Chapter 17
Chapter: 17
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>Translator: penny
>Chapter: 17
>Chapter Title: Primer (1)
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017. Primer (1)
The place they arrived at following the Holy Emperor was so empty that the term "rear garden" seemed utterly inappropriate.
No, could one even dare call this a garden?
Just a vast expanse of green lawn, with garden trees sparsely scattered in the middle like beans sprouting in a drought. Even those were so few they could be counted on one's fingers.
What was this barren rear garden? A soccer field?
Somehow catching Seongjin's dumbfounded gaze, the Holy Emperor spoke up.
"It's occasionally used as a training ground instead."
Indeed. Next time, maybe I should ask to watch some swordsmanship here.
In the middle of that lawn stood a small table that could hardly be called a dining table, all by itself.
As the two of them casually took their seats, servants from the main palace came rushing belatedly and set out a simple meal on the table. Seongjin had planned to skip lunch, but seeing the neatly prepared food suddenly made him hungry for no reason.
The two began eating without much conversation.
"You haven't made much progress in your training?"
Seongjin, who had been diligently chewing and swallowing a piece of meat, flinched in surprise and looked at the Holy Emperor.
This guy had ears like a ghost.
He casually set down his knife on a plate he had barely touched and continued as if it were no big deal.
"It's been several days since I sent you a skilled knight commander, yet not only have you failed to build up any layers, you haven't even formed an aura core."
Seongjin blinked. The Holy Emperor's words felt strangely specific.
Sir Masain and Physician Ninias had only said his aura activation was weak, but this man seemed to have a fairly detailed grasp of the amount of aura accumulated in his body.
Could it be?
"Apart from indirectly gauging it through aura activation, is there a way to accurately know another person's aura realm?"
"Normally, it's hard to tell unless they deliberately emit it outward, but..."
"......"
"It's not that there's no method at all."
Seongjin grinned, baring his teeth.
He was confident he'd come to the right person.
"So, Masain pulled off that trick, huh."
When Seongjin chattered on in detail about his recent training situation, the Holy Emperor's lips curled up slightly—an ambiguous reaction that could be a smile or a sneer.
"The approach wasn't bad. And?"
"Well, it's not so much progress as obtaining some kind of clue."
"A clue."
"Yes."
Seongjin wiped his mouth with a napkin, glanced at the Holy Emperor for a moment, then tilted his head toward him and spoke softly.
"Um... Father. People say my body's aura is unusually thin. So, I'm wondering if perhaps my body's aura is already completely depleted for some reason."
"......"
"Of course, it's just a possibility. Is there such a thing in the world as a constitution that can't accumulate aura?"
Even as he said it, he half-expected a scolding for talking nonsense. But the Holy Emperor's reaction was unexpected.
His eyes widened slightly, then narrowed a bit after a moment. His brows furrowed just a touch, and he rested his chin on his interlaced hands. Then he lowered his gaze and began pondering deeply.
Wow, I've never seen such big changes in his expression before.
This guy has some inkling of it!
Seongjin unconsciously swallowed and watched his every move.
"Hmm......"
The Holy Emperor remained lost in thought for a long while, then finally beckoned to his chief chamberlain.
"Lewis."
"Yes, Your Holiness."
"Dismiss the servants for a moment."
Lewis bowed politely, and in an instant, the table was cleared. Astonishingly, in less than five minutes, all the nearby servants had vanished somewhere.
Even then, the Holy Emperor stared silently at the rear garden's scenery for a long time. Just as Seongjin could no longer hold back and opened his mouth, the Holy Emperor turned his head and met his eyes.
"I thought the guy who seemed ready to wield aura at any moment had made no progress simply because his laziness had returned."
What? Is that all you're going to say after all that pondering?
"But hearing your words, I think there might be another possibility. We need to check it."
"Huh?"
Another possibility?
"Your hand."
The Holy Emperor extended his hand across the table. Seongjin instantly realized he was about to use a method similar to what Masain had done.
When Seongjin placed his hand on the table, the Holy Emperor lightly gripped his wrist.
"This isn't just to awaken your senses—it's a test to definitively track the aura's path. Unlike what Masain did, a large amount of aura may suddenly enter, so don't be too startled."
Seongjin swallowed and nodded.
At that very moment, a cool sensation began flowing from their touching wrists up his arm.
'...Huh?'
It was truly like water flowing. Far more powerful than Masain's aura, this sensation spread refreshingly through his entire arm without any stinging irritation.
Was this the feeling of his own aura flowing, as Masain had described and Seongjin had imagined? It was so comfortable that even the arm muscles knotted from recent sword lessons completely relaxed.
As Seongjin gaped in wonder, the aura sensation from his wrist suddenly cut off.
"I've stopped now. Observe the flow of the residual aura."
Snapping to attention at those words, he tried to focus on the aura's flow. But despite his efforts, the sensation faded, passing his shoulder before vanishing completely.
"Uh, I can't feel it now."
Seongjin tilted his head as he spoke. He'd thought it was a considerable amount of aura, yet it disappeared without a trace like this?
But the Holy Emperor's expression had grown quite serious.
"Your guess was right. The aura has completely vanished. It's leaking out somewhere."
"Leaking out?"
The Holy Emperor was staring at Seongjin's chest area, as if the aura was seeping out from there.
Just maybe, could this man actually see the aura?
