Huh, that's interesting, because somehow I've been seeing more magus than mage.Quote:
Originally Posted by Comun
Huh, that's interesting, because somehow I've been seeing more magus than mage.Quote:
Originally Posted by ComunEither works but mage is more common and more natural.
Chapter 2, Part 2
The air around me was heavy, as if it had solidified.
Ever since we arrived at the summer in the Second Cycle, I felt as if my senses had become sharper. My bodily functions had been forced to operate under the extreme pressure. Ah, even in this hopeless time, my body still had a superficial will to live. I felt a bit discontented with this, but at the same time, I was also somewhat relieved.
My mentor and Bersac stood in front of my eyes.
Both of them had helped me in the past.
“Didn’t I already say that I wasn’t your enemy?”
Bersac’s voice did not waver (TN: well I’ve been avoiding using this word, I don’t really know why) in the slightest.
I recalled that he once said that if grave keepers lose their composure, the dead would not be able to rest. Though the times have changed since then, these words were still etched clearly in my mind. Bersac did not speak much, but every sentence he did say felt like it had a life of its own.
“You are not an enemy. Just as Sir Kay has confirmed,” said my mentor, narrowing his eyes.
“However, I’m not saying that you are simply an ally, either. He probably wanted to confirm this as well. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be so knowledgeable about the state of affairs of the Holy Church.”
“Haha. Don’t go around remembering everything I say so clearly. You remind me of a certain gloomy auxiliary officer (TN: I’m assuming that Kay’s referring to Agravain here. According to the wiki, his role’s supposed to be the ‘secretary’, but that doesn’t sound quite right. Or it could also be translated as ‘advisor’ or ‘support officer/general’ ).”
“I suppose I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Of course it isn’t a compliment. Though you would be the right man for that job.”
The knight let out a light snort and then looked toward Bersac.
“All of that is to say that you have some sort of fancy connection to outside organizations, don’t you? Possibly with the king of this country— No, it’s called the government in this era, isn’t it.”
My eyes widened in response to these unexpected words.
“The country I lived in back then was quite complicated. There were traitors, traitors of traitors, a court magician that was only there for the fun of it, philandering knights, and and a goody-two-shoes (TN: In a non-derogatory way) king. It only gets more complicated with the involvement of Rome, and other outer powers. Thanks to that, though, I’ve gotten sharper. …Your intel doesn’t sound like it comes from a person, and your comments feel incredibly incongruous. It sounds less like an evaluation of someone and more like a report of a giant group of people. Ah, for goodness sake, this stuff always comes just as I’m enjoying myself.(TN: ???, for the entire paragraph because I just don’t know).”
“……”
Silence descended in the tunnel. The damp, unpleasant air seemed to be dyed with the sound of silence.
“Mr… Bersac?”
The old grave keeper sighed when he heard me call his name.
“I never thought that someone like you would be with them. Though Lord El-Melloi II has a good eye for noticing things(TN: Things = talent? Character? V-virtue?? I don’t know), that mean that he is good at political maneuvering. I thought that as long as that Reines girl isn’t here, I would be able to remain undetected.”
“Are you admitting to it?”
“Some of our distant relatives have contacts in the British government. Because of the disagreements between this village and the Holy Church, they sometimes provide me with convenient information,” he confessed calmly.
I do not act in accordance with the government. However, they do not give away information for free, either. I suppose you could say that our goals are the same.”
“Can you answer me this time, then. What is your goal?”
“……”
Bersac spoke up after a brief pause.
“I want to delay the revival of King Arthur.”
“Delay, but not prevent.”
“I am not only the grave keeper of Blackmore Graveyard, but also a mage that was raised on this land,” Bersac said.
“Therefore, as the overseer of this place, I must prioritize the peace of this land. If King Arthur awakens from her rest one day in the future, that would be something worth celebrating.”
His serious voice reminded me of the past.
As this man (TN: The original said ‘male(person)’, I’m not sure why) had said once, death should be respected, but not feared. The darkness of the abyss of the underworld shall one day swallow all that once lived, and consign them to oblivion. For that reason, all new lives must be worth celebrating. This should be true no matter what evil being it might be.
I didn’t know why, but I really liked how he didn’t directly say that it was the truth.
The training for becoming a grave keeper of Blackmore Graveyard was difficult, and though I lost consciousness many times in the past, I never developed hatred for it. Perhaps this was why.
“It’s not the time for that yet, though. At least, I don’t think so. Therefore, I want Gray to escape because it will help achieve my own wish,” Bersac concluded. Then, tugging at his beard, he turned to face me.
“Aren’t you mad at me?”
“Um… I’m actually more surprised than angry…” I replied, at a loss for words.
It was no wonder.
Too many secrets had already been revealed about the village for me to accept already. Even if someone told me now that the grave keeper that had been taking care of me had ties with the government, I wouldn’t know how to react.
Though, I thought of something else.
“Mr. Bersac… You don’t think that I should die… right…”
“Of course not.”
The grave keeper did not look at me when he said that. I wasn’t sure why, but I got the feeling that this was a show of his sincerity. For that reason, I didn’t thank him.
“I see.”
My mentor nodded.
“Since you understand, take the side tunnel. There’s a route there that the villagers don’t even know. It shouldn’t take that much effort to escape from there.”
“…No.”
This time, my mentor shook his head.
“Though I understand your goal, I cannot accept your proposal, because we have already accepted it before.”
“?”
There was no way he could comprehend that sentence. Even if we told him how we returned here, he would probably not be able to understand it.
“Either way, please think of it as Precognition for now.”
“Hm? I have heard of your abilities. Of course, there are other ways of predicting the future besides Mystic Eyes, but…”
“My apologies, but please don’t take my personal abilities into account here. I just happened to get informed of the results.”
Though it looked as if he had calmly accepted it, his voice still sounded stern. Perhaps the conversation touched on something he minded. It seemed that Bersac’s source of information in the government also investigated my mentor’s abilities.
Silence filled the room for a few seconds. As if to break the silence, the knight spoke.
“So what are you planning to do?”
“...Huh?”
I could not answer for a moment. “M-me?”
“Yes, you,” the knight said coldly.
Though he never acted like he was taking things seriously, not even when he was interrogating Bersac just then, I felt that he was now staring at me sincerely. His figure was so blurred it was impossible to see his facial expression, but his feelings were still conveyed to me.
I didn’t know why, but his question reminded me of something. It was almost like the box that was once my only friend.
He was asking me a question.
He had asked me what I planned on doing.
“…I-”
The words got stuck in my throat.
I knew that if I said them out loud, there was no going back. This was different from how it usually was. Usually, I would accompany my mentor to dangerous places of my own accord. This time, it was the other way around. If I uttered what I wanted to say, my mentor would have to accompany me into danger. Considering his way of thinking, he would do nothing to stop me, either.
However, I still spoke.
“…I would like to go meet… the other ‘me’. The mind of King Arthur.”
I had probably always wanted to say this.
I had been thinking about this ever since we met not long ago.
“I would like to know... what goes on inside her head, and what she thinks of me. Not what the mind of King Arthur believes in, but what she believes in.”
Though I couldn’t express it very well, I continued.
“I think that, she is the secret of the village, and what I didn’t bring myself to face before. That was why I… had such a rough time in the First Cycle. It was because I cowered instead of facing what I was supposed to face.”
“The First Cycle?”
“Please don’t mind.” My mentor cleared his throat as Bersac frowned, suspicious.
The knight spoke up again.
“Hmph. It’s not a bad idea, but you’ll get killed if you don’t pull it off. Just to be clear, I can’t be relied upon. I’m not one of those idiots who probably even have brains made of muscle who can turn the tide of a battle just because of their strength. It’s probably safer to just escape, like the grave keeper said.”
“…I know. I think so as well. But, even so, I still want to meet her.”
“She might not think that way. Didn’t you two already meet each other? She left first, didn’t she. Unless you’re looking to get caught by those bone soldiers and to get used by the villagers in that shady ritual, in which case, go ahead.”
“…I know. But I still want to meet her.”
“Ha, pretty stubborn, aren’t you.”
The knight shrugged and turned his head.
“Well, what do you think of that, Bersac Blackmore?”
“…There’s nothing I can do about it.”
The old grave keeper sighed. He raised his wrinkled hand and pointed at me.
“Gray, hold Add up to eye level.”
“Huh? But Add’s still asleep…”
“That doesn’t matter. What’s important now is not Add’s personality, but its functions as a Mystic Code. The Magic Crests implanted to you were especially altered to fit it, so all you have to do is let the scythe take over, as usual.”
“…S-sure.”
I raised the scythe as Bersac had instructed, just like what I used to do when I trained.
I held the center of my body as close to the scythe as possible and focused my attention there, removing the boundary between the two and filling the space with [emptiness(空).]
“Focus. Making yourself as small as possible is the same as making yourself expand to the extreme. Compress yourself while using your consciousness(yourself) fill up the world.”
I tried my best to suppress a smile, because this was very similar to what my mentor had talked about once in class. Though I had attended classes at the Clock Tower for a while, most of it had not managed to stick. I felt as if I was an idiot who was staring at a giant block of gold but was completely ignorant about its value. …Even so, I did still managed to learn something.
It all seemed like an overly luxurious gift to me.
I took a deep breath.
I focused on the still-sleeping Add.
With a thunk, I touched the handle of the scythe to my forehead. The ice-cold metal made my forehead slightly numb, and the tingling sensation soon spread through out my whole body, seeping into my skin.
A light shined in my mind.
Suddenly, the light was linked together, and a Milky Way of light spread out above and below me.
“…I see, a path,” I mumbled to myself, unknowingly.
“What a surprise.”
I heard Bersac’s voice.
“I originally planned on convincing you to leave if it failed… I never thought that it would succeed on the first try. It’s only been half a day, so what happened?”
Bersac’s half a day was half a year to me. That was the difference.
Though, that was not all.
“What should I do next?”
“Tell the path of light where you want to go. I don’t know what this place looks like in its entirety, and probably, neither do the church, or the mind of King Arthur. However, that thing is different. It is precisely because it is a lifeless sealing Mystic Code that it has the right to know everything about the graveyard.”
My mentor had once said that graveyards were tiny underworlds.
Perhaps this was the same. This place was Blackmore Graveyard, a sanctum that the living could not enter. When they created the sealing Mystic Code that was Add, they had added the ability to resonate with this sacred place.
The grave keeper referred to Bersac and I, but also to this Mystic Code itself. As I realized this, I continued to focus my consciousness onto the light. There was a great amount of hidden meaning there beyond my grasp.
It was up to me to refine it and to select the relevant information.
The various was of light pointed out multiple paths.
“Are you alright?”
“I-I’m fine, Sir (TN: In the original, she just calls him ‘師匠’, which I’ve translated as ‘mentor’. ‘Sir’ is the English way of doing things, but it isn’t particularly odd to call a man you want to respect ‘sir’. However, in the original context, it would… you know what I think you get my point I can’t be bothered to organize my thoughts coherently).”
Hearing that word, Bersac frowned. Uh oh. But the situation here was already too complicated for us to explain how we came from the future. Even if we did explain it to him, perhaps it would only make him more confused.
