438 - Leonardo's Perspective on the Spirit Crystal and Camilo's Research Materials
I soothed Tina, who was demanding that they hand everything over so she could destroy the remaining "Spirit Thrones," and saw Jasper off. It seemed Tina had been asked by the Divine King to destroy the "Spirit Thrones," and I myself felt indebted to the Divine King, so I wanted to fulfill his wish if possible. I did want to. But even so, destroying the "Spirit Thrones," the Spirit Crystals, right now was hardly a good idea. Tina and I were currently being sheltered in the cave by Camille. Doing something we knew would trouble Camille was not something we should do intentionally. At the very least, I was not careless enough to say something like that in front of Camille, and no matter what I thought inwardly, I should stop Tina from acting that way.
...Besides, we could just destroy them when we left the cave, after all.
Rather than making a huge fuss about wanting to destroy the Spirit Crystals in front of Camille, we should quietly accept his shelter. And while we were staying here quietly, it might be a good idea to search for the locations of the "Spirit Thrones," which seemed to have been broken into small pieces. In any case, we could not afford to be kicked out of the cave for causing a disturbance, nor could we afford to have the Spirit Crystals hidden away from us. I had no choice but to ask Tina to behave a little.
The ignition using spirits' power seemed to have enough heat to reduce the bodies to bones. After transferring the two white-boned remains into small urns, Camille left with them. It seemed he was heading to a river flowing deeper in the cave, where he would place the urns on small boats and set them adrift. Apparently, Camille thought it was better to let them journey off somewhere via the river than to bury them in the land of the Zugall Empire.
...In his own way, he did grow fond of Jasper, did he not.
He got my name wrong every single time, but Camille never mispronounced Jasper and Almel's names. There were some eyebrow-raising things, like using the bodies for experiments, but it seemed Camille was praying for the two of them in his own way.
"The 'Spirit Thrones'... do you know where the things called Spirit Crystals are?"
Thanks to Tina's behavior, Camille was thoroughly on guard. So getting information out of him seemed difficult, but now I had another way, asking the spirits. As I walked back toward the room assigned to Tina and me, I spoke to the imp guiding us. The imp made a slightly troubled face, pointed at the spirit lamp at its feet, then walked a few steps and pointed at another spirit lamp. While it did so, other spirits appeared in the corridor and began pointing at parts of the walls and ceiling.
"...I see. The small Spirit Crystals are used in all of those mechanisms that Camille says borrow the power of spirits, are they not?"
That is right. The king's body, all broken into pieces.
The spirits that appeared within sight were pointing at various places. If Spirit Crystals were used in every place they pointed to, then destroying the "Spirit Thrones" installed throughout the cave would not be easy. There were too many. It did not seem realistic to destroy them one by one.
"If I had noticed from the start, I could have smashed them one by one while searching for Kalisa."
Since Tina was entering each room to search for Kalisa, it was not that unnatural for us to move from room to room. Destroying the Spirit Crystals would certainly trouble Camille, but even if we went around destroying them, he probably would not notice right away. The mechanisms like spirit lamps that used Spirit Crystals did not react to anyone but me for now. Since they originally did not react for Camille, even if we secretly broke them, he probably would not notice for a while.
...For now, maybe I should break them a little each time I peek into a room.
I had stopped Tina in front of Camille, but destroying the "Spirit Thrones" was a task entrusted to Tina by the Divine King. He had said that if she could not accomplish it in her generation, then her children, then her grandchildren could carry on. As her older brother, I wanted to finish it in Tina's generation. The children Tina would someday bear, and their children too, they would all be my family. I did not want to leave such a heavy task for my family.
"Come to think of it, Tina, you did not react to the spirit lamp in the room earlier. Why did you suddenly smash the Spirit Crystal, saying it was a 'Spirit Throne'?"
"I saw it and thought so. That it was a 'Spirit Throne.'"
Tina made a circle with her fingers like glasses and showed me. If she knew it when she saw it, then conversely, if she had not seen it, she would not have known. The Spirit Crystal in the room's spirit lamp might have been embedded under a cover, just like the mechanism earlier. Maybe that was why Tina had not noticed it until now. As for the spirits, since I had not realized it was a "Spirit Throne" and had not asked what it was, they simply had not told me on their end.
