Secrets of the Silent Witch - Volume 5 - Chapter Pr

PROLOGUE

The Game Starts Before You Even Get to the Table, My Fellow Sage

Over half a year before the Silent Witch Monica Everett, one of the Kingdom of Ridill’s Seven Sages, received her mission to guard the second prince, she attended a ceremony at the castle to celebrate the new year.

In Ridill, the New Year’s ceremony was followed by a week of feasting. During that time, the Seven Sages were required to stay at the castle.

Monica, however, had been completely exhausted by the main event, and starting the following day, she holed up in the guest room she’d been assigned with some books and chose to skip all the parties. But for some reason or other, servants kept coming to her door, asking if she’d like a bath or offering to do up her hair for her.

Her raggedy braids and dreary complexion seemed to concern them, but she didn’t plan to attend the feasting anyway. Why bother taking a bath or doing her hair nicely? She just wanted to read her books in peace and quiet, away from everyone else.

So she donned her Sage’s robe and left her room, deciding to go to the Jade Chamber instead, where the Seven Sages gathered. The Jade Chamber had a special barrier protecting it; nobody but the Sages and the king himself could enter, so she wouldn’t have to worry about the unending stream of servants.

Since the other Sages would no doubt be at the latest party, she’d be able to focus on her reading without anyone getting in her way. Gripping her half-read book and seldom-used staff, she pulled her hood low over her face and started off toward the Jade Chamber.

Tons of people went in and out of the castle during the New Year’s celebrations, and every time she passed one, her stomach would contract. But eventually, she arrived at her destination and stood before the door. There, she pressed the tip of her staff against it and let her mana flow. Channeling mana through a staff’s jewel into the door was required to unlock the room.

Once it was unlocked, Monica cracked the door open, took a peek inside—and immediately regretted coming.

“Oh, hello, my fellow Sage.”

“Hey, it’s Silent! Perfect timing. Get over here!”

Two men sat at a round table playing cards. One of them had long, chestnut hair done up in a braid, while the other was about forty and had black hair and a beard. The former was Monica’s colleague, the Barrier Mage Louis Miller; the tall, bearded man was Bradford Firestone, the Artillery Mage.

Both had on robes that marked them as members of the Seven Sages, but unlike Louis—who had the decorative front part properly fastened—the broad-shouldered Bradford had removed it and partially unbuttoned the collar of the shirt he wore underneath.

Monica began to shake with fear. These two were the Sages’ main combat specialists. To put it bluntly, they were both hotheaded and quick to pick fights. She didn’t want to be anywhere near them if she could help it.

She tried to excuse herself immediately, but Bradford was already calling her over. He had seniority, and she didn’t have the courage to ignore him. Still trembling, she stepped into the room.

“Come, have a seat,” said Bradford, pulling out the chair next to him. Then, turning to Louis, he added, “She doesn’t come here often, does she?”

“I’m sure she just got scared of the servants trying to tend to her and came here to escape.”

Bradford nodded sympathetically. “Oh, right. Seems they’re all quibbling over who gets to take care of the Seven Sages.”

At the moment, the court was split between those supporting the first prince and those who favored his younger brother, and these two factions were constantly trying to assert dominance. Of the Sages, the Barrier Mage was on the first prince’s side, while the Gem Mage stood behind the second. All the others were neutral.

The leaders of each faction wanted to get as many neutral Sages on their side as they could and were trying to win them over with hospitality. No wonder the servants’ eyes had been glinting with ambition.

“With all those interruptions, it’s no wonder you couldn’t get any rest in your room,” said Bradford. “In that case, why don’t you join us for a few rounds?” He began picking up the cards scattered on the table.

Louis, still holding all his cards, smiled thinly. “You must have had a bad hand.”

“Nah, I just thought we oughtta start fresh so we can deal in Silent.”

“I see.”

Louis put down his cards face up on the table. Monica saw various images depicting the wings, claws, and eyes of a dragon. She didn’t know what any of them meant, but it seemed the Barrier Mage had already put together a winning hand of some sort.

“Whoa. I was nearly in trouble there,” muttered Bradford, gathering up the remaining cards and looking over at Monica as she sat down next to him. “You ever played this game before?”

