Ch.54Building a Nest (2)

“Should I throw it away?”

To be honest, explaining wasn’t easy.

Whether they believed me was a separate issue. The real problem was that I wasn’t confident I could accurately convey the situation.

Sure enough, as soon as I explained, Isula tilted her head and said exactly that.

Her tail was lowered, and while Isula maintained her usual expressionless face, there was a faint hint of joy.

Lorian isn’t even a competitor.

“That’s right. We have no reason to remain loyal to that person.”

The old man seemed to have similar thoughts.

“Rather, that one was your enemy. A knight of the Three Clans who called you a blood bag… It wouldn’t be strange if they betrayed you someday.”

Both Isula and the old man were weighing the possibility of Lorian’s betrayal.

I was thinking along similar lines.

Blood Knight Lorian.

Although she chose to prioritize her father, and thus ended up betraying her clan to follow me.

She is fundamentally a vampire.

A monster who consumes human life essence and extends her life with it.

I’m a monster too, but at least I don’t eat humans.

In fact, I don’t need to eat anything.

My eating food was purely for psychological reasons.

I couldn’t let go of my 19 years of life eating meals, and I didn’t particularly like seeing Isula sad when I didn’t eat what she ate.

So I ate food, but unlike sleep, meals were unnecessary.

Lorian is different from me. Someday, she will crave human life essence.

It would be fortunate if giving her my blood would be enough, but what if it’s not?

What if she has some hidden perverse hobby?

I couldn’t say for certain. I didn’t know much about the Three Clans, and no one here knew much about them either.

So retrieving Lorian felt like a somewhat risky operation. It was natural to hesitate.

But I was resolute.

“Still, we have to go.”

At my words, Isula’s gaze sharpened. I could clearly see the return of her Melody-era attitude.

“Don’t misunderstand. It’s not for the reason you’re thinking.”

“What reason?”

“Don’t twist my words.”

At that, she opened her eyes wide and drooped her ears.

Oops, was I too harsh?

I gestured to Isula, pulling her closer, and stroked her head.

Fortunately, Isula seemed to cheer up quickly, closing her eyes and quietly surrendering her head to my hand.

“I haven’t fully mastered the technique yet.”

“…That thing from before?”

“Yes. It’s called Moon Shadow, they say.”

“Never heard of it. It was a powerful technique, though.”

Neither of them seemed to have heard of it. I moved the beheading sword in my left hand behind my back and nodded.

“I’m not the kind of genius who never falls for the same technique twice. If I don’t want to fall for it again, I need to master it myself.”

Although it was just training, the Moon Shadow that Lorian unleashed reached my neck.

If it had been a real sword, I would have died on the spot.

And if there was a way to counter it, it made sense to follow her. I immediately looked up in the direction where Lorian had been taken.

There was a mountain range.

Brock’s nest was likely to be on top of that mountain. If so, there was only one thing left to do.

“Let’s go. Please.”

“Alright.”

“Hmm, I’m not thrilled about it… but it would be lonely waiting at the campsite alone. I’ll come along.”

The snow had stopped too. As the old man said, it was no longer falling. He touched his knees, stood up, and followed behind me.

I should ask Isula to make a walking stick for him later.

With me in the lead, we headed toward the mountain range.

*

[Play Time: 9,303 hours]

“We’re fucked.”

Just about 6 hours after we left.

We had to face an oncoming snowstorm.

The fiercely blowing snowstorm obscured everything, even the direction we had been walking was hidden behind a pure white curtain.

It would be nice if there were a compass in the status window, but there was no such function.

There wouldn’t be a compass when there wasn’t even a map to begin with. I sighed, but Isula was different.

“I’ll take the lead.”

She moved forward without any difficulty through the snowstorm and the increasingly steep snow-covered mountain.

Isula’s surprisingly large feet stepped on the snow without any hindrance, and unlike me or the old man who kept sinking into the snow, her steps were light and graceful.

I’m so fucking jealous. I should have been a beastkin. But such thoughts were meaningless.

I couldn’t guarantee that dog or bird beastkin wouldn’t appear, and besides, I was already a monster.

Moreover, it would be shameless to complain when I already had immortality and insane physical abilities, so I gave up and walked forward.

“Old man, do you want me to support you?”

“I’m fine. My knee hurts, but…”

Fortunately, my stamina was inexhaustible. My strength was at a monstrous level that could pull me out of even the deepest snow pit.

If there was a problem, it was the Mourner. He was a lame, middle-aged Mourner whose lifespan had been severely shortened.

Though he was refusing support out of pride, I had to keep looking back to check on him.

If it came to it, I’d have to knock him out and carry him. With that thought, I followed Isula’s swaying tail forward.

“Which way should we go?”

Isula’s clear voice rang out, and I tried to make out shapes through the blowing snowstorm.

At least I could see the mountain range in the distance. And since I could see the range, it seemed right to climb up.

Of course, I knew fuck all about hiking.

But whatever we did, going to a high place to look around wasn’t a bad idea.

“Let’s go up the mountain. Can you see it?”

“Yes.”

“Guide me. I’ll keep an eye on the old man.”

“Then hold on.”

A tail suddenly thrust toward my face.

“Don’t let go.”

Without hesitation, I grabbed the tail with my right hand and walked.

And my judgment was correct.

As we headed toward the mountain range, a path gradually appeared.

It wasn’t a path formed by frequent passage.

It was an artificial path, densely paved with bricks.

It seemed strange to find such a thing in this rugged mountain terrain, but it wasn’t unusual if I considered it a remnant of humans before the Three Clans entered the New Continent.

