Chapter 87
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 87
When he first set out into the world, Turan met a monster hunter named Midan in a small city.
Superstitions about monster hunting were widespread—specifically the belief that even a commoner could become a mage by slaying magical beasts—but Midan had left a deep impression on him because of a specific look in his eyes.
It was a gaze fixed on a single, unwavering goal, as if everything else in existence was utterly worthless.
Though his connection with those people had ended in a somewhat absurd manner, it wasn't long before Turan encountered a second person with that same look.
That was Orvil the Fire-burner. He believed he could awaken a new bloodline by burning people and coating himself in their ashes, claiming he had received this wisdom from the gods.
And now, after a long time, Visen of the Carmine family—a noble he was meeting once again—possessed that very same look in her eyes.
She certainly hadn't been like this when they first met.
However, the situation was far from ideal for questioning her. Right next to them, people were screaming as they burned alive.
Turan immediately used telekinesis to begin undoing the restraints of the bound villagers.
"Wait!"
A startled Visen immediately condensed moisture to create an ice bow and arrows, moving to stop him.
But as she fired at Turan, Solif, who was standing beside him, instantly manifested a hammer of light to intercept.
"Not so fast!"
Though her mana had grown considerably stronger than before, she was still only around the middle to upper-middle tier. Naturally, the hammer of Solif—a high-ranking noble—easily shattered the ice arrow and continued forward, striking Visen squarely in the abdomen.
"Urgh...!"
Visen collapsed on the spot, retching and losing consciousness with her face buried in her own vomit.
Even this was a restrained blow; had he struck her in earnest, her stomach would have been torn open, killing her instantly.
In the meantime, Turan, having freed all the villagers, immediately handed the chain magic tool to Solif.
"Subdue her and keep watch. Stay alert; she might have some strange tricks up her sleeve."
"Don't you worry."
Leaving the confident Solif behind, Turan strode toward the people who were on fire.
Meisa had extinguished the flames by creating a vacuum around their bodies, but they were already on the verge of death from severe burns and suffocation.
"This is..."
As Meisa turned back with a helpless expression, Turan pulled out the recovery potion artifact and held it out.
"Prepare the potion. I'll administer it."
"Can we save them?"
"It will be enough."
The recovery potion artifact was generally considered to have mediocre performance, but that was only because its healing effectiveness dropped significantly for powerful magical beings. For a commoner, a medicine potent enough to work on the bodies of high-ranking nobles was practically an elixir of life.
Turan immediately began triaging the victims.
His criteria were based on how brightly the flame of mana flickered within their bodies, perceived through the senses of his holy relic.
After placing the few who were already dead a short distance away, he arranged the others in order of severity. Meisa then handed him a bottle filled with sloshing liquid.
"It's ready!"
"Give it here. You'll likely have to make more."
Turan supported the neck of the person in the worst condition, then drew a dagger to slit open the mouth that had been fused shut by burns.
He pulled out the metal tube he usually used for Meisa's meals, shoved it into the opening, and poured the recovery potion in.
A moment later, the onlookers gasped in astonishment.
"Oh...!"
"He—he's alive! The dead are coming back to life!"
The body of the man who had looked ready to expire at any moment suddenly cracked open, and pristine skin began to grow from within. From the fused fingers to the lungs scorched by smoke and the eyes damaged by heat—the process of total recovery looked more like a resurrection.
Pulling the tube from the man's throat, Turan tossed the empty bottle to Meisa and shouted.
"Next!"
Turan continued to pour the recovery potion into the victims. Noticing that Meisa's mana had decreased significantly, he swapped roles with her, charging the artifact himself while Meisa administered the medicine.
Three people, five, ten, twenty.
Unfortunately, a few had stopped breathing before they could be reached, but the majority of those in critical condition managed to survive.
"Phew..."
Turan let out a sigh of relief and patted the shoulder of Meisa, who was standing beside him. She had a dazed expression, as if she hadn't yet processed that the crisis was over.
"Good work, Meisa. I don't think anyone else is in immediate danger now."
"Ah, yeah... we saved them. We really did."
Meisa looked down at her hands in disbelief. While she had experience saving people from danger during the Dark Elf Subjugation, she wasn't accustomed to the visceral act of treating the severely wounded.
"Yes, we saved them. I'll handle the cleanup, so go change your clothes first."
