Ascension Ritual
Eight-legged cattle, six-legged chickens.
There were all kinds of other bizarre creatures, too—monsters that looked like winged pigs, sheep with three heads, and countless things so strangely built they seemed to have crawled straight out of a fever dream.
These were, to be fair, the ones that had been carefully selected from among the creatures in Ardina Continent that most resembled ordinary animals. Even then, there were monsters so grotesquely shaped that the first thought they inspired was, Can you even eat something like that?
If they were ever released in Ardina Continent, they would revolutionize the food industry in more ways than one. Unfortunately, we couldn't eat them.
“What, unfortunate?”
“Maybe not. They might taste incredible.”
Weren’t you curious?
Da-eun laughed at my words, as if she couldn’t help herself.
“Kana, you’re really full of curiosity. Still, you know better, right? You can’t just eat anything.”
“...I can think about it.”
“Sure, sure.”
It was thanks to this kind of reckless challenge that people had ended up eating monsters like the Green Rabbit.
So, for the sake of posterity, shouldn’t we emulate our ancestors who had cheerfully sacrificed themselves?
If you were afraid of failure and never did anything at all, you’d just rot away where you stood.
...That was just me talking out of my ass.
If I were the sort of person who cared about posterity, I wouldn’t have thrown everything away and holed up in the mountains in the first place.
“If the price of failure is death, isn’t it only natural to be scared...? Wait. More importantly, the Green Rabbit was actually something people could eat?”
“You haven’t tried it?”
“Would normal people even think of eating something that looks like that?”
“Yeah. Fair point.”
Normally I would have accused Da-eun of overreacting, but this time I found myself agreeing with her.
And honestly, once you pictured the Green Rabbit properly, there was no way to disagree.
Its fur was green from the root; it drooled poison from its mouth; and the long claws growing from its paws were sharp enough to tear through most leather armor with ease.
It had long rabbit-like ears, which was why it had been called a Green Rabbit in the first place, but apart from those ears it didn’t resemble a rabbit at all. Apparently people had even discussed changing its name.
They only ever talked about it, though. They had never actually tried to change it.
It was so familiar that if they tried renaming it, they were worried it would just cause confusion.
“I heard even the hide, the blood, and the innards are all steeped in poison. How are you supposed to eat that...?”
“You drain the blood right after you catch it, then soak it in a mana solution for thirty days. That gets the poison out. Ah, but the innards still stay poisonous even after that, so you can’t eat them. Be careful.”
“I’m not planning to eat it or make it... none of that.”
Only the meat was edible.
And since soaking it in mana solution didn’t mean it would never spoil, you still had to be careful to prevent decay.
It was high-grade ingredient, the kind that could only be obtained through meticulous care, with constant attention paid to whether the poison had fully gone or whether rot had set in.
That was the meat of the Green Rabbit.
“Every time this comes up, I’m reminded that Kana is seriously, seriously into food.”
“...Me?”
“Yep. You’re all limp like a cat in the sun, but the second food comes up, your eyes shine.”
“Why a cat, of all things?”
“Because... you seem like a cat?”
That wasn’t what I was asking.
Da-eun’s answer came back with the question still hanging in the air, a neat little dodge because she probably thought I’d get annoyed if she answered straight.
“Still. If Kana didn’t like food, we probably wouldn’t have gotten this close, would we?”
“...What exactly do you think I am?”
It was true that the food Da-eun brought me every day had spared me the hassle of preparing meals.
But if that had been all, I wouldn’t have paid her any more attention than necessary.
“Then what was it for?”
“...I’m not telling you.”
It was the sort of thing that would be difficult to say out loud.
It was a story that could shake the very foundations of the world, so I sealed my mouth shut. Da-eun, of course, grinned wickedly and leaned into me.
She definitely had a gift for twisting things around; she’d gone and interpreted my reaction however she pleased again.
I’d learned from experience that if I responded halfway here, I wouldn’t clear anything up—I’d only make myself more annoyed—so I pried Da-eun off me with all the effort of brushing away an insect and went back to looking around.
This place, the central region of Laxia, was basically the equivalent of a capital city in other countries.
It had its share of things, for what that was worth, but...
How should I put it? It felt rural.
It didn’t have the glittering atmosphere I associated with a capital.
“Have you ever been to an imperial capital?”
“An imperial capital? Ah—do you mean Solerock? Of course I have! It’s the capital of that empire, so... ah. Sorry.”
“It’s fine. I don’t care.”
I hadn’t sworn fealty to the empire and gone off to war or anything. I could go sightseeing if I wanted.
“Phew... glad to hear it. But why’d you ask all of a sudden?”
“Compared to that, how is this place?”
“This place? Hmm...”
After thinking for a moment, Da-eun gave her answer.
“Peaceful.”
And modest, too.
Maybe she was being mindful of the demon standing nearby, because she added in a very low whisper, “I guess.”
If that was the imperial capital she was talking about, then it must have been far more splendid than Grasis’ capital, not less.
Then again, in other countries they probably wouldn’t have been farming in the middle of the capital city, so there was no real point in comparing them in the first place.
