novelraw Chapter 189 : Chapter 189
Chapter 189 : Chapter 189
Chapter 189: 5th Rank (2)
‘Not bad.’
No—of all the fulfillment he had gained since regressing, this was the greatest.
‘Kandenkel was impressive, though.’
If one considered only the quantity of magic power, Kandenkel’s heart had surpassed the Embers.
But the effect was better with the Embers. Just like with Herbis of the Match Flame and Aroshu of the Bonfire. Fire grows larger when it consumes fire.
It was likely because pure fire became one.
Harad stared blankly at the pulsing sun. In his past life, that sun had been so vast that its edge could not even be seen.
The sun before him was not yet to that extent.
But it could not be taken in at a glance. To confirm its outline, he had to shift his gaze little by little. It was proof that he had caught up, to a degree, with the magic power of his past life.
‘I do not need to extract hearts anymore.’
He was not yet free enough to manifest at will, but even this much was already excessive greed. Compared to his past life, the pace was almost embarrassing.
It was the result of combining the reward of regression called Kandenkel with the fortunate opportunity of the Embers.
‘The 5th Rank.’
The corners of Harad’s lips twitched as he looked at the pulsing sun. It was a 5th Rank different from his past life. He wanted to confirm the difference immediately. Harad exited his mindscape.
And felt hot.
Without realizing it, he took off his upper garment.
“……?”
Turning his head, he saw Ellen staring at him with a dumbfounded look.
Manoa looked appalled, and the villagers were shivering, trembling from the cold.
“Ah.”
Harad belatedly realized that this was the Boundary.
The Embers were gone. That was why the villagers were raising magic power or Aura and holding their children close.
Harad felt sheepish, yet the corners of his mouth twitched. In a Boundary like this, he was feeling hot. Just like in his past life.
“Are you insane?”
“Have you lost your mind?”
Ellen and Manoa spoke at the same time.
If he were not already insane, they looked ready to drive him there.
“I was just about to.”
Harad forced his face into seriousness.
Creating new Embers was the priority right now.
He could celebrate in front of that fire later.
-Kraaak!
A crow’s cry rang out.
Harad only realized it was Fireball when the creature landed on his shoulder.
The leg resting on his shoulder was three-legged.
‘So it was true.’
Just as Aroshu and Manoa had explained.
Fireball was the Divine Beast of the Sun, in its infancy or growth phase. When Harad reached the 5th Rank, it had grown as well.
‘It is bigger too.’
His shoulder felt heavy with Fireball perched there. Once only the size of a human head, it was now as large as a human torso.
Its color had changed as well. The body once composed of Crimson Flames was now closer to orange. The common color of fire, and the most widely known color of the sun.
‘Its essence must be the sun.’
Just like Harad’s fire, Fireball too was proof of originating from the sun.
Harad felt the same presence from Fireball that he had felt from the Embers.
If the Embers were a great fire, Fireball was a small fire. Their size and power differed, but their composition was the same.
The same would be true of Harad’s fire, and of the fire Fireball scattered.
‘It is not fully grown yet.’
For that, Harad himself would need to reach the 6th Rank.
Still, it was enough.
Enough to scatter fire.
So how does one scatter fire?
Harad did not know the answer.
In his past life, he had never created Embers.
But he felt that he understood.
It was closer to instinct. Harad yielded to that vagueness.
‘Simply.’
Thump.
His heart beat powerfully once.
The sun within pulsed in response. Magic power expanded, spewing fire. A vast flame manifested in reality.
It was fire, and at the same time, it was the sun.
“Ah.”
As if sensing something, Manoa squeezed her eyes shut. The villagers flinched, and before them, Ellen reflexively placed her hand on her sword.
“Huh?”
A moment later, Ellen’s eyes widened. The fire that had looked ready to burn the world vanished in an instant.
A failure?
Ellen asked with her eyes.
Harad pointed to the ground. There was something very small there—fire compressed into a single bead.
