The Shadow of the Holy Land (1)
The sun shining over the cliffside meadow was blinding. Even the sacred ground that permitted no living creature to enter could not block the sunlight. Among the plants that had existed long before the sanctuary was built, only those that did not rely on the help of other creatures grew naturally in the meadow of the holy land. Therefore, this place was a lonely highland, a solitary garden.
The wind pollinated them, mana allowed them to multiply, and they possessed tenacious vitality. The sanctuary of the Bicorn was both a paradise where such ancient plants escaped extinction and a harsh greenhouse. I sat on a stump in that sanctuary and muttered.
[Claw-roasted perfume dried shelf corner bean paste.]
“This fucking bastard’s gone full retard.”
Dana spat the words out, unable to hold back any longer. I could understand how she felt. Fuck, even I hadn’t expected this state to last over three hours.
‘I thought maybe there was just a bug in my mouth for a second…’
From a normal person’s perspective, if a brain-related condition that didn’t heal naturally after three hours appeared, the correct move was to rush to the hospital immediately. Some might call it whining, but for any illness, the most effective treatment was early intervention. Even a (former) veterinarian who only learned animal-exclusive healing skills knew that much.
The reason I hadn’t run straight to the nearest big city’s temple despite knowing all that was because there was a separate meaning behind it.
“……Side-slit peanut bandage?”
“With all due respect, I have no way of understanding what you are saying.”
That was Adelaide’s response as she examined my head. I was leaving my skull in her hands like a victim in a third-rate horror movie getting their brain pan pried open by a mad surgeon.
“S-sob, h-how’s the c-condition…?”
“She asks how the condition is.”
“……There appear to be no serious impairments.”
Adelaide answered Larilura’s sobbing question. Since she wasn’t good at Britannian, Franc stepped in midway to translate.
─Squeeze.
Franc also grabbed my hand tightly at that answer. Hiding my anxiety, I muttered again.
[The Big Dipper as underwear for Brazil.]
“Husband? This is seriously fucked. Can you just shut up?”
That’s way too harsh. I wrote on a piece of paper.
─When I concentrate hard, it becomes Nabillera’s full-course meal.
“What the hell are you saying, you idiot?”
─When I concentrate hard, written communication is possible.
“Then why the fuck does it come out as this string of brain-dead sentences?”
How the hell should I know, you fuck? That’s why I’m getting treatment.
I was about to say the same thing, but when I saw even Dana unable to stay still and pacing around, my mouth closed on its own. If my wives were in this state instead of me, I’d be losing my mind too.
Proving that I hadn’t actually become an idiot took serious effort. What could I do when the words coming out of my mouth had turned into some kind of in-house translator made by a dogshit company?
At least body language wasn’t bugged. Thank fuck for that.
“It seems there is interference in the flow of mana.”
“Helmet first, then rear-mounted wings are the original?”
“No, fuck, I told this bastard to shut up—why does he keep running his mouth? You’re actually enjoying this, aren’t you?”
[Rebellious forsythia heterosexual.]
She caught me.
Adelaide watched me with a complicated expression before speaking.
“From what I see, it appears that a powerful mana is distorting Your Highness’s words. It is said that words carry power, but that power is being disturbed.”
Well, I figured it was something like that.
‘Rodur, the God of Ten Thousand Words? Was that his name?’
The god who granted humans the ability to understand and speak language! My translation cheat was definitely connected to that god. Come to think of it, ever since I came to this other world, I had realized that this overpowered auto-translator’s ability was far from ordinary.
Why? Just think about it. This insane translation ability── consumes no mana.
In other words, it simply means it understands and interprets language through pure intelligence or something similar. The fact that it could decipher even complex codes in one go supported this idea. So it was essentially the blessing of the God of Language.
That actually sounds pretty cool when I put it that way.
‘Not being able to interpret rune language must work on the same principle.’
Rune characters were not simply ‘letters’—they were closer to codes. They were the very thing Odin had compressed the truths of the world into eighteen characters by sacrificing his own life. Just like memorizing the Bible or Buddha’s sayings didn’t mean you understood their meaning, rune characters had unfathomable depth.
In short, rune characters were not under Rodur’s jurisdiction. Since even Rodur himself probably couldn’t interpret them, it made sense that I, who seemed to be using a fragment of that ability, couldn’t decipher them either. Rune language was a higher-grade, top-tier cipher compared to this translation ability.
“Treatment…… is there no treatment?”
“……Wait. I am thinking as well. If it is simply disturbed mana, it can be fixed, but I have never heard of a case where language itself is distorted by mana of such high ‘rank.’”
The Bicorns were suffering even more than I, the person actually afflicted. Well, if the savior of their entire race suddenly started acting like a lunatic, staying calm would be stranger.
‘A powerful mana is twisting language?’
I checked my own mana vessel. It hadn’t increased at all. That fucking Odin or Gandalf or whatever the hell that weird bastard was had already ‘tutored’ my mana when we fought, so there was nothing more to gain.
‘This must have happened because of that apple.’
