Chapter 66
Shwaaaaaak─!
“Eh?”
Something seeped out of Tabula’s corpse.
A brown, wood-like energy──no, was it mana? It shot toward me and seeped into my body before I had a chance to react.
“Shit, what is that?!”
Shit-colored mana was entering my body!
I flailed my arms, trying to shake the mana off, but it was no use. The mana couldn’t be touched.
Shwooo…
As the mana was absorbed into my body, I felt my heart thump hard, as if it had been jolted by a defibrillator or pumped by hand.
It didn’t hurt. There was no pain, and I even felt like I’d recovered a little stamina. My heartbeat slowly settled, and I blinked, feeling dazed.
Yeah, shit. HP recovery after a boss fight is a classic.
‘……Damn it.’
Enough nonsense. I scratched my head hard and clicked my tongue.
I’d suspected as much, but Tabula’s magic and Beast Regression did seem to be connected somehow.
The key phrase was ‘the mana of the Nine Gods.’
That prophecy thing he’d been going on about… the prophecy… Shit, I forgot. Was it the Werewolf of Prophecy? Anyway, that was bothering me, too.
I regretted not being able to listen properly in the heat of the moment. It might have been a chance to uncover the truth behind Beast Regression.
“Arthur? What’s wrong?”
Tirsi asked as she staggered toward me. Since she was standing and walking, it looked like she’d recovered some of her strength.
“Didn’t you see what just happened?”
“What just happened…?”
I guess she hadn’t seen it. Had only I been able to? Or maybe I’d seen it because I was the user of Beast Regression.
“Well, the thing is…”
I explained what had just happened to Tirsi. She thought it over before answering.
“That was a Succession phenomenon. It sometimes happens between people who use the same kind of mana. The mana must have been absorbed because you defeated Tabula.”
Succession?
“Is it dangerous?”
“It’s not dangerous, since the mana is filtered through the absorber’s body. In one of Romania’s religious orders, the pope performs a ritual to pass down divine power from generation to generation. Any mana the body can’t accept disappears.”
Oh, I see. In other words, Tabula’s mana had resonated with mine and been absorbed, while any mana harmful to my body would be rejected. I was glad it wasn’t particularly dangerous.
Shwooo─.
I focused on the mana pool inside me. It did feel like it had gotten bigger somehow. My MP was nearly depleted, so I couldn’t tell how much it had increased, though.
Anyway, magic of a similar kind…
‘The Great Madness Who Dwells in the Heavens… Was that it?’
I remembered what Tabula had said while chanting his spell.
The only gods of madness I knew were Cthulhu and Sheogorath. Sheogorath… Oblivion… Skyrim… Britannia belongs to the Nords. Damn Thalmor bastards, I wish you’d all fuck off.
“Just out of curiosity, does the term ‘Nine Gods’ mean anything to you?”
“No. Could they be pagan gods?”
Tirsi had heard Tabula’s words, so she offered her thoughts without asking anything else. I shook my head.
“If he were a pagan, he wouldn’t have been going around alone.”
“I suppose you’re right. It’s not like he was an Aztec rain god worshipper.”
There were groups in every country, including Romania, that rejected and executed pagans. That was why pagans never traveled alone.
Knowing they were persecuted, they stuck together almost obsessively with people they could communicate with. There were plenty of people like that on Earth, too, so it wasn’t anything new to me.
‘Tabula was probably a Germanian or a Berserker.’
His magic and the accent he used when speaking Britannian had given off that impression.
Anyway, Tirsi still hadn’t asked about my face. It was bothering me, so I asked her.
“Ahem. Ash? This is a bit of a different subject, but do you perhaps not recognize my face?”
“Huh? How could I not recognize you?”
Tirsi asked, looking puzzled. There was even a smile on her dusty face.
“I knew from the very beginning! I thought, ‘Oh, you’re Nord, the guy I worked with back then~.’”
“What… did you say……?”