“Um, no…”

“You get seven cards to start. Then players take turns drawing one card from the deck and discarding another. The object of the game is to get all the parts needed to make a full dragon.”

Bradford then lined up a few cards for her and explained how winning hands worked.

Herbivorous dragons scored the fewest points, followed by the lesser species: pterodragons, earth dragons, fire dragons, and water dragons. Higher points were awarded for the greater dragons, including green, yellow, and blue varieties. The legendary dragons—colored white and black—gave even more points, with black being the highest. In addition, before starting each game, you would determine an element for that round. If the dragon you completed matched the element, you would receive double the points.

As Monica absently counted up all the cards, Bradford continued in a serious tone, “Even if you start with a bad hand, you can still win. When that happens, it’s best to bluff and act like you have something good.”

“Oh?” replied Louis with a little shrug. “You mean you haven’t noticed, Lord Artillery Mage? When you have a bad hand, you always touch your beard.”

“What?!” exclaimed Bradford, touching his beard on reflex.

Louis smiled, then looked at Monica. “As you can see, this is a game where idiots who are easily swayed by others make fools of themselves.”

Still holding his beard, Bradford glared at Louis and scowled. Then he put his thick hand on Monica’s shoulder and rumbled in a low voice, “Let’s team up, Silent. We’ll outwit him together.”

A strangled whimper escaped Monica’s throat in place of a response. She could see piles of silver and copper coins stacked to one side of the table; these two were gambling. She had no desire to take part, but Bradford was already dealing the cards.

She gripped her robe where it fell over her knees. She was trembling.

Louis drew a card from the deck, then discarded a blue wing. Monica “checked” it. You could steal an opponent’s discarded card when you were one step away from completing a dragon by declaring “check.”

Monica added the blue wing to her hand, then revealed her cards and declared victory. “Ummm, I have a water dragon…so I win.”

Bradford, who was playing as her partner, clapped his hands. “Gah-ha-ha! There we go, there we go! Luck is on our side now!”

Laughing heartily, he tousled Monica’s hair with one hand. She didn’t like tall men with loud voices, and, unsure what else to do, she simply froze and let him continue.

They had just concluded their second game, and the Bradford-Monica team was in the lead, having won both.

Louis, sitting across from Monica, didn’t seem particularly fazed, however. In fact, he wore a rather eerie smile.

“Well, well,” he said. “Lucky as ever, Silent Witch.”

Monica was almost certain her victories had nothing to do with luck. In fact, she couldn’t help feeling that Louis was purposely letting her win.

She twitched as a bad feeling settled over her.

Bradford dealt the cards again, then pushed a pile of silver coins out in front of him. “All right! I’ll bet twenty silver this time!”

Monica’s eyes went wide. Up until now, they’d been playing for five coins or less per round. Bradford was rushing things.

“Ummm, I don’t, well, maybe you should, um, rethink that…”

As Monica flailed, Bradford smirked. His expression the picture of confidence, he whispered into her ear. “I just realized something. Barrier here plays with his hair whenever his hand is bad.”

“…Huh?”

Hesitantly, she took a peek at Louis. He was looking at his hand, a confident, relaxed smile on his face. But his fingers were fiddling with a tuft of hair at his cheek.

“It’s time to go all in,” whispered Bradford. “We’re gonna make him cough up every last coin.”

Monica had a very bad feeling about where this was headed. Bradford, however, had no intention of holding back. Despite the Silent Witch’s trepidation, the game continued.

Monica’s hand came together nicely. One more card and she’d have a full greater dragon—red, this time. And since the element this round was fire, a red dragon was worth twice the points.

Still, she couldn’t shake her sense of unease. It felt like the tables might turn any moment. Anxiously, she drew a card from the deck—and her shoulders jerked.

…Oh, oh no, it’s the green wing…

If Monica’s prediction was correct, Louis was going for either a pterodragon or its greater form, a green dragon. If she discarded the green wing, he could check it, and she could lose.

We always keep seven cards in our hand. I only need six of them to finish a red dragon… I have one free slot, so I should keep the green wing and discard my extra fang instead.

