Chapter 67 - St. Jansk University and the Chamber of Secrets (10)

SMACK!

The cheek was a truly mysterious part of the body: it could bring someone to their senses or knock them senseless. (Generally, its principal use was the latter.)

Ivan was an exceptionally skilled agent, so he succeeded in bringing Elpihera to precisely the intended degree of awareness.

"Ack... Wh-why...?"

"Get a grip."

"A grip...? What are you talking about? I never lost my senses. I was thinking of you, wondering how we should divide all that, and you, you rude human...! No... 'rude' and 'human' are redundant."

Even as she spouted nonsense, Elpihera kept stealing glances at the pile of beard combs.

"What does that look like to you?"

"What? A treasure room, of course! Since I'm a merciful elf, I'll graciously split it with you. Oh, but not the loraine. I have a particular use for that. You can't eat it as it is, either. I'll brew it for you. It's a very finicky ingredient..."

"I see combs."

Ivan delivered this blunt remark as Elpihera began muttering in Elvish again.

"What? Combs? What are you talking about all of a sudden?"

"Exactly what I said. Combs for combing hair."

He slowly backed away, pulling her by the arm.

"That's a trap."

"A trap... Um... Really? You see combs? But how could that possibly be a trap...?"

"The kind that shows you whatever you most desire at the moment you look at it. Probably the same kind as the dream you had when you first arrived at this temple."

"Does that even make sense...? What sort of life does a human have to lead for combs to be his heart's desire...? With an elf beside him, not even an aphrodisiac?"

What a dreadful trap. To destroy an elf's mind like this.

But Ivan was not surprised. It was common knowledge that elves had an innate deficiency of character, which naturally meant they were a mentally weak race. Those with healthy minds did not consider other races inferior.

Ivan stared coldly at the still-glittering hill of combs.

If it was a trap, it must have some purpose.

He narrowed his eyes, surveying the room from end to end. Temptation always served a purpose. There could be no trap without an intent behind it.

The treasure pile drew victims in, like the lure on an anglerfish's head. Now it was time to find the anglerfish's teeth.

'The scent I noticed the moment the door opened.'

Then it was a trap that disrupted two senses: sight and smell. The pleasant scent dismantled its victims' unconscious wariness, and then the treasure they desired lured them in.

"Elpihera."

"Yes?"

"Still no mana you can sense?"

"Oh, yes, none. If there were, I'd have known it was a trap right away, but there's no sign of it at all."

"Hmm."

If it wasn't a mana-powered mechanism, suppose it was a trap that operated physically.

Ivan closed his eyes, blocked his sense of smell, and listened carefully.

TSK, TSK, TSK...

Beyond his closed eyes, sound scattered in lingering echoes. Striking the room's contours and objects, the sounds returned at different angles, slowly giving them definite form.

A basic application of echolocation.

In this spacious room were a 'pile of something' and 'something sticking up.'

They were stationary objects. That made it unlikely they would attack him with hostile intent just yet.

"Do you see something sticking up from the very center of the treasure pile?"

"Sticking up?"

"The shape doesn't matter. Just follow your instincts. When you first saw it, was there something you wanted to pick up before anything else?"

"Oh, yes. Now that you mention it... it is sticking up. It is an herb, after all."

"I see."

Ivan opened his eyes. In the middle of the beard combs, where echolocation had located the 'something sticking up,' a comb far better crafted than the rest was embedded at an angle.

If the trap was designed to make him want to pull it out...

He advanced, paying close attention to his sense of touch. Beneath his feet, he felt the combs crumble with a brittle crunch.

He strode up and took hold of the comb.

Its craftsmanship was fine enough to make him want to pull it out and take it. It was precisely to his taste: a plain design without unnecessary ornamentation, yet so functional it was beautiful.

Cast in steel, it felt reassuringly solid, and even had a small spring mechanism designed to let it serve as a dagger in an emergency.

Ivan memorized its shape in case he decided to commission one later, then squeezed his eyes shut.

WHOO...

Then he channeled mana into his nerves with such precision that he could faintly sense even the air flowing against his skin and the eddies created by his exhalations.

He heard the steady pounding of his heart. Driving his concentration to its limit, he focused every nerve entirely on touch.

He reached for the splendid, embedded comb again. Slowly, with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel.

Cold to the touch. The distinctive heft of metal. A grip roughly thirteen centimeters long.

