Chapter 148 : Chapter 148
Chapter 148: Lost Time (1)
The God of Time, Shurine.
A god worshipped with the same name as Rine's true name.
Of course, since I had never once mentioned Rine's true name in front of her or others, no one showed a big reaction to the priest's remark.
However.
“…….”
Rine, who seemed to sense something in the sound of the name, slowly lowered her head, appearing to be chewing over the priest's answer.
“Shurine…”
At that.
“Your name is similar to hers.”
Ibi let out a small laugh and muttered.
It couldn’t be helped that they were similar.
After all, Rine's name was derived from Shurine.
Of course, Ibi did not say this knowing the truth.
How could she know, in the first place?
But, whether due to luck or brilliant [Intuition] (probably both), Ibi often casually threw out penetrating remarks that pierced the core, whether she knew the truth or not.
Sure enough.
“…Is that so.”
Rine, who had turned her eyes away from the statue, suddenly looked up at me.
Since I was the one who had first called her ‘Rine’.
Actually, the reason I started calling her Rine was largely spontaneous.
First of all, I absolutely did not want to call her ‘Eastwood’.
The system… the Status Window still listed the name Eastwood, but that was absolutely not a person's name.
It was just a damn product name given purely for the convenience of merchants, attached because she was found in the eastern woods.
If I hadn't known her real name, I would have had no choice but to call her that, but that wasn't the case.
I did know it.
Yet, giving her a completely unrelated, brand new name also made me feel uneasy in a corner of my mind.
There was, of course, the factor that no other name immediately came to mind, but the biggest issue was that the thought, Who am I to give her a new name?, kept recurring.
For some reason, I felt a sense of overlap with those who had given her the completely unrelated name Eastwood.
Therefore, ‘Rine’ was the compromise.
I couldn't just call her Shurine… the name of the God of Time, no matter what.
“Even the appearance is somehow similar… no, that’s not it. They don’t look alike at all.”
Ibi alternately looked at Shurine's statue and Rine's placid face, then let out another laugh as if to say, Surely such a thing couldn't happen.
“There’s no way this girl is a god or anything.”
Well… if you look only at the core, she is right.
A god.
That "no way" is the way.
Haven't I always been saying that Rine was a god-level archmage?
She has to be god-level.
Because she is a god.
Strictly speaking, she would be closer to an ‘avatar’ or ‘doppelganger’ of Shurine, the God of Time…
But even calling her the original person is practically fine.
Or she could be called the ‘Second Generation’ Shurine.
If the person depicted by that statue that 'doesn't look alike at all' is considered the First Generation Shurine.
So it is complex in many ways… but the equation ‘Rine = Shurine’ itself is not wrong at all.
And indeed, she was even worshipped as Shurine, the God of Time.
But Rine, who still did not remember that fact at all, looked up at the statue again, then suddenly turned her head away.
Like a person who thinks the strange sense of déjà vu she felt in a corner of her mind was merely her imagination.
However, unfortunately, it was not her imagination.
And she could no longer simply look away as she was doing now.
Now, she had to face that truth.
“──‘Shurina’.”
So, I informed my companions of our next destination.
“I think we'll make this place our next destination.”
Since we were all sitting at a table together after finishing our meal, it was the perfect time to announce it.
“If Shurina…”
“It’s the city that worships Shurine, the God of Time.”
“That’s right.”
“Shurine? The god this girl asked about today?”
“Yes, that god.”
“What a coincidence.”
No. It was not a coincidence, but a necessity.
“Right on the day we talked about it.”
“Indeed.”
Meaning that seeing Shurine’s statue in the Pantheon was a predetermined event marking the full start of Rine’s ‘Companion Quest’.
And also meaning that I had deliberately led us there to see that event in the first place.
“…Is there a special reason for this?”
He might not have figured out my full intentions, but Toric, who seemed to have immediately sensed that I had a specific motive, asked with a bit of bewilderment.
“To go from here towards The Wall… the Demon King's Castle, we don’t necessarily have to pass through Shurina, do we?”
Because it wasn't exactly ‘on the way’.
Shurina is located in the north.
It is the city closest to The Wall among the 12 Cities.
But while it is close to The Wall, it is not close to the ‘Demon King’s Castle’.
Strictly speaking, it's a roundabout route.
So it was natural to be curious about why I insisted on going to such a place.
Especially Toric, a veteran who had once roamed the entire continent as a Kaper and was deeply familiar with the continent's geography.
But for that very reason.
“…Aha.”
When I silently signaled with my eyes toward Rine, he, as expected, was the quickest to understand my intention.
“Is it because of her?”
“Yes.”
It was for Rine.
“Because of Sister Rine…?”
Lily, on the other hand, who had lived only in Sista Village until she embarked on the journey with us, seemed not to understand why Toric was immediately convinced.