When we returned to the room, I immediately picked up the nearest spirit lamp and opened its lid. As expected, there were several glowing plates under the lid, and a Spirit Crystal was embedded among them.
...So this is a "Spirit Throne."
It was my first time seeing one up close, and I could not help but observe it carefully. According to Tina, the "Spirit Throne" was not a giant crystal or anything like that. Its true form was apparently a coffin containing the Divine King's remains. She said that depending on the light, you could sometimes see the shadow of the remains inside, but this small fragment seemed to contain nothing. I angled the spirit lamp and peered into it from different directions, but nothing was reflected inside.
...Huh?
I tried tapping it lightly like Tina had done, but the moment I touched it, a sharp, pinprick-like pain shot through my fingertip. I checked to see if I had cut my finger, but there was no blood. Thinking it might have been my imagination, I carefully touched the Spirit Crystal again, but this time there was no pain. Just the cold, stone-like sensation against my fingertip.
"It is... surprisingly hard."
Since Tina had broken it so easily, I tried putting some force into it, but not even a crack appeared on the Spirit Crystal. Maybe I was not holding it right and could not get enough leverage, I thought, so I removed the Spirit Crystal from the lamp and tried again with more force, but I still could not break it.
"Let me have it."
"It is pretty hard, you know."
"It is brittle."
When I placed the Spirit Crystal on my palm and showed her, Tina looked down at it and tilted her head with a "huh?" Her confusion seemed to last only a moment. She quickly pulled herself together, lightly clenched the Spirit Crystal, and crushed it into pieces. I worried that the broken crystal might cut her hand, but that concern proved unfounded. The shattered Spirit Crystal briefly turned white, then in the next instant, it scattered into particles of light and vanished.
...It really is different from ordinary stone, is it not.
It was strange that Tina could break it and I could not. In terms of pure physical strength, my fist could even shatter a bear's jaw. And yet Tina could crush with a light grip something that even I could not break. That did not make sense.
The crystal called the "Spirit Throne" must truly be a crystal connected to spirits.
There seemed to be something about it that could not be measured by human strength alone.
"Let us break the others too. Leo, please take off the covers."
"I do not mind, but... we are planning to live in this room for a while longer. Losing the lights would be a problem."
"There is electric lighting. The hallways and such had it too."
The only spirit lamp that was functioning properly as a light source was in this room. Otherwise, spirit lamps only lit up as if guiding me when I moved through the corridors. According to Camille and Tina, the other rooms and hallways were lit by 'electricity.' It seemed this room also had the facilities for it, so destroying the Spirit Crystals inside the spirit lamps would not cause any problems.
What do you think? I turned my gaze to the spirits in the room instead of Tina. The spirits, catching my look, began pointing at the locations of Spirit Crystals throughout the room, each trying to be the first. It seemed the spirits were fully in favor of destroying the Spirit Crystals.
...Still, there really are a lot of them.
Finding so many in a single room made me feel a bit daunted. If we had to destroy all these Spirit Crystals, I could not even begin to estimate how many there were in the entire cave.
...If only there were a way to destroy them all at once.
Besides, we were technically being sheltered in this cave. I felt reluctant to go around blatantly destroying the facilities. Ideally, I would want to secretly destroy everything on the day we left.
...Even just knowing how many there were in total would make a difference, I thought.
While searching for any sign of Kalisa within the cave, I used the help of the spirits to mark on a map how many Spirit Crystals were hidden in each room. The spirits seemed to desire the destruction of the Spirit Crystals as well, and they did not ask for my name in return. Every time I entered a new room, they diligently showed me where the Spirit Crystals were embedded.
Tina, who could recognize a "Spirit Throne" at a single glance, was surprisingly well-behaved. I thought she would want to break every Spirit Crystal she found, but strangely, she seemed satisfied just confirming their locations.
...No, I think she is just amused by the look on my face when I get that tingle at the moment of touch.
When I opened the cover where a Spirit Crystal was embedded, Tina would check it and then tell me to touch it. That tingly sensation was not just my imagination. Every time I touched a new Spirit Crystal, I felt that sharp sting. When I asked the spirits why, they all covered their mouths with both hands at once. Apparently, they could not answer. So I asked if Tina, who was directing me, would know. She tilted her head and answered, "Empty?" in a thoroughly uncertain tone. The fact that the sting only happened on the first touch, and that after that it felt like nothing but cold stone no matter how many times I touched it, was also strange enough to be curious.
