Chapter 46
Chapter 46
7. Things You Shouldn't Know -5
After finishing the second skirmish, I took a breather once we'd dealt with the four or so 『Roses』 that had appeared. With Elijah using the "『Coffin』," we made incredibly fast progress.
This would probably be the last time we fought the plant creatures. We were at the edge of the forest, and from here on it was all rocky mountains the plants couldn't penetrate.
Noon wasn't far off. To pinpoint the location of the secret manual, it seemed best to climb up one of the relatively low rocky peaks, so I was about to get moving in a hurry.
Elijah crouched down, picking up her shattered arm, and said,
"Noah, I need to recover the fallen parts⋯⋯ can you wait a little?"
"Parts?"
"There's quite a difference between picking them up and not⋯⋯"
Money matters.
While waiting for Elijah, I continued working through what I'd been thinking about last night. The possibility that I might be able to perform the rite sooner than Sergios.
[This rite promotes the Embodiment of only the single sparring partner. The one sparring partner and the one receiving partner stand facing each other, and without leaving the circle, rise and exchange formal greetings. The receiving partner serves as the anvil for harmonizing the sparring partner's Three Bodies, so they must fight fiercely but not strike first. The receiving partner must possess the skill to withstand the sparring partner's attacks—]
The rite of 『Battle-Demon Ascension (鬪鬼昇格)』 that Sergios so desperately desired was a rite that triggered evolution to the next stage through intense combat.
To be precise, it was a secret art in which one secured a partner of comparable strength who could withstand one's attacks, then sparred with them, melting three possessed martial skills into the body and fusing them to achieve a complete transformation. It seemed to have special effects different from the ascension privileges the System provided.
But neither Sergios nor I had been able to perform the rite so far.
Sergios already had three skills, but as the partner role, I wasn't strong enough, so he was stuck waiting. In my case, I'd been short on both conditions⋯⋯ but today's events had changed the premise.
Elijah could absolutely serve as my partner. Right now, even.
The skills I currently possessed were "『Download -2』," "『Azure Wind Wanderer』," "『Quick-Flash Inner Core』," and 『Apollo's Curse』—four types. But if I subtracted the bestowed Azure Wind Wanderer and the curse, that left two.
If I conservatively assumed that my awakening ability 『Download -2』 could also be used to perform the rite, that left one. It meant I needed one or two martial-type skills to satisfy the rite's requirements.
But somehow⋯⋯ I had a clear intuition that 『Download -2』 could also count toward the rite's conditions.
The memory of the mysterious experience of suppressing the curse in my inner wasteland remained vivid in my mind. From grasping the feeling of the visually manifested 『Skills』 there, my download ability was free.
It seemed to contain a fluidity that was neither skill nor martial art, yet could become either. Which meant both training methods could be applied to it⋯⋯ I'd have to actually try it to know, but that was how it felt to me.
'So what I actually need is one martial-type skill.'
And I could obtain that one right in this Stage. The Glass Sword Lord's 『Glass Sword』. After that, if I could just finish the training, I'd be able to proceed with the rite immediately.
There might be a concern that once I learned "『Glass Sword』," I'd get significantly stronger, creating a gap in the combat power that had been roughly even with Elijah's.
But that was covered too. For one thing, I planned to learn 『Glass Sword』 together with Elijah, and even if she lacked talent and trained slowly, she could still fully serve as the partner role. Because—she had the 『Coffin』!
Couldn't Elijah swap out her limbs when they got blown off?
So, putting it that way made me sound a bit like a psychopath, but Elijah could take quite a beating without suffering injuries or lasting damage⋯⋯ which made her the ideal partner for the Battle-Demon Ascension rite.
While I was thinking that, Elijah, who had finished gathering her parts, stared at me and cut in.
"Your expression looks a little violent, Noah. You're thinking something bad right now, aren't you?"
"⋯⋯I was complimenting you."
"About what?"
"That you're strong."
"Doesn't seem like it⋯⋯"
So nosy. I waved my hand with a message to hurry up and continue the journey. Moving fast was never a bad thing.
We climbed to the highest possible ground during the morning and waited, and soon, when the sun reached the top of the sky—exquisitely, it hung exactly on a certain mountain peak. No matter how I changed the viewing angle, it was the same.
With the sun at our backs, the peak seemed to reveal its true form. Its properties were clearly different from the ordinary rocks around it. The rock surface scattered light as if it had the properties of glass, and a faint rainbow hung around the peak.