Since they had to physically handle the burn victims to insert the tubes, both of them had their clothes ruined by fluids and soot.
After sending Meisa away, Turan gave instructions to the uninjured villagers.
"Those who were hurt are healed, but it will take time for them to wake up. Get them settled so they can rest in their homes. And stay away from this area for the time being."
"Understood!"
"Thank you! Thank you so much!"
They worshipped Turan like a god—the man who had appeared out of nowhere, subdued the demon, and saved their families.
Just as the citizens of Kalamaf once had.
Turan felt a quiet sense of satisfaction in that fact.
*
"No issues, right?"
"None at all."
While Turan and Meisa were saving the villagers, Solif had been guarding the bound Visen.
He gave the still-unconscious Visen a light kick with his toe and asked, "So, how do you know this woman? She looks like a Carmine noble, but if you're dating, I'd suggest breaking up. Her hobbies are a bit too twisted."
"She's the person I worked with when I was hunting the noble who was burning people here—the one I told you about recently."
Since he had briefly explained it before, Solif understood immediately.
"But that same person was doing the exact same thing here? Why?"
"That's what we're about to find out."
As they spoke, Visen finally regained consciousness.
She looked back and forth between the chains binding her and Turan, then asked in a low voice, "Why on earth are you interfering with my work?"
"I'd like to ask if you're really asking that because you don't know... but first, I'll ask this. Why are you doing this?"
The circumstances were obvious. Visen must have been attempting the ritual to obtain the Pyromaniac bloodline from Orvil's notebook. Since she had transcribed the contents of the notebook back then, it wasn't strange that she knew the method.
However, at that time, Visen hadn't particularly trusted the method, and she had expressed strong disgust toward the act of burning commoners to death.
While a person's heart can change, half a year seemed far too short for such a drastic transformation.
Visen's eyebrows twitched for a moment before she answered nonchalantly.
"Because... I have to obtain a third bloodline. Haven't you already tried it yourself, Lord Turan?"
"Not a chance."
At Turan's answer, Visen smirked as if he were lying. She was a far cry from the resolute warrior woman he had met before; something fundamental had changed during their time apart.
It likely had something to do with that altered look in her eyes.
"What happened after we parted? Where are the comrades you were with?"
"Back then... ah, you mean Kebek, Asha, and Gil? All three are dead. Unfortunately, we had a bit of a disagreement."
Even as she spoke of killing her comrades, not a speck of guilt showed on her face.
Turan called out to Solif.
"Solif."
"Yeah?"
"What do you think of the look in her eyes?"
"Her eyes? Well... I don't know. She just seems way too calm for this situation."
Unlike Turan, Solif didn't seem to sense anything special in Visen's gaze. Turan asked Meisa, who had just returned after changing, but received a similar answer.
Finally, he even summoned the Librarian to ask. After receiving a negative response, Turan clicked his tongue softly.
Is this also something only I can perceive?
"You wouldn't have suddenly wanted a new bloodline for no reason. Why did you start believing in this method? Did a god guarantee it for you, like they did for Orvil?"
"A god? Yes, that's right. It must be a god. That voice... it kept telling me. To become a better being. Why was I giving up the rights granted to me...?"
Turan frowned at her rambling, which was identical to the way Orvil had spoken during his interrogation.
Midan had seemed no different from a normal person, aside from being exceptionally virtuous, but Orvil and Visen shared the commonality of appearing half-insane and causing immense harm to others.
What was the difference between them?
The presence of mana?
Or was it that the former's target was monsters, not humans?
Turan continued to interrogate Visen and managed to piece together what had happened to her.
For a few weeks after parting with Turan, they had wandered the western borders of Carmine, hunting monsters. During that time, Visen suddenly felt a strong temptation from a voice within her and suggested to her comrades that they try the fire-burning ritual. When they were horrified, she laughed it off as a joke.
But by that point, Visen was already gone. Eventually, she killed her comrades one by one in their sleep and buried them because they were in her way. Since then, she had been playing the part of a fire-burner and performing the rituals.
"Then you didn't return to your family?"
"No. I have to go back after I get the third bloodline... then my parents and everyone else will be proud of me. So please, help me. You want to get a second bloodline too, don't you? And you people over there as well."
Ignoring Visen's nonsensical persuasion, Turan summarized the information for his companions and sought their advice.
Meisa, stroking her lips in thought, was the first to offer an opinion.