He applied slight pressure with his fingertips, inferring the rest of its shape from the resistance as he gave it a minute shake.

Only after closing his hand firmly around it could he deduce its full shape.

"A sword... then."

"What?"

"A long, vertical piece of metal embedded in something, designed to make you desperate to pull it out. The center of this trap and the condition that triggers it. This is a sword."

Ivan slowly opened his eyes.

He stood atop countless skeletal remains, both hands wrapped around a sword embedded in the chest of a black stone statue.

He was not surprised. When he heightened his senses, the feel of the combs beneath his feet had already led him to suspect it.

That brittle crumbling had felt more like bones than small combs.

"An illusion that unravels the moment you recognize it. This isn't a physical trap."

"What? But there's no mana at all..."

"Even without mana, isn't there one other means of turning fantasy into reality?"

Elpihera apparently still could not see the trap's true nature. Otherwise, she could not have reacted like that.

Holding the sword's hilt, Ivan looked straight at the statue and continued.

"Divinity. This trap is woven from divinity."

Before him stood a black stone statue kneeling in prayer.

It was made of marble, with a long steel sword embedded diagonally in its chest. If pulling it out triggered the trap, this statue was probably what the seal held captive.

Ivan stared at it, his hands still on the hilt.

The statue's black pupils rolled toward him.

- Correct.

* * *

Mana permeated every corner of the world, pooling more densely in some places and more thinly in others. Present truly everywhere, it was, if anything, akin to the origin of all things.

Every object contained a certain amount of mana, naturally absorbing what drifted through the atmosphere.

Divinity, however, was different. Divinity belonged solely to the God of Light. To God.

It was a fragment of God that descended upon a priest's body when they prayed to the Lord. An unprecedented power that warriors and mages could not dare contain, whose source there was neither a method nor a reason to analyze.

Consequently, one could not say something like, 'Guh, the demon god's divinity...!' There was no other specimen of the power to compare it to. But observing a phenomenon and eliminating the impossible still allowed one to reach a rational conclusion.

'Alexander was right.'

To think a sealed god actually existed. Beneath the academy, no less.

Was this the second stage? For the children of the Hero's Party?

No, the difficulty was too high for that. The first stage had been difficult as well, but this was on an entirely different level.

Perhaps it was a hidden event meant to appear later. Perhaps an unfortunate convergence of coincidences had led him to uncover it.

Ivan glared at the statue, his hands clenched around the hilt. An unprecedented force held his body fast, as though refusing to let him avert his eyes or release the sword.

- In a world where only those who see one phenomenon and grasp one thing remain, alongside the sophists who preach that one thing as the sole truth, how great must your suffering have been, born with the gift to behold true wisdom? Child, I know your troubles.

The statue's eyes twisted askew as it gazed at him.

It was a strange smile, as though forcibly imitating a human expression.

Ivan stared at it without expression, slowly tightening his grip. He still could not move.

'The Church wouldn't have laid a trap.'

Ivan had always been a man who had to question and reason from even the smallest clue. His entire life had demanded such thinking. Nothing killed soldiers on the battlefield as readily as 'certainty.'

Thus, he had been able to make a deduction the instant he saw this trap. Assuming 'something' was sealed here, there was no reason to lay a trap that subtly manipulated perception to induce someone to undo the seal.

The conclusion was simple. Two thousand years ago, this seal had had no such trap.

Every kind of 'structure' inevitably had a lifespan. Ruins without continual upkeep were bound to crumble. If, for that reason, this seal had also 'loosened' in some sense...

If the 'something' sealed within had used that opening to exert its influence and plant some kind of trap in these ruins...

If it was enticing someone to undo its seal completely, and that trap did not even use mana...

Anyone who could deduce all those conditions yet failed to grasp the whole picture was no Earthling. Every Earthling knew this sort of cliché. In other words, 'common sense.'

On twenty-first-century Earth, this situation was called 'an underground dungeon where an ancient evil god is sealed.' It generally appeared in hack-and-slash action RPGs.

- Your thoughts are correct.

The statue continued with its bizarre smile.

- Yes. Your deduction is correct, as are the thoughts that will follow it. I am the one you once praised as a god and condemned as a devil, and I shall once again be hailed as your savior. I have many names, but you may call me Salvation. I know the wish you harbor. Wish as you ought, and it shall be fulfilled.

Ivan watched the statue with impassive eyes.

It spoke with amusement in its voice.

