Chapter 152
[I am Bestien Zedna Baili Gainax. Pleased to meet you.]
[I am Silveryn.]
Bibi suddenly heard voices while passing through the black smoke passage.
She quickly turned her head toward the sound, but there was only pitch darkness.
It was clearly her own voice. Therefore, it must be an auditory hallucination.
Then she heard voices again.
[...Rather than living half-heartedly and suffering as a disaster, it would be better for that child to take their own life. They would also be harmful to the Principality.]
[There must be a way.]
[If that were possible, I, too, would have...]
Again, it was Silveryn's voice. It sounded clear, as if past events were being replayed.
Bibi still remembered that moment clearly.
These were words from a conversation between her father and Silveryn. Bibi had accidentally overheard it from behind a door.
Then Damian spoke, "Whatever you hear, it's not real."
Bibi stared at the back of Damian's head as he led the way.
"...Did you hear that woman's voice too?"
"I didn't hear anything."
Bibi gripped tightly the rope binding their wrists and said, "Then that's fortunate. I can't tell if I'm going mad or if this space is strange."
Damian answered decisively, "It's the latter."
Shortly after, they emerged from the passage. A dome-shaped space appeared.
With black smoke blocking the ceiling and all four walls, it felt like being trapped in a massive sealed room. The air felt suffocating, as if the black smoke might swallow everything if you closed and opened your eyes once.
"This is..."
In the dome-shaped clearing, six stone tablets were arranged in a circle, with urns placed in front of each tablet.
Why was it sealed with such a powerful barrier? How did Damian know to find this place? There were countless questions.
Looking closely at the urns, they were covered with talismans inscribed with ancient characters.
Damian silently drew his sword and slowly approached the stone tablets.
Bibi followed closely behind, swallowing nervously with a tense expression.
Mana could be felt from each urn. It was incredibly strange how powerful mana emanated from the urns, beyond what ordinary mages could even imitate.
Damian asked, "Can you read these characters?"
His gaze was directed at the stone tablets.
Something was scrawled on the tablets in characters used in the Barbisia region, like a child's scribbles.
"It says, 'Keton, Forest Keeper of Romeda Forest.'"
"Have you heard of them?"
Bibi shook her head.
"No, but it's strange. Too strange."
She scanned the names written on each stone tablet.
Kandalusia of Radiance.
Demerbund the Stone Sage.
Akarox the Helper of Returned Beasts.
Her heart began pounding roughly. These were names of mages who had once been renowned across various regions. It was difficult to imagine what connection these tablets had with them.
Gideon the Reviver.
Additionally, there was the name of that mage who had vanished along with the Principality's knights.
Bibi immediately informed Damian, "They're all mages. And among them is the name of the missing mage I mentioned. Gideon. I remember him."
"..."
Damian's face hardened as he fell into thought.
"They're not dead yet. The mana is pulsing."
"What do you mean?"
"Common sense says mana doesn't emanate from dead people. Yet it comes from these. That means..."
"Are you saying they're trapped alive in the urns?"
The urns were barely large enough to fit a five or six-year-old child. She didn't want to think about full-grown adults being inside.
Suddenly, one of the urns rattled by itself.
Both of their gazes focused there simultaneously.
It was the urn placed before Keton's tablet, the Forest Keeper of Romeda Forest.
"Did you hear that?"
"Are you asking if it's an auditory hallucination? I heard it clearly too."
When Damian approached the urn, it rattled again.
"Perhaps their bodies were discarded and they're sealed in another form."
"I hope that's the case. Being trapped alive in something like that seems worse than living as a ghoul."
Damian tapped the urn with his wooden sword. It made a clear sound as if empty inside.
Then something strange happened.
Stronger mana began bursting from the urn. The mana had a bluish aura.
The mana swept across the ground once, then began writing something in the dirt.
[Who has absorbed my mana?]
Bibi hid behind Damian and said, "Is... is it alive?"
Damian gripped his wooden sword tightly as if ready to break the urn and said, "I did it."
Then the blue mana wrote on the ground.
[I had been dreaming continuously. I suffered for eons in repeating memories of the past. And then, for the first time, I dreamed something I'd never seen before. A blue deer. It leaped into my memories, and I awakened. And you were standing before me.]
Bibi muttered questioningly, "Blue... deer?"
"Who are you?"
Letters appeared on the ground again.
