Ch. 287
“Let’s see, there’s a note from the manager here. He says he did his best, but the damage was too severe to restore it completely.”
“This is good enough.”
“I’m glad you’re satisfied. As for the payment… Ah, you’ve already paid. It’s paid in full, so you can just take it. Huh? The number is strange.”
‘The weather is nice today, so I should go sunbathe on the grass near the plaza and read a book.’
‘There was definitely a delicious skewer shop near the clock tower.’
I tucked the book under my arm and was about to leave the shop when the clerk called out to me in a flustered voice.
“Just a moment, customer! I think the payment was calculated incorrectly!”
“What about it?”
“There’s an extra zero…”
“I know. I said I’d pay ten times the price if they did it quickly.”
Behold, a symbol of sacrifice, spreading money around for the sake of regional development!
My specialty is raising hell, and my hobby is wasting money.
“Let’s go, Rai.”
[Oh yeah! Sunbathing with Master!]
[Since we have time, should we call Undine too?]
[No.]
[So decisive.]
The best thing about being rich was, no matter what anyone said, this.
The fact that I didn’t have to look at price tags when spending money!
It was quite enjoyable to have a fortune so vast it was close to infinite—an amount even I couldn’t estimate.
This was the first time I’d seen the city so quiet since my arrival.
Was it because the long festival period had ended?
Of course, as befitting the capital of a nation, people were constantly coming and going, but it wasn’t as crowded as before, where there was no room to even set foot. I decided to actively enjoy the rare leisure.
After buying a ton of snacks from a street stall, I found a spot on the lawn near the plaza and sat down.
Using Rai as a backrest, I stretched my legs out under the shade of a tree, and I couldn’t have felt more carefree.
Today, I was alone in this city.
Ash had left for Helikke early in the morning with a lie that was close to the truth—that a problem had come up with his family and he had to visit his hometown. He said he would use a Warp and be back in two days.
As soon as Chad, Gale, and Enk heard the news of Ash’s absence, they fled outside the castle.
Their pretext was that they were getting antsy staying in one place and were going hunting, but from my perspective, it was obvious they had run away, scared of having their blood drawn again.
“I don’t need a virgin’s blood anymore…”
Sitting in the shade, I absentmindedly picked at some dried candied fruit.
This snack, made by semi-drying a strongly sour fruit, pickling it in honey, and then drying it again repeatedly, was a type I liked, and its taste made me keep reaching for more.
I was sure I’d bought a large bag, but it was already starting to empty.
‘Ah, I want some of the chocolate Iruze gives me. Am I missing Iruze, or am I missing the chocolate?’
‘It’s definitely the latter, right?’
‘Tomorrow, I should look for a high-end confectionery that sells chocolate.’
Helikke is a large city, so there must be a place that carries it.
After lazily eating and lazing around like that, when I grew tired of it, I opened the book I had picked up from the repair shop.
I hated studying, but since I’d been reading my whole life, I tended to look for something to read when I was bored.
In truth, besides reading books, there wasn’t much else to do in this world.
「Have you ever considered why the Middle realm is such an important place? Why does the demon world constantly covet this place?
It is because anyone can live here.
It is a free land where, if the conditions are met, celestial beings, ##, Spirits, and even life forms from other worlds can adapt and live.」
A few letters were missing, but it was readable.
It was a diary, just as I had expected—the diary of Kalrip, presumed to be the master of the Dungeon.
Among the many books piled up around the skeleton, the one I had picked up was the one on the very top.
Therefore, it was highly likely that this was the diary he wrote just before he died.
「Taking the demons as an example, they cannot even maintain their form in the celestial realm or the Spirit realm.
But in the Middle realm, on the premise that they have a contractor, they can exert their original power. What a unique and great land this is.
The balance of the world lies in the Middle realm, which is also why the Spirits help maintain the peace of the Middle realm.
To possess the Middle realm is an act that shatters all balance. To destroy the Middle realm is an act that destroys all balance.
Therefore, protecting the Middle realm is one of the things God values most.」
While some pages were gone entirely, there were also pages like this part that were wholly intact.
Come to think of it, I’d picked up an old diary like this before.
It was a diary left by the leaders of the ancient Spirit Council, now a thing of legend. I had obtained it along with the Electric Spirit Stone, but it vanished without a trace when Ador was summoned and burned it to a crisp.
If it had survived, it would have become a historically important legacy for Mages.
Though if we’re talking about value, the diary of Kalrip, the successor to the Spirit Council, would be even more precious…
“Oops, I got sauce on it.”
The sauce from my chicken skewer dripped down and stained the middle of the page.
I looked for something to wipe it with for a moment, but there was no way I’d have anything like that. I just smeared it roughly with my hand and turned the page.
A long section of text so damaged it was completely illegible followed, and I could only find a readable part after flipping almost to the very back.
「My body is not what it used to be. I can feel myself weakening as I grow older day by day. I have only just passed 250 years of age, but could my master’s words be true?
