Chapter 107
Chapter 107
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 107
Chapter Title: A Noisy Dream (1)
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My dream was rowdy.
"What a brutal dream."
This didn't feel like my own dream. It was more like the orc shaman's memories unfolding before my eyes.
The vast plain was packed with orcs.
And countless undead.
At the center stood the orc in the form of a soul that I'd seen earlier.
"Orcs! Fight the enemy! Struggle! Crush everything!"
The orcs letting out fierce roars looked utterly different from the ones today.
Their bodies were covered in wounds and scars.
Their eyes gleamed with an extraordinary light.
It evoked images of warriors who had spent their entire lives on the battlefield.
"Shamans! Ignite the sacred flames!"
This was different from the sorcery Gullak had shown me.
This must be the original form.
What Gullak did now had clearly been heavily influenced by me.
As the orcs chanted their spells, the plain overflowed with murderous intent and madness.
"It's so different."
What the orcs had shown me before passing out felt raw and primal.
This scene was far more organized and refined.
The orcs fought with fervor but without losing their reason entirely, reveling in the battle.
Soon, the orc shaman in the soul form I recognized murmured softly.
"The orcs will all die here. I can smell death in the air."
He glanced back at the shamans.
"The shamans will die too. And so will I."
The war unfolded at a rapid pace.
The orcs, who had the upper hand against the undead, were helpless before their tireless foes.
From the atmosphere, it seemed these orcs had fought countless wars already.
They were exhausted, their forces greatly weakened.
"Fight! Even in death, preserve your honor!"
I'd said it when I first met Gullak.
That orcs understood honor.
I never thought it was true.
The orcs fought on, their limbs torn apart, but they never lost their will to battle.
Not fighting to protect, but moving to fight.
And then.
An immense darkness swirled in, intense enough to reach even me, dreaming.
It felt unmistakably like a nightmare, a portent of ill.
"What the hell is that? A vengeful spirit? A demon?"
It had the form of a living being, but its soul was pitch black.
Not a person corrupted by madness and resentment, but a being born from every grudge imaginable, given flesh.
"That's a demon."
As it appeared, the orcs fell one by one, futilely.
The shamans countered with sorcery, but it shattered against some barrier.
Dark mana-fueled magic.
It emanated from a single entity.
"What is that thing."
Worn.
No, draped in robes so ragged they might as well be called rotten.
It had human features, but no flesh pulsing with life—just bones wrapped in skin.
"Not undead, not living...?"
It felt like it straddled the boundary between death and life.
Like a skull draped in human skin.
I'd heard of something like this somewhere.
Among the undead, there was a being like that.
"Lich..."
Its presence was overwhelming.
Even its soul was enormous.
Even combining Elder Closel and Elder Parmon wouldn't measure up.
"Something like that exists in the world?"
It was absurd.
As dark as a demon, with madness sharper than any orc's.
The shamans' spells crumbled, the undead rampaged wildly.
As orcs fell and only a few shamans remained.
A brilliant light erupted from one spot.
I knew instinctively.
The feel of that light resembled Luna's.
"A saint...?"
Lustrous silver hair.
And in her grip, the holy sword I used as a stilt.
Golden eyes surveying the battlefield.
"She has eyes?"
Legend said saints and saintesses lost their physical eyes across generations.
Because they saw the world through divine sight.
But the scene the shaman's soul showed was entirely different.
The orc shaman exchanging glances with the saint.
I could see her speaking, but no sound came.
"What? Why's it like this all of a sudden?"
A hunch struck me.
I needed to hear that.
And learn about that lich too.
It felt like my intuition, or perhaps a message from the soul.
In that moment, the dream scene shifted.
Piles of orc corpses stacked high.
A shaman's soul atop them.
Its state worse than before I fainted.
The worn, weary soul now bore wounds.
- ...you hearing?
"...?"
- Can you... hear...?
This must be the first.
The first soul I've encountered here that could speak.
To converse even in a dream—what a relief.
Aside from it being an orc, that is.
I had so many questions.
"I can hear you! Say more!"
- ...telling... a human soul... can hear!
I felt the soul scrutinizing me.
Not just that—it scanned the surroundings in astonishment.
- ...vessel... for gods...?
As I tried to converse with the shaman, it suddenly began trembling.
Looking at me, but its gaze slightly off.
Its eyes darting between my shoulder and head shook like in an earthquake.
- ...!!!
No herbivore facing a predator reacted like that.
Eyes soaked in fear and terror.
