Ch. 131
Volume 2
Chapter 55 : Creation
“The... flames of the King of Withering.”
Muen instinctively looked down at his wrist.
Under normal circumstances, there was nothing to see.
But when a few strands of fire ignited within his pupils, he could clearly make out the fingerprint-like marks extending from beneath his sleeve.
That was the mark the King of Withering had left on him.
Although that power had not simply been bestowed upon him, but had instead become a “divine blessing” obtained by the black book in exchange for vital information, Muen still felt uneasy about it.
After all, it came from an evil god.
But he had to admit that the power of God’s Chosen was strong.
That strength was obvious from Ann and Selicia alone.
If he wanted to obtain power as quickly as possible, then this was undoubtedly the shortest path.
“The truth is, the reason I started learning magic in the first place was to separate myself from this power.”
Muen gave a bitter smile.
“But who would have thought I would still end up at the point of accepting it?”
“Have I not already said it? Power itself is neither good nor evil. What matters is the one who wields it. Even the power of an evil god is no exception.”
As Mera spoke, she crooked a finger lightly, and a delicate flower floated up into her hand.
She gently stroked the bloom, making it open even more beautifully, and then crushed it in her palm.
“So if one day you become dissatisfied with this power and turn to the King of Withering to beg for more...”
At that moment, a chill surged through him.
Muen’s vision was suddenly dyed red with blood. The countless flowers blooming in fierce competition all seemed to transform into blades dripping with fresh gore.
Teacher Mera gazed at him quietly, her expression calm, yet Muen felt the warning of death inside him scream like a frenzied alarm.
“I will kill you myself.”
The blood-red vision vanished.
The sea of flowers swayed once more, breathtakingly beautiful.
It was as if everything had been an illusion.
And yet the sweat soaking his back told Muen plainly that if he truly threw himself into the embrace of the King of Withering, Teacher Mera would cut down her newly accepted disciple without the slightest hesitation.
“I will not.”
Muen wiped the cold sweat from his brow and said seriously,
“Do I not already have you now, Teacher Mera?”
“...”
Mera was briefly taken aback, then let out a soft laugh. “So the rumors were not entirely false after all?”
“Hm?”
“It is nothing. Do you still have any questions about the weapons? Time is short, so ask quickly.”
“Questions?”
Muen gave the short blades a few swings.
With the support of these two weapons, even his Dagger Combat Technique, which had long shown no progress, seemed to be on the verge of reaching a higher level.
“I do not really have many questions left. I only wanted to ask whether there is anything I should pay attention to during regular use. For example, how often do they need maintenance?”
“Generally speaking, weapons with a living spirit can repair and clean themselves, so you need not worry about that. As for precautions...”
Mera thought about it casually and said,
“Other than the fact that you had best not wave them around in front of people from the Life Church, there should not be any problem.”
“Oh, I see. Then I definitely will not... Hm? Wait.”
Muen suddenly reacted and widened his eyes.
“What do you mean I cannot wave them around in front of the Life Church? Is there something about these two weapons that they are not supposed to see?”
Muen was beginning to panic.
It was that Church, after all. Once they got involved, it would be a major disaster.
“It is nothing much.”
Mera shrugged indifferently.
“It is just that the material used to make those two blades was one of the Life Church’s Holy Swords. Naturally, it would not be good for those petty-minded believers to see them.”
“Oh, I see, so you just melted down a Holy Sword and reforged it into short blades. That does not sound too...”
Muen’s face turned pale with horror as he roared,
“That is not ‘nothing much’ at all! Teacher Mera, do not tell me it was one of the Life Church’s five Holy Swords!”
“Five? Were there not seven?”
Mera looked genuinely puzzled.
“Did they lose another two while I was asleep? Ah, well, it hardly matters. In any case, there are only four left now, are there not?”
“So it really was that Holy Sword?”
Muen’s hands trembled as he gripped the blades. “W-Why would you do that? Would it not have been better to just use it as it was?”
Every man dreamed at some point of wielding a Holy Sword and slaying evil.
Muen felt that if he had been able to use a Holy Sword, then relearning swordsmanship would not have been impossible.
But Teacher Mera had gone even further than that. She had melted the Holy Sword down entirely?
If the Life Church ever found out, then Teacher Mera, being a top-level figure, might be fine, but he, Muen, would definitely be tied to a cross and burned alive.
“There was no helping it. The sword bore the Church’s mark. Breaking it would have been troublesome, so I simply melted the whole thing down together.”
Mera said it with the easy expression of someone remarking that the lock on the vault had been too hard to pick, so she had smashed the vault itself apart.
“...”
“Relax, relax. It is not as frightening as you imagine.”
Seeing that Muen still looked utterly dazed, Mera continued to comfort him,
“After all, I have refined it to this extent. Unless you are unlucky enough to run into someone at the level of an archbishop, it will not be that easy for anyone to notice.”
“...And what if I really am that unlucky?”
He could say many things about himself, but when it came to bad luck, Muen feared no one.
For all he knew, the moment he took those two blades out to show off a little, he might run straight into a whole crowd of Life Church archbishops on some outing.
“In that case...”
Mera thought for a moment.
“You can try fighting to the death.”
