Chapter 96: Surviving the Calamity (2)

A black tattoo-like marking had appeared on the back of Yuhong’s left hand.

From a single point at the wrist, the pattern branched outward like twigs or forks, extending all the way to the fingertips, perfectly overlapping with the backs of his fingers. At the center of his hand, the lines twisted together into a vortex.

“Did he already have this thing on his hand?”

“Absolutely not,” Felice answered at once.

“Then that’s strange.”

“What’s going on?”

“This is an engraving, a kind of magical seal. I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s definitely not a spell from Yardelan.”

“It’s called Dark Arts,” Sonia said. “When we were investigating the Fran Wetlands, we learned about it. It’s a special sorcery created by Mist King Dilas.”

“I see.”

Chieftain Lund stroked his chin, thoughtful.

“Magical engravings are… hm. You can think of them as something that is both a spell and an artifact. Only a mage of great power can create one. It’s an indelible brand, a special spell-catalyst, and at the same time, a one-way token.”

“Ahhh, shut up already! Who the hell’s supposed to understand all that?!” Booker burst out, exasperated. “Can’t you just explain it in plain words?”

“Simply put, if this engraving truly was bestowed upon Lord Yuhong by that Dilas, then Lord Yuhong is very likely to have inherited some of Dilas’s traits.”

A moment of silence.

Then—

“You’re saying from now on, Yuhong might be able to use those Dark Arts?”

“It’s hard to be certain. The specific effects can only be observed once he wakes.”

“Then… when will he wake up?”

“Not too long, most likely. It could be just a few hours or perhaps a few weeks. That depends on him.”

…

…

…

“Come to think of it, what’s this?”

“Huh?”

“When I was checking his whole body earlier, at his side, around the waist. I’d never noticed it before.”

The chieftain pointed to a spot on Yuhong’s body, somewhere between his lower back and his side. Everyone leaned over to look, but saw nothing.

“There’s nothing there?”

“Look closely. Faint markings.”

“…Hm?”

Felice narrowed her eyes and leaned in. Sonia hesitated for a second. Getting that close to a boy’s waist made her a little uneasy. But then she bent down as well, examining carefully.

At the meeting point between his back and his side, there were several extremely faint, half-transparent marks.

It was the same kind of impression as a shallow white line left behind when a cut from a paper knife has nearly healed after many days. But these clearly weren’t simple healing cuts. They followed a particular arrangement, almost like…

“Chinese characters?”

Sonia shifted her angle, studying the scratches from above. From that direction, the lines did resemble three unevenly carved characters.

“They read… ‘kill’… ‘death’… and… ‘heart’?”

Everyone stared at each other in confusion.

“Kill. Death. Heart.”

What was that supposed to mean?

It looked as if someone had carved those three words into Zhou Yuhong’s waist with a blade a long time ago.

But who would have done such a thing?

“Brother Yuhong never mentioned it. Don’t tell me he had some kind of habit of carving words into himself with a knife?”

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

Either way, Zhou Yuhong lay unconscious and showed no sign of waking, and the rest, with him as their unspoken center, had no idea what to do. All they could do was wait and see.

Booker and Reiko were still in decent shape, but Felice and Sonia had spent far too much strength. Rest and recovery were absolutely necessary.

---

In the blink of an eye, three days passed.

By now, they had been in this other world for a full month.

Life in the village of the rotted-face people flowed quickly.

Zhou Yuhong still had not woken.

Sonia and Reiko soon grew accustomed to the unsettling features of the villagers, and gradually to life in their town as well.

Felice was unwilling to let comfort dull her edge; she rose early every morning to train. Even without a sparring partner, she practiced as if dueling against Yuhong, working through bouts with an imagined opponent. Sonia did the same. After all, since she had obtained the blackfeather bow, it would have been a crime to leave it idle. The bow’s built-in propulsion and trajectory-correction functions were powerful support, but they also made it feel utterly unlike that of an ordinary bow. She had to adapt as quickly as possible.

