Hyunhoon's Lucid Dream (4)
The inside of the cave was spotless. Perhaps someone had been cleaning it—though that someone was probably Bicorn. Even so, it was still a cave, so it remained dark. Whoever had entered must have used magic to light the way. Leaving a lantern behind would have been too much trouble to manage.
“Friar's Lantern.”
—Flash!
I activated a blue-light lantern that was easy on the eyes. Switching it to my usual green hue, I flung it into the cave like tossing a stone into a well.
Whooooosh—
The green lantern light led the way, illuminating the cavern. Fortunately, the cave did not seem particularly deep.
“This eye doesn’t see darkness very well……”
Muttering to myself, I soon reached the dead end. It was a stone chamber filled with what looked like gravestones. Many of the densely packed stones on one wall were broken, but plenty still stood intact, reaching up to my shoulders. All of these were rune stones Veronica had collected.
‘And potential candidates for my accessories, too.’
These were the reward for 【Quest: Save Bicorn Veronica (1/1)】. Like a tyrant choosing which concubine to take to bed tonight, I surveyed the rune stones with a leisurely gaze.
‘First, anything too big is out.’
Even the large, unbroken stones carried rune-magic amplification effects. But for an adventurer and archaeologist like me who traveled on foot, lugging around massive rune steles would be impractical. Those were the kind of items meant to project wide-area buffs, like game totems.
‘The age of portability is here.’
Selecting interior furniture for our sweet home without consulting my wife would be a recipe for disaster. I had no desire to live the sad life of a married man who buys furniture on a whim only to be roasted for it. Besides, there was only one large rune stone that had kept its original shape. I transformed into a real-doll pedophile and examined the stones neatly arranged across the table.
‘……You can tell she put real effort into her research.’
If I were being honest, the place felt like a natural history museum. A space where humanity’s primal urge to collect and display the wonders of the natural world had been given form! The only difference was that none of the exhibits here had ever been alive.
The museums I remembered were like Fabre’s gold-and-silver shop, where insect specimens were displayed in shop windows. Veronica’s rune-stone vault, by contrast, gave the impression of a pet-rock adoption café. In other words, it was an archaeologist’s laboratory. Perhaps that was why each rune-stone specimen had notes and interpretations attached to it. It gently prodded the trauma of a certain master’s student.
Thursday dawn…… piling workload…… the premonition of weekend overtime…… Ugh, my head.
—Thud.
“Huh?”
While trying to calm my trauma trigger, my hand bumped into something. I had been running my fingers along the table while browsing. I picked up the stone my fingers had caught. A red rune stone. But how had a rune stone ended up here? Had it escaped on its own? Curious, I looked at where I had picked it up and found a sheet of paper and a pen, the writing left unfinished.
‘Did Veronica leave without tidying up after her research?’
Maybe she had forgotten to clean before heading to Britannia to see me. I understood. I had once been a shut-in lab rat myself. When you live as a lab slave, mold grows on teacups left untouched for a week; leaving research notes scattered was practically routine. Why treat historical artifacts so carelessly? Because the field has its own rules.
Anyway, this must be fate. I rolled the rune stone in my palm. It was a fragment broken off from a larger piece, with no rune letters carved into it. Anyone who saw it would think it was just a colored rock.
“?”
Or so I thought—until I looked closer and noticed a rune etched on the stone’s smooth surface. It was the rune ᛏ (Teiwaz). This rune was used in prayers seeking victory, and because of its imposing shape it was often compared to spears or phalluses. Its very form screamed “glans and shaft.”
Anyway, since the warriors of mythological-era Germania never cowered in battle like pathetic cowards, this rune embodied victory, courage, and raw machismo. Was there any rune letter more fitting for a mythological-era macho like me? It had been useless for actual rune magic, so it had never been on my list of runes to learn next. But since the runes on a rune stone were purely decorative anyway, it did not matter. A rune stone was an accessory that granted “+20% rune magic” regardless of its appearance. If every stone had the same effect, then choosing the one that also looked good was only logical machismo!
“The rune of the phallus, huh. You’re mine.”