“Oh? Does that mean you have a backup plan, Teacher Mera?” Muen’s eyes lit up.
“No.”
Mera answered seriously, “It would just make your death a little more dignified.”
“...”
...
...
“All right. Our pleasant little chat ends here. Shall we get to the real subject now?”
Mera stretched lazily. The expression on her small face turned much more solemn as she looked at Muen and asked,“Do you know the true nature of gods?”
“The true nature of gods?”
Muen froze.
He had not expected Teacher Mera to open with something so profound.
But...
“A god... is just a god, is it not?”
Muen searched his memory of the original novel, only to discover that its descriptions of the gods had been maddeningly vague.
That annoyed him a little.
As expected, one really should not stop halfway through a novel.
At the very least, one should finish the whole thing.
Otherwise, if one ever truly transmigrated into the world of that book, one would not even know something as important as this.
“The so-called gods are...”
Mera was just about to explain when she suddenly stopped, slapped her forehead, and stuck out her tongue.
“Oh dear, I nearly forgot. I was one of the seven who signed the first silence pact. I cannot speak of such things.”
“Huh?”
Muen stared blankly for a moment, then glared at the white-haired old loli who was putting on that fake-cute act.
“Teacher Mera! Do you know which two kinds of people I hate most?”
“Hm?”
“One kind is people who stop speaking halfway through, and the other kind...”
“The other kind?” Mera tilted her head, waiting for the rest.
“...”
“...”
...
“All right, back to the main topic.”
Mera expressionlessly withdrew her small fist and looked toward Muen, who was writhing on the ground and clutching his stomach like a grub.
“You have been here for a while now. Have you noticed anything different from before?”
“Different?”
Still squirming from Teacher Mera’s deceptively dainty punch, Muen laboriously raised his head and looked around.
The sky, whether real or false, was still as blue as ever.
The breeze drifting in from afar was still fresh and pleasant. If there was any difference...
“The flowers.”
Muen said,
“It is the flowers. Their colors are different from when I came in before.”
The first time Muen entered this place, the flowers in the sea of blossoms had been a riot of colors.
But now, every flower within sight was pure white.
“Correct. The flowers are different.”
Mera nodded in approval at Muen’s sharp eye, then asked,
“Then do you know why they are different?”
“Because...”
Muen thought for a moment. “Because these flowers can change color?”
“A good guess, but that is not the reason. The flowers became different because they truly are different flowers.”
“What does that mean?” Muen was growing dizzy from being led around in circles by Teacher Mera’s words.
Mera did not answer. Under Muen’s puzzled gaze, she simply picked up the watering can in her hand again and began to water the flowers.
Bathed in the moisture, the blossoms became fresher and more lustrous, while even their stems and leaves seemed to rise straighter and taller.
No—not seemed.
Before Muen’s astonished eyes, every flower centered around Teacher Mera visibly bloomed and unfurled at a speed the naked eye could follow, then after a single instant of full splendor, withered away just as quickly.
The sea of flowers vanished, leaving behind a barren stretch of land.
Then, from that naked black earth, tender new shoots sprang forth in rapid succession.
They sprouted, branched, leafed, and bloomed.
A blazing sea of red filled Muen’s entire field of vision.
Then it withered again.
“What a pity. I still cannot grow the pink I want.”
Mera let out a quiet sigh, then looked at Muen.
“Did you notice anything?”
“This is...”
Muen was still stunned, but he had already faced an evil god head-on before, so he quickly forced himself back to his senses.
“Time?”
“Your comprehension is not bad. This is the power of time.”
Mera said,“Though I cannot tell you exactly what a god is, there is one thing you may know. Among the many authorities possessed by the gods, time and space alone do not exist among them. In other words, the laws of time and space are, in a certain sense, ownerless.”
“Ownerless?”
Muen could not help widening his eyes.
Because from Teacher Mera’s tone, it sounded as though those two laws—even the gods themselves could not command them—were something that could nevertheless be controlled.
“So—
open your eyes wide and watch carefully from here on, my lovely disciple.
Behold the life’s work of your teacher.”
Mera spread her arms as if to embrace something. Her head of white hair stirred without wind.
The ground suddenly began to tremble.
As if whole ages were passing in an instant, the black earth beneath their feet vanished at astonishing speed, revealing the enormous mechanical structure hidden beneath it, a structure that radiated a savage and terrifying beauty.
Tens of thousands of colossal gears meshed together, striking against one another and scattering brilliant sparks.
Millions upon millions of mechanical components operated with flawless precision, driven by immense Mana.
It was as though a planet made purely of machinery and gears had appeared beneath his feet.
At that moment, Muen could not help but tremble at his own insignificance. He even forgot to breathe.
Before this ultimate creation, savage and beautiful in equal measure, it felt as though all things in the world—even the laws themselves—could be rewritten by it.
“Look!”
Standing at the very center of it all, the white-haired girl cried out in fervor.
Behind her, the faint outline of an enormous clock emerged, its hands shifting as they counted the flow of endless time.
“This is the pinnacle of alchemy and magic. The union of idealism and materialism. A work born from a thousand years of heart and soul. The true core of the grand ritual. The supreme creation before which even gods would tremble. Artificial authority.—The Eternal Clock.”