It was food for Fireball, which had climbed down from his shoulder.
-Kraaak!
Fireball swallowed the bead-like fire and cried out as it looked up at the sky. Harad thought of the Embers. It sounded less like a cry and more like the sound of fire burning.
Crackle.
The sound of burning rang out. Fireball stood at the center of it. That center gradually expanded. Fire that had begun from Fireball consumed it and slowly swelled outward.
“Embers….”
Manoa, who had basked in the Embers for a long time, instantly realized that this was Harad’s Embers. After three hundred years, she understood that time had begun to move again.
An era had changed.
There were no Embers enshrined in a small shrine anymore.
The fire before them was new and immense. Embers as large as a house were warming the people.
“It is still shabby.”
Harad smiled bitterly.
His face was pale. One could understand what he meant. Only at that size did it match the firepower of the previous Embers.
“You cannot expect longevity.”
Dreams.
Manoa’s manifestation could be maintained, but her lifespan would not increase further.
That was the kind of Embers it was. That was why it was shabby.
“That is what I hoped for.”
But Manoa shook her head.
She smiled brightly.
“That does not matter.”
Size was irrelevant.
To them, it was the same warmth.
“You are a King as well.”
With Harad’s Embers, the village would be rebuilt anew.
“A festival?”
Someone shouted.
***
‘So the food storage was hidden in the cliff behind the shrine.’
There was nothing more important than staying alive.
Harad felt that anew as he watched the mages brewing alcohol.
It must have been the same on the continent.
Living in the village, they had missed alcohol, learned, and begun making it.
Distilling, fermenting. The mages shortened the processes with magic and passed the drink around. On the other side, other mages distributed finished food.
Alcohol and food circulated in a ring.
Just as one would gather around a bonfire, people sat in a circle around the house-sized Embers.
As people clinked bowls and cups and chatted noisily, someone began to sing. Not only was the voice good, the melody itself was captivating. The tune was her Origin.
-Peep! Peep!
At the top of the Embers, Fireball flapped its wings in time with the song.
To Harad, it looked like a chicken wanting to fly, but it seemed to be dancing.
“Why did it get younger again?”
Ellen sat beside him, carrying food and drink.
Her face was flushed with excitement.
“It is still too much for it.”
Just as Ellen had brought food for Harad, Fireball also needed time to rest.
“It will return with time.”
Once it recovered, Fireball would grow back to three legs and start cawing again.
“That is a bit disappointing.”
“Why?”
“That form is cuter.”
“It is.”
Harad looked at the dancing Fireball.
Indeed. That form was cuter. The grown Fireball was closer to a Magical Beast.
“That form was cute too.”
Ellen added belatedly.
“You cannot abandon it anyway.”
“I never planned to.”
They would go to the end together with Fireball.
That was their relationship.
“I was joking.”
Seeing Ellen bristle, Harad laughed softly.
She was not the kind of woman who would abandon a pet just because it grew less cute.
“It is amazing.”
Ellen looked up at Fireball with proud eyes, then turned her gaze to Harad.
“You too.”
“I still have a long way to go.”
The Embers.
To the King, they had been play.
To Harad, they were his full power. Even so, he could not catch up. Only at that size did the firepower become equal. And on top of that, he had to periodically feed it magic power as fuel.
“It is your first time.”
“That is true.”
“Being amazing from the start is already amazing.”
One cannot do well from the beginning.
That was what he had expected to hear.
“It is amazing. Truly.”
Ellen looked even prouder than when she watched Fireball.
It felt as though she would praise him no matter what he did.
“Do you want to lie down?”
Smiling, Ellen patted her thigh.
“I am fine.”
“Why? You are tired.”
“It would be embarrassing.”
There were many eyes watching.
The villagers were stealing glances at Harad as often as they looked at the Embers.
“I am fine with it.”
“Next time.”
Ellen spoke lightly.
“Then shall we go have fun?”