I liked it. I decided to take this rune stone with me. Still, since it was still under research, I figured I should ask first—but calling Veronica while she was just starting her seminar did not seem right. Fortunately, when I checked the clock, I still had over an hour left.
‘Perfect timing.’
I set the rune stone down and took out the seal. I needed to learn a new rune using the mana I had stolen from the ogre. I had been putting it off because I never had the time. Still, if I used it all up, Veronica would probably notice when I returned. I would learn just one.
‘I already know which one.’
Truthfully, if it had not been for that unicorn brat, I would have learned this rune before ᚨ (Ansuz).
—Whirrrrrl!
I drew the mana stored in the seal and wrote the character in the air. The rune’s mana transformed into letters exactly as I wished.
‘Wait a second.’
But how was this rune pronounced? The question struck me out of nowhere. I closed my mouth, which had been about to open, and thought. There was a vast difference between the rune language used by modern otherworlders and the one used by monsters and Bicorns—far greater than the gap between British and American English.
‘Which pronunciation should I use?’
I had never worried about this before, but now that I knew rune stones possessed real effects that otherworlders could not use, I could not treat it lightly. Perhaps using the human pronunciation or script would prevent me from casting the true awakened version of rune magic, like ᚨ (Ansuz)! After some thought, I decided to use the Bicorn pronunciation. I had seen Veronica handle this rune with ease, after all. At the very least, it would not be a complete miss.
With that in mind, I pronounced the rune.
“ᚦ (Thurisaz).”
The rune that granted resistance to offensive magic! It also symbolized protection and the peace that came with it. It had left a strong impression on me during my duel with Tabula, so I chose it without hesitation.
‘Even with Beast Regression active, a single bad hit from magic could end me.’
That bastard Tabula had shrugged off every offensive spell thanks to ᚦ (Thurs), had he not? Objectively speaking, that had been an incredible feat. Even with a mage of Tirsi’s caliber in the rear and me buying time in the front, we had been unable to turn the berserk Tabula into frozen meat because of that single magic resistance.
‘The downside is that MP gets consumed every time I block a spell, but normally I can just dodge.’
This was insurance for when things got dangerous. I would grant it to a necklace or something later. Just as I was about to settle the rune’s mana, it happened.
—Fwoooosh!
Without warning, several of the rune stones erupted with light! What was going on? Even as I watched in alarm, I remained calm. Then I saw a beacon flare up from the valley between my pectoral muscles. The rune stone I had just picked up was blazing with intense light!
“Aaaagh! Red paint is leaking from the stone!!”
I screamed and hurled the stone away.
“Fire in the hole!”
—Whoosh!
The stone flew through the air. I put distance between myself and the danger and ducked behind a display case. What was happening? Had it reacted to my rune magic? I pushed the questions aside and activated Beast Regression. It was fortunate I had brought my spear; I would need it to cross the forest.
—Shing.
I drew the mithril spear beside the display case and peered at the rune stone’s state reflected on the blade. It was standard procedure for quest items in caves to trigger a collapse, but the ground remained still.
—Zzt. Zzzzzzt.
Noise like a broken CRT television! I gripped the spear shaft as I watched the shadow that appeared. The rune stone was projecting a hologram of a woman holding a spear.
“Can you hear me? From this moment on, to you who have acquired this rune stone, I shall teach my spearmanship—Geirtýr.”
The woman wore armor that felt older than ancient civilization itself. There was something about her that vaguely resembled the Odin I had seen in my dream! It was not because their appearances were similar. The woman before me looked every inch a warrior. Unlike the somewhat ditzy crazy-hot goddess, her expression was stern, so there was no resemblance at all. Yet I kept feeling that her atmosphere was somehow similar to Odin’s. My curiosity was answered the moment she opened her mouth.
—Can you hear me? From this moment on, to you who have acquired this rune stone, I shall teach my spearmanship—Geirtýr.
The woman assumed a ready stance with her spear without preamble.
—Thrust!
A chilling, razor-sharp presence! My body reacted instinctively; I nearly leveled my spear at her. Her posture was that flawless and threatening. Like a tiger leaping from a tree and landing right in front of me, I felt an overwhelming pressure from her stance—as though she could cleave a human’s primal instincts in two with a single log-like strike.