“N-nothing. I know the way, let’s go.” I forced my stiff legs to move and ran forwards. Perhaps it was because of the Tuning, but I felt that my hearing had become sharper. Because of that, I heard what my mentor whispered.
“…Thank you, Sir Kay.”
“What the heck is that supposed to mean?”
“Because you helped me say what I was supposed to have said.”
“Don’t think too much about it. I just thought that it would be better to find someone to make a decision than to waste time arguing about what we should do.”
What my mentor said to Sir Kay made me feel somewhat sad. How much help had I received from others, I thought. A sense of shame and relief swirled in my heart.
In order to ignore this sadness, I stepped forward into the unknown darkness of the underground (TN: not the underground in the sense of the subway system… or in the sense of people trying to subvert order… I don’t know why I decided to add this note… It was just a random thought… Deadlines have not been nice to me this week, and I am too tired to consider if I’m making sense or not).
-End of Part 2 of Chapter 2 of Book 7-
—————————————————————————————————————————————————— ——
Random complaint about inconsistency:
I am very confused, so let me try and get this straight. According to Reines, British summers are always cold (never warmer than 25°C), and it is especially cold in the mountains. This makes total sense, and is corroborated by the internet, which tells me that the average temperature in Cardiff in the hottest month of the year is 16°C.
Walking around the village on the second day, however, Gray describes herself sweating. I guess that makes sense if it was also partially psychologically induced(?). She’s also wearing a shawl/hood, which could be very warm, but I doubt it. That kind of temperature is jacket-worthy, and Bersac then asks her if she got heatstroke, which I don’t think you can get at that kind of weather unless you try very hard.
In chapter 1, the tunnel is swelteringly hot, which is really strange, because underground places are usually colder than the surface, unless there’s something supernatural going on there. I don’t know if bone soldiers and such produce heat, but they are pretty strange, and when it involves mysterious magic stuff you can never be sure.
And now, Add, who is made of metal, I think, is very cool to the touch. That suggests that the tunnel is now cold...?
I'd thought the names were just coincidence but if Bersac's family is tied to the British government maybe he really is related to Dan Blackmore from Extra.
Chapter 2, Part 3Sister Illumia trotted along in the underground tunnel.
The roads beneath this village were complex and intricate. Though she didn’t know all of the paths, she was utilizing one she did know to make her way to a path that Gray might take.
As they walked, Father Fernando, who was carrying a lantern and breathing heavily, spoke up.
“Ha… Ugh.. Ha… So Gray did end up… going with that mage to the tunnels, huh?”
“Exactly, Father Fernando.” Illumia winked as if she was making a face.
“I…Just can’t… Understand. Wasn’t she pretty compliant? They didn’t tell her the details, but even if she knew, isn’t that girl the sort of person who would willingly hand her life over? No, perhaps I should say that, didn’t they raise her to be that kind of person?”
“Maybe something happened to make her change her mind.”
As she said that, Illumia slowed down slightly.
Father Fernando tilted his chubby head with a suspicious expression.
“Such as, that Lord of the Clock Tower?”
“Filthy mage(s)!”
Illumia’s face twisted in spite.
“Though, at least he managed to get that El-Melloi Princess to leave. At least I didn’t urge her to leave in vain.”
“Sometimes, even I don’t know what to make of your strange preferences (fetishes)(TN: the word used doesn’t necessarily have sexual connotations…? Interpret it however you like.).”
“All the people there are heretics, so doesn’t it make it all the more important if they look pretty or not? Either way, those who do not follow the teachings of the Lord are not worthy of my trust,” Illumia proclaimed arrogantly, but with a look of indifference.
The priest frowned as he wiped his head.
“…You are that kind of person.”
“I think you’re overly sympathetic towards those heretics. There’s no need to consider them at all.”
“Is that so. Small-town priests like me don’t really understand what you higher-ups think.”
“Does that include illegitimate children?”
The nun smiled, satisfied, as the priest tried to catch up with her while he dabbed at his face with a handkerchief.
The incongruity between the voluptuous lady and the almost spherical priest made it feel like a scene out of an old horror movie.
Soon, the tunnel widened.
A silhouette appeared in the inky darkness that was enough to hide a mansion.
“Found her—!”
However, as she got a better look at the figure, Illumia blinked (several times in quick succession).
Though she had felt an aura similar to that of Gray’s a moment ago, the one who stood there was a completely different person.
The figure, clad in a strange mask and some armor, turned slowly face to her. Many bone soldiers stood behind her. Even in this strange, underground terrain, they extruded a shockingly powerful (TN: Alternatively, fierce) aura.
“…And look who we’ve got here.” Nervousness and a will to fight arose in Illumia’s tea-colored eyes.
“We’ve both been in the village for so long, but this is the first time we’ve met, isn’t it.”
“……”
The masked person did not speak.
However, she stared straight at the nun and the priest.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, [mind of King Arthur]. I’ve heard that you are the master of the shadows of Blackmore Graveyard (TN: alternatively, the Shadow Master/Owner or like the owner equivalent of a ghostwriter in the sense that she’s the secret owner). Do you not even want to bother greeting an Executor of the Holy Church?”
The nun seemed to know the true identity of the masked girl.
The masked person was silent for a few moments before she raised one hand.
[Deal with them.]
Her sharp thoughts gave a command.
At that, the bone soldiers protecting the masked girl charged. Two precise lances were thrown at her, but they were deflected by the armor that covered Sister Illumia’s arms at just the right time and angle. She rushed at her opponent and began launching an attack with fierce punches.
One of the bone soldiers got pierced through immediately, while another had its mandible shattered by the impact of another punch.
“Sensible, aren’t you! I like that!”
The nun’s Ash Lock (TN: A gauntlet infused with the power of Biblical scriptures for punching blasphemes) crackled with purple electricity.
The Mystic Code that could strike through all manner of mystic beings made Illumia’s ferocious smile stand out even more. In the instant when she struck down a heretic, she felt the meaning of her life get fulfilled.
“Killing Gray is one option, but it’s not like I can’t deal with you instead. Since this village wants to do some dumb seance to revive King Arthur, if one of you two isn’t there, they would stop, wouldn’t they?”
As she said that, she licked her ruby red lips and prepared to topple the remaining bone soldiers.
However, at that moment, she stopped.
Illumia halted to a sharp stop, turned around, and backhanded the humerus of a bone soldier that had snuck behind her as her eyes widened.
“…What is that.”
Her exclamation(?) fell to the floor of the underground cave.
The body parts of the bone soldiers that Illumia had just pulverized had regenerated, and the bone soldiers stood up once more to slash at her. Even the bone that she had just backhanded was now visibly regrowing. It was almost like viewing a video in reverse.
Illumia used an uppercut to shatter the mandible of one of her opponents again before distancing herself from them to prevent herself from being surrounded.
“How is this happening? The Mana underground is this thin(TN: Alternatively, diluted), so why do these small fries(TN: 雑魚, coarse fish) have so much Magical Energy? Do I have to hit the vitals for these things to die?”
“Sister Illumia… This is because of the… Aboveground…” said Father Fernando hurriedly, as his eyes flitted up and down in panic.
…So it was because of the support from the villagers.
She had thought of this possibility before.
At this moment, there were large amounts of villagers praying to the Black Madonna statue above the surface.
This kind of act was equivalent to offering up their own Magical Energy, and the villagers here had more Od than normal people of the modern era.
For that reason, the bone soldiers underground could regenerate indefinitely. The dead could remain on this earth because they were accepting the prayers and intent of the living, leaving their tracks and slashing their blades.
Sister Illumia dodged the attack in the nick of time again.
“There’s no end to this!”
[Yes, there is,] came the hollow thought.
The masked girl who had only ben observing before began to take action.
“…!”
Illumia felt her knees go weak.
It was as if all the energy in her had suddenly disappeared.
The girl was taking all of the Od from the nun to create something. The spirit-like entity that appeared devoured the Od of the villagers and the thin Mana in its surroundings, creating a storm that was not meant to have existed below the ground.
The mana had felt suspiciously thin for a while, was it because…
“Is there something there…?” Groaned Illumia as she manipulated the Magical Energy inside her body. There was no way to tell whether her speculation was true.
Because, in the masked girl’s hands, there was—
*
It was like I was being guided by a shining star.
The light that had once appeared in my ming seemed to be pulling my legs forward, leading me down a path. When we reached a crossroads, my body would move on its own, and I wouldn’t get lost in the dark. I walked as if I was sleepwalking in front of my mentor, the knight, and the grave keeper(Bersac). The journey was surprisingly long, enough to make me realize the true scale of these underground tunnels.
After a while, we arrived at a large, open cavern. There was a structure there. My mentor raised the magecraft light, and illuminated it.
“There’s a temple underground…?”
“Or it could be a grave,” my mentor muttered.
Was this the secret of the village, a corner of the knowledge of the grave keepers that had not yet been given to me?
“Is it, Bersac Blackmore? Do you know anything about this?”
Bersac shook his head.
“No. I’ve only heard that there was a structure underground, but I’ve never seen it before.”
Without further questioning, my mentor stepped into the temple. As soon as we entered, a silhouette appeared in front of us.
“—!”
But it wasn’t a person.
A humanoid statue stood there.
Seeing the same figure that I had seen countless times before made me gasp.
“…There’s a Black Madonna statue here as well.”
The black-dyed statue of the Holy Mother had been placed in a corner of the temple.
My instincts told me that it (TN: actually the statue was a ‘she’ in the original text but I went with ‘it’ instead because she’s talking about the statue, not the person the statue depicts) was as old as the temple itself, perhaps even older. The one aboveground might even be a replica of this one.
“I had a hypothesis about this statue when we visited the village last time,” my mentor said, looking up at the Holy Mother.
“Black Madonnas appear all over Europe in a multitude of forms. Most of them are created by fusing with the patron goddess of the land (TN: alternatively, the mother goddess of the land).”
“The patron goddess of the land(TN: see above), you said?”
“Most of the patron saints are like this as well. Most religions are somewhat adaptable. When a religion is spread to a new region, not only are its teachings spread, it also maintains a bit of a surplus (buffer) to assimilate local legends and myths. The Black Madonna is an example of this.”
My mentor’s voice resounded in the temple as it would in his lectures.
As if he was praising the statue.
But also, as if he was criticizing it.
“There is a certain enchantress(TN: alternatively, witch) considered to be a derivative of a mother goddess. She was mentioned across multiple eras in various different legends, and is probably a result of the fusion of several existing figures(TN: alternatively, characters). Sir Kay, Morgan Le Fay is a familiar name to you from the Arthurian Legends in which you appear in, yes? (TN: Morgan Le Fay has been suggested to draw from various real and mythical women from all over the place, such as Dea Matrona, the Morrígan, Fráech, Circe, and the Empress Matilda.)”
“What a bothersome teacher you are,” the knight said, shrugging.
Though, rather than being actually bothered, I felt that he just wanted to mock him.
Morgan Le Fay.
I recalled that she was the older sister of King Arthur in Arthurian legends. That meant that this person also had complicated relations with the adoptive older brother of King Arthur (Sir Kay).
My mentor continued without reacting to his comment.
