“Hmm.”
Merlin, who had been quietly listening, suddenly moved.
He walked with steady steps toward an empty patch of ground where no one was standing, then lifted his staff and began scribbling something on the floor.
“Merlin, what are you doing?”
Curious, Arthur moved closer to Merlin.
“No matter what, it would be too dangerous if we didn’t leave him any hint at all.”
Merlin spoke as he continued to scribble.
What he was writing wasn’t a picture, but letters.
“I’m going to show him this sentence.”
Arthur quietly looked at the finished sentence and spoke.
“......This is in the ancient tongue.”
After saying that, Arthur stared at the sentence for a while, then said,
“......‘For the giant who will topple the gods’......”
I was dumbfounded. If I hadn’t been in Hestia’s body, I would have let out a hollow laugh.
‘Merlin, you can use the ancient tongue!’
The Merlin I met acted like he not only couldn’t write the ancient tongue but couldn’t even read it, as if he didn’t even know what the sentence he said he’d gotten from Arthur was.
But now it turns out it wasn’t something he got from Arthur at all, but something he wrote himself from the start!
While I was sitting there dumbfounded, their conversation continued.
“Hey, Merlin. Do you plan on being alive until then? Until the era when he’s summoned?”
“As if that could happen. Of course I’ll die. But my will shall remain.”
“......Don’t tell me you mean the ‘dream’?”
At Arthur’s words, Merlin nodded.
Arthur stroked his chin and spoke.
“Right, there was that Merlin who waited to give me the second sword. But you said it lost its meaning now, so you were going to erase it, didn’t you?”
“That’s right. You received the second sword, so the Merlin in that forest no longer had any meaning. That’s what I thought.”
Merlin shook his head, as if denying his own words.
“But things have changed. Ridiculously enough, I’m feeling fate in a place like this. It hasn’t lost its meaning. It’s changed.”
Listening, I felt chills at Merlin’s next words.
“That Merlin will now be waiting not for you, but for him.”
‘......!’
─Someday, King Arthur gave me this sentence.
─Since I couldn’t understand it even when I looked at it, I just stored it in my head as an image.
─By any chance, can you read it?
Thinking back, my first doubt in this world started back then.
The giants who challenged the gods.
It was the first moment I thought that they might not be humanity’s enemies, but humanity’s allies.
Arthur asked,
“What if he can’t read the ancient tongue?”
“It doesn’t matter. If he truly challenges the gods, at some point he’ll come to know the ancient tongue.”
“If we really can meet him, wouldn’t it be better to just explain everything to him?”
At that, Merlin shook his head.
Looking at Arthur, Merlin asked,
“How much could you trust the words of some stranger claiming, ‘I’m your ally’?”
“......Mm. First I’d probably ask what you think of that stranger.”
“Right. In other words, you couldn’t trust him.”
At Merlin’s words, Arthur readily nodded.
“Even if he can read the ancient tongue, the me in the forest has to pretend not to know it. If the one we summon really is the person we’re wishing for, he’ll be the type who’s extremely suspicious and cautious. If someone like that tries to insist he’s an ally, it’ll only deepen his suspicion. We have to make it so he can realize it on his own.”
“Heh.”
Arthur let out a sound that could have been admiration or disbelief at Merlin’s words.
He was probably feeling exactly the same way I was.
There, Arthur spoke.
“But the you in the forest is just as suspicious and cautious, isn’t he. Whatever else he is, he’s you. Is there any way to tell the you in the forest who ‘he’ is?”
“We mustn’t tell him.”
Merlin shook his head.
“I don’t intend to pass anything on to the me in the forest. It’s better if he doesn’t know you’re dead, or that there’s no need to wait to give you the second sword, or that he’s actually a fake. All he needs is to pass on this single sentence to him. Nothing else.”
“Why are you doing it that way?”
“Because that’s the only way the one we summon will help the me in the forest. Then the me in the forest will realize who the person he has to pass the sentence to is. As you said, I’m suspicious and cautious.”
Arthur tilted his head at those words, then spoke.
“Aren’t you... don’t you feel sorry for yourself?”
“I do. But what can I do, when it’s me.”
At those words, I swallowed. It should have been impossible in Hestia’s body, but it felt like my throat bobbed.
So this is the greatest sage and Archmage of his era, Merlin.
At that moment, Jeanne asked Loki,
“Loki, when does the grand magic begin?”
“There aren’t many days left. But we won’t be able to witness that grand magic anyway. It’ll be after we’re dead.”
“......That’s a bitter thought.”
Jeanne pulled her lips tight, wearing a face like she’d just bitten into something foul.
“It can’t be helped. We’re fated to lose. When the gods are certain of their victory and return to their own domains, that’s when the grand magic will activate.”
“And binding the gods who remain in the human realm?”
“We’ve already finished the experiment with Fenrir. The gods will never be able to break free.”
Loki’s tone barely changed, yet carried a strange persuasiveness. Well, he is a sly god who excels at mischief. You could say his words overflowed with persuasiveness.
Just then, someone else appeared from beyond my field of vision.
“Loki, don’t you feel sorry for Fenrir?”
With a voice that somehow swayed softly, a woman approached Loki.