Is the time coming when the human lifespan will become shorter than that of the dwarves?
I turned away in fear ###, but now that my own body is like this, I can no longer deny it. The death of the sovereign who seemed like he would protect this land forever and the death of my master prove it.
Humans will ##.」
The lifespan of dwarves… was it about 300 years? Since it’s said to be three or four times that of humans, that should be the longest it could be.
The humans of today, even if they were nobles, found it hard to live past 90, and a commoner was considered to have lived a long life if they surpassed 70.
I thought the stories of ancient humans living for several hundred years were pure exaggeration. Since one of the specialties of humans is distorting and exaggerating history, I naturally assumed it was in that context.
But looking at this diary, it seemed as if the lifespan of humans was once similar to that of dwarves.
「On the verge of death, I have realized one secret that humans should not know.
Humans are wicked even without the intervention of demons. The Celestial-Demon War did not happen because demons tainted humans with evil, but it was a disaster that occurred because the wickedness of humans summoned the demons.
After the Celestial-Demon War, even though numerous temples were built throughout this land to prevent demons from invading the Middle realm again, the ## ## misfortune that occurred once more clearly proves it.
The seed of misfortune lies within humans.」
‘Geez, Master Kalrip. You really lived with a gloomy mind.’
In your old age, you should be thinking happy thoughts—why so serious? I nonchalantly turned to the next page.
「When the Spirit of Curse suddenly appeared in this land, I did not realize it then. But now I realize that the Spirit of Curse is the source of evil created by humans, the very curse that strangles our necks.
The Spirit realm is a mirror of the human world. That the wickedness of humans gave birth to the Spirit of Curse and summoned it to this world was proof that humans themselves are the source that will destroy the Middle realm.
It will not be the demons, nor the Dragons, that destroy the Middle realm, but humans.
God’s blessing is leaving us because God, too, has realized that fact. Humans, by their very existence, are a threat to the Middle realm, and so they will gradually become ever weaker under God’s shadow.
Can you not feel it? That God is taking back the power he had distributed to humans. Lifespan is but a very small part of it.」
The fact that modern humans were so weak compared to the ancients that they could be considered a different species was a widely known fact.
The most plausible theory scholars commonly speculated as the reason was that after the Celestial-Demon War, peace came to the Middle realm, and humans, having lost their natural enemy, no longer felt threatened and did not hone their abilities—leading to their devolution.
Kalrip’s thoughts seemed completely different, though. He seems like a smart person… was he stuck alone in a Dungeon for too long and went a little crazy?
「Humans will fall without a sound ####. They will slowly lose what they have, so gradually that they cannot notice, and they will crumble.
God’s grace has left humanity, so Magic will lose its light, swords will break, and Spirit Mages will lose their soulmates.
God no longer intends to give great power to humans ###.
Since he has realized the danger of giving power to humans, it will be irreversible.
If a powerful human, beyond God’s will, is born into the world, it will be either a new sovereign or the advent of a demon king.
Only one who is permitted by God, or one who intends to defy God, shall be born into this land bearing great power.」
At first, I thought it was just an old man’s depressing diary. But as I read on, it suddenly occurred to me that it might not be complete nonsense after all.
If humans became weaker because their ultimate natural enemy—the demons—disappeared after the Celestial-Demon War, then why? The question of why the elves and dwarves hadn’t changed since then flashed through my mind.
Demons threatened all life that existed in the Middle realm.
So why did only humans become weaker?
「Only the inevitable one will be born with power. And in return, they shall walk a lonely path.
Born with power, they desire power, and that will prove their existence.」
Perhaps that was the last volume, as the diary ended there.
I rummaged through another volume, but other than the fact that it was written earlier and was full of gloomy ramblings, there was nothing to gain.
I closed the book and tossed it somewhere nearby. I’d need to look at it more closely again, but not today.
Continuing to read the dreary words of a worry-wart old man was starting to bring my own mood down.
“Hmm, I was sure there’d be something about the non-elemental Spirit. I’m disappointed.”
[Why? Is there nothing?]
“I haven’t looked closely yet, but… this 250-year-old man’s interest isn’t in Spirits, but in why the human lifespan has shortened. There’s more about why humans are suddenly becoming weaker.”
The master of the underwater Dungeon and the presumed author of this diary, the Spirit Mage Kalrip, was the last successor of the now-vanished ancient Spirit Council.
If my guess was correct, Kalrip was an authority from the time when the leaders of the Spirit Council developed the non-elemental Spirit Formation.
He either knew something about the non-elemental Spirit Formation, participated in the research… or there was a high probability that he had taken one of the Spirit Formations for himself.
So I thought I’d find something related to it if I searched the diary, but all I found were the worthless laments of some gloomy old man.
Could the crucial hint have been in the other books I failed to grab from the Dungeon?
If I had known it would collapse like that, I wouldn’t have just grabbed a few—I would have taken them all.