Chapter 287
Chapter 287
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 287
Chapter Title: The Key to the Nine Myriad Long River (3)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I'm exhausted. Fernandez pressed his gritty eyes and tilted his head back. In that moment, blood trickled from his nose. He grimaced and quickly formed hand seals. The droplets turned to ash and scattered into the air before they could even stain his clothes.
-How much time is left?
‘By my calculations, five years.’
-To maintain bodily functions?
‘……Three years. Maybe. Or possibly even less.’
Pinching his nose to staunch the bleeding, he gazed at the rippling blue horizon beyond the window. Feizashi murmured in his ear.
-Any way to extend my lifespan?
‘None.’
At Fernandez's firm response, Feizashi fell silent. No, there was one. And both of them knew it. But the reason they wouldn't attempt it……
[Father! Father!!]
That voice still rang fresh in his ears. Even if he died. Even if he crumbled to dust. No matter the circumstances, he would die as a human. If a method had to be found, it wouldn't be one that prolonged life by tainting his soul with impurities.
There was only one means he needed to seek. As always.
Victory. That alone was his goal.
-By the way, about this spear.
Feizashi changed the subject. Fernandez, who had been resting while staring out the window, turned his head back toward the table.
The room was a chaotic mess of scattered experimental materials. On the table lay the white mane spear, etched with magic circles ground from mana stones. Measuring tools and observation devices dissected even the tiniest circuit boards on the spear.
One week. That was how long he had spent in this workshop, personally assembled by Queen Leia. Composed of the finest experimental materials owned by Maleirn, this workshop boasted superior facilities compared to any he had possessed in life.
With a setup like this, crafting ordinary relics would be a breeze. And with Fernandez as the user, he could produce exceptionally delicate and powerful ones.
But the ancient relic before him was on another level entirely.
‘Indeed. I can't figure it out at all.’
Fernandez clicked his tongue and dusted off his hands. The power and operating principle of this relic were exceedingly simple. Mana, or life force. Especially when infused with spirit energy, it provided physical augmentation proportional to the amount input.
In short, it meant slamming mana into it granted superhuman physical performance. Fernandez could craft relics with such mechanisms anytime, and they weren't particularly rare.
But its purity was unmatched. Relic grades could be crudely expressed by "consumption efficiency." For example, how much input was needed to produce an output of 10. That metric divided relic grades.
Consider a common street mana lamp: the total mana consumed per hour versus the light produced. That efficiency indicated the relic's grade.
‘Though mana lamps are too crude to even qualify as relics.’
Advancing further, if a magic orb could emit light at relic level……
-Lamkish's Beacon.
It wasn't the highest grade, but something like Lamkish's Beacon required absurdly little mana relative to its luminosity. Quantifying mana was tricky, but conventionally, imagine investing 10 mana to get 8 units of light.
Higher grades might achieve 9:10 efficiency. Legendary relics from the material world demanded even more precise figures due to their superior efficiency.
But this spear. The white mane spear……
‘It converts consumed mana directly into power.’
Not a single drop leaked from the mana flowing through its circuits. All mana traversed the circuits intact and output as results. It was an impossible performance for a relic. A level of existence that defied reality—a true "miracle."
Even mana circuits engraved directly into a master mage's body couldn't achieve this. Natural mana phenomena always had leakage. Mana's fundamental property was diffusion, so no matter the control, leak-free circuits were impossible.
Yet this spear accomplished it. He couldn't even imagine how, but it did. Calmly. Thus, he hadn't left the workshop for a week. Curiosity as a mage played a part, but encountering such a relic for the first time was the bigger factor.
‘The mana circuits are very simple.’
Clean formulas without complexity. In terms of formula difficulty alone, they were common even in low-grade relics.
-The purity is extraordinarily high.
Forgoing delicacy for stubborn purity in its circuits and structure, Fernandez began to feel awe as he examined them. Who could have crafted such a relic? From the Heavenly War era, it suggested it wasn't made by mortal hands.
And that meant……
‘Relics made with divine power could still be destroyed.’
Even during the Heavenly War, relics had grades. Powerful, delicate ones versus inferior ones. Relics directly crafted by gods—like the key-sword Fernandez often used as a sacred weapon—were top-tier. This mane spear likely was too.
Other Heavenly War-era relics in the treasury, with circuits too intricate for him to decipher, followed the same logic. Relics crafted by gods themselves, preserved to this day.
If even those circuits were destroyed……
-The death of gods. Probably when the Serpent Kings of the Elf Triarchy breached the Elf Pantheon and slew their gods.
‘But Feizashi, a god's death doesn't necessarily mean the end for their creations.’
