In Search of a Fateful Boon
Now I had to find a way to undo it.
In the Esteria Chronicles, the seal blew apart the instant Mion set foot in this chamber, the Holy Sword answering him. I, however, did not have the Holy Sword. What I did have was a working knowledge of sealing formations lodged in my head—and in truth, it was fairer to assume that most people living on this continent knew of them as well.
Any child of the Oxburg Empire had heard the fairy tale of the neighborhood upstart who meddled with a sealing formation and turned into a monster. From long ago, priests who found one went about warning folk never to touch it, and to send word to the nearest church instead. Sealing formations were delicate. Built to hold something in, they were, by the same token, absurdly frail against any shock from outside. Erase even a portion, and the formula itself risked collapse. A formation binding a being as mighty as Jin of the Flame could only be frailer still before an outside blow—which was precisely why they had buried the thing in a pit like this and hidden it.
So breaking the seal was simple. Sever either the enormous rune spread across the floor or one of the chains tangled through it, and Jin would come free at once. Scraping at it with a boot would not make it vanish, of course. It had to be fed mana.
I spent what mana I had left wiping away one corner of the rune on the floor, and the answer came at once. The magic circle drawn in blood burned away from the erased stretch, and the chains wrapped around the crystal snapped, one after another.
A fateful boon!
Was this not a transmigrator's privilege—the very finest spice of a dime-a-dozen fantasy novel? World-changing power sat within arm's reach, and the thrill would not settle. I would beg Jin for strength. In the time I had bought with the order's entrance exam, I would make that power my own, go home, rob the family castle of its wealth while the house drowned in its final council, and bolt for the southeast. Demons, heroes—who gave a damn? Let them sort that garbage out themselves.
"Hahaha! Bring it on, you extras of this world!"
The thought of the overwhelming power about to be mine set my whole body shuddering. No—the world itself was thrashing in every direction, as if someone had shoved a vibrator up its ass. I dropped low against the shaking floor.
"...gaa... ...ah..."
A voice rang through my head in the middle of it. Jin of the Flame? Gaa? What kind of noise was that?
"...gaa... ...ch'ah..."
I set the second burst of nonsense behind me, and the one chain still holding snapped. In the same instant a great crack tore through the ice crystal sheathing the brazier.
In that moment the crystal shattered. The seal chamber was swallowed, in a heartbeat, by boiling flame. It was as hot as if the sun had come down. My body caught fire.
"G—gaaaaah!"
I watched my arm blaze up like a lump of charcoal, and lost consciousness.
"Aaaagh! What the—fuck!"
The instant the severed thread of consciousness tied itself back together, I lurched upright as if in a fit and looked at my arm first. It smelled faintly of char, but the arm was exactly as it had been. My clothes were gone—burned clean away, leaving me naked—yet there was not a scratch on me. Even the wounds the frost golem had given me had vanished without a trace.
"What in the world... happened?"
I looked around. Every side of the place was scorched, as if it had taken a bombing. The ground had given way; heaps of stone lay fallen here and there. Had I failed? The crystal was in shards, so that didn't seem to be it. Then why was this so different from the novel? Was it the difference between cleansing a seal with the Holy Sword and ripping it open by force?
While I was still trying to grasp the situation, a tiny orb of flame darted up before my face.
"Awake at last, are you, idiot. I shouted at you to run, and you didn't hear me with so much as the back of your ear—now look at the state of you. Do you have any idea how I suffered, healing you? I am Jin of the Flame. Know that you are alive only barely, and only because of me."
This mouse-dick little fireball was really Jin of the Flame? Truly one of the Three Gods, on a level with the Demon King? What—had I been scammed? I was sure the scene where she met Mion in the novel had described her as magnificent.
"Oh? Why are you reacting like that? Shocked that I am Jin of the Flame? Yes, well you might be. As you already know, I am, if I may say so myself..."
"I already know who you are. You're just... a lot smaller than I expected?"
"A brat, and there is nothing you will not say? Whose fault do you think this is!"
The fireball smacked my chest. Strangely, it didn't hurt, and it wasn't hot.
"Look at your chest."
"Huh? What is this?"
Crimson runic letters rose from the chest where the fireball had body-slammed me.
"Flame Essence. The source of my power. It was not my intent, but while I was restoring you it was sucked into your body. Thanks to that, I have been reduced to this wretched state."
"What?"
For a while chaos wrapped my head. All right. Let me sort this out. I had broken the sealing formation. Jin had burst free, and in that instant I was swept up in a firestorm. Jin, granting me a scrap of mercy, had tried to bring me back—and in the process something called the Flame Essence was absorbed into my body. Robbed of it, Jin had lost her power, and so boon or no boon, she could do nothing for me.
In short, I was fucked.
"...Wow. Fuck."
A kin-slaying with my old man, a Sword Master, was already on the books four years from now, and I had failed to land the boon here? Should I just kill myself on the spot?
"Hey, brat—I am the one who wants to curse. What did you think that sealing formation even was, breaking it so crudely? No. Setting aside that you broke it, what in the world is wrong with your body, that it stole my Flame Essence? This is impossible!"
Yeah, my talent really was that broken. I had been indispensable to the plot of the Esteria Chronicles. That was why the North watched its step around me, why the Demon King courted me, why the world lived in dread, and why in my twenties I took the head of the Sword Saint Landeros. But if I was going to die anyway, did any of that matter? Listening to a dick-sized fireball prattle without so much as a pause for breath, irritation shot up in me.
"Ah, then take the Flame Essence or whatever the hell it is back."
"If I could, I would have done so long ago! But no matter what I do, it will not obey. As if this were someone's joke. This is not a power a mere human ought to be able to hold—how did you absorb it?"
