Chapter 311
Chapter 311
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 311
Chapter Title: Can One Who Has Seen the End of the World Plant an Apple Tree? (16)
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[Overdid it.]
“Saladin, huh. Quite a grandiose name for a slave. Don’t you think so, Yagin?”
[You listening? It was way too much. I know you needed to show a bit of skill, but this.... Isn’t it over the top?]
“That might not be the case. They say the mage who was his former master had been preparing for the desert march for quite some time, so it’s more reasonable to think he raised this one specifically to offer to the desert bosses from the start. In that light, the name Saladin is highly strategic. It’s a name traditionally bestowed upon those who guarded the ancient royal line for generations, after all.”
“Indeed. The mage used his head well.”
“Those vulgar, self-indulgent lot have always been known for their cunning tricks since ancient times.”
[I’d get it if he knew how to handle weapons, but where’d he learn that? I personally investigated all your movements, and there was no info about you being good with an axe. A man full of secrets.... I don’t hate it. There’s a special thrill in digging in, you know?]
‘Tch. Just pick one, just one. Can’t tell who’s saying what when they’re mixed together.’
The Professor fiddled with the back of the new leather belt he’d received while suffering between Rakshasha, who spoke to him via spirit voice on one side, and the shamans speaking aloud on the other.
A belt designed to sling spears or crossbows over the shoulders. His new axe hung from the hook on the back, and the scorched, warped side of the blade gave a strange satisfaction every time he scraped it with his fingertips.
.
.
.
.
Honestly, he hadn’t planned on debuting as a slave quite this flashily.
‘Didn’t expect this either. It’s been so long since I swung it.... Got a bit carried away.’
Back in World 2, his axe technique had been like that of a mercenary. No matter what bullshit he pulled, he couldn’t produce aura, and as the world progressed, opponents grew stronger, so to match their power, he had no choice but to slam down with the axe’s mass plus his body weight in massive blows.
Royal knights clad in full plate mail enchanted with all sorts of physical damage reduction spells, and death knights risen from their corpses, inheriting that gear intact. Without aura, the Professor had no option but to ambush them with these ignorant, all-out strikes, and by the late world, no one could tell if he was a warrior or an assassin.
In any case, that led to him growing accustomed to a bizarre axe style—not proper technique using weight balance and rotation, but one-shot kills punctuated by escapes on failure.
Swinging with that old sensation and his current strength....
He’d realized something was off right before impact and barely wrapped it in aura, or else the black scorpion’s head—and the axe—would’ve split together.
Thanks to that, the blood armor inside him, which handled shock absorption, rebelled against the aura and got obliterated. With the sound of a ripe watermelon splitting, the Professor’s arms exploded from the elbows down while still gripping the axe, and fearing witnesses, he hastily reattached them, finished the third test acting normal—
And now, heading to the ritual chamber amid the shamans’ praises.
“By the way, Yagin. I have a question....”
“Normally, I’d dismiss a question from a low-rank like you, but since you brought such a warrior, I’ll spare a few words. What is it?”
“As you know, this warrior slave is already a finished product from the mage, right? The mage said he’d hand over the rights directly to Lady Kauladi, so why bother with the grand ritual....”
“Tsk tsk. A question not worth answering. I said a few words, but for such stupidity, this ends it. Obviously, we engrave the spirit brand. And you, a slave-handling shaman, asking that? Strange.”
Eolaki-Rakshasha bowed his head deeply at the senior shaman’s doubt. Yagin stared at the back of his head and tapped it with a finger as he replied.
“The slave warrior corps are the hands and feet proxying Her—the sun-to-be’s will. It’s unpleasant enough that such precious resources were processed with vulgar magic, and handing them to Lady Kauladi without a single spirit thread? That’s an unparalleled insult to our king, to the beautiful and noble spirits, and to me, who stands closest to Her, untouchable. From the looks of him, he’s a slave for heavy use. Letting such a one stand by Lady Kauladi without my brand? Even if the desert sands dry up, no.”
‘In the end, he’s just saying he’ll slap his name on the slave the underling’s offering up.’
The back was bullshit not worth hearing. The front boiled down to: since an outsider processed the slave, they can’t trust it, so they’ll redo it their way.
The expected process. One of the parts that worried him most, refined in advance with Rakshasha.
