Permanent Occupation (2)
A drifting petal brushed against my cheek. A faint, fruity fragrance clung to my skin — the sweet-and-sour scent of autumn, ripe and mellow.
There was a time when I lived surrounded by these things. In spring, I gathered mountain herbs; in summer, the cicadas sang. In autumn we brought in the rice harvest, and in winter we sowed barley seed.
"...Your Grace."
These days, I call them phantoms of my past life. They were too faint to be called memories, and too few of them had been good enough to be called fond ones.
"Your Grace!"
I slowly lifted my eyelids. The first thing I saw upon opening my eyes was a sky mottled like peeling plaster.
...So it was a phantom after all.
"Your Grace, are you alright?"
The one calling out to me so anxiously was Daron, head of the Sedgy Diocese. He was gripping my shoulders with both hands, worry written across his face. Only then did I realize I had briefly lost consciousness.
"I'm fine."
My head throbbed. Pressing firmly at my temples, I pulled myself up.
"You collapsed so suddenly, Your Grace, that we briefly suspended the ritual."
"So you wasted precious holy power on me, then."
Knights and priests stood in a circle around me. Colin was among them, his expression graver than usual.
"What was that, just now?"
Colin asked.
"The power Your Grace Iden wielded purified most of the plain. It was not an Awoken Ability. Purifying the Demon Realm has never once fallen within the domain of an Awakened. I... I hardly know whether I should be saying this, but if my conjecture is correct, then that was—"
"Divinity."
I pulled the hesitant word right out of Colin's mouth.
"Am I right?"
"You are."
Colin nodded with a heavy tone.
"We wish to know whether we collectively suffered an illusion, or whether Your Grace wielded some other exquisite power unknown to us."
"You saw it properly, Colin."
I gave him a small smile.
"Though 'divinity' may be overstating it. To say I dipped my toes, at most, into something a little higher up would be more accurate."
"Hoh."
Colin's face grew clouded with confusion. The priests began tracing holy signs over their chests, and the knights nodded as if they had expected this all along.
"What, does it become a problem for the Church if I attain divinity?"
"Not at all. The Diocese keeps a place reserved for the Pantheon."
"Right... I didn't think that was it either."
The Church of Solitas was, after all, merely the dominant faith of the North. Why else would the priests hammer on about the hardness of metal every time they recited their prayers? Solitas, god of metals, could never stand for all creation. Look at Sirakos alone — they worshipped Garm, god of the sea.
"It is simply that it does not feel real, hahaha."
Colin looked thoroughly shaken. Well, fair enough — this was the man who had watched me go through dirty diapers. Imagine how startling it must be to watch a child you'd known since infancy manifest divinity.
"It's nothing grand. As I said, it's barely a dip of my toes. Praying to me won't even get you a scrap of soup, so if any of you were considering a change of religion, factor that in."
Only at my joke did Colin's expression finally soften.
It was no exaggeration to say I had merely dipped my toes into the shallows of divinity. All I had done was purify a single plain before collapsing. But beyond that plain stretched mountain ranges and open wilds. The Demon King had defiled that vast domain through his mere presence alone.
"I'm fine, so get back to your duties. It's a long road to Lester City yet."
The priests and knights dispersed once more. Only then could I take stock of what I had done. The zone I had purified covered a radius of at least a kilometer. The range alone was absurd, but even more absurd was how thick the vegetation had already grown, though so little time had passed since the purification.
That said, it was still the Demon Realm. The sky hung dull and murky as ever, and the stench of sulfur vibrated through the air on all sides. The edges of the purified zone were already withering at a rapid pace. To make this change permanent, we would have to keep expanding the purified ground without pause.
"Are you really alright?"
Kalman came over and asked.
"Perfectly fine, as you can see."
"If you're fine, what's with those trembling hands?"
"People get tired when they exert themselves. It happens."
Kalman stared at me steadily. A breeze happened to sweep past, ruffling his golden hair. It was truly ridiculous how handsome the man was.
"When you collapsed, all hell broke loose."
"Well, I suppose it would. I'm the Duke, after all."
"It went well beyond that. That old man... the Bishop of Solitas looked ready to storm the Demon King's castle with his priests in tow. The knights mourned like fledglings who'd lost their mother."
...It got that bad?
Colin, sure, I could believe. But I hadn't known the Steel Guard cared for me that much.
"If you knew how others see you, you might be a little more careful."
Kalman turned and walked away.
It was in the thick of the purification effort that a letter came flying in from Uld, who had remained at the ducal residence. The letter was brimming with phrases befitting a cultured Duchess.
— Despite Your Grace's absence, the ducal residence runs without the slightest trouble, thanks to the devoted servants...
— With the turning of the seasons, the flowers of the garden bloom and fade... I offer my earnest prayers for Your Grace's safe return...
Actually, it was cultured to a fault, Uld. What am I supposed to think when you write like this? You think I wouldn't suspect you'd copied it straight out of an etiquette manual?
Smiling, I wrote my reply. It said to take good care of feeding Hellcat, and that I thought of her now and then. It wasn't a lie. The Demon Realm was far too treacherous a place, and having the woman who once split a fortress in half at my side would be a great comfort.