“Hah…”

Sonia looked down at her own hands and sighed for what felt like the hundredth time.

The hands she had always taken pride in—graceful, pale, and shapely—were now beyond repair.

From fingertips to wrist, they bore the ugly scars of burns left by arcana. Thanks to the chieftain’s treatment, the burns no longer hindered her in fighting or daily life. But the marks themselves could not be erased, leaving her skin looking as though a layer had been peeled back.

“The key lies in proficiency and control. Formal arcana apprentices who train under masters are taught to protect their hands with ointments and treatments to prevent accidental burns.”

In the chieftain’s residence, Sonia sat across from Lund, with several arcane tomes retrieved from the fortress ruins spread out on the table between them.

“So that’s the right way.”

A wave of helplessness washed over Sonia. If she had found a proper teacher from the start, instead of burying herself in heavy tomes alone, maybe things would have turned out differently. But at the time, the battlefield left no choice—being able to wield arcana at all had already been a miracle.

“Look on the bright side, Lady Sonia,” Lund said with a smile that was, if anything, a little frightening. “Your talent for arcana is extraordinary. To master Candleflame, Fireball, Floating Fireball, and Flame Ornament, all in less than a month of self-study, that is something truly rare.”

“Even so. Chieftain—”

“I know what you want to say,” Lund cut in with a shrug. “You need proper guidance. Unfortunately, I have little knowledge of arcana myself.”

“I see.”

“However, arcana, mysteries, and miracles share much in common at their core. Arcana demands fine control over the mind’s power. In that regard, I can give you some pointers, so at least you won’t be burning your hands every time.”

“If I can avoid burning my hands, I’ll be more than satisfied.”

“As for specialized instruction in arcana, I cannot provide it. But…”

“But?”

“Beyond the Fran Wetlands lies Caruso City. Caruso is a crossroads of trade and strategy, a major stronghold before the calamity of the Fog. If I remember correctly, I have an old friend there, one well-versed in arcana. I could introduce you.”

“Truly? That would be amazing, thank you so much!”

Just then—

“Um… s-sorry to interrupt.”

Creak. The door opened suddenly.

“Yoho! Old man, Reiko’s here to see you!”

Booker barged in without ceremony, with the shy Reiko trailing behind. Somehow, despite their completely opposite personalities, the two had grown close in just a few days.

“What is it you seek?”

“Uh, Grandpa Chieftain, it’s just that…” Reiko fidgeted, her words halting. “This time… I didn’t help at all. Everyone else fought so hard, and I only dragged them down. So…”

She drew in several deep breaths, then carefully, nervously spoke:

“May I ask you to teach me miracles? At the very least… at least I want to be able to support from the rear, to heal the wounded.”

---

“Heiya—”

Felice lowered her stance and dashed forward. Each time she passed a wooden dummy, her right hand flicked with the barest of movements, delivering a lightning-fast thrust with her rapier. It looked effortless, but the technique was a carefully honed way of piercing with the smallest possible motion. Every flash of silver left a neat hole in a dummy’s head or chest. In the blink of an eye, three of them lay as “corpses.”

After felling the third dummy, she planted a foot on the fourth and vaulted upward. In the same instant, her left hand drew small throwing knives between her fingers, and as her body flipped through the air she released them. The sharp glint of steel sliced through the air, knocking down targets strung ten meters away in the trees. Four in total—three struck clean.

“Hah!”

She landed in a crouch, reversed her grip on the rapier, and drove it through the final dummy. But the strike went astray. It pierced the shoulder instead of the head or chest.

“Mm…”

Her brow furrowed in frustration. Clearly, she wasn’t satisfied.

“Lady Felice, please, you should take a rest,” called Jols from his wheelchair at the side of the training ground.

Felice shook her head. She signaled for some of the rotted-face people to reset the dummies and targets, retrieved her throwing knives, and prepared to go again.