“My fellow Sage,” said Louis, chuckling as he hid his mouth behind his cards. “You might want to fix that habit of jumping out of your skin whenever something unsettles you.”

“Aww… Um, okay…” She bunched up her shoulders.

Bradford whispered to her again. “Don’t falter,” he said. “Look at him. Look closely. He’s playing with his hair. He’s got a bad hand. Now’s our chance to press the attack!”

“Oh,” said Monica, nodding vaguely as Louis discarded a card.

It was a golden eye—the last card Monica needed to win. But before she could check it, Bradford raised his voice.

“Check! Gah-hah-hah! We’ve got a red dragon! And the element is fire, so it’s worth twice the points! Sorry, Barrier!”

As Bradford made a victorious whoop, Louis revealed his hand.

“Apologies,” he said. “To tell the truth… I already have a cursed dragon.”

Bradford was dumbstruck.

It seemed Louis had already assembled a pterodragon in his hand. But that wasn’t all—his other card had the word curse written on it. Monica hadn’t used that card a single time so far; she looked at it, confused.

Louis smiled and explained for her. “When you have a complete dragon and a curse card in your hand, it’s called a ‘cursed dragon.’”

A cursed dragon—a dragon under the effect of a curse—was an extremely rare type with few historical sightings.

“…Ummm, then how come you, um, didn’t say you won?”

“You don’t need to say you’ve won, even if your cursed dragon is complete. But if anyone else says they win, then…” Louis’s smile deepened. “…they lose all the points they would have won.”

“Hwah?!”

That meant a huge victory could instantly turn into a crushing loss. The curse card hadn’t appeared even once that round, and Monica hadn’t known about the special rule.

But Louis wasn’t about to accept an excuse like that. “Not happy?” he said. “You were the fool here. You sat down to a game without looking up the official rules—instead, you simply took someone else’s explanation at face value.”

As he spoke, he purposely played with the hair hanging by his cheek.

That was when Monica finally figured it out. “W-wait, Mister Louis, then the thing about you playing with your hair when you’re at a disadvantage was…”

“Like I said, this is a game where idiots who are easily swayed by others make fools of themselves.”

So he was only playing with his hair as an act to convince his opponents to make their move. Bradford fell to his knees, and Louis happily dragged the pile of silver coins to his own side.

Feeling guilty about the massive loss, Monica looked over the cards on the table. To tell the truth, she’d been curious about something from the moment Louis had revealed his hand.

“Ummm, Mister Louis… I don’t, um, think…this is the right number of cards…”

“Perhaps it’s just your imagination?” Louis smiled thinly.

“No,” she said, her voice flat. The hesitation had vanished from her youthful features, and her round eyes stared at the cards without blinking. “From what I know of the game so far, there should be eight fang cards in the deck. But there’s one too many. I remember all the discards, so I know I’m right.”

It was only at times like this that Monica talked so fluently. Louis crooked his head slightly to one side in a particularly adorable expression.

“The game starts before you even get to the table, my fellow Sage,” he said.

“So you were cheating before we even sat down, eh?” Bradford cut in. “Why don’t you take that robe off and turn it inside out for us?”

“In this cold? Don’t be absurd.”

Louis stood up from his chair and began to shuffle toward the exit. Bradford, sure the other man had cheated, smiled viciously and pointed his staff toward the fleeing mage.

“All these card games have put me in the mood for a magic battle. Come join me, Barrier.”

“My, my. You’ve got a lot of energy for a middle-aged man. Perhaps you should apply for the Magic Corps.”

Bradford began chanting an attack spell, which Louis countered with a quick-chanted defensive barrier.

The Jade Chamber was protected by a powerful barrier of its own that was not so easily broken. Louis’s defense, then, was only meant for himself. Monica was, of course, not included.

With a sound that was half-scream, half-whine, Monica dove under the round table and, without chanting, triggered her own defensive barrier.

About fifteen minutes later, the Artillery Mage and the Barrier Mage, having roughhoused all around the Jade Chamber, were restrained by the Witch of Thorns, who had come running alongside the Starseer Witch.

The Starseer Witch then whisked Monica, who was curled up in a ball under the table muttering strings of numbers as she stared blankly into the distance, away to safety.