Chapter 288: In Search of the Archmage (7)
In the west end of Port Terrister, where rows of warehouses crowded the district, a middle-aged woman in her fifties lay bound inside one of the empty storage buildings.
She glared furiously at the unfamiliar strangers who had abducted her, wondering who they were to dare kidnap her in broad daylight. Even the Cult of the Black God followed some basic etiquette. If one was going to kidnap someone, they waited until after sundown, didn't they?
Karnak, of course, didn't care in the slightest. "As long as we don't get caught, what difference does it make if it's day or night?"
He immediately drove a needle into her head and began his usual round of questioning. "Where is Diogres?"
The answer he received was a little unusual. "Badran pel trast de Pallenda..."
"Ah, right. I asked that in Lacanian without thinking.” Karnak clicked his tongue.
The Lacania Empire was so vast that languages varied widely, even within its borders. Isola, the language of the Eustil Kingdom, was spoken only as far as the western reaches of the empire. Once you reached the central region, Lacanian became the standard tongue.
From the Tower of Dawn southward, Karnak had been conducting interrogations in Lacanian, but they had now reached a region where yet another dialect prevailed. In this area, they spoke Kallant, the southern regional dialect of the empire. Naturally, Karnak was fluent in Kallant as well. He immediately understood the woman's response.
It meant, "I don't understand a word you're saying."
Switching to Kallant, Karnak asked again, "Zel teira Diogres fatal zik Srand?"
This time, he received a proper response. “Del Diogres, mallard vel Kellasphere..."
Serati leaned over and quietly asked Leven, "What did she say this time?"
Naturally, she hadn't been able to understand a single thing since they'd left the Tower of Dawn. She'd been relying on Leven, the scion of a noble house, to translate for her all this time.
"I don't speak Kallant," Leven replied.
The Strauss family was a renowned name across the Seven Kingdoms. As such, he had been educated from a young age in all the major languages spoken within the alliance. And since one never knew when they might encounter someone from the empire, he'd also studied the imperial standard, Lacanian.
But even the Strauss family hadn't thought to prepare their children for regional dialects spoken only in the southern reaches of the empire. You couldn't expect someone to learn every language in the world, after all.
Instead, it was Varos who interpreted for them. "It's the same as always. 'Did you find Diogres?' 'Yes.' 'Where is he now?' That sort of thing."
Milia looked up at Varos with mild surprise. "Sir Varos, you're more educated than you look. How many languages do you speak?"
He did give off the impression of being a bit simple. Scratching the back of his head sheepishly, Varos mumbled, "It just sort of happened."
Then he switched to mental speech.
—Even an idiot would pick up dozens of languages if they'd been hearing them for decades across the continent.
Serati looked puzzled.
—Across the continent? How?
—My subordinates were spread all over the place.
—Ah...
The realization hit her. These two, who seemed like a pair of bumbling fools, were once the embodiment of evil that had conquered the world.
If that was the case, there was bound to be another among them who understood Kallant. After all, someone who had fought those evils across every corner of the continent—an avatar of justice—would surely have to understand just as many languages.
Serati cast a sideways glance at Lapicel. She probably understands everything too, doesn't she?
***
Lapicel was feeling deeply confused. Just how many languages do I even know...?
Back in the central empire, she had already confirmed that she could understand Lacanian. She'd tried to brush it off like Karnak had said. It was something that could happen. Maybe she was just good with languages. Maybe she had picked it up while traveling and listening. Perhaps she was a trilingual prodigy.
She had already become an aura user simply by picking up sword techniques here and there. So maybe this wasn't impossible either. But she couldn't convince herself anymore now, standing here in Port Terrister.
How could a peasant girl from the empire's western farmlands possibly understand a dialect used only in the deep south? Sure, she could force an explanation. Maybe she'd grown up in a trading town where merchants frequented. Maybe she was exposed to many tongues.
It wasn't impossible. Still, that didn't explain the dreams. Every night, voices came to her in her sleep. Someone would scream in Isola in a war zone consumed by flames.
—Please, save us, Lady Lapicel!
Someone would cry out in Lacanian in a hellscape where corpses walked the earth.
—Help us, Lady Lapicel!
More voices reached out to her, in Kallant, in Bernadi, and in Ralphon.
—From the evil Monarch of Death...
—From that terrible Death Knight Lord...
—Please, deliver us...!
What were these dreams, and why did she keep having them?
"I don't know..." Lapicel shook her head. She was still too young to make sense of it all.
***
At last, they had extracted everything from the cultist woman. Karnak pulled the magic needle from her head, and she collapsed, unconscious.
Serati, who had been standing idly by like a forgotten sack of grain, suddenly spoke up. "Now that I think about it, we're in the empire, right? Can't we get one of those translation spell necklaces here?"
Karnak blinked in a daze, realizing his oversight. "Oh, right. Those are a specialty of the Tower of Dawn. Should've bought some while we were there."
It was too late now. They'd come far too south to turn back.
"We could ask someone to make one,” suggested Serati.
"They're not exactly easy to make, are they?” Karnak countered.
"Well, we are looking for the guy who invented the spell, aren't we?” Serati retorted.
Karnak nodded. "Oh... that's true."
Of course, all of this could only happen after they found Diogres Kolon.
"Then where did he go?” Varos said.
Karnak let out a dry chuckle. "Funny how bad premonitions are never wrong."
The last known whereabouts of Diogres Kolon, according to the information Karnak extracted, were as follows. "He went south.”