Eyes unmoved by undead now quaking violently.
"What's wrong? My shoulder? My head?"
If an ancient soul reacted like this, there weren't many reasons.
And if it trembled at my shoulder and head, one thing was certain.
Shoulders and head are where spirits descend.
The places we say spirits sit atop the head or vagrant ghosts perch on shoulders.
- ...not touch! ...afraid!
The shaman's soul prostrated flat on the ground.
Trembling as if scolded.
Unable to lift its head, pleading its case.
- Saint... not, why...!
Its aggrieved cries came in fragments.
- Truly... no harm...!
From its words and actions, I pieced together the situation.
I was a divine vessel.
One born with an absurd shamanic fate.
No need to say whose spirit a soul entering such a vessel would meet.
Especially since it hadn't entered normally, but via sorcery—more like an intrusion.
"Is Grandma mad?"
Shiiiik—
Three figures cleaved through the air.
Closel, Parmon, and Drzant.
They pierced the sky at tremendous speed.
"Ramon, have you ever seen anything like that?"
"First time."
"Drzant, you?"
"Never heard of orcs doing something like that."
Closel shook his head in disbelief.
Orcs riding sword boats across the sea.
It was absurd.
Closel turned to Parmon, whose face was stern as he spoke.
"This is definitely where Chris is, right?"
"Yes."
Sadness welled in Closel's eyes.
His lifelong friend.
Whose face had only just softened into a smile, now rigid again.
Ever since learning Chris had vanished.
Drzant added a line, as if noticing it too.
"Finally back to the familiar face."
"Mind your words."
"Why does a human like you suit that expression more?"
Despite Drzant's jab, Parmon maintained his stoic mask.
Not just that.
His hand gripped the sword at his waist tightly.
His whole body radiated a sharp aura, ready to draw at any moment.
"Ramon, calm down. You know Chris will be fine."
Parmon surely knew.
But Closel thought it might not matter.
Parmon had regained his smile because of Chris, after all.
"..."
"God's hand guides him. With the saintess and Miss Serena, he'll be safe."
Closel pushed his mana to the limit.
His friend's state was off.
He was suppressing it, but killing intent leaked out.
Much like when he lost comrades in the Continental War.
'Ramon, why again...'
It hadn't been like this right after Chris vanished.
Only after detecting the locator spell on him and heading there.
That was when it started.
The longer the flight to find Chris, the colder Parmon's face froze.
"Rosel, any word from Miss Serena yet?"
Closel shook his head silently.
She was like Parmon now.
Warm only to Chris.
To others, her gaze was cold enough that lack of hatred was a mercy.
At least they'd gotten the location.
"She won't pick up even if we call."
"..."
"He'll be fine."
Despite Closel's words, their flight speed increased.
Orcs rowing below vanished in an instant.
"Fog. Unbelievably thick fog."
Closel scanned around, but no magic traces.
Meaning not the necromancers' doing.
"We're going in."
Soon, the fog thinned.
A massive fog bank.
Within the island they approached, a shocking sight unfolded.
A scene visible only to them.
"Rosel."
"..."
Expression vanished from Parmon's face.
Intense killing intent poured out.
A razor-sharp edge, ready to cleave anything.
Drzant shook his head.
"Humans never change, it seems."
"Drzant, Ramon changed into this."
There was reason for Parmon's killing intent.
The superhuman senses they possessed revealed a shocking scene.
A person collapsed on the ground.
Chris, pale-faced.
And not just that—surrounding orcs and the blue flames from the Empire's north peak.
"Set us down."
Where the three landed, chaos erupted.
"Humans! Intruders!"
"Kill them all!"
Among the red-eyed raging orcs, only Gullak regained reason.
Gullak yelled, face drained pale.
"All of you, back off! We'll all die!"
"Chwiik!"
"Prophecy of death! We protect the shaman even in death!"
Parmon and Closel headed for the fallen Chris.
"..."
The saintess crying beside Chris.
Serena, expression hardened.
Ferocious orcs radiating menace.
Parmon drew his sword.
Shring—
"Miss Serena, a question."
"..."
"Did the orcs make Chris collapse?"
Serena shook her head.
"He's not hurt, so don't worry."
The moment Serena answered.
The killing intent choking the orcs.
The edge poised to slice vanished.
Gullak sighed in relief, shoulders slumping.
"Chwiik...!"
Shring—
Thud—
The sword returned to its sheath.
Parmon spoke.
With a benevolent smile.
"Heh, fainted again, has he."