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Turning Chapter 1049
🕑 Added 2024-04-03 12:36:44 +0000 UTCChapter 1049
"In the 'past,' I used to put something very important here. I protected it."
"Something important? What was it?"
Until now, Yuder had never spoken in detail about the World Sphere to either Kishiar or Enon. He himself hadn't fully figured it out until the end, and the Red Stone had already taken on a completely different form from back then.
'In the past, I wouldn't have mentioned it,' Yuder thought.
Even now, he wondered if it would only cause unnecessary worry to talk about the memories associated with it, but Yuder decided to speak anyway.
"The World Sphere," he said.
"The World Sphere? What's with that grandiose name?" Enon asked, furrowing his brow in disbelief.
Beside him, Kishiar muttered with deeply sunken eyes, "I remember hearing about it. Before, when you said you had investigated various things to find the cause of the abnormal phenomena occurring in the world but didn't gain much..."
"Yes, that's right," Yuder confirmed.
"So, what is it?" Enon demanded a more detailed explanation.
Gazing intently at the exact spot where the World Sphere had been, Yuder began to speak.
"It's another name for the Red Stone. The mages from my previous life took it away to study, and they called the remaining shell the World Sphere. They thought it was strange to just discard it, so they gave it that name, placed it here, and had the Cavalry guard it."
"The Red Stone... Wasn't it said that its remaining power has now been transferred to mediums and is being kept separately?" Enon asked.
"That's right," Yuder replied briefly.
Following Enon's words, Kishiar asked, "Does the fact that the World Sphere was a shell mean that there was no power of the Red Stone left in it at all?"
"From what I could sense, that was the case. Because my investigation was late, it was difficult to determine what had happened to the original power that remained in the stone. Still, I thought there might be something left in the empty shell and tried to investigate, but..."
Yuder shook his head, recalling the World Sphere he had seen in his previous life.
"I couldn't find out because everything ended before I could investigate properly."
Both Kishiar and Enon fell silent for a moment. With those who knew what Yuder meant by 'the end' gathered here, it was inevitable to have this kind of atmosphere. Even though Yuder had tried to explain as briefly as possible in case this happened, it seemed to be of no use.
What broke the heavy atmosphere was Enon's new question.
"But why did they put that World Sphere or whatever it is here of all places? There must have been many other places."
"Well, this is a sacred place. It's easy to control people's access, and there's nothing around while being close to the capital, so they probably thought it was suitable."
"Still, it would have been better to build a new storage place rather than finding a secret space under the statue and sticking it in there."
"I think that might have been because of the story behind this statue," Kishiar answered Enon's question.
"This statue was not originally here. It was in the Dawn Palace. The first empress, who was the first owner of that palace, personally created this statue in memory of her departed husband and wrote her innermost thoughts that she couldn't tell anyone, placing them in the secret space."
Kishiar's eyes intently gazed into the secret space.
"After she passed away, the descendants who investigated the secret space of the statue learned that the items placed here do not easily change under any external stimuli and cannot be detected. There seemed to be other functions as well, but we don't know about them now. Well, preservation and detection interference are possible these days with magic tools, but back then, magic tools hardly existed, so it was treated as a very mysterious thing. The existence of magic itself was generally like that."
"Then... This secret space itself could have served as a kind of magic tool box for preservation," Yuder said.
"But now, I don't feel any magic power at all. The one who made it must not have been a great mage," Enon muttered indifferently, following Yuder's words.
Kishiar nodded with a faint smile.
"You certainly know the difference between those called great mages and those who aren't."
Unlike now, most early magic had only temporary effects, and only a very small number of exceptional individuals could leave their power for a long time. Only they could receive the title of great mage, and according to Kishiar's explanation, the first empress possessed magic power but was never referred to as a great mage.
"It's clear that she had cast a very powerful magic here, but the power of that magic had all faded away within 100 years after her death. After that, it remained as an ordinary secret space, so the imperial family moved it here to commemorate her."
"Then, is there a reason why they didn't maintain the statue?" Yuder asked.
"Is it a reason? It's just following tradition. I heard that the first empress who created it had expressed her wish to leave this statue alone to face the natural flow of time. It's not a story that was recorded, so its credibility is a bit low, but there are many such orally transmitted stories in the imperial family."
