Chapter 37
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 37
Chapter Title: Tomb
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“Miss, do you really need to show this much favor?”
“Yes, I do.”
Even after the black-masked man left carrying the box, Lina remained seated at the table for a long while.
“He's someone whose face we can't even see, with an unknown identity. We don't even know if he's truly strong.”
“No, you saw it clearly too. He accomplished alone what all the mages I hired could never do.”
“That's not enough to...”
The attendant was still skeptical.
Lina understood his feelings.
After all, the task she planned to entrust to that man was none other than killing a Transcendent.
Of course, she had no intention of leaving it entirely to him. She was gathering more people, and Lina herself planned to join the fight directly.
“Someone who stirs things up like this can't possibly be a Transcendent.”
“I'm not hoping for a Transcendent anyway. If he were one, could I even hire him?”
Lina rested her chin on her hand and tapped the table as she continued.
“Even if he's not a Transcendent, he's got to be the strongest person I can hire. I hear he uses chantless magic.”
Only then did the attendant nod in apparent understanding.
“Then at minimum, 7th Circle...”
Chantless magic was something only mages who had reached the 7th Circle—the greatest wall for any mage—could attempt.
And even then, only in a single attribute, the one they specialized in.
“A 7th Circle wind-attribute mage. If it's any other attribute... he might really be a Transcendent.”
Of course, the latter possibility was extremely slim. Transcendents were indifferent to worldly affairs and never intervened.
That masked man did seem exceptionally ruthless, though.
Still, no way he was a Transcendent.
“I like that utter lack of emotion in him.”
“Aren't you actually valuing the confidence hidden behind that ruthlessness?”
Lina shook her head lightly.
“No. More than that...”
Her eyes gleamed strangely.
“I'm curious how he'll change once he becomes mine.”
“...I don't think that'll happen.”
“You'd better keep your mouth shut. You're better than the silent ones, but you always have to add that one last word.”
“S-Sorry.”
Lina accepted the attendant's apology readily and muttered to herself.
“Ah, I hope that day comes soon. I definitely want to see how he'll look at me when he dies. And I'll ask him myself. What expression did you have... when you killed my mother?”
Even amid the pressing time constraints, I couldn't set down the box Lina had given me.
The brilliant light leaking from within never faded the entire way back to the inn.
No matter how I looked at it, it had to be primordial mana.
But why would such a thing remain in the hero's item?
Did the hero of old actually use this power?
Even if so, for this power to linger after thousands of years—it was clearly no ordinary force.
It was worth investigating.
“Hm...”
But no matter how much I pondered, there were no clues. With nothing known, my thoughts couldn't connect.
And yet, I couldn't just ignore it and focus solely on clone creation.
In the end, I held out my palm. I gathered mana and converted it to primordial mana.
The sensation of my circle's mana vanishing like it was swept away by waves was now so familiar from repetition.
It'd recharge quickly anyway.
My talents had always been mana capacity and recovery speed.
A talent I'd once dismissed as useless had proven more valuable than any other since learning of primordial mana.
You really never know with life. Who could've predicted this?
Come to think of it, when Professor Palrez first lured me into the Graduate Academy, he mentioned a spell that maximized mana recovery elasticity...
I should ask about that later. Though it's probably exaggerated.
Before long, a light nearly identical to the brilliant glow seeping from the hero's item hovered above my palm.
And that was the moment. The primordial mana I'd created and the radiant power lingering in the hero's item— the instant those two lights appeared close together.
They flickered and intensified as if recognizing each other, resonating, then blazed with eye-piercing brilliance in an instant.
I reflexively shut my eyes.
When I opened them moments later, the surroundings had changed.
I'd clearly been in a sparse room with nothing but a bed, yet now my body sat in an unfamiliar space thick with dense fog.
The floor was damp, and I couldn't make out beyond the heavy mist.
I hurriedly stood.
The light persisted even then. If anything, the primordial mana I'd made and the light within the hero's item had connected, stretching out like a single beam.
That beam led somewhere.