‘......Who is that......?’
This time it really was an unfamiliar face.
However, her hair color, her eyes, and her features brought someone else to mind.
‘......Cybel?’
No, that wasn’t it. She was clearly a different person. She resembled her, but she was someone else.
But a human with both pink hair and green eyes—those two traits together—was something that, even in this world where every kind of appearance existed, only Cybel had.
Loki resolved my question for me.
“Idun, thanks for coming.”
When Loki said that,
Sst─
“......Huh?”
I returned to reality.
With absolutely no warning, far too abruptly.
And time began to move again.
Hestia was in front of my eyes.
We had arrived right in front of the summit of Olympus.
‘Right. Time can’t stay stopped forever.’
If anything, it was surprising that time had been stopped for so long.
Right in front of us was the edge of the crater’s rim. In other words, a cliff dropping into the crater.
‘Get it together! I have work to do!’
I drew in a breath. My confused head cleared a little.
When the unicorn carrying Hestia and Selena reached that point, I reached out my hand.
“Selena!”
Selena leapt from the unicorn’s back and grabbed the hand I held out.
Squeeze!
Holding Selena in my arms, I unfurled my wings.
From here on, it wasn’t my job to fly.
Gravity would handle that.
“......Hestia.”
In that brief moment hanging in midair, I called Hestia’s name.
Hestia said,
“Go.”
Just as she said.
I tilted my head and looked down.
Selena and I fell into the crater.
At first slowly, but we soon accelerated under gravity.
Fwoooosh─!
The sound of the wind brushed past my ears. Darkness skimmed past my cheeks.
“Selena, let me ask this ahead of time.”
I spoke as we fell.
“Can you move properly even at terminal velocity?”
We would soon reach terminal velocity, the speed where simply falling would no longer make us any faster. In other words, unless I spread my wings and did something like accelerate us, we wouldn’t be going any faster than this. We were already plenty fast, anyway.
“What are you saying, Young Master Frondier.”
Selena’s eyes flashed with blue light.
“I can do anything.”
“......Right.”
I didn’t bother quibbling with Selena’s words and just agreed.
From now on, I decided I would take everything Selena said as the truth.
“Young Master Frondier.”
Selena, staring down below us, spoke.
“Starting from 10 km ahead, something is blocking the way.”
“Blocking it?”
Blocking this crater?
“Don’t tell me we’ve already reached the lava?”
That would be bad. We needed to reach the underworld below, and to run into lava already would be a problem.
“No. It seems to be some kind of wall of mana. And it’s not just one. Then another, and another after that. I can’t see all of them from here, but quite a number of walls are blocking the way in several layers.”
“Divine interference.”
I also looked down, focusing my eyes.
I couldn’t match Selena, but if I pushed my intuition, I could extend my vision to some extent.
“......There it is.”
Just as Selena had said, there was something blocking the direction we were heading. You could call it a transparent wall; it looked like a barrier. Of course, its defensive power would be different from an ordinary barrier.
“In one minute, we’ll reach it.”
“......It looks sturdier than I expected.”
I frowned. If I tried to just smash it apart, I could probably do it, but it would cost quite a bit. And there was no telling how many more of those were waiting below.
“Young Master Frondier. I can see it with my eyes.”
“See what?”
“The mana flow of that barrier.”
“......Right, you had that.”
My eyes lit up as I looked at Selena. Selena had a technique that let her read the flow of mana and topple an opponent with needles. I’d heard that by evolving that further, she had reached the point where she could now see the mana flow of the magic itself.
“.......”
But when I looked at her, Selena suddenly clammed up and stared «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» at me.
“What is it, Selena?”
“......Ah, it’s nothing. Anyway, I can see it, but the barrier is so big that even if I hit a weak point with a needle, I don’t think I could pierce it.”
“If that’s all it is, I can solve it easily.”
Still holding Selena with one arm, I opened my free hand.
“Tell me the position. I’ll handle the rest.”
“Understood. From now, please move 2 meters diagonally up to the left.”
“That’s the weak point?”
“Magic is mana that keeps flowing. The position of the weak point keeps moving, so it has to be tracked.”
I nodded and stretched my hand out to the side.
Thunk!
I lightly flicked Black Heaven, and our bodies shifted slightly.
“I’ll throw three needles. Please watch their paths and attack the point where the ‘fourth’ needle would be.”
“Got it.”
Selena’s pupils dilated slightly, and the breath that had been flowing out of her stopped for an instant.
Her expression vanished completely, and even as the high-speed wind slammed into her, her eyes didn’t waver. I stared at them blankly for a brief moment.
Swick!
And Selena threw three needles.
If you connected the three needles in a line, from where we’d been, it drew a gentle curve out to the right this time.
“Clean work, Selena.”
“Spare me the token compliments.”
Listening to Selena’s voice, I moved toward the imaginary position of the ‘fourth needle.’ At the same time, I stretched my hand back.
Black Heaven
Mana of the Nine Worlds
Black spear
By the time the spear was in my hand, the position was locked in.
“Perfect, Young Master Frondier.”
“Token compliments—!”
KWA-BOOOOM!
“That’s enough!”
We broke through the first wall.