“In Celtic Mythology, a goddess (TN: the original text said enchantress/witch. The Morrígan are… always goddesses/a single goddess though. At least, wikipedia tells me that) known as Morrígan appears frequently. Sometimes she is the queen of the dead, sometimes times she is the goddess of war, and sometimes she appears as the three goddesses of fate. However, she is associated with crows, and frequently transforms into them.”
Crows. (TN: Crow and raven are basically referred to using the same word in Japanese(and Chinese). This unfortunately means that this makes less sense in English, so for the purposes of this story, please just pretend that ravens and crows are the same thing.)
Nevermore.
And the grave keepers of Blackmore who led flocks of ravens.
“Ha. Unfortunately, I don’t know much about Morgan. She was a complicated woman. No, actually, most women are pretty complicated.”
The knight answered as if he was telling a story of his past.
How long ago did these events happen from his perspective? Was it days ago? Or was it more than a thousand years ago, like what we saw? Or perhaps, was it a completely different feeling?
“Though, this village is probably related to Morgan. I can see some hints of her from the statue. Hmph, is that why they chose this village.” He smiled a wry smile as he said this.
“It’s very unlikely that she wanted to save her. That person hated the king, and I think she plotted some sort of scheme with Mordred. There wasn’t a need to hold a grudge after her death, but I was already dead then, so I don’t know much about it.”
I knew how the legend of King Arthur ended.
It was the Battle of Camlann. King Arthur defeated the traitorous knight Mordred, but was fatally wounded as a result, and gave the holy sword to the trustworthy knight Bedivere. It is the most famous legend in all of Britain, and there are multiple versions of the story. In one of them, three fairies appeared, and one of them was said to be Morgan.
My mentor shook his head gently.
“I don’t know what Morgan was thinking then. Since you don’t know, I have no way of knowing, either. However, regardless of what she thought, she left behind a spark. The spark was passed down from generation to generation, and after a millennium, something was formed.”
At this point, my mentor paused for a moment.
“The result was Gray.”
“……”
The topic of conversation had inevitably returned to me.
This time, though, I didn’t feel incredibly surprised.
My mentor turned to look at the old grave keeper.
“Bersac Blackmore. What do you think?”
“The only thing I heard from my predecessor was the situation regarding the rules of the village. Those rules have always been taught to the grave keepers of Blackmore Graveyard, including the one about the Black Madonna.”
“You’re referring to those four rules, right.”
The four rules of the village.
- First, one must pray to the Black Madonna statue upon arrival.
- Second, one must not go out late at night.
- Third, one must not go near the graveyard alone.
- Fourth, a group of many may enter the graveyard, but they must not enter the swamp.
Of course I remembered the rules that I must follow.
My mentor confirmed it out of caution, and Bersac nodded seriously in response.
“Indeed. When someone breaks these rules, I will be notified through the Magic Crests passed down through the grave keepers. This part has not been transplanted to Gray yet.”
“…Ah.”
I covered my right hand.
Though they were both called Magic Crests, and supposedly worked in the same way, the Magic Crests of the grave keepers of Blackmore Graveyard were very different from that of mages. No new magecraft was added to it with each generation, but there would be virtually no rejection, even if it was transplanted to someone like me who was not related by blood. In terms of function, it was basically just used to manipulate Add.
Though I only just got told that it could be used to surveil the village, I didn’t find it to be anything worth being surprised about.
However,
“…Sir?”
“There are… Four rules…” my mentor muttered, pressing down on his brow.
“First, you have to pray to the Black Madonna statue. If that’s the case…”
Then, he used his finger to draw a circle in the air.
I had a vague feeling that that was the hope of the village. The slight indent was in the same place as the one in the map of the village. I felt a little surprised that I still remembered such a thing.
“The one about not entering alone basically just means that you have to go along with a grave keeper, right?”
“…Well, you could put it like that, yes,” Bersac agreed.
“…When did this… No, whom would this affect in this situation…” My mentor bent over and fell into a silence.
When my mentor was thinking like this, he hardly reacted to anything. It was as if he locked himself up in a fortress in his mind, pouring all of his intellect and ability into solving a complicated mystery. Although he was not as competent compared to others in terms of magecraft, he was by no means inferior to them in terms of knowledge and thinking ability(TN: or something around those lines). Perhaps that would be mocked by others as futile efforts, they were my mentor’s specialty.
Therefore, I didn’t disturb him. Bersac and the knight did not say a word, either.
“…Gray.”
After a while, my mentor called out my name.
“I-I’m here.”
“You plan on meeting the mind of King Arthur, yes? …If that’s the case, could you please help me do something?”
Hearing what he had to say next, I could not help but blink (several times in quick succession).
“S-sure, but, is it really okay to leave it to me?”
“You are the most suitable person for the job. Compared to me, it would definitely be more effective you said it. Though it is a risky bet, it’s our only option if we want to make any progress.”
I swallowed when I heard my mentor say the word “risky”.
My mentor was frequently involved in dangerous situations, so his ability to notice risk had improved accordingly. How dangerous would the task I was to do have to be in order for my mentor to make such a judgement?
“…I understand.” I still nodded.
No matter what happened, I should not refuse my mentor’s request. Even though I didn’t know how dangerous it was or why he asked me to do this, there wasn’t much to object to. The only thing that I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for would be a failure to help my mentor. Though, if I said that to him, it would probably just make things difficult for him.
Just as I silently made my choice, a light suddenly flashed through the temple.
No, was that really a flash of light? Though it shined, it only existed within our minds.
[However, we knew that ray of light.]
“That’s--!”
Led by our shock, we rushed out of the temple a panic.
The sight that appeared in front of our eyes was difficult to believe.
-End of Part 3 of Chapter 2 of Book 7-
—————————————————————————————————————————————————— ——
Guessing the Corpse King can use a pseudo-Rhongo of her own. Thanks as always.
I'm reading now. It is great. Thank you again for your hard-working.
I'm really like the way you take note everytime you get trouble when translating.
By the way, can I ask you a question?
In vol 6, chap 2, act 2. When Reines says
in the first sentence, she really says Mana (マナ), while in the next sentence, she says magical energy ( 魔力)?Quote:
The Mana of the area appeared immediately. The magical energy here was more active than in the city, and swirled around the graveyard like the mist that would appear in a cheap horror movie.
The way they use these concepts in their novel always confuse me. Thank you.
Chapter 2, Part 4Chapter 2, Part 4:
Two powers clashed near the temple.
One side, needless to say, was the masked girl and the bone soldiers.
The heavily armored girl looked like a general dominating an ancient battlefield. With the chilling metal mask she wore, she looked like a witch that watched over the entire world from the sky.
However.
The problem lay in the lance in her hands.
It was swathed in dark magical energy, and many thorns extended from it, like the fangs of a wolf. Though the appearance was incredibly different, I had to admit that it was similar to the lance that I was in possession of.
That is to say, it was…
“…A dark, Rhongomyniad.”
My voice trembled.
I never thought that I would see something like this.
No, in a sense, this was an inevitable development. Since I was the body of King Arthur, and she was the mind, it would only make sense if we were both given similar lances.
I heard my mentor swallow.
“…How did this happen?”
“I heard that my ‘lance’ is only a shadow of the original.”
I held my scythe tightly. Though my answer was not an explanation, my mentor appeared to have understood what I meant by it.
“I see. Since it’s a shadow, it wouldn’t be a problem for many of them to exist at once. What a bother.”
As he said that, my mentor surveyed the area. Since she took out the lance, she must be facing off against someone.
The enemy of the masked girl was also someone we knew.
It was the Holy Church, specifically, the nun that had arrived here several years ago. The person who I just got told was the illegitimate daughter of a cardinal.
“…Sister Illumia.”
“Oh, it’s you. I thought you ran off a long time ago. And now you’re here, delivering yourself of your own accord.” Her luscious lips curled upward as the nun smiled.
Strange, ancient-looking armor covered her limbs. With a wave of her hand, she gracefully backhanded the skull of a bone soldier.
However, the bone soldiers didn’t stay down for long.
The bone soldiers rose up one after the other from the area that the nun had just cleared.
It felt as if the more bone soldiers were struck down, the more would rise. Illumia looked somewhat annoyed, perhaps because the situation had been like this for a while. She used her palm to wipe the sweat at her neck and sighed exaggeratedly.
“…Ha, huh. So the magical energy does come from the villagers up there.”
“The villagers?”
“Even though there isn’t much Mana here, as long as there is a path, the villagers will continue sending their Od over. Ah, that’s why those heretics are sinful. They imitate the Lord to do something completely different.”
Illumia pouted and began to move.
Her attack was so outstanding it deserved to be recorded on instruction manuals for boxing.
The arms of the bone soldiers shattered, and their legs went flying. However, they did not back down. And it wasn’t just that, every one of their body parts recovered within seconds of their destruction, and they surged forward to surround Illumia.
“Gah! I’ve had enough of this endless cycle!” She stormed forward with the speed of a gust of wind and ducked to dodge a strike from the bone soldiers beside her as she turned her head.
“Father Fernando!”
“Y-yes, I know!”
The almost spherical priest ducked behind her and took a deep breath. He held onto the crucifix tightly, and began to shout.
(TN: I know nothing about Christianity, so all of this next bit is thanks to fearboss. It seems to be a conglomeration of various parts from the King James version of the Book of Psalms.)
“Hear this, all ye people; give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world, both low and high, rich and poor together.”
It was the same words I had heard countless times during sermons. Undoubtedly, there was an extraordinary amount of “power” carried in what the priest said.
“None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him, for the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth forever.”
A spell was called forth with his voice.
It was a surge of mystery, inseparable from this land.
The Clock Tower called it [the greatest magecraft base of mankind].
“Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names. Nevertheless man, though he be in honor, abideth not...”
A transformation happened as he spoke his sacred words.
The bone soldiers who had been preparing to attack around the priest suddenly stopped. Not only that, some of them fell to the ground and immediately turned to dust.
“...he is like the beasts that perish.”
The priest carved a cross in the air and ended his prayer. As he did so, all the bone soldiers around him collapsed, as if they were groveling at the glorious light of God.
“A Baptism Rite…!” My mentor moaned.
It was the only type of magecraft that the Holy Church allowed. My mentor had said that once during a lesson. Though it was the only one, perhaps that was why it was all-powerful.
“It’s a process of using the greatest magecraft base of mankind with the basis of the faith of the Holy church to forcibly purify the surroundings. Though the physical damage is rather low, it becomes incredibly effectual when dealing with spirits or curses. That is how the faith, which they force onto everything, acts as a key to the divine principles.”
“Really…!”
I see, perhaps it could be called all-powerful.
Though they were not many ways of doing it, it wasn’t a problem because everything could be suppressed by the immense power of a single force. Though my mentor had said that the Holy Church did utilize other types of mystery, such as what they called Sacraments (TN: Okay, so sacraments. A Baptism Rite, 洗礼詠唱, is sometimes also called a Baptism Sacrament. But now they’re being framed as separate things, so I guess I’ll go with that), and though Illumia’s unnatural physical capabilities were also a sign of that, I was still shocked by it.
“It looks as if it’s not enough to influence the Spiritual Cores of the masked one over there or the knight, but those nine soldiers probably won’t try to approach them again. We might even also experience some problems…(TN: this is a wildly inaccurate translation.)”
