Chapter 39 : Chapter 39
Chapter 39: Degrate (3)
“Sign here.”
Jiaren manifested her unique Phantasmal Realm, reached in to pull out some paper, and said.
“What is it.”
“A contract.”
“But why is there only one sheet.”
“Because there’s only one. Only one of you can stay.”
“Then I will wait outside.”
At Jiaren’s words, Naor was the first to stand up.
One of the three. In that case, that contract was for Aran, the one in charge.
“I don’t want to.”
As the invisible Naor left the room, Simurtr didn’t even get up from his seat.
“Are you crazy?”
“You’re the crazy one. Telling us to leave just one person behind? Who knows what you’ll do.”
“Do you think I’m crazy enough to cause trouble?”
“You’ve already done it once, what’s to stop you from doing it again?”
“Are you really crazy? I told you we didn’t do it!”
“It’s always the ones who are faking crazy who have the word ‘crazy’ on their lips.”
“Then is there a problem? It means I’m not crazy.”
“Those are the ones who always do crazy things. Because they want to be treated like a crazy person.”
“I’m a woman.”
“Right. You even nitpick about something so meaningless like this. The ones who are faking crazy love a justification.”
Jiaren took a deep breath.
She felt like she would really go crazy if she continued this conversation.
“Does your sister have to keep enduring this?”
But she couldn’t just touch him carelessly.
Not only because of the war, but also because Semenu, sitting next to the little kid, was glaring at her with her eyes wide open.
“Allow it. It’s okay.”
At Semenu’s words, Jiaren’s chest felt even tighter.
“Semenu, this is something that can’t be done even if you bring him home as your husband.”
“I’m asking you.”
“A request?”
“Yes.”
Jiaren’s eyes widened.
Was this something of that much value?
“You’ll regret it.”
“It’s okay.”
“This is the last one.”
“Yes. It’s enough.”
“What is he to you.”
Jiaren’s eyes, looking at Simurtr, turned even more venomous.
“You’re fine. Aran Lubeil, write.”
Jiaren held out the paper she was holding to Aran.
“This is a blank sheet of paper.”
“It was made by a dragon. The contents will be recorded automatically if you say them.”
A dragon’s contract.
At the unexpected item, Simurtr was inwardly impressed. He hadn’t known there were still some of those left.
‘Gloomy loners.’
The claim that there was only one sheet must be a lie.
That’s how Degrates are. They are a kin that habitually hides their true intentions. Except for Semenu.
“Is there any meaning in signing?”
“There is. It’s a dragon’s.”
“It’s just a contract.”
“It’s engraved on your soul.”
“What about mana?”
“Try it for a hundred days. See if you can break it with mana.”
Aran didn’t know, but Simurtr did.
Hadn’t he had the Star-Breaking Style engraved on his soul thanks to it?
‘That won’t break.’
The dragon race.
The race that the king of the Doom Species, who had entered the continent, had sought to eliminate first. That great race was a mountain that even his master, who surpassed Exa, could not overcome.
The content was, of course, a strict secret.
That he would never reveal it to the outside until he died.
“I guess I have one more purpose in life.”
Since there was nothing particularly troublesome about the content, Aran signed it readily.
“You… never mind. Just bring out the body.”
Jiaren glared at Simurtr, then sighed and got to the point.
“The Phantasmal Ability is proof that our bloodline is of the elven race.”
Jiaren said as she looked at the body Aran had brought out. It was a well-preserved body.
The skin had turned blue, but there was no problem in examining it.
“It’s also a bloodline. If it’s been passed down for a thousand years, it’s worthy of being called that, isn’t it?”
The mana of Mectera was also like that.
The black mana of the first ancestor was passed down intact.
“But it steadily weakens. In the end, our authority is derived from elven blood.”
Degrate can visit the elven Phantasmal Realm, but that’s it. Even if it’s the same Phantasmal Realm, the home of the elves is not permitted.
“The home of the elven race is a place only the first Phantasm went to. It is not permitted to us.”
It has been a thousand years without elves.
The elven blood in the bodies of the Degrate is diluted as time passes.
“How much has it been diluted. A thousand years. Maybe there’s none left. The authority, which has weakened as much as it can, is probably just left as a habit.”
The digression was long.
As Simurtr was thinking that, Jiaren took out a dagger the size of her forearm.
“So we combine them. We extract them from the dead blood relatives. We gather and gather them. Only then does it become a proper one.”
The dagger cut through the body. The left chest. Jiaren wanted to check the heart.
“We call that one Asha. It’s the reason why Degrate can still harbor illusions. By engraving Asha on the heart. Our Phantasmal Ability is carved into our hearts.”
Blood didn’t spurt. It was cut smoothly, and a dry heart was revealed.
