Chapter 493: He'll Find His Way Back
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 493: He'll Find His Way Back
Why go to such lengths?
For a moment, Encrid couldn't comprehend it.
Was there truly a reason to hate him so deeply?
He had seen the raw loathing in those eyes, but the "why" escaped him. Even if the boy’s life was consumed by resentment, why was he the target?
Naturally, Encrid had no way of knowing that the genius shaman of the Fortune-teller Tribe had considered the Apostle Encrid killed to be his father.
In the West, there was a saying: One must not live under the same sky as their father's killer. The young shaman had simply done what he had been taught since childhood.
Or perhaps, with his world in ruins, he simply needed someone to blame. If one thought about it logically, it was a foolish act. Why follow the traditions of the West when he had already betrayed his people?
Yet, from another perspective, his actions were perfectly logical.
The young shaman of the Fortune-teller Tribe had been brainwashed and cornered. He was left with only two choices: be captured and die, or do something insane.
He chose insanity.
He staked everything on a single gamble. He bartered his soul to a demon and placed a curse upon his own flesh. He didn't care if his soul fell into the fires of hell to suffer for eternity. By cursing his own body to ward off bad luck, he had gambled—and it had paid off.
In the process, he had even deceived a shaman of the Great Wing Tribe, and luck had favored him there as well. The shaman had pitied him for his illness and his lost legs. Even his act of pretending to be food for the cannibals had been effective.
Since the heavens seemed to favor his endeavors, the shaman believed he was in the right. Every circumstance had led him down this path. That was what the genius shaman believed, and this was the result of his misguided choice.
Of course, Encrid had no way of knowing any of this.
But so what? Did it change the present? It didn't. He just had to accept it.
"Hmm."
Encrid let out a low grunt. He was in a world of endless yellow. Even the wind felt crisp and dry, as if it would crack his skin. The scorching heat was one thing, but there was absolutely nothing around him to use as a landmark.
So, what should he do?
Fortunately, Encrid was not Ragna.
I can just wait until night.
Navigating by the constellations wasn't something he was deeply familiar with, but it was still within his capabilities. Moreover, having traveled the Path of Shadow, he had a rough idea of where the desert was located.
If I head southeast, I should be fine.
It would be close enough.
Encrid turned his head left and right before casting his gaze into the shimmering distance. A desolate river of sand, a lake of sand, a sea of sand—there was only sand, sand, and more sand.
He tried to find a place to escape the sun's glare but soon gave up. The desert was a wretched place. There was absolutely nothing.
Hadn't someone mentioned cacti and desert monsters? Animals that only lived in the dunes? Yet, there was nothing here. At least, nothing Encrid’s senses could pick up.
He had no choice but to endure the blazing sun, which felt hot enough to roast his flesh. Fortunately, his armor neutralized the heat to some extent; the monster hide made the temperature bearable.
Encrid didn't know much about deserts, but he knew all too well that moving recklessly in an unfamiliar environment was a death sentence. So, after walking a short distance to check his surroundings, he stopped and held his ground.
Enduring was Encrid's specialty.
Was I careless?
He decided to use the time to ponder what he had recently learned. It seemed it would be quite a while before night fell. The sun was incredibly hot, and he couldn't afford to waste his stamina by wandering aimlessly.
Encrid sat down and slowed his breathing, drawing deep, measured breaths. He meditated, waiting for the stars to arrive.
*
Geomnarae stood before the corpse with the split head. Luagarne and Dunchabel were there as well.
Geomnarae furrowed his brow deeply. "It is a secret art of spatial teleportation."
Sorcery is performed through a medium. It could be a totem, a talisman, or sometimes even one's own lifespan.
Geomnarae had intended to fight that way himself if Encrid and Rem hadn't been there—burning his own life force through a medium. He had planned to ignite the flame of his life to fight with the majesty of a hero, if only for a fleeting moment.
Because Geomnarae had prepared for something similar, he could recognize the signs. The opponent hadn't just sacrificed a portion of his life; he had burned and offered up everything.
What a mad bastard.
He could roughly grasp the situation. It was a guess, but he had deduced the most likely scenario. There was a youth in the Fortune-teller Tribe with talent rivaling Rem's. That bastard must have sacrificed his own soul to cast the sorcery. He hadn't used a totem; he had used his own existence as the fuel.