Just then, I had been told that Sister Illumia was a formidable opponent. She was an Executor sent by the Holy Church, who was a threat to the revival of the heretical king.
However, I never thought that the priest who had always watched over the church would also be a mage.
“…Haha, I thought so. Just this trick alone won’t be enough to deal with the lot of them.”
As she looked towards the fresh wave of bone soldiers that were flooding in, she nodded in my direction.
“Though, I don’t need to deal with the mind of King Arthur, do I? Doesn’t it achieve the same purpose if I kill you(the body)?”
“—!”
A beast-like smile appeared on Illumia’s face, and she clapped her armored hands together.
Just as I thought I saw her gleaming teeth, she leaped up. Kicking the cave walls to propel herself, she nimbly flew across the walls. Her speed was unbeatable by a beast, much less a human.
“What even is she?!” My mentor muttered, aghast.
I had seen this once, on the Rail Zeppelin.
The prided secret fighting force of the Holy Church that they called the Executors. Their power, like sharpened blades of God, was definitely comparable to that of the mages of the Clock Tower—!
Since Add was still asleep, even normal strengthening was difficult for me. I could not catch her agile movements. Illumia ran along a complicated path in the darkness, turning herself into a sharpened arrow, and launched herself towards me.
My body automatically began to move.
At least I needed to protect my mentor.
Ah, but fortunately, my mentor’s reflexes were not good enough for him to react to this, and the target of this attack was not my mentor, but me.
“What a shame you were born in this village.”
Along with her whispered words, the last thing I saw was her gauntlets, which sparked with purple arcs of electricity. However, there was the sound of two hard things clanging against each other.
I doubted what I had heard. It was the sound of Illumia’a gauntlets being blocked by Bersac’s axe.
“Hmm? I thought you would only stand by and watch.”
“I am also, a grave keeper of Blackmore Graveyard,” Bersac said with a low voice as the gauntlet clashed against the axe. “The girl I chose to be my successor said she had something to do. Then it’s my job to witness it until the end.”
“How nice of you.”
Illumia smiled.
As she did, her legs transformed into shadows.
Her ankles moved at an inhuman speed towards Bersac’s head, missing it by a hair’s breadth. With that sort of speed and intensity, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the old man’s face would split apart as if it was sliced by a knife with that kick.
Even so, Bersac did not waver.
“Go!”
I began to run as if his voice had pushed me forwards.
In the diluted Magical Energy of the cave, I barely managed to strengthen myself to the lowest degree so I could swing my scythe and drive away the bone soldiers. It felt like I was running in water, but I still desperately willed my legs to run and held the scythe tight.
I arrived in front of the masked girl.
[Why, do you persist? (TN: The last time she said this it was ‘Why, are you here?’, but the phrase used kind of has a double meaning, and this one fits better here)]
Her thoughts resounded.
Though it was the same thought as before, it felt different to me.
Back then, I had felt only fear. I had been completely ignorant about how this underground cavern was beneath my village, and how someone just like me existed.
“To meet you.”
I managed to dislodge those words from my throat.
[For what purpose?]
“I have something, to ask you,” I stuttered.
As I said this, the bone soldiers did not stop. Because I didn’t have even a tenth of my regular power, I could not wield my scythe the way I used to. I could not cut the bone soldiers apart, instead, I could only stop them from getting closer by knocking them away. Just keeping them occupied alone already took all of my strength.
What a mess I was.
Even so, I still asked my question.
“Are you really the mind of King Arthur?”
[Yes. I am indeed the will (TN: Alternatively, direction?) of the King of the past. I am a husk, a remnant. I exist only to preserve this information.]
The information was transmitted through her thoughts.
This alone frightened me. Just as she had said, those thoughts contained her will itself. However… it felt too orderly. It didn’t make any sense.
It was as if I was being shown an array of formulas and numbers.
If she was in fact the mind of King Arthur, what was King Arthur like when she lived? Even though she only saved a barren corner of Britain once, she was praised by countless knights as a hero. She was loved by her people, celebrated by bards and poets. Even after a thousand years, she was still the most prominent hero of this nation.
However.
If her mind was the girl in front of me, could a person really be like this? It seemed less like a human and more like something else, like a [divine spirit]…
…No.
I did not come here to think about this.
Therefore, I looked up to ask the question I was here to ask.
“Have you always been here?”
[……]
Her thoughts were blank.
It was an emotion akin to surprise. As if she had asked me why I had asked this question, of all questions.
“…I.”
I thought at first that it was the sound of the cave breaking apart. However, the masked girl, who had always transmitted her thoughts to me, used her actual voice to speak.
“Ten years ago, I awakened in this place along with you.”
“…Along with, me.”
I was momentarily speechless.
Of course I remembered what happened ten years ago, when my body had started to change, and when I began to become someone else. Back then, I had not been able to accept my own transformation, and had tried to hide away as much as possible. I never thought that she had awakened here then.
If that was the case, that meant that she had lived here, underground, for ten years.
“Then… What do the other villagers make of this?”
“Only the old woman whom they call their leader knows this. You call her Granny, yes? The church has also has its suspicions.”
“……”
A battle had been waging silently in this village.
The truth, which had been hidden from me for ten years, had finally been uncovered by someone who you could call another me.
“Actually, I think it would be better for you to run. To escape to the ends of the earth.”
Her voice was so low it seemed to encircle the ground beneath my feet.
It made me feel that no matter what she said, it must be the truth. That was how powerful her words felt.
“However, you came back. Unbelievably, you came back. Since you are here, there is only one thing I can do. …Let me detain you right here.”
The girl slowly raised her hand.
A chill ran down my spine.
Just as I saw the dark Rhongomyniad flash before my eyes, I lifted my scythe.
The immense force of the impact sent me flying. There was no way I could put up a fight against her. I flung through the air at an unusual angle, until my back hit the ground violently. A large amount of Magical Energy was now coursing through my body, and I felt as if all my nerves had just been severed. It felt like something was burning my blood and flesh.
I clenched my teeth.
Though I managed to stand up with the support of my scythe, I knew that my legs were still shaking.
Not only that, a cracking sound emitted from the scythe as if it was breaking apart from the strength of the attack.
I’m not going to be able to hold out for much longer—!
Perhaps because she wanted to keep me alive, she had already shown mercy in her attack.
However, for the scythe form of Add, this was the limit.
Add was still asleep, and he couldn’t even change forms, much less activate Rhongomyniad. Due to absorbing the Magical Energy from the dark lance, I barely managed to strengthen my limbs, but it was only to the degree of a normal person.
I swallowed my fear along with the saliva in my mouth.
I raised my head and tried to look the mask in the eye. However, the masked girl did not attack again immediately. Instead, she stood there silently.
“Oi, you there. That’s about enough.”
“…And you are?”
The knight that now stood in front of me had a strange expression on his face. No, his face was still blurry. So, I was probably the only person who thought that that was the case.
“Haha, you really don’t remember. I can’t really blame you. Simply the mind alone is not enough to keep all the memories. Even if the memories are stored, they’ll be hard to access. After all, that’s the purpose of the body(container). What else would the brain be for? I’m also a mental model, and I can only retain my memories because of that tiny box.”
The knight raised his index finger of the hand that was holding the sword and waved it around in the air(TN:?).
He seemed more like a clown than a knight. He was still a knight, though. Every jocular movement he made made me think of a royal court, for some reason. Raucous, rigid(TN: Alternatively, stubborn?), and somewhat nebulous (TN: Alternatively, imaginary? The adjectives here are extremely odd and I think that’s because this is the second time it’s been translated)… but also beautiful.
The court of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
“I can’t just let you be. I’m not an empathetic guy, and I already feel uncomfortable just talking to you(TN: Gahhhh I really wish Sir Kay would talk less he makes my life harder. If his actions seem incoherent then that is entirely my fault.),” Kay said slowly.
“…Shut it.”
Along with the low voice, Rhongomyniad sliced through the air thrice.
The knight (Sir Kay) did not meet the attack head-on.
He nimbly dodged not only the spear itself, but also the Magical Energy encircling it, once, twice, and thrice. Though it was difficult to effectively perform a counterattack because of the distance between them, the knight didn’t seem to have any intention of seriously fighting back. He only used his sword to parry every once in a while, lazily dealing with the attacks.
At first, it had looked like the masked girl was clearly superior, however, she still did not manage to get close to Kay.
It was the skill that I had seen before when he was fighting the bone soldiers. However, it was not beyond human capabilities. His abilities were not due to some sort of inborn talent, rather, what he had learned from years of experience on the battlefield.
The knight backed away a couple of steps and knocked on his sword lightly.
“Ugh, if your fighting gets too pretty, it really is disgusting. Though, I’m not bad at the whole stabbing business either, so let me trouble you for a bit longer.”
“Hmph.”
The voice emanating from beneath the mask was not hurried or annoyed.
Even so, she did not move her eyes from the knight, as if there was some sort of invisible force between them. The knight continued to dodge the continuous attacks, avoiding the masked girl’s dark lance as if he was walking on a tightrope. He looked less like he was in a fight and more like he was performing acrobatics.
I also prepared to advance.
Even if I could only take one step, I wanted to walk forwards.
“Gray.”
Someone called out to me.
His thin arm was supporting me.
“…Sir.”
In this three-sided battle, my mentor was definitely the weakest. Even Father Fernando had the power to deal with the bone soldiers. The difference was too obvious. As always, my mentor did not have the ability to contribute anything in a fight.
However, he was not completely powerless.
“Aren’t you here to meet her?”
“…Yes.”
Why were his words able to bring me strength, I wonder.
I took a deep breath, and air flowed into my clogged-up throat. Even if it was the foul air of the underground, I felt that I could continue to fight.
“My name is, Gray!” I shouted.
“What is yours?”
“I do not have a name. I am the mind of the King. Just as you are the body.”
The masked girl’s voice did not show a trace of breathlessness, even though she never stopped waving her spear. It was almost as if this was to show that fighting was normal to her. As if to show that the king she was the mental model of had easily won thousands of battles.
Not even the knight who had fought and died along with the king on the battlefield could make her shed a single drop of sweat. Though he dodged the masked girl’s spear as if he was cheating in a game, she did not tire, while Sir Kay did.
“Your name does not matter. You and I will eventually become one.”
I thought so.
I had already expected this to be her answer.
“If you find it inconvenient, you can call me the Husk King. I am only a third, and I cannot be referred to in parallel to the king. However, I am undoubtedly their king,” the masked girl said, looking to the bone soldiers in the surrounding area.
No, not the masked girl, but the king of the dead— the Husk King.
“Alright, Husk king,” I said, dramatically calling her by that name.
“I am here because I have something to ask you. Since you were also here when I was in the village, I need to ask this question.”
I inhaled deeply.
Then, with all my strength, I asked
“Do you really, of your own will, wish for the revival of King Arthur?”
*
On the other side, sparks flew between Bersac and Sister Illumia.
The grave keeper and the nun. Two people who had assisted each other once, in the village above the surface.