Even if it took three or four days, warriors who could solo that giant black scorpion turning into Kauladi’s lackeys with one spirit brand? He had confidence in his mental strength, but who knew what could happen to a person—he couldn’t just hand his mind to these guys blindly. He was already leaving his data soul player body outside; if he got brainwashed, corrupted, and trained here, then rampaged outside as a Type-3 mutant yelling ‘Long live Lady Kauladi! Wasteland! I’ll offer the new desert to Lady Kauladi!’—what then?
When he voiced this anxiety, Rakshasha laughed and soothed him.
=========
‘It’s fine? I’m no expert in brainwashing brands, but I know how it works? Unlike magic, spirits proceed in a way more familiar and easier to recover from for you?’
‘Somewhat reassuring, then. Specifically, how is it familiar?’
‘Hmm~ They open the skull, infuse [Gaze of Amsala] spirits across the whole brain to find the least-used memory area—then slice it out, steep new memories to overwrite the old ones in drugs, stuff it back with a [Red Gill Worm], and suture.’
‘....Reassuring?’
‘It’s a powerful ritual combined with surgical impossibility for normal spirits, but.... you should be fine, right? In Tobrun, that state of yours wasn’t something anyone could fix just by fiddling with your head a bit, from what I remember....?’
‘G-gotta get out of here. This is insane!’
‘Hehehe. Don’t worry too much? I’ll watch over you closely from the side? Mmm~ Your hidden depths. Even that woman Dana, no matter how she flies, couldn’t see such intimate parts?’
=========
Thanks to that, his vague anxiety turned into body-shaking terror.
‘Ugh! Definitely, Rakshasha’s no ordinary person. Calling someone’s brain their “hidden depths” with eager eyes while explaining the plan....’
But as Rakshasha explained, relying on this surgical method was undeniably advantageous for him.
He’d taken a direct Yggdrasil spirit arrow to the head in the blue line once. Amid experiences nearing human mince, his head hadn’t fully escaped damage—several head injuries, yet he was fine now, so surgery wouldn’t be a big issue.
And while Rakshasha only considered his regen, his mind housed Hyde, who had a hobby of neatly organizing thoughts and memories, hanging them everywhere. The shamans’ pirated memory downloads would be handled by that guy before affecting him. No real risk, objectively.
But that was that.
Zzzak, zzzak.
Drrrkdrrrkdrrrkdrrrkdrrrk!
“Hm? Yagin, this slave Saladin has weak bones for a warrior? Skull’s so thin the saw nearly sank in.”
“Nuat. Shut it. Saliva in the brain’s a headache to clean. Let’s see.... Any excess bits?”
“Another oddity—no excess for a warrior. How about here?”
Snip, snip, thunk!
“Hmm.... Small amount, but we can be delicate. Nuat, you manage the open head. I’ll handle the manipulation and bring it back.”
“Yes. The more I see, the more intriguing he is. Seen many warriors’ brains, but never this shape. Hmm.... Let’s see here, then—”
Poke poke. Squish—sloooorp sluuuurp—
‘Aaaagh! Aaaah! Aaaagh! Aaaagh! Aaaaagh!!!!!!’
Forget no pain from anesthesia or easy recovery bullshit. Just the horror of them ordering ‘stay still,’ feeding him weird anesthetic smoke, then sawing off my skull’s lid and rummaging my contents—while I watched wide-eyed!
Freshness mattered, so the procedure took under five minutes, but the Professor inwardly screamed for his mother dozens of times.
He truly learned fear could come separate from crisis sense.
As he felt thread-like suturing on his scalp.
Unlike the Professor’s utterly drained mind, Hyde casually spoke to him in a lively voice.
[Their skills are damn good? Thought it’d be chaos like the arrow hole, so I dumped and sorted memories, but barely any shake. Pros for sure. They’re really skilled.]
‘Ugh.... You psycho.... How do you describe this as –they’re really skilled—....’
[Our body isn’t bound much by external form anyway? Brain chunk cut or finger chopped—it’s all the same. Anyway.... Here. Roughly from here to here. That’s what they shoved in from over there.]
The memory volume Hyde handed over was vaster than expected, and not the brainwashing he’d imagined. Something.... palatable?
Rough summary—
Warrior born centuries ago in the desert. On dying king’s plea, flees hugging his last descendant, then dies. Memories reincarnate as warrior, shaman, wandering after that trace, finally finding the lord’s heir after centuries—our supreme Lady Kauladi~ After centuries wandering, finds the king’s heir who sacrificed for lowly soldiers, protects her this time—story like that.
