Chapter 135
Chapter 135
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: The Price
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[Another Tale]
[This is another story.]
"Felix...!"
"..."
"Felix!!!"
"Damn it, I can't! I just can't do it!"
"Get a grip! You know this isn't something we want to do! It's something we have to do!!! Felix! If you don't, everyone here dies!!!"
The woman scolding Felix was named Tilla.
Tilla was the mage in Felix's hero party. She had personally performed the ritual of the Burying Left Hand and was the first to be consumed by its power.
Despite her thorough cleansing and meticulous skincare after a grueling day of camping, her skin was now marred with black blotches.
"Listen to me! I'm already too far gone!"
"Tilla, there has to be a way to save you—"
"No!!! I know my body better than anyone! Unless we satisfy the Burying Left Hand's demand right now, I'm as good as dead! Tell me, Felix! Can you do it!?"
"..."
"So please...! Please!!! Do what you have to do!!!"
"Tilla..."
"Don't look at me like that. Promise me. Promise you won't feel guilty about your actions. Promise you won't blame yourself for this...!"
"But—...! If I hadn't taken an interest in this Burying Left Hand...! If I hadn't insisted on exploring this ancient ruin!!!"
"Then I wouldn't have followed you! It was because you recklessly stepped into that ancient ruin, recklessly obsessed over its treasures—because you sought to experience more than anyone else! That's why I followed you! Hero of Insight, Felix! I never regretted following you! Everything I experienced with you, because I was with you, was the greatest fortune and blessing of my life!!!"
"..."
"Felix."
Tilla.
She grabbed Felix's hand.
She added her strength to the hand gripping the holy sword.
"You're sure, right?"
Tilla said, staring into Felix's eyes.
It was a ritual of sorts, something done routinely before Felix led the party into reckless adventures.
"..."
Felix met Tilla's gaze and flashed his characteristic frivolous smile.
As always.
"You think I'm gonna die or something?"
"..."
Normally, Tilla would have recoiled in disgust.
—If that ever happens, I'll make sure you die alone no matter what.
But Tilla now was different.
She looked at Felix and mustered a bright yet precarious smile.
"Yeah. Everything's gonna work out fine."
A moment later.
Felix killed Tilla.
To fulfill the Burying Left Hand's demand.
Yes.
All of this was to fulfill that unjust, unreasonable demand.
A heinous act committed by someone.
To pay the price for a city brought to ruin.
Felix gazed at Tilla's fallen form.
He gazed at the holy sword stained with her blood.
"That should do it..."
Felix tried to convince himself.
That was when it happened.
Crack.
Crack.
A grotesque sound and motion, like dry branches snapping.
The Burying Left Hand began to move again.
...It began to voice its next demand.
"Ha!"
The hero let out a hollow laugh.
Soon, that laugh turned into one laced with madness.
Felix realized too late.
Their arrogance.
"Pay the price for a ruined city..."
Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands.
There was no way the likes of them could pay for those deaths.
The Burying Left Hand's demands continued.
Even if everyone there met their end—
Crack.
Crack.
It did not stop.
Not enough price had been paid yet.
Flutter flutter flutter.
It was like a flock of birds blotting out the sky.
Innumerable sheets of paper swirled through the air on invisible currents.
Those currents spiraled around a central point.
And at that center stood a girl.
A girl with clear, deep eyes that seemed able to hold anything yet never be filled.
Her name was Pocherina.
She was the spirit of the Sword of Insight.
This place was Pocherina's inner world, and the countless papers swirling around her were the manifestation of her power.
The power of insight.
The power to record everything experienced by the holy sword and its wielder.
Not just the scent of a passing blade of grass, but the feel and texture of the ground underfoot.
And even the heroes' impressions and realizations.
A vast collection of special knowledge accumulated over eons, passed through the hands of many heroes.
Its immensity and value rivaled not a single book, but an enormous library or archive.
The power that had turned an ordinary young man with strong curiosity and a thirst for adventure into an exceptional adventurer was now proving its worth in yet another way.
"Bring before me a being who wields the sword in the morning, handles the mysteries of magic at noon, commands nature in the evening, and illuminates the surroundings with divinity at dawn."
Pocherina mulled over the Burying Left Hand's demand.
Then, the papers drifting around her passed before her eyes.
Like piecing together scattered puzzle pieces to find the answer.
Letters, words, sentences endlessly combined and broke apart, slowly forming a single picture.
The information Pocherina sought.
The answer to the Burying Left Hand's demand.
"Ugh...!"
Pocherina's youthful face twisted in pain.
The price for the utter destruction of an entire city, was it?
As such, the Burying Left Hand's demand was utterly absurd.
Even the power of insight strained under the burden of devising an answer.
Within the vast knowledge of insight's power, finding that answer was no easy task.
"So, that's it... A being who handles swordsmanship and magic, spirits and divinity all at once..."
Pocherina shook her head with the expression of someone who'd heard a terrible joke.
Insight had spent centuries alongside special beings called heroes.
It was a wealth of experiences and encounters.