“The current number of blood relatives is twenty. The number of Asha we have is nineteen.
Of those, two have not been engraved on a heart.”
Jiaren reached out and carefully took out the heart.
“In total, there are only twenty of us, and there are only seventeen Degrates with true illusions. Degrate, which was a great bloodline. Now.”
The heart of the corpse was clean.
Aran and Simurtr, who didn’t know what Asha looked like, had that impression.
“Should I cut open my own heart and show you? What the engraving of Asha looks like.”
Jiaren revealed the shame of her bloodline and then mocked herself.
***
Selling a sob story.
He had that thought, but he didn’t say it out loud. Since Semenu was next to him.
He didn't want to accept it, but it seemed Semenu was quite fond of that Phantasm.
“Asha. In the elven language, it means legacy. It was a language used a thousand years ago, so I don’t know if it’s still used with that meaning now.”
Something the size of a heart popped out of Jiaren’s Phantasmal Realm.
The Asha looked like a soft stone, and a unique green light flowed along the pattern engraved on its surface.
“If Asha had been engraved, there would be the same pattern on the heart. Because it’s combined with the heart. I’d like to show you myself, but I can’t cut open my own chest, can I? The same goes for our kids.”
“…What about the remaining three?”
Simurtr asked, trying to be careful.
There were 20 blood relatives. And it was said that 17 Asha had been used.
This meant there were 3 Degrates without Asha.
“Would you want to do that? Those twins just turned 10.”
“Ah, sorry.”
Of all things, he had to touch on the children.
Simurtr bit his lip.
“If the illusion seen in the video is all there is, then it’s someone without an engraving. And there’s nothing on the heart either, is there?”
“So that’s why it was so faint?”
“That’s right.”
Simurtr nodded.
No wonder it was too weak for a Degrate.
“But the only Degrates without Asha are the 10-year-old twins?”
“…That’s right.”
Jiaren nodded with a gloomy expression.
She had never thought the day would come when she would have to reveal the shame of the main mountain to an outsider.
The current Degrate was a pig in a poke. The notoriety was still there, but the inside had been rotting away for a long time.
‘Should I be glad that our only ally is Mectera?’
Or should I say it’s the worst, since our only ally is of the same empire as the Magic Tower?
As Jiaren’s mind was burning black.
“Alright. Then what about the last one?”
Sorry is sorry.
“Huh?”
“They’re not triplets.”
“……”
“Where’s the other one.”
Simurtr said.
“Ah, you got me.”
Jiaren, who had been appealing to sympathy, clicked her tongue.
***
“You’re a good actor.”
“……”
“Is it because you’re a Degrate? As expected, assassin bastards are good at controlling their expressions.”
“…The sadness is real.”
“If you continue to be so uncooperative, we have no choice. Right?”
“I’ll have to request an audience with the Sword Master when we return.”
As Simurtr turned his head to the side, Aran retorted.
“No. It’s not him. He didn’t attack, and he didn’t die.”
“Then bring him here.”
“Can’t you just assume there are circumstances and let it go?”
“What circumstances, when you’ve already revealed your shame.”
“…That’s true.”
It was true that she was afraid of war, that Degrate was in a bleak reality, and that she was depressed by it all.
“Then reveal everything.”
But this was a separate matter.
Jiaren looked at Semenu with troubled eyes.
“You can say it.”
Semenu, whose eyes met hers, said.
Simurtr looked at Jiaren and Semenu with a strange glint in his eyes.
That disgusting Degrate Phantasm seemed to cherish Semenu quite a lot.
And Semenu seemed to like Jiaren quite a bit too.
‘She wouldn’t even talk to someone she doesn’t like.’
In the Baperr unit, Semenu hadn’t spoken to many people. Communication? She usually handled it with shadows. Just by roughly scribbling words in the air.
“No. I’ll say it.”
At Semenu’s words, Jiaren let out a sigh.
Seeing her dry-wash her face, it didn’t seem like an act this time.
There was more shame she wanted to hide. That’s what Simurtr thought.
“It’s me.”
“What?”
“I’m the last one. Cap… Simyun.”
Semenu was conscious of Aran and Jiaren.
She had been about to call Simurtr Captain, but had corrected it to Simyun.
“Simyun? Where did you hear that name?”
“I heard Ael Mectera say it.”
“When?”
“She said you were crazy, Simyun.”
It was when the banquet had ended. Simurtr let out a dry laugh. She should have told him she was there if she had come.
“Why didn’t you call me.”
“I didn’t know it was a Degrate problem. I had work too. It’s a shame. If I had known, I would have come with you.”
“Still.”
“You looked busy. You said to just stay by your side quietly when you’re busy.”
