Chapter 57
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 57
Chapter Title: The Reason for Regaining Strength
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“Oh...”
Sword appraisers recognize fine blades.
Musicians recognize fine instruments.
The moment Marsyas laid eyes on the instrument I'd brought, he couldn't tear his gaze away from my flute.
No wonder. Even to my eyes, it was a masterpiece among masterpieces, one of a kind. I could easily imagine how this satyr's eyes beheld my obsidian flute.
“Impossible... For such a treasure to exist in this world...”
His eyes wide as saucers, his trembling hands inching slowly toward the flute.
Just like Gollum finding the One Ring, Marsyas reached out toward my little darling as if entranced.
“Teacher?”
“Gah!?”
I called out lightly and pulled the flute back, snapping him out of it in an instant.
Yet his passionate gaze toward my precious darling cradled in my arms showed no sign of fading.
This man... he was utterly serious about instruments...!
“H-How in the world did you acquire such a divine artifact?!”
“You recognize it, then?”
Many students had gone to great lengths for today's assignment—crafting their own flutes or sourcing them from elsewhere—but most had likely bought them from instrument shops in the commercial district, just like me.
This morning alone, music stores must have been swarming with students.
Yet among them, I alone had brought a flute of true value. And Marsyas alone recognized its worth.
The others were murmuring around us, saying it just looked like a dingy old flute and wondering why the teacher was acting so strangely.
“Could I perhaps take a closer look?”
“Hmm...”
His musical discernment and passion for my darling were worthy of praise.
Still, the very idea of handing my little treasure over to someone else filled me with reluctance.
Especially seeing those eyes nearly turning Gollum-like with frenzy.
“Please, just once! Just let me look at it up close! If you're worried, take this in exchange—my treasure, the syrinx woven by my father Pan himself!”
Growing anxious at my hesitation, Marsyas thrust the wooden flute from his belt into my hand.
-Eek!?
A wooden panpipe made by bundling tubes of various sizes.
It was a Greek shepherd's panpipe, the syrinx, often carried by herdsmen and travelers.
Those who saw it gasped as if their throats were being strangled, unable to hide their shock.
“N-No way... Marsyas just handed over his syrinx with his own hands?”
“Last time the Zephyr twins sneaked that thing, didn't he nearly bury them alive in the forest?”
“A divine artifact woven by Pan the Shepherd God himself?”
All sorts of trivia buzzed around, but I was too busy examining the wooden flute now in my hand to pay attention.
“This... this is something special too.”
“Oh...? Could it be you recognize this child's uniqueness as well?”
Marsyas, who had been lost in my flute, caught my unwitting mutter like a ghost and turned sparkling eyes toward me.
“Of course. A musician with the eye to procure such an instrument wouldn't fail to appreciate my syrinx.
What do you say? Just a brief swap, to examine each other's.”
“Hmm... Very well.”
It wasn't on par with my darling, but Marsyas's syrinx was no ordinary item either.
I handed him the obsidian flute from my bosom and examined his syrinx from every angle.
“This is quite the peculiar thing.”
The obsidian flute was worthy of being called a divine artifact.
A single piece of obsidian, shaped naturally into a flute without any human craftsmanship.
With an inexplicable ghostly aura clinging to it, it seemed almost alive, emitting a strange glow that inevitably entranced anyone who recognized its true value—a treasure among treasures.
And the syrinx I'd received in exchange was equally mysterious and wondrous.
If the obsidian flute was a divine object, this syrinx was alive—a living thing in the truest sense.
At first glance, it was a crude flute seemingly made by roughly hollowing branches and binding them with vines.
But holding it and focusing even slightly, one could feel—unbelievably—the pulse of life within this wooden flute.
The rough bark, the faint life force and sap flowing beneath, pulsing away. The vines wrapping the body had grown from each tube, intertwining like roots to support the structure firmly.
Even up close, fresh green sprouts were budding on the body.
Yet the syrinx's true value lay beyond mere vitality.
It played the saintly act of an ordinary quirky flute on the surface, but my senses had detected the immense power slumbering within.
“Sss...”
It reminded me of the hidden paradise, the Wulim Peach Blossom Land, deep in the Ten Thousand Great Mountains of old.
This flute condensed the majestic natural energy of such a place, making my mouth water.
The wall I now faced was the brink of first-rate mastery—the so-called Despair Wall of first-rate martial artists, the threshold to peak.
Was the Mythic Age mere myth? Compared to the martial world, this Greece brimmed with spirit energy hundreds of times denser and purer.
Simply sitting under a tree at dawn, when energy was clearest, and meditating yielded effects akin to consuming a fine elixir.