I was shocked. Seriously shocked. Even compared to everything that had happened today, this was the biggest shock of all.
─KWA-BOOM!!
It was like lightning had struck inside my head.
Tirsi had known who I was from the start? Shit? How was that possible? Seeing how stunned I was, Tirsi blinked as if she were even more surprised than I was.
“Huh? Why are you so surprised? I’m not stupid. Did you think I wouldn’t recognize you just because you put on a slightly deeper voice? We’ve said more than a word or two to each other by now.”
“Th-that can’t be……”
Vector—Lowering My Voice had been completely useless!
It felt like my world was crumbling. A technique bearing the name of an Earth Hero had turned into a pathetic farce because of my own inexperience!
“Heh heh heh. Hehehe.”
Tirsi broke into laughter mixed with coughs. No, I was dead serious. Why was this young lady laughing?
‘I’ll have to be much more careful from now on.’
I made that vow to myself. This whole mess was caused by my lack of skill with Vector—Lowering My Voice.
From now on, I’d use an even more solemn, husky, sexy voice, so no one could ever argue that Nord was Arthur Wayne!!
“Hehehe. Ah, anyway, things have gotten a little complicated.”
Tirsi stopped laughing and spoke as she looked at Tabula’s corpse.
“Even if we don’t know who that man was, there’s a good chance he was part of some group.”
“Ah, yes. You’re worried about them tracking us down.”
“That’s right.”
Tirsi nodded with a serious expression. I agreed with her assessment.
If Tabula had been some lone criminal looking for illegal slaves, we’d be fine.
But what if he wasn’t acting alone and belonged to some lunatic group operating in the shadows? Of course they’d investigate when one of their men went out on a job and suddenly stopped checking in.
Now that I thought about it, he’d mentioned something about a ‘mission.’ He definitely had someone backing him… no, he definitely belonged to a group.
“Let’s clean up.”
I’d thought that far ahead, so I made the suggestion first.
“Bandit gangs are everywhere. There are plenty more of them lurking around besides these guys. If we gather the bodies and burn them, it’ll be harder for anyone to track us down.”
“I see. I think that’s a sensible response.”
Tirsi considered my suggestion carefully, then agreed.
“The people Tabula was after were ordinary civilians. Even if this ‘unknown group’ really exists, this bandit gang would just be one of many groups they deal with. I doubt Tabula would have reported the location of this hideout, either.”
“He didn’t seem like the meticulous type.”
Even if the bandit gang was wiped out, the guards wouldn’t care.
Maybe Tabula’s group’s usual method was to collect people from bandits as ‘sacrifices,’ kill all the bandits, and then leave. That was what he’d done today.
If today had just been one of their usual jobs, repeated over and over, they probably wouldn’t have bothered with thorough reports, check-ins, or consultations.
Even in the twenty-first-century Korean military, they might take patrols or guard duty seriously, but they rarely reported every little thing.
And so we began cleaning up after the incident.
We gathered all the bodies except for the leader we’d left alive. We took only the weapons that looked like they might be worth money and put them in our bags.
We buried Tabula’s massive corpse farther away from the others. His damn size made it no easy task to dig a hole big enough for him.
“Arthur, how are you going to cover your face?”
Tirsi asked after we’d finished cleaning up. Was she calling me Arthur to tease me in her own way?
“My mask is broken, so I’ll take this one instead.”
In place of my broken animal mask, I took the black iron mask Tabula had worn. I needed to cover my face, so I decided to bring it with me.
Tirsi nodded as if she understood.
“Could I see it? I’ll disinfect it for you, since it must feel unpleasant to wear.”
“Thank you.”
Tirsi cleaned the mask with a disinfection spell. While she was at it, she and I wiped the blood and dust off ourselves, too. Thanks to the potions, we’d managed to stop the bleeding from our wounds.
“……This mask has magic on it.”
But to Tirsi’s surprise, Tabula’s mask wasn’t an ordinary iron mask.
