The Scales of Jormungandr
Mystery: Jormungandr
Indulgence.
Just as the name suggests, it was a writ of pardon—a document that proved one’s sins had been absolved.
A priest of the Goddess Church could issue only three Indulgences in an entire lifetime. Naturally, granting one demanded the utmost caution. A single misstep could mean being defrocked for the very Indulgence one had bestowed. Even an Indulgence could not forgive the Ten Great Sins prescribed by the Church; any priest who issued one to a sinner guilty of those crimes would inevitably be stripped of office.
“……Even if you claim to be the Knight King’s successor, I cannot issue an Indulgence to an unproven man.”
Andrew’s words were perfectly sound. Issuing an Indulgence meant staking his entire position on the act. Becoming a full priest of the Goddess Church carried weight far beyond the ordinary. Of a hundred deacons who served more than a decade, only one ever rose to the priesthood; the priests dispatched to the cities were figures even a city’s lord dared not treat lightly. That was the stature of the office. No man would casually risk everything he had built simply because someone asked.
“Isn’t it only natural that something given should be repaid?”
At my words, Priest Andrew shook his head.
“An Indulgence can be used only by the person to whom it was issued. I am grateful for your donation to the shelter, but an Indulgence granted to the Knight King cannot be used by anyone else.”
“Yet it was used for absolution, was it not?”
“…….”
Andrew’s lips pressed shut.
Yes. That was the strange part. Indulgence. Andrew had granted Knight King Wilhelm the right to have his sins remitted. Because the promise was made directly to the Goddess, no paper was even required; it could be invoked at any time. Therefore no one but the original recipient should have been able to use it.
……Yet it was used. The immunity of the Indulgence issued to the Knight King was activated for me.
The moment the man before him had spoken the words “I absolve your sins, Andrew,” the priest had confronted a situation he could not comprehend.
In this world, committing sins caused something called “Karma” to accumulate. It was the opposite of Fame; priests could read another’s Karma or Fame simply by looking.
……Just like that. It was simply visible to the eye. From this, Andrew could tell that the man claiming to be the Knight King’s successor had at least not lived a life of sin.
Yet the reverse was also true. The moment Andrew had used the Prayer of Adoration on a human rather than the Goddess, his own Karma had surged as if it would explode. The act violated the doctrines of the Goddess Church. Karma did not accumulate solely from evil deeds; a priest who directly contravened the teachings of his own faith also accrued it.
A priest cannot issue an Indulgence to himself. In only a few days the Church would have learned that I used the Prayer of Adoration on a man.
He would have been demoted to deacon or defrocked outright. Yet to protect the city, Priest Andrew had broken doctrine. His Karma had risen, and judgment had been all that awaited him.
……Yet the Karma vanished.
The instant the man before him declared “I absolve your sins,” Priest Andrew’s Karma melted away like snow. The immunity of the Indulgence had activated. Having witnessed the Goddess herself with his own eyes, there was no room for doubt. He was equally certain that the Indulgence which had triggered was the very one he himself had issued. It was as natural as a mother recognizing her own child.
“The Knight King told me something. Priest Andrew, he said you owed him a great debt.”
“Mmm.”
“A debt you could never repay even if you spent your entire life. And yet you find it so painful to give a single Indulgence to his successor?”
Priest Andrew swallowed a low groan. As the man said, Andrew did indeed owe the Knight King a debt. But it had been a secret between the two of them alone. Had he truly spoken of it to his successor?
“……Did you hear about that ‘debt’ directly from Lord Wilhelm?”
“I can speak of it with my own mouth if you wish.”
“Then do so.”
Speak, then. His attitude was confident. Did he truly believe the peerless Knight King would never have confided their private secret to another? Unfortunately for him, Priest Andrew did not know that the Knight King was me.
I shrugged and told him exactly what he wanted to hear.
“I personally purified ‘Eldritch Andasar.’”
“……You even know Andasar’s true identity?”
“That she was your hidden daughter, you mean?”
“……!!!”
Shock flooded Priest Andrew’s eyes. It could not be otherwise. Priest Andrew was the one who endlessly handed out honor-related quests. Only after completing every last one and raising his favor to the absolute maximum did he offer the hidden quest “Eldritch Purification”—and the only character who had ever reached that point was Wilhelm.