The villagers who had been eavesdropping nodded. They wanted to mingle with Harad. He was the village’s new fire.
“After I rest a bit.”
Harad ate the food Ellen had brought, slowly.
Ellen drank alcohol, using his appearance as her side dish.
“Are you not smoking leaf?”
“I am trying to quit.”
“Why?”
Harad tilted his head.
“There are reasons.”
“I see.”
Harad accepted it easily.
Unlike Elaine of his past life, Ellen quitting did not seem strange.
“Harad.”
At that moment, Manoa sat down beside him.
As always, she looked neat and composed.
“You are not a King.”
She had called him a King earlier.
“Are you drunk?”
“I do not drink.”
Manoa was holding only food.
“I meant that you are not the King awaited by the Tower of the Sun.”
He was the village’s King, not the King of prophecy.
“Yet the Moon considers me valuable.”
The Moon had wanted Harad not to be captured by Avery Aquins.
It had wanted him to take the Embers.
‘If I survive and grow stronger, does the Moon benefit?’
Even so, fulfilling the prophecy should have taken priority.
“Do you have any idea why?”
Harad asked Manoa.
“No.”
“You were a core member of the Moon Tower.”
“…That was three hundred years ago.”
Manoa frowned slightly.
She seemed to dislike mentioning her age.
“The Moonlight of that time and the Moonlight of now are different.”
“Is it not the same Moon?”
“Harad, do you think you and the King of long ago are the same?”
“That is fair.”
Harad thought of the Embers.
The past King had said that the reality was merely a vessel.
That was because he had been 6th Rank. The same assumption had to be made of the Moon.
‘The Moon.’
Harad thought of Grand Duke Aratus.
Their objectives now aligned. Harad too had to be conscious of the Moon.
“That one really scattered true fire.”
Harad pointed at Fireball.
Manoa’s explanation of the Divine Beast of the Sun had been correct. Her knowledge was genuine.
“You said the Moon’s Divine Beast is not immortal.”
“Yes.”
“What is the criterion? The Moon, or the lifespan of the beast itself?”
“If it is the rabbit, the latter. If it is the toad, then the Moon is the criterion.”
“Toad?”
Harad tilted his head.
It seemed the Moon’s Divine Beasts were not limited to rabbits.
“Yes. Unlike the rabbit, the toad depends entirely on the Moon.”
“What are their traits?”
“The rabbit is a sword. The toad is a means.”
Manoa said no more.
Once again, that seemed to be the extent of the records she knew.
‘A sword.’
It was a weapon that did not suit the Otherworld.
But the meaning was clear. It must be that powerful.
“And the Moon?”
In his past life, there had been no Moon.
Naturally, Harad was ignorant of it.
Manoa had been from the Moon Tower.
She had even held a position important enough to be called a core member.
“The Moon is what kind of mage—ah. That I do not know.”
Manoa’s eyebrow twitched.
Even someone as old as her did not know.
“What kind of Origin is the Moon?”
“The Moon is the Moon.”
Instead of answering, Harad pointed to the Embers.
He was asking about the Moon’s magic.
“My manifestation was shattered. That was similar to the magic of the Tower of the Deep Sea.”
Icicles had formed on the manifested sun, and frost had descended upon the world.
To Harad, that magic had felt closer to the Glacier he had experienced in his past life than to the Moon itself.
“The Moon reflects everything.”
Reflection.
Harad realized that this was the core of the Moon’s vagueness.
“So it is not originally its magic. The voice, the ice.”
“Yes.”
The voice only Harad had heard belonged to someone else’s magic. The shattering of the sun’s manifestation must have been magic from the Tower of the Deep Sea.
The Moon reflected all kinds of magic.
“The prophecy is the same. The Moon reflected the Origin called prophecy from long ago.”
Imitation was the closer word.
But reflection meant that the magic the Moon reflected was more than imitation.
It meant it carried at least as much efficacy as the original.
“That is impressive.”
