Chapter 169: Resolve to Die, Reason to Live (6)
“Tis me, Roxa Tribolt.”
Azar stared into Roxa’s smug face for a long while then turned his head away with an aloof look on his face. He seemed unaffected by this rather touching moment.
Roxa snapped. “Ha! I always knew ye were an ungrateful punk but how can ye mouth stay put in a moment like dis? Don’t ye even know how ter say thank you?”
“…”
Azar did not answer and merely concentrated on moving around his newly created arm.
“You mannerless little…”
“As if you said thank you yourself. I thought you were a kind that likes to make trades, no? This is given.”
“Ha…! An’ did I ask fer ye help?”
“What? After what I’ve done to keep you alive…!”
“Thank ye.”
Azar’s eyes widened at the straightforward words of gratitude. He was confused whether the words were truly uttered from Roxa’s mouth.
“Come ter think o’ it, since I’ve paid da price o’ ye saving me, ye wouldna need ter say thank ye. Though ye eyes look as if they are moved enough ter tears, keep it in.”
“Don’t flatter yourself…”
Azar muttered curtly and avoided Roxa’s gaze.
In truth, Azar has heard every word of the spider monster’s whispers and Roxa’s screams while he was under hypnosis.
A monster that brings out the memories from the past to weaken human hearts and control them, even Azar who has been living fighting against magical beasts all his life had never seen such an intelligent type before.
‘Things could have gone really wrong.’
Azar acted nonchalant but took a glance at Roxa who stood next to him.
Although it was unintentional, he peeped into Roxa’s past.
The harsh words he shot at Azar’s siblings were probably words that Roxa wanted to say to his younger self.
And he thought he could never forgive this punk matter what kind of story he had…
‘Perhaps I should be relieved to even see him surviving with a grin on his face despite such tough memories.’
Azar mused for a moment and shook his head lightly.
“Anyways, wot should we do from here…?”
“What?”
Following Roxa’s gaze as he looked up the forest with a pale face, Azar’s head turned as well.
“Ah.”
Where the forest stood until just now, there was nothing, only a vast wilderness.
Roxa turned his head with fear in his eyes.
Behind them was an open portal, black like the mouth of the monster they’d just encountered.
It seems they had found the way to the next stage, but…
“Curse me luck, don’t tell me I’m left with jus’ you?”
…the rest of the group should still be on the other side of the forest.
Azar’s face was distorted with shock as well.
* * *
“It’s Somnifer. From what I remember, it’s a magical beast that was born after Shesep. I did hear that it got locked away in Orcus for its sin of using the powers bestowed by Gaionia in a malicious way…”
We had entered the forest following Azar and Roxa. Not too far into the forest, what we encountered was the spider monster Somnifer, dead with a giant hole on its head.
Seemingly scared, Abel and Deborah held onto each of my legs while shaking, but Michael gandered at the horrific state the dead body was in here and there and even managed a smile.
“My, my… this one was rather bothersome, so this is good news. I thought those two would be good enough if they even manage to work as cannon fodder but they seem quite talented.”
Hearing him refer to Azar and Roxa as such, I gave a smack on Michael’s shoulder.
“Why do you have to put it like that?”
“Is it really dead?” Abel asked and Michael rummaged around Somnifer’s dead body with a tip of his feet.
“Probably. The magical beasts made around the creation of time have a core with a mind of its own so normally they don’t die unless that core is destroyed, but…”
Michael laughed once again and kicked Somnifer’s head.
“Seeing how it’s dead and won’t move an inch, the core is shattered as well, it seems.”
“Is it like a nexus?”
Despite Abel asking questions, Michael didn’t seem bothered as he gave his answer with a pleasant air for some reason. He seemed pleased that the magical beast who would be in the way got dealt with easily.
“Something like it. The core of magical beasts was the concept that came before nexus. The humans created at first did not have abilities nor nexus.”
“I see.”
“In that sense, Somnifer could be regarded as the ancestor to dark elementalists. The first ability Gaionia had granted this magical beast was peeping into others memories and manipulating them.”
Gaionia himself probably wouldn’t have known that Somnifer would end up abusing its abilities either.
Certainly, Somnifer did not abuse its mind control abilities at first. It wasn’t in the form of a grotesque spider either. Although my memories were faint, I could remember that Somnifer used to work on tending to injured and dying animals’ souls and erase their horrific last memories to send them off in peace.
