The Madness Awakens (11)
Shwaaaak—! “The hell?” Something leaked out from Tabula’s corpse. A tree-like brown energy—no, was it mana? It shot toward me without giving me any chance to react and seeped straight into my body.
“Shit, what the—!” Brown mana was pouring into me! I tried swatting it away, but it was useless. This mana couldn’t even be touched. Shuuu…
Once the mana was absorbed, I felt my heart pound violently, like someone had jammed a defibrillator or a pump into my chest. It didn’t hurt. There was no pain, and I even felt a bit of stamina returning. The heartbeat gradually stabilized, and I blinked in a daze.
Yeah, shit. The post-boss HP recovery event is universal law.
‘……Damn it.’
Enough nonsense. I scratched my head and clicked my tongue. I’d suspected as much, but it seemed Tabula’s magic and Beast Regression were connected somehow. The keyword was the mana of the Nine Gods. That prophecy he kept babbling about… prophecy of… shit, I forgot. Prophecy of the Werewolf? Either way, it was bothering me. I regretted not hearing him properly in the chaos. It might’ve been the clue I needed to uncover the true nature of Beast Regression.
“Arthur? What’s wrong?”
Tirsi approached, still unsteady on her feet. She seemed to have recovered some stamina, judging by how she was walking.
“Did you see what just happened?”
“What just happened……?”
She hadn’t seen it. Only I had. Or maybe it was visible only to users of Beast Regression.
“Well, you see……”
I explained what had just occurred. Tirsi mulled it over and answered.
“That’s the Succession phenomenon. It occasionally happens between people who use the same type of mana. Thanks to defeating Tabula, his mana was absorbed.”
Succession?
“Is it dangerous?”
“It’s not dangerous because it’s filtered through the absorber’s body. In some order in Romania, the pope undergoes a ritual to inherit divine power generation after generation, and any mana the body can’t accept simply vanishes.”
Oh-ho. In other words, Tabula’s and my mana had resonated and been absorbed by me, while any harmful mana had been rejected. Good to know it wasn’t life-threatening.
Shuuu—. I checked my internal mana reserves. They definitely felt a little larger. Right now my MP was nearly empty, so I couldn’t tell exactly how much it had grown.
That said, same type of magic, huh.
‘The great madness dwelling in the heavens…… was it?’
Tabula’s chant came back to me. The only gods of madness I knew were Cthulhu or Sheogorath. Sheogorath… Oblivion… Skyrim… Britannia is Nord’s land. Those goddamn Joffrey bastards better all be dead.
“By the way, do you have any guesses about the word ‘Nine Gods’?”
“None. Could it be a heretical deity?”
Having heard Tabula’s ramblings, Tirsi offered her opinion without needing to ask. I shook my head.
“If he were a heretic, he wouldn’t have been traveling alone.”
“You’re right, aren’t you? It’s not like he’s an Aztec sun-worshipper.”
Every country, including Romania, had groups that persecuted and executed heretics. That was why heretics never traveled alone. Knowing they were oppressed, they clung together like a compulsion—only with people they could actually talk to. The same kind existed on Earth, so it wasn’t anything new.
‘Tabula was probably from Germania or a Berserker.’
His magic and the accent in his Britannian had that feel.
Come to think of it, Tirsi still hadn’t asked about my face. It was bothering me, so I brought it up.
“Ahem. Tirsi? This is a different topic, but… do you not remember my face at all?”
“Huh? There’s no way I wouldn’t.”
Tirsi tilted her head, a hint of laughter on her dust-covered face.
“More than that, I knew from the very beginning. Ah, so that’s the Nord I worked with back then~”
“What…… did you just say……?”
I was shocked. Extremely shocked. More shocked than anything else that had happened today. —Kwang!! It felt like lightning had struck inside my skull.
Tirsi had known my identity from the start? Shit? How was that even possible?
Seeing my horrified expression, Tirsi blinked as if she were the one more surprised.
“Huh? No, why are you so shocked? I’m not an idiot. Just because Arthur lowered his voice a bit, you think I wouldn’t notice? We’ve exchanged more than a few words by now.”
“Th-that can’t be……”
Vector-Speak With Dignity had been completely ineffective! I felt like the world was collapsing. The technique that borrowed the name of the Earth Hero had turned into a pathetic sideshow because of my own incompetence!
“Pfft, pfft, pfft. Kuhuhuhu.”
Tirsi burst into a coughing laugh. What was so funny? I was being dead serious here.
‘From now on, I’ll have to be much more careful.’
I made that vow internally. This situation was caused by my lack of proficiency in Vector-Voice Lowering. From now on, I’d use an even more dignified, husky, sexy voice so that no one could ever claim Nord = Arthur Wayne again!!
“Kuhuhuhu. Ah, anyway, the situation’s gotten a bit messy.”
Tirsi stopped laughing and looked at Tabula’s corpse.
“We don’t know exactly who he was, but there’s a high chance he belonged to some organization.”
“Yeah. You’re worried about them tracking us, right?”
“Exactly.”
Tirsi nodded seriously, and I agreed. If Tabula had been acting alone to procure illegal slaves, that would’ve been fine. But if he wasn’t a lone wolf and was part of some crazy hidden group? Then of course they’d come looking when one of their own suddenly went silent on a job. Now that I thought about it, he’d mentioned something about a “mission.” One hundred percent he had backup…… no, an organization backing him.
“Let’s clean this up.”
Having reached that conclusion, I made the suggestion first.