It seemed to be Jin's first time in a fix like this; she spoke quickly, plainly rattled. By now I wanted to know what this damned Flame Essence even was. I glared at the fireball and asked.
"So what is the Flame Essence, exactly?"
"A part of my soul, and its essence. The wellspring of my power. The symbol of circulation and extinction, and the origin of all the mana in the world."
"...Huh?"
For something said so flatly, the scale was far too vast. I sensed this was no small matter. If there was no lie in Jin's words, then this was the greatest boon imaginable—nothing a spirit elixir or a secret martial manual could touch!
"Hard to believe, is it? Then try using the mana in your dantian."
At her word I called up the Guardian Aura. Mana left my dantian and wrapped my body. The dantian ought to have emptied. Instead, mana kept welling up from somewhere.
What was this? It was not the mana of nature. It was hotter than that, and sticky. I drew on it and fed it into the Guardian Aura—and then I blazed as if my body itself had caught fire. My dantian ached as if it might shatter.
"Stop!"
At Jin's word I cut the Guardian Aura. The flames clinging to me died in an instant.
"...Hah... hah. Strange mana kept filling me up. Is this the Flame Essence?"
"Do not call a trifle like that the Flame Essence. You have not so much as dipped a toe into its power."
Just now, she must have been testing whether I could truly wield it. The snap of her voice was curt, but seeing me actually handle the thing, she looked more than a little shaken.
"The Flame Essence is the power of circulation and extinction. If you truly wielded it, you could reduce even an opponent's soul to ash. I do not imagine a human like you will ever reach that height. Still, the Flame Essence burns without end, and it will grant you limitless mana. Use it to excess, though, and you may burn to death, dantian and all."
"This is way more broken than I thought."
"What did you think a god's essence was? And you will have gained a perfect immunity to fire as well. No heat can wound you. If anything, it will restore you."
This was the jackpot. Nowhere under heaven was there a boon like this!
In this world, knights outstripped mages in raw burst, but they could use nothing except the mana they had stored in the dantian beforehand. Unlike a mage, who drew on nature's mana as it was, turned a circle, and hurled it, a knight had to rest if he meant to refill. And this Flame Essence could cover that weakness completely. Handle it properly, and a Sword Master would be nothing to worry about!
"Hah. I am grateful, at least, that you undid the seal. But this has gotten tangled. I must recover my body, and so long as you hold the Flame Essence, I can do nothing. Nor can I leave the Flame Essence with you and go elsewhere..."
While I grinned, unable to contain the joy, Jin seemed sunk deep in thought.
"Recover your body? What's that supposed to mean?"
"I am not whole, as I am now. That bastard Moloch, the Demon King, tore my body and my soul apart in order to seal me. Until I have my body back, I cannot use my power."
So that was why she was flying about the sky as a fireball. None of this had been written in the setting compendium.
"Do you know where the body is?"
"I do not. But if it is nearby, I ought to be able to feel it. I would like you to help."
In the Esteria Chronicles, Jin never appeared again after she was freed from the seal. I had wondered why a god that powerful played only the helper and then vanished clean—she must have been scouring the whole continent in search of her body.
I stroked my chin and sank into thought. A boon called the Flame Essence, and on top of it a journey to find Jin's body. This was not in the compendium either. Far too many variables.
Let me sort it, briefly. The Flame Essence was, without question, an outrageous boon. But it would not make me strong on the spot. I did not have the strength, right now, to flee the North and stand on my own. So for a while yet I would have no choice but to lean on the shade of the name de Jevitz—which meant, conversely, that I, the eldest son of the house, could not leave the North on a whim.
In the novel, Canniel de Jevitz sentenced me to exile four years from now. Until then I needed to suck the house as dry as I could, as the eldest son of de Jevitz. In that time I had to make the boon of the Flame Essence my own and lay a foundation to stand alone.
The problem was that handling the Flame Essence required a teacher to show me the way: Jin. And that same Jin wanted to set out in search of her body. For the reasons I had just laid out, I could not leave the North now. Refuse her here, and we would be at odds. Turn down her proposal, and I would never learn from her how to wield the Flame Essence.
I had to get her body back. But before that, I needed time.
When the thinking was done, I opened my mouth.
"Fine. But I have two conditions."
"Impudent. Remember that if I so wished, I could kill you and seize the Flame Essence. A mere mortal, and you dare set terms with me?"
"Didn't you just say that with the Flame Essence stolen, you can't do anything?"
"Eeeeeiiik!"
Caught off guard, Jin quite literally went berserk. She had tried a threat because I was a kid, it seemed. That sort of thing doesn't so much as sprout with me.
"I'm still young. I can't just wander off on a journey whenever I feel like it. I need a grace period of four years, at the least."
Four years was long for a human, and short for an immortal. Jin brooded for a good while, then answered with a reluctant sigh.
"Very well. You undid my seal, so you have the right to ask that much. Four years. Exactly. When they are done, your enemies or whatever else be damned, I must go and find my body. What is the other condition."
"Until you get your body back, I want you to teach me how to handle the Flame Essence."
Her teaching was essential if I was ever to wield it properly. Given enough time I could fumble my way to it alone, but time was the one thing I lacked most.
"That is not difficult. Keep these two conditions, and that is all?"
"Yeah. Keep just those two, and I'll do everything I can to find your body. And once you've got it back, I won't refuse any cooperation that lets you take the Flame Essence again. How's that?"
"Hah... how did I, Jin of the Flame, come to be dragged about by a brat like this. Keep the promise. Without fail."
"Don't worry. It'll be a long journey, so let's get along from here on. Miss Jin of the Flame."
With Jin's deep sigh for a last word, the contract was sealed. It had run in a different direction than I had expected, but what I had gained was far greater. Jin circled round and round above my head, lamenting her pitiful lot. Watching her, I set the gladness in my chest in order.