by Noam Oswin
She brought the book to my attention, showing me the image of what, to my surprise, was a crude drawing of a human heart attached to a chain.
“The Heart of Sisyphus can also be considered a curse. If one were to set a condition that can never be fulfilled, they would find themselves starting over, doomed to attempt an impossible task for eternity.”
‘Janus?’ Sunny was quick on the take. ‘This might be good for us. To have a safety net knowing that if we fail…’
We’d be able to start over. Complete with our memories.
“Where can we find it?”
Erzili snapped the book shut. “Erzili does not know.” She admitted. “Erzili searched for centuries but could never find it. The Heart of Sisyphus is one of the first of Alamir’s Relics. I searched an ancient ruin once, and saw murals that narrated the story of the Heart of Sisyphus as the very artifact that allowed the Prince to triumph against the Mother – that allowed light to endlessly challenge darkness until darkness was defeated.”
I scratched my hair. “If you don’t know where it is, why bring it up?”
“As a Demiurge, you have access to certain commands that only Nightly Ones do. One of these commands should include the word ‘Find’ written in the Mothertongue. With it, you should be able to find anyone and anything, as long as your authority is suitable enough.”
‘Jesus. Talk about sheer bullshit.’
I grabbed my chalk again. Erzili stared at me, anxiously, and I took a deep breath, before writing into the air: FIND THE HEART OF SISYPHUS.
[Recognizing Command Prompt…]
[Analyzing…]
[Checking Authorization Level…]
[Error!]
[Authorization Failed]
[You have not met the requirements needed to access this command.]
Requirements Needed:
Tier 7+
High [Sense] Parameter.
Any High Level [Scrying] Skill
Any High Level [Scrying] Spell
Any [Scrying] Item
“Well?” Erzili asked, eagerly.
“I don’t have the requirements needed,” I said. “Not strong enough, and don’t possess any scrying abilities.”
The wind didn’t vanish from her sails. If anything, she seemed more determined than before. “You can use the ‘Display’ command to search for alternative options in cases when you don’t meet the requirements.”
My suspicion rose immediately. “How… how do you…?”
“Erzili will explain in due course, but first – please, Lord Janus.”
Grabbing the chalk again, I wrote out the words in the air: DISPLAY REQUIREMENT ALTERNATIVES.
Requirement Alternatives:
Using the following items, you may access the Find Command for “The Heart of Sisyphus” item:
Human Champion’s Blood x1
Nine Starred Devil Pentagram x1
Hair of a Nightly One x 1
Alhamisian Virgin Sacrifice x 9
Heart of a Beloved x 1
“It says I need –”
“That’s it?” Erzili’s voice broke out, as she stared at the words floating in the air. “That’s all Erzili needed, all this time?”
“You –” something clicked. “You can read it.” I realized. “You can read English.”
Erzili didn’t answer me. Instead, she paced back and forth across the room, muttering words to herself that I realized I could not understand. It was the first time I was hearing a language in Alamir that I couldn’t understand.
“You… lied to me.”
She stopped her pacing, turning to stare at me with amused eyes. “Come now, Janus darling, you were never entirely upfront with Erzili either.”
I grit my teeth. “When have I not been upfront with you?”
“Other than telling me a fake Epithet Skill, you never did bother to mention who exactly your Nightly One was. Darling, were you ever going to mention that you were named by the Druid Sage of Perpetual Insanity? The Avatar of Omega?”
I took a step back. “How did you –”
A book emerged from her chest. Thick, pitch black. No, it was vantablack, absorbing so much visible light that it appeared to be a shapeless darkness in reality. Atop the book, were English words, written, in glowing cursive script:
The Book of Nightly Ones:
The First and Last Records of the Nightmares of Alamir
“This, Janus darling,” she said. “Every nightmare who has ever been named and who will ever be named. Every Nightwitch or Nightshaman. Their names are chronicled within this book.”