“But this magical beast has started to control the living things to its will with its abilities. Not just Gaionia but every being in this world turned their backs on it, considering it leery.”
“Ah, that’s why…”
“Yes. Just like how dark elementalists got shunned, this magical beast was also exiled into the depth of Orcus… well, it was living well hidden but in the end, this is how it ended up. What a shame.”
Though his face didn’t seem to be considering it a shame at all.
I held onto oddly happy-looking Michael’s arm and asked him.
“We have no time to lose, why are you quoting a monster encyclopedia now? We must find Azar and Roxa and get out of here. We have no time to lose.”
“Don’t be hasty. The master of this forest was probably Somnifer. Since the two of them seemed to have killed it and fled, you don’t need to worry so much about them… the rest of us just need to follow the track and get out of here like we were doing.”
Despite Michael’s words telling me not to worry, I felt uneasy.
Because…
“Do you feel it too, mother?”
Looking up at me as I silently opened and closed my fist, Abel asked quietly.
“…You too?”
“Yes.”
Right. The moment we entered this forest, I could sense instinctively that the flow of mana had suddenly halted.
I didn’t know the reason why, but it felt similar to the time when I took mana suppressants.
Though Michael didn’t seem to sense it at all for some reason…
Since Abel and I were more sensitive to the flow of mana because we had not used a lot of mana yet, we couldn’t help but be instinctively alert.
I wasn’t certain if this forest was the problem or whether the problem was with the state we were in, but I could certainly say that we are totally powerless at this moment.
Feeling hasty, I tugged at Michael’s arm.
“Alright, alright. Let’s get a move on then. This place is too…”
In that instant,
Michael grabbed my arm holding him and pushed me backward roughly to fall.
“Ack!”
“Mother!”
“D-duchess!”
Abel and Deborah rushed to me startled as I lay sprawled on the ground.
I raised my eyes in a hurry to see Michael and got startled.
It seemed like I was the one being targeted. Michael was standing in the place I was standing on until just now.
To be precise, he stood with his right arm tied tightly by something in my place.
“Ah, no…”
Thin but tough; a thread of white spider web was stretching out of Somnifer’s mouth, who we thought to be dead.
[Is this…poor… Ignis?]
Somnifer’s limp legs gave one big flinch, as if being electrocuted.
The lifeless nine eyes on the monster’s head had sudden grotesque green sheen about them.
[I’m so…glad. Hm, my days. Such delicious memories…]
“Aisha.”
Looking down at the web which started to tie around his right feet as well, Michael called me quietly.
“Don’t turn around, and run back the way we came. Leave this place. No matter what.”
“Its core is not broken yet. We must find it and shatter it.”
I told Abel sitting beside me quickly.
“The core…”
Abel despaired turning to look at Somnifer.
He seemed troubled to even assume where on the spider’s body the core may be, when it’s about ten times his size.
[It would have taken me centuries to… recover… but to think such prey with delicious memories would… step in.]
“Priestess Deborah.”
“Yes, yes, Grand Priest!”
[Not just any human… Ignis who suffers eternally! Ignis! I knew it! Gaionia has not… abandoned me!]
“Do you recall what I’ve said?”
“Ah…”
It was obvious why Michael was calling Deborah saying such things at a moment like this.
He was asking her to kill him, if something were to happen.
At the same time, I recalled Michael saying that he had seen a future where he ‘kills me’.
We all entered Orcus with one aim. There was no reason for us to aim our knives against each other.
But if such a thing were to happen, it was most likely that it was against Michael’s will.
In my head, the worst scenario unfolded in front of me.
“After Somnifer finishes reading all the memories, that human’s mind will be under its control.”
I rose in a hurry, holding Abel and Deborah’s hand and backing up. I explained.
“So even if the Grand priest does something we cannot understand, that is not his intention.”
It would be fine if he can leave the process of having his memories read, but there was no hope.
The more painful and gloomy the memories are, and the longer the person got worn down by those memories, the harder it was for them to use their will within Somnifer’s hypnosis.
While I and Abel and Deborah all had saddening memories…
[I’m sorry, Ignis.]
Ignis, he had collected the most painful memories among us all in every life, being the ‘weakest’ human of us all.
[I do not love you anymore.]
“Run.”
Somnifer’s voice, mimicking his lover’s voice from the distant past and Michael’s face pleading with me as he turned to see me with the last wit left in him.
That was the end of it. I held on tightly to Abel and Deborah’s hands and turned to run.
A horrid game of tag has just started.