—This spearmanship is a divine spear technique bestowed by the Heavenly God. Therefore, I pray to the gods above that the warriors of glorious Vistula may learn and master my teachings, passing them on to future generations.
Geirtýr and Vistula? I had never heard either word before. Since they did not translate, they had to be proper nouns. Still, from the woman’s words I could infer that Geirtýr was the name of the martial art.
—Geirtýr consists of nine attacking stances and nine countering stances. Master the forms by alternating between offense and defense. Those who complete all eighteen may combine and modify them to suit themselves.
—Thrust! Thrust!!
The woman who had not even introduced herself demonstrated the moves as she spoke. Watching her, I became certain.
‘This is an online lecture.’
A video recording of the teachings, so students would not have to struggle alone with notes scribbled on paper! What I had activated was a primitive, ancient instructional video! I suddenly felt a surge of indignation at the technological gap between past and present.
‘Damn it. There is not even any porn in the modern otherworld!’
Back when I was a university slave, the married lab-rat colleague who had shoved his stash at me for safekeeping had only drawings. Yet the woman reciting her lines as though reading from a script looked extremely accustomed to being filmed. This was proof that when the rune stone was created, instructional videos had been commonplace. How the hell had a civilization advanced enough to have bear players gone extinct?
I grumbled for a while before calming myself. I could not let my brain be ruled by my crotch. Get a grip, you idiot!
‘This video is similar to the arrangement Odin left for me.’
The clone of someone who had appeared in my dream to deliver a message! Perhaps it had been a spell that enhanced the magic granted to rune stones by thousands of times in quality? Odin had been the god of magic and wisdom, after all. Creating a high-tech AI instructional video would have been child’s play for him. Once I accepted that hypothesis, another question was answered as well.
‘Could the Ogre’s Seal be the same?’
The legacy of ancient civilization that Professor Ogre had possessed! I stroked the seal. At its core, the seal was a rune stone with an added MP storage function. Perhaps it, too, contained a “record left for a successor”?
Mastering runes in three weeks! Primitive ancient Ogre-sensei’s special rune-language lecture! If the video stored in the seal was something like that, then it would explain how the ogre brat had become a rune master.
‘Wait, hold on. Then why did Veronica not know about this?’
The sudden thought made me frown. If Veronica had known this was an instructional video pass, she would have told me. “This one is a spearmanship course, and that one is the free sex-technique refund class for lonely uncles~” or something along those lines. But she had said nothing. That meant Veronica had not known rune stones possessed this function.
She had researched them so thoroughly as an archaeologist, yet she still did not know. In that case, was this a special phenomenon permitted only to a special individual like “me”? Like Beast Regression?
No. The answer was NO. Because there was nowhere else the ogre brat could have learned mythological-era knowledge, runes, or human-sacrifice rituals. Of course, since it was a relic of ancient civilization, the seal might have come with a buff that raised the ogre’s DHA as a set bonus. But that was of no concern to me whatsoever. What mattered was that Professor Ogre had most likely watched a similar video.
Think about it. This was not a difficult deduction. I wracked my brain and constructed the most logical hypothesis.
‘——The records in rune stones have viewing conditions attached.’
—Zzzap!
An electric current brushed through my brain, leaving a scorch mark of realization on my hippocampus. This had to be it. I stopped hiding and stood up. Scanning the chamber with hawk-like eyes, I counted several rune stones that were emitting light. Only “several.” Not all of them—just about one-fifth of the total! Even among the stones here, there were plenty that had not reacted to my mana. In other words, not every rune stone indiscriminately played back recordings.
Consider this: the seal had not reacted to either my or Veronica’s mana. Judging from the ogre’s cult-like ramblings, the seal’s playback list was 100% ogre-flavored elixir of immortality propaganda. “In the old days, ogres were the center of the world!”—that sort of tabloid nonsense.
‘Then, logically speaking, the people allowed to view the content would also be limited to their own kind—ogres!’
That was the reason. The reason Veronica had continued collecting rune stones so passionately even after gathering so many.