The Flying Tower

Lein was at a loss whether to laugh or cry. It seemed people really could be given the wrong names.

He'd made a big show of invoking Tesla's surname, and now the world thought he was the strongest in physics. As a result, it had decided that the School of Evocation—the school most enhanced by the laws of physics—was his specialty.

Lein glanced at the one magic school in the system list that still hadn't budged: Necromancy. He couldn't help thinking, If I'd bluffed and said my surname was Menethil, could I have become the Lich King?

Sigh. He'd put on that act back then, and now he had to keep it up, even if it made him want to cry.

With this campus network called the Physical Network, their makeshift school had finally taken shape. As for who might connect to this magical network—which could barely be called a local network—in the future, only the heavens knew.

In any case, this small, rather lovely network only covered the main campus and the so-called Spatial Magic branch.

"Cold Face! You'll manage those Fire Bats for me for now. The valley and this Mage Tower's security are in your hands. If intruders show up, you may decide for yourself whether to use limited force, so long as it isn't meant to kill. If you intend to kill anyone, you must notify me in advance."

"Yes!" the Tower Spirit replied in its emotionless, mechanical voice.

Although the Legendary Fire Bats were linked to Lein's soul, anyone who had to stare at surveillance screens around the clock would get bored and tired.

These days, there were a thousand days to be a thief, but no thousand days to guard against one.

Handing off the work meant Lein could set down his burden.

Before long, when Downs went to the State guesthouse and brought Bo Le back, Ganis was the first to hurry over.

"Sir Quijote, where are you going?"

"To fulfill my promise! My master said I was to help you deal with the Madela Mage Tower. I couldn't handle it, so my master had to step in."

"Deal with it?"

How?

Ganis and the people around him were all baffled.

As they saw it, even taking down a Mage Tower like this wouldn't be easy. If the surrounding homes or anything else were damaged, it would be difficult to explain to the king.

After delivering the message, Downs rode his beloved Wind Rider and zipped back into the Mage Tower. Ganis couldn't stop him.

Just then, half the city watched in astonishment as brilliant purple-blue light blossomed across the entire outer wall of the Mage Tower, which had seemingly been "revived" and brought under control.

Everyone was terrified.

The sudden change even jolted the king from his thoughts on the palace balcony, where he'd been pondering how to handle his relationship with that Legendary Archmage. He looked up and cried out.

"Could that bastard Tesla—could that great man—be planning to blow up the Madela Mage Tower right where it stands?!"

The minds of half the city went blank. They stared, dazed, as the space around the Mage Tower began to warp. Following the outline of its outer walls, thousands upon thousands of tiny purple spatial rifts and vortices appeared, looking like the ornamental piping on a cream cake.

If the scene before them were an oil painting, then the purple light was undoubtedly a giant rag, wiping the paint that belonged to Cervantes's capital clean off the canvas.

Yet to ordinary people, such a transcendent spectacle was no less than a miracle, a grand sermon.

More astonishing still, through the vortex-like portals in the void, Ganis could already see what lay on the other side.

The desolate, lifeless mountains. The rust-colored earth. The mountain city set against that backdrop. Ganis knew the sight well.

"Could Your Excellency Tesla be sending the Mage Tower to..."

At the same time, in the central castle of Ramanque City, the Ramanque family's residence and a fortified inner keep, the Earl stood on the highest balcony, deeply troubled.

"Alas! Downs Quijote is descended from a family of knights who have served me for generations! How wonderful it would have been if he'd become my vassal! I prepared land for him, beautiful women, everything—and still, in the end, I couldn't keep him..."

It wasn't that the Earl had been unfair. Unfortunately, the prospect of rebuilding magical civilization was far too grand and ambitious for a mere earl to shoulder.

The captain of his knights didn't know what to say to comfort his lord.

The Earl's steward asked quietly, "Then, my lord, should we put the fief we set aside for Sir Quijote to another use?"

The Earl's cheek twitched.

The fief he'd set aside for Downs had come from relocating one of his closest barons. He'd carved out a piece of prime land right beside Ramanque City.

A lord couldn't simply confiscate a vassal's fief when the vassal had done nothing wrong.

To make it happen, Earl Ramanque had given up an even larger, more fertile part of his own demesne, as well as a rich iron mine. Only then had he managed to appease his other vassals.

In hindsight, his efforts seemed rather clownish.

The rule that "a vassal's vassal is not my vassal" was one the king wouldn't dare break first. But Downs had given up the knightly trials to study magic; he wasn't a hereditary noble. If the king swooped in to poach him, the Earl would have no grounds to complain.

Now all the Earl could do was hope that, after the king had taken the meat, he'd at least leave him some broth.

After weighing it over for a long while, the Earl sighed. "Leave the land as it is for now. Let it remain as a keepsake."

Who could have guessed that the very next moment, a beam of blinding light would suddenly descend on an empty patch of land on the hills outside the city?

A Mage Tower, radiating a purple-blue glow, appeared out of nowhere. Though somewhat battered, it was still magnificent.

As it crossed space and settled outside the city, everyone—from the Earl to the guards on the walls—was left staring blankly.

What... was this?

In theory, the diligent city guards should have sounded the alarm at once.

Before they could react, a door suddenly opened at the top of the Mage Tower, only two hundred meters from the city walls. A young man in purple robes came flying toward them, riding an exceptionally impressive Wind Rider.

"Don't attack! I'm Downs Quijote!" Downs believed in playing it safe, so he flew over with Lightning and Arrow Protection active.

As it happened, he'd had the same shield up the day he'd shown off his power and dealt with the Bugbears.

A sharp-eyed guard recognized him at once. "Ah! That's the Quijote boy!"

Before he could finish, his captain smacked him on the head. "Don't call him a boy! He's Lord Quijote!"

People all over half the city poked their heads out from their homes and other places, watching with a mixture of delight and curiosity as Downs rode that flashy "flying horse" all the way to Earl Ramanque's castle without so much as a hindrance.

Downs reined in his mount in midair. Bo Le's four hooves pawed the air proudly.

"My lord!"

"Lord Quijote!"

The two exchanged grand bows.

"His Majesty Cervantes asked me to clear out the Madela Mage Tower in the capital, but unfortunately, I failed. Luckily, my master stepped in at the last moment. However, my master only agreed to move the Mage Tower, so he put it here. Um, I hope you don't mind, my lord?"

Mind?

Why on earth would he mind?

Other families couldn't even manage to hire a High-Level Mage, let alone get a Mage Tower thrown in for free!

Earl Ramanque was overwhelmed with happiness.