Chapter 54
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 54
Chapter Title: Baratrain (3)
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"May I ask about that strange object you're carrying on your back?"
"I'll just tell you this: if you touch it, you won't die peacefully."
"...Understood. I won't touch it."
The adventurers' grumbling came to a halt.
They edged a bit farther away from me before turning to search for the flower.
I began thoroughly exploring the forest as well.
The color transformation magic was still active, but no red hues appeared at the forest's entrance.
I had no choice but to venture deeper.
Keeping in mind the possibility that Partan had polymorphed into a fairy, I meticulously checked not just the ground but the branches overhead too.
As I pushed deeper and deeper...
I stopped in my tracks.
I'd spotted red—but it wasn't faint, nor was it something I had to crane my neck to see high up in the branches.
The entire forest ahead of me was smeared in red, like it'd been drenched in blood.
Tree trunks blocking my path, vines, even the fallen leaves carpeting the ground—everything was plastered in that sticky crimson glow.
I had to stop, stunned.
That said, I hadn't gone so deep that no adventurers passed by occasionally.
They crossed the red boundary oblivious to it all, and nothing happened.
It didn't seem like a trap.
Which meant...
I racked my brain.
I'd seen something like this before.
At Philip Deran's castle.
The technique used to create the secret room.
A ploy to conceal detailed movements when you knew you were being tracked—a classic method befitting a Transcendent's presumed age.
Since I knew Partan's mana pattern, I could trace those precise paths.
I returned to the forest entrance first and regrouped with the adventurers before heading back to that crimson forest together.
"From here on, you follow me."
With the four adventurers trailing behind, I lowered myself to the ground with every step, meticulously tracing Partan's traces one by one.
"Isn't that... something you do when tracking people?"
They were adventurers specialized in following physical trails, after all.
My actions must have felt familiar to them.
So they knew it didn't match our goal of flower-hunting.
I ignored their question as if I hadn't heard it.
Ignoring was surer than a lame excuse.
"Don't just stand there—search around."
"...Yes, sir."
After scouring here and there, I found the subtle misalignment, just like when I'd located Philip Deran's secret room.
A discrepancy invisible to the naked eye.
I walked along that point, and at some moment, I realized I was alone.
Looking up suddenly, it wasn't the forest anymore.
I stood inside a cave.
A single beam of light streamed down from a fine crack overhead.
Where the beam shone, on a rock jutting out, a mystical blue glow lingered. Traces of dense mana.
Approaching closely, all that remained was the spot where a flower had bloomed.
The flower itself had already been plucked and was gone.
Had Partan gotten it first?
No, more importantly...
'...Did the flower really exist?'
Wasn't Partan the one who spread the rumor?
Or had he picked it already and leaked the rumor to cover his tracks?
I looked around, but the cave ended in a dead wall. It seemed like the end of the tunnel.
Stepping back slightly, I was suddenly out of the cave and back in the middle of the forest.
Bart and Nil were nearby.
"Lord Cedric? Where did you disappear to just now...?"
It looked like they'd seen me vanish for a moment too.
But before I could answer, I sensed someone charging at me with clear killing intent.
And then.
Boom!
A deafening roar shook the forest with terrifying force.
"Gah!"
Bart and Nil screamed as the shockwave swept them back several steps.
Where the attacker had lunged at me—behind that spot, the forest was utterly demolished, torn open in a blaze of red.
Thud.
One of the trap orbs floating behind me hit the ground, spent.
The trap orb had activated.
First time I'd seen one go off.
As a Transcendent's trap magic, its power was beyond imagination.
The one who'd rushed me hadn't even left a corpse. Vanished from the world without me identifying who it was.
But his comrades remained. Five in total.
Frozen mid-charge toward us, swords gripped, halted by the horrific impact.
The presence I'd sensed in that instant felt like about ten people—five had evaporated. Likely the front half, including the leader targeting me, wiped out entirely.
As I looked at them, their dazed faces came into view.
Even meeting my eyes, they couldn't follow through.
Hands trembling, they eventually dropped their weapons.
"S-Sorry..."
Since donning the Cedric mask, apologies like this had become common.
Of course, part of it was Cedric's bold persona in action.
"Crazy bastards!"
Bart belatedly realized they'd nearly been ambushed and spat a curse.
But it was instinctive; Bart, Nil, and the other two adventurers didn't move forward readily.
All eyes turned to me.
What should I say in a moment like this...?
I'd essentially wiped out five people in an instant, so even I was a bit thrown.
Not that I felt remorse or shaken.
I was prepared for this.
Just a little dazed.
For now, I pulled another trap orb from my subspace artifact. It floated up behind me.
