Chapter 102
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 102
Chapter Title: A Crazy Woman Has Broken Into My Room
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The morning of the day that marked two weeks since my return from the battlefield.
The funeral for the fallen began.
A procession of bereaved families dressed in black filed past. The hymns of clerics filled the cemetery, echoing through the air.
The weather today was clear again.
Most of the deceased could not even have their bodies recovered. Among them were soldiers whose bodies were intentionally left behind. It was far better to bury a son on the spot than to bring home a corpse whose limbs had melted and been replaced with those of a pig.
The soldiers whose bodies were intact were laid to rest in small, two-meter-wide pits, seen off one last time by their families. Those who were not so fortunate had their names carved into a large monument in the center of the cemetery.
The monument, engraved with the names of the fallen, stood thirty meters tall. It was crafted from a special stone found only in ‘Melastus,’ a place often called the holy land of Astella’s followers.
Thanks to the stone’s unique properties, the names carved upon it would not fade, no matter how harsh the wind and rain. For this reason, the empire sometimes called the monument the ‘Eternal Memory.’
The hammers and chisels of dwarves carved new names into the stone, one by one. With every fall of a black stone chip, a clear tear fell.
I stood closest to the monument. A cold wind blew, heralding the start of winter.
Dressed in black, the saintess, Grisha, prayed before the monument. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot, as if she hadn’t slept well.
Rex, his body wrapped in bandages, had forced himself to come to the cemetery. In his hand was a bouquet of flowers.
Alter Haindel sat on a distant bench, watching the procession of those clad in black.
Rireu and I said nothing, simply gazing up at the monument.
Countless people offered their condolences in silence.
And still, the weather was clear.
* * *
Boasting the formidable stamina and regenerative abilities of an orc, Rex was discharged from the hospital just a week after waking up. He said he had to prepare for the commander’s exam and quickly returned to his hometown.
Alter was still continuing his rehabilitation, with an intensity that could only be described as brutish. On days when he seemed to be struggling, Rireu or I would voice our concerns that he might never walk again if he kept it up, but the old man seemed to turn a deaf ear to such warnings.
Meanwhile, Rireu was training hard every night, swinging her staff in the castle’s training grounds until her fingers were sore. The sound of lightning tearing through the air filled the hallways, and I found I didn’t mind it.
And what was I doing?
Nothing.
…….
Well.
I deserve a break, don't I?
In any case, the war in Vellaland had ended in victory.
Four Overlords were dead, and the Mazoku had lost half their forces. The wails of mourning that had risen from all corners of the continent had finally subsided, and most soldiers had easily dealt with the unconscious Mazoku and mutants.
To preserve what little strength they had left, the Mazoku had holed up in the northern lands with no intention of coming out, and the Grand General of the Allied Forces, the Sword Saint, was keeping watch over them.
For a brief time, the continent had grown quiet.
Having blown away the anxiety and fear that had festered in my heart by drinking tea and talking with Rireu, I now truly wanted to enjoy a complete rest.
If not now, when else could I laze around and waste time?
“...Ah, it’s gone.”
I muttered to myself while staring blankly at the ceiling wallpaper.
My hobby these days was to press my fingers firmly against my eyelids, then roll my eyes to chase the unidentifiable afterimages that lingered in the corners of my vision.
For this wretched body that could handle neither alcohol nor coffee, this was the only form of entertainment available.
If only my hand were fine, I would be playing the guitar and piano to pass the time.
‘I should probably get my hand fixed soon.’
When my right hand was first ruined, I thought, ‘What a relief.’
As I’ve mentioned several times, messing with my own bio-currents is a highly dangerous affair. To have fought against an Overlord and won by sacrificing only my right hand was getting off incredibly cheap.
Had things gone wrong, I could have lost my life, not just my hand.
‘…But consoling myself like that only works for a day or two.’
Once the tension and the stench of blood from the battlefield faded, replaced completely by the warmth and leisure of daily life, my ruined right hand started to become more and more of a nuisance.
First, I couldn’t focus on my studies.
Taking notes, which would normally take less than a second, took over five seconds with my left hand, and even then, eighty percent of the painstakingly written words were often illegible.