Yet I hadn't breached the peak wall because my young body lacked the foundation in muscles and bones.
Pushing further risked imbalance between energy and flesh, so I'd been tempering my body slowly over time.
Absorbing the energy in this flute could resolve even that bodily issue.
‘With this much power, I could even aim for bone transformation and marrow cleansing.’
Such concentrated natural energy might allow not just absorption into my inner force, but artificially inducing transformation via the natural ki itself.
Normally, unabsorbable energies would linger and be expelled or slowly integrated, but the sheer magnitude here—and my possession of shinma ki, having started with the Heavenly Demon Divine Art, replicated every ki art and divine art, even the Twelve Divine Demons' demonic arts perfectly—made this feasible.
“Dianes? Dianes!”
“Ah!”
Lost in thought over the living grand elixir in my hand, I noticed Marsyas waving at me.
We'd both been engrossed in our flutes, forgetting this was still class.
“Whew, my eyes feel clearer today than ever. To behold such a treasure...”
With evident reluctance, Marsyas handed back my obsidian flute and reached for his syrinx.
But this time, I couldn't bring myself to return it right away.
Memories from my recent trance: my past life's body and achievements.
The authority coursing through me, the martial prowess that bent all to a mere gesture—they flashed through my mind.
Seeing me gaze conflictedly at his flute, Marsyas nodded with a smug smile.
“Ho? Just as I thought? I understand that feeling. The syrinx handmade by Shepherd God Pan.
Fools mock it as mere twigs and weeds, but to those who see its worth, it's like gazing into a lush forest—a gift of ecstasy.”
“...Haha.”
Unaware of my inner turmoil, Marsyas assumed I was impressed and kept boasting.
But I was deeply conflicted.
This could propel me past two or three realms in an instant.
That would eliminate worries about orbital bombardments or Crescent Moon's light-years, shortening by decades the restoration of my longed-for past achievements.
The gods' curse?
Recalling Artemis, who had loosed arrows at me—babbling of Olympus's Twelve Gods and Crescent Moon hunters—only to bleed by my hand.
Once I fully regained my past achievements and elevated my shinma ki, I calculated I could handle her no matter how she raged.
I was confident even lesser divine powers would be child's play.
“This is more than enough...”
My resolve tilting toward swallowing the flute whole, someone suddenly hugged me from behind, arms around my neck.
“Dianes!”
A voice bright as a refreshing wave.
And before my eyes, hair white as foaming surf.
I startled and turned.
“Neri?”
Grinning ear to ear, Neri had appeared out of nowhere, chin resting on my shoulder, beaming.
“I heard you were in music class, so I hurried over~”
Last night, after the commotion, I'd tried sending Neri away posthaste.
But she refused flat-out, claiming she'd gotten permission from her sisters.
As I pondered letting her sleep in my room, the forest nymphs thankfully offered to take her in.
I'd figured we'd meet after classes ended today.
But this sea sprite, swift as a current, had popped up out of the blue to disrupt my thoughts.
“But why the super sulky face~?”
“Was I?”
“Yeah, you looked scared, like something was chasing you while checking out that weird flute.”
Her words hit me like a cold splash, snapping me awake.
Chased...?
“...Thank you for letting me see it, Marsyas. What a magnificent flute.”
“Haha, what can I say? Beautiful trees naturally draw flocks of birds.
It was a magnificent sight for me too.”
We exchanged flutes back, and Marsyas assigned Neri the seat beside me before clopping back to the stage on his hooves.
“Heehee~ Music class? Oh yeah, you play the flute amazingly, Dianes!”
“...Yeah.”
Neri sat beside me, smiling innocently.
And Atalanta subtly placed her hand on my other one.
That warmth cleared the haze from my eyes in an instant, illuminating the lively forest scene.
Grousing Heracles, wistful Jason, students glancing my way, Marsyas watching fondly.
A simple, ordinary moment—yet precisely what I'd longed for—shook off the lingering delusion.
I realized what I'd nearly done.
Regaining power and cultivating martial arts was one thing.
But it would be an unnatural shortcut, at best.
And this peaceful daily life I'd forgotten across past and previous lives would vanish in a flash.
I'd nearly destroyed the very things I sought to protect with regained strength, all to regain that strength.
“Well then, Dianes? Let's hear a performance from that beautiful companion you brought.”
“I'd be delighted.”
Reclaiming strength and training martial arts mattered.
But if it cost this daily life I'd reclaimed, what reason would I have left for it?
It was a contradiction, plain and simple.
With a far lighter heart, I rose and brought my darling to my lips.
The noisy surroundings hushed, and only the soft tones of my flute began to flow.