Missing Link

"This is… There is quite a variety of magical beasts here as well."

They had not merely put the beasts on display; simple scenes depicted how each one had lived and how it had moved about. Wherever the eye fell, the dioramas were excellent.

One of them caught Luke’s attention at once.

"This is…!"

A crocodile-like snout, powerful hind legs, even the texture of hard scales rendered with impressive fidelity. Of course Luke would never fail to recognize it.

"A Trex!"

Far smaller than the real creature, naturally—reproducing that magical beast at true size indoors would have been a nightmare of logistics—but still.

"Setting the scale aside, the accuracy of the recreation is remarkable."

And more than anything else, what held Luke’s gaze was this: the Trex model was moving.

-Kroaaaaah-!

It even reproduced the cry. Compared with the voice of a living Trex five thousand years ago the force was lacking, yet the resemblance was clear. Modern analytical power must have been poured into every detail.

"Is the Trex that great?" Shirud asked, watching Luke’s eyes sparkle.

Among children the Trex ranked among the most beloved magical beasts. It appeared constantly in films and comics; it even breathed fire—how splendid a spectacle was that? Wrapped in media’s finest direction and lighting, the “strongest magical beast” made a perfect idol for the young. Whether it truly was the strongest remained a mild point of debate among children, but no one disputed that it was strong. Honestly, even Shirud, who cared little for magical beasts in general, liked the Trex. Disliking a giant fire-breathing monster would have been the harder stance.

"No. Why would I care for Trexes? Other beasts aside, I have never been fond of them."

They had been wretchedly difficult to fight and equally difficult to cook. The meat had not even tasted good; almost no pleasant memories attached to the creature.

"…Then why are you staring at it like that?"

"This golem’s mana circuits are so finely made I can scarcely look away. Truly, even the simplest circuits of this age display extraordinary optimization and compression. Yet if one softened the angular forms just a little further, every last scrap of excess would vanish…"

"Ah. Right."

Shirud had no idea what any of that meant. Listening too carefully to Luke’s explanations only made his head hurt; he wished the lecture would stop. He was letting the words drift in one ear and out the other when the announcement came.

The moment the broadcast ended, Luke turned to Shirud.

"Necromancy, you say?"

Necromancy was black ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠magic that forcibly bound a corpse’s soul and made the body move. Why black magic? Because it exercised will directly upon a soul. For a mage to handle souls was taboo. To understand the reason required first understanding magic itself.

One might think mana was governed by the circles of the heart, yet circles were merely authority—tools. The true agent that commanded mana was the will of a human soul. And souls themselves possessed neither higher nor lower rank. A soul was an equal thing, the by-product of the rest called death that every living being carried. Therefore no soul held the right to interfere with another. Consequently, mana given form by a mage’s will could not easily be meddled with by another mage, and even a higher circle’s authority over another’s mana had its limits.

How, then, did black arts that ignored that resistance and invaded another’s soul operate? They forcibly dragged the target soul down in rank. Only then could domination be forced—because one’s own soul had become the higher existence. And once that happened, the dominated soul was annihilated. It would never be sent to the afterlife.

"Are they truly employing necromancy here? Is necromancy not forbidden?"

"If it’s licensed necromancy, it’s fine."

"…I see."

Come to think of it, the dignity of the soul had been bestowed by the goddess, not by humankind. Now that the gods were gone, did the afterlife still function? If even souls had become resources, was there still meaning in dividing magic into black and white after the gods’ disappearance?

No—even so, the act of degrading and destroying a soul’s rank was wrong. Just because proof of the afterlife was impossible did not mean a mage who handled the will of souls should treat them like raw material. Defiling a soul remained unforgivable even without a god to guarantee its dignity. And since Luke had never personally confirmed the gods’ absence, he could not be certain they were gone.

"Shirud."

Luke’s grave expression made Shirud flinch and stammer.

"H-huh? Wh-what? What’s wrong?"

"We go at once. I must witness that recreation of magical-beast behavior with my own eyes."

"R-right."

Had Luke wanted to see it that badly? Shirud edged half a step backward. The burning intensity in Luke’s gaze was simply too much.

"Haha… I fretted for nothing."

Of course. Modern necromancy was nothing like the necromancy of five thousand years ago. Class magic did not directly manipulate the will of a soul; it employed Words of Power formed from human language, so the difference was inevitable.

The principle of contemporary necromancy was this: an extremely precise mana circuit was fashioned into a core that served as a temporary soul, mimicking a real one—essentially a form of golemancy. Yet in the sense that it made a body repeat actions remembered by the flesh, it was not so different from true necromancy.

The longer the chant continued, the brighter the mana stone set in the caster’s forehead glowed, and the fossil kept twitching and stirring. The underlying principle was not far from classic necromancy, yet under these conditions it hardly seemed black magic at all.

Hmm. Many Words of Power I have never heard. Class Four or higher, perhaps?

