Chapter 277
"W-what is this?! It says I'm being corrupted...?!"
Saara, holding the 'Ancient Bone Teeming with Resentment,' screamed. This was bad! If its description was accurate, the cursed bone would take over her!
"Forgive me, Saara."
"Eek?!"
"What the hell are you doing?!"
Genjuro was the first to react to the abnormality that had befallen Saara. He stepped in instantly and cut off her arm at the elbow as he drew his blade.
With Saara's abnormality and Genjuro's sudden act of violence, nearly everyone stood frozen, unable to keep up with the dizzying turn of events. Mac alone charged at Genjuro with an angry shout. Apparently anticipating this, Genjuro deflected Mac's fist with the horn on his forehead, and when Mac lost his balance, Jigoro dove in, took him down, and restrained him with a grappling hold.
"You bastard! Let go of me!"
"Now, calm down. This old man doesn't draw his sword without a reason. Right?"
"W-wait, brother! Genjuro-san saved me!"
Mac struggled violently while Jigoro held him down, but he stopped moving when he heard Saara's voice. The bone bindings that had been spreading over her arm as if encasing it had been severed along with her arm and pulled away from her.
Mac went completely still while Jigoro held him down, then relaxed as if relieved. After confirming that Mac had calmed down, Jigoro released him from the hold and stood up. Mac followed suit.
"It was clearly caused by something extending from the bone, you see. I thought cutting off the young lady's arm was the only way to save her. Sorry for startling you."
"No, I should be apologizing to you, my benefactor. I shouldn't have attacked you. Though you stopped me so easily..."
Genjuro and Mac apologized to each other and admitted their faults. Mac, however, looked more than a little embarrassed. Even though he had lost his composure, he was probably experienced in martial arts. Having his strike so easily deflected by a horn may have come as quite a shock.
But what were we supposed to do with this bone? If merely touching it caused someone to become corrupted like Saara, taking it home would be difficult. Leaving it behind and going home would also annoy me... Hmm...
"I'm glad you're safe... Still, the description says someone well versed in curses and evil knowledge should be fine, but such abstract wording isn't very helpful."
"Curses?"
"Evil?"
Pop, relieved that Saara had not been taken over, repeated the condition from the description for retaining one's sanity. Ruby and Shio then stared intently at me. What was wrong? Was there something on my mask?
"If it's Izam, he should be fine, right?"
"Oh, true. Curses and evil are so Izam!"
Wool's assertion that I should be fine meant that I should be able to touch the 'Ancient Bone Teeming with Resentment' without a problem. Shifune agreed, and Ruby and Shio nodded as well. Wait, did everyone think that?
When I looked around, Jigoro, Genjuro, Mossan, and the others all seemed to share the same opinion. They, too, were nodding. No, I could merely use magic considered evil; it wasn't as if I had amassed knowledge about it. I could handle curses, too, but the same applied there. So I wasn't confident at all...
"Can you do it, Izam?"
"That would be amazing, if you really can."
From Jigoro and the others' reactions, Mac and his companions also looked at me expectantly, thinking I might be all right. I had never said I was confident I wouldn't be corrupted, yet somehow things had reached the point where I was expected to try retrieving it!
Oh, to hell with it! If things have inevitably reached the point where I have to retrieve it, I'll steel myself and grab it like a man!
"Genjuro, if anything happens, I'm counting on you...!"
Assuming I would be corrupted, I picked up the bone. Just as with Saara, the vein-like patterns running across its surface extended slightly and touched me. I thought I would be corrupted as well, but the patterns did not extend any farther and gradually returned to their original state. It seemed everyone's prediction had been correct.
Now I could bring a rare item home. It was surprisingly easy... The moment I thought that, my entire field of vision changed.
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"What happened?! Am I... in the sky?"
I should have been in the cave that served as the boss area. However, what now spread out before me was a cloudless blue sky. No, clouds definitely existed. They were not floating overhead, though; a sea of clouds stretched below me as far as I could see!
In other words, I was floating above the clouds. Moreover, since the sea of clouds was flowing backward, I seemed to be moving forward at high speed. Where in the world was this? I tried to turn my head and assess the situation... but I couldn't.
"My neck won't move? No, I can't even move my eyes? What's going on... Oh! This is a vision of the residual thoughts left in the bone!"
The bone's owner's residual thoughts—the ones mentioned in the description. I must be seeing them. Otherwise, there'd be no explanation for this utterly bizarre vision of the sky.
I couldn't control my field of vision, but I tried to gather whatever information I could from what was visible. There were no landmarks whatsoever above the sea of clouds, so I had no idea where this place was. However, I did learn what the bone's owner had looked like while alive.
