Mage? Magic Engineer!-Chapter 48 - 45: The Last Graduate of the Hermitage

"Let’s go." Rorschach wanted to leave quickly. Pascal grabbed Paulina and ran off at top speed.

Clutching at his last hope, Valon started to yell, "My friend! He’s a Ma—" but then his mouth was clamped shut, and he couldn’t say another word.

’This gambling fiend. He knows I’m a Mage and still wants to leech off me.’ Rorschach wasted no words and simply used Mage’s Hand.

The crowd of onlookers gathered again. ’Where did so many loafers come from?’ Rorschach wondered. He didn’t know that in Valuva, the casinos were like fresh meat for flies. Those who had squandered their fortunes would then loiter nearby, blindly squandering their lives.

"That Valon fellow had a sudden stroke of luck. How much did he win?"

"That young man saved Valon at noon!"

"Maybe the young man taught Valon a trick or two..."

Rorschach hadn’t realized the young man was something of a casino celebrity. The once-glorious young nobleman had fallen on hard times. After his father’s death from illness and his family’s bankruptcy, his "hobby" had driven him to jump into a river. When he survived the attempt, everyone suddenly discovered his luck had become unstoppable. Starting from a two-Copper-Coin table, he’d spent the afternoon snowballing his winnings into chips worth over a hundred Gold Coins.

As the gossip died down, two of the burly men holding Valon down broke off and headed for Rorschach. Just as Rorschach was debating whether to use magic in public, an old man in a black clerical robe grabbed him without a word and pulled him along. When the others saw the old man, they instinctively cleared a path. Rorschach was led into the adjacent building.

’It’s a Church?’ Rorschach was shocked to see the Holy Emblem of the God of Light and Order. There had been no sign of it from the outside; its doors and windows were shut tight this morning.

Inside was a hall beneath the Holy Emblem, simply furnished with six chairs arranged in three rows and flanked by bookshelves. The ceiling was painted with believers and Angels bathed in light.

"Not a Church, child. It’s a Hermitage." The old man corrected him, gesturing for them to sit. "This is where my fellow Priests and I study, live, and practice our faith. It is not open to the public. I saw you were in trouble and invited you in to take refuge."

"A Monastery built next to a casino?"

"The casino opened next to the Monastery." The old man gave a helpless smile. "Ignorance is not a sin. Besides, I’ve grown to rather like it. The casino is filled with order."

"But it’s all just games of chance."

"But they are bound by order, both seen and unseen. Just as we live under the Lord’s light, we are all rolling the dice of fate. Whether the roll is good or bad is decided by the Lord’s order. The casino’s enforcers... they are far inferior to Holy Knights, yet they are all Orderkeepers."

Rorschach was stunned by the blasphemous comparison. "But the casino seems like a terrible place. That fellow Valon... it sounded like they refused to pay him out because he won too much. Isn’t that a violation of order by the casino?"

"Heh heh. Making money for its owner and His Majesty the King—that is the highest order in that establishment. Besides, they would argue that Valon, by becoming suddenly unbeatable, must have won through illicit means, thus violating the order first... This is a constant reminder to us that not all order means Light and justice..."

"Enough, Priest. Even a Mage would find problems with that theory of yours, to say nothing of a Cultivator coming here to practice." The man who had been sitting in the front row with his back to them leaned on a cane and rose to his feet. He walked toward them, his limping right foot thudding with each step. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

"Lord Bishop..."

"Just call me Dipresy, as you always have, Priest." His hawk-like eyes swept over Rorschach, a golden light flashing for an instant in his pupils. "What have you brought in here? A Mage, and one from the Empire, no less."

Rorschach expected him to be hostile, but instead, the man extended a hand. "I am Dipresy, Archbishop of Saint Miller Church."

Rorschach took his hand. Dipresy’s was unusually cold. At that moment, Rorschach didn’t yet understand what the Archbishop of this Church meant to the Kingdom. The man’s tone and gaze irritated Rorschach; it was simply the aura he projected.

"Rorschach, a Mage from the Tower of Stars."

"To become a Mage so young... did you collect your salary from the Tower and decide to try your luck at the casinos, hmm?" Before Rorschach could argue, the Archbishop continued, "Don’t give me that look. Fine, you’re a decent fellow... Are you wondering how I knew you were one of the Empire People?"

He tapped his cane near Rorschach’s feet. "You. You have both a provincial mountain accent and the speaking cadence of the Imperial Capital. I’ve heard that your His Majesty the Emperor enjoys scouring the countryside for talented children to cultivate. Here in Valuva, the vast majority of fools would hear your accent and arrogantly assume you’re just a bumpkin from the outer provinces. That’s just the sort of people they are..."

The next question took Rorschach by surprise. "How did you get here? Airship?"

"I took a job guarding a merchant caravan. We traveled by land."

"Interesting... a Mage taking on such a thankless job. I’m almost tempted to suspect you’re a spy." The Archbishop smiled and continued his questions. "When you entered the city, did any Holy Knights give your caravan trouble? Was the entry tax you paid the 0.6 percent stipulated by the Kingdom’s laws?"

He then asked if the officials at the gate were "greedy," and whether the road to the Royal Capital was in good condition...

Rorschach answered his questions with immense surprise. The man asking them seemed less like a high-ranking member of the Clergy and more like a Governor who doted on his people.

"That’s enough. It’s about time; the gawkers outside should have dispersed by now. Priest, please show this uninvited guest out the back door." With that, he took a small notebook and an exquisitely crafted charcoal pencil from his robes and began to write something.

"No offense, but are all the Bishops of the God of Order like him?" Rorschach couldn’t help but ask the Priest before he left.

The Priest glanced back at the man sitting in the main hall and smiled. "In here, he is my student, the last graduate of this Hermitage. The moment he steps through that door, he is the Archbishop of Saint Miller Cathedral and the Red-robed Prime Minister of the Holy Kingdom, Dipresy. Now, child, you do not belong here. Go."

In the backyard stood a carriage bearing the insignia of the Royal Palace. Its driver had been waiting a long time for the Cardinal.

...

Nekker Jean, known as Valuva’s most brilliant banker, had been feeling quite pleased with himself lately.

His Majesty the King had followed the Guard Captain’s advice to appoint "the wealthiest and most decisive man to manage His Majesty’s personal coffers and the Kingdom’s treasury." The recipient of this lavish praise was none other than this young, full-haired man. Nekker was about to become the Royal Palace’s Minister of Finance!

Nekker had just finished his meeting with the Cardinal. The eccentric man had insisted on holding their first meeting far from both the Financial Street and the Royal Palace, in an even stranger place: a Monastery next to a casino.

The banker had persuaded the Lord Chancellor with his ambitious plans—or so he believed. But he had yet to play his trump card, a plan known only to His Majesty in its entirety. "Your Majesty, you will no longer be at the mercy of the Holy See and the Magic Guild!" ’Instead, you will be at the mercy of money!’

At this thought, a smile spread across Nekker’s face. He was already in his carriage, but his eyes were drawn to a commotion at the casino entrance.

A poor young man was getting a brutal beating. Nekker inquired with the onlookers and learned that it was some unlucky lad. It wasn’t what he had assumed; the boy wasn’t being beaten for a debt, but because he had won too much, and the casino had turned on him.

’Valon?’ It was a young man he recognized.

"Sir? You know me?" A new lifeline appeared. Valon scrambled out from under the blows and crawled to the feet of the man in expensive, elegant clothes. "Please, save a poor soul! Save me!"