And what about changing clothes? The awful, frustrating sensation of trying to button a cardigan was beyond description.
Mealtime, in particular, was a series of tortures.
The food served in the castle required a fork and knife, but the problem was that I couldn’t hold both at the same time.
On days when steak was served for dinner, a truly hellish scene would unfold. Just imagine it: a scrawny boy lifting a whole, large steak and tearing at it with his teeth and hand.
My reflection in the mirror was reminiscent of Saturn in Goya’s painting.
Don’t try to look up what Saturn is eating. You’ll definitely regret it.
“There are several methods, but…”
Fortunately, since the world I was sucked into was a medieval ‘fantasy’ world, there were various tools that could regenerate damaged nerves.
The first thing that came to mind was an artifact called [Wax Cells]. This artifact allowed the user to recover from any injury. Whether an arm was cut off, a leg was severed, or even if one’s head was lopped off. The sight of new, pure white cells sprouting in their place was so grotesque it could make you mistake the game’s genre.
‘The demerit on this one is too big.’
Like most artifacts, these [Wax Cells] had a major weakness.
Namely, if the body of the character who acquired the artifact was exposed to heat above a certain temperature, it would begin to melt.
Like ice cream on a tropical night.
Horrifically.
…It’s nothing new, but this game is full of insane artifacts.
That’s why this artifact was typically used as a set with special armor that granted a ‘flame immunity’ effect.
However, considering my disastrous physical abilities, even draping heavy steel armor over my shoulders would be impossible, so this alternative was ruled out.
The next thing that came to mind was a special scripture, which the community often referred to by a peculiar abbreviation.
[Therefore, You Too Shall Sprout Again]
When I first heard the nickname, I thought it sounded like some kind of spell for raising zombies.
‘But it really was a book that could bring back the dead.’
To be precise, it was a ‘healing prayer powerful enough to bring back the dead,’ but what’s the difference, really?
A cleric’s ordinary prayers aren’t very effective on injuries in the realm of the ‘naturally unhealable,’ like severed arms or damaged neural pathways.
That’s because their prayers are based on the concept of accelerating ‘natural healing.’
No matter how hard a cleric prays over someone with a severed arm, flesh and skin will only grow to cover the wound and prevent further bleeding; a new arm won't sprout.
However, the verses contained within the special scripture [Therefore, You Too Shall Sprout Again] had the effect of completely restoring the target’s injuries.
With this prayer, even severed arms and legs would sprout anew!
…And, of course, heads too!
‘This game is truly full of insane items.’
On top of that, compared to the [Wax Cells], this scripture had practically no demerits.
Its use was simply limited to two times.
One might think such a restriction is nothing for a scripture that can revive the dead, but unfortunately, the world doesn’t work so conveniently.
This special scripture, [Therefore, You Too Shall Sprout Again], could be obtained from an old church located in the deepest part of a special region called ‘Archipelago Mist.’
Are the countless monsters swarming within Archipelago Mist the problem?
No.
The monsters’ levels weren’t even that high. Mid-40s to late-50s at best?
Having fought and won against an Overlord, why would I now find level 40 or 50 monsters to be a challenge?
The monsters within Archipelago Mist aren’t much of a problem.
The real problem is finding Archipelago Mist.
Archipelago Mist can appear anywhere on the continent.
It could manifest on the battlefields of the northern continent where the Demon King and the Sword Saint are facing off, or it could eerily rise up in the warehouse of the Miles family, who have been fishermen for eight generations in the south.
Thus, with no rhyme or reason, Archipelago Mist appears and disappears at will all across the continent.
Its size is random, and the time it stays in one place is random.
Leaping across space is a given, and it’s frequently sighted in different regions simultaneously.
Sometimes the mist stays put where it appeared, and other times it roams the continent at dozens of kilometers per hour from its point of origin, which is why most players in the game don’t intentionally try to seek out Archipelago Mist.
For players, Archipelago Mist was… how should I put it? It was less a ‘region’ and more akin to a random event.
If you were lucky and it passed near your character, you’d go in. If not, you might never see it even once before clearing the game.
Even I, who invested four thousand hours into the game, could count the number of times I’d entered Archipelago Mist on one hand.
