Chapter 204 : Chapter 204
Chapter 204
The explosion was probably heard from as far away as Akarind Academy.
It felt as though a monster called sound had swallowed my entire body.
In an instant I passed through the monster's maw, tumbled deep inside without knowing how I was being digested.
When I came to, a piercing eeeeee— of tinnitus filled my ears.
"......?"
I was saying something, moving my mouth, but the sound did not reach my own ears.
The faint vibration of my vocal cords resonating inside my body was the only dim confirmation that I was actually producing a voice.
"......!"
My vision was dizzy too.
Near my face, a lukewarm liquid was pouring continuously.
I recognized without difficulty that it was blood.
I also realized I was rolling on the ground.
'I was standing on the Griffon.'
Like the sun rising beyond the horizon, memory slowly brightened.
The last scenes I had seen before the World Eater died churned through my head.
The Crownhardt knights, Yuria, the Holy Kingdom, Ulf, the Wolf King.
"Rozalin!"
I groped my way upright and rubbed my eyes.
The girl I had been searching for was sitting before me, slumped against something.
"Rozalin!"
I stumbled over to her side.
In her hand was a raw gemstone emitting an eerie, earth-toned glow.
The World Eater Fantasy.
Where other Fantasies ranged from finger-sized to fist-sized, this one was nearly the size of a stake, shaped like a rod.
If processed as-is, it could probably serve as a sword.
"Rozalin! Are you all right?"
But what mattered was not some trivial Fantasy.
Rozalin was unconscious, hanging limp.
She must have taken the worst of the blast when the World Eater exploded.
I pressed my fingers to her carotid artery.
'There is a pulse.'
Holding my hand to her nose, her breathing was extremely faint.
When I lifted one of her arms, it hung slack — she was completely out.
I scooped Rozalin up and got to my feet.
"Whew......"
She was very light.
Through my fingertips I was reminded anew that Rozalin was still only a seventeen-year-old girl.
A girl this young had run all the way here — for me.
Damn it.
This was why I had no time to lie around.
No time to sit, dazed, with my sword down.
I could not afford to step back.
"......Wolf King."
The Wolf King, mane-like hair streaming, bared his teeth in a grin.
"I was trying to look cool, but that one stole the show. What a pain."
"The feeling is mutual."
"Well, this is awkward. My position makes it hard, since I told Akarind Academy I would not cause harm. This puts me in a bind."
The Wolf King was not unscathed either.
His clothes were torn and ragged, and small wounds dotted his torso.
Particularly near his flank, where a sizable injury had soaked his clothes through with blood.
"So just hand over the Fantasy and I will quietly withdraw."
"Refused."
There was nothing to think about.
I had no greed for the Fantasy, but this one I could not give up.
Rozalin had pushed herself this far to obtain it.
I would rather —
"Then I am afraid our alliance is——"
THWACK!
With a dull sound, a wooden stick jutted out above the Wolf King's head.
No — "jutted out" was the wrong way to put it. It had been swung from above downward, and the speed was on par with a proper sword.
Blood trickled down from the Wolf King's scalp with a hiss.
"Hmm?"
"Do not speak to another person's teacher that way. It gives the wrong impression."
"Sister."
"Go round up the children in the back. If you do not, they will all die."
From behind the Wolf King, Ulf came shambling over.
She looked younger than she had at Akarind Academy.
Young enough to pass for her early twenties, she wore her characteristic fur coat hanging long and unbuttoned — beneath it, only a thin cloth barely covering her chest and short trousers. Unlike the Wolf King, not a single wound was visible on her.
"It has been a while."
"Lady Ulf."
The Wolf King looked at Ulf, clicked his tongue, and scratched his head.
"Treatment?"
"Here."
A dark-green potion appeared from Ulf's hand and was passed to the Wolf King.
He gulped it down, then exhaled a deep, heavy breath.
"Ruined the mood. Do what you want. This one time only. Tch."
The Wolf King, of all people, gave up meekly and withdrew.
Was this whole thing just a ruse?
What if he spun around at any moment and attacked me and Rozalin......
"Give this to the girl too. Leave her like that and she will die."
Ulf tossed another potion.
I caught it and immediately poured it into Rozalin's mouth.
Thankfully, even unconscious, Rozalin swallowed the potion without trouble.
"I am sorry we meet like this. But there was no choice."
"......"
"We needed that World Eater Fantasy for our plan. And that is still true."
"I cannot give you this."
"I know. With your personality, you would never hand it over. Especially since the girl in your arms fought to get it...... Instead, let me make a proposal. A compromise."
"A compromise?"
"Lend it to me for thirty minutes."
I stared at Ulf.
Back when she had been at Akarind Academy, she had helped me in good faith.
She had confessed her debt to Pan and, as repayment, revealed the Wolf King's strategy.
Could the trust from then still be carried forward?
"I want to know the reason."
"There."
Ulf pointed her staff at a distant ravine.
It should have been a vast, open horizon.
