by Mamare Touno
The Wen Keepers.
The Obsidian Swordsmen.
The Knights of Izumo.
The Knights of Habaek.
The Fei Cui Knights.
The Winged Dragon Magic Brigade.
The Knights of Shinha.
The Knights of the Sacred Cow.
The Knights of the Seven Seas.
The Knights of the Red Branch.
The Zilant Knights.
The Blood-Sand Knights.
The Shapeless Knights.
Their forces had gathered and had even included the Shapeless Knights, who hardly ever showed themselves. Elias could state categorically that it had been the greatest number of soldiers the Ancients could muster. Military power like that could easily have ruled the world.
However, out of the blue, tragedy had struck. Just as the countdown to the maneuver had reached eight hours, Elias and the others were hit with a surprise attack.
Geniuses, the grotesque monsters from the prophecy.
These monsters, which should still have been sealed, assailed the Knights of the Red Branch. They were shaped like humans, like fish, like birds, like dice, or like shining mist, and their incoherent yet fearsome army showered Elias’s allies with bladelike tentacles, electrical attacks, and acidic gas.
The fight hadn’t been all that one-sided. Even though it had been a surprise attack, the Knights of the Red Branch had held up well. They’d even re-formed their battle lines. They probably wouldn’t have been able to escape defeat, but they should have been able to let the weaker rear-support personnel get away and vow to rise again.
However, the grotesques had a trump card.
The Words of Death.
The companions who heard that curse fell, one after another. Their expressions were frozen in terror, twisted as if they’d peered into bottomless darkness and touched lunacy they hadn’t even wanted to see. They were definitely alive, but they weren’t breathing; their hearts and lungs had stopped functioning.
Unable to stand the sight of the collapsing front line, Elias had dashed out of the main formation. He’d screamed the order to activate the Spatial Teleportation Device.
But there hadn’t been enough energy. If things went on like this, the unlimited magical energy they’d drawn up from the land’s mana would probably do serious damage to the Transport Gate. However, this wasn’t the time to worry about that.
If the surprise attack destroyed the Spatial Teleportation Device, they’d be left unable to capture the Great Stronghold of the End. Even before that, the military power of this base would probably be wiped out.
Elias had screamed:
I’ll hold them here. Knights from the main formation, use the Spatial Teleportation Device and commence the attack on the Great Stronghold of the End!
That the Geniuses had come here meant that, for some reason, the seal had been released. Since that was the case, teleportation should have been possible, and as a matter of fact, while it had been unstable, the Spatial Teleportation Device had started up.
Elias swung his great sword recklessly, slicing into the throng of demons. At this point, he wasn’t thinking of defeating them.
He had to stall them for a minute longer, or even a second, to save his retreating companions.
Gradually, little by little, in the midst of time that had grown viscous enough to set his stomach burning, the retreat was progressing. In reality, it might not have taken ten minutes, but roughly half of his companions had been absorbed into the radiance of the teleportation device. The only ones who remained were Elias and a small suicide unit.
Stop.
Freeze, tremble, congeal.
An end…
…for the puppets.
Offer up the Empathiom that protects you.
Stop.
Stop this fabricated history.
These fabricated memories.
These fabricated feelings.
The timelines of this character software.
He listened to the curse, which reverberated like a funeral bell. He hoped it would be meaningless static.
However, his wish was in vain, and as it seeped into him, Elias realized, vaguely, what it meant: He mustn’t think about it. The moment he understood it, he’d lose everything. Even though he knew this, he couldn’t stop. As if a world-engulfing nothingness had pulled in the ground under his feet, in a single moment, he’d lost all sense of time, of up and down.
Oh, I see…
That is how it was, isn’t it?
Strangely, the darkness that had fallen was filled with a sense of understanding and acceptance.
In the midst of this resigned stasis, which was abysmally foolish yet unapproachable, where even despair was ridiculous, Elias cut himself off. Or, no, in this darkness, orders and voluntary action were equal. Cutting off and throwing away were the same thing, stopping and withdrawing from the world were the same thing, and sleep and death were the same thing as well.
Back then, Elias had met his end.
Glaring into the darkness, buffeted by the cold wind, Elias gritted his teeth.
He wished that the flames of his rage would scorch him.
He didn’t want to believe that that cold resignation had belonged to him. The life Kanami had breathed into him had become fire and was racing through his veins. That fire was what had awakened him from his dreamless sleep.
I want to be strong.
Elias’s fairy blood had given him fighting skills and a curse. Fairy Arts, a system of sword techniques unparalleled in history, and Fairy Eye, an ability that saw through malice, had both come from the fairies. However, at the same time, he’d been inflicted with a fairy curse that rendered him unable to finish off enemies.
Elias knew that all of these things were worthless.
He understood that they weren’t actually real.
However, if he admitted that the past was counterfeit, he would probably be ushered into that dreamless sleep once again. More than that, it was likely that an Elias who’d denied the fairies wouldn’t be able to be himself anymore. The fairy curse bound him, and it seemed to protect him as well.
Why am I…?
He gazed at his clenched fist, but there was no answer there.
Elias was weak.
