Chapter 169
Chapter 169
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 169
Chapter Title: Farewell to the Shrine Maiden
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The incident in the Crimson Mountains made headlines on the front page of *The Arcane Herald*, the Empire's leading newspaper among the intelligentsia.
It reported that someone impersonating the legendary shrine maiden Tureina had revived one of the Triad of Time using the body of the great archmage Lin, only for Fake Warrior Milone Alter Goumris and the Shrine Maiden of the Star Cluster, Juliana, to suppress the threat.
Rivendel Academy, which had lost its dean, Tadan Karain, in battle, suffered devastating losses even among its executives, but this heroic stand elevated its status even further as the Empire's premier battle mage academy.
The witches involved in the incident would all be handed over to the Golden Children as soon as they regained consciousness...
"Is this really how it should go down?"
Juliana, the shrine maiden in her pristine white conical hat, asked bitterly as she puffed on her pipe.
The Bellakior Shrine, once called a divine peak infused with the breath of the Fire Dragon, now stood in ruins.
The ground itself had rotted and melted away, sinking lower in elevation, and amid those ruins stood a young man.
"That's it. More than enough. It's best if my identity and actions stay hidden."
The young man, wearing a weathered bamboo hat once used by the great archmage Lin and the mighty shrine maiden Tureina, pulled it low over his eyes. His name was Rain Ludwig.
In his right hand, he held a red-eyed pipe exquisitely engraved with a golden dragon.
It had originally belonged to Fride, the Fire Dragon's Shrine Maiden, and later to Tureina, the Ash Shrine Maiden.
"Tureina's body will be cremated and enshrined here right away. In the basement of the new shrine we'll build."
"I see."
"The Papal Court agreed to the cover-up too... As I mentioned before, Tureina's influence is immense."
In other words, the story would be that the shrine collapsed due to the fake Tureina, but her actual remains were interred in its basement.
"This could be the spark to revive the North Republic."
"I hope so. So, is it really okay for me to take this?"
"If I keep it, the Golden Children will find some excuse like it's a heretic's relic and confiscate it soon enough. It's yours to take. Right?"
Juliana smirked and glanced to the side, where Milone leaned against her planted sword, the Goumris of the Pole Star, and replied.
"Yeah, I get it. I'll pretend I never saw any such relic. Archbishop Yosuhar told me to respect your wishes anyway."
"Aren't you curious why?"
She wielded Incinerating Blood Burial, an advanced form of Brain Blood Burial, with ease, and got along so well with that sun parrot named Pipi—maybe she'd suspect I was Lin reincarnated.
But that seemed to be self-indulgent delusion, as they say.
Milone just shrugged with her usual curt demeanor.
"What the dragon does is always right. So soldiers like me just faithfully carry out our orders. Deep thinking isn't my style anyway. Tureina seems to have forgotten that."
In this era where the three lives are denied, who would believe in reincarnation anyway?
Even I, who had absorbed most of that era's knowledge as Lin, never believed it—let alone entertained such fantasies.
Still, as if something nagged at her, Milone lifted her chin slightly and stared at him intently before asking.
"Were you and Tureina master and disciple? Like you and Juliana?"
"Yes."
"You've taken on a ton of disciples. That's impressive, really. Teaching someone is such a hassle."
He hadn't lied.
He just hadn't called himself the master.
"Even so, it looks like she saw Lin awaken in the end. She died smiling. Though she didn't know her body had been taken over by Nariaduk."
"I... ended it before that."
"You granted her peace before she could learn the truth."
Milone hadn't been weak for playing a supporting role this time—far from it.
Their matchup was just bad.
The mage-swordmaster dynamic had always been like that. If Nariaduk couldn't fly...
Above all, Milone had to fight while protecting others.
To be precise, she was a few notches below Rista.
Rista would have dominated the airspace with sword aura, flying or not.
"Before we part, let me give you one piece of grandmotherly advice. The ruyi bead mingled with your soul—it's from the Red True Dragon, right?"
"Yes."
"Fake Warriors generally receive ruyi beads distributed among a dozen or so flying dragon priests. Meaning we have quantity, but your bead's quality is far superior."
"What's the point you're getting at?"
"That's what I was about to say. Your body is human, so it has limits."
Milone pointed to her own short-cropped hair, like a man's. Hair that turned snow-white from the resonance when hosting a ruyi bead.
"Your bead's high grade means no backlash on your body yet, but if your hair starts turning white, be careful. It'd mean you're trading lifespan for power."
That could happen.
In fact, it would be normal if it did.
He hadn't undergone the primary human modification via drugs, so the fact that his hair hadn't turned white upon merging with the dragon's soul was a miracle in itself.
"I'll keep your advice in mind."
"Then, may the gods bless your path."
Milone exchanged curt farewells and a perfunctory handshake, then slung Goumris over her shoulder and departed.
"Don't be shocked. For her, that was remarkably polite and courteous."
Juliana chuckled, then turned her head downward once Milone's heavy footsteps faded completely.
The young man looked down as well.
Toward the bier befitting a shrine maiden's station and dignity, where Tureina lay in repose. Even this was an honor beyond her due, the young man thought.
The shrine maiden knelt respectfully at her head, pipe set aside, her voice trembling softly.
"You always carried the world's sorrows on your face, Master... but in the end, you left with a smile."