The light above my palm, which I hadn't shaped or fixed, faded quickly—but even after it vanished, the beam extending in another direction remained vivid.
It almost seemed to lure me, beckoning me to follow.
‘Where is it pointing?’
I had no other choice.
I'd planned to maximize clone production over the next week, but having witnessed this bizarre phenomenon, I had to follow.
From the moment I was trapped in this space, creating clones as intended was impossible anyway.
Clutching only the box, I followed the direction the light indicated.
Walk as I might, I still couldn't peer beyond the fog.
All I could rely on was the light's path.
I was starting to feel like a hamster running on a wheel toward bait when—
With one step, the fog parted in an instant, and my vision cleared.
As if waiting, the light pouring from the hero's item vanished, revealing a massive wall towering before me.
A wall so immense it took my breath away.
Even craning my neck skyward, I doubted I'd see its end.
And at its base, on the ground, rose a bulging mound.
‘A grave?’
There had clearly been only bare earth moments ago, yet this spot looked meticulously tended, with grass growing.
And before that grave stood a single sword, its blade half-buried, flanked by two tombstones.
‘The hero's grave...?’
The embedded sword evoked Excalibur or the like...
But it looked too worn and shabby for a holy sword.
I turned my gaze to the tombstones first.
They bore simple imperial script.
- Asion. My faithful servant, who bore my will upon his back.
Asion? The hero's name?
Or the hero's servant?
Uncertain, I quickly examined the second tombstone.
But it bore not even a short phrase—nothing at all.
Having come this far following an extraordinary phenomenon, there was little else to examine.
Naturally, my hand reached for the sword plunged into the grave.
The instant I touched it, instinct made me tug once.
But it didn't budge.
The classic tale where only the hero can draw it?
I pulled harder, but the result was the same.
The hero's item had led me here, so I'd hoped... but apparently, I wasn't the hero.
‘Tch.’
I hesitated briefly, then waited with final hope for my circle to recover.
I recreated primordial mana in my palm.
But once I did, doubt immediately arose.
‘...What exactly am I supposed to do with this?’
Creating primordial mana had no relation to drawing the sword.
Trying with one hand holding the mana and the other on the hilt yielded the same immobility.
As I fully resigned—
My gaze, fixed solely on the sword, pulled back, and finally, other things came into view.
Things had changed—not unchanged.
If anything, everything but the sword had transformed.
For starters, the grand wall behind the grave.
It now bore countless intertwined unknown glyphs and lines I'd never seen before. Like hidden script revealed only by primordial mana's light.
At a glance, they resembled mana patterns, but far more intricate.
I slowly traced them with my eyes, then realized belatedly.
‘This isn't a wall...’
Up close, I saw wood grain.
What had seemed a colossal wall was actually a tree of unimaginable size.
And it didn't end there.
- Asion. My faithful servant, who bore my will upon his back.
Beneath that single line on the tombstone, new text had appeared.
- From the heart of chaos, a hero of the new era shall be born.
A phrase like an ancient prophecy etched there.
And I felt familiarity from it immediately.
‘Doesn't this resemble the final oracle Joat mentioned?’
The last oracle, proclaiming a new hero's birth in an age of chaos.
No prophecies had come after that one.
Joat had assured me with conviction that this chaotic era was now.
Then... was this the true form of that final oracle?
My gaze naturally shifted beside it.
The second tombstone, previously blank.
New words had appeared there too.
- Inheritor of the roots, you are not servant but master. The sword is the hero's, but the hand that shines creation's light shall illuminate fate and lead the way.
Who was this inheritor of the roots?
The inscription seemed directed straight at me, the one reading it.
Most intriguing was the term "creation's light."
‘Isn't that the true name of the power I called primordial mana?’
I couldn't help thinking so, since these words appeared the moment I summoned primordial mana.
And below that, rather than prophetic text, entirely different content followed.
[System of Creation]
The instant I confirmed that far, my mana depleted, and the primordial mana vanished.
There was clearly more below...
I had no choice but to recover mana and check again.