The World Eater's trail.
A trench — too deep to see the bottom — stretched endlessly all the way to the far edge of sight.
"We caught it quickly, so there is not too much damage, but...... the scar still needs to be healed."
"Is the World Eater Fantasy really that powerful?"
At my question, Ulf smiled.
"Let me show you how a Fantasy is used."
An offer hard to refuse.
***
Six shamans took up positions at the cardinal points.
They sat cross-legged, formed hand seals, and chanted.
Apprentice shamans assigned to each busily splashed animal blood and drew ritual circles.
Acrid smoke rose from incense ground from herbs, then scattered with the beat of hide drums.
Ulf stood at the center of the circle, holding the Fantasy.
"Sorcery."
In the meanwhile, the Crownhardt House and the Holy Kingdom — having tended to the wounded — along with Sihan, came over.
Everyone seemed to have suffered injuries of varying severity from the final explosion, but thanks to the Holy Kingdom's emergency treatment, they could at least move.
"Damn, I should have brought potions too."
Sihan grumbled and clicked his tongue.
Apparently, his bag had contained nothing but explosives.
"How is Rozalin?"
"Do not worry. She is being treated in the rear. The Holy Kingdom people will take care of it."
"Yuria and the others......"
"The Holy Kingdom pushed themselves hard too. Their stamina was severely depleted. The potion from that side should help them scrape by, though......"
Sihan still watched Ulf with suspicious eyes.
Come to think of it, the two of them had never met at Akarind Academy.
"She really is someone we can trust?"
"The most trustworthy person in the Great Forest."
"I hope so."
Then two barbarians led in a large ox.
Its eyes were glazed and half-shut, as though under a spell.
The ox was laid at the center of the circle, atop the highest ground.
At that instant.
"————!"
Ulf screamed in a language no one could understand.
The entire circle blazed red, emitting an ominous crimson glow.
An energy unlike anything I had ever seen from Ulf's sorcery.
The shamans sitting in the circle collapsed one by one.
Apprentice shamans quickly dragged them outside the circle.
When at last only Ulf remained, she raised the Fantasy and brought it crashing down on the ox's forehead.
With a snap of shattering skull, a crimson vortex surged from the Fantasy and shot skyward.
It was as though a waterspout had materialized in an instant.
A vast crimson hurricane formed in the sky above.
Its scale rivaled the World Eater they had just fought.
"......Spectacular."
That wind slowly retraced the path it had come from, in reverse.
The empty ravine began to fill, slowly.
Clods of dirt, boulders, tree roots — tangling together to form earth — and atop it, small vegetation settled.
The terrain was three to five meters lower than the surrounding land, but once time passed and weathering took its course, the levels would even out naturally.
"Do you know what sleeps beneath that soil?"
Just then, the Wolf King spoke up beside me.
I had not noticed when he had come so close.
"Revolution and freedom."
"Are you reciting poetry?"
"I mean it literally. In a year. Trees rivaling those of the Great Forest will grow from that soil. Fed by the sorcery's power, they will shoot up ten, twenty meters, splitting the continent in two."
"......"
"And those trees will become a great rift dividing east from west. All the way to the northern border that once shielded the Empire from outsiders like us."
The Wolf King snickered with amusement.
"The Empire is already fractured. Everyone is too busy chasing their own interests. And then they will realize: Oh — our land has been divided like this, and our voices do not carry anymore."
"Revolution will come. Kingdoms will cry for freedom and independence from the Empire, and the Empire will be unable to send armies there. The very roads for marching will be blocked."
One year.
That was the Empire's last deadline.
"With that Fantasy, we could do more. Physically split the Empire apart."
"......"
Instead of answering, I held my hand out to Ulf.
Having finished the ritual, drenched in sweat, Ulf walked over.
She placed the Fantasy on my palm.
Despite having emitted that much energy, the Fantasy still pulsed with the same bewitching glow it had when it first lay in Rozalin's hand.
"Well? I said I would show you how a Fantasy is used. Did you learn?"
I nodded at Ulf's words.
I thought I understood what she was getting at.
"It can be amplified."
"Correct."
A Fantasy was undeniably a power beyond human common sense.
But just as I had fused Fantasies with Aura, a Fantasy could be fused with mana, sorcery, or anything else.
And, entangled with the laws of the real world, it could be amplified.
"I told you before. Your skill still falls short of the old Pan."
The Wolf King snickered.
"Pan killed more demons than anyone and held more Fantasies than anyone. Expand your imagination, friend."
Then I realized one thing.
During the battle with the World Eater.
The Wolf King and Ulf had not used a single Fantasy-like ability.
The road ahead was long.
The Wolf King, his business concluded, turned lazily and sauntered toward his troops.
Or tried to.
"One more thing."
As though he had just remembered, he turned his head.
"The Emperor. I found out where he is."
"......!"
"The northwest. The vast desert where the Bone Dragon is said to slumber. The Fog Desert. He seems to be there."