Chapter 36 The Forgotten Past
“To be honest, the Emperor is just a coward hiding in the palace, and our greatest enemy right now is the Marquis of Pride.”
As the Veliran replied calmly, the woman sitting next to him muttered sullenly.
“The man is freakishly strong, and cruel… As if he were not human.”
So they were investigating Ioannes.
If he was ‘managing’ District 3, then they were?
More and more, Delphine realized what a mistake she’d made in coming here.
“An unknown past, an inhuman power. There’s something strange about the Marquis of Pride.”
The Veliran finished.
“We are investigating that. To unlock the barrier. Does that answer your question?”
Delphine nodded, and for a moment she wondered if she should tell them about Ioannes being a commoner.
She wasn’t sure yet if she could trust them enough to tell them everything she knew.
And neither were they.
“Now that we’ve asked our first question, it’s your turn to ask yours.”
The Veliran said, eyeing Delphine with a scrutinizing glance.
“I’m sure the lady sensed something was amiss, which is why she came all the way here.”
He added in a cold tone.
“About… The man who cut your father’s throat?”
This is the last question.
What should she asks?
To get closer to the truth, she asks…
“He, or the corpses they killed, had one thing in common: both eyes were missing.”
“Was there anything unusual about the pupils of the severed heads, for example?”
Delphine pursed her lips for a moment, hesitating, then finally spoke.
“… Pupils.”
Delphine didn’t miss the momentary flinch that made both the man and woman flinch slightly.
“I’d like to know about the pupils. What is the connection to the recent murders in the capital, and why did Glasscok’s pupils disappear?”
“…, too. You’re sharper than you look.”
Again, the Veliran laughed with satisfaction.
Delphine had a feeling the man was testing her with this question.
“Well, that ties in with my second question…, so why don’t you finish with me first?”
“What’s that…”
He suddenly reached into his pocket and, without hesitation, tossed something toward her.
Delphine caught the flying object with an almost reflexive motion.
She stretched out her hand, dumbfounded, and saw a clear, crystalline crystal.
It was the same crystal that had been attached to the thing they called a walkie-talkie.
“What do you want with me now…”
She was about to scream in exasperation.
The crystal in her hand flashed, and a multicolored light emanated from it.
The crystal, which had been transparent, now held a faint opal-like glow within.
It was as if the light that had just burst forth had been trapped within the transparent crystal.
The smile that had been on the blond man’s face the entire time was washed away.
Overcome with what he didn’t know whether to call ecstasy or horror, he looked at the glowing crystal in her hand and muttered.
“There is a god, I suppose.”
Was it her imagination, or did she think she saw a hint of triumph in his eyes at that moment?
The other two, who had been sitting in a relaxed manner, looked quite surprised.
“… No way, it’s real. I was so nervous when I heard you say that.”
“What’s going on, the phosphorus automatically charges itself, how does that work, Belly or Lin?”
The blond man asked, his face filled with an odd sense of amusement.
“Well, you’re about to find out…”
What’s with everyone’s reaction?
“I haven’t heard my question answered yet.”
Delphine handed him back the crystal he’d thrown, looking displeased, and the Veliran smiled quickly.
“Ah, I apologize for that. My lady. I hope you’ll forgive me if I was just trying to answer your question.”
“But what does this crystal have to do with pupils?”
Without answering, the man pulled a black crystal from his other pocket.
It looked strikingly similar to the one in Delphine’s hand, except for the different color.
“Is that…?”
“It was obtained the hard way, I don’t know how many of my people were sacrificed to get my hands on this one piece.”
The man who answered in a heavy voice said, placing the two crystals side by side on a wooden table.
“Perhaps we should start by explaining about the phosium.”
“Phosium, is…”
Delphine said, looking at the clear crystal the man picked up.
“Is that the name you give to something common to things that come from the Northern Continent?”
The last time she’d visited the councilman in District 2, the object she’d seen had a crystal like that.
When she touched it, it suddenly emitted light.