If the Fran Wetlands had taught her anything, it was the painful lesson of lacking long-range options and having too narrow a set of attack methods. There would be future enemies like Theodore, whose body resisted physical blows, or opponents like Marilyn, who specialized in ranged combat. She had to cover those gaps.

So—

“Ha!”

Her left hand snapped, a throwing knife flying straight into a dummy’s forehead. But the blade only sank shallowly. Throwing knives looked simple, but in practice, they were extremely difficult, especially when used in conjunction with a rapier while in motion.

“Rapier and throwing knives, are you imitating Crowfeather from Soul 3?”

“Huh?”

“Don’t mind me.”

Sonia came up from behind, casually draping an arm over Felice’s shoulder as if they were close friends. Felice frowned, but didn’t shrug it off.

Strange as it was… after spending all this time together, she had to admit this prim, long-haired fox of a girl did have her merits.

“Did you come for something?”

“We’re discussing our next move.”

“Yuhong woke up?!” Felice’s voice spiked with sudden excitement.

“No, not yet.”

“Damn.”

“I’ve talked it over with the chieftain many times. Supplies here in the village are still scarce. Staying on won’t bring us any progress. Taking Yuhong to a big city for proper treatment is the better option. And in a city, we can also upgrade our gear, gather intelligence, maybe even meet more people from Earth.”

“Hmm… that does make sense.”

“More importantly, the scouts the chieftain sent out returned a few days ago. Beyond the Fran Wetlands lies the Clear Sky Prairie. It isn’t covered by fog, and the road to Caruso City is wide open.”

“Really? That’s a relief.”

Without Yuhong, everything felt uncertain. Felice couldn’t imagine how she could keep fighting in this state.

But now, there was no choice but to grit her teeth and move forward.

---

Four days passed in rest and preparation.

At last, everyone was ready.

When the time came to depart, there were six of them. Felice, Sonia, Booker, Reiko, the chieftain, and the still-unconscious Yuhong.

At the edge of the village, what appeared before them was—

“…Why is it a crab?”

A massive crab, the same kind as those in the Fran Wetlands, each the size of a small car.

The chieftain sat cross-legged on its back.

“We’ll have to make do, everyone.” He gave a wry smile. “The village has no horses, and we can’t exactly carry Lord Yuhong on a stretcher the whole way. A crab pulling a cart is the best we can manage.”

“What the fuck! How did you even get hold of this crab?”

“I went to the wetlands and used a miracle that enslaves low-intelligence beasts. Don’t worry, as long as I’m here, it won’t go berserk.”

And so the group climbed aboard the cart—no, the crab-cart. Since crabs moved sideways, the carriage was slung along its flank, tied on with heavy ropes. No matter how one looked at it, it hardly seemed trustworthy.

“So then, shall we go?”

“Let’s go.”

---

Fran Wetlands, underground cavern—

With the battle over, silence returned at last.

The corpses of the cultists, the corpse of Dilas, the corpse of the Tree of Life—all of them vanished with the dissipation of the fog.

All but one thing.

A massive heart, yellow-green in color.

The Heart of the Tree of Life.

At the moment of its disappearance, something had seized it. Claimed as belonging, it no longer vanished.

Now, its new master spread open intricate mouthparts and began swallowing it piece by piece.

Though the Heart of the Divine Tree was no longer alive, it was still a superb choice as nourishment.

“Ji… sha… gagaga…”

As vast nutrients coursed through its body, it finally managed to shed its larval state. Its form stretched out, its torso lengthening. Three pairs of legs extended with wet, crackling sounds. Its head and body at last distinguished themselves, and with its newly grown shape it imitated the posture of a primate, wobbling to its feet. Like a newborn fawn, it stumbled through its first steps.

Ian’s final work, and his greatest masterpiece—Meigao—had at last taken on the beginnings of human form.

More.

It needed more.

Food to hasten growth.

The more, the better.