He had ultimate power, and yet, his fighting abilities were sealed by an unfair curse. So that he wouldn’t obstruct the Adventurers’ activity— No; that wasn’t it. This seal was a curse from his fairy blood, so that he wouldn’t steal the Adventurers’ prey—
Once again, the Words of Death were beginning to rage inside him.
Despair and jealousy ran wild, like a black ocean, and Elias gripped his chest tightly. This icy pain wasn’t the sort of thing he could shut out by raising his anti-cold attribute defenses.
He knew that, vaguely, but he couldn’t afford to admit it, and because he couldn’t admit it, he couldn’t escape the curse. That was the sort of snare he’d fallen into.
As he gazed at his feet, Elias noticed a shadow.
When he lifted his eyes…
When had she appeared? A graceful woman was watching him, idly.
The wind died, and thin lavender silk drifted lightly in the nighttime chill. Her eyes were hidden behind a veil, but it was clear she was looking at him.
“Did you need something, miss?”
Elias had asked his question on reflex. The woman—Enchantress Youren—spent a little while searching for words, then spoke in a voice that sounded deeply troubled.
“From what I have seen, I gather that you are a highly renowned traveling practitioner of the martial arts. My name is Youren. I live in an enchanted cavern nearby, and while a humble one, I am an Immortal.”
“An Immortal… Then—!”
Elias had raised his voice slightly, and the lady nodded.
“While my skills are far inferior, I, too, am an Ancient… May I assume that you are Lord Elias Hackblade?”
“Indeed I am. I am Elias Hackblade, a Blademancer affili
ated with the Knights of the Red Branch, one of the thirteen swords.”
Under the pallid moonlight, the pair gazed at each other.
The word Ancient was no more than shorthand. While it appeared to be the term for a race, in reality, it was neither a tribe nor a clan. Ancients were a type of Person of the Earth, and it meant only that they were strong—no more, no less. At the very least, that was how Elias thought of it. It was probably similar to the word superhuman.
Most of the Ancients belonged to the Thirteen Global Chivalric Orders, but that was due to Elias and the others’ hard work, and not all of them did. The term was a general one for People of the Earth who had power, and so, although there weren’t many of them, evil Ancients and Ancients who’d turned their backs on the world did exist.
Since it was a general term, there were many other names for them as well.
Here on the Zhongyuan server, the people called “Immortals” were Ancients. The men were known as “Immortals” while the women were “Enchantresses.” Other names for Ancients on the Zhongyuan server included “Recluses,” “Perfected Ones,” “Immortal Wizards,” and “Holy Mothers.”
Ling Tianfeng, called the White Wing Princess—a Zhongyuan Ancient who was as renowned as Elias—was the leading noble Immortal of the Fei Cui Knights, and she was also an Enchantress.
When he’d awakened from the deep sleep into which the Geniuses had plunged him, he’d tried to contact the chivalric orders, but there had been absolutely no response from any of them, in any country. Now, finally, Elias had managed to connect with another Ancient.
“I have a request to make of you, Lord Elias.”
Speaking in a voice that seemed choked with tears, Enchantress Youren threw herself at Elias’s feet, prostrating herself.
“Our Zhongyuan, with its shining history, has been visited by an unparalleled crisis as well. Fairylands everywhere have fallen or been abandoned… The Bai Tao Shrine is one such place. It is twenty ri to the southeast of here, two or three days’ journey. It has come under the control of a ferocious magus, and the people of the nearby villages and towns spend their days in fear of his violence. The frail heavenly officials live in terror, counting their remaining days on their fingers.”
“A magus—”
Could it be a Genius? Elias imagined the sort of violence incarnate that would make this beautiful Enchantress abandon herself to grief.
“I do feel that it is a shameless request, but, Lord Elias, Hero of the West, I beseech you. Please vanquish the magus.”
As if pushed into action, Elias helped Enchantress Youren up.
She was suffering. She wanted to save her companions but lacked the power to do so… Just like Elias.
Just like that, Elias’s anguish over wanting to save his comrades but lacking the strength to do so led him to a new quest.
1
Determined to defeat the magus, Elias was glaring up at the mountain peak from the foothills, but up on that peak, in fairyland, time was flowing slowly.
Krusty stuck his hand, which was encased in a cotton-padded mitt, into a brick oven. The iron sheet was a thick one, forty-five centimeters square, and holding it in one hand would have resulted in disaster back on Earth. But in Theldesia, weight like this was nothing. He easily drew it out.
A shallow pot sat on top of the iron sheet.
The kitchen at Bai Tao Shrine was spacious, about the size of a large convenience store. It was fitted out with a full range of cooking implements, but compared with Earth, there wasn’t much of a variety. Even so, in terms of copper and iron pots alone, there were at least fifty shapes and sizes, both shallow and deep.
The object Krusty had taken out of the oven was one of these: a bright, lustrous copper pot. That said, at the moment, it was serving as a dessert mold rather than a pot.
All that was visible from the top was a golden-brown crust. It had been made by adding cold water to a mixture of wheat flour and some sort of butter. The key had probably been to fold it over and over while keeping it cold so that it formed multiple layers. Underneath it lay caramelized stewed fruit, sweetened with sugar.