The traces on the corpse spoke of this sacrifice. Talent, soul, and life—he had offered it all. Otherwise, this would never have been possible.
He even cursed his own body first to ward off bad luck.
To ensure the success of his gamble, he had embraced misfortune beforehand. Even so, it should have failed. He should have suffered a backlash and died alone. Yet, somehow, he had managed to fling Encrid away.
Where to? No one knew. They could only guess at the mechanics; the destination remained a mystery.
"If it's spatial teleportation, where was he sent? Even great mages who have reached the pinnacle of magic cannot teleport others away," Frok said.
Geomnarae believed that even if the split-headed bastard were to come back to life and try the same thing again, he wouldn't succeed a second time. The scales of fate had simply tipped slightly in the enemy's favor this once.
To put it in continental terms, the Goddess of Fortune had sided with the enemy for a single moment. In the West, they described this as the scales tipping.
"The scales have tipped in an unfavorable direction," Geomnarae said.
"Speak plainly, human," Frok demanded.
"What about our savior?"
Jiba's mother emerged, blinking. It was painfully obvious that the atmosphere had turned grim.
News of the disappearance spread throughout the entire tribe. It was only natural. The honorary hero who had saved them had vanished into thin air.
The Westerners, who were always eager to repay a debt, gathered together. The Chief stood at the center and shouted, his voice carrying immense weight.
"Listen, all Westerners!"
His eyes gleamed with intensity. "Find him, no matter what!"
And so they did. Starting from the smallest traces, they began to scour the land.
"I don't care if it takes years. We will find him, without fail!"
The Chief was not a man to make empty promises. He was entirely sincere. One was not a Westerner if they lacked loyalty.
*
Rem sat alone in a pitch-black world, lost in thought.
How many days had passed? He didn't know. But he knew one thing for certain: the descent of sorcery was complete. During the process, all sorts of memories had flashed through his mind.
When he was a child, every shaman who saw Rem's talent had warned him of the danger.
"If your body can't keep up, it will go pop and explode. So take it slow, one step at a time."
The current Eldest Shaman had been the Eldest Shaman back then as well. Rem had only half-followed that advice. He pretended to obey on the surface, but behind their backs, he did whatever he pleased.
Why? Because it was fun. Why stop when sorcery was so entertaining?
In the process, he learned concepts like ancestral gods and spirit sorcery, and that was when he first realized he was different from others.
"If you use Spirit Possession, you might be bedridden for a week."
Spirit Possession meant hosting a spirit within one's body. The mediums used for this were patterns engraved on the body or totems. Doing so made one several times stronger and faster than usual. Naturally, one's sight and hearing also became much sharper.
In the West, sorcery was broadly divided into two categories. One was Spirit Possession. The other was Descent.
Descent meant allowing a portion of a god to dwell in the mortal realm. The concept of a god in the West was very different from that of the continent. While a continental god referred to an absolute being, in the West, it was believed that spirits inhabited things that had been worshiped for a long time.
That was how they revered wolves, bears, and eagles. They held ancestral rites, performed rituals, offered water in solitude, and bowed their foreheads to the ground to pray.
This was the norm, so everyone did it—but not Rem.
Even when he just stood still, spirits would approach and dwell within him. Accepting them into his body caused no major issues. To be precise, there were no side effects.
Later, as he traveled the continent and accepted other forms of sorcery into his body, he realized: Oh? It hurts? There are side effects too.
This was what was normal. Then, can I use this differently? He felt he could. A shift in perspective, experience, and intuition helped him achieve it.
Accepting another person's sorcery into one's own body was normally sheer madness, but Rem had accomplished it and even formulated a theory around it. He had explained it all to Ayul, who was horrified at first but soon came to understand.
He also knew why everyone, including the Eldest Shaman, worried. Sorcery was a technique that borrowed power by praying to spirits. The entity called a spirit could very well be a demon.
A heretical path.
An unorthodox path. A wrong path. There were many precedents—cases of people being deceived by cunning serpents and creating malevolent spirits. The larger the vessel handling the sorcery, the more powerful the spirit that could exert its influence. That was why they worried.
But with his steadfast resolve, he would never waver.
I would never let that happen.
So he told them to rest easy.
To whom? He was speaking to his own axe.
It was an axe made of meteoric iron. Even Rem couldn't do anything without a medium for his sorcery. He used his Descent Weapon, which he had crafted long ago, as his medium.