Figures or monsters that an ordinary person might encounter once in a lifetime—if at all—Pocherina had met countless times.
"Never heard of such a thing..."
And yet, she had never once encountered a being like the one the Burying Left Hand described.
Not even anything similar.
It was only natural.
Even someone proficient in just two of those was a rare eccentric.
All four?
Normally, Pocherina would have decisively concluded from her vast insight.
That no such thing existed in the world.
However—
Pocherina understood the principles of magically binding contracts.
One could not demand the impossible, nor offer the impossible as payment.
In other words.
The Burying Left Hand's demand only seemed nearly impossible—it was not truly so.
Just as driving a nation to ruin with a curse seemed impossible, yet had actually happened.
Surprisingly, the Burying Left Hand's demand was valid and fulfillable.
"What a comfort..."
An impossible demand versus one merely bordering on impossible.
To Pocherina, who had to fulfill it, there was little difference.
Both felt equally hopeless.
But she couldn't give up.
The Burying Left Hand.
The power contained within far exceeded their expectations.
Failing to meet its demands would bring inescapable ruin to all who participated in the ritual.
"Ugh...!"
How long had the power of insight been at work?
"Got it...!"
Pocherina cried out in triumph.
The power of insight had finally inferred an answer to that impossible demand.
Fragments of memories encountered by different heroes of insight.
Interwoven, they pointed to a figure from the past.
"Tarack of the Layered Masks..."
He was a necromancer versed in curses and blood magic, who trapped others' souls within himself through wicked rituals and wielded their powers as his own.
Tarack had wielded the soul of a swordsman, a mage, a spirit user, and a priest.
—Bring before me a being who wields the sword in the morning, handles the mysteries of magic at noon, commands nature in the evening, and illuminates the surroundings with divinity at dawn.
A perfect match for the Burying Left Hand's demand.
The problem? He was a being from a distant past.
Could there be a way to summon him before the Burying Left Hand, transcending not just space but time itself?
Surprisingly, there was.
The source of information on Tarack.
A book scattered across the world in countless fragments, reassembled by the power of insight.
It was a record written by Tarack himself.
In that record, which detailed his myriad atrocities as great achievements, Tarack left words for the reader.
A taunt to challengers and advice to followers.
None other than the method to summon Tarack's soul.
Right now, there were no fewer than two—
No, three heroes gathered here.
Along with their companions.
If they combined their strength, performing the necromancer's summoning ritual was possible.
But—
"Someone's going to get hurt..."
No fewer than three holy swords and their wielders were present.
No matter how mighty the necromancer's power, his malevolent aura would lose its potency before heroes.
Subjugating the summoned necromancer would not be difficult.
The issue lay in the method of summoning.
To summon Tarack, someone's body had to serve as the vessel.
Accepting the mighty necromancer's presence.
And then being subjugated while hosting him.
Could anyone emerge unscathed?
"...No. It's not just injury. High chance of... losing oneself entirely."
Best case, permanent disability. Worst case, death.
Pocherina agonized.
Was this right?
Sacrificing one for the many?
Paying someone else's sin's price themselves?
She didn't know.
But one thing was certain—
"I can't just give up without trying."
Flutter flutter flutter—
The papers swirling around Pocherina stopped, then dissolved into formless wisps and vanished.
The accelerated thinking maintained by insight's power halted.
Pocherina exited her inner world and spoke to her master, Felix.
"...It's fine now."
"No, I mean it's already over."
"No, what I'm saying is—it's all resolved."
Only then did Pocherina take in the atmosphere of the place.
The tension racing toward catastrophe had deflated limply.
"Hah... hah..."
Even Tilla, writhing under the Burying Left Hand's corrupting power, had regained her composure.
The black spots steadily creeping over her skin were receding.
A sight possible only after resolving the Burying Left Hand's demand, as Felix said.
Pocherina's face turned dumbfounded within her inner world.
Felix and the others, answering her question with their gazes, turned to Rishir.
At that moment.
Rishir approached Tilla and extended his hand toward her body.
"..."
As all eyes focused on him.
Rishir shook his head.
"Ah, doesn't work."
"""...?"""
What didn't work?
That cryptic remark drove everyone in the room mad.
Pocherina, still without an answer, pressed Felix.
"...Dunno. Rishir just raised his hand and it worked?"
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
Her doubts only deepened despite the answer.
Crack.
Crack.
"""...!!!"
At that moment.
Everyone recoiled in horror, their gazes snapping to the Burying Left Hand.
It was moving again.
"Why!? Wasn't that the end of it!?"
Jane's shout.
Pocherina answered.
"What...?"
Jane's eyes widened.
His shock slowly spread to those around him.
The atmosphere grew heavy.
No one dared voice any hope.
Perhaps.
Their doom was only a matter of time—
Rishir, hearing the voice in his mind, hesitantly raised his hand.
Again hearing the voice in his mind, Rishir hesitantly raised his hand.
Dunno this one.
Still, Rishir raised his hand just in case.
Really no idea on this one?
But just in case?
Huh?
Flash.
"""..."""