I remembered. No, how could I have forgotten? In that first timeline where I encountered Arol and Wunder, they told me about the book, and Erzili herself had attempted to test my knowledge when I said I was named by Mavros Cuvar.
“You…” There were little words I had. “Who… are you?”
I knew nothing, truly of Erzili. Nothing except the words she’d chosen to feed me. Words which, for all I knew, were nothing but lies. Dreams, which were nothing but empty words meant to fool me.
“Erzili is Erzili.” She inserted the book back into her chest, her form once more to a light-skinned, tanned blonde with dark purple eyes.
“That can’t be all there is to it.” I shook my head. “You have a book like that,. You can read Engl – the Antediluvian Hieroglyphs. You know more about the system and the world than you’re letting on. Why? Why are you hiding so much? Or is it… is this just your nature?”
Erzili didn’t say anything. Instead, her form morphed once more. Changed, once more. She kept changing forms, shifting and morphing, until she settled, finally, on the form of a raven-haired woman with dark eyes, and noticeably, an odd, strange tattoo on her neck.
She sighed, placing her hand over the tattoo. “Erzili is… a lot older, than you were led to believe darling. The title of Elder One is not given without merit. And once upon a time, Erzili had a different title.”
“A different title?”
“Once upon a time, Erzili’s title, was the Night Emperor of Lust.”
Chapter 16: Devotion
[Path B: Sunny]
Leaving the Fort behind and returning to the forest gave an odd, strange sense of nostalgia. The scent of grass and trees, the chirps of birds and cries of crickets. Considering the forest had been my home for a long time, while I was crawling about as a worm or skittering around as a skink. In a sense, being able to stand tall and not at the same level as the grass had done a lot to make me enjoy the forest now, rather than loathe it. Now, the forest gave me a sense of tranquility that I could enjoy.
My company, on the other hand, did not.
“So… hot!”
Frosty was an understatement. Trees, grass, and living creatures froze solid from her approach. She left behind a visible trail of frost with her movements. She cursed underneath her breath as the sun began to reach higher and higher in the day, clearly not a fan at all of the heat. It didn’t help that since we had left the Fort, I’d said hardly a word to her, and merely instructed her to follow me and not keep me waiting.
A part of me reveled in the amusement of seeing seven-fingers angrily slice through vines and thorns with a sword of ice, groaning and hissing when her lack of spatial awareness led to the occasional scratch or fumble. Indeed, I wondered how she found herself joining Erzili in the first place when it was so abundantly clear that forests were not her ally.
“How… how much further?”
It was the sixth time she’d asked me that question. I didn’t answer her and instead kept moving, following the direction on my World Map that told me where I needed to go. The range of my map had expanded significantly after Erzili’s geography lessons, and after studying all the maps in her room. I knew far more of Alamir’s geography than I did when I first started, which was something that filled me with a rich sense of confidence.
I turned my gaze to the sun, judging that it was an hour or two past noon. I didn’t mind. Though, I fel
t I needed to find alternative means of transport. While I could create a metal horse to ride, it felt like a chore. A part of me wanted a vehicle that I didn’t need to maneuver, or something smart enough to not require a step-by-step input for me to control. Unfortunately, Onna’s aura of frosty cold made it so animals would flee long before we caught up to them.
“Enough!” came the Yuki-Onna’s cry. “Enough!” she roared, panting, exhausted, making me shake my head at the very pitiable stamina she had. “Walking all this distance under this sun – if you desire to kill me then do it and let us end this journey!”
“Why would I want to kill you?”
She rose her head, panting. “W-what?”
“I asked a question. Why would I want to kill you?”
“I – I don’t know – perhaps to keep Leader Erzili to yourself.”
I barked a laugh. “Is that really what you think?”
Onna grit her teeth. “Is that not your purpose?”
“No,” I said flatly. “Well, partially. Half of me wants that, half of me doesn’t. But that’s still no reason to drag you other here. If I wanted you dead, I’d have done it at the Fort.”
“Then… why are we here?”
“I did say I was going for a walk, and that I needed someone to accompany me,” I explained. “You and I needed to have a long conversation.”