It looked like some kind of⋯⋯ wrapping measure had been applied to prevent the plants from encroaching. I was certain.
That's the place. The secret manual of 『Glass Sword (琉璃劍)』 is there. If I'd guessed wrong, then that was the fault of the sword lord who'd deceived me. I looked up with my arms crossed and said to Elijah.
"Looks like it's on a cliff face halfway up that mountain."
"Hoo⋯⋯ that's pretty high. Should we climb up from the base of the mountain? Or rappel down with wires from the top?"
"Let's climb up safely. It'd be a problem if a wire snapped."
"O-kay."
At that height, it wasn't burdensome by superhuman standards. It was a climbable height in about three hours, so we might even be able to finish the stage today.
There was no need to worry about falling either. If it came down to it, I could jam my fingers into the rock face to brake, and there was also the method of making a wind parachute with "『Azure Wind Wanderer』." Let's move like we're going for a walk.
"Do you know how to rock climb, Elijah?"
"I'm probably better than you, Noah? I've often climbed smooth buildings with no handholds. I'll lead, so come up slowly."
"⋯⋯Really?"
I wasn't exactly the type to fall behind anywhere either.
As I watched Elijah stretching, curious to see how good she really was, she shot wires from the tips of both hands and scaled the rock face in a rapid clatter.
Yeah, a rapid clatter. For a moment I wondered if she was a spider rather than a person.
"Whoa."
I inwardly conceded temporary defeat and started rock climbing after her. And around the time the sun sat slightly askew, we arrived at a cave in the middle of the cliff.
It was a place that looked artificially made no matter who saw it. Because the cave wasn't natural—it was bored flat in a perfect rectangular shape.
"⋯⋯Looks like it was cut with a sword."
"It must have taken quite a while. To make it this size."
"Right. If I did it, I'd probably have to grind at it for a solid three days."
"Two days for me."
"⋯⋯⋯⋯"
Well, that's because you can use cutting wires. If I downloaded an earth-manipulation-type skill, I could shorten the time plenty too.
⋯⋯I didn't say that out loud because it would make me look like I cared.
"You feeling okay?"
"I was about to ask you the same⋯⋯ I'm fine. Are you okay, Noah?"
"Me too. Still, check just in case. Machines can break, you know."
"Okay."
Before entering the cave, we checked our weapons and equipment. Various clanking sounds came from Elijah's body, and it seemed she could run self-diagnostics without me having to look inside.
Why check our condition when all we had to do now was go get the secret manual?
"⋯⋯Flowers."
"Flowers indeed."
That was because a cluster of plants had been discovered at the cave entrance.
Small, blue, dainty flowers bloomed in countless numbers along one wall. From what I remembered⋯⋯ these were "『Forget-Me-Nots』."
"Is it a plant you know? It's a species I've never seen before."
"I know it. It's called '『Forget-Me-Not』,' a really peculiar one⋯⋯"
Back when nations still existed, research had been conducted on whether certain plants could be used in ways helpful to people. 『Forget-Me-Not』 was one of them.
These things had the property of absorbing the past.
"If they eat the past, does that mean history gets erased and names get forgotten?"
"No."
If they were that powerful, I'd have run away long ago.
"Saying they absorb the past is a shorthand way of putting it. Specifically, they suck in the traces of things that happened in the past. Like collecting information about what occurred in this space⋯⋯"
"So like a CCTV that sees the past."
"It's not certain since they appear so rarely, but it's speculated to be one of the plants' defense systems. They learn events that happened in the past and propagate them to other plants."
To give one example, there was a case where a contaminated forest had grotesquely overgrown a facility that drew up groundwater and fired water cannons. Researchers and hunters were dispatched to investigate the conspicuous anomaly.
The investigation revealed that an A-rank flame mage hunter existed in a city near the contaminated forest, and 『Forget-Me-Nots』 had bloomed nearby. The 『Forget-Me-Nots』 had collected fragments of the past, obtained information about the flame mage, and transmitted it to the forest through some method.
But perhaps because they invested all their nutrients into that function, 『Forget-Me-Nots』 had absolutely no defensive ability. No matter how much you stabbed at them, they couldn't so much as wave a single tendril. Though if you approached, they did bristle their petals like a cat puffing up its body.
So on their own, they weren't much of a threat.
"I know that if you stimulate them, they spit back out the past they've swallowed. Like this⋯⋯"
Stab!
I drew a dagger and stabbed at the cluster of Forget-Me-Nots.