In other words, she had failed the [History] Check.
So, I explained it instead.
“Shurina is also known as the city of the Northern Elves.”
Just like Rine.
“And as everyone knows, Rine’s memories are still incomplete.”
I had already told everyone several times how Rine came to travel with me.
Especially, the fact that she had no memory of her life before becoming a slave.
However, no one had specifically made an issue of it, and more than anything, Rine herself had no ‘desire’ to find her lost memories, so it simply hadn't been mentioned until now.
Above all, in this party at least, Rine was simply ‘Rine’.
“It is even said that virtually all Northern Elves are originally from Shurina. ──So, perhaps we can find a clue to Rine’s lost memories there.”
It is not perhaps we can; we definitely will.
“My, memories…”
The person herself reacted as if she hadn't given it any thought at all until I brought it up.
From Rine's perspective, whose memories were all ‘erased’, it must feel less like searching for something lost and more like searching for something that never existed in the first place.
But wouldn't that make Rine… Shurine too pitiful?
To not even know that she was forgotten and for no one to try to find her.
Naturally, I had no intention of letting that happen.
All the more so because I knew the truth.
In short, this wasn't simply about finding lost memories.
It was about finding a lost self… a lost ‘existence’.
“When I first started traveling with Rine, I made this promise. ‘This future journey won't be just for me, but for you as well.’”
So, I told them I intended to keep that promise.
“I want to do anything I can if it could be a clue for Rine to find her lost memories.”
In any case, there was justification.
Unless we had to go in the completely opposite direction, heading to Shurina in the north meant we would still be getting closer to The Wall.
Although I had said it was a roundabout route earlier, it still meant the paths would connect eventually.
“──Is everyone, okay with this?”
Of course, this was only if all the other companions agreed.
“Of course!”
Miki was the first to reply.
“If I can be of help to Sister Rine, I’m wholeheartedly in favor!”
Following him, Lily and Toric also nodded and offered a word or two, voicing their agreement.
Naturally, everyone’s gaze turned to the last remaining person, Ibi.
“What?”
Ibi, receiving all of our attention, propped her chin on one hand and let out a small snort.
“What are you expecting from me?”
As if to ask if it needed to be said out loud.
“Should I just object pointlessly, saying I don’t want to go somewhere cold?”
As if, she would have followed anyway, even if it had been the completely opposite direction from the Demon King's Castle.
With this, our next destination was decided.
Rine still showed a placid reaction to the companions' decision.
This was partly because she naturally lacked emotional expression, but also because it didn't quite resonate with her.
As I said before, Rine was currently at a level where she had no desire to search for her own memories.
Meaning she didn't even know why she should search, let alone what she was supposed to search for.
However, despite all that.
“…Thank you.”
Rine now knew well that, at the very least, everyone cared about her.
“Everyone.”
Enough to express her gratitude with a bow.
***
Although the City of Time, Shurina, was decided as our next destination fairly easily.
“It will be a challenging journey.”
As Toric said, the journey itself would be anything but easy.
The city closest to The Wall meant it was also a dangerous city.
More accurately, a dangerous zone.
Because it was the area with the highest average level of enemies, the most dangerous area inside The Wall.
And furthermore, the opponents we would encounter upon arriving in Shurina after breaking through that challenging path would also be extremely dangerous entities.
More so than the Dark Elf soldiers we fought recently, or even Kain, whom I killed with my own hands, a Corps Commander of the Demon King's army.
That’s understandable, as it was an event related to an entity that was once called a true god, even if she had lost her memory and power.
More precisely, we would confront the entity who made such a true god-like being live as a slave, stripped of all her power and memory── ‘The God Killer’.
Naturally, it had to be dangerous.
The fortunate thing, however, was that our level had risen again thanks to ‘hunting’ the aforementioned Dark Elf soldiers and Kain.
Strictly speaking, we met Kain much earlier than the conventionally recommended level, so the experience gained from ‘winning’ that fight instantly boosted our level by 2.
Thanks to this, our party’s current level was 14.
At this level, we should be able to just barely handle Shurina’s ‘difficulty’.
Of course, on the premise that we were thoroughly prepared.
“Ah, you’ve arri──”
──Crash!
To prepare for this, after first witnessing the fixed event(?) that occurs every time we visit Nero’s atelier.
“Ouch…”
Nero, as if to hide her expression mixed with pain and humiliation, put her round glasses back on her face and said.
“The, the items, are complete…!”
This meant that the requested items—the ‘elixirs’ made from the Gloom concentrate we acquired from Krom, which could temporarily and greatly enhance Ibi’s physical abilities just as they had in Krom—were complete, and at the same time.
“Finally.”
The legendary-grade artifact for me was also complete.