As Seongjin eyed him suspiciously, the Holy Emperor began infusing aura once more.
An even more intense flow of water surged up his arm. It was an enormous amount, yet strangely, it placed no strain on his body at all. The cool stream passed his elbow, his shoulder, faded toward his chest... Huh?
Even as the Holy Emperor pushed in more and more aura, it failed to pass the chest area and simply vanished.
This time, Seongjin could clearly feel it. Not exactly the chest, but closer to the back...
"It's from the scar."
Scar?
With that cryptic remark, the Holy Emperor released Seongjin's arm and rubbed his chin, sinking back into thought.
Even after wielding that much aura, he showed no sign of fatigue. Seongjin felt bad constantly comparing him to Masain, but they were clearly on different levels.
How much time passed? The Holy Emperor seemed to have fully organized his thoughts and began explaining.
"I've confirmed that there's definitely some kind of passage in your body, and all the aura is escaping through it. So no matter how much you try to accumulate it, the aura won't gather in your body. I can't tell when that passage formed or where it leads."
"Uh......"
It suddenly turned into full fantasy. Even though this was another world.
A passage? Inside my body?
As Seongjin gaped in bewilderment, the Holy Emperor continued.
This wasn't a physical passage, but a spiritual one through which energies like aura or souls could flow.
The passage should surely be open in both directions, yet aura was unilaterally draining from Mores' body, which was a bit odd.
Such a thing doesn't normally happen to ordinary people, so he speculated it was likely related to Mores surviving death.
It was an utterly absurd situation, but Seongjin had a hunch.
'Could it be that my soul entered here because Mores had that passage?'
If so, he could naturally guess where the passage connected to.
Sigurt-34 Earth—the low-grade dimension the Demon King had sung about—or Gehenna.
His original world.
"You have two choices."
As Seongjin's mind grew complicated, the Holy Emperor continued his explanation.
First, wait for the passage in his body to close.
Since this phenomenon was far from normal, there was a possibility it would naturally seal as his body recovered. Of course, it was a slim chance.
Even if it did close, no one knew how long it would take, and he might have to live his entire life without aura.
Second, fill the passage completely with water so it can't leak any more.
If aura was leaking because the passage was empty, fill it entirely with aura. Like how a holed bucket won't leak more if it's already full to the brim outside, held by water pressure.
"Is that... possible?"
To Seongjin, it sounded like pouring water into the vast ocean.
"Fortunately, the passage isn't that large, so it seems we can attempt it, albeit precariously. I've done something similar before."
"Such cases exist?"
"They do. Though not common. I've seen two in my lifetime."
Two people? Not common, but not extremely rare either?
As Seongjin gawked, the Holy Emperor continued.
"I'm explaining these choices because both carry some degree of risk."
First, if leaving the passage as is, it might not close and could even widen.
If the bearer of the passage suffers extreme stress or spiritual pressure, it could suddenly go berserk. One of the two cases the Holy Emperor had seen was like that.
A berserk passage no longer limited to the spiritual—it becomes an ant hell affecting physical reality too. An entire nearby village had once been sucked in through the widened passage.
What? It's not just a pinhole in the palm—it's a black hole?
"Then isn't that a huge problem? What do we do if that happens?"
"We eliminate the entrance to the passage. I closed it myself back then."
The Holy Emperor's eyes were chilling as he answered.
Seongjin could guess how he'd done it without asking, and a shiver ran down his spine.
"Then there's no choice, right? Better to go with the second method than risk becoming a walking disaster!"
If they could fill and seal the passage, what better option could there be?
Yet the Holy Emperor gazed at the scenery, paused for a moment, then abruptly asked Seongjin something irrelevant.
"Do you know what priming water is?"
"Pardon?"
Stunned by the unexpected question, Seongjin blurted out a reply, and the Holy Emperor kindly continued his explanation.
"It's a method people in the western mountains use to irrigate their fields. When drought strikes, they install small waterwheels connected by thin channels from below upward in various spots. They hang them on pulleys and spin them quickly to pump water uphill."
Suddenly, talk of farming. But Seongjin listened quietly.
He figured the Holy Emperor wouldn't bring it up without reason.
"But if the slope is too steep, no matter how fast they spin the pulley, the water won't flow back up. Do you know what they do then? They pour water into the channel first."
"......"
"They prime the empty channel with water first to draw more in. That's priming water."
Seongjin gradually understood what the Holy Emperor meant.
In other words, this "priming water" was much like filling the passage with aura.
"Then, the risk you mentioned is..."
"Good, you catch on quickly."
The Holy Emperor's gaze deepened as he looked at Seongjin. His gray eyes, devoid of any warmth, gleamed like a honed blade.
"There'll be no issue until the pulley starts turning. But if you try to draw the water gathered in the channel..."
"......"
"Whatever's on the other side of the passage will easily be pulled here too."
The Demon King's soul, which had been silently huddled until now, suddenly shuddered.
Seongjin's world had perished along with the demon realm of Gehenna.
There might be a few survivors, perhaps. But not enough to continue the species.
No infrastructure remained to sustain humanity. Nothing would grow on land contaminated by monster corpses.
Even if humanity miraculously survived, Earth would eventually be swept away and utterly destroyed as Gehenna collapsed after the Demon King's death.
What could possibly remain there to cross over to this world?
After organizing his thoughts for a moment, Seongjin soon made up his mind.