
“You do not appear to me a father who gave his all for his child.”
Sion tilted his head thoughtfully.
“Yet surely a parent’s duty is to take responsibility for their child, however late.”
“That is…….”
The Marquis stood there for a time, features hardened, before nodding slowly at Sion’s words.
“Thank you.”
“Not at all.”
Even as he spoke, Sion muttered to himself.
‘If anything, I’m the one who should be grateful.’
Had the Marquis proven uncooperative, things would certainly have grown far more troublesome.
He would have extracted what he needed, but the process might have left unnecessary wounds.
For that reason, Sion had decided to treat the Marquis with a certain civility.
‘That’s how these things work. You have to treat people according to what you receive from them to maintain lasting profit.’
[Did you treat him well?]
‘His hands and feet are intact, aren’t they?’
[Ah, yes.]
As Akasha sighed, the Marquis knocked carefully and opened the door.
There, he saw Nerin from behind, gazing quietly at the sky.
She noticed his entrance and spun around in alarm.
The Marquis’s pupils trembled at the sight of Nerin’s hair.
“Ah.”
Perhaps the memories came flooding back—the warmth of a child he’d once held in his arms.
Perhaps that too.
Though Sion could not know.
‘I’ve never had a child, and there’s no one I ever truly loved.’
[Come to think of it, wasn’t your constant refrain that you’d devoted yourself to Magic Engineering and nothing else?]
‘That’s right.’
Altair had indeed burned everything for Magic Engineering.
Yet he was not without understanding for the Marquis’s feelings, or for Nerin’s loneliness.
In fact, he understood Nerin’s heart well.
Altair had been an orphan.
A child who knows no parents always yearns for a parent’s embrace.
Young Altair was no exception.
The difference was that Altair’s parents never appeared.
Perhaps they had no desire to find him.
At some point, Altair had come to think that way, and afterward, he never sought them out.
From then on, he devoted himself to Magic Engineering, as the world came to know.
Rejected by magic, struggling to overcome it.
In that struggle, he met Belusian, discovered the Akashic Records, and in that way created Akasha.
But then again……
‘Just because I’m an orphan doesn’t mean I have to leave others as orphans.’
Sion shook his head, having grown uncharacteristically sentimental and indulgent.
[Perhaps that is what it means to be human.]
‘What are you talking about?’
[Well. I’m not entirely sure what I’m saying myself, to be honest.]
Akasha deflected after speaking.
While they exchanged these words, the Marquis had stopped as he approached Nerin.
An awkward silence stretched between them.
Both seemed uncertain how to draw near to each other.
Sion, watching quietly, spoke up.
“Will you stand there like that all day?”
“Hmm……”
The Marquis hesitated.
Then Nerin opened her mouth.
“Are you… my father?”
“Y-yes, I am.”
The Marquis nodded.
From that day on, the Marquis had never taken a wife.
Naturally, he had no children of his own.
Because of that very fact, the Minenelios Marquis House was still the subject of much talk.
The Marquis drew something from his pocket with trembling hands.
“This is a Magic Tool that responds if you carry the blood of your mother.”
“Ah.”
Nerin quietly accepted what the Marquis offered.
In that moment, the Magic Tool glowed softly.
Proof that Nerin carried the blood of the woman who had been the Marquis’s companion.
“Ah……!”
The Marquis’s eyes trembled at the sight.
It was clear he had kept it with great care—the Magic Tool in Nerin’s hands was in pristine condition.
“So it really was you……!”
“…….”
Nerin gazed at the softly glowing Magic Tool, then cradled it gently in both hands. She did not weep.
She simply nodded and looked up at the Marquis.
Nerin seemed to have accepted instinctively that the man before her was indeed her father.
“It’s good to meet you.”
Uncertain how else to respond, she offered these words instead.
“Father? Is it all right if I call you that?”
“Yes, of course.”
The Marquis stammered his reply, and Nerin continued.
“Honestly, it doesn’t feel quite real. I’m still not entirely certain you’re truly my father.”
“……I understand.”
“But I’m not unhappy about it. It’s good.”
The Marquis, who had been listening quietly, then ventured softly:
“You’re……happy about this, yes?”