[An old friend of Hanox and Flenche. Forest Keeper of Romeda Forest. And now just soul fragments trapped in a small chamber pot.]
"What is this place for? Are you a dark mage?"
[We are sacrifices offered to this cursed land and the phantasmal beast. Sadly, we don't have much time to talk. My soul is now almost crumbled and weakened. My old companions' souls have already been sacrificed to the curse, and I'm not far behind.]
"Can you tell us how to reach this land's phantasmal beast?"
[No, you are already receiving the beast's call.]
"What will happen to you if we leave you here?"
[I’ll either quietly become part of the phantasmal beast in this jar, or escape and become a wraith.]
"Become a wraith?"
[A mage's soul wandering this world can only become a wraith.]
"..."
[Who are you who woke me from my dream? When you came, the evil spirits trapped in the barrier grew quiet. And above all, I sense a strong presence from you. Even my soul instinctively fears you. Yet I sense no divine power.]
"I'm just a mere guard."
[Your status and position don't matter. I only sense you with my soul's eyes. Though just a guard, you can erase my existence. You can end our suffering. By erasing us, you can remove the phantasmal beast's power.]
Bibi muttered to herself questioningly, "How can it be ended..."
Unlike her, Damian nodded as if understanding why he had come here. He knew the method.
He untied the rope from his wrist and turned to Bibi, saying, "It's dangerous, so please step twenty paces away from me. And... could you close your eyes for ten seconds?"
"What... what are you..."
Bibi stared at Damian before reluctantly nodding.
She counted steps internally as she slowly backed away. Then, putting aside her doubts, covered her eyes.
After confirming this, Damian spoke to the urn, "Are you not afraid of extinction?"
[Not at all.]
As Damian reached out his hand to the air, powerful magical pressure began forming around it.
"Any last words?"
Clear letters were then carved into the ground.
[Tell the High Bishop of the Holy City 'I came to find the Five Rubies.' They are now yours.]
***
Bibi counted to ten internally and slowly lowered her hands from her tense eyes. Nothing particularly unusual seemed to have happened.
Damian was standing quietly empty-handed, and all six urns were cleanly cut in half as if sliced with a ruler. What had happened?
Damian nodded at Bibi, indicating she could approach.
She hurriedly went to Damian and pulled his left wrist. Then quickly rewove the untied rope.
"I was terribly worried you might be possessed."
"Do you still see me as Damian?"
She grimaced.
"That's not funny at all. What terrible humor."
While Bibi hastily wove the rope, Damian looked up at the sky. Through gaps in the black smoke, daylight filtered through dark clouds.
Bibi also stopped what she was doing and looked up.
The black smoke was slowly clearing and the barrier gradually fading.
"...What exactly did you do?"
"I did what was asked."
"..."
Then Damian suddenly pushed Bibi behind him.
"It seems it's not over yet."
His gaze turned toward beyond the dissipating barrier.
As the smoke disappeared, the previously cut-off external space began connecting. Then the sound of someone's wailing reached Bibi's ears.
It was the first sound of a living person they'd encountered while moving together.
Like wailing at a funeral, an old person's thin, long sobbing filled the silence.
As the barrier completely disappeared, the source of the wailing gradually came into view.
An old woman sat about a hundred paces away.
Before her were a stone tablet and an urn. They were exactly like those that had sealed the mages.
It was such an unexpected appearance that it seemed like a hallucination.
Damian gripped Bibi's wrist tightly and walked forward slowly. As they got closer, Bibi felt a sense of déjà vu from the old woman. The old woman's appearance became clearer and a stench assaulted their noses. Part of her flesh was rotting, but she was still moving.
Then the writing on the stone tablet caught their eye.
"...!"
[Bestien Zedna Baili Gainax]
Her name was written there. Chills ran down Bibi's spine as if ice water had been poured down her back.
If Damian hadn't held her tightly, her legs would have given out and she would have collapsed.
As they approached, the old woman's sobbing stopped. She began muttering quietly, "The prophecy is ruined. The goddess' blood... still, still breathes."
"Some intruder has ruined the prophecy. Order is twisted and balance broken."
The old woman's neck bent grotesquely backward as she glared at them.
A familiar face. As Bibi had sensed, it was the priestess whose head had been severed by Nielen.
And with eyes eaten by worms, she screamed at Damian with a possessed voice, "You're the one who ruined the festival!"
The old woman twisted her joints and forcibly raised her decaying body.