Luke had studied every basic Word of Power belonging to Class Four and below. If these were unfamiliar, they surely belonged to a higher tier of magic. The sight of new magic brought an unbidden smile to his lips.

Is it that enjoyable? Kind of weird…

Shirud watched Luke smile and thought it was the first time he had seen a girl so taken with magical beasts. Girls usually showed little interest in them, didn’t they?

"Now then, everyone—this is a Zephyr."

A Zephyr, was it? Mild for a magical beast, not especially threatening, and small enough to match a child—suitable enough for an event like this, Luke supposed.

And yet…

"As you can see from the model, the Zephyr was a carnivore and regulated its temperature with fur. Watch carefully—see how it appears to be grooming its coat?"

"Hm?"

Luke tilted his head, sensing something wrong. The Zephyr shown in the model was not the Zephyr he knew. He had never even thought the specimen was a Zephyr; he had simply found it an unfamiliar beast and therefore interesting.

"That cannot be a Zephyr."

"What are you talking about?"

Luke ignored Shirud’s low question and stepped closer to the guide.

"That cannot be a Zephyr. It is different."

He laid out the facts.

A Zephyr had no such fur; it covered its body with moss and lived that way. The necromantic construct’s apparent grooming of fur was in truth the posture of arranging moss and refining mana—thereby granting its own body acceleration. Moreover, the Zephyr was not a carnivore but a herbivore. It hunted only a special plant found solely in the Demon Realm (a plant that possessed legs and fled), which gave it the outward traits of a carnivore. It almost never reverse-flowed into the middle world; because it hunted plants it posed little threat to humans; and upon death its hide split into thread-like strands that could be mistaken for fur.

So the mistake was understandable. Even though Demon Realm creatures differed in structure from those of the middle world, few were as thoroughly adapted to their environment as the Zephyr. Perhaps it had simply never been important enough to the description of the Demon Realm to be passed down in oral tradition.

Luke himself, short of space in the journals he had brought back, had focused on the dangerous beasts and never recorded harmless, insignificant ones like the Zephyr. Still, after the fighting ended he had written exhaustive reports on every magical beast and sent them.

Were my reports omitted?

It seemed more than a single ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠publisher’s error. The creature had been misidentified from the beginning. And five thousand years ago the Demon Realm had never been a friendly dimension anyone could casually explore. Why else would only three of them have remained after a “subjugation war”? They had been eaten by the Demon Realm, of course.

Someone must have stumbled upon a Zephyr fossil somewhere and analyzed it; the discrepancies with reality were so numerous that Luke could not leave them uncorrected. A mage who could not rest until wrong information was set right—that was simply who he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was.

"Uh… y-yeah?"

"L-Luke…!"

Shirud, suddenly sharing the weight of countless stares with Luke, felt his mind go blank.

"What on earth are you even saying…?"

Coming to a museum and throwing a tantrum because a magical beast did not match one’s imagination—was that something a person did?

The guide found the child’s earnestness rather cute, yet was thoroughly flustered.

"Ah, haha. I’m not sure how I should even answer…"

In unexpected situations people rarely produce an immediate response. Should he simply ignore it and continue the tour? Or offer some reply? The longer the hesitation stretched, the deeper the awkward atmosphere grew. Inside the guide’s ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠head only the single thought I’m finished kept looping.

"Luke!"

A moment later an elf with golden hair and a red-haired giant burst from the crowd—Yerna and Daiton. They too had heard the announcement and come to watch.

"I’m so sorry—the child simply loves magical beasts too much…! Ha, ha."

Yerna forced an awkward laugh, thrashing about for any way to salvage the strange mood. Daiton, caught up in the moment, bowed beside her and then turned to Luke.

"Luke, we’re leaving!"

"Leaving? Where to?"

"Anywhere!"

He seized Luke’s hand and pulled—

Thud!

—and someone caught against Daiton’s broad shoulder with a startled cry. Fortunately the person did not fall.

"Ah, I’m sorry!"

"Wait—stop right there."

Daiton halted at once. When the person you had bumped into told you to stop, you stopped. The man walked over with deliberate steps, crouched in front of Luke, and spoke.

"Kid. That story of yours… I’d like to hear it in detail."

Yerna and Daiton spoke almost in unison.

"What?" "Pardon?"

What now? Too many bewildering events had arrived at once; their minds refused to work. What finally jolted them awake was Luke’s irritated voice.

"I shall make this clear: I am no child. Call me Luke Irushi."

"All right, Luke Irushi. I already know."

"What? That you know me—what does that mean?"

The man only gave a short laugh and rose to his feet.

"Shall we change locations first? This atmosphere isn’t ideal for conversation. Ah—please continue the tour for everyone else."

With a languid wave of his hand he walked away; the guide, as if entranced, answered, “Ah, yes! The next fossil we will show you is…” and resumed the presentation.

Left standing alone was Shirud.

"……What just happened."

What on earth just happened?