The trap orbs were back to two.
Three orbs hovered behind me now, but one was the calculation orb disguised as a trap orb.
"P-Please spare us! We were fools to covet what we shouldn't have."
To them, me replenishing the orb looked like a death sentence.
Not wrong.
I turned to Bart.
He flinched at my glance but caught on and nodded.
"You sons of bitches dare ambush us?"
Bart, Nil, and the other two drew their swords and charged the demoralized foes.
"Leave one alive."
"Got it!"
Crushed by fear, they barely resisted as they fell one by one.
And one remained.
The man who'd first dropped his weapon, trembling and begging forgiveness—he survived.
Bart roughly bound him with rope and dragged him before me.
A stench hit me. Glancing down, his leather pants were soaked dark.
"Why the ambush?"
"From... the moment you entered the forest, you acted strangely... so we watched closely. Then you suddenly... vanished and reappeared... We thought you must have found the flower..."
The answer I'd expected.
"Do you know why I spared you?"
"N-No idea."
"Tell me everything you know about the flower you were after."
"...Then you'll let me live?"
No intention of sparing him, even to avoid loose ends.
Well, things had escalated anyway—rumors would spread regardless.
"Still got the luxury to worry about that?"
"But I need hope of survival to spill what I know... right?"
"Fine. I will."
His face lit up instantly.
Beats me what made him trust me.
I didn't seem the type to keep promises.
"But if it's just what I already know, I'll make you die more painfully than the others."
"...Th-That's."
"Don't like it?"
"...No. Do you... know what flower it is?"
"Arcana Bloom."
"Then skipping that... The flower isn't all there is...?"
"Keep talking."
His face bloomed like a flower, as if already saved.
"Actually, this flower is famous in a legend tied to mermaids."
"Mermaids?"
"Yes... A rare species said to live in the deep sea, spotted occasionally off the west coast."
I knew about mermaids as a rare species. What intrigued me was the legend.
"What legend?"
"Arcana Bloom buds three times when it fully blooms. Only deep-sea mermaids can sense the true Arcana Bloom's scent."
"True Arcana Bloom?"
"Yes. The other two buds are laced with deadly poison. They look identically beautiful, but swallowing one means instant death."
A one-in-three chance.
Eat the real one, and your body purifies while mana quality improves.
Fake? Dead.
Too risky for the gains, no?
"The legend's core comes next. Combine the true Arcana Bloom with mermaid heart essence, and you get an elixir that shatters realm barriers to reach the next stage."
My eyes flashed.
That was it.
Breaking realm barriers.
If it could even shatter a Transcendent's barriers... no wonder Partan sought it.
Worth the legend's hype.
'So... Partan picked the flower and went hunting mermaids?'
Deep-sea mermaids...
Anonymous 3 came to mind.
Not sure if a mermaid, but deep-sea kin.
Anadin, was it?
"Where'd you hear that?"
"We've been ruin explorers for years, so we pick up all sorts of rumors."
"Ever heard of Anadin?"
"Ah... Anadin? First time."
"I see. So how do you meet a mermaid? You'd have prepared if you knew."
"To meet one... sail out and wait in the ocean's heart until you hear singing..."
"No real method, huh."
I knew that much.
The man looked up, hope brimming.
"So now..."
I glanced at Bart.
"Heard that story before?"
"Huh? No... first I've—"
"He knew it."
"What?"
I signaled Bart, but he looked baffled. Someone else got it.
Nil's sword slashed the man's throat.
As he collapsed, Nil said calmly,
"Thorough, as expected."
I stood.
"Cold-blooded... Uh."
Bart reacted instead.
Tough exterior, soft inside type?
Why trust and spare ambushers once already?
Letting them go, they'd think I had the flower—trouble ahead.
If it were just annoying, fine.
I exited the forest with them.
"So now you're off to find a mermaid?"
They seemed convinced I had the flower.
"No need to find a mermaid. Or rather, I can't."
"Huh? What do you...?"
"I don't have the flower."
"What?"
"Someone already picked it."
"..."
They looked skeptical.
But I truly didn't have it, and right now, I needed time to sort my thoughts.
With Partan's mermaid hunt likelihood spiking, I had to plan the next pursuit.
"We're done for today. Disband."
"...You're going after whoever took it first?"
"Gotta think about it."
"You really don't have it?"
"If I did and was lying, why bother coming out here with you? Easier ways."
Like handling them as we did the ambushers.
Explaining this tediously was answer enough.
The words might've unnerved them, but the adventurers nodded in understanding.
Then Bart muttered beside me.
"But there's no inn here..."
"Can't an adventurer handle one night camping?"
"..."