“Yes!”
Nerin nodded.
“It’s the perfect chance to shed the orphan label!”
“……!”
The Marquis’s body swayed at those words. He could not bear to hear the term “orphan label” from his daughter’s lips, now that they had barely found each other.
“Or……orphan?”
“I’m moving up in station from orphan to a flawed daughter with a father! Isn’t that wonderful!”
“Fl……flawed?”
The words falling from his daughter’s mouth were violence wrought in language.
“No, no, you’re not a flawed child at all!”
“It’s all right! Admitting the truth is what matters most.”
Nerin’s optimism ran in peculiar directions.
Akasha, watching quietly, spoke.
[Wasn’t this supposed to be heading in a touching direction?]
‘It is touching, though.’
Sion, calmly cracking nuts between his teeth as he observed the scene, remarked:
‘Isn’t this exactly the moment where Nerin acknowledges her own flaw and confesses it boldly to her father?’
[But that man’s heart is being torn into a thousand—ten thousand pieces right now?]
‘Youth is painful because it matters.’
[……?]
Akasha found it nearly impossible to follow Sion’s train of thought, but decided to nod along anyway.
At that moment, tears streamed down the Marquis’s cheeks.
“Sob……!”
“You’re crying because you’re reunited with a daughter like me, one with flaws! I too am absolutely overjoyed to rise from orphan to nobility!”
“Waaaahhhhh……!”
As Nerin’s words continued, the Marquis’s weeping grew louder.
And Sion, watching this spectacle, quietly withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his own eyes.
“A touching reunion between father and daughter…….”
[…….]
There was only one thing Akasha could say about this absurd situation.
[What on earth is this.]
Clearly, the reunion with his daughter that the Marquis had imagined was nothing like this.

* * *

“……So that’s roughly how it went.”
“Ah…….”
Moments later, Lumia received the report through the groundbreaking method of direct transmission, and she scratched her head in undisguised confusion.
“……Wasn’t it supposed to be a touching reunion between father and daughter?”
“It was supposed to be.”
“But from what I’m hearing, it sounds like all we have is a story about a father whose heart was unilaterally shattered?”
“You don’t appreciate true sentiment.”
“……?”
Lumia tilted her head again, but Sion remained composed.
“The Marquis has made clear his intention to publicly acknowledge Nerin as his daughter once her ‘condition’ is resolved.”
“Is that wise? Given Nerin’s blood…….”
“That’s my concern to manage. I’ve already made considerable progress on it, in fact.”
“I see…….”
Lumia nodded at his words.
If Sion spoke with such certainty, it was worth trusting.
“We’ve gained considerable advantages as well. The Minenelios House has agreed to fund the reclamation of the lands we suffered damage to entirely.”
“Oh!”
Lumia’s eyes brightened.
With that arrangement, the Blue Tower could escape its financial constraints far more securely.
“Moreover, the Marquis seems to have been impressed by the Main Tower. He expressed his desire to cultivate a ‘close relationship’ going forward.”
“That’s truly excellent!”
Breaking into noble society had been difficult enough; with the Minenelios House’s backing, it would become far easier.
Beyond that.
“Oh, and the Marquis also requested that we dispose of the Magic Killer’s weapon.”
“That makes sense. A weapon like that can’t exactly be spoken of anywhere.”
If it became known that the Magic Killer’s weapon had been used?
The Council itself might move to crush the Minenelios House.
No matter how prominent a Marquis’s family, their downfall would be inevitable should the Council decide to act.
“But how do you intend to dispose of it? Perhaps selling it through the Black Market……?”
“No, that’s not it.”
Sion gave a slight smile as he spoke.
“I’ll melt it down. As is, it’s merely a problematic weapon, but once melted and reforged, it can be put to remarkably useful purpose.”
“Put to useful purpose……how, exactly?”
Watching Lumia’s questioning expression, Sion continued.
“Automatons.”
[Acknowledged.]
Akasha responded to that word.
The Magic Killer’s weapon was forged from extremely rare ore. The design itself is refined, but what Sion requires is not such design.
“I intend to use this as material for the automaton work I’ll be starting soon.”
Automaton work.
It was about time to begin that project, after all.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————