- Draw it, and you shall receive. Like all you wanderers before you, do you not roam among distant stars, steeped in homesickness? I say unto you: you shall receive what you have sought all your life. Lift your hands and draw it.

RATTLE.

The steel sword twitched in Ivan's grip.

Ah, yes. Temptation.

The promise of sending him back to Earth. And all he had to pay was to pull out this sword.

How very simple. How appealing.

Ivan stood motionless, without relaxing his grip.

- You resist? Is it attachment, compassion, admiration? Or... fear?

"No."

He spoke as he forcibly held down his arms, which were trying to rise of their own accord.

"You're lying."

- Have you faith, then? Like those sophists?

"No."

Ivan slowly closed his eyes.

He tore away his hearing, then ripped out his sense of smell.

"If you had truly read my thoughts and knew my home, this trap would have contained something better than mere combs. That would have been dangerous."

If objects from Earth had been heaped in a hill before him, he could never have resisted.

The very fact that this being had failed to use such a simple method—to show him what he truly yearned for—defined its limits.

Nothing but combs. These cheap, meaningless little accessories were the limit of its power.

It could not envision Earth or recreate objects from it.

Which meant it lacked the ability to send him back to Earth, too.

- Most who have faced me began with doubt, passed through certainty, and at last had nothing left but praise. You shall do the same.

"You were sealed by human hands."

Ivan spoke dispassionately, paying no heed to the statue's nonsense.

- What...?

"If the remains here are traces of people from long ago."

The pile of remains Ivan had finally seen after breaking the illusion consisted of human skeletons. The shape of the limbs, the structure of the bones, the length of every part—all were entirely human.

From that, he deduced that this thing had been sealed by human hands.

He knew beings who had been revered as gods while still alive. He had even faced some of them himself.

The Seven Dragon Generals and the Demon King.

The sovereigns of their respective races, great monarchs who had ruled over their entire peoples through individual strength alone.

And the Demon King, who had subjugated those seven monarchs and finally been hailed as emperor of all seven races.

They had all been gods to their own peoples. Beings beyond anyone's reach.

Armies tens of thousands strong had fallen before the Seven Dragon Generals. Half of more than twenty kingdoms had vanished into history, and more than half of humanity had died, in numbers beyond counting.

It had been a dreadful age. An age when no one could stand against them. When weapons were taken up not for victory, but for survival.

In that time, when everyone whispered of despair, the hero had appeared.

* * *

Ivan understood the unprecedented force restraining his hands.

This was 'happiness.' An instinctive happiness that denied him even the thought of doing anything but drawing the sword and undoing the seal. Supreme happiness, like the whispers of hell, like the music of heaven.

Yet his hands still did not move.

Slowly, his fingers began to peel away, one by one. The fingers that had gripped the hilt so tightly pulled free, laboriously but surely, as though glued to it.

Because he remembered the hero.

* * *

The hero had not taken up his sword for his own happiness.

When he first slew one of the Seven Dragon Generals, he had brought back more than a severed head. He had brought hope.

He had wielded his sword for hope, as though gazing at the Morning Star through thick clouds on a dark night.

If one dared guess at the hope he had wished for, perhaps it had been peace for everyone.

Ivan was selfish. He could not harbor the same hope as the hero. His hope belonged to him alone.

The desire to return to Earth.

At the same time, that meant there was no happiness in this world. In this uncivilized, premodern fantasy world.

- What...? What are you...?! How can a human think such thoughts...!

His left hand was free at last.

He raised it, ignoring the cries of muscles and nerves screaming for rest, howling for him to stop.

Ignoring their pleas of exhaustion, their whispers of how sweet a brief rest would be.

- Stop, stop...! Listen to me!!

"No."

His right hand came free.

There was no happiness in this land. Only duty.

He simply did what had to be done. Beyond that, every joy he might personally call his own had already died over the past thirty years.

His hands slowly rose and seized the statue's head.

- Stop, stop!! You cannot kill me! I am your god!

"I've met those who believed themselves gods."

Tendons writhed like snakes in Ivan's hands.

"They died."

* * *

He knew beings who had been revered as gods while still alive. He had even faced some of them himself.

The Demon King and the Seven Dragon Generals.

And one of them had died by his hand.

So this was not his first time killing someone who believed without a doubt that they were a god.

And Ivan was an efficient man. Doing something a second time posed no difficulty.

* * *

CRUNCH!

The marble statue's head shattered in his grip.