‘It’s no different from finding a needle in a haystack.’
That’s how rare and unpredictable ‘Archipelago Mist’ is.
But… it’s not like there are other options.
It’s either find a needle in a haystack or become a wax man.
‘The rumor should have spread by now.’
Of course, I had no intention of bending over and sifting through the sand myself.
I had more than enough ‘money’ to solve most of the world’s problems, and I also had plenty of ‘time’ to use that ‘money.’
And if you have enough money and time?
There’s no problem in this world you can’t solve.
I had already asked a servant to spread a rumor among underworld figures like black market operators, brokers, and fixers: ‘A suspiciously wealthy tycoon is showing curiosity about Archipelago Mist.’
Information is something that people living in the ‘underworld’ tend to monopolize.
Because ‘information’ is directly tied to their livelihood.
To find good jobs, one must inevitably possess high-quality information. A fixer without good intel, no matter how skilled, would lose all the decent gigs to others and end up kicking cans. That was the law of their world.
By now, those with information about ‘Archipelago Mist’ and the skills to match should be starting to contact me, one by one.
These were people living in the ruthless world of freelancers, with no stable retirement or housing pensions. They couldn’t possibly pass up information that could lead to big money…
*Thump! Thump!*
As I was contemplating the sad state of life for underworld freelancers, the sound of someone knocking on my window reached my ears.
I lowered the hand that was rubbing my eyelids and looked toward the window where the sound came from.
There, a girl with striking red eyes was pressing her forehead against the windowpane, peering around inside the room.
“Ah, there he is!”
My eyes met the girl’s.
“Could you open the window for a sec~? I have something to ask.”
She spoke to me with a bright smile, like a child her age who had just found a four-leaf clover. Pointed canines peeked out from between her smiling lips.
She was a girl whose appearance couldn’t have been a better fit for the words Dracula or vampire.
If such a race existed in this world, I would have, without a moment’s hesitation, searched for a cross and garlic and bolted out the door.
“Excuse me~ Is this General Bin’s room~? Could you just answer that for me?”
The girl spoke with her cheek pressed flat against the clear glass. Her voice was light, as if she were calling a friend’s name in front of their house.
“...This is the third floor, you know?”
I couldn’t help but utter a line straight out of a third-rate horror comic.
Because my room really was on the third floor.
I said it was the third floor because it was the third floor.
Right, this is the third flo— wait.
What the.
Who are you.
“Well, they wouldn’t let me in the front gate because my identity was unconfirmed~ They didn’t believe me no matter how many times I told them I came because of the rumor. So I just came around.”
After saying that, the girl reached behind her back and pulled out a bent piece of wire, which she inserted into the crack of the window.
With practiced movements, she twisted the wire this way and that until she smoothly undid the window latch.
A cool autumn breeze blew in through the newly opened window, gently rustling my hair.
“There she is! The room at the end of the third-floor hallway!”
“Move! It’s an assassin!”
“Damn it, isn’t that General Bin’s room?!”
Along with the sound of the wind, I could hear the soldiers shouting chaotically from below.
I had no idea how to handle this commotion, so I stared at the girl for a moment.
“...General Bin’s room. Looks like I found the right place after all.”
*Bang!*
Immediately after, a young servant kicked open my door and burst in. He held a slender rapier in his hand.
“General, get back!”
The moment he saw the red-eyed girl, he charged at her without hesitation, shouting.
“I shall formally introduce myself to my sponsor! Born of the back alleys! Raised by the back alleys! The pride of the back alleys! My name is Sion!”
The girl with the striking red eyes and fangs raised her hand high with a bright smile and shouted her name.
At the tip of the girl’s raised hand was a guitar pick.
What the, when did she grab that? I left it on my desk.
“I heard a rumor that the General was looking for information and an escort to Archipelago Mist, so I came running straight here!”
The girl chirped cheerfully as she dealt with the servant’s charging blade. The rapier’s blade, now snapped in two, grazed my hair before embedding itself in the bed.
The sound of it tearing through fabric and cotton sent a chill down my spine.
“Well then, I look forward to working with you!”
A crazy woman has broken into my room.