Episode 78 — Youkai Mountain
～ Part 2 ～
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The next morning, Utsurogi Kyousuke and the others were heading to the negotiation with the adventurers.
They properly let Wogan have breakfast, for now, they bound his arms and gagged him to keep him from using magic, but looking at how pitiful he became, they decided to untie him. Instead, they deployed a formation so that Inugami could immediately spring at him and Yukinoshita could freeze him to dust if he was to make any strange move, then they headed to the negotiation place like that.
The magic Wogan specialized in was mainly ones dealing with lightning, other than that were ice and wind. It seemed he wasn’t too good at fire magic which was fatal to Yukinoshita and Rin.
“Wogan-san, is the magic human uses different from the ones we use?”
“It’s different. Monsters that can use magic, in most case, use magic via a connection with spirits they innately had high affinity with. It’s a kind of spirit magic.”
While heading to their destination, Wogan answered Azuki’s question.
“Spirit magic can only be used by races with high affinity with spirits. Us humans can’t use it.”
“I think elf can use it, can’t they?”
“Nowadays, elf is accepted as a comrade of humanity, but until 200 years ago, they had been persecuted as a monster species. The same for Dwarf. They had high affinity with earth and fire spirits, they can use spirit magic.”
The fact that human became able to use magic itself was something very recent, well, recent in light of the long history.
The magic human developed was divided into black magic and white magic when categorizing based on the effects exerted, then crest magic and chant magic when categorizing based on invocation method. Before those magic was developed 200 years ago, human could only used oracle magic which was in turns limited to only a part of the clergies.
“Oracle magic can only be used by human. By praying to the gods in heaven, one can draw out miraculous power. This is because the heavenly gods are the gods of human.”
Saying so, Wogan turned his gaze to Hakuba.
“Eh, what is it?”
“Life magic unicorns use is something drawing on the power of the Life King who is one of the sovereign gods. The unicorn species are direct descendants that was born into this world by the Life King and the Beast King, so they can use it. Its principle is close to human’s oracle magic.”
On the way, the party listened to Wogan’s magic lecture. For example, the magic that people called chaos magic or darkness magic that Sakuma, Kaoruko as well as monsters such as lesser demon used, also invoked by borrowing the Demon King’s power.
The ‘Life King’ as well as the ‘Demon King’ had been destroyed by the heavenly gods during the mythical war happened in ancient times. But their kins remained on the ground, and remnants of the power of the perished sovereign gods also remained.
“Then, what about Kyousuke-kun? Kyousuke-kun is an undead? Can’t he use magic of the ‘Death King’ guy or something?”
“The physical body of the Death King had been annihilated from this world, so remnants of his power doesn’t remain.”
Rin’s words were clearly denied by Wogan.
“The perished sovereign gods are generally divided into two. First is those who lost their power due to the substance of their power — so to speak — their ‘king fragment’ and their physical body being dismembered. Second is their physical body itself being destroyed. It’s only possible to draw on their power in case their physical body still remained somewhere in this world.”
“Heh. Then, both the Life King and the Demon King’s physical body still remains somewhere.”
“This New Continent is said to be the land where Demon King escaped to after his king fragment was snatched away in the mythical warring period. Directly descended species like lesser demon live here is for that reason. The decayed physical body of the Demon King is somewhere on this continent and not a few adventurers come here to look for that.”
Well, none of those guys came back in the end, Wogan supplemented a horrifying comment.
Hearing the explanation, Kyousuke who had been silent so far suddenly worried about something.
“If the king fragments are the power source of those perished sovereign gods, then is it possible to return that to their body?”
“…To prevent against that, the king fragments are strictly controlled in the imperial capital.”
If the king fragment was to be returned to the undestroyed physical body, so to speak, the king body, that meant the revival of that sovereign god.
The sovereign gods were the king of monsters living in this world. No one could be sure they wouldn’t lead their kins to bare their fang at the empire and humanity again. The empire feared that, the adventurer guild also cooperated with the collection of the undiscovered king fragments.
“That reminds me of lots of stuff.”
While crossing her arms, Yukinoshita said in a cold voice.
“The devil Christianity talked about is the same.”