Not only when someone died and they had to hold services. Because the village was small, the two people spoke to each other quite often. Most of the physical work was entrusted to Bersac, and Illumia would sometimes use the firewood that Bersac had collected for warmth. In return, she would occasionally send him baked goods.
The two people had probably expected that they would end up in this situation sooner or later, living out their lives peacefully while thinking of the slaughter that would take place one day.
Illumia found an opening, stepped to one side, and spoke.
“What a surprise. I thought that you only chose that girl (Gray) for her talent. I never thought that you’d help out of friendship at a time like this.”
“…Grave keepers have their own ways,” Bersac responded pithily.
Part of his shirt had already been scorched as a result of their fight. It was the damage done to the grave keeper by the purple electricity emanating from the nun’s Ash Lock(s?).
“Hmph. And you also have connections to the government of this country? Oh, I mean Britain(TN: I think the word for England is synonymous with the word for the UK, but I’m guessing it’s not just England in this case), not Wales.”
“…So you know.”
“Of course. What do you think the Holy Church is?”
Even as she spoke in a ridiculing tone, her movements did not stop.
She approached again like a flash of lightning, and threw a large number of fast punches aimed at Bersac’s gut. Next, she turned, and sent a high kick at the side of his head. This series of moves all carried the purple lightning from the Conceptual Weapon, and the bone soldiers in the vicinity were also pulverized.
Evidently, Bersac, who was able to counter all of her attacks, was no ordinary person, either.
He held the giant axe from the middle of the handle, and swung precisely at the nun’s vitals. He carefully observed even tiny changes in her movements, never giving Illumia the chance to gain the high ground. In terms of the amount of individual movements he made, he didn’t even reach half of Illumia’s number, but his efficiency made up for this difference.
For that reason, the two were caught in a stalemate.
—No, that was not the case. Inevitably, the fight advanced to the next stage.
“Then let me show you this!” Bersac said, as he raised the axe to his eye level and spun it.
“Quoth the Raven.”
Along with those words which had some sort of power imbued into them, something appeared above the axe head.
It was a raven.
Illumia could tell that it had no physical form.
It was a low-level spirit, probably summoned using the evocation techniques of the Clock Tower. Although, since it was summoned by a grave keeper of Blackmore Graveyard here, what meaning did it hold?
“■■■■■■■■■——!”
The raven cawed.
Though the sound was indiscernible by the human year, the explosive amount of Magical Energy knocked all the bone soldiers to the ground.
“—Hmph!”
Illumia had already escaped.
The purple electricity that burst out from the Ash Lock cleaved through the darkness of the cave, and the shockwave released by the raven was canceled out by the shield of purple light. This was probably her trump card.
Even so, a large crack had formed on the Ash Lock on the nun’s hands. That was the power of the raven’s cry.
“So that’s the magecraft you’ve passed on for generations.”
“Is that how you see it?” Bersac replied coldly. The spirit raven landed on his shoulder and prepared for what was to happen next.
The grave keeper still had not looked towards the girl who was his heir, not for a moment.
*
“Alas!”
Of course, there was a limit to how many bone soldiers could be vanquished with a single Baptism Rite. Though the priest’s incantation was impressive, it did not even reach the strength of a spell with a single Count. That entire system of calculating power only mattered to that vile Mages’ Association, the priest thought. However, for that reason, he was running frantically around the place.
He kept stumbling and tripping, and the edge of a blade would come at his every once in a while. He could only desperately continue to move his almost spherical body. Illumia was still focused on fighting that grave keeper, and it would take a miracle for the priest to survive.
After so many Baptism Rites he had lost count, he stopped for the first time.
In the process of trying to escape, the priest had unknowingly arrived at the walls of the underground cavern.
Fortunately for him, the bone soldiers chasing him had all begun to retreat, and the priest turned his head to see what they were running from.
“…What?”
Father Fernando noticed it as well.
A strange sound was coming from the wall.
-End of Part 4 of Chapter 2 of Book 7-
—————————————————————————————————————————————————— ——
- - - Updated - - -
Yep, apparently it was mana in the first sentence and magical energy in the second. It's not like these books make an active attempt to avoid repetitive vocabulary either, so I'm not exactly sure why.Quote:
Originally Posted by kohakuIn vol 6, chap 2, act 2. When Reines says
in the first sentence, she really says Mana (マナ), while in the next sentence, she says magical energy ( 魔力)?
The way they use these concepts in their novel always confuse me. Thank you.
- - - Updated - - -
Chapter 2, Part 5Chapter 2, Part 5:
“Do you really wish for the revival of King Arthur of your own will?”
I felt as if I had finally spat something that had been bothering me out.
She did not hesitate in the slightest when she answered.
“Of course,” the masked girl—the Husk King said.
“That is the reason why I have appeared. I am simply the result of data from the mind of King Arthur.”
Had she been created the same way as Sir Kay, to be a mental model?
I felt as if something ice cold had been stabbed into my chest. We had both been created, and she had awoken when I first began to transform. For that reason, I felt as if her words were my thoughts in the past.
“You seem to believe that your own will is important. Do not force your values onto me,” the Husk King said coldly. At the same time, she casually dodged the blade that was swinging towards her.
“—Hmph, not a single opening, huh?” The knight said angrily, shrugging (TN: Wait what why is he shrugging).
“Shouldn’t you listen to the opinions of your companions? Since you’re the mind of the king, isn’t that part of your job?”
“That only applies if I have determined that collecting information and comforting the people is worth the time I will waste.”
“You really aren’t the same at all, Husk King.”
The hazy knight’s expression seemed to distort, though I didn’t know whether it was in anger, sadness, or some other emotion.
“At least you’re not completely beyond salvation. As long as you put money, power, influence, and so on in your list of priorities and fight with other people about your interests, you can still act like a person. That auxiliary officer was always mumbling about numbers like that, and more people ended up using that technique. Ah, that’s how it should be. The ideal king, you say? I can’t bring myself to laugh at a joke so ridiculous.”
“Nonsense!”
The Husk King’s lance slashed through the air.
This time, it sliced across the knight’s arm.
There was no blood. His Spiritual Core was not stable enough to materialize flesh or blood. However, he suffered as much harm as any human would.
“Sir Kay!”
“…Don’t, Gray.”
My mentor’s voice stopped me as I was about to charge forward.
Even now, the bone soldiers were still preparing to attack. Though most of them had been lured away by Father Fernando earlier, the rest were still enough to overwhelm us. My mentor fired a few weak magic bullets at them, but they were not enough to even stop them from advancing.
For that reason, I made up my mind.
Just before we arrived here, my mentor had asked me to do something. Though it could be dangerous, since she wouldn’t listen to what my mentor had to say, I would have to pass the message along.
That was what I had to do know. Even though I had been told that it might be dangerous.
“Please, hear me out!” I shouted.
“Though you might not be able to understand it, but…I’ve already seen the outside world. I’ve experienced it myself, for many months.”
I pressed a hand to my chest.
In these months, I received so many gifts(TN: not literally), to the point that I felt that they would overflow from my heart.
“I always… I always thought that I wouldn’t be able to get used to it. Even though I loved all sorts of stories, I always thought that I wouldn’t be able to get along with those things. I thought that everyone would hate me as soon as I talked to them. But actually… That wasn’t the case.”
“What do you mean by this?”
As I had expected, the Husk King’s voice carried some confusion. She probably didn’t understand what I was talking about. Actually, if someone suddenly started telling me about this in the middle of a fight, I would probably feel disoriented, too.
Even so, I had to continue.
I swallowed, gathered up my bravery, and slowly said what my mentor had asked me to say.
“Tomorrow morning, the villagers will discover a corpse that looks exactly like me.”
“—A corpse?”
“Yes. I don’t know if that will happen this time, but [it did happen before].”
These words had an unexpected impact.
“W-what? No, no. You’re saying… you’ve already been in the outside world for months…”
The masked girl, who had been fighting flawlessly before this, suddenly froze.
Her lance faltered for the first time as she waved it about, and the desperate knight (Sir Kay) took this chance to escape.
Was this what my mentor had intended to achieve?
The Husk King held her lance in one hand and covered her mask with the other. At that moment, the mask made her look almost like a wild beast.
“…Zepia, isn’t it…!” She moaned.
Was she related to that alchemist of the Atlas Institute?
Perhaps because she was deep in thought, all the bone soldiers around her stopped moving. She continued to cry out as if she wanted to crush(TN:?) all the darkness in the cavern.
“That means… this is… no… this is…” Her voice, full of loathing and despair, resounded through the space. “This is… a [reenactment]!?”
“—!”
I knew that was the sound of my mentor holding his breath.
Her reaction immediately spread to the surroundings, not because they had realized what the masked girl meant by her words, but because of the anger that now emanated from her. The emotion was so strong that even Bersac and Illumia turned to look at her.
“Ahh… Is that so. How ridiculous. How humiliating. That makes the two of us less than clowns, and simply puppets (TN: Alternatively, still lifes?). No matter how many times we act out this same script, none of this matters,” said the Husk King incessantly, as if she had forgotten that she could only speak to me with her thoughts a while ago.
“You…”
“If that’s the case… There’s no point in this farce anymore. ”
As she said that, she raised the lance in her hands.
Terrifying amounts of Magical Energy began to swirl with the lance at its center, forming a whirlpool of dark power many times the size of the lance itself.
“…Holy lance, removing restraints.”
Those four, simple words made me feel an indescribable amount of fear.
The large amount of Magical Energy completely froze me in place. It wasn’t something that I could withstand. And it wasn’t just me. Nobody here would be able to put up a fight against it. Even though Bersac and Illumia both had outstanding fighting prowess, and Father Fernando and Sir Kay could possibly have trump cards that I had no knowledge of, they were all useless in the face of that lance.
Because, that was a Noble Phantasm, the reason why Heroic Spirits were Heroic Spirits, the extraordinary legends that were recorded onto the history of mankind.
And in that special place that shined at the end of the world— Ah, I knew.
I knew so clearly that I was the person most likely to be able to contend with that “end.”
I held my scythe tightly. However, as I expected, no reaction came from the box that rested inside it. Only a faint amount of Magical Energy came in response.
“It completely backfired…!” I heard my mentor moan.
He had said that it was a risky bet, and this was the result.
A vision of a spinning roulette wheel appeared in front of my eyes. Our chips were our lives, and the skull-headed dealer laughed as he swept them all into his own arms. Was he the Grim Reaper, or perhaps, the Devil?
“Thrust and feast, Thirteen Fangs!”
The whirlpool of Magical Energy felt almost like an underground cyclone. Though it was incredibly small in size, the magnitude of the winds was comparable to that of an actual windstorm. The Magical Energy sliced through the roof of the cavern and began to spin in the opposite direction, slowly converging inside the “lance”.
No matter what we had up our sleeves, it was too late. The words to unleash its name had already come from beneath the mask.
“Rhongo—”
In the instant when she was about to unleash the full power of the Noble Phantasm, I heard a small cracking noise.
We did not make that noise. It didn’t come from Bersac and Illumia, who had been fighting before then, or from the large amount of bone soldiers.
It came from a corner of one of the walls of the cavern.
This sound, which was incongruent with the Noble Phantasm that was about to be unleashed, attracted our attention.