“You weren’t by my side.”
“It was because of work.”
He was reeled in again.
Simurtr regretted it upon seeing Semenu’s smile. He should have denied it instead of complaining. By saying something like, ‘When did I ever say that?’
“So. Why are you the last one. A hidden Phantasm, you say.”
The last one.
A term referring to a Degrate without Asha.
It meant that Semenu, who was on par with the Phantasm Jiaren, couldn’t possibly be one.
“I don’t have Asha. I have my share, but I didn’t need the engraving.”
“Why?”
“Only I have thick elf blood.”
“Only you? How?”
“The dust of the first Degrate.”
“What?”
“I was born from that dust.”
***
“Wait. I’ll talk. Since I’m the Phantasm.”
The first time she had met Semenu Degrate.
It was right after she had ascended to the position of great general.
When she had received the name Baperr from the previous emperor and had been guaranteed sole command.
“It was an experiment led by the previous Phantasm. Elves turn to dust when they die. The same goes for the half-breed Degrate.”
Simurtr still vividly remembered the moment he had picked up Semenu.
The chilling, chilling north. The northern grand duke had personally pointed out Exa. It was because a duke-rank Doom Species had appeared in the north.
“The dust of the first Degrate. The main mountain had kept it most preciously. Until the previous Phantasm took office.”
If you go straight up the grand duke’s north, there is a huge mountain range named after the disaster from a thousand years ago.
An extreme backwater. The duke-rank Doom Species was reigning alone in that Serepes mountain range.
“He was my father. Hmm. A revolutionary? A reformer? He probably thought of himself that way. Since he wanted to turn the sinking Degrate, whose end was certain someday, back into a great bloodline.”
He had found Semenu around the time he was climbing the middle of the mountain range.
The blood splattered on the pure white snow was still vivid.
“If the elf blood is getting thinner, wouldn’t it be okay to mix in something thick? In that case, wouldn’t the thickest be that of the first ancestor? That must have been the idea. Since we don’t have any elf dust.”
The body with its limbs cut off didn’t even have the strength to lean against a tree stump and was lying face down on the ground.
Barely peeling off the jade dust sticking to her mouth with a faint breath, barely staunching the bleeding from the severed limbs with an illusion.
“Semenu is… a child conceived in the previous Phantasm’s unique Phantasmal Realm by mixing the dust of the first ancestor. I don’t know the details. The previous Phantasm didn’t leave a record of the method.”
There was an elixir. It wasn’t that difficult a task for new limbs to sprout. But alone in such a remote place?
He had encountered an illusion for the first time. It was when he didn’t know much about Degrate. He had thought she was a northern orphan and had planned to send her to the grand duke or an orphanage. As he always had.
“Aran Lubeil, don’t look at me like that. Most of the blood relatives didn’t even know about it, let alone agree. The same goes for me. I couldn’t have imagined such an idea and attempt, and that it would actually succeed.”
She had said she had been abandoned.
Degrate. It was a time when he had a relatively good view of those illusionary assassins.
They had joined as allies, and there was the common enemy of the Doom Species.
“Semenu is the last achievement. There were several attempts. Why didn’t we do it sooner?
Fuck. A unique Phantasmal Realm is a place you can’t go even if you die unless the implementer allows it. We only found a trace of it after the previous Phantasm died.”
Degrate had no intention of sending her either.
I have to go to the main mountain. When he had returned after defeating the Duke of Serepes, he had imprisoned Semenu, who had said so and started a fight with the northern grand duke.
He had accepted her as the first member of Baperr. There had been some resistance, but it had quickly subsided.
As they spent time together, she quickly realized that the treatment of the Phantasm and herself was strange. She was a very smart child, just quiet.
“The end? You all know, don’t you? The previous Phantasm died in battle. Was that guy’s rank a duke?”
“A marquis.”
He had subdued the Phantasm who had eventually come. He had forcibly drawn blood and sprinkled it on the dragon’s contract he had received from his master. He had secured Semenu’s freedom.
“Right. A marquis. At the time, it seemed like all the blood relatives cried. It was quite satisfying later on. We didn’t know at the time that Semenu was being treated with such discrimination.”
“And that’s why you couldn’t understand why she became a Baperr?”
Thanks to that, their relationship had become quite distant.
He had never even considered his relationship with Degrate. Anyway.
That must be the reason why Gerehk’s assassination request had been passed without much delay, consistently. Although no blood relative of Degrate had ever come in person thanks to the terms of the contract.
“Right. Little kid. You’ve studied a bit, haven’t you?”
Jiaren’s eyes widened.
The anecdotes of the hero were all famous, but among them, Exa Mectera’s had quite a few secret stories.
