Chapter 51 - Mythology and a Connected World
I felt a soft sensation on my lips. I knew what it was without opening my eyes. Fam's lips. A liquid trickled into my mouth, passed from hers. A mana recovery potion. As I drank it, my consciousness sharpened.
I wrapped my arms around her, wanting to savor the feeling of her lips a little longer.
"Ngh, mm… Master… I love you…"
Fam hugged me back.
"Hey!"
I opened my eyes to find Mizuki and Cecily surrounding me. They pulled us apart.
"Where am I?"
The cavernous space, its rock walls illuminated by torchlight.
"The bandits' cave hideout," Cecily answered. I looked around. We were in what seemed to be a natural cave, furnished with tables and chairs, arranged like a living space.
"If you're awake, kneel over there."
Where she pointed, Riley was already kneeling formally. Beside her, another woman I didn't recognize was also kneeling. She was covered in mud, her hands bound behind her back. She had short, curly, chestnut-colored hair and a sharp glint in her eyes.
"And who might you be?" I asked, using polite language since she was a stranger.
"She's the one you fought!" Cecily snapped.
So, this was Ito. The woman I'd seen buried to her chest in the earth had looked dead, but I guess she was very much alive.
"Maira… Aira…"
"Yes, hurry up," Cecily urged, cutting me off before I could thank Maira and Aira.
"Just like yesterday, we only administered first aid. They say beastkin races have high regenerative abilities, but she seems to be special…" Maira said. They had treated her without me even having to ask. Thank you.
For some reason, I didn't want to sit next to Ito, so I knelt beside Riley. The order was now me, Riley, and then Ito. Fam, Mizuki, Maira, Cecily, and Aira stood in a semi-circle around us.
"What about the other bandits?"
"Didn't you take care of them? There was no one else here," Cecily replied.
"The tall one in the black robe, too?"
"Yes," Cecily nodded. So I killed him. I thought I'd be more shocked, but it didn't feel real. I felt nothing at all.
"Ose is probably still alive. He ran away when I was about to fight," Ito interjected.
"…Who's Ose?"
"The tall man in the black robe you mentioned. He was the leader of the bandits. The goddess was only targeting me, and she took her time charging her spear with mana. He used that opportunity to let his comrades escape."
"I see. That's good."
"Huh? Good?" Cecily shot back.
"Ah, no, I mean, was there anyone targeting me?"
"You were protected by the goddess's barrier, weren't you? In that situation, they couldn't have done anything with their power. Not that I could do anything either," she said with a wry smile.
"I see… Wait, weren't you the leader?!"
"Unfortunately not," Ito shrugged.
"So, where is my mistress?" Riley asked Ito.
"Emma is… in the back room."
Ito gestured with her chin. Hearing this, Riley tried to stand up.
"Kidnapper! Don't move! Do you want to be burned to a crisp?" Cecily threatened, raising her staff.
"Kuh…" Riley bit her lip.
"Cecily, please let her see Emma."
"You say let her see her, but… all right. I understand." Cecily lowered her staff. Riley stood up and immediately ran. A moment later, her anguished scream echoed through the cave.
"…Don't you feel anything hearing that? Why did you kill Emma?" I asked.
"I know how incredible your Special Skill is. The plan was to set the Hecatoncheires on you, make you use your Special Skill, and then we would finish you off. Active Special Skills require time before they can be used again. But you defeated them without using it. We realized we couldn't beat you."
I see. So the inability to fire off Special Skills in quick succession is a commonly known concept here.
"Didn't you know? We had three members with experience defeating Hecatoncheires."
"I didn't think it was possible to defeat two of them without using a Special Skill. We knew we had no chance of winning. But since we had already challenged you to a fight, we needed some way to bring it to a close."
So they used Emma as a sacrificial pawn. Were they more afraid of us than we were of them? At that time, three of our members were incapacitated, and Mizuki was battered and bruised. Could we have won a fight against Emma's group in that state? They had likely used their own Special Skills. But yes, with my Special Skill and Mizuki's, we probably could have won. In fact, I was planning to use Goddess Summon as soon as we found them.
"We killed Emma during the battle on the road. We were supposed to leave her body there for you to find later, to serve as the end of it all. …But I just couldn't bring myself to do it, so I recovered her body."
Was it because it was her own corpse? What kind of feeling could have been born from that?
"…If you thought you couldn't win, why did you pick a fight today?"
"I didn't think that over twenty people would lose to a single person," Ito said with a bitter smile.
"Emma and Ito were transferred to this world two years ago. Six months after that, they were attacked by a transfer student named Yuuki and both died. A clone I had made with a skill became Emma, and the clone that Emma made became me. I took the name Ito."
