The Great Empire of a Distant Land (18)

A month had passed since I began telling my story to the True Dragon.

At first, I had intended to give it only the highlights, but the dragon kept pestering me for more details, so the story was hardly progressing at all.

It would probably take much longer yet.

I decided to spend one hour a day telling my story to the True Dragon.

That seemed about the limit for a bedtime story.

If I talked any longer, even a dragon would end up wide awake instead.

Well, I could take it slowly, a little at a time.

It wasn't as if I were in a hurry to reach the end.

However, if I only talked for an hour a day, I would have plenty of free time for the rest of the day.

Or so I thought, but just as we had previously promised, Ouki Genjo came to Yellow Ancient Province with Byakubyo Rokun, so I didn't end up with quite as much free time as expected.

Genjo told me that if I planned to stay in Yellow Ancient Province for a while, I should forge her a magic greatsword during that time.

What was more, in a truly unexpected surprise, Byakubyo Rokun saw the magic sword and announced that he wanted to learn blacksmithing from me.

According to Byakubyo Rokun, the spell formulas and patterns used in the magic sword were already familiar to him.

However, he found the ingenuity used to protect the patterns carved into the blade interesting, and said he was interested in the technique of engraving them precisely enough to function as spell formulas in the first place.

The talismans used by the sages were Byakubyo Rokun's invention, but drawing patterns correctly on paper still required skill.

Even so, magicians already practiced writing characters and drawing patterns as part of their studies, so it was a relatively easy skill to learn.

But this magic sword combined blacksmithing and magic, two skills that ordinarily had nothing to do with each other.

The reason magical tools had never caught on in the central region was that casting magic was quicker than using them, and that engraving precise patterns that would function as spell formulas onto magical tools was difficult.

I had learned blacksmithing before I learned magic, and since Kaushuman's master had been a dwarf, the latter hurdle had never seemed particularly daunting to us.

That was why we had been able to pursue research into magical tools, and why we had actually succeeded in forging a magic sword.

Apparently, that novelty was what made it so interesting to Byakubyo Rokun.

Reusable magical tools, and magic swords whose functions as weapons were enhanced by magic.

He spoke passionately to me about wanting to try making such things himself.

...The old man with the long white beard.

Well, I knew that age had no bearing on an immortal, but I still couldn't help worrying: Old man, are you really all right? Can you even hold a hammer?

I had hardly ever met anyone who looked like an old man and was actually older than me, so I felt self-conscious about teaching him things as though I were his superior.

Still, I understood Byakubyo Rokun's feelings quite well, and since I was about to have time on my hands anyway, I ultimately agreed.

In exchange, Byakubyo Rokun would teach me about the composition of the special wax used in the sages' talismans, as well as the spell formulas themselves.

Then Ouki Genjo offered to teach me how to use the weapons of the Yellow Ancient Empire as payment for the magic greatsword, and my days suddenly became much busier.

I told stories to the True Dragon, rode Saia through the forest, swung a hammer alongside Byakubyo Rokun in the forge set up in one corner of the castle, read books on magic, and learned martial arts from Ouki Genjo.

Those overly packed days flew by.

As I nibbled on immortal peaches, breathed in the forest air, and listened carefully, I could hear the voices of the trees and spirits very close by.

Ever since I began talking to the True Dragon, I had been able to hear the voices of all sorts of things more clearly than before.

This world felt closer to me.

I practiced swinging the greatsword alongside Ouki Genjo.

Before I actually took hold of it, I had thought of it as a weapon that used centrifugal force to deliver tremendously powerful blows, but... it was surprisingly more than that.

Of course, a powerful strike was the true worth of a long weapon, but its other feature was the wide variety of changes produced by amplifying delicate movements.

In fact, the way it made it so easy to aim at an opponent's lower body felt a little unfair.

Speaking of unfair, the weapons of the Yellow Ancient Empire also included an abundance of hidden weapons used by assassins.

In particular, the weapon called a rope dart, a throwing knife attached to a cord, was interesting because the attack launched by the wielder's motion and the weapon's trajectory were completely different.