“Right. I kept urging her to return. But I kept getting rejected. And Semenu seemed to hate it too.”
“And that pissed you off?”
“What is it? Ah. Did Semenu tell you? You must have a really special relationship.”
Jiaren glanced at Semenu and continued.
“Right. To our eyes, they looked the same. The previous Phantasm was trash, right? So Exa Mectera also seemed like trash. Since birds of a feather flock together.”
“Jiaren Degrate.”
“Hold on.”
An insulting remark about the Young Master.
Simurtr stopped Aran, who was about to stand up abruptly.
“So because that trash Exa died, you brought Semenu back?”
“It turned out he wasn’t trash, and there was some discord in the process… well. If you summarize it, that’s about right.”
“And you’re still making her do requests and working her to the bone? A kid who even went through a war?”
“Oh my. Did Semenu fight the war alone? I did too, and all the blood relatives with Asha participated. How many Degrates died in the Doom War.”
“Was there anyone who was more active than her?”
She was hit where it hurts for a moment, but Jiaren let out a dry laugh.
He was quite scary when he was leading the meeting… but looking at him now, a kid is a kid.
“Little kid, what do you know, you weren’t even born then, to talk like that? Do you think war is some kind of number game? If you put it that way, all the soldiers died in vain.”
He didn’t know how and what kind of special relationship he had with Semenu, but to not be able to hide his emotions like this.
Moreover, it was something from the past. Something completely unrelated to a mere 16-year-old kid.
“Did Semenu say that? In that case, didn’t she also say that she’s selective about the requests she takes now? We care for her too. We even suggested she retire, and the things she’s doing now are because she wants to.”
“Bullshit. What about the request. You said there’s only one left? Who the fuck puts a limit on a family member. It’s normal to grant any request they make. Is that what you call caring?”
“Little kid, your words are getting harsher.”
“What’s getting harsher is your pathetic state, following in the footsteps of the previous Phantasm.”
“Are you crazy?”
“You want me to show you what real crazy is?”
As Jiaren’s shadow squirmed, the Star-Breaking Style rotated. 4-star. That wasn’t enough, so one of the lines of the Pagna disappeared. The emptied heart was newly filled with mana.
At the same time, mana rode the circuit. The 4-star Star-Breaking Style finished its operation in an instant. It was so fast that the facing Jiaren couldn’t even perceive the gap.
A very familiar shortcut, possible only because of the Pagna.
The quality of the 4-star was the same, but the amount of mana had doubled. The white sword ki swelled up. It became huge and crushed the shadows that were slithering towards it.
That phenomenon. Jiaren’s eyebrow twitched upon discovering the shadows flinching.
“Both of you calm down.”
He was pushed back by a little kid?
Jiaren, who was momentarily enraged, was about to manifest her unique Phantasmal Realm when Aran stepped in.
Black mana settled heavily in the office. It was a level of pressure that was good for calming the mind.
“Aran Lubeil, you heard it from the side too. Wouldn’t you be frustrated if you were me? How well I treat Semenu!”
“Counting requests one by one isn’t what you call treating someone well.”
Aran naturally took Simurtr’s side.
The members of the Baperr unit were still an eyesore, but Semenu, an ally, was the best of the bunch.
Objectively speaking, it was hard to deny the fact that Semenu had lived an unfortunate life.
“A request is so precious! To us, it’s on the same level as an indulgence issued by the Ruo Holy See.”
“What’s so special about that.”
“I gave her four of something that’s hard to get even one of in a lifetime.”
“This Head of the Sword is exempt in Mectera. Because I’ve done so much.”
“Is it the same as Mectera?”
“Is there any difference. The merits established in war should be similar.”
Their living environments were different.
To Jiaren, a Degrate’s request was the greatest treasure one could possess, but to an outsider, it was a useless benefit and formality.
“Alright. What can I say. We can’t even communicate. And with a brat like that.”
Jiaren, who had realized the difference first, said.
However, her mouth had become rough because she was already so disgusted.
“Jiaren.”
Brat. At that word, Semenu’s eyebrow twitched.
“Ah! Ah. Ahh. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
In Degrate. And in the Phantasm’s office.
There was no one on the Phantasm’s side. Jiaren shrieked. It felt like she would go crazy if she kept getting beaten down like this.
If they were fighting with their bodies, it wouldn’t be this bad. But because of Semenu, because of the war, she couldn’t.
“Jiaren.”
“What, what! What! Why are you calling me again!”
As the screaming subsided, Semenu called out, and Jiaren had a fit.
“I’m. I’m going to use it now. My last request.”
“You want to end this? For your sister? That’s possible without using a request……”
“No. My share of the Asha. That. Give it to Cap… no, Simyun.”
“…What?”
Jiaren cried.