"…My head is starting to spin. So there was another Ito, a different person."
Ito nodded.
"Yuuki…" Mizuki murmured the name.
"Does that name ring a bell?"
"Huh? Oh, no, it's just the same as an acquaintance of mine…"
"Well, there are probably a lot of guys named Yuuki."
"You're right," Mizuki nodded.
"Was Yuuki alone?"
"He was alone. But he was strong. We had the same body enhancement skill, but I couldn't even compete," Ito answered. Is there a body enhancement skill that can make you stronger than a dragon?
"Can't you make an infinite number of clones?" Tens of thousands of Emmas summoning tens of thousands of Hecatoncheires. That would be the end of the world.
"Only one clone can exist at a time."
"I see." I figured as much.
"My wish is to bring Ito back to life. I absolutely must use the Ark to grant that wish."
"That's quite a wish. And for that, you can kill people and feel nothing about someone like Riley being around."
How absurd.
"I think you're one to talk. What were you doing getting kidnapped? Do you have any idea how worried I was?!" Cecily exclaimed.
"…I just didn't want to be alone. So I tried to go to Fam's room. But then Mizuki glared at me."
"Huh?" Mizuki looked startled at being suddenly brought into the conversation.
"It's a single room, so two people shouldn't be in there! And you were definitely planning to do something lewd!"
"Are you some kind of goody-two-shoes?!"
"Hmph, what did you say?" Mizuki glared at me.
"…Nothing, it's nothing," I backed down, straightening my posture.
"Mizuki, because of that, my Master ended up doing lewd things with Riley. He got carried away and was abducted. It would have been better if you hadn't stopped him," Fam said, as if she had witnessed everything.
"Wait, Fam, don't say that here!"
"Wh-Why wasn't it me?!" For some reason, Maira started getting angry too.
"Please. Can we talk about this later? Ito is still here."
"…" Everyone fell silent.
"What is this Ark that Ito mentioned?" Maira asked, seemingly to smooth things over.
"Apparently, it's in the dungeon in the Imperial Capital. If you defeat all the transferred people summoned by the Five Goddesses, the Ark will grant your wish. I don't know the principle behind it."
"This is the first I've heard about it granting wishes, but I do know of the Ark. It's a sacred relic brought here during the war of the gods. Inside it was something called the Jar of Holy Oil. When Lishar-sama destroyed that jar, mana filled this world, and we became able to use magic," Maira explained. Lishar was one of the Five Goddesses who sided with Racshell in the war of the gods.
"Was it Racshell who brought it?"
"No, it was not brought by the Five Goddesses." Maira shook her head. Which meant the God of the End must have brought it.
"Was there anything else in the Ark? Like a staff or some stone tablets?"
I'd heard of the Jar of Holy Oil. In the stories I knew from my original world, it was a jar that God gave to a prophet to store food in. Was this the same thing?
"A staff and a mirror. The legends only say that both the staff and the mirror were lost. However, it is said that the scepter the Emperor holds is the lost staff. Since it was inherited from the Old Empire, there's a good degree of credibility to that claim."
"Maira, the Ark might have been brought from our world. In my world, it's called the Ark of the Covenant. The exact date is unknown, but in the distant past, a prophet who received a divine revelation created it. Later, it was enshrined and protected in a kingdom established by those led by the prophet. However, its whereabouts became unknown with the division and collapse of that kingdom."
"Is that so?" Maira looked astonished.
"That's the story. If the Ark was brought from our world, then this whole wish-granting setup sounds suspicious," I said, turning to Ito.
"…It seems so," she nodded. What was she thinking? I couldn't read her at all.
"Maira, there's someone I want to bring back to life. Is it possible?" I didn't think it was, but I had to ask just in case.
"It is not possible to resurrect the dead, no matter who they are," Maira said, shaking her head.
"Do you know how many years ago the war of the gods was?"
"I don't think it's possible to align the timelines of our worlds," Mizuki said, anticipating my train of thought. She took a smartphone out of her storage and handed it to me.
"This is Emma's phone. I charged it. Check the dates on the photos she took in our world."
The lock was already undone. I opened the album. At the top was a photo that looked like a selfie Emma had taken with Riley. My heart ached. The battery should have been dead, but she had deliberately turned it on to take a picture. Though Riley was a slave, Emma must have been happy to have her around. I swiped through the photos and came across one that looked like it was taken on a university campus. So she was a college student. But the Emma in this picture wasn't, strictly speaking, the Emma I knew. It was a strange feeling. I checked the date. June 13th. And it was the same year as my own phone. We were transferred last month, but they were transferred two years ago. Just to be sure, I randomly picked a few more photos and checked the dates. They were all from the same year. Of course they were, since they were sorted chronologically.