Harad let out an involuntary sigh of admiration.
From the sound of it, it could imitate all magic in the world, nearly as well as the original.
“The drawback?”
There was no perfect Origin.
Because there was no perfect substance in the world.
An Origin encompassed all things.
“It needs light.”
Only then could the Moon be seen, and only when seen could it reflect.
“And its lifespan is short.”
“Why?”
“Because without the sun, the Moon cannot be perceived.”
A Moon without the sun had limits.
That was why the Moon Tower and the Red Tower had once coexisted.
“However, what I know is the Moonlight of the past. I do not know about now.”
“That is enough.”
Harad thought of the Asura.
A short lifespan. That would apply not only to the Moon, but also to mages whose Origins were related to it.
‘That must be the result.’
Setting aside rank, in terms of compatibility, Harad had the upper hand.
More precisely, the sun did.
“No wonder it does not make sense.”
He was not a King.
Now he understood why Manoa kept saying that.
The Moon desperately needed the sun.
It needed to obtain the woman of the sun as quickly as possible.
“There is no benefit for the Moon in me living.”
“That is correct.”
Yet the Moon, which was the most pressed, was not trying to realize the prophecy.
Given what she knew of the Moon Tower’s situation, Manoa could not help but be confused.
“I heard there is another line in the prophecy.”
“Pardon?”
“No.”
Manoa looked as though she was hearing this first time.
‘The Moon is trying to keep me alive.’
Come to think of it, Grand Duke Aratus was doing the same.
And that Grand Duke knew another line of the prophecy.
‘But he does not seem inclined to tell me.’
The Grand Duke’s stubbornness surpassed even that of Elaine in his past life.
The reason the retainers had been abolished.
In other words, the reason the Grand Duke had attacked the Imperial Palace.
If Harad had known that, the Grand Duke would have killed him.
Someday, the Grand Duke had threatened him with that.
‘The reason he attacked the Imperial Palace is connected to the Moon.’
And the prophecy was connected to that Moon.
In the end, asking about the prophecy meant asking why the Imperial Palace had been attacked.
‘He would kill me if I asked.’
Harad suddenly blinked.
Something was moving up and down before his eyes. It was Ellen’s hand.
“What?”
“I was wondering if you were done thinking.”
“I am.”
He would have to probe the Grand Duke once they returned.
“Then what are we doing now?”
“We should head back soon. When the sun rises.”
They had stayed a long time.
By the time they returned, spring would likely be over. Of course, continental seasons did not mean much in the North.
“If we go back, we can meet again sooner.”
There was no way to contact Serzila.
Only when Harad and Ellen returned could Rick the Tunnel-Digger dig toward this village.
“Then we should play as much as we can today.”
Ellen said eagerly.
She was right.
“You go ahead. I will rest a little before joining.”
As he said that, Manoa nodded slightly beside him.
That long-lived witch seemed awkward at having fun.
“You said you would take responsibility for this village.”
“I will.”
That was why he intended to dig the tunnel.
“Then you have to know everything. About those people.”
Only Ellen could say something like that.
She remembered everyone in Serzila.
“If it is names and faces, I already know them all.”
“Since when?”
“Since Manoa gave her permission.”
Harad looked around at the villagers as he spoke.
He had already memorized all of them. This desire could not have begun otherwise.
“What am I supposed to say.”
Ellen pouted, having nothing to retort.
She grabbed Harad’s arm and pulled him to his feet.
She looked ready to dive straight into the crowd.
“Wait.”
“No.”
“Take Manoa too.”
“That is fine.”
Ellen nodded lightly.
Harad pulled Manoa by the arm.
“I am fine—”
“I am not.”
Harad was looking for someone else to drag down with him.
Behind him, a shy shadow was wriggling.
“That one too.”
When Harad pointed, Ellen plucked the shadow out as though pulling up a radish.
“It is bright.”
Jis emerged, covering his eyes with both hands.
“Endure it.”
It was a festival.