She stared at me with a stink eye. “Over what?”
“You’re a soulborn.”
“What of it?”
I allowed my shoulders to rise and fall. “Morbid curiosity. How did you die?”
“Starving. Alone. Shivering in the snow-capped peaks of the Takumian Winterlands and cursing my own stupidity.”
She had my attention immediately. I’d assumed her transformation into a Yuki-Onna had something to do with how she died, but I didn’t expect the sheer bitterness of her tone. With my right hand, I conjured myself an armrest in the forest, and with my left, I conjured one for her as well.
I sat, crossing my legs and staring. “Go on.”
It was with great reluctance that seven-fingers sat, staring at me cautiously “Of what import is my past life to you?”
“Morbid curiosity,” I said. “Also, you’re the only nightmare in Fort Zyvar who spoke up against me. I should be annoyed, angry even, but instead I’m intrigued. Where does that defiant streak come from? Do you have a history of opposing kings and monarchs?”
She flinched, ever so slightly. “No – not oppose – but…”
I leaned back into my chair. “Start from the beginning. Do you remember your name, before you became a nightmare?”
“No.”
“Do you remember who you were?”
“…A Takumian.”
“I heard from Erzili that Takumians are rare to find.”
“We’re not rare,” she snapped. “The Royal Family simply isolates Takum from the rest of the world because they’re afraid of outside influence challenging their authority. The same family has ruled for generations, and no one questions it. No one questions how things are done, how they could be done better. No one even questions how the Royal Family is filled with incestuous degenerates.”
Bingo. I leaned forward. “Start, from the beginning.”
I was supposed to be busy, training, grinding, and getting experience points, but there was knowledge to be had here. More than knowledge, there was power, lying dormant in Onna. Her cryokinesis was something I possessed, but I knew that if we were of the same Tier and strength, my version would not hold a candle to hers.
“I was born beautiful, my first mistake.” She began. “The King of Takum was known to find beautiful orphans. Pick them up from the streets. Dress them. Robe them. Teach them. Groom them from young till they were “ripe” and then summon them to his bedchambers, whispering soft words into their ears about how they would be Queen.”
She laughed bitterly. “Foolish little me, I believed it. I fell for all the lies, the snake gave. At first, I never questioned it. Things changed when the King’s little brother entered my room one night, ordering me to strip. I sent him away. I complained – but it was pointless. The King believed in ‘sharing.’ He told me, that it was common in the Royal Family. To keep their blood strong and connection to the Visitor deep, they occasionally did such things.”
She shuddered. A feat that brought me a small amount of surprise. “The King’s brother. His cousin. His uncle. His nephew. Even his niece and aunt. Sometimes one at a time. Sometimes in groups. I understood then that I was a fool. I was there to be a toy. A plaything for the Royal Family. A distraction. And so, I tried to escape. My second mistake. If only I had –” she stopped abruptly.
“If only you had?”
“Why… am I even telling you any of this? What possessed me to begin to bare my heart –” Her eyes locked upon me, understanding slowly dawning. “This… this is [Muliebrity]. This is… Leader Erzili’s ability!”
I sighed, shaking my head. “Darn. You noticed.”
[Muliebrity] was Erzili’s Epithet Skill. A rather nifty thing, even though it was nowhere near as versatile or useful as my [Duality] or [Gatekeeper]. Erzili’s ability was subtle in the manner it worked, slowly turning enemies into allies as one would spill their true unfiltered thoughts and opinions from their heart without regard. As Erzili was my minion, I had access to all of her skills, and I discovered, to my surprise, this included Epithet Skills.
“You – you charlatan!”
She roared, charging directly at me with a blast of cold. I laughed. Even if I didn’t have my tungsten armor, it was pointless. I watched the trees around us crackle and snap from the frost. The ground froze a thousand times over, blades of grass immortalized in crystals, a veritable snowstorm of all-consuming cold, taking the forest around me and ending anything that moved or lived.