"Given that the Soul of Fire was effective, it doesn't seem like the method itself is entirely fake."
"You really think you can get a Pyromaniac bloodline with this fire bullshit?" Solif asked incredulously.
Meisa shook her head.
"I'm just talking about the possibility. What I don't understand is, if you could get a bloodline this way, it should have spread long ago. We stopped it now, but this isn't actually a very difficult method, is it?"
"I've also never seen anyone who actually became a mage by hunting monsters in a similar way," Turan added.
If such a method were truly effective, it would have spread far and wide long ago. Nobles would be walking around with four bloodlines each, and they would have plenty of knights from commoner backgrounds under their command.
From this, they formed two hypotheses.
First, the knowledge possessed by those with that mysterious gaze was partially correct and partially wrong.
Second, the knowledge itself was correct, but a specific talent was required to realize it.
And finally, that this knowledge contaminated the minds of those with the special gaze that only Turan could see.
"The source of contamination is probably a god's soul or something similar, right?"
"That's likely. Otherwise, where would this knowledge have suddenly sprung from?"
"Maybe it's not a whole soul, but just a fragment. A projection of some information they had while alive."
"Oh..."
While admiring the plausible hypothesis, Solif looked at Visen and brought up the question they had been putting off.
"So, what do we do with her?"
"We have to kill her."
"Won't that soul thing latch onto us then?"
"We can't exactly let her go. I'll perform the execution, so stay back. I've seen Ymir's soul before, so I'll know if it tries to burrow into me."
"But even if you see the soul, we don't have a solution."
"I'll try using the jewelry box first. Even if things go wrong, I should have a few months, so we can try to find a countermeasure in the meantime."
In the worst-case scenario, there was the option of negotiating with the god in Carmine and borrowing the power of a spirit-caller. Since the entity was continuously jumping from body to body, it meant it was likely using a spirit-caller as well.
After the discussion concluded, Turan had the other two retreat and approached the bound Visen.
Looking at her slumped weakly, Turan felt a pang of pity. Although she had burned hundreds of commoners, it was highly likely that this wasn't entirely her own will. If a god had inhabited Meisa or Solif's body and committed a massacre, it wouldn't necessarily be their fault.
However, if he released her here, she would only do it again. This knowledge could not be allowed to spread.
Turan snapped the neck of Visen, who was now no different from a commoner in her chains, killing her instantly and painlessly.
A moment later, just as with Ymir, a tiny lump of mana drifted out of Visen's body. Unlike before, when he expected it to be sucked into a nearby person, it rose into the air as if trying to head somewhere else.
Let's see if it works this time...
Turan pulled out the jewelry box that housed the Librarian and injected mana into it. The rising soul was sucked into the artifact as if by a vacuum.
*
"It is a very small soul fragment."
Those were the first words the Librarian said after Visen's soul entered the jewelry box and he went inside to inspect it.
"A soul fragment?"
"Yes. You could call it a shard containing only the information you mentioned and the desire to achieve it. Any memories of its past life have vanished."
The Librarian didn't know the specifics of souls either, but as a spirit—a type of spiritual body—he seemed to sense things instinctively.
"Will it cause any problems for you, Elder?"
"It doesn't have enough power for that, so do not worry. However, I do think that if you collect too many of these shards, it might actually regain its ego."
"Shards, huh..."
"On the other hand, if you collect a few more, I believe I might be able to read the information within them for you."
The knowledge contained in those soul fragments would certainly be useful. The Soul of Fire alone was something that nearly doubled Turan's firepower, provided he wasn't in a situation where he had to hide his identity. If he could discover a more moderate way to obtain bloodline abilities, rather than a violent method like the fire-burner's, its utility would be beyond words.
Of course, it was uncertain whether Turan, who already possessed four bloodline abilities, could gain any more power.
When Turan repeated what he had heard from the Librarian, Solif asked with a look of curiosity.
"Can you tell which god's soul it is?"
"How should I know? In fact, I'm not even certain this is truly a god's soul."
The Librarian snorted, then suddenly took on a hesitant expression.
"Hmm, I do not know if I should say this. My mistake might lead to a wrong judgment..."
"It's alright."
With an expression slightly lacking its usual confidence, the Librarian looked at the jewelry box and spoke.
"It is very faint, but I felt a sense of nostalgia. I do not have a home, but if I were to imagine one, I think it would feel like this."