Had she unknowingly done something called ‘charging’ then, too?
“Hoh. You mean you figured that out already?”
Belly’s eyes lit up with interest.
“Well, that would make it a lot easier to explain.”
But Delphine still looked skeptical.
“Then you really mean it’s a northern continent thing, but it’s obviously…”
“A place inhabited by barbarians, that’s how the imperial court describes it.”
Veliran’s smiling eyes suddenly turned cold.
Delphine, on the other hand, frowned deeply, as if trying to guess something.
Something no one on this peninsula uses.
She just touch it, and it glows, and it transmits the voice of someone far away.
It’s like…
“Magic, is it?”
The smile on Belly’s face deepened.
“… Yes, it is. It’s more than you could ever imagine.”
He explained calmly, holding up the transparent crystal.
“Of course, we don’t know much about magic either. Three hundred years ago, the witch hunts severed the magical vein in this Empire.”
“…”
“But here’s what we do know. There are two things you need to use magic.”
“Phosium and a magic formula.”
At that moment, the man named Lynn, who had been sitting in silence until now, suddenly spoke up.
“To be more precise, the phosium is just a vessel, it’s the energy inside that matters.”
The man picked up Delphine’s charged phosium and examined the yo-yo glow within, muttering to himself.
“… Whose identity we do not yet know.”
“You don’t know who it is?”
Delphine asked, puzzled, and this time it was the Veliran who answered.
“No, except that according to the books of the Northlands, the force is called ‘Aurum’…”
“If it is Aurum…”
It was the ancient word for dawnlight.
The man named Lynn pulled a small, square, gray object from his pocket.
It had a circular hole in the center, just big enough to hold a phosphorus.
Like every other Northland object Delphine had ever seen.
“This is what they call a lighter.”
“A lighter…?”
“It’s a substitute for matches, although until now it hasn’t been readily available because charged phosphorus is so precious…”
The man slipped the phosphorus Delphine had just charged into the hole in the object.
He pressed his thumb against the lid of the object, and to his surprise, a small candle popped out of the top.
“The objects of the Northern Continent all have incredibly complex and delicate magical formulas imprinted inside.”
The man named Lynn continued to explain in a calm tone.
“The energy of aurum, charged in phosium, is what powers the objects with these formulas.”
Delphine nodded in understanding.
“That’s right, that’s right, and once that power is used up, the phosium has no function.”
Then the man named Veliran exclaimed in amusement.
“That’s why we’ve been using the charged phosphorus we smuggled in from the North Continent, and using it sparingly.”
Suddenly, Delphine realized why they had reacted so violently just moments ago.
If such a precious object recharged her powers as soon as she touched it, no wonder.
“But why…?”
Delphine muttered, confused.
“What is that aurum energy that powers the magic, and why does it automatically recharge itself when the phosium touches my hand…?”
“That, we don’t know yet…”
Veliran muttered, looking at Delphine with an oddly uplifting expression on his face.
“Well, we’ll have to find out… surely.”
Delphine frowned and rubbed her temples.
Her head was spinning.
She felt as if her brain was about to overload with unfamiliar truths and confusing information.
But she must not lose sight of her original purpose for this dangerous outing.
She had come here to find out who Ioannes was.
Barely regaining her composure, Delphine slowly parted her lips.
“… And what about the black crystal? What is it?”
Finally, after a long preamble, the question was asked.
Delphine asked, and Veliran picked up the black crystal in her other hand.
“The vessel, Phosium, is the same, but what’s inside is not Aurum.”
“But how can you be sure of that?”
Delphine asked questioningly.
“Couldn’t it simply be a different color?”
“Aurum is literally pure energy, and it is incapable of exerting any power of its own.”
The man explained with a serious face as he held the two crystals in both hands.
“However, the power contained within these ‘black crystals’ can exert magical powers of its own.”
“Even without a single magic formula.”
The man named Lynn added, also with a serious face.
“And within that central barrier, there is a force that is using the ‘black crystal’ that contains this unknown power.”