Actually, it wasn’t worth worrying about.

“Old man, stay awake! You’ll die if you sleep here!”

“…Thank…”

“No, don’t say that, seriously wake up!”

The Mourner was scantily dressed.

Someone already vulnerable to cold never showed any sign of being cold, whether out of pride or something else, and with Isula’s case in mind, I had thought that northerners might be resistant to cold.

But it turned out that wasn’t the case. Isula was just resistant to cold because she was a snow leopard shapeshifter.

Naturally, the Mourner was starting to collapse from the cold.

I carried him on my back, holding Isula’s tail with one hand, and steadfastly walked on.

At the end, we reached the artificial path. Strangely, no snow was falling on it.

It was clearly an unusual situation, but there was no time to consider the implications. We climbed onto the path without hesitation.

“…Hmm?”

And as soon as we did, we were surprised by the warmth that enveloped our bodies.

The first warm sensation I’d felt since coming to the New Continent.

And an air so warm and pleasant that it would be among the most comfortable I could remember from when I was still human surrounded this path.

How?

Why?

Such questions tend to evaporate in the face of magic, but still, there should be limits.

“…It’s warm.”

Isula removed the poncho she had draped over her top, and the Mourner, who had been carried on my back, was faintly regaining consciousness as soon as he was set down on the ground.

So naturally, it was puzzling.

Even though I don’t often choose mages, a mage was essential for a party.

And even when I added a mage to my companions, I was the one handling them.

In a way, I had played as a mage more often than as a Mourner.

From my perspective, this space made no sense. Neither magically nor realistically.

It was as if the space was partitioned yet freely accessible, with completely different temperature and environment.

Rather than magic, the word “miracle” seemed more fitting, but that was the problem.

In the world of Grim Darker, gods don’t exist.

Transcendents do bestow power, but it’s extremely rare for their power to remain in objects or regions.

Even if it did remain, a Transcendent wouldn’t leave power in a place where not even a single human passes by.

Typically, they withdraw their power if no one passes by or if the contractor dies.

When I explained this, Isula tilted her head.

“What if the contractor is one of the Three Clans?”

“Impossible.”

Even homunculi can’t be contractors because they lack stats like Magic Power, Inspiration, and Charm.

‘Magic Power? We collect magic power from the world and use it. Thanks to that, we can use magic on a completely different level from inferior humans…’

From what Blood Knight Lorian told me directly, they also don’t possess magic power.

Probably for similar reasons, they likely don’t have Inspiration or Charm either.

So it seemed there were no contractors among them.

In other words, this wasn’t the power of a Transcendent.

It wasn’t magic either, but rather a unique natural environment or something I didn’t know about.

“…Let’s go up.”

While I was hesitating, Isula made a decision.

“There’s no point in staying here. Let’s go up.”

“…Alright.”

We followed the path.

The well-paved path was of indeterminate age, but judging by its appearance, it looked as if it had just been made.

There were no scratches, no signs of wear from the passage of time.

No one had repaired it either. It was clean as if it had been perfect from the beginning.

That was strange, despite the complete absence of human traces as we climbed.

However, there were occasional stone monuments along the path.

On these human-height monuments were drawings.

Not particularly complex drawings, but so simple that they were difficult to make out.

Pictures of multiple humans standing, or humans stabbing each other, or falling down dead.

Among them, the most striking was the image of humans ascending to the sky in unison.

And the picture of humans rising to the sky with the remaining human reaching out stirred some emotion within me.

An unknown emotion. A sense close to despair added to emptiness.

I stared at the picture for a while before continuing on.

The path ended halfway up the mountain range.

And where the path ended, we encountered a new type of building.

“…I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

The experienced Mourner said that, and Isula, as if entranced, scanned the surroundings before reaching out to firmly grasp my hand.

Even I held Isula’s hand in return and blankly looked around.

Ivory-colored pillars were scattered all over the place.

Some had fallen, broken, or worn away, but most stood firmly supporting the roof.

And the roof. It couldn’t be left out of the description.

Looking up, the entire ceiling was covered with elaborate paintings similar to what we had seen on the way up, but somehow more majestic.

Paintings filled with countless human figures.

The facial expressions of each one were so detailed they could be considered real faces, yet they overflowed with some artistic technique.

No, not just the ceiling. Looking closely, from the pillars to the floor of the building, everything was covered with classical murals that could appear in any fable.

After examining it for a while, I felt a familiarity with this building and finally realized what kind of building it was.

This building was a temple.

And not an ordinary temple at that.

My heart beat violently. My eyes frantically scanned the surroundings again.

Those seated in the highest positions in the murals carved everywhere were gods.

Not Transcendents, but actual gods.

“…Pantheon.”

The word flowed from my mouth without me realizing it. As Isula held my hand tightly and looked up at me, my gaze reached the deepest part of the pantheon.

There was a huge stone tablet and something like a mural.

A mural of numerous beings seated in some high place and someone bowing their head at the very center.

Despite seeing it for the first time, it felt somehow familiar.

I don’t know why, but my eyes grew hot. I found myself frowning involuntarily.

Something was wrong. As my breathing was about to become rough, I stopped it by giving up on breathing, and my feet moved on their own.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Just…”

“Your complexion… are you alright?”

I should have told the people worrying about me that I was fine, but I felt there was something more urgent.

What on earth?

I couldn’t tell. But when my feet stopped in front of the stone tablet, I belatedly realized the reason.

“…This looks exactly like Lu.”

Isula was right.

In the mural at the deepest part of the pantheon, there I was.