The blast of cold ended. I rose my right hand over my mouth as if to yawn. She stood, panting, staring, baffled and bewildered.
“H-how?”
I stood from my earthen throne, walking forward, dusting off the remnants of frost from my armor. I towered over her, easily, and, brought my right foot forward, straight into her stomach. She folded in half like a chair, eyes bulging as she vomited and coughed up slushy ice.
“Now, now, seven-fingers, I should take an arm and a leg for you daring to attack me, but as I am feeling generous, I’ll simply let that hit suffice.”
In the brief hours we’d been walking, I spent it using [Ice Manipulation] on myself over and over again, doing so subtly enough that she never noticed. There was a new item on my list of immunities: [Frost Damage Immunity.]
Due to my Genocidal title, each time I killed a member of a species, I got better at killing a member of that species, and in turn, members of that species dealt less damage to me. I’d killed her once already, so I took less damage from her.
Even if Onna were to grab a sword and try to ram it in-between my eyes, it wouldn’t do much harm. On the other hand, because of my title, my attacks certainly did do a lot.
It was also why she was gasping and throwing up from the minor kick I’d given her.
“I wonder if you realize you’re currently the weakest of Fort Zyvar’s lieutenants.”
“W-what?”
“Wunder, he’s hard to put down. Arol, she has a weakness, but most people won’t find it in their first battle. Slim… I don’t have much to go on, but he’s certainly more versatile. You, however? All you have is ice. Without it, you’re no different from a defenseless girl. You have terrible stamina, a poor battle sense –”
“SHUT UP!”
She charged at me, summoning to swords of ice in her hands. I side-stepped her swings. They were wild. Frantic. Inelegant. My brows furrowed beneath my mask as I found something instantly wrong with her movements. My brain was telling me what she was doing wrong before she did it. My instincts were flaring, informing me that she was making all the rookie mistakes of a swordsman. Putting all of her strength in her swings. Using
wide, open movements filled with dozens of holes.
My right foot stuck out, my body jerking to the side, tripping her into the dirt. She rose again, and I batted away her swing with my left hand, disarming her, and flicking her once more unto the ground.
Oh this is interesting. I’m not a swordsman, yet, I can read through swordplay easily. This is Zyvar’s doing isn’t it?
Roaring, she swung at me again. “Your swing is too wide,” I said. “You wind-up your movements so much that it’s almost as if you’re begging me to dodge it.”
“Shut up!”
I caught the blades with my fingers. She tried to budge them. I applied a little pressure and watched the swords snap. She backed away, panting, snarling. “You – you dare! Using Erzili’s ability – you wish to steal me away from her, is that it?”
I shrugged. “Yes.”
She backed away, eyes widening in surprise.
“What, did you think I wouldn’t admit it?” I dusted some left-over frost from my armor. “I overheard you. You believed I wasn’t worthy, for Erzili to follow. For Erzili to choose as a leader.”
“I stand by my belief that Erzili deserves better.”
“You’re right.”
It was amusing, seeing her face contort in confusion. “…what?”
“Erzili deserves better,” I repeated. “You, Onna, are weak. Does Erzili not deserve one better than you?”
She flinched. “I – no – I am Erzili’s most devout –”
I rose my hand. “Listen. You’re not my enemy. Erzili is devoted to me. You are devoted to Erzili. If you are on Erzili’s side, my side, I need you to be stronger. If you cannot do that, then why do you even serve Erzili?”
Onna’s lips smacked shut. She gritted her teeth, her face twisting into a myriad of conflicting emotions. Her fists clenched tightly as her entire body shook.
“Erzili… Erzili is an existence beyond you,” she said. “When my Nightshaman, Zimra Vigo found my soul, wandering the cold frigid wasteland, he glanced upon me with apathy and gave a new name – Onna. He named me, and he told me, he did it for me to take vengeance on the Takumian Royal Line. I tried. I failed. King Gawa devastated me. Almost killed me a second time. I fled, barely escaping.”