Maybe because they lived with a single-minded devotion to the mission Edel had laid upon them, the only things that had really developed here were the necessities of life—food, clothing, and shelter. Everything beyond that still felt underdeveloped.
I had to spend five months in a boring place like this?
“Yeah. I definitely need another way.”
That thought only made my resolve firmer.
* * *
Tap, tap.
What was I supposed to do?
On the way back from touring the village, I sank into thought.
No matter how I looked at it, there was no way I could endure five months here.
But going back to Ardina and then coming all the way back again would be a hassle, and in the first place I didn’t have the luxury of waiting five months.
“...”
“Kanaa~”
Tap, tap.
“...Will you quit it?”
Why did she keep poking me?
I glared at Da-eun, who had been nudging me nonstop for a while now.
“You’re still thinking about it?”
“Of course I am. I’m apparently stuck waiting five months.”
“I don’t think it’s that bad. While you’re waiting, you could go somewhere else and come back.”
“If I could do that, I would have...”
“Huh? Is there a reason you can’t? Come to think of it, ever since you left the Holy Kingdom, you haven’t had a proper day off, have you...?”
“What are you talking about? I rested when I was in Valtora. For several days, even.”
“That was because you had no choice but to wait for the magic tool to be finished. I mean real rest—rest where you don’t think about anything and just relax. Like when you were in Liberi.”
“Hmm...”
“Even aside from that, the current Kana feels oddly restless to me. Is it because of what you said after meeting the god Edel?”
Honestly, I still found it hard to believe I had met a god and had a conversation with one...
Da-eun muttered, “I can’t say that isn’t part of it.”
“What on earth did you two talk about...?”
When I first heard about the Ascension Ritual, Da-eun had desperately tried to stop me.
She said I only had one life, unlike her, and that she would rather take my place.
Of course, I hadn’t accepted her offer.
...A mere Expert was going to replace me?
An Expert who hadn’t even climbed that rank entirely through her own power?
That’s a funny joke.
I really had said it exactly like that, not missing a single syllable.
She needed to say things that actually made sense.
“I’ve got a great idea!”
Da-eun jumped to her feet and shouted, cutting off my thoughts.
It wasn’t as though I’d been thinking anything particularly useful anyway, so even though my thoughts were forcibly interrupted, I didn’t feel especially irritated.
“The problem is that there isn’t enough Magi to perform the Ascension Ritual, right? Then all we need is Magi!”
“...Wow, incredible.”
What a revolutionary discovery.
If it weren’t for Da-eun, nobody would ever have thought of that.
How had she managed such a genius insight?
“No, that’s not what I’m trying to say, so just listen for a second!”
“...Fine.”
“Ugh, honestly!”
Even if she said that, I still didn’t trust her, so I answered in a flat tone.
“I once saw it in a fairy tale book when I was little... It was about a strong enemy showing up, and the hero couldn’t possibly beat it alone, so they borrowed the strength of everyone in the world to win.”
“Everyone in the world?”
“Yep!”
“How do you borrow their strength? Do you ask for consent? And what even is this ‘strength’ you’re talking about?”
“...I said strength, but it was really more like vitality—”
Da-eun, who had been rambling on and on, suddenly seemed to snap back to herself.
“T-that’s not the important part right now! The important part is whether we can do it or not...!”
“If I don’t understand the principle, how am I supposed to try anything?”
“Can’t you just, I don’t know, get inspired by something in a fairy tale and make a technique out of it...?”
“If it’s swordsmanship, maybe.”
But this wasn’t swordsmanship.
If it had been magic, forcibly taking another person’s power might have been possible.
Magic users were the kind of people who mastered every possible method of being annoying.
But to use a spell like that, it would probably take far more skill than I had...
For a moment, a face I disliked almost surfaced in my mind, and I quickly shook my head to throw the thought away.
“Yeah, still impossible...”
“Then what if it wasn’t forced? What if they gave it to you willingly?”
“Willingly?”
I considered Da-eun’s words for a moment, then nodded.
“...Maybe.”
In principle, receiving mana from another person wasn’t forbidden, but it certainly wasn’t a desirable practice.
It was the kind of thing you’d only do in an emergency, when the danger justified the risk.
If it were pure mana like a dragon’s, maybe that was one thing. But a human’s mana was always tainted, and it could produce rejection.
Still, did any of that really matter if the situation was about accepting Magi anyway?
Besides, she wouldn’t need to receive the Magi directly into her body.
The Ascension Ritual was the process of gathering Magi dispersed through the air and forcing it into one person’s body by some method or another. If we simply released it, wouldn’t Yustina handle the rest on her own?
“I’m going to ask her.”
“W-wait, what? Now? It’s already night! Wouldn’t it be really rude to go looking for her this late?”
“I guess I’ll just be rude, then.”
It might be rude now, but once it was over, she’d definitely be grateful to me.
So whatever rudeness I committed from here on out would count as repayment for that.
No matter how I looked at it, I felt like I was the one taking the loss, but I’d just have to accept that much.
Yes. I’m generous like that.