The apple I ate in the dream. Wait, was it even an apple? Now that I thought about it, I couldn’t even clearly remember what it looked like. Of course, the specific variety of bio-fruit that caused language disorders in people didn’t fucking matter.
‘It’s not even the fruit of good and evil, yet it curses me just because it rolled onto me and I ate it.’
Of course it probably wasn’t a real curse, but……
While thinking that, I traced the rune ᚦ (Thurisaz) onto my palm. It was said that carving ᚦ (Thurisaz) into one’s palm brought peace of mind and tranquility, though in truth it wasn’t all that effective. It was just a childish thought that maybe drawing it would help a little.
But the moment I lightly traced those strokes—
WHOOOOOOOSH──!!!!
The instant I saw the rune on my palm, an overwhelming surge of inspiration flooded me. Was this what American singer-songwriters on drugs felt like when composing? It felt like the back of my head had been blown wide open and a flood of information was rushing through.
It was the double-refreshing sensation of injecting 99.9% antibacterial gargle into a syringe and pumping it straight into your eyeballs!! I roared and collapsed to the ground, just like the first time I had held Listerine in my mouth.
“──GyaAAAAAACK!! Goblin foot blade!!!”
“N-Nord!! What’s wrong with you again?!”
When I started rolling on the floor, my wives rushed over in panic. I felt a little sorry, but the refreshing feeling of my brain cells being completely soaked in pain-relief ointment left me no room to explain.
“Huk, huk……”
How much time had passed?
I clutched my wildly beating heart and sensed something functioning inside me. I consciously flipped the switch like turning off a power button. Then I moved my tongue.
“Ebbup, bep, bip, bebeep, bep…… Ah, aah. Motherfucker…… Ahem.”
It worked. The sensation of my tongue automatically twisting left and right was gone. I cleared my throat and muttered.
“Hey, everyone? I think I’m all better now.”
Dana looked at me as if asking whether this bastard had been messing with us the whole time, but I had nothing to say in return.
“Magic analysis ability……?”
─Sniffle.
Larilura said while wiping her nose. I nodded and replied.
“Yeah. I think that’s what I gained after overcoming that nightmare.”
The ability to analyze magic! On its own it didn’t sound all that impressive, but actually using it felt completely different. I created a rune mandala on my palm.
Oooong─.
Three or four mandalas of ᚦ (Thurisaz) bloomed. Considering that I used to only be able to create one mandala with this rune, it was a tremendous improvement.
“The skill to look at runes or magic and interpret them…… or rather, wisdom? Anyway, it feels like I pulled out some functions from that berserk mode’s specs.”
In other words, it was an ability that allowed me to analyze and modify most magic. Whether I could actually use it was a different story, but interpretation itself should be possible.
‘See with the eyes of a god……’
It really was Odin’s Open Book. Though the price was having to pour gargle into my eyes until my brain got all moist.
“Then does that mean you have ascended to the Divine Throne?”
“I don’t think so. It doesn’t feel…… that grand, does it?”
If I had woken up holding Gungnir or something, maybe.
“T-then what was that earlier? What does getting smarter in the field of magic have to do with a speech impediment?”
“……Hmm. It’s hard to explain right now, but it doesn’t seem particularly dangerous.”
Rodur’s translation cheat. Odin’s Eye. It felt like these two blessings were clashing with each other.
‘This is just speculation, but if I overuse Odin’s Eye, there will probably be side effects on the translation cheat as well.’
It was like running a heavy program that ate up a lot of CPU and RAM on a computer with insufficient specs. Unless Nord 98 got a higher-quality upgrade, bugs and side effects would continue.
“Then why the fuck were you screaming your head off like that? What if your wives’ hearts actually exploded? You always go so fucking overboard, you know that?”
“You don’t fucking get it. It felt like an ice dragon hatchling was breathing straight into my eyeballs, okay?”
“Your face must be so fucking ugly that even a baby lizard who hasn’t even grown up yet would do that to you.”
“Insulting your husband’s face is just spitting while lying down, isn’t it?”
Even though they grumbled like that, it seemed everyone had accepted that I had returned to my normal state. A sense of relief spread through the group, then they became serious again.
“Although there were many unexpected events during the acquisition process, in any case, we can now say that our master has obtained the proper ability as the successor of the Sky God.”
“It is a conclusion based on results…… but that is indeed the case. It also appears there are no long-term side effects on the successor.”
After that, a casual discussion followed about what exactly that Gandalf from the dream had been. But of course no clear conclusion was reached, and the conversation ended with something like ‘It was probably something Odin left behind to test his successor.’
‘How could we possibly know what a god is thinking?’
I hadn’t even known what my tsundere wife next to me was thinking until I used the magical truth serum called Seidr.
“My beloved. Still, just in case, let us stay here for a few days.”
Veronica spoke as if wrapping up the discussion.
“I will also analyze the Sky God’s teleportation circle. It will not take even a week. It will be faster than traveling directly to Romania.”
“That is why we came here. Do not rush too much.”
With my nod, we decided to remain in the sanctuary for the time being and wait for Veronica’s research. During that time, I would also master the proper way to use Odin’s Eye.