Eldritch Andasar. Andasar was Priest Andrew’s hidden daughter. She had become an Eldritch through the Unique-grade material item Eldritch’s Cursed Black Grimoire. After purifying her I had obtained that grimoire. Naturally, the only person who knew this was Wilhelm. That the man of honor, Wilhelm, would have told anyone else was something Priest Andrew simply could not believe.
The endless honor quests were ultimately a search for someone who would carry this secret to the grave.
His hidden daughter had become an Eldritch, the very embodiment of wickedness. For Priest Andrew it was a matter that had to be resolved in absolute secrecy. In the end she had been purified, yet Andasar had never returned to Andrew’s arms.
“I will bring Andasar back to you.”
“W-what are you saying?”
“I know where Andasar is.”
“Wh-where is she?!”
Priest Andrew seized my shoulders and shouted. His composure shattered in an instant. Purification had been achieved, yet Andasar’s trail had vanished without a trace. At the time I had not known where she had gone. But now I did.
“Kramdel.”
……She was in Kramdel—the fortress city, or the city of monsters, as it was also called.
“Kramdel…… isn’t that a place humans cannot even enter?”
How could the human Andasar be in such a city? Sadly, that belief was mistaken.
“Even though she lost the black grimoire and was purified of the curse, from the moment she became an Eldritch, Andasar was no longer human.”
“Ahh…….”
Priest Andrew’s legs trembled violently; then he half-collapsed. His eyes were full of self-reproach. I lowered my head slightly and drove the final nail into the guilt-ridden priest.
“To bring her back, I need an Indulgence. Priest Andrew.”
So hand one over.
*
The next day I left Knight’s Garden aboard a Hydragon carriage.
“Is that the Indulgence?”
Inside the carriage Isabella eyed the paper I held. It was a stiff, brown, square sheet that looked rather like a coarse veil. Nothing was written on it, yet this was indeed an Indulgence. When activated, the recipient’s name and the Goddess Church’s seal would appear upon the paper; they had been manufactured separately because people who had never seen the real thing refused to believe.
“I imagine this is your first time seeing one.”
“Yes…… there is no Goddess Church in the desert.”
True enough. The Desert Queen had always despised the Goddess Church. Come to think of it, a pursuit party would already have been formed by now and would be chasing us with everything they had. The Queen would never simply let her princess go.
“How did you end up becoming the desert princess?”
Since the thought had occurred to me, I finally voiced the curiosity I had been putting off. When I had raised her she had never obtained the rank of princess.
Isabella hesitated before answering.
“After the Queen saw the ‘Mystery’ I possessed, she appointed me princess.”
……Wait. She saw the Mystery and made her a princess?
The completely unexpected answer made me tilt my head inwardly. What exactly was a Mystery? A Mystery was an “effect.” In games, the glowing lights or colors that followed a character’s appearance—the way an item shone green or red once it reached a certain enhancement level. In Pangenia those distinctive traits were called Mysteries. The Mystery I needed to obtain in the next main quest was the same sort of thing.
She shouldn’t have had anything beyond the basic Mystery.
I was certain she had possessed nothing more than the basic white stream of light purchased with money from a Mystery artisan—something with no special power whatsoever. I had no memory of her owning any Mystery that granted special abilities or proved a particular qualification.
“What kind of Mystery did you have?”
“Well…… shall I show you?”
“Mm.”
I nodded, and Isabella spread both hands. At once a black pattern rose across her form. Countless black circular markings, like spots, enveloped her. They looked somewhat like eyes, somewhat like a leopard’s hide—
Snake scales.
—and somewhat like the scales of a peculiar serpent. And I knew exactly what that Mystery was.
The Scales of Jormungandr.
My mind went blank for a moment. Why did Isabella have that?
“Where did you obtain that Mystery?”
Isabella explained slowly.
“……One day I dreamed that a gigantic serpent coiled around me. Afterward I gained this Mystery…… but it had no power at all.”
“You were chosen.”
“Chosen?”
“It means the Desert Queen saw correctly.”