In other words, it was a childish trick of a dessert: He’d boiled and sweetened peaches and loquats, covered them with a piecrust, put them in the oven, and baked them for a while.
Krusty had no culinary talent, but he could at least cook.
This was because it was work.
Recipes were manuals, and manuals were written so that, as long as they did things in the proper order, even people with no talent could get results. Since cooking was work, the bottom line was that, provided they had a recipe, anyone could do it. It was simple logic.
Because “talent” spoke louder on Theldesia than on Earth, the mere act of cooking required things like a Chef subclass or items such as a New Wife’s Apron. In a world like that, there wasn’t much value in manuals. This was only natural: Even if things were advertised as “possible for people with no talent,” without a subclass (aka “talent”), you couldn’t even attempt them.
In this world, where you could see whether actions were possible or impossible from the get-go, getting somewhere by learning techniques wasn’t an option. Like most people, he’d lost interest in everything outside his field of expertise. And because of that, from what Krusty’s investigations had shown him, technical books were almost nonexistent in Theldesia.
As such, an Adventurer from Earth could startle people by doing something as simple as making dessert.
Technically, he should have let it cool for a while in the refrigerator, but that struck him as a nuisance, so he inverted the pot onto a Cold Air Platter. When he did so, the piecrust that had been on the top ended up on the bottom. Freed from its pot mold, the dessert now looked like a cake topped with stewed fruit.
Krusty thought for a moment, then arranged fresh peach slices and peach blossoms on the plates. His dish looked drab by itself, so he’d have to make do with decorating it a little. He’d really rather have served it with vanilla ice cream, but there wasn’t any here at the moment, and making it would be time-consuming.
In terms of common knowledge on Earth, by the time peaches were ripe, it wasn’t possible to get peach blossoms, but this was an enchanted land of peaches, and both flowers and fruit were abundantly available all year round.
“Does Master Immortal seem to be in a good mood?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Dunno.”
“Does it look as if he’ll give us sweets?”
“Dunno.”
“…I bet he’s thinnnking of something spiiiteful.”
The martenfolk were whispering. Most of their shapes were vague and blurred, like steam, so he couldn’t really see them.
They called themselves heavenly officials, which apparently meant they were spirits of some sort. Yet, even when they turned solid, they were merely otters with fine pelts, and so Hua Diao, who could take a clear human shape, was an elite.
After giving it a little thought, Krusty moved the platter to the table.
Turning his back so that the plate was hidden from the steady gazes that peeked in at it from the door, he clattered away with a spoon and fork for a bit. Then, at just the right moment, he stuck the whole thing—platter and all—into his magic bag, then exposed the now-empty table to his audience.
Inarticulate shrieks rang out.
“The dessert is gone!”
“He ate it!”
“It got eaten!”
“The plate, too?!”
“Well, he is Master Immortal, after all.”
“Whyyy? Whyyy?”
The fact that the sweets they’d thought they’d be getting had vanished must have given them a shock; he heard heartrending cries. Shadows whose physical shapes were as nebulous as smoke hemmed and hawed at the base of the doorway.
They’re far too easy to read.
Is it because they’re animal spirits?
They say they’re heavenly officials.
&nb
sp; This is another world, after all.
That means it’s careless to decide they’re simple just because they’re animals.
Some humans are this simple.
Ex 1) Like Koen.
Ex 2) And Isaac.
In other words, deciding it’s because they’re animal spirits is unreasonable.
It’s possible they just happen to be incredibly hungry right now.
Negative: They’re always like this.
Cinchy. (Slang.)
Couldn’t I rephrase that as “charming”?
I’d prefer something that was more gratifying to pick on.
Does this mean I want them to tough it out just a little longer?
That hobby is questionable.
Objects of amusement need to be durable.
Boredom is poison.
At any rate, it was a dessert he’d baked for them, so tossing it into his bag and leaving it there would cause problems for him as well. He’d teased them on reflex, and he certainly hadn’t meant it seriously.
“It’s all right; it’s here.”
Krusty turned around, producing the platter.
They responded with delighted gasps. “Bring saucers and gather in the dining room,” he instructed.
At Krusty’s suggestion, the invisible shadows ran off at full speed. The only one to stay behind was Hua Diao, a slight young girl who was only about a meter tall.
He carried the platter to the dining room and was carving the fruit pie with the help of an apologetic-looking Hua Diao when, out of nowhere, translucent, hazy shapes formed a line, holding plates. He began transferring small slices onto the plates, but Hua Diao volunteered to take over partway through, so he let her and sat down in a plain chair.
Tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet.
He heard the quiet, staccato call of a songbird.
Golden light slanted in through the round window with its wooden cross-shaped frame, illuminating Krusty’s calm, pale profile.
In this fairyland of everlasting spring, even a corner of the kitchen seemed like a paradise where sweet fragrances hung in the air. It was a serene time, as peaceful as an afternoon nap.
The martenfolk spirits were rather noisy, and as a result, as Krusty poured tea, he looked a little morose. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was practically Snow White, doing the seven dwarves’ chores for them. would definitely laugh at him: You’re just like a preschool teacher, aren’t you?