Chapter 191

# Chapter 191: The Tin Knight at the Crossroads of Sword and Magic

Not long after leaving the Tower of Prophecy,

Dorothea declared to Rapunzel,

“You shouldn’t hang out with us anymore.”

An unexpected eviction notice.

Faced with this terrifying act that ignored the bond we had built together and all we had accomplished, Rapunzel replied resolutely.

“Yep.”

No pleas of injustice, no outbursts of resentment like “You guys live your own lives without me!”

And honestly, that was understandable. She knew this ban was for her own good.

The trigger was a conversation with Master Medir before they left the tower.

“By the way, are you planning on continuing to keep that blonde girl around?”

“Well, that really depends on her. As long as she doesn’t refuse, I intend to keep her with us within the Magical Kingdom.”

“Just stop. This is advice from an elder.”

He said in earnest,

“You guys are exceptional. Your personalities, your abilities, everything about you is out of the ordinary. But this girl, Rapunzel, is different. She certainly has talent, but she’s not on the same level as you all. If you keep her around as you are, things are going to get really complicated.”

Dorothea couldn’t deny it.

Thinking back on their adventures, Medir’s words hit the nail on the head.

“Why don’t you just take her on as your apprentice?”

“I think I mentioned that I’d take the ‘responsibility’ of letting you guys go.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Those traditionalists wouldn’t just replace their leader so easily.”

“You seem to know a thing or two about politics, even though you act like you don’t care. Well, just so you know, I actually told you to come find me later when things calm down. That won’t be possible right now, but in about six months, things should mellow out.”

Fast forward to the present.

“If you stay with us like this, it’ll do you more harm than good. You can go visit the Tower of Prophecy later, as Medir said, or even check out another tower. Of course, if you want to stick with us since we’ve made a contract, I wouldn’t stop you…”

With a gaze that seemed to ask, ‘What will you do?’ Rapunzel quietly shook her head.

“No, just helping me until now has been plenty. I owe you so much.”

“Good. Since your escort time has been cut short, I’ve set aside a goodbye gift for you.”

“Lady Rapunzel! You must stay healthy!”

“If there’s fate, we’ll meet again. Please take care.”

After exchanging goodbyes with Dorothea, Adelheid, Sophia, and the Tin Knight, Rapunzel parted ways with the group.

In truth, with the Tin Knight, she couldn’t hear their voice, so she was only guessing from their gestures.

Waving her hand towards the departing wagon for quite some time, she eventually mumbled to herself as its figure disappeared from view.

“I might have made a bit of a regrettable decision.”

Honestly speaking, Rapunzel didn’t have a complete lack of desire to stay with the group.

Having been driven away as a witch in her original territory, with the only person she had any connection to, her older brother, now dead, she was facing a future of living alone.

Continuing to accompany the strong, wealthy, and somewhat connected group of the Tin Knight was certainly no bad option.

However, Rapunzel understood.

She wasn’t cut out to keep up with that chaotic party until the end.

It wasn’t merely a matter of skill.

Although it was hard to believe, when their journey began, Adelheid had been too weak to even keep up with Rapunzel’s feet.

Her rise to her current level was thanks to enduring the rigorous training of the Tin Knight, and Rapunzel knew that if she underwent the same training, there was plenty of potential for growth.

However…

‘…To be honest, asking me to go through that training is a bit much.’

The training that Adelheid underwent was such that, in terms of both quality and quantity, it could easily overwhelm an average knight, let alone a mere soldier.

Adelheid had probably grown accustomed to it by now, executing it flawlessly without complaint, but simply watching Rapunzel felt like it was enough to make her teeth chatter, even though she wasn’t the one doing it herself.

While she didn’t completely want to part ways with the group, she certainly didn’t have a strong enough motivation to endure such training to stay with them.

Although they could somehow remain together until the group left the Magical Kingdom, it was better to part ways quickly rather than letting things drag on awkwardly.

After all, she already had at least some minimal achievements in her hands.

As she fiddled with the introduction letter Medir had given her and the pouch of gold coins Dorothea had provided, Rapunzel pondered her next steps.

She had secured a chance to enter the Tower of Prophecy, but that didn’t mean she had to go there.

Moreover, Medir had also said he needed time until the commotion settled down, so there was nothing wrong with exploring other towers during this time.

The group had mentioned they were moving in the order of Annihilation, Control, and Guardian, so heading to the Tower of Guardian seemed like the best option to avoid overlapping routes.

Though it concerned her a bit that she’d have to use the sea route along the way, Rapunzel wasn’t overly worried.

‘There’s no way I’ll run into pirates like last time, right?’

After making her decision, she acted quickly, heading to the nearest port city and boarding a ship bound for the Tower of Guardian.

“Please sign here.”

As she was about to write her name on the list presented by the receptionist without a second thought, Rapunzel paused for a moment.

