Sentinel
"Amazing..."
A string of gasps escaped Luke’s lips, and by now he had delivered the fourth one in as many minutes.
"I never imagined I’d see a Sentinel up close from the Novice rank. I heard the stories, of course, but I’ve been exploring for twenty years and never once witnessed it myself."
"I suppose there have been precedents?"
"...There have. Though I know only a few, I doubt even two hands could count them all. Not since the rank system was implemented."
That was a shame.
Grabbing a Chromatic Pin during the internship, bagging a Sentinel as a Novice—those titles were solid. But the first-ever aspect gave it something extra special.
Leaving aside the desire to brag publicly, there was a quiet satisfaction in the fact that no one else could claim it.
Maybe this is better. The more famous you become, the more pressure that brings.
Fame was a curse.
In truth, my name had already spread far and wide, but there was no point in pouring more fuel onto a dying fire.
"Still, half of them were Skullery. Taking down an Upper one is truly remarkable. You should be proud."
"I’ve heard that story too. The Frontier Guild’s guild master took down a Sentinel."
At Ray’s comment, Luke added a detailed explanation.
"It’s only natural for a Pioneer. There are occasional cases of veterans who step in only when the spot opens, but most newcomers prove themselves right away. Still, it’s an old tale, so you probably haven’t met many of today’s Pioneers. Yet you seem to know quite a bit."
"Ah… well."
Ray’s face darkened at the mention of Frontier’s guild master, no doubt remembering those brutal days.
"I trained under them."
"Trained under them? The Pioneers?"
Luke’s voice rose with even more surprise than when we had actually slain the Sentinel.
Then he sighed.
"Hoo… You’re far more than you appear. Not even a member of the Frontier Guild, yet you trained under a Pioneer. Or perhaps you were the one who offered the training."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"They could see it in your eyes. Your radiant talent. The first shoots of a new pioneer that has only just begun to bud."
Luke was lost in it completely.
He sounded like he had become a living witness to history.
"Your fundamentals are different. You’re just like the legendary First Expedition in the tales. You’ll surely become giants. And you’ll uncover far more of the Abyss’s mysteries. Having even briefly walked alongside such people… life is worth living after all."
Our little group, judging by how Luke spoke, must have seemed like the very embodiment of fundamentals.
Yet he was laboring under one small misunderstanding.
"It wasn’t only me who trained. I did mine elsewhere."
"Ah, the Thelema School, wasn’t it? Too shocking, I almost forgot. Still, my view hasn’t changed. You’re all city-born, right? Outsiders from outside."
"That’s right."
"The First Expedition was the same. Actually, back then the city of Res Limen didn’t even exist yet, so it’s not exactly accurate to say they were identical, but they all came to challenge the Abyss from outside the city. Not born of habit or inertia, but pure curiosity and a burning desire to test the unknown. Those were the true explorers…"
By the time I had heard that far, I had stopped listening to Luke’s words entirely and was instead carefully examining the Sentinel’s remains—the debris, the fragments.
Ray, who had already escaped, now grinned with a knowing wink.
"You held out longer than I expected."
"Anyone who knows a lot is bound to."
I had hoped for useful information this time as well, but it had come up empty.
"The core?"
"It was weird."
Before my Ma Tan-Smite had shattered it, the front section of the core was completely hollow.
As if it weren’t even a living creature but merely some kind of biscuit stone.
Because it’s a golem type, right?
Those who studied the Abyss often said that golem-type monsters were the ones that best preserved its secrets.
Unlike biological monsters, golems felt inherently artificial.
If there was a creator of the Abyss, they must have made golem types with some deliberate purpose.
That was why there even existed a magic school that specialized only in golem-type monsters.
Why was I suddenly spouting all this offhandedly? Maybe their claims were actually correct after all.
"So this is it?"
This? The core?
If this was the core, then what on earth was I thinking of as a core?
Generally, a core was supposed to be a glittering stone. A rock that emitted mana like it was about to explode the moment you touched it.
Yet the Sentinel’s core Ray had handed me had nothing to do with that.
It felt like machinery.
A heart built through arcane engineering.
That was my instinctive understanding the instant I saw it.
Even though it was a highly refined crafted core, mana still radiated from it.
And that was even more astonishing.
"It still seems intact."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"See? The core’s still working. Why did it stop?"
Only after I spoke did Ray notice something was off.
"Now that you mention it, that does make sense. Normally golem types either destroy the core entirely or, while it’s still moving, extract only the core and stop the rest."