"A flying whale... Come to think of it, I feel like I've seen a similar whale from a window in Shiratsuki. Are you its ancestor?"
The bone's owner had been a flying whale. It moved its fins elegantly, swimming through the sky. Its movements were slow, but it seemed to be traveling quite fast, perhaps because of its enormous size.
Apparently, this individual was swimming at the head of a herd, since several whales following behind appeared at the edge of my vision. Somehow, the ones following seemed smaller than the whale whose viewpoint I shared. Perhaps it was the leader of the herd.
"I understand that this is a whale's field of vision, but why am I being shown something like this...?!"
Just after I understood the situation I was in, my field of vision shifted violently. A powerful impact struck me from below, sending my body into a corkscrew spin and scrambling my vision. Through the swaying view, I clearly saw my lower body torn apart, along with the members of the herd, who had been similarly blown to pieces.
They had probably been attacked by something from below and knocked from the sky. Dragged down by gravity, the whales plunged into the sea of clouds and emerged from its underside.
"W-what is this...!"
Then I saw it: a gigantic metal regular icosahedron floating in the sky, with countless turrets extending from one of its faces.
The turrets opened fire on me and the other whales as we fell. There was no way I could follow the trajectories of the shells. The moment the muzzles flashed, another tremendous impact slammed into my body. After taking so many shells, there was no way we could possibly survive.
My vision gradually faded, but the owner of the vision continued glaring at the icosahedron that had shot the whale and its companions down until the very end. I could not sense the owner's emotions, but it was not difficult to imagine how bitterly it must have resented such an utterly unreasonable death. Surely the hatred born from the deaths of the whale and its companions was what turned this bone into a cursed item.
"Hey, brother? You okay? You've been spacing out..."
"Y-yeah... Jigoro, how long was I staring blankly?"
"Huh? Maybe five seconds?"
Before I knew it, my field of vision had returned to normal. The vision had felt short, but in my subjective experience, at least two or three minutes had passed. My perception of time must have been accelerated. I didn't understand the point or reason for showing it in an instant... Perhaps it was because these were residual thoughts?
"You suddenly started spacing out. Could you be cursed? Grandpa!"
"No! Wait! Nothing is wrong with me! Really!"
Seeing my condition, Ruby looked suspicious and tried to call Genjuro, so I hurriedly stopped her. In fact, there was no indication anywhere that I was being corrupted like Saara, nor had any vein-like patterns extended from the bone onto me as they had onto her.
I showed Ruby the unaffected hand, and she finally accepted that I was fine. Genjuro had already drawn his blade slightly, but he returned it to its sheath. Could he please stop looking so mildly disappointed?
"Anyway, if it looks like only Izam can even touch it, then you guys should have it. Besides, you did more than us. You're all okay with that, right?"
When Mac checked with his companions, they nodded. Not a single person, ourselves included, could claim to have contributed more than Jigoro and Genjuro. Thus, no one objected to my—or rather, our clan's—taking it.
In any case, the boss fight was over. It had been a tough battle, and I had flown around providing support for everyone, so I was extremely tired. We should call it a day.
"How about we call it here for today? I'm too tired to fight anymore."
"Yeah, sounds good. I'm beat."
"Indeed. Besides, we've used almost all our consumable items. Now that the boss battle is over and our tension has eased, we may be especially prone to letting our guard down. It would be a problem if we suffered a serious injury only to find we'd run out of medicine."
"My gear is on its last legs too. If Iris-san doesn't repair it, it'll probably break before today is over."
The mental fatigue, along with the depletion of our items and equipment, was a problem, but I was also concerned that we had liberally used 'Ultimate Technique' and 'Secret Art' at the end of the boss fight. If we encountered a situation where we could not win without using those trump cards and they were not available again yet, we would be in serious danger. As someone cautious to the point of cowardice, I did not want to go adventuring while carrying such a risk.
Jigoro and Genjuro still seemed eager to keep fighting, but apparently they were willing to return with us without protest. It was surprising, so there had to be a reason. I wanted to ask what it was, yet I also didn't... It was a complicated feeling.
"Then let's call it here for today. You were a huge help, and I had fun."
"Likewise. I had fun too. If we get another chance, let's fight together again."
"We might be enemies the next time we meet, though, right?"
"Ha-ha! That's true! Go easy on me when that happens!"
"Ruby-san, that's something the lower-level side is supposed to say!"
After chatting for a little while longer, we parted ways with Mac and the others and returned to Shiratsuki. The boss fight had been unexpected, but all in all, it had been an enjoyable day. I should be able to sleep soundly tonight!