“They’re not particularly powerful, but it has ‘Appearance Obfuscation’ and ‘Stealth’ effects enchanted onto it. It’s the wooden talisman attached inside the mask that’s producing them, not the mask itself.”
Tirsi said as she examined the mask with magic.
“Appearance Obfuscation?”
“It blurs the wearer’s appearance and makes it difficult to remember the shape of their mask or clothes. ‘Stealth’ makes it harder for people to notice you while you’re hiding.”
“Ah, I see.”
So that was how such a huge guy had managed to avoid giving off any sign of his presence while I was wiping out the bandits. It must have been the effect of a magic item.
“You should keep this, Arthur. You can wear it when you go to the Transport Guild, too. It’ll be useful when you want to hide your identity.”
Tirsi thoroughly disinfected it with magic and returned it to me.
The crude wooden talisman attached inside the mask gave off a shamanistic feeling. It seemed Tabula had made it himself.
“Are you sure I can take it?”
“I don’t like masks.”
Tirsi said it in a tone that made it clear she was declining. Anyway, there was no reason to turn down something she was giving away for free. I’d gratefully accept it.
‘Score.’
I was a little put off by it being secondhand, but getting a magic item that looked so useful made me feel a fresh burst of energy despite my exhausted body.
Tabula had even given me a share of his mana. He was one generous son of a bitch.
Now I understood why there were scumbags in a world teeming with monsters who went after people instead. The profits from a single haul were on a whole different level.
“Should we ask the people who were hostages to carry the stolen goods?”
Tirsi asked before we burned the bodies. She intended to finish cleaning up so that no one else would come across this place.
“There isn’t much, so let’s do that. I feel bad for the people who were tormented by those bandits, but let’s consider it payment for saving their lives.”
There wasn’t much stolen property, since those bandit bastards had eaten or ruined most of the food and other supplies. We should be able to carry it all in one trip if we split it up.
So I followed Tirsi to see the hostages. They’d been trembling at the noise of the battle, but when they saw us, they were overjoyed.
“Thank you so much for saving us!!! You’ve saved my life!!!!”
The one-armed traveling merchant─probably the Transport Guildmaster’s son─thanked us through his tears. He was an adult, so he only cried for a little while. The real problem was the children.
“Th-thank you!! Th-thank you!!”
“Waaaaaaah!!! Waaahhhh!!!”
“Hic! Hic!”
The children had been kidnapped and locked up at an age when their emotions were especially sensitive. At the thought that they could finally escape, they burst into tears.
“Now, now! That’s enough, kids! Those kind people don’t know what to do!”
Neither Tirsi nor I could bring ourselves to soothe the sobbing children, but the one-armed merchant got them to quiet down in just two minutes.
“Now we can all go home! Let’s hang in there just a little longer!”
“Yeees!”
“Mmm-hmm!”
“Hic! Hic!!”
Maybe the children had come to rely on the merchant while they were locked up. Their tears stopped, and they calmed down. Impressed by how smoothly he’d handled them, I bowed to him.
“Thank you for calming them down.”
“No, it’s the least I can do for the people who saved my life!”
That was a pretty humble answer. He probably wanted to go home as soon as possible, too, so it was a win-win.
─Thud.
The children were malnourished, so I decided to carry more than half of the stolen goods myself. I activated Beast Regression and slung more than four bags over my back like a traveling peddler.
“<Fire Missile>.”
All that remained was for Tirsi to burn the bodies with the only fire-attribute spell she’d learned.
─Rumble!!
We went outside and set them on fire. As we did, the cave collapsed completely. The earth inside couldn’t withstand the intense heat and caved in.
“It’s good that there won’t be any loose ends.”
“It sure is.”
Tirsi cut off the mana and extinguished the flames.
And with that, our grand adventure to retrieve the thesis came to an end.
Anyway, it feels good to do something good. And make some money, too.