One day, as we continued our life of exploring the cave and tallying the Spirit Crystals, Camille came to our room. A rare occurrence. I inwardly broke into a cold sweat, thinking he might have found out we had broken the spirit lamp in the room, but Camille did not even glance at the unlit lamp. Instead, he handed Tina an old, worn-out book. He said that reading it would help her understand why Almel had refused to read Japanese.
...So this was the research materials left behind by the reincarnator, Camilo.
I thought it might be an original document, like Saint Yuuta Hiraga's research materials, but its handling was incomparably rough. Camille casually carried it with his bare hands and lightly handed it to Tina. If this were Saint Yuuta Hiraga's research materials kept in the Kingdom of Ivizia, there would be several guards assigned just to the documents themselves.
...It really is Japanese, is it not.
After Camille left, Tina promptly used me as a chair and began reading the research materials. The current Tina, who felt somewhat different from the original Tina, was still the same in that she was introverted and not very active. She probably preferred spending time reading in a room over playing outside. Sitting on my lap and reading the research materials, Tina's position allowed me to see the documents clearly too.
...I could not understand a thing.
I had managed to learn the fifty or so 'hiragana' characters, but I only knew about half of the 'katakana,' and as for 'kanji,' I did not understand them at all. There were a few whose meaning I had vaguely picked up as words, but if someone asked me to read this, I would not be able to. The grammar was different from both the Erath language and English, and the combinations of kanji seemed almost infinite. Japanese people were truly amazing to be able to handle such complex characters so casually.
"Tina, can you really read what is written there?"
I suddenly wondered if Tina could actually read such bizarrely complex sentences and asked. Tina looked up from the research materials at my question, then relaxed her body and leaned her weight against my chest. She seemed to be in the mood to cling to me and be pampered.
"If Leo is so curious, I guess I will read it for you."
That slightly smug look on Tina's face felt nostalgic. It was a face she had made before, as a childlike gesture appropriate for her age.
"...Yeah. Well then, since I am curious, please read the contents for me."
"Leave it to me!"
Tina, currently in full-on regression mode, was just like a real child. Her behavior was similar to the spirits, too. Easily swayed by flattery, in a sense, easy to handle.
...Well, on the flip side, she could be stubborn in her own way, and once she sulked, she was impossible to deal with.
The contents of the research materials that Tina read aloud while leaning her weight on me ranged from things even I could understand to summaries of mechanisms I could not comprehend at all. I had assumed it was all research on how to make weapons like guns, but there were many things that seemed useful for daily life, like steam-powered engines and tools to assist with excavation work in mines. Remembering only infamy at the name of the reincarnator Camilo seemed to have been a mistaken perception.
...If he had left behind things like what is in these research materials, would his name not have gone down as a great man rather than a notorious one?
For things I could not understand the purpose of just by hearing about them, Tina, with her knowledge, explained what kind of tools they were. Steam was just a gas to me, but apparently it could be used as power to move iron carriages, transporting hundreds of people faster and farther than horses. There were several other tools from another world that sounded like tall tales, but none of the materials had reached the level where they could actually be realized. Probably, only the research materials left by the reincarnator Camilo existed. Like Saint Yuuta Hiraga's research materials, they had been refined down to what could be achieved with the resources of this world.
...But Camilo did not spread these useful studies. He spread weapons.
I thought about why, and quickly arrived at an answer. It was the same as Camille. He had approached the powerful figures of his time seeking their patronage, and as a result, he was apparently forced to only make weapons. If the ruler he had approached had been someone like Christoph in nature, it might have been fine, but the ruler was a war-loving monarch who built the Zugall Empire in a single generation. Camilo chose the wrong person to rely on. Yuuta Hiraga, who left his name as a saint, had allied himself not with an individual ruler but with the organization of the Sedovara Church, and had built his position there. When Camille said "Camilo did it the wrong way," he probably meant things like this too.
"...was discovered, so even in this world... realization is possible. ...but if it could be made... the land... war... but that would be wrong..."
"...Tina?"
She had been reading fluently with a smug expression up until the middle, but then Tina's expression clouded subtly. She furrowed her brow with a troubled look, and then fell silent entirely.
"...I cannot read it!"