Was that a Sentinel specialty?
"Leaf? Ah, no. He hasn’t arrived yet?"
"Yeah. Want to head over?"
"No. Can you sense the presence?"
"Of course I can see it with my eyes."
Ray teased me while stretching her compact body and leaning into the hollow torso of the Sentinel, as if there was nothing left to search.
She looked like she might get stuck if she kept leaning.
"Ugh! Roman! Pull me back!"
Ah, here we go.
At times like this, she really was just a kid.
I grabbed Ray’s firm calf and turned my head.
Right after the battle ended, she had said they had something to discuss, yet here we were still talking for who knows how long.
I’ll tell him later.
"Pull harder!"
"Got it, got it."
§
While the three of us behind me tore apart the Sentinel’s remnants, Leaf and Elorwen’s private conversation had also quietly progressed beyond a long silence into the next stage.
Their atmosphere was the opposite of ours—far heavier.
Not just heavy, but almost solemn.
Leaf unconsciously fidgeted with his staff while his back was turned to Elorwen.
Elorwen herself was clearly worried about how to bring up the topic.
She handled every single word with great care.
"I never imagined it was actually real."
"......"
"You didn’t know that even uncontracted elementals were joining their cause?"
"I did not. Though I learned it here for the first time…"
"Were they from the Shade?"
"...No. Not at all."
"Then?"
"It’s the Memory of Yggdrasil."
Elorwen was an independent explorer.
Yet she did have a faction.
It was not as an explorer, but as an elf.
The Memory of Yggdrasil.
Direct translation: the memory of tree trunks. But because trunks simultaneously represented the origins and ancestors while memory meant recollection, the name carried a double meaning.
Elves, who had lost their racial anchor—the World Tree—had scattered across the world.
Depending on their inclinations and origins, they split and merged, eventually forming multiple distinct forces.
Some extreme purity factions existed, alongside openness groups that accepted even a drop of elf blood as kin.
The Memory of Yggdrasil leaned heavily toward purity.
Yet it was not entirely inflexible. It accepted half-elves with talent and qualifications.
The qualifications were extremely strict—tests of ancient knowledge from the World Tree era—but still, it did.
Factually, it was not purely because they supported purebloods that they became purity-oriented. Rather, it was simply that those who longed for the old days had gathered, giving the faction a distinctly traditional flavor.
Even so, the Memory of Yggdrasil was quite reasonable.
At least it did not attempt to kill half-elves, claiming their mixed blood was impure.
The Shroud the Leaf had mentioned earlier were exactly such people.
A mad gathering of those who claimed the dying of the World Tree was sacred and therefore sought to slaughter all mixed-bloods in order to resurrect the World Tree, while also being one of the powerful Shadow Cultist groups.
"It was fortunate we met before the Shroud noticed."
"......"
Elorwen genuinely exhaled in relief.
And she was grateful that the World Tree’s blessing had not yet completely left their race.
Perhaps, she thought, her own fate had been sealed the moment she entered that training ground.
Her gratitude toward Roman was set aside for now.
"Please come with me. Not only the Memory of Yggdrasil, but also the Silent Forest, the Whispers of Leaves…"
"I’m fine."
"...Miss Leaf."
Elorwen did not understand.
She was special.
Even as a half-elf, she was more noble and pure than any pure-blooded elf.
And Leaf had understood that to some degree.
Though he might not fully grasp the scope of her power, he knew exactly what kind of being she was.
If she revealed herself for what she truly was, the fractured elf groups would inevitably unify into one.
Not like the Shroud, who had completely turned away from the Abyss and declared it had no answers.
"Keep this a secret."
"One…"
"This is also a request as a comrade…"
Leaf fell silent for a moment, then spoke again.
His tone was calm, yet there was steel in it.
"It is an order from a High Elf."
§
After we collected the Sentinel’s remnants as trophies, we entered the area the Sentinel had guarded, which Elorwen had apparently been searching for.
The moment we saw what lay before us, Luke exclaimed.
"Trouble."
Before our eyes was a gate.
A passage connecting the layers of the Abyss.
It was not a regular gate.
A shortcut.
An irregular passage whose appearance and disappearance could not be predicted.
The problem was that there was no guarantee this was the only one.
Even one shortcut was far too little to cause the upheaval needed to disrupt the 2nd layer’s ecosystem.
"There might be one in every Sentinel’s territory."
And that suggested someone had deliberately interfered.
The Shadow Cultists.