After sending the letter, I attempted the purification ritual once more. Leaving it to the priests alone would have taken an eternity.
"...What the?"
This time, though, I managed to purify barely two meters of ground. My drained strength still hadn't returned, it seemed.
My dao power was as robust as ever. I could still unleash arts to my heart's content. Whatever this new power was, its mechanics were clearly something else entirely from dao energy.
What should I even call it?
Divine power?
It was a power born of attaining divinity, so "divine power" did seem fitting.
But as for how one trained it, or by what means it recovered — I had no idea whatsoever. All of my knowledge came from Master, and my whole life, the only thing I ever heard until my ears went numb was this:
"Ping-a, become an immortal and you shall live forever."
Arts of longevity, arts of alchemy — the Daoist methods were focused solely on not aging and living long. No one ever told me what came after immortality. But now that I'd actually attained it, it felt like the real game was only just beginning.
Had I been born the young lord of some minor provincial estate, my current level would have been more than enough to live on. But no — I had to inherit the territory neighboring the Demon King, of all things. And my brothers had to be the absolute dregs of humanity, of all things.
Colin and Daron encouraged the priests without pause, purifying the land without rest. This was where Colin's true worth showed. I'd sensed it since I was small, but that old man truly, genuinely did not know the meaning of fatigue.
"In the name of Lord Solitas, I proclaim!"
If I had been the Demon King, that declaration alone would have had me bolting upright out of bed. It was a perfect case of death by a thousand drizzles. It had been a fortnight since we began nibbling away at the Demon Realm, bite by patient bite.
"The sky..."
The knights shaded their eyes with their hands and looked up.
"...It's blue."
"Whoa, the sky's blue!"
"Waaah!"
Under the bright, sunny heavens, the knights hopped around like little children.
"Heheh, look at me. The older I get, the more the tears come."
I took Colin's reddened eyes by the hand and held it tight.
"People will be overjoyed when they hear this news. Hope is in desperate short supply these days, and Your Grace Iden has accomplished what even the Church could not."
"I didn't do anything, Colin. This is the result of everyone's combined efforts."
Riding the momentum, we picked up the pace. Whenever my divine power returned, I poured it in as well. Before long, we reached the point we had targeted for the first stage.
"There it is."
Kalman raised a hand and pointed at the vast sprawl of wetlands.
"The territory of the Black Dragon, Ulkaard."
Beyond the marsh, on a mountain ridge, an enormous cavern gaped open with a pitch-black maw.
"So what's your plan from here?"
Kalman asked.
"Your family has never pushed beyond Stormrock Fortress in over twenty years. I'd wager the judgment was that even if you took the land, you couldn't hold it."
"I'm different, Kalman. I came with the intent to hold it."
"How, exactly?"
Kalman tipped his chin toward a distant gorge. In the gorge's shadow, sleek-bodied monsters lay low on their bellies, lurking.
"We've pushed deep into the Demon Realm with no support troops whatsoever. You can't be thinking of repeating Duke Drek's mistake."
"As it happens, I do have support troops."
"Don't tell me you intend to claim a dragon as a support force."
I waved a hand at him.
"Let's go inside first."
Taking Kalman and the knights with me, I headed for Ulkaard's Lair. The puppets I'd seen before stood guard at the entrance, and recognizing us, they parted to let us through naturally.
My guess had been right. When Ulkaard and I had parted ways, she had cast some unfathomable art upon me — and once I ascended the orbital meridian, I'd gotten a rough idea of just what kind of art it was.
Some manner of tracking technique, most likely. She would be watching me. Wherever I went, whatever I did.
Inside, the lair was dark and damp. Walking down the straight passage, I came to a halt before a fork.
"The road splits here."
It was from this junction that the lair's interior and the Subterranean World divided. I had carried my unconscious father down this very path, fleeing into the depths below. It had happened only recently, yet it felt like something from the distant past.
"You said you needed support troops."
Kalman looked back at me.
"But I can't mobilize the territory's forces. We're barely scraping by on our stockpiled provisions — moving a large army would spark outright revolt."
Kalman gave a slight nod, as if to say: keep going.
"But when I stopped to think about it, we're not the only ones who've had our land stolen by the demonkin."
From the darkness of the passage came the first hissing whispers. Then came the sound of something heavy dragging across the stone floor. The knights shot me wary glances, tension sharpening their eyes.
Swish, ssswiiish—
The sound closed in fast. And it wasn't just one or two. An enormous number of something was coming straight toward us.
"Your Grace, a large number of living creatures are approaching."
The knights reported urgently, hands already resting on their sword hilts.
"I know."
I recited an incantation and conjured a bright light into the empty air. From the opposite side, a torch flared in answer, as if returning the greeting. The knights stumbled back a step. Filling the deep, broad passage stood an army of armored reptiles.
"Allow me to introduce them. A race that made its home in the Demon Realm's swamps two hundred years ago."
"...Lizardmen?"
Among the lizardmen, one whose frame stood out from the rest came thumping toward me. The former royal guard captain of King Ksilak, and the one who had founded a new dynasty bearing his own name.
"Zaktar!"
Zaktar's maw split into a wide grin. He had recognized me too.
"Srudal!"
"...No. It is Iden."