Cliché, but vivid, it tugged heartstrings somewhat.
[See, this memory keeps wriggling, devouring others, filling gaps. Like, a plain ‘warrior’ becomes the subject’s name. ‘Family’ gets filled with real slave warrior’s son and wife memories, linking seamlessly.]
‘Definitely.... Makes sense what that Eolaki shaman said. Original memories seep fully into the implant, so warriors seem unbound except loyalty oath.’
If family questions sudden loyalty, he’d bitterly smile ‘You wouldn’t know, it’s an ancient promise’ and return to master with wistful eyes.
Natural, easily accepted by the uninformed.
....But still brainwashing, twisting essence at whim unchanged. Considering results.... Couldn’t grasp why use this method.
‘Even if natural, butchering people like this—won’t aura just scatter? Overwriting existence’s essence is the same. Defeats collecting fine warriors.’
Of course, desert warriors used odd non-aura ways, bonding lifelong weapons by pouring souls in, sharing with them in battle.
Even so, combat wasn’t mindless bodywork—inevitably affected by brain changes. Reading foes, instinctual gap exploitation—all etched in body and brain via experience. Can’t swap brain parts like machine.
[Maybe they accept losses for absolutely loyal elite troops?]
‘Not about accepting. I take the hit, while foes use traditionally loyal warriors? Starts with combat gap, and in endless desert fights, equals or slight inferiors closing it means this loss-making way vanishes naturally. Assassination’s unpredictable risk; battle loss is sure death.’
Ultimately, Kauladi and local bosses favoring slave warriors—highly abnormal.
‘Something’s up. Turning abnormal normal. Advantage to slave troops worth combat loss.’
And that, he’d learn facing other slave warriors presented to Kauladi.
Hard work, but experiencing as insider flooded info outsiders wouldn’t get in tens of days. For him ignorant of desert culture, environment, politics—this was the sole way to the center. A wellspring.
Zzzak, zzzak!
“Nuat, come tighten the scalp firm. For presenting to Lady Kauladi, hide surgery scars max. Healing salve.... Probably unnecessary? [Resentment of the Gecko Leech] suits his constitution better than expected?”
“Shall we add more brands to the body?”
“Hmm.... Let Lady Kauladi decide use, add then. Better the more I see.... Big frame, room for many. Done well, fifteen; pick good matches, up to seventeen.”
“Seventeen.... Even real Saladins in kingdom days couldn’t take that many!”
“Fortune rolls in before great cause. Desert chose great Kauladi as master, no doubt. That power, that unfathomable power is surely.....”
‘....Unfathomable power?’
Ear perked at shamans’ talk, Professor snapped back to reality he’d forgotten in thought.
His skull wired tight with iron, shamans praising regen while ointment-ing skin over.
Power. Power....
‘Desert boss wars constant, but this war threatens [Desert’s Heart] they serve per Rakshasha and Moonshadow, so different scale. Moonshadow’s big intel group. Analyzing conquest ends in Kauladi defeat, seeking other boss protection.’
One suspicion sprouted roots, others grew. Another oddity on thought.
‘Atmosphere. Atmosphere.... doesn’t add up?’
Our city. Third Step Oasis vibe. Village conscripts, war prep grim, but deeper in, war shadow faint. Per bat-like Moonshadow switching sides on win-loss calcs, Kauladi plans reckless war—should be anxiety outbursts.
Yet shamans, warriors—quite peaceful?
Some tension, but not risking-life levels. Battlefield-wise, tank unit pre-crushing deserters?
‘....Hyde. Show all the stuff I called weird?’
[Already pulled aside. Here.]
Hyde rummaged mental couch, tossed hazy memory clumps.
- Per Moonshadow analysis, Kauladi conquest reckless. So Moonshadow moves lord for other boss protection, but locals believe victory obvious, contrary. With talk of Kauladi’s ‘power.’
- Slave warrior structure eats combat loss. Fine warriors from desert gathered, used so crudely. Should’ve been weeded in competition. Weird it’s mainstay.
- Legend of fallen sun, sunken moon in desert. Sun/moon fall = armageddon endworld, not mere boiling desert. Environment born with ancient god legends, taboos.