“Bandit groups are a dime a dozen. Even without these guys, there are plenty of others hiding around. If we gather the bodies and burn them, it’ll be hard for them to track us.”
“Indeed. That sounds like an appropriate measure.”
Tirsi considered my words and accepted.
“The people Tabula was after were ordinary civilians. Even if that ‘unidentified group’ really exists, this bandit group was probably just one of many clients. Tabula likely didn’t report the location of this hideout either.”
“He didn’t seem like the meticulous type.”
The guards wouldn’t care if the bandit group was wiped out. They’d just hand over people to be used as “sacrifices,” kill all the bandits, and flee. That was probably the main method of the group Tabula belonged to. If today’s incident had been just another routine “job,” they probably skipped the thorough reporting, communication, and consultation. Even in the 21st-century Korean military, patrols and guard duty were sometimes done thoroughly, but not every minor detail was reported.
So we began cleaning up the scene. We gathered all the corpses in one place except for the leader we’d kept alive. We took only the weapons that looked like they could fetch money and packed them into bags. Tabula’s massive corpse was buried separately. His sheer size made digging a hole big enough for him no easy task.
“Arthur. What are you going to do about your face?”
Tirsi asked after we finished cleaning. Calling me Arthur the whole time—was that her idea of teasing?
“My mask is broken, so I’ll take this one instead.”
I picked up the black iron mask Tabula had been wearing instead of the broken animal mask. I needed something to cover my face, after all. Tirsi nodded in understanding.
“Want me to take it? It must feel gross. I’ll disinfect it for you.”
“Thank you.”
Tirsi used disinfection magic to clean the mask. While she was at it, she wiped the blood and dust off me and herself as well. Thanks to the potions, our wounds were at least stopped from bleeding.
“……This mask has magic on it.”
According to Tirsi’s appraisal, the mask Tabula had worn wasn’t an ordinary iron mask.
“It’s not high-level, but it’s enchanted with Impression Camouflage and Stealth effects. The effects come from a wooden talisman attached inside the mask, not the mask itself.”
Tirsi spoke while examining the mask with magic.
“Impression Camouflage?”
“It’s magic that blurs the wearer’s impression and makes it hard to remember the shape of the mask or clothing. Stealth makes it harder to be detected while hiding.”
“Ah, so that’s why.”
I’d wondered how such a huge guy had managed to stay undetected while I was wiping out the bandit group. It must’ve been the magic item’s effect.
“You should take this, Arthur. You can wear it when you go to the transport guild. It’ll be useful whenever you want to hide your identity.”
Tirsi disinfected it with magic and handed it back. The crude wooden talisman attached inside gave off a shamanistic vibe. Tabula had probably made it himself.
“Are you sure it’s okay for me to take it?”
“I don’t like masks.”
Tirsi spoke as if she were firmly declining. Well, if she was giving it away for free, I wasn’t about to refuse. I’d gratefully accept.
‘Jackpot.’
It was secondhand, which was a bit annoying, but getting a useful magic item on top of everything else sent a surge of energy through my tired body. Since he’d even given me his mana, Tabula really was a generous bastard. Now I understood why there were trash who only targeted people in a monster-infested otherworld. The profit from each big score was on a completely different level.
“Should we give the stolen goods to the hostages?”
Tirsi asked before burning the bodies. She intended to finish the cleanup so thoroughly that no one else would come here.
“There’s not much, so let’s do that. Sorry to the people who suffered at the hands of these bandits, but we’ll call it payment for their lives.”
There wasn’t much stolen goods left because the bandits had eaten or used up most of the food. If we split it up, we could carry everything in one trip.
Following Tirsi, I went to check on the hostages. They had been trembling from the noise of the fight, but when they saw us, they lit up with joy.
“Thank you so much for saving us!!! You’re my lifesavers!!!!”
The one-armed merchant—probably the transport guild master’s son—kept thanking us with tears streaming down his face. He was an adult, so he cried for a bit and that was it, but the real problem was the kids.
“Thank you!! Thank you!!”
“Hwaaaaaah!!! Hwaaaaaah!!!”
“Hic! Hic!”
The children, kidnapped and locked up during their most sensitive years, burst into tears at the thought of finally escaping.
“Now, now! Kids! That’s enough! You’re making things difficult for them!”
Neither Tirsi nor I could calm the sobbing children, but the one-armed merchant managed to quiet them in just two minutes.
“We can go home now! Everyone, hang in there just a little longer!”
“Yeeees!!”
“Mhm!!”
“Hic! Hic!!”
The kids probably relied on him while they were locked up. They stopped crying and became docile. I bowed to him, impressed by his skill.
“Thank you for calming them down.”
“No, it’s the least I can do for our lifesavers!”
A rather humble reply. He probably wanted to go home quickly too, so it was a win-win.
—Heavy.
The children’s nutrition looked poor, so I decided to carry more than half the stolen goods myself. I activated Beast Regression and slung over four bags like some kind of peddler.
“Fire Missile.”
Finally, Tirsi used the only fire-attribute magic she’d learned to burn the bodies.
—Rumble!!
While we were setting the fire outside, the cave collapsed under the heat. The dirt inside couldn’t withstand the high temperature and caved in.
“Good that there won’t be any loose ends.”
“Yeah.”
Tirsi cut off the mana and extinguished the flames. With that, our great adventure to retrieve the thesis came to a close.
Anyway, doing good deeds feels nice. And we even made some money while we were at it.