Its movements were like those of a snake, a bee, or a monster's tail, yet they were entirely different from all of them—unpredictable.

Ouki Genjo taught me how to deal with this weapon too, but I was truly glad that I had never been targeted by an assassin using it before meeting her.

If I had encountered this weapon without any prior information, there was a real chance that I might have become curious and tried to observe it, leaving myself open to an unexpected defeat.

But anyway—

"Hey, Genjo. Today I heard from the True Dragon—the Golden Dragon—that... Apparently, there are four True Dragons in all. Do you know where the others are?"

I voiced the question raised by what the True Dragon had just told me to Ouki Genjo.

These days, the True Dragon had started telling me all sorts of things too, rather than merely listening to my stories.

But even I had no idea how to process being suddenly hit with a bombshell like this.

So I ended up making a face like Ouki Genjo's when I sprang a story like this on her.

"N-no, I don't know. Don't spring something like that on me out of nowhere. My heart nearly stopped. ...Still, I have to ask—you're not joking, are you?"

As expected, she didn't know.

If even the immortals didn't know, then there shouldn't be any other True Dragons in the eastern part of this continent, at least.

They were probably sleeping on another continent, beneath the sea, or in a world above the clouds.

If one had been nearby, I would have tried somehow to make contact and convince it that the current world wasn't so bad, but that seemed difficult.

There were apparently other kinds of dragons as well, created by the gods in imitation of the True Dragons.

The stories among humans about seeing dragons probably came from people who had seen these other kinds of dragons.

If elves existed as counterparts to True Elves, and other kinds of dragons existed as counterparts to True Dragons, then False Giants probably existed somewhere in relation to True Giants as well.

There was still so much in this world that I didn't know.

Ouki Genjo shook her head, took two or three deep breaths, and regained her composure.

Then she looked straight at me,

"At least among the matters involving the Ancient Ones that I know of, there's only one more. An eastern island nation shaped like a crescent moon—yes, Eisa's destination. It's a land where the people of the south and the oni of the north are at war."

That was what she told me.

Oni.

It was a race I had never heard of before.

The fallen immortals are called vampires or energy-draining oni. I wondered if they were related somehow.

"The oni living there worship the True Giant. ...To put it in terms Eisa would understand more easily, oni are descendants of the surviving demonfolk. When the demonfolk were on the verge of extinction, the True Giant sheltered some of them and secretly sent them to the far north of that island."

...Demonfolk.

A general term for people who sought to evolve using magical power, just as beasts became monsters under its influence.

Humans weren't the only ones; elves, dwarves, and many other races became demonfolk, and... were destroyed after being judged dangerous.

High Elves were among those who destroyed them.

"At first, there were few survivors, so there was no problem with them living quietly in that land. But as their numbers gradually increased, their home became too small."

That led to conflict with the humans, who lived in places better suited to habitation.

As a result, the oni, who had initially lived only in the mountains of the island's far north, now controlled the northern half of the island.

The people living in the south had initially been divided among several countries, but apparently united to oppose the oni.

And the Yosogi School was probably a style that had flowed west from a country destroyed by the oni.

"So even if Eisa goes to that country, you're probably not going to see what you hope to see. In the center of that island stands an ancient giant tree said to have been planted by the Giant, called the Fuso Tree. So both the northern oni and the southern people call their own country the Land of Fuso. ...There is nothing but conflict in that land."

Having said that, Ouki Genjo returned to practicing her swings with the greatsword.

Apparently, she had no intention of telling me anything more.

An island where the Fuso Tree grew.

How many years would pass before I left here and set foot there?

Even if nothing but conflict awaited me there, I still wanted to make my way to that land.

I hadn't expected anything from the outset.

As for a story to bring home... having encountered a True Dragon, I already had more than enough, if you asked me, but yes, the Fuso Tree had piqued my interest.

In any case, if I was going back to the central region, I might as well pay my respects to that giant tree first.

Having made that decision, Ouki Genjo said nothing more.