"So the timelines of our world and this world aren't synchronized."
"It seems so," Mizuki nodded.
"Now, what to do about Ito," Mizuki said.
"Have her remove Riley's slave crest. After that, we release her…" I started, but then stopped myself. "Hand her over to the garrison. Make her confess everything about her banditry, including her connections to the nobility. Her fate will be left to the garrison."
"Same as ever. Though I suppose I was saved by that myself," said Aira.
"Honestly, as long as Riley gets some closure, I don't care what happens."
"Aren't you getting too involved? At the very least, she showed hostility towards you, Mash," Maira pointed out.
"She's a slave, she had no choice. It was all Emma's fault, but she's dead. I want you to judge Riley based on her actions after she's freed."
"I understand. But I'm still not convinced…" said Mizuki.
"Ito, is that acceptable to you?"
"…I don't have a choice in the matter."
"Then we'll have Ito create a clone. One will be handed over to the garrison. The other will free Riley from her slavery."
"And after freeing the slave?"
"Do whatever you want. Maybe Riley will kill you. Just one thing—stop attacking us. It's draining."
"You're helping me… Understood. I will never attack you again. I promise," Ito replied. Was she telling the truth? How many people were out there targeting the transfers of the Five Goddesses to have their dreams granted? Surely many would have given up. If so, we should have been able to hear stories from the descendants of those transferred a hundred years ago or even earlier. Was Ito hiding her true reason? Or was there some reason we were the ones who had to fight?
"Alright then."
I'd been worried about Riley this whole time. I tried to stand up.
"Hey, where do you think you're going?" Mizuki stopped me.
"Where are you going? You haven't been forgiven," Mizuki repeated. Beside her, Ito was already standing. This was so unfair.
"I'm sorry. Please forgive me," I said, bowing my head.
"I forgive you," Fam replied.
""""Huh?!"""" The other women all turned to stare at Fam in shock.
"Fam, you're with me tonight."
"Yes," Fam nodded.
"Wait, that's not fair!"
"Traitor!"
"You were the angriest one of all!"
"…"
Amidst the chorus of protests, my legs were too numb to move properly, but Fam helped me to my feet. With the others glaring daggers at me, I headed towards Riley. I thought Fam would follow, but she didn't.
I walked deeper into the cave. I had no idea what to say, and a heavy feeling settled in my chest. On the way, I passed a spot where spoils of war were piled up. I thought about pocketing some, but decided against making things worse. They already resented me enough; I didn't want to add to it. I returned the sword Riley had taken to the pile. Ahead was a wooden door. I entered to find a woman lying on a wooden platform. It was Emma. Of course she looked exactly like Ito—she was a clone. Beside her, Riley was silently gazing at Emma's face.
"I got your hopes up. I couldn't keep my promise. I'm sorry."
What kind of expression was on Riley's face? I couldn't bring myself to look at her directly.
"…It's fine. She was like this when we went to rescue her. The outcome was already decided. I knew it, really. But I was still alive, so I thought, just maybe…"
"Try putting yourself in my shoes, being dragged here on a gamble like that."
"Heh, you're right. I guess I'll have to make you work for what you got when you slept with me," she said with a laugh. But it sounded lonely.
"I'll have Ito free you from slavery. I want you to live freely."
"I know. You saved me. I won't follow her in death."
"…Good. Let's bury her."
"Yeah. It's a shame it has to be in such a lonely place."
She seemed like she'd be okay on her own. I turned to leave the room.
"I'm sorry for messing with you. Please forgive me," she apologized.
"Yeah. Apologize to the others. Especially Cecily and Aira. And Fam, too, please."
Riley nodded.
"Sorry for interrupting. You can cry now."
As I was about to leave the room, I felt arms wrap around me from behind.
"Just for a little while, stay like this."
Riley was crying.
We buried Emma. Maira presided over the simple ceremony.
"We are born of man and return to the earth. Though some may stray from this principle, the dead will live on in our hearts," she explained for my and Mizuki's benefit.
"I see," I nodded.
We decided to return to the settlement. Ito had just used her Special Skill, so she couldn't make another clone until the next day. She said she would turn herself in, so we left her at the hideout. We parted ways with Riley there as well.
By then, the rain had stopped. At this rate, the caravan would be able to depart tomorrow.
Thank you for reading. To everyone who has liked, bookmarked, and rated this story, thank you very much. It encourages me to keep going. Thank you also for the typo reports. They're a huge help.