"But south of here is just open ocean, right?” Varos complained.
"More precisely, they say he boarded a ship and sailed out to sea. After that, even they don't know," explained Karnak.
"He came all the way down here from the Tower of Dawn just to get on a boat?" Varos frowned. "What in the world is out there in this sea?"
"Beats me." Karnak stood up and said cheerfully, "Anyways, let's eat first."
***
The seafood dishes of Port Terrister weren't particularly elaborate or sophisticated. They simply steamed a mountain of assorted seafood, steamed it, poured sauce over it, and served it.
Yet, Karnak walked away with an important life lesson. "So the fish I've had before only tasted bad because they weren't fresh!" The steamed clams, crab, lobster, and grilled fish were all incredibly delicious. There wasn't even a hint of that fishy smell, only a lingering freshness.
Milia tilted her head and asked, baffled.
—You mean to tell me you conquered the world and never had fresh seafood before? Surely you went to the coast often?
Karnak sighed.
—I did. But by then, more than half of my body had already been turned undead.
Even before he had become Astra Shunaph, much of his body had been altered by the powers of darkness. It had been the only way to survive as the enemy of all humanity. He had started by discarding parts of his body he considered less important. And at the time, taste had not been something Karnak valued.
—Looking back, what a damned fool I was.
Chewing on a piece of crayfish tail, Karnak smiled blissfully. Even if the world ended tomorrow, he would eat lobster today!
He couldn't help but think, In the end, what else is there to life? Good food's all that matters.
Serati nodded in agreement as she carefully picked meat from a crab leg. "This is amazing. It doesn't even seem like a complicated dish."
It was on par with that gourmet meal and fine wine they'd had back in the Grental territory.
“Oh?" She suddenly remembered something important. "Wait, we never paid for that meal back in Grental, did we?"
Leven's face turned sheepish too. As for Karnak and Varos?
"Oh!"
"Hey, we saved money!”
And they immediately buried their faces back in their food without an ounce of guilt.
Right... that's the kind of people they are, Serati thought.
She made a solemn vow. When they returned to the Eustil Kingdom, they would stop by Grental and pay that bill. This wasn't just about money. I refuse to become someone like that!
Milia and Lapicel, who had no idea what was going on, simply glanced at each other in confusion.
"What are they talking about, Lapicel?”
"I'm not sure."
In any case, everyone ate and drank to their hearts' content. Once their bellies were full, conversation resumed at a relaxed pace.
Varos posed the question. "Still, why would Diogres head out to sea?"
"Right? What could possibly be out there?" Leven replied.
Serati turned to Karnak. "You don't know either?"
"I can at least guess what he's after..." Twirling his fork, Karnak began to explain. "What do you think Diogres Kolon wants most right now?"
That much was obvious. He probably wanted to break Elezar's magical seal and reclaim his original power.
"Maybe... somewhere out there in the sea lies the way to do that," Karnak suggested.
Leven asked telepathically.
—Didn't you say something similar happened with Giyen Ren before? Or was that in the future? Anyway, how did they break the seal back then?
Varos answered in his place.
—They didn't.
Leven was shocked.
—What?
Varos explained.
—At the time, Giyen Ren simply continued fighting as a ninth-circle master. Our Elezar had withdrawn from the battlefield entirely, so it actually turned the tide in their favor.
So in the end, it was Elezar who had been unable to bear it and lifted the spell first. In other words, back then, there simply hadn't been a method for the one afflicted by the spell to undo the seal themselves.
Karnak continued.
—But someone like Diogres might've figured it out on his own. After all, that sealing technique was created by Elezar, and they're both archmages of the same tier.
Switching back to speaking aloud, Karnak said, "But I still can't figure out why he came here of all places. There aren't any legendary ruins or anything like that nearby."
Karnak had, after all, once ruled the entire world. He had unearthed most of the continent's worthwhile ruins long ago, and even the ones he hadn't excavated, he at least knew the locations of.
He nodded after a moment of thought. "I'm sure of it. There's nothing like a legendary ruin around here."
No sooner had Karnak made this confident declaration than an elderly voice chimed in from nearby. "Oh ho? If you're looking for legendary ruins, you must be adventurers, eh?"
It came from a group of three old men in their sixties, drinking at the same tavern.
Varos's eyes sparkled. "You sound like you know something, old-timer?"
One of the men curled his lips into a lecherous grin. "A little liquor might get my tongue moving nicely."
Karnak scowled. Who the hell did this geezer think he was, trying to pull that kind of stunt? "Is that so? Well, if I stick a needle in you, I bet your tongue will—mmph!"
Serati swiftly covered Karnak's mouth before he could finish. "Now, now, how about we just buy you a drink?"
"Much obliged, young lady!"
They had plenty of money, and purchasing a few more drinks wasn't going to hurt. Sure enough, once fresh drinks were placed before them, the old men's tongues loosened like silk.
"The sea south of this port is just open water."
"There's nothing out there."
"But to the west, now that's where you'll find the Tepial Islands."
Indeed, just because someone boarded a ship didn't mean they went south. Roughly a three-day sail west from Port Terrister was a scattered cluster of islands known as the Tepial Islands.
"There's a hidden island there. It goes by the name of Dragon's Isle!"
"If you're looking for a legendary ruin, that's your best bet!"
"That's gotta be it, no doubt about it!"
As the old men proudly boasted, Milia quietly thought to herself. If the drunk old guys at the local tavern all know about it, how 'secret' can it really be?