- Mutants weird. Just smells, no activity/special individuals. Given so much time, no traces in empire, Lordric 3 kingdoms—desert only spot left. Desert-wide Moonshadow surveillance no odd movements. What’re they doing?
.
.
.
.
Kauladi’s power. Slave warriors. Legends. Mutants. Great desert.... Suspicious. Very.
Scattered clues shaping up, but missing big piece to connect.
Kauladi gains power, certain he’s destined desert king, wages war to become one.
Mutants’ forces. Hidden reserves not shown in empire/Lordric fronts. Power.
Great desert’s eerie taboo. Power from ancient god traces.
Power. Power connections.
.
.
.
.
“Saladin, Saladin!”
Professor’s mind, teetering tightrope through puzzle haze, grasping something—pulled to reality by shaman’s shout.
“Oh dear. Mistake in grand ritual? Saladin looks dazed.”
“Yagin, haven’t ordered him to move yet.”
“Hm? Ah, right. Saladin. You may move now. Prep done—off to meet your true master-to-be, Lady Kauladi.”
‘....Just a bit more, might’ve pieced it. Think later when time.’
Professor clicked tongue inwardly, rose from table per shaman order. Couldn’t pinpoint异质 core, but confirmed all linked.
Now, solace in heading to hazy sandstorm-like situation’s reference point: Kauladi.
“Eolaki, good work. Slave showed no resistance to end, proving innocence; your guarantor duty done. Return to your tent and rest.”
Yagin issued dismissal to disguised Rakshasha while washing hands in water bowl brought by nearby slave.
Rakshasha eyed cautiously, stepped forward carefully at words.
“....Yagin. As you know, not ordinary warrior slave, so could a lowly one have honor of seeing Lady Kauladi’s face too-”
-Slap!
“....Demanding so much for one slave. Guess I treated you too softly. For merit, forgiven once. Be a slave shaman: focus on your role bringing slaves.”
....Bow.
Seemed a line he couldn’t cross, unfortunately.
Head bowed hastily—recently slapped face skin seemed damaged.
[Professor. This is it for me. Following more risks suspicion?]
....Wag wag.
Professor wagged fingers in agreement to Rakshasha’s voice.
At least, smooth so far per plan. If continues, escape kingblood safely, gain favor of desert #2 boss, support from desert geomancers—primary desert goal achieved.
Merely primary.
‘....If. Hate to think, but if desert flows to my worst scenario.’
异质 situations like mouth thorn, linked by ‘power’ keyword.
Desert anomaly = mutants. Kauladi got desert odd power via them, their confidence source....
‘Means mutants allied biggest desert force possible.’
Politic-mongering ones, can’t rule out human alliance.
....Sorry Rakshasha, but if confirmed facing Kauladi, kingblood siblings ‘Desert’s Heart’ under protection might drop priority.
‘....Could set horrible precedent. If allied, ensure not success story: kill Kauladi here at least.’
Frontal clash with hostage. Most dangerous, ignoring hostage life.
Professor followed shamans, gently stroked heavy axe on back.
For ambush, axe’s reach beats fists.
And he was used to using it that way originally.
“....Here. Slave Saladin. When seeing Her, prostrate limbs to floor, bow head.”
Cool sandstone corridor end, shaman ordered. Professor nodded feeling axe weight; stitched-mouth slaves pulled grand ornate doors.
“Master of all desert sands, who shall drive false sun and lying moon, reclaim past light—our lord, Lady Kauladi! Receive lowly servants’ worship!!!”
Hall of sandstone walls/floor, but ceiling roiling sands overhead. Facing their king, shamans instantly flattened, offering utmost reverence.
“Raise heads, my servants. And my warrior, new strength.”
Unlike my tyrant image from desert ship sailors, the boss ruling giant’s twelve steps. Kauladi, unhesitant self-styled desert king....
Clank—
“In trackless desert. Praise your fate finding master unerring. Saladin.”
Save massive scar covering half face, white robes and gold ornaments suited his languid noble visage—young man.
Objectively, bizarrely captivating beauty.
‘Fuck, high-rank!’
Professor grimaced unwittingly upon seeing.
In GG, three types to always beware.
Solo vibe-setter in danger zone.
Ragged old man.
Pretty boys/girls. All.
Here, belief becomes reality; strong gain heroic beauty via rumors of power/deeds.
If halo felt from afar....
‘....Gotta consider chance head doesn’t split even if hit.’
Not a great start, he thought.
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