Yuder looked up at the statue of the first emperor once again.
'The natural flow of time,' he thought.
The face of the dead never changes in one's memory. Perhaps the first empress wanted to see the statue, at least, face the time she could no longer see. Yuder felt he somewhat understood why this statue alone had a slightly different appearance from other statues and why it was left unattended, directly exposed to the wind and rain.
"Anyway, since it's a place with such a legendary story, I guess they thought there was no better place to naturally hide and protect dangerous objects. Even if there was no meaningful protective effect in reality, it wouldn't be bad to reveal that it was connected to the First Emperor who saved this world."
Indeed, even the Katchian and Diarca families, who had been obsessed with erasing the traces of the old imperial family, did not do such a thing to the traces of the First Emperor. Instead, they often subtly emphasized that their own beginnings had also branched out from the First Emperor.
"Then, shall we go to Gyllandr Hill now?" Enon, who had lost interest in the statue, turned his head. He had stopped walking for a moment upon reaching the center of the forest, looking around as if searching for something, and now he seemed to have finally figured something out.
Yuder followed behind him as he walked past the statue, asking, "What were you keep looking for?"
"The entrance to Gyllandr Hill. Perhaps because too much time has passed, it was difficult to gauge the location."
"You said earlier that not much had changed."
"Shut up. A thousand years have passed, so even I can get a little confused about the path for a moment. That statue and the types of trees planted around have changed a bit, so the flow of magic power here is quite different from what I remember."
Enon shouted loudly. Kishiar laughed, shaking his shoulders.
"Why are you laughing? Do you find it funny that I'm getting angry at this guy?"
"No, that's not it. I knew that Yuder treats you more comfortably than others, but seeing it up close like this, I thought you really seem like family. I couldn't help but laugh at the thought of how nice it looks."
Enon's anger, which was about to be directed at Kishiar, suddenly lost its target and subsided. Enon, who had been keeping silent, sighed with disbelief and brushed up his hair.
"...You really have a way with words."
"Everyone tells me that. Now that even someone who knows the great mage Luma acknowledges it, I feel even more confident."
Yuder didn't say anything, but Enon frowned deeply at Yuder instead of Kishiar. Instead of questioning the meaning of that gaze, Yuder just maintained a blank expression.
"Hmm... Stop. I think this is about right," Enon finally stopped walking. It was a place slightly away from the center of the forest. There was nothing that looked special, but Enon looked around as if scanning something, then nodded.
"Pay attention and follow me, stepping only where I step, and don't touch anything until we arrive."
After saying that to Yuder, Enon caressed one of the nearby trees with an expressionless face and walked forward. As Yuder followed his footsteps, he heard the sound of Kishiar following behind.
Enon touched a few more trees as he walked. There seemed to be no pattern to the trees he touched, so it was impossible to tell what he was doing.
In the midst of this, Yuder suddenly felt a strange sense of discomfort.
Enon's footprints, which were initially faint, began to deepen more and more. It wasn't as if his weight had suddenly increased, but as Yuder followed the footprints that were clearly deepening, he strangely felt as if his body was becoming lighter.
'What is this?' Yuder wondered, furrowing his brow.
The moment he felt the doubt, one side of Yuder's vision suddenly flipped upside down.
He was clearly walking straight ahead, but in one eye, the world was reflected upside down as if he were doing a handstand. The trees and sky of the forest suddenly existed on the ground, and they were walking on the boundary between them, wherever it was.
'This is...'
After alternately closing each eye, Yuder realized that the side seeing the upside-down world was the side where his Eye of Magic had opened.
'If that's the case, does this scene I'm seeing with my Eye of Magic show Luma's magic being realized?'
The upside-down world reflected in his insight.
As Yuder blankly looked at the bizarre scene where the tips of the trees and the sky seemed to converge towards the center, and the ground appeared to exist both above and below, Yuder felt as if he was being captivated by the sensation of climbing up a slope rather than being on flat ground.
Yes, just like a hill.
Comments
Antoinette Kalmus
Wow. I can imagine what Yuder is seeing! Trippy!