She closed the book with a slap, a bit roughly, and turned her face away. At Tina's clearly strange behavior, I tried to look at her face, and she averted her eyes from me in an obvious manner. On top of that, she even pretended to whistle, though she could not actually blow.
"I cannot read it. So many hard kanji. Cannot read them."
As Tina repeated "cannot read" in such a refreshingly obvious flat tone, I turned my gaze to the spirits around us. By some mechanism, spirits seemed able to see through human lies. There was no easier way to verify the truth of a statement.
"...Tina is saying she cannot read it."
What do you think? I asked the spirit that looked like nothing more than a chick the size of a cat. The chick spirit, when I spoke to it, turned its head toward me once, but then immediately straightened its head and curled up by the pillow. Judging by this reaction, it seemed the spirits did not want to answer that question either.
"You are not supposed to ask the spirits."
"Ow."
"Asking the spirits is cheating," Tina said, patting my knee. She seemed to be saying that if she could not read it, she could not read it, and I should not worry about it.
"...Since I cannot read it, I am going to give it back to Grandpa Camille."
Satisfied with my furrowed brow from her pat on my knee, Tina climbed off my lap. She walked to the door by herself, book in hand, and quickly returned. It seemed she had remembered she had forgotten me. "Let us go," she said, tugging at me with her small strength, and I got up to follow her.
"Grandpa Camille, I came to return your book."
Following the imp's guidance, we reached a room where Camille was indeed present. It seemed difficult to find him if you went looking, but the spirits' guidance was amazing. Since spirits lurked all over the cave, they must have exchanged information among themselves about which room Camille was in.
"I could not read it at all!"
Tina puffed out her chest and delivered her false report. Camille took the book from her, nodding along affirmatively. So she had been able to read it after all, he seemed to think.
"She is saying she could not read it."
"That 'could not read it' report means she could read it, right?"
"Mmph..."
Tina puffed out her cheeks in anger, insisting she had said she could not read it. No one would be fooled by Tina's lie. Even I could see through it. Her lies were just that transparent right now.
"...What would happen if I could read it?"
"If you could read it... that would be troubling. Those studies would leave behind unfavorable results and scars."
So the impression of 'could not read it' was the correct one, Camille said. And that was precisely why Almel had also refused to read the research materials.
...I see. Even the current Tina, acting a bit strangely, had judged it as something she 'could not read.' It would not be strange if Almel had made the same judgment.
I had never actually spoken with Almel, but imagining the Tina from when she was first taken in, it was hard to believe she had had a personality matching her apparent age. An adult consciousness dwelling in a child's body, and that adult had likely judged, 'I must not read these research materials.' Those research materials contained things that anyone with a certain degree of reason would judge as something they 'could not read.'
"...Grandpa Camille, are you making those things?"
"I do not like that misunderstanding. I want to make something far more wonderful than those."
He had no interest in defective products that could not be perfectly controlled, Camille continued. He felt some inclination to try completing the research including the control aspects, but he had no intention of actually creating the real thing and leaving it in this world. If he made it as a physical object, it would remain behind. And if it remained behind, later generations would start tampering with it however they pleased, eventually turning it into something completely different from his original design, something worse. This research was something he could not allow to leave his hands, he added.
"You see, I do not want any more people to die because of things I made. I am also afraid of them leaving my hands and being gradually turned into something more and more vicious. ...I know that fear."
That was why he was selective about what he let outside, and he tried not to let anything that could be repurposed as a weapon leave the cave. He wanted to create things that would not hurt anyone, that would help someone, this time around. When Camille said he would not repeat the mistakes the reincarnator Camilo had made, Tina asked him if the result of that was his research into magic.
...But that mechanism that burned Jasper and the others' bodies could be used as a weapon too, could it not.
When Tina asked if that was what Camille wanted to leave behind, Camille made a slightly troubled face. It seemed difficult to explain. Magic was apparently a byproduct of his research, not the main subject. When Tina asked what he was trying to create, then, Camille thought for a moment and answered.
"I want to create a 'System.'"
A little peek at what Camille wants to create. The kanji Leonardo remembers are 'woman' (女), 'end' (末), 'younger sister' (妹), and 'tea leaf' (茶葉)
Will fix typos and errors at a later date. Due to coughing too much and fracturing a rib, updates will be irregular for at least two weeks to a month.