“I’m the advent of heavenly grandson, is it…”
Even Ozashiki unusually raised his voice.
This time, it was Wogan’s turn to tilt his head.
“What’s that?”
“I think I told you that we’re trippers, but,”
Kyousuke took over their words. He was confident if it’s about sub-culture knowledge. Also double as the explanation for the blank-looking Hakuba, Azuki and Inugami, he courteously spoke.
“In our world, there are several big religion, one of them has spread through the world over long age of about 2000 years. In that process, they adopted the gods of local religion as the ‘devil’.”
The advent of heavenly grandson that Ozashiki talked about was the same story. God descended from heaven and laid the foundation to govern all of Japan. That’s the rough explanation. The local powerful families who opposed the imperial court were mostly exterminated as youkai, such contents were used for several games and manga. Only, the game Kogane crazily pushed for rated R-18 so Kyousuke didn’t touch it.
Well, it might be possible to recognize the story of heavenly gods and sovereign gods and whatnot was surely the tale of the humans who laid the foundation of the empire went on to oppress the local kings and conquered the continent.
“I don’t understand.”
Wogan inclined his head.
“God is god, devil is devil, isn’t it?”
“…Well, that may be the normal reaction in the world where both gods and devils are real.”
Because it’s like this, that it’s a fantasy. That feeling certainly existed.
As they were talking, Kyousuke and the others finally arrived at the adventurer relay camp Rezbon party was at.
The camp the adventurer guild established was prepared with decent wall and barrier magic formation to defend against monster attack. There were several such buildings between the area along the coastline till right before the desert.
“We’re here, Rezbon!”
Kyousuke shouted, the gate slowly creaked open.
Kyousuke and the others brought Wogan inside. Before the building stood the one-eyed one-armed adventurer Rezbon Balruk, and gathered by his sides were two female adventurers. The small build one was Filhana Grandburner, the other big build, muscular person was Rein who finally recovered.
One person insufficient. Kyousuke and the others moved their gaze.
“Rezbon, what happened with Wombat?”
The first person who spoke up was Wogan. Rezbon and the others appeared surprised that Wogan who should have been a prisoner wasn’t even tied up, but their faces immediately twitched at his words, then they shook their heads.
“…Seriously.”
“Eh, did something happen?”
Kyousuke asked Wogan who seemed to have guessed something.
The person who wasn’t here was the thief Wombat. Since Inugami looked like she would bite him to death the moment she saw him and even Kyousuke didn’t feel too pleasant about him either, so he didn’t care at all if that guy wasn’t here. But this insinuating attitude bothered him a little.
“I think I told you. Karasuma has a part similar to Wombat.”
Said Wogan. Kyousuke glumly talked back.
“That guy won’t do anything like taking frail girls hostage or breaking the promise not to attack.”
“…Maybe.”
Without even talking back strongly, Wogan easily agreed.
“Anyway, Wombat doesn’t seem to be here. He must have been impatient for credit and secretly snuck out. That idiot.”
What meaning was included in the word «That idiot»? Kyousuke tried to scrutinize it, but he stopped. Because his thought would only go in an unpleasant direction no matter what. Besides, having unpleasant thought about others wasn’t really Kyousuke’s nature.
“Now now, Utsurogi, first of all, let’s start the negotiation.”
Rezbon smiled bitterly and went on to pacify him.
“I can’t say we’ll swallow all your demands, but I think we have many information we can provide you. First of all, I would like to apologize for our ineptitude, please come in, everyone.”
“It’s not like I want Rezbon’s apology or anything.”
The voice Kyousuke muttered was, as expected, glum.
The foxes started moving to the place for negotiation. During that short time, Karasuma tried to grasp the situation as best as possible.
The 9-tailed great fox was called my lady, Karasuma also decided to imitate that. As Karasuma had guessed, the lady and the foxes came from the youkai mountain, it seemed she was going to negotiate as the representative of the cultural sphere unique to the New Continent called Seria.
Seria was also the name they used for the New Continent. It was a country group with various different culture mixing together, they mostly had no relation with the humans of the Old Continent. Sometimes they won over adventurers who came to investigate thew New Continent.
What Karasuma first thought of was that Seria might be a cultural sphere established by trippers like themselves. But the basis to prove that was lacking.