Mystery: Scales of Jormungandr. It possessed no abilities, yet it conferred a single qualification.
The right to possess a star. It is the Mystery that seeks the star of Jormungandr.
One of the thirty-two stars. Among them, the star of Jormungandr that no one had ever found. One of the few named Transcendence-grade stars. That Mystery granted the right to seek it out and claim it.
Once she hits level 10 she’ll be able to find it immediately.
Yet something felt off. Isabella was still only level 8—far too early for Transcendence—and the idea that she had simply stumbled upon such a Mystery by chance made even less sense. To dream one night and obtain a Mystery everyone had been desperately searching for?
Did she satisfy some specific condition?
I stroked my chin. As she herself had said, pure coincidence was impossible. She must have fulfilled a hidden condition. What was certain was that nothing of the sort had existed when I played. And the Desert Queen, recognizing that the Mystery would lead to a star necessary for Transcendence, had clearly placed Isabella in the position of princess.
“……Why are you looking at me like that?”
“It’s nothing.”
I shook my head at Isabella’s puzzled expression. I had said it was nothing, but in truth it was very much something.
The Queen will never give up on Isabella.
I wouldn’t either. Whether she intended to snatch the star for herself or truly make Isabella her heir, either way Isabella was an enormous treasure.
Hah.
To realize it only now.
“But…… where are we?”
Isabella asked in a bewildered voice as she looked outside the carriage. The landscape beyond was nothing but graveyards.
“Necrovalley. The shortcut to Kramdel.”
This was the city of the dead, Necrovalley. True to its name, not a living soul could be found. It was a dangerous region overflowing with undead and ghosts, yet only by passing through it could one locate the warp that led to Kramdel.
“This should be far enough.”
I stopped the carriage near a particular grave. Beside the countless tombs stood innumerable memorial stones for the long-dead. I drew out the shovel I had prepared in advance.
Thud! Thud! Thuuud!
“Wh-what are you doing?!”
Isabella recoiled in horror at the sight of me digging up a grave.
Digging up another person’s grave causes ‘Karma’ to accumulate.
At the same time my Karma rose. I paid it little mind. Why else had I gone to the trouble of obtaining an Indulgence?
And the reason I was digging graves was simple.
The underground dungeon of Necrovalley.
Somewhere among the countless tombs lay a grave connected to an underground dungeon. Inside that dungeon was the shortcut to Kramdel.
“Hmm. Not this one, it seems.”
“…….”
Leaving the flustered Isabella behind, I began searching for other graves and digging them up. Before long a message floated into view.
The ‘Heavenly Spirit Egg’ is being affected.
The hatch rate of the ‘Heavenly Spirit Egg’ has increased.
……I paused for a moment.
So it reacts to Fame and Karma?
The hatch rate had also risen when I gained Fame by completing the True Glory achievement. It seemed the Heavenly Spirit Egg was influenced by my Fame—or my Karma.
Still, it can’t be helped.
I could not give up. Reaching Kramdel and obtaining that “strongest Mystery” was every bit as important. Besides, just because it reacted to Karma did not mean the effect was necessarily bad. It might even be better.
Thunk!
Suddenly something caught on the shovel as I dug.
You have discovered ‘Necrovalley: Crow Cemetery Dungeon’.
*
Dungeons. According to the game’s lore, dungeons existed somewhere between the “cities” and the “Abyss.” That was why hidden warps were occasionally discovered inside them. Naturally, the secret warp leading to Kramdel was somewhere in this dungeon as well.
“Where the hell is this place? Where the hell are we……?!”
“Shh! Keep it down. I can’t even hear the crows cawing.”
……How long had it been since we entered the dungeon? Turning down a narrow alley, I was forced to stop, frowning. A young, childish voice had reached me from not far away. Yet this was the underground dungeon of Necrovalley—a place where living people could not, and must not, exist. Still, as if to prove I had not misheard, the voices of a young boy and girl continued to ring out.
“This has to be a hidden-camera prank, right?”
“Oppa. Didn’t you hear them tell you to shut up?”
“I really need to take a dump—somebody get me out of here!”
“……Ah, this pig bastard must’ve boiled a train whistle and eaten it!”