It occurred to her that both Master Medir and Dorothea had advised changing her identity moving forward.

Dorothea even went as far as to prepare a potion that could change her hair color.

This witch seemed endlessly prickly towards others, yet quite soft towards those who had entered her circle.

As she twirled her slightly reddish-brown hair, Rapunzel pondered for a moment before writing a suitable name on the list.

Trot.

***

“Your master doesn’t have a way to contact you?”

Dorothea’s voice dripped with annoyance.

They had finally managed to catch the North Witch’s apprentice to act as a guide, only to hear that this guide was utterly useless.

But Gale remained calm.

“More precisely, there is a means to contact, but it’s not very reliable. He’s incredibly free-spirited. However, it’s likely he’s somewhere in one of your towers.”

“Well then, go find him quickly. With those shoes, you can easily scout around.”

“Can you not say such ridiculous things? The distance I can travel with the ‘Shoes of Boralis’ is limited to what I can see with my own eyes.”

“Then can’t you just use them consecutively? It’d be much faster than walking.”

“I can’t handle the mana expenditure like that. You might manage, Dorothea, but trying to do it alone wouldn’t give you a way to find your master, would it?”

This might make it seem like Gale had a limited amount of magic, but that was a misunderstanding.

Knights pursue the quality of magic, focusing on enhancing efficiency and delicate control, while wizards generally try to increase their total magic capacity to handle consumption.

The total magical power a wizard boasts is roughly enough to fill the capacity of two Tin Knights.

In the same vein, Sophia had about 0.5 of a Tin Knight’s worth of magic, and Adelheid had around 1.4, but Gale simply had 500 Tin Knights’ worth.

A talent among the best of the tower’s historical figures.

The White Knight, having pursued only peak performance, had a terrible fuel efficiency, yet effortlessly casting spells while managing such a massive amount of magic was indicative of its enormity.

Still, compared to Dorothea, the difference in power was like that between an adult and a child, but at the point they could ‘compare’ their powers, they were already far from ordinary.

“Well, don’t worry too much. I can sense if my master is nearby, so I won’t need to search every tower like before in the Tower of Prophecy.”

Gale explained that they would approach the tower, check for the master’s presence, and if he was absent, they would head straight to the next tower, and if he was there, they’d climb up.

Only then did Dorothea regain some calm.

If they proceeded like that, even factoring in the time spent traveling, it would be possible to visit all the towers in about a week.

The Eastern Witch had provided a time limit of over twenty days, so as long as they didn’t waste time in some outlandish location, they had plenty of leeway in their plan.

“Well then, I guess… spending a few days in the same place wouldn’t be an issue.”

Adelheid responded to Dorothea’s comment.

“If this is about me, you don’t have to worry. There’s a way to visit again later.”

“Forget about it. I don’t want to mess up the routes unnecessarily. Besides, there are only two more tokens left; I need to collect them all before you return to your territory.”

The city of Annihilation, Trudvangar.

Just like its name suggests, this city, which stood with the Tower of Annihilation, also had a few peculiar features.

One was that compared to the other towers, which were relatively more northern, the Tower of Annihilation was situated at the southernmost tip of the Magical Kingdom, right at the border with the Lydia Empire.

Another was that this city was almost the only one in the Magical Kingdom with a system similar to a guild, and lastly, the Fourth Lenart Dojo was located here.

Dorothea exclaimed in astonishment.

“What a bizarre arrangement.”

Sophia agreed.

“If we think of it as a normal country, it’s practically like the royal castle is sitting right on the front of the border city. Strategically, that just doesn’t make sense at all.”

[“The Tin Knight” suggests that building right in front of the enemy base to squeeze out combat forces is a tactic!]

[“The Tin Knight” suggests that it’s even more effective if the enemy has to devour resources that the Tin Knight can suck dry!]

“What kind of insane strategy is that?”

Dorothea shook her head, continuing her complaints.

“In the first place, the Tower of Annihilation is a key combat force of the Magical Kingdom, right? So they’re the ones that clash the most fiercely with the Empire. But what kind of mindset leads to establishing the Lenart Dojo where such groups are present?”

“Seriously. I was shocked to hear about the location too.”

Adelheid nodded in agreement.

Gale chimed in, saying,

“Oh, that might have been a suggestion from our master. Usually, when countries are trying to befriend one another, warmongers tend to interfere, and fires like to spread, so instead of letting it become a blaze, it’s smarter to gather the warmongers in one place so that it ends up being a small fire before it becomes a colossal one.”

A brief silence ensued.

The Tin Knight said,

[“The Tin Knight” wonders if there’s a moral character criterion for selecting the Fourth Grade Witch!]

[“The Tin Knight” praises it as a wonderful outcome if it’s intended to serve as a lesson for the people!”]