The topmost floor of the World Mage Academy Babel.
"Looking over it again, it's completely unhinged."
Inside the headmaster's office atop the highest floor of the Tower of Babel, Inea Renren Lorelei, the headmaster of Babel, reviewed the intelligence reports and voiced that exact sentiment for what felt like the hundredth time.
Kai Heinemann was a figure who could easily become a pivotal player in the world moving forward. It was imperative to grasp as much detail as possible not only about his combat capabilities, but also regarding his character and disposition. To that end, she had assigned an intelligence division team to investigate him thoroughly.
Yet the findings detailed in those reports consisted entirely of horrifying, unbelievable facts.
Triggered by the dispute over succession in the Holy Amelia Kingdom, Princess Rosemary had been appointed as the lord of Eastend. Naturally, not a single upstanding citizen lived in such a place. The candidates Kai Heinemann selected to populate the territory were the Wind Cats, who had been living there in hiding.
The leader of the Wind Cats was supposedly Princess Felice Loto Amelia, a royal princess of the Holy Amelia Kingdom who had vanished years ago. If so, integrating the Wind Cats into the populace fell well within the kingdom's realm of expectation, which made some degree of sense.
The real issue lay in the pawns and methods he had employed to assimilate them.
First, solely to lure out the Wind Cats, he summoned three notorious factions to the Akinashi Domain: the Tao Family, widely regarded as the underworld kings, the Lost Forest, and the Akegarasu.
These Three Great Powers were ruthless ruffians that even major surface nations struggled to keep in check. Yet Kai had sicced those very thugs alongside Princess Felice to subjugate Deboa, the calamitous evil dragon slumbering deep within the mines of the Holy Amelia Kingdom's Akinashi Domain.
While the sealing of the evil dragon Deboa in the Akinashi Domain was virtually unknown to short-lived races, it was practically common knowledge among species with lifespans spanning hundreds of years, such as elves, the demon race, and dragonkin.
The monster had originally surfaced on the eastern side of the Holy Amelia Kingdom, where Deboa completely razed its towns and cities to the ground. Having witnessed that sheer, overwhelming might, the Lorelei government of that era made contact in an attempt to form a pact with Deboa, only for the entire envoy team to be wiped out. Ever since, Lorelei had classified Deboa as a Special Grade Dangerous Spirit Disaster, strictly prohibiting any further interaction.
Nor was this caution unique to Lorelei. The same held true for Aldebaran, the demon to the north, as well as the rulers of the adjacent Northground. Humans seemed under the impression that Aldebaran's army had never launched a massive invasion into Eastend because of the sheer cliffs blocking the way, but that assumption was only half right.
Certainly, those towering precipices posed an obstacle. For Aldebaran's army to execute a full-scale invasion, massive aerial transports would be an absolute necessity.
However, Aldebaran was a Demon King born of a hybrid union between an Ogre Lord—the apex variant among ogres—and the demon race, styling himself the Demon Ogre King. Furthermore, his military boasted the Sky Ogre Squad, an elite demon unit capable of commanding wyverns. Such a vanguard was more than equipped to undertake an expedition.
On top of that, an alliance with the likes of the Blue Dragon Clan, who comprised Northground's ruling class, would make a large-scale invasion entirely feasible. Yet neither faction ever dared set foot across the border simply because they feared a reckless intrusion into the Holy Amelia Kingdom's eastern reaches might agitate and shatter Deboa's seal. That was how terrifying a threat Deboa posed to every major power.
And yet, of all things, Kai had intentionally broken Deboa's seal, using Princess Felice's contract spirit, Titan, and the Three Great Powers to bring it down.
Naturally, Titan was a formidable being as one of the Spirit Kings. Even so, Djinn, the Wind Spirit King who had guarded the Lorelei Nation for generations, had declared Deboa to be an anomaly that had strayed into this world—an evil dragon so monstrous that victory would be impossible without uniting every force on the planet. Titan could never have defeated it alone. Yet according to the intelligence reports, Titan held the upper hand from start to finish, successfully pulling off a flawless subjugation.
There was no doubt Kai Heinemann had pulled the strings behind Titan's impossible victory. In fact, reducing it to a matter of mere assistance likely missed the point entirely.
This was no haphazard venture; it had been meticulously calculated from the beginning. The very fact that Kai had devised a strategy utilizing Deboa proved that, to him, the dragon was an insignificant non-threat.
Had this simply been reckless overconfidence, it would have been one thing. But Kai Heinemann had gone on to slaughter the colossal, three-headed dragon that manifested using Deboa's corpse as a medium with overwhelming brute force. This entire series of events had ironically served to prove the unfailing precision of Mille-Feuille's Gift, Elucidator.
Which meant that he was—
"The strongest Transcender in all of history that this world has ever encountered..."
A Transcender—a supernatural entity far eclipsing even spirits and dragonkin. Mysterious and unseen by living eyes, yet inevitably etched into fairy tales and mythologies. A tempestuous force of nature that defied any and all mortal comprehension.
To be honest, Inea had assumed Mille-Feuille was exaggerating. And who could blame her? The notion that the mightiest Transcender in recorded history—a being mortals could never even hope to behold—genuinely believed himself to be a normal human sounded like a sick joke.
Which was why she could somewhat understand why that foolish human prince had dared to commit such an astronomical act of disrespect.
Although...
"Demanding the execution of Kai Heinemann... How utterly laughable."
Understanding his ignorance did not mean she felt an ounce of sympathy.
If Mille-Feuille's assessment held true, Kai Heinemann genuinely perceived himself as human. His decision to spare that obnoxious, insolent prince was proof enough of that restraint. Therefore, so long as they operated strictly within the boundaries of human society, they would never find themselves in direct opposition with him. The original plan could proceed without a hitch, completely avoiding Kai's wrath. In fact, they could guide him along the desired path in an entirely natural manner.
"To think this plan would evolve into such a nerve-wracking tightrope walk... I certainly never anticipated this."
Inea let out a long, heavy exhale, and then—
"Still... how fascinating!"
Her eyes narrowed, igniting with a sharp, predatory gleam.