Thus, he had no need to engrave patterns on his face. Why pierce the skin and inject dye into it? If it faded or got scarred, it wouldn't even serve its purpose. While many Westerners without talent in sorcery didn't engrave patterns, the vast majority of those who practiced sorcery used tattoos. Rem simply didn't do it because he had no need for it.
In the darkness, the medium of his sorcery began to show itself. The fellow that had been sulking and refusing to cooperate was finally starting to listen.
It was a double-bitted axe. One blade was large, and the other was relatively small. The blade facing him was barely a span wide, but the larger side was twice that size. Although it still required a whetstone, this axe replaced the medium of sorcery itself, so it would never break or grow dull. The whetstone was merely a treat he gave it because the axe liked it.
After organizing his thoughts and refining his resolve, he opened his eyes to find the old shaman standing right in front of him.
"...You startled me, you rascal."
"Why are you startled?"
"It has barely been six days."
Rem had stored all of his sorcery within his Descent Weapon, and during his absence, the power contained within it had grown massive—to the point where an ordinary shaman would faint just by getting close to it.
The Eldest Shaman had estimated it would take at least ten more days just to absorb that swollen power back into his body, but Rem was different. Since childhood, neither Descent nor Spirit Possession had ever placed a burden on his body.
Moreover, his body was much stronger now than it had been back then. His physical techniques had improved, and his vessel had grown larger. He had also finished defining the concept of what a hero was. Since he knew the difference between a knight and a hero, reclaiming his sorcery was easy.
Knights were those who harmonized technique and Will.
Heroes were those who harmonized technique and sorcery.
Simply put, that was it.
The process of digesting the sorcery took about five days, three of which were spent coaxing his Descent Weapon. The total of six days included the very first day spent purifying his body and mind.
If one were to apply the term 'ego' to a weapon with a sense of self, his Descent Weapon fell into that category. It didn't literally speak, but emotions were contained within it. The moment he gripped the weapon, the emotion he felt from it was similar to Ayul's.
It was a sense of hurt. Why did you leave me behind?
It was still young. Rem coaxed the weapon as if soothing a child. There were also things he felt while completing this entire process.
A sense of omnipotence.
I feel like if I take just one more step, I could appear right in front of that directionally challenged bastard.
He felt as though he could split a mountain with a single swing of his axe. The sun? The wind? The lakes? The earth? He felt he could cleave anything.
Rem quickly shook off the feeling. It was something he already knew from his experiences with various spirits—knowing the difference between what he could and couldn't do. Rem already understood that boundary well.
This was why he could fight knight-level opponents even without sorcery, and why he could have killed them if he fought with lethal intent. His expanded vessel easily accommodated the massive sorcery power. He had simply left it behind despite being capable of carrying it. He had only set it aside for a moment. When he took back what he had set aside, he felt a sense of omnipotence, but so what? That was all.
When the Eldest Shaman saw Rem stand up with his axe, more wrinkles than before lined his face. "You've worked hard."
Sorcery was a power that required prayers and rituals. Even for Rem, it wasn't something he could just casually walk in and take out. For this to happen, the Eldest Shaman must have performed rituals for over thirty days. By honoring the heavens and soothing the earth, he had sought the permission of all the spirits dwelling in nature—on Rem's behalf.
Now, should he head back? It was time to go see the surprised face of the bastard he served as captain.
"Let's go."
"I'm going to rest for a few days before heading back."
Rem didn't want to wait, so he left the Eldest Shaman behind and set off first. Upon his return, the first news he heard was this:
"Enki is gone."
It was Luagarne.
"Where did he go? Did he go off to hunt monsters alone?" Rem asked.
"No."
"He's not the type to get lost, though."
He was told about the secret art of spatial teleportation. Since he didn't have a sheath for his Descent Weapon, he was just holding it in his hand. Everyone was secretly tense. Rem was a fellow who, in the past, would throw a fit whenever things didn't go his way. Yet, his reaction was remarkably casual.
He spoke nonchalantly: "Well, he'll find his way back on his own."
Encrid wasn't the type of person to die just because he got a little lost. Rem was saying they just had to wait.
Everyone, including Ayul, blinked in surprise. It was an entirely unexpected reaction. But Rem had faith. Faith that Encrid wasn't someone who would die over something like this.