Father Fernando stood there, staring blankly at that corner of the wall as a [crack] appeared there.
The crack grew quickly, bringing about a strange rumbling and and unexpected phenomenon.
Torrents of water gushed in from it.
“A mountain flood—!”
“Haha, it’s ‘cause of the swamps nearby, isn’t it? The lance’s power had already loosened the dirt around here, and it’s completely collapsed now, huh?”
More strange noises sounded along with the cheerful laughter.
It didn’t just come from one place. Had the breakdown caused a chain reaction? The water rushed in from every direction, filling the cavern. The bone soldiers and the priest were swept away immediately. Faced with the rising waters, the knight beside me suddenly picked me up.
“Sir Kay?”
“Hold on tight! Though swordplay’s not my forte, I’m quite confident in my ability to do this! Or you could say that in terms of making a run for it, I’m the best out of all the knights, especially when water’s involved. Oi, that mage over there as well, come over here!”
In the short moment before the Noble Phantasm was unleashed, the knight held on to me and jumped into the water. We were swallowed by the violent torrents, and though it was impossible to tell which way was up, the knight never loosened his grip on me. To make sure I didn’t get swept away, his body contorted to an unusual position, so strange that I couldn’t imagine that a regular person could pull them off.
Before the cold water took my consciousness from me, I thought I heard something.
“—Ihihihi! How troublesome you are, idiot Gray!”
-End of Part 5 of Chapter 2 of Book 7-
—————————————————————————————————————————————————— ——
I should have expected her Rhongo to be Lancer Alter's version.
I like Husk King as a name better than Corpse King tbh, nice choice there.
Hm, I dunno, Corpse King rolls off the tongue better IMO.
Thanks for the translation.
I really can't pick because Sanda never gave a reading to the name. If the reading was Kara-ou, I'd go with Husk King, but if it was Mukuro-ou, I'd go with Corpse King. I guess I'll have to wait for the anime to say the name out loud so I know what it is.
Thank you.Quote:
Originally Posted by azwhoisveryboredYep, apparently it was mana in the first sentence and magical energy in the second. It's not like these books make an active attempt to avoid repetitive vocabulary either, so I'm not exactly sure why.
In Fate world, Nasu writes the concept that: Mana (マナ) is the "life force" which Magus need to use Magic Circuits to convert them to Magical Energy.
However, when these writers write their novel, they usually doesn't carefully to use these concept's words.
It just like they write " crude oil" is different from " gasoline" in the Source Material Book. But in the novel, they " why so serious" when letting character says " put the crude oil in the car.".
It hurts my heart very much.
One again. Thank you for your hard working. Sanda novel is really difficult even to us reader.
No, the magical energy inside the mage (life force) is Od. Mana is the magical energy outside of the mage, present in the air.
it is the concept of Tsukihime, not FSN.
In Fate world, Nasu changed Mana and Od to "life force", the raw source which Magus' Magic Circuits will convert to Magical Energy.
"life force" and " Magical Energy" is two different concept in Fate world.
I think he changed this concept just to write these events where Magus have to kill people, collect Od ( life force) and convert it to magical energy. If Mana = magical energy as in Tsukihime, no one care to do it anymore. They will just need more Magic Circuit to use magical energy which always around them in the air.
This is Mana and Magical Energy in Tsukihime: Tsukihime Dokuhon PlusPeriod
But this is Mana, Od and Magical Energy in FSN: Fate/complete material IIIQuote:
The source that powered all magecraft, analogous to gasoline.
There were many names for it.
For example, the magical energy in the atmosphere was called Mana. The meaning of Mana was approximately the same as that in the Polynesian culture. Also, Ether was not a form of Magical Energy as it was something else.
The Magical Energy in this story included Mana and the Magical Energy generated by magi themselves.
In summary, we mistake it and use Tsukihime's concept in the Fate world.Quote:
Magic is classified into two major groups depending on whether the internal life force of the magus (Lesser Source = od) is converted into magic power,
or whether the external life force of nature (Greater Source = mana) is taken in and converted into energy.
The generated mystic energy travels through the circuit, is sent to the magic foundation
I'm confused, doesn't your first quote still make mana part of the planet, meaning your original post calling it life energy of a magus is still wrong? Or maybe I'm misreading because it is quite late, I don't really understand your post right now.
in summary, in Fate world, " life energy" ( mana, Od) is the raw source for Magic Circuit to convert to " Magical Energy", which these Magus use to cast the spell.Quote:
Originally Posted by All fictionsI'm confused, doesn't your first quote still make mana part of the planet, meaning your original post calling it life energy of a magus is still wrong? Or maybe I'm misreading because it is quite late, I don't really understand your post right now.
Compare " life energy" with " crude oil", and " Magical Energy" with " gasoline".
* beside " life force", " soul" is another raw source which Servant can convert to "magical Energy",too.
It is different from Tsukihime world, where they are the same thing.
In the comment above, I post two concepts of Mana-Od-Magical Energy from Tsukihime and FSN, to see the difference between them.
There's no difference.
The only difference is the words used to describe the same thing.
That said, if you wish to continue this query. please do so in General Discussion.
Preety much.... people really out there over thinking basic stuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by PetrikowThere's no difference.
The only difference is the words used to describe the same thing.
That said, if you wish to continue this query. please do so in General Discussion.
Chapter 2, Part 6Chapter 2, Part 6:
It was said that you could tell a person’s personality from their voice.
Some were kind and calm, others were cold and harsh. Multiple factors combined, forming someone’s personality. Voices were the same.
If that was the case, then.
“…How surprising.”
The voice that spoke then was probably an exception.
From the world themselves, it seemed as if he was surprised. However, his voice did not contain a trace of emotion, like a cask of wine that had been left to age for too long, causing its colors to be over-complex and to blend into a monotonous black.
It was Zepia.
He slowly turned.
“You two were tampering with the parameters of the reenactment just then, yes?”
The two people in question were, of course, the two teenagers.
Flat and Svin. The twin juggernauts of the El-Melloi Classroom. The blond-and-blue-eyed duo.
The two of them were currently in the mysterious space, watching the reenactment with Zepia. Just then, the image of Gray and the others being swallowed by the flood had been displayed through the floating crystal balls.
“—Haha, cat’s out of the bag, huh?”
One of the two, Flat, smiled innocently.
“Think about it, the village’s right next to the swamp, so there’s got to be a water source. And just at that moment, the foundations decided to collapse because it couldn’t withstand the impact of the battle, and a flood happened… In theory, [there’s nothing out of the ordinary about that kind of coincidence], is there? The structure of that place is pretty unnatural anyway… Let me think, that means that we can use this method to mess with this place that looks like the past, right?”
“…Indeed,” admitted Zepia.
“However, you must first find out the coordinates and precise time the Logos ReAct is operating on for that. Even if you are the abnormalities who can hack into the technology of the Atlas Institute, it is not that easy to discover(calculate) these parameters. My calculations are done by my brain alone, because nothing here can assist you in that.”
Zepia shifted his gaze to the many crystal balls that floated in the air around him.
“All the crystal balls here are connected to that stage. Even in the present moment, the ways in which they are connected are constantly changing. Causes and effects form links with different parameters, and increases to infinity. If you wanted to, in your words, ‘hack’ into it, you must find possible times, causes, and effects, and connect them together. It’s comparable to looking for a single gemstone in an endless desert.”
Perhaps it could also be compared to an endless amount of keyholes.
Many keys were in the space, and though Flat had the ability to forge the key, only one keyhole was correct. There was no way to explain how they found this keyhole through Flat’s talents alone.
That was what Zepia wanted to ask about.
“However, you succeeded. How?”
“I just smelled it,” said Svin in a provocative tone.
Since they had already been found out, there was no point in continuing to hide it.
They had started setting up this spell just then. If Zepia really wanted to know, he would probably easily be able to tell what they were up to. Instead of that, he’d much rather stand proudly and proclaim it himself. He might even get more information that way.
“Though you say they must be calculated, I can smell anything, even weaknesses and flaws. I don’t know if it’s because it’s not meant to be perceived that way, but scent is the magecraft that my family has developed for generations. And I am the result of their work.”
To tell the truth, though, Svin didn’t like this about himself.
He silently recalled what had happened when he first met Flat. It wasn’t a pleasant memory at all, because both of them saw at once that the other was just as defective and inferior as they were themselves.
—“Sir, this guy smells like an absolute mess! Can I get rid of him?”
That was the first thing that [Svin] had said.
Back then, he had just gotten used to the classroom, and he had thought that this person would probably endanger his teacher, Lord El-Melloi II. It was inevitable that he would think about obliterating him, as he had just arrived at the Clock Tower. Perhaps you could say that it was a perfectly normal thought for a mage. From this angle, he had degraded quite a bit.
Ah, even now, he still did not believe that his original presumptions were wrong. Flat Escardos was an outstanding troublemaker, even among the students of the El-Melloi classroom. His extraordinary talents and personality could not be controlled by anyone.
Svin didn’t even know how many problems Flat had caused since then. It went without saying that he was a problem for his teacher, but the other students, including Svin, had all suffered significantly to clean up his problems.
—However, thought Svin.
“…Basically, you’re saying that the two of you cooperated to achieve this?” Said Zepia slowly.
“Exactly. I was the one who found the weak point.”
“And I did the intervention! Haha, Svin-kun’s pretty cool, isn’t he? He was also the one who told me that Sir Kay had the ability to hold his breath underwater for days on end!”
Flat raised his hand, and patted his classmate(Svin)’s shoulder vigorously.
He said it as if he was cheering someone on in a sports competition. It was impossible to imagine that the person who said that was actually facing— or perhaps was in the midst of a life-or-death situation. Though mages constantly found themselves in extraordinary situations, perhaps it was because of that that they were unusually sensitive about their own lives.
Just like Svin had once judged, Flat was an extremely twisted person.
At first glance, he just looked like someone who lacked empathy.
For a mage, who was outside the norm by default, perhaps he might even be called a pacifist. However, this teenager could not be summed up in such a mild way. Just in terms of history, the Escardos family, which Flat belonged to, was said to have existed for at least eighteen hundred years. It was impossible for a bloodline that predated even many of the Lord families to produce normal, carefree children.
Even after long years of study in the El-Melloi classroom and a large amount of contact with others, such a deep and fatal deficiency was hard to erase.
—However, thought the two of them.
“…How incredible,” said Zepia, as he looked towards them.
“Please excuse my directness, but the two of you are still far from the rank of Brand. However, finding my weaknesses would be difficult for even a Lord of the Clock Tower.”
He definitely did not underestimate them.
The conclusion made by the director of the Atlas Institute was the result of a precise evaluation of their abilities. Even though they were the prodigies of the El-Melloi classroom, the Mages’ Association was a place where geniuses were gathered through generations of cooperation and inhumane selection methods. There was no way to compete with truly high-ranking figures like the Lords of the three great(TN: alternatively, noble) families with incredible talent and an efficient education alone.
“However, if the two of you cooperate, everything becomes different. It is not as simple as addition or multiplication. The way of being itself transforms.”
Zepia slowly steepled his fingers. His hands were as still as a butterfly’s wings, and he closed his eyes. He seemed to be evaluating the teenagers once more.