According to what he heard, Seria also had many humans, they had been devoting themselves to the fight with the demons worshiping evil god cult. In order to concentrate on this battle, Seria cultural sphere wanted to persist non-interference in the battle of the blood clan and the Central Empire.
“(However, this information doesn’t seem much related to us.)”
Even if Seria was a community established by trippers, they would be people who chose to settle down on this land. It wasn’t the place Karasuma and the others should head to as returning was a given for them. It would be different if there were other classmates who got warped to Seria but that didn’t seem to be the case.
“I can see it.”
Said the lady, Karasuma and the foxes looked in the direction she indicated.
That was a small entrance to a dungeon set to bury in the sand at a corner of the desert. It resembled the ‘Catacombs’ Karasuma and the others were first transported to. Did the blood clan seize it beforehand, or did they had the technology to create this kind of dungeon?
But what surprised and at the same time, terrified Karasuma was the appearance of the sentry standing to protect the dungeon entrance. A nearly 10 meters tall, two-faced, 6-armed corpse. It was a ‘Wight King’. Not only that. Turning its gaze around at the feet of the Wight King was a humanoid monster with goat face and bat wings. The minute they saw that, the foxes’ hair stood on end, exposing their vigilance.
“Come.”
The lady informed the foxes.
“Demon kins and that, is that a replica of the Death King? It seems true that those guys are keeping two king fragments.”
The muttered voice was a little annoyed.
Replica of the Death King. King fragment. Both were words he had never heard of. Demon kins, that he could understand somewhat. After all, he had just heard about the demon worshipping evil god cult they were hostile against.
The king fragment would be an item that could freely manipulate those kind of monsters or something. If that’s the case, as the representative of Seria cultural sphere, the lady might want to keep the blood clan who possessed the king fragment from joining hands with the evil god cult. So to speak, the blood clan could use the king fragment as a shield in the negotiation.
“(If it’s an item with that much power, perhaps…)”
Don’t hurry. Karasuma restrained himself. Wait for the chance. That time will definitely come.
The wight king and the demon ——— the lesser demon let them past, the lady entered. The foxes and Karasuma were also allowed to accompany her. The dungeon interior had a structure that was obviously resembling that of the Catacombs, ghouls and imps were loitering inside.
No blood clan could be seen (patrolling). Neither was there any appearance of the black armored Pawns. The owner of this dungeon would be a Pawn or a piece higher ranked than that. One lesser demon guided them to a room in the back.
“———Welcome, Mizukume.”
Waiting in the room they arrived at was a tall man wearing a back tuxedo. Red eyes and canines peeking from his mouth were confirmed. A member of the blood clan.
He wasn’t alone. In a corner of the room was, as expected, a woman of the blood clan. She wore a fluttery frilly black dress, in her hand gripped an exaggerated spear. The lady first show sign of being annoyed at the narrowness of the room entrance, then she gazed at the man and bared her fangs.
“Don’t call be by that name.”
“Then, I shall imitate others and call you my lady. I’m a bishop, Glen. Over here is a knight, Sink.”
Bishop and Knight. Karasuma confirmed their appearance, and his heart froze. But careful not to let it show, he made sure not to separate from the lady as much as possible. To the bitter end, he pretended to be one ayakashi who followed her.
If the lady held any fellowship for the same kind, she would also cheat it somewhat for him.
“Only one crow tengu is here, huh.”
Sure enough, Glen wonderingly said so.
“The holy priest doesn’t trust me. Well, never mind that. Let’s start the talk.”
Saying so, the lady glanced at the one lesser demon in the room.
“It doesn’t feel too pleasant meeting these lots.”
“I see, very well.”
Glen also laughed a bit and sat down on a chair prepared in the room.
This was the base of the blood clan on this continent. But no matter how you look at it, it wasn’t their stronghold. Kogane and the King of the blood clan would not be here. Would Kumosaki and Shokuzura still be here somewhere? Or had they been carried to the stronghold at who knows where?
Besides, king fragments. Where on earth was that king fragment?
Agitated, Karasuma restlessly looked around the room. While Glen and the lady was starting the conversation, in the room, only the knight Sink was coldly staring at that.
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