Then the flowers trembled and began regurgitating tiny grains the size of thumbnails. Those grains took on various concrete shapes, as if carved by a person.
Two person-shaped grains, one sword-shaped grain, one round grain. I picked them up one by one and showed them to Elijah.
"They come out like this. It looks like two people passed through this passage. One of them seems to have used a sword. I can't tell specifically what happened, but⋯⋯"
"It's like fortune-telling! Like predicting your daily luck from the cracks in asphalt. Can't you get more detail?"
"That's asking too much. At least in my world, it was impossible. Scientists said the minerals were encrypted or whatever, and that theoretically the past could be projected, but the country collapsed before that research could progress."
"Oh, so countries can collapse?"
Elijah seemed interested in an unexpected part of the explanation.
Anyway, as you can see, extracting meaningful information from 『Forget-Me-Nots』 is impossible. Though it was quite the coincidence that in this plantless rocky mountain region, they bloomed only inside this cave, of all places.
"No need to push through them by force. Let's advance."
"Yes, Noah."
For now, we decided to ignore them and secure the secret manual first.
That was when it happened.
Flaaash——!!
Strange-looking hieroglyphs appeared on the cave wall and began emitting light. By spinal reflex, I moved to use Azure Wind Wanderer to tear out the entire wall, but stopped.
-Left for posterity.
Because below the hieroglyphs, I discovered a sentence written in the common language of the Duchy of Selvikia, which I'd studied to death. This seemed to be the Glass Sword Lord's arrangement.
As the magic-circle-like thing activated, blue light burst from the Forget-Me-Not grains and gathered into a single point, and a whitish apparition began to appear.
A young man who looked about 170cm tall, and a large middle-aged man over 190cm. Their figures were translucent blue all over, as if composed of holograms.
The young man spoke boisterously to the middle-aged man, as if boasting. His slightly buzzing voice echoed from somewhere distant.
-Haha! What do you think? This is a pretty clean cut, if I do say so myself. Now even from hundreds of meters away, anyone will know it's a cave left by a person, and they won't turn back at the entrance! A truly splendid fortuitous encounter!
-⋯⋯No.
-Hm? Didn't catch that.
The middle-aged man furrowed his brows into an inverted V.
-This is no fortuitous encounter⋯⋯ It must be made a bit more rough and natural, so that one stumbles upon it by fate—only then can it be called a fortuitous encounter.
-So you're saying the unlucky shouldn't obtain it? Hahaha! This fellow is a harsh and ruthless man!
-The way of the world is naturally so. Don't disparage me with obvious platitudes, Glass Sword.
⋯⋯Glass Sword?
Elijah, with wires dangling from her fingertips, asked quietly.
"Glass Sword—that's the name of the secret manual you're looking for, right?"
"Right. But in this case⋯⋯ it'd be a person's name."
It was common for one's nickname and signature technique to share the same name. If so, that "Glass Sword" probably referred to the Glass Sword Lord.
Right, the Glass Sword Lord had said that back in his D-rank days, he'd talked with a murim friend and decided to leave behind a Glass Sword manual.
If so, was that apparition showing the past forms of those two people?
"Didn't you say extracting past information from 『Forget-Me-Nots』 was impossible, Noah?"
"⋯⋯Seems it was different for the seniors."
If it was his arrangement and posed no threat to me, there was no reason to deliberately stop the playback.
I didn't know how long this memory playback phenomenon would last. But if there was a segment where the Glass Sword Lord personally demonstrated his swordsmanship, or a section containing valuable information, I could gain a great deal.
"Let's advance while watching, Elijah."
"Okay, Noah. I'll record it too."
Replaying the afterimages of the past by even using plants. What had the Glass Sword Lord gone to such lengths to leave for future generations?
I'd have to confirm it with my own two eyes.
-Last time I made a drinking bet with the royal guard knights, and it turned out the System Shop had an instant hangover cure. So I thought, with this, I could take on ten of them at once no problem! So I put money on it and set up a grand bout, but⋯⋯ those bastards went and badgered the imperial alchemists into making potions too!
-So what did you do?
-At first, I used the Glass Sword to poke a hole in the bottom of my beer mug and secretly drained it. But then I figured ten at once wasn't going to work, so I decided I'd have to put them to sleep one by one to win. So I bought anesthetic from the Shop and⋯⋯
"⋯⋯⋯⋯"
The Glass Sword Lord was a more jovial person than I'd expected.