Flat elbowed his classmate, and smiled.
“After all.”
“We don’t plan on losing again, not even against a Grand puppeteer,” Svin said firmly.
Those words were incredibly arrogant. However, they were well-supported.
Actually, it was only because of their crushing defeat at the Twin Towers of Ilsema, that they had been able to advance further. If this change was not acknowledged, was there any purpose of improving at all, as mages of extraordinary talent?
—And then.
For that reason, Zepia mused.
“Confident, aren’t you?” The Dead Apostle’s lips showed the vaguest hint of emotion.
“If that is the case, I was mistaken. The past is a stage, they are the actors, and I thought that I was the playwright that was here to simply observe the play. Ah, yes, there are often many playwrights in a troupe. Only through mutual consultation can the story truly soar to a realm beyond what a single person can achieve. To think that I forgot this kind of common sense.”
A strange color began to spread on Zepia’s face.
Zepia slowly pondered his “color”, which had finally returned to him after decades, or perhaps centuries, and shifted his gaze back to the teenagers.
He straightened his posture, as if he was a grandmaster who had realized that his opponent was more than a neophyte after multiple chess moves.
“Come on, my foes. Who shall this story be composed by?”
The teenagers who had just been named as foes swallowed at the same time.
https://i.imgur.com/qz453Hil.jpg
-End of Part 6 of Chapter 2 of Book 7-
—————————————————————————————————————————————————— ——
And also!
Chapter 3, Part 1Chapter 3, Part 1:
https://i.imgur.com/9Ra8n3Rl.jpg
—Scents were often present in my dreams. The soft smell of boiled potatoes told me that it was around those years, more than ten years ago.
Back then, mashed potatoes were a regular part of my family’s dinner, and I often complained because I had grown sick of eating it. My father was usually the one cooking at the time, and he spoiled me more than my mother did. For that reason, he spent a lot of effort thinking of what to cook, and even especially ordered ingredients for Chinese and Japanese food from the traveling merchants. The two of us had then attempted to cook the dishes according to the second-hand recipes in our hands.
I recalled tasting a dish so spicy I had ran circles around the yard with my father, making my mother laugh. Transforming into King Arthur’s body, being revered by the villagers, and having everything in my life controlled was after that.
…Ah, yes.
That was why I had always thought it was my own fault.
My fault that I had become the body that was revered by my parents and the villagers.
Because of that, after I was chosen by Bersac to become a grave keeper, I tried to busy myself with that job as much as possible after I could freely enter the graveyard.
Though I hated the dead, it was better than being worshipped by the living. When I faced the spirits that would appear periodically, though I felt terror from the depths of my heart, I also felt somewhat comforted. Comforted because even if I died, and became one of them, it would be better than my life in this village.
I thought of this…but I never died.
There were too many contradictions.
Even when I arrived at London and became my mentor’s disciple, I had not been able to get over all the complicated mess of interpersonal relations and how I had been served with amazingly delicious tea and desserts.
For that reason, meeting the Husk King was incredibly important to me.
I wanted to know how she regarded her own existence. The answer that I received was so clear and unambiguous that it struck me with an indescribably amount of force.
What should I do?
Should I obediently give up my body? No, I didn’t think so. If it was the me of the past, I might have made this choice easily. However, now… Someone would definitely feel sad if I chose that option.
If that was the case, then.
If that was the case…
-End of Part 1 of Chapter 3 of Book 7-
—————————————————————————————————————————————————— ——
It might have taken me a bit longer than it should have, but here
Chapter 3, Part 2
A low moan sounded in the church above the surface, beneath the shattered panes of stained glass.
“…What happened?”
The old woman’s voice shook.
It seemed to be the first time the other villagers had heard the old woman make such a sound. A slight uneasiness began to spread.
“What happened to you, mind of the King (TN: Alternatively, King of the mind?)?”
The old woman spread her arms and pleaded as she stood at the altar.
However, her hands fell in dismay, perhaps because she received no answer.
Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachtani (My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me)? She looked almost like a martyr from millennia ago (TN: That was not dialogue. Idk whether this refers to specifically Jesus or very old martyrs in general).
“Grandmother, what happened?” A villager asked.
Among them, many were still collapsed on the ground, unable to stand up.
This was because they had given too much of their Od to the Husk King beneath the ground. Though she hadn’t unleashed it, simply manifesting her Noble Phantasm had great costs. Now, around a quarter of the villagers were rendered immobile.
“…Contact with the mind of the King has been broken.”
“The contact with the—”
“She became agitated after meeting Gray, and seemed to have wanted to unleash her Noble Phantasm…”
The old woman was not an actual mage. Though she could sense the state of the Husk King through magecraft passed down through generations, she could not discern the precise situation. Therefore, she was completely oblivious to their conversation.
“No, the mind of the King would never get into any trouble. It’s just the connection being severed. The flood could never harm her. Since there was a flood there, perhaps [the other problem can also be solved.]”
After she uttered those cryptic words, the old woman clenched her withered hands.
“…However. Gray managed to escape. This matter must not be ignored.”
In response to the old woman’s worries, someone gave an obvious answer.
“Can’t we just catch her and bring her back? The king is only a third of herself, so it’s only normal for her to be confused. Therefore, we must help her resolve her worries.”
“Magdalena, yes?”
It was Gray’s mother.
She stroked her long hair with her fingers and smiled. An indescribable light shone in her unfocused eyes.
“Please let me handle it. I am the person who has been with the body of King Arthur the longest, after all,” the woman said, quietly.
“Yes, I know better than anyone... No matter how we chase her, in the end, that child will never choose to run away.”
As if to confirm what the mother had just said, the old woman narrowed her eyes, burying them in a pile of wrinkles.
“I see. Alright, I shall leave it to you.”
“Thank you very much.” Gray’s mother bowed her head.
“Prepare to search the mountain,” the old woman ordered. “I allow you all to approach the swamp. Though, from the look fo the flood, the Bounded Field has probably already been destroyed.”
“Understood.”
“Since the Holy Church has already declared themselves to be an enemy of ours, we do not have any time to waste.”
Nest, the old woman took out a curved dagger.
It looked considerably old, and some parts of the metal engravings had been damaged. Perhaps because it was cared for well, or maybe for some other reason, the gold shone as if it was proud to say it still retained its glory.
“This is… Ah, yes.”
“Erosion,” said the old woman, naming the dagger (TN: Also called ‘Erosion: Penetrating Blade of Gold’, but I think that’s a tad excessive).
“Neither the Church nor the grave keepers know of its existence. It is our treasured Mystic Code, given to us by our Holy Mother for the purpose of reviving King Arthur.”
The old woman stared at the dagger, transfixed, as if to say that she was born for this very reason.
According to what she said, the village had been divided into two factions, each one keeping their own secrets.
One was the Blackmores, the lineage of mages that guided souls and guarded the graveyard, from thousands of years ago.
The other, was the group who wished for King Arthur’s return. The devotees of the Black Madonna and King Arthur, such as the old woman who had inherited the dagger.
Actually, most villagers didn’t belong to either faction. Though most of the villagers were focused not he resurrection of King Arthur now, some of them would be chosen periodically to be grave keepers, and others were fanatical believers in the Black Madonna. The role of the grave keepers had never been at odds with the revival of King Arthur, but both sides kept secrets from and held grudges against each other.
And then, one day, the Holy Church also joined, assimilating the Black Madonna with the Holy Mother of their own religion, and used that as a reason to take root here.
Though it looked as if they got along harmoniously, they watched each other in private.
For this village of less than a hundred people, this was far too much history, to the point that some people might tire of it.
“This blade was forged to cut through not only flesh, but also the spaces between the body, mind, and the soul. When used for sacrifices, our Holy Mother was said to have used this dagger to direct the sacrifice’s heart. According to legend, it can also transform into a scythe, or even a sword,” the old woman said shakily as she gazed at the dagger.
“After we have captured Gray, all we need to do is stab her with this dagger. Then, her pitiful mind and soul can be briefly separated from her body. Next, we shall bind the mind of the King to the body as much as possible. For the soul, all we can do is wait for that Holy Grail War. We must live until that time. Ah, it doesn’t matter how many Heroic Spirits there are, as long as the mind and body are reunited here, the soul of the King must be summoned! Such a degree of luck will definitely favor our king!”
The old woman’s laughter did not cease.
Gray’s mother stared at the dagger with a mesmerized smile, and the other villagers were still collapsed on the floor.
The Black Madonna still stared down at them with the same unchanging expression it always had.
*
I coughed, expelling water from my throat.
Though I felt cold, the wind that blew across my face told me that it was only caused by my body temperature.
I was in the middle of a lush forest.
Though the sun had not risen yet, there was a faint glow in the horizon. It appeared that we had spent quite some time underground. It would probably take a few more minutes for me to fully register the fact that I was outside.
…I seemed to have had a dream.
I couldn’t remember what it was about, but it felt like a nostalgic one.
Just as I thought about this, someone spoke to me.
“Huh, you’re awake.”
An unnaturally hazy face stared down at me. I recalled that it was because he said he had not completely materialized, and blinked.
“…Sir Kay.”
“Ah, it’s good that you remember my name. You choked on a lot of water, after all. According to experience, if you don’t breathe for long enough, your mind goes all funny. Ah, if I were to use the knowledge of this era, it’s called brain damage, isn’t it?”
He sat down on the ground, laughing, and not caring if his armor got dirty at all (TN: I highly doubt keeping his armor clean is high up on his list of priorities at this point in time, but never mind).
In the light of the early morning, he looked incredibly mysterious. No, why was I thinking of mysteriousness? He was a knight from the distant past that had been summoned to the present. That was Mystery, the real thing. It was the first time this truth sank in.
As I coughed, I felt my consciousness gradually return to me. I sat up hastily.
“…M-my mentor! Where is he!?”
“Look over there.”
I only realized that my mentor was lying there when I looked in the direction the knight jerked his chin in.
His long, wet hair was spread out on the ground around him, and his already unhealthy-looking face was even paler. Water was dripping from the hem of his suit.
“Sir!”
“That guy’s(TN: that’s not the right word, think of maybe a 7 on a scale of ‘person’ to ‘bastard’) got even worse stamina than you do. He’s out cold, though, so he probably didn’t choke on that much water.”
I hurried over to him, and extended a hand toward his face.
The moment I felt an exhale escape his lips, relief surged forth from the bottom of my heart, and I collapsed beside him. …How strange, I thought. When I first arrived at London, I had thought that he was such an annoying person. How did I end up feeling this way?
Though my brain was still not working properly, I knew the answer straight away.
It was because I had changed, and I was slightly happy as I thought of that.
Because even though this face belonged to someone else, the mind(heart) that never stopped growing and changing was undoubtedly my own. Even though eternity does not exist in this world, it was still true that it would continue to change forever. If that was the case, I suppose that one day, I would be able to stand up in a place where nobody else was, because the person formed through the accumulated change was my true self.
That same person told me of my own existence. I exhaled deeply.
“Pleased? —Take this,” the knight said, as he handed my scythe to me.
“…T-Thank you.”
“This is my current vessel, after all. Take good care of it.”
“You saved us, right?”