Otherwise, the elves would have gone extinct the moment their gods died. Or Queen Leia's Gaimeorn Greatsword should have been destroyed.
Gaimeorn Greatsword emanated power not from Maclaren, but some other entity—likely the elves' sea god. A being slain in the Heavenly War. If its power lingered as a relic, the hypothesis failed.
‘It means an event occurred that could destroy divine relics, independent of the gods' deaths.’
Then why did some relics retain performance while others were ruined? The Heavenly War artifacts in the treasury shared no common traits beyond being god-made.
Hypotheses piled up, only to be discarded. Information was sorely lacking. The Heavenly War was an event from over a thousand years ago, before civilized society, when humans were mere tribal folk. No records survived.
The elves might have remnants. But their strongholds were inland then, and the Serpent King's flagship a mere evacuation ship. Amid that chaos, they wouldn't have bothered with histories or artifact crafting secrets.
"I'll die trying. Maybe scour wild mountains for uncharted dungeons."
-No. Dungeons undiscovered even at the apocalypse's brink? Finding them now is impossible.
"I know, Feizashi. Just venting."
Humans, hell, heavens—before the Final War, all played every card and exploited anything necessary. It was that brutal. An undiscovered dungeon from then was undiscoverable now.
Moreover, time was never his ally. No time to stall in fatigue. Time was his most precious expendable resource.
Fernandez stretched and rolled his neck. He pulled a binder from under the scattered experiment logs and opened it before him.
"Let's begin."
-Good. War game scenario No. 113 onward.
"Already that far? Impressive."
He chuckled and flipped pages. Skipping through the densely packed tiny script, he reached a blank page. Adding small footnotes, he took up his pen.
"There might be apocalypses we haven't considered yet."
When experiments hit walls or fatigue overwhelmed, Fernandez and Feizashi pooled their minds for thought experiments.
If the apocalypse was real, how would the world end? What being, by what means?
For a villain who had witnessed the world's fall and aided its collapse, it was a delightful pastime.
* * *
Over a fortnight after Fernandez departed, Paltennoia's underground sewers were fully purified. No one opposed clearing them, but among the workers, only one man was truly sincere.
And the purification was essentially that one man's achievement. Zephys rolled his stiff shoulders and crushed the heart of the last creature—born of heresy, black magic, or devils themselves.
"This seems to be the last one."
"Congratulations!!"
Everys shouted, catching Zephys's mutter. He gave her a slightly awkward look, then pitied the soot and filth caking her face and clothes.
For a noble lady from the empire's deepest palace—handling only papers, steeped in finery and luxury—it had been grueling days.
Yet Everys followed him without complaint. She offered no combat aid. Naturally. Her heaviest weapon was a dagger by his standards.
But she carried holy relics on her back, handing them over when needed. The sewers' darkness required torches, and by taking the dirty tasks, she let Zephys focus solely on pursuit and judgment.
To say she wasn't helpful would be a lie. Beyond material aid, her support bolstered his spirit.
"You've worked hard."
"It's all for the city folk—what's there to it!"
Everys laughed brightly. Her fatigue couldn't compare to his. He was Demonica; she, an untrained civilian. Yet her vitality and jokes kept him from crumbling under exhaustion.
Perhaps she served as a landmark for him. Excommunicated, unable to minister, no longer under church protection—a wandering outcast. She was the sole civilian showing him kindness.
"What now?"
"May I speak sincerely?"
"……? Of course, I meant sincerely."
Leading toward the sewer exit, Zephys couldn't grasp her hesitation. It was a casual topic tossed out on the return trip.
"I plan to propose……."
"Propose? As a noble's daughter, you might even be considered late for marriage. Splendid."
Zephys felt a twinge of regret. No longer a priest, he couldn't bless this pure, bright noblewoman's wedding. Unable to perform sacraments, he had nothing to offer her.
Well, even as a layman, he could congratulate her. Zephys smiled faintly and gripped the sewer door handle.
"I'm no spinster!"
"Hm…… You're of marriageable age. Not too late at all. Congratulations."
"Aren't you curious who?"
"Naturally, the man wedding someone as excellent and refined as you must be an upright fellow."
"Aren't you curious?"
"……Fine. I am. Who?"
Zephys sensed something off in Everys's unusual persistence today. It was his inquisitor's instinct. The aura of someone hiding something.
Understandable, though. A bride-to-be's shyness, or youthful pride in boasting a fine lover. Wholesome either way.
Zephys's experience wouldn't crush young pride. Inquisitor though he was, he was also a priest. Counseling faithful was a priest's core virtue, so he approached her as a counseling priest.
"It's you!"
Nodding warmly, about to reply, "That young man must be exceptional," he let go of the handle.