Juliana caressed her master's visage, the cold cheek of the one who had given worth to her worthless self, with grieving hands and a sorrowful smile.
"When you taught me sorcery, watching you smoke was so beautiful... that's why I can't quit this wretched habit either..."
She clutched the cold hand tightly, unwilling to let go for a long time. Was that her final farewell to her master?
The young man felt something grip his heart tightly once more and gave a wry smile.
*I had to say goodbye like that 300 years ago too. That day, 300 years before all the fighting ended...*
"Burn that letter with the body... Or take it if you want."
"Won't you cremate it with her?"
"Public and private must be kept separate. The North Republic lost most of its red witches in this mess. Even after cleaning up, there's a mountain of work left."
"I can't even imagine how to handle it."
"No, paradoxically, I know exactly what to do. Just carry on what Tureina was doing."
Juliana nodded toward Tureina's face and smiled wearily.
"Take on many disciples and teach them sorcery for free. Raise children to protect this new era."
"..."
"Oh, almost forgot the most important thing."
Juliana pulled something from her long sleeve and handed it to the young man.
It was an intricately woven red leather cord, with a garnet at its center sparkling beautifully in the sunlight.
He took it with a puzzled look, and she explained.
"It's a sorcery imbued with power to conceal a dragon's soul. I cast a 5th-rank illusion on it."
"Conceals the soul?"
"Wear it, and witches won't be able to read the dragon's soul from the True Dragon's ether. It'll appear muddled, you could say."
"Ah."
"It's a small token of thanks for this incident. In an era where even witches can hardly believe it."
She added that the leather cord was also a magic tool that would grow with the wearer. The young man smiled faintly.
"Thank you. I'll treasure it. Aki will love how cute it is."
Unlike the shrine maiden, the young man showed no overt grief, but she didn't find it strange. Their bond was shorter than hers, after all.
"Well, finally... thank you for letting my unworthy master depart in peace."
Pulling down the brim of her conical hat to hide her eyes, the shrine maiden gripped his shoulder firmly once, then descended toward the shrine's main gate.
The corridors of the ruined shrine buzzed with the voices of witches and mages collecting bodies and clearing debris from dawn.
"Now it's just us, Pipi."
The sun parrot, perched dazedly on the young man's shoulder, hopped down onto Tureina's hand.
"Cold, cold, cold."
"It is cold, isn't it."
"Tureina cold. Warm, Tureina, Pipi's friend, warm. Cold, cold, warm."
As if desperate to warm the body already chilled beyond hope, Pipi flitted sadly back and forth across it.
The young man gazed down at the poignant farewell scene with an expressionless face, then drew a small scroll from his bosom.
A letter his old disciple had written to him 27 years ago.
He thought he had come to terms with everything, yet unfolding the scroll and reading its words felt like it took at least an hour.
[Dearest Master Lin,
Today, as always, I write to you. When I wondered why you wrote to the Magic Tower every day, Master Fride explained it like this.
A letter captures certain feelings in words, for that one fleeting moment, that specific time.
But it's so difficult.
No matter what I did that day, what I went through, whether spring, summer, fall, or winter, the feelings and words I hold for you are always the same.
As I walk through life, memories of you surface everywhere. Even as the Abyss's corrosion erases my memories bit by bit.
Isn't it strange?
Rista, Kies, even Pipi's face and voice are completely gone—nothing remains but their names—yet memories with you always revive vividly.
Without fail, every single day.
You came to me as light amid the grief of losing my family, as I lay dying. You taught me how to live and showed me the world's beauty.
So every day, day after day, I write to you. Fearing these feelings, this heart, might one day be suddenly forgotten.
But I have nothing to offer you. Nearly 300 years trapped in that ice...
I lived my life, but you, who saved the world, could not. It's heartbreaking beyond words.
If you awaken again, you'll be angry with me. Deeply disappointed.
You and Master devoted your lives to building this world, and I should have protected it—but instead, I ruined it all. Even knowing full well what falling to the Abyss would bring...
But I couldn't stop. Because you mean more to me than this world.
I won't beg forgiveness.
I'll accept judgment then.
Though I dream of rebuilding this ruined world with you that day, it's impossible. My life is ending too.
If I could have one wish, to heaven, sun, moon, and stars: just once, before this body and soul fade, to meet you.
May this letter reach you, and my wish come true...]
The young man clamped the pipe diagonally in his mouth and lit it. The tobacco leaves borrowed from the Shrine Maiden of the Star Cluster began to smolder with acrid smoke.
He tried to inhale deeply into his lungs, but what failed in his past life failed in this one too.
Coughing painfully, he shook the burning leaves over the letter.
The flames caught, devouring the ink—not ink, but tear-written words—one by one, until they began falling onto the old shrine maiden's body...
The fire consuming the letter paper leaped next to the oil-soaked pyre logs in the coffin.
To that faint flickering ember, the young man breathed the dragon's flame. May the sacred blaze grant rest to that flesh, that soul.
"Tureina, Tureina, Tureina."
The sun parrot pecked at the shrine maiden's forehead in final farewell, until its voice gave out completely at its limit.
Then a summer breeze swept through, brushing the flames of the old girl's pyre, knocking off the young man's bamboo hat and tousling his red hair fiercely.
In that final gust, countless dewdrops sparkled.
At the end of that final gust, one star vanished forever from the constellation in the soul of the boy who became a young man.