“Even for me, trying to swim while lugging two people around is absolutely exhausting. You’d better thank me properly. After I managed to swim up, I found a tunnel in the back that leads here. I don’t know if the flood loosened the dirt, but the moment I got out, it collapsed.”
The hazy knight irritatedly fanned at his wet hair with his hands.
He had probably swum up here with his armor on. Though he was a spiritual being(?), and his armor wouldn’t necessarily retain its original weight, it was probably physically impossible to escape from a flood while dragging two people along. On top of that, he had found my scythe. I couldn’t imagine how he was able to carry it. I didn’t think that was a question that could be answered by simply attributing it to the fact that he was a Heroic Spirit. Amazingly, though, I could accept it.
Before I lost my consciousness, I had felt myself get picked up by an arm.
The motions with which that arm sliced through the water felt almost like they came from a different dimension. I got the feeling that I was holding onto a dolphin instead of an arm.
“The only thing I’ve ever been good at is swimming. Though I say that, this kind of skill’s got nothing to do with the reputation I had as a knight. Thanks to that, I used to constantly get comments from my colleagues saying how weird I was.”
True, it didn’t seem like it would further his reputation.
However, I felt like it suited this mental model(person) very well, more than skill in sword fighting or magecraft would. I didn’t know why, but it made me feel a sense of relief.
“That old guy swam off on his own to another tunnel, though.”
“Mr. Bersac…” The name of the person who was not here came out of my mouth.
“…Um, what about the Husk King?”
“Who knows. She isn’t someone who’ll get affected by that much water anyway.”
That was true. Even I would probably be able to get out of there alive if I was able to strengthen myself properly.
Finally, I had recovered enough to examine my surroundings.
I was surrounded by trees on all sides. There was also a thin veil of fog. However, since I had lived here for many years, I still had a basic grasp of where I was.
“We’re probably a little bit up the mountain from the village. I think we’re a bit further than the other end of the swamp.”
“Huh, the tunnel goes pretty far then, doesn’t it?”
“That’s… probably the case, yes. That cavern was pretty large, after all.”
In retrospect, it was a miracle that the entire ground didn’t collapse on us when she almost unleashed the dark Rhongomyniad. I couldn’t help but shudder at that thought. I didn’t know if it was due to fear or my body temperature.
Just as I sank into thought, I felt something touch my damp hood, and I looked up in curiosity. Suddenly, the hand began to move back and forth across my head.
“Ah! Please don’t, my hair will get messy!”
“Haha.”
The knight retracted his hand and smiled, as if he just saw something funny. “You aren’t like that guy at all, but maybe you’ll get along well with Gareth. You’re kind of related to that bunch anyway.”
I had a strange impression of that name.
“That’s the… (of the Round Table)”
“You don’t need to know,” the knight said, feigning ignorance and looking away.
At that moment, there came a faint groaning noise.
My mentor was lying on the ground, looking weakly at us. I felt my body temperature rise instantly. Maybe it really did increase by a couple of degrees. I shouted as if I had finally dislodged something from my throat (TN: How many times has this been used as a metaphor so far? I don’t know).
“Sir!”
“…Gray?”
“Yes, I’m here!”
Seeing my mentor look up at me, I suddenly wanted to cry.
Why did I become such a crybaby? I held tightly onto his hand. I was so glad that my hood was on, I thought. If I cried right now, it would probably bother him. Though knew that, I still felt the back of my throat heat up uncontrollably.
“S-sir…”
“…What. Don’t look at me with such a weird expression.” My mentor glanced at his fingers which were being tightly held, and smiled wryly.
Next, he gathered up his wet hair and sat up. He took off his dripping suit jacket, and carefully extracted his box of cigars from the pocket.
He carefully wiped the water off its surface, and then opened it. It seemed that the container was quite waterproof, as the inside was still dry. It could also have been the effect of some kind of magecraft.
He took out a cigar with one hand and held a knife in the other.
Perhaps because of the cold, my mentor’s fingers were frozen, so I gently took the knife from him and helped him cut off the tip. However, the matches got wet, so my mentor had to snap in order to start a fire.
Smoke wreathed around the cigar as it slowly burnt.
“……”
I felt as if it had been ages since I had smelled its scent.
When I first arrived in London, I didn’t like the smell very much. Even now, if someone else was smoking, I would have thought that it was unpleasant, though I wouldn’t have much else to say about it. However, whenever my mentor lit a cigar, I got a strange feeling, as if I was wrapped up in my favorite blanket.
“So we were washed up— No, you swam to the swamp area, is it?”
“You’d better thank me properly,” the knight said, somewhat proudly. “What do you plan on doing?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I’m asking what we should do next, of course. We just barely managed to escape. It took a fluke on top of a fluke to get us out there alive. If that same thing happened a hundred more times, we’d probably die a hundred times,” said the knight, casually mentioning certain death.
The air with which he said those words reminded me of ancient battlefields. The only reason why he could say something like that was because he was a true warrior of this land.
“Life is the most valuable thing to human beings, after all. It’s not too late to run, is it?”
“…If you assume that escape is even possible,” my mentor said. “I still don’t think this is actually the past. If it isn’t, do you think that there’ll be an ‘outside’ to this village at all?”
“You mean, nothing will be outside this village? Sounds like something out of a fairy tale.”
“In the end, the person making this choice isn’t me, anyway.” After he said that, my mentor exhaled a puff of smoke and looked toward me.
“Huh?”
“Gray, what do you think?” He asked. “I’ve asked you something similar before. This is your case, after all.”
“……”
My case.
This was the first time someone had said something like that to me. Though I had been involved in multiple cases along with my mentor before, I was only ever my mentor’s disciple, and nothing else.
However, this was different. This was a case that happened in my hometown, and a sequel to the first case. It was the reason why I had left my village, and a truth that I had to face.
The underground temple. Another Black Madonna. The revival of King Arthur.
And, most importantly, the mind of King Arthur— the Husk King.
Or perhaps, another me.
“She didn’t listen to what I had to say,” I confessed quietly.
It wasn’t enough. My words and my experiences were not enough to move her.
I needed to talk to her in order to know the truth, and in order to know what I was. However, my words were too shallow, and I hadn’t been able to reach the Husk King’s heart.
It was all because I was too immature.
I hopelessly pondered my own uselessness, and how much danger I had brought upon the people around me.
“But, if you would allow it, Sir, I still want to meet her again.”
“…Then, as your teacher, I shall have to assist you. If I denied my disciple’s requests, it would damage the reputation of the El-Melloi name.”
“…Thank you!”
I nodded as hard as I could.
I knew that what he said about the El-Melloi name was just an excuse, but because of that, my mentor’s encouragement was fully conveyed to me.
“You weren’t the only one whose words fell on deaf ears. If I didn’t make you say all those unnecessary things, she wouldn’t have unleashed her Noble Phantasm either.”
“Well…”
I recalled the Husk King’s furious face when I had passed on my mentor’s message.
Actually, before that point, I could feel that she had been showing some mercy. Even though she wanted to restrain me, it didn’t seem like she wanted to hurt me excessively.
If that was the case, what part of my mentor’s words had she not been able to take?
“…I don’t know why, but the Husk King seems to know what a reenactment is,” I muttered. “If that’s the case, she probably won’t do the same the things she did during the First Cycle.”
The goal right in front of our eyes was to solve the case of the past.
—“Find the mystery that you must solve,” Zepia had said.
We had thought that this was the way that we could escape this Second Cycle, or perhaps a clue. However, because of the events that had just played out, our plans had drastically deviated from that.
However.
“Perhaps her reaction is the key,” my mentor muttered.
“The key?”
“I’m not sure, either, but there’s a sense of…dissonance. I prepared the message to utilize the dissonance as much as possible, but I never thought she would react that violently. I’m incredibly ashamed of myself. …I was so close to making her listen.”
My mentor hunched over in thought.
I knew that he would often stay this way for a long time. Once, he had forgotten to eat for an entire day when he was writing a thesis, and ended up having to drag himself out of his room in a complete state of disarray.
However, before he could sink into thought, someone spoke.
“—Can I interrupt you for a second?”
“What?”
“Nothing, really. I’ve just noticed something. Doesn’t that part look funny?”
The knight pointed in a direction.
It was a patch of ground in the forest. It seemed to be frequented by wild animals, so the grass had parted to reveal some soil. Looking at that otherwise unassuming bit of dirt, I also sensed that something was off.
“…This is…”
I extended my hand, and the moist ground in front of us sank slightly.
My mentor noticed it as well, and frowned.
“Are those human footprints?”
“…Probably.”
I bent over and inspected the ground at an angle.
It was a hunting technique that Bersac had taught me. Footprints were difficult to examine from a standing position, so you needed to bend over in order to discern the state and direction of the footprints.
From the size of the prints, I could tell that they were probably left by a man. He was wearing leather shoes, unlike the villagers, and his steps were uneven, as if he wasn’t used to walking on mountain roads.
“We’re close to the swamp now, and according to the rules, the villagers won’t approach this area.”
I nodded in response to my mentor’s words. This wasn’t a place where people would usually leave their footprints, so there must be some sort of meaning to it.
“…Let’s take a look,” I said naturally, as a strange feeling rose in my heart.
If such a thing as the threads of fate did indeed exist, it was a feeling as if we had just been captured by lines that hung from the sky.
Though we were not puppets, our destination had just been decided by those threads, I thought, though I didn’t know why I was so certain.
*
A voice rang out from somewhere.
“—If a coincidence happens once, it will naturally become interlocked with the next coincidence. When luck deviates, some kind of counterproductive effect is bound to occur before the possibility is closed off. Ah, this has nothing to do with cliché ideas of whether someone is lucky or not. It’s simply the phenomenon of how a pendulum is more prone to extremes after a force is applied to it before it returns to its natural resting place. (TN: ??)”
The emotionless voice explained the situation as if it were a lecture.
Presently, they were looking down at how the events had unfolded. Lord El-Melloi II and Gray had entered the forest, and had coincidentally found the footprints. They had seen all of this.
“Let me think… You’re trying to say that this is karma(TN: Alternatively, a cause-and-effect relationship), right? It’s a pretty important concept in eastern thought, isn’t it? Something around the lines of if you help a crane in the morning, it’ll come give you better gear in video games at night!”
It was the voice of a teenager.
There wasn’t a hint of fear in the teenager’s voice, to the point where someone might wonder how much he actually understood about his situation. In response to his words, the classmate sitting beside him was speechless momentarily before he answered in as calm of a voice as he could muster.
“Flat, we’re not having class right now.”
“But Le Chien-kun, isn’t it better to ask questions when you still have the chance? Aren’t things like whether you should spread butter or jam on bread the key?”
“How is that even related!?” He yelled, gritting his teeth like an angry beast. His classmate’s response still carried some confusion.
“Wait, are they alright because they popped out into the swamp from beneath the ground? Or is that place outside of the bounded field…?”
They had passed that same bounded field, and had ended up in this space as a result.
“Just watch,” a voice said in response to his question.
“Let us see how the vortex has changed because of your intervention, and let us find out what awaits them there, at the ends of the change.”
-End of Part 2 of Chapter 3 of Book 7-
—————————————————————————————————————————————————— ——