Chapter 59

Chapter 59 : The Edge of Truth (1)

I opened the door to the office I had left empty for so long and stepped inside.

The moment I did, pale dust flew up, making me cough lightly two or three times before I waved a hand through the air.

I forced down the urge to open the window and air the place out. Considering what I was about to do, it would be better if people thought no one was in the office.

“Hmm, it is small.”

Murel, who followed me inside, swept his gaze over the interior and gave a short assessment. In the meantime, I set down the bag I had been carrying and locked the office door.

Then I carefully placed the still-silent crow-tit on the sofa and took out the Blue Flower I had roughly stuffed into my bag, setting it on the table.

“You said you were a Creator, right?”

“Yes. That is correct.”

“Then explain. Why is this the production method?”

No matter how I looked at the blue flame, it did not look like an instruction manual, a blueprint, code, or anything of the sort. It did not have any form that deserved to be called a “production method.”

I pulled a chair over in front of the table, sat down, and asked Murel,

“I understand that a Phantasmal Species is ultimately created. But that one has already been living perfectly well and even gorging itself without any production method.”

I pointed at the crow-tit, which was asleep with a soft purr.

Since the quest required all three—the seed, the fragment, and the production method—I had been collecting them, but I was skeptical about the necessity of each one.

On top of that, aside from not having horns, the crow-tit was already a Phantasmal Species.

“Is the production method not a simple design plan, but something that adds traits to the Phantasmal Species that possesses it?”

Not every Phantasmal Species would need a production method, but perhaps it was the sort of thing that made one better if it had it.

Murel tilted his head, then made a gesture as though he had understood. He pulled over a chair and sat obediently across from me.

“It begins by defining what, exactly, the phantasm of a Phantasmal Species is.”

“Defining?”

Murel was smiling broadly, enjoying this situation.

To be precise, he found this strange composition, where I asked questions and he answered, extremely exciting.

“The Power of Phantasm makes impossible things that cannot exist in reality appear. Those things are usually based on imaginings inside the mind.”

Murel’s words made me recall the strange phenomena that had occurred when I first struggled to unlock my Frame.

The bizarre laughter. The abnormal phenomena where things that should not exist appeared. The foundation of the power left behind by the Master of Phantasms.

“As imagined?”

“If one reaches the apex, then yes…… but for now, Phantasmal Species are born, made, and refined based on that sort of imagination.”

I thought of the sculpture my old friend had worked hard to carve while looking like a wreck.

The work of slowly cutting away from a large mass until, in the end, a form that looked alive emerged.

That friend had called it excavation. Throwing what had been inside one’s head right in front of one’s eyes.

“The production method contains the framework of that imagination. It remembers the form. Mm…… it would be better to say it awakens the essence. It draws out the sleeping optimal form.”

Was it a kind of guide?

Looking at the Blue Flower, which now appeared perfectly ordinary, I organized my thoughts.

The system, which had remained quiet the entire time we were in the former Sky’s Domain, had started scattering backlogged achievements as soon as we returned, making my head spin.

In the middle of all that, the quest marked as [...] in the corner of my vision had still not been completed.

If simply possessing this did not complete it, did that mean I had to draw out the production method in some other form?

Or perhaps, since I had acquired it while the system was submerged, an error had occurred.

There was a thought that had occurred to me while I made my way through that place the entire time without the system. The system was only a supplementary means.

The abilities I had been given might actually have been things I originally possessed.

I had merely forgotten how to use them.

So I thought that even now, if I simply understood the principle behind the production method, I might be able to acquire that method myself even without the system.

But that was like a person without wings thinking they could fly just because wings had appeared on their back, when they could not control even a single nerve needed to move them.

I gave up cleanly and decided to wait until the system finished its backlogged work.

When I finished making a rough judgment and lifted my head, Murel was pretending to push up glasses he was not even wearing, while the corners of his mouth trembled.

“……?”

“A-a-actually, what I just said was something My Lord once told me. Doing this again like this makes me so happy that I keep wanting to laugh…….”

I left Murel to fawn at length and woke the sleeping crow-tit.

Whether the quest was completed or not, whatever change came afterward would happen to the crow-tit.

The crow-tit burped once and opened its eyes. It blinked several times, then tilted its head. Then it spotted the Blue Flower on the table and flapped its wings.

…

…

[Achievement 〈If Your Right Foot Slips, Your Left Foot Slips Too〉 achieved.]

→Climbing an Ice Cliff beyond a certain height.

[Achievement 〈Blue Flames Are Hot, but Cold〉 achieved.]

→Chosen by the Relic of an Ancient Civilization―Blue Inferno.

[You gain points in a batch +35P.]

[Points Held: 38P]

I dismissed the system text that had just finished the final achievement settlement, then picked up the flower on the table and held it out to the crow-tit.

The crow-tit opened its eyes wide, rolled its red-dyed eyes once, then opened its beak as far as it could and swallowed the Blue Flower whole.

Ding!

[Clearing 【Epic】 Quest 〈If You Are Underfolk, You All Have One or Two Phantasmal Species, Right?〉.

Your small but precious cutie has completed all preparations.

Have you looked back on old bonds and grown attached to new ones?]

At the same time, the crow-tit, engulfed in blue flames that bloomed with a FWOOOSH, floated lightly into the air.

As though refusing to miss even a single petal, the crow-tit swallowed everything down its throat, then opened its beak to eat even the violently rising flames around it.

Watching it nibble away at a blue flame that seemed easily more than ten times its own size looked more mystical than worrying.

It felt like a blue snowstorm raging inside a small space.

That fierce vortex of flame embraced the crow-tit and then died down. Scattering faint blue sparks, the flame was trapped inside that small body.

When the crow-tit’s closed eyes opened, an unfamiliar phantasm unfolded in my vision as I met them.

The smell of a house left empty for too long and the green plants disappeared, and Murel watching from beside me, the office space itself, all began to be erased.

For an instant, I felt as though I were being sucked into the crow-tit’s eyes.

The Black Forest, near the site of an ancient civilization.

“Me,” licking a fluffy fluorescent violet paw, was looking up at someone standing before me.

Like me, he had one iris of gold, while the other eye scattered red energy as he stroked “my” head.

My panting instinct wagged my tail, and my eyes curved under that gentle touch.

I realized that the phantasm I was seeing now was from the point of view of Woldeer, who had left this thought behind.

“I will leave you behind.”

“Me” whined and rubbed my face against him, not wanting to be separated. He bit his own finger, drew blood, and let it flow into “my” mouth.

Thirst surged up in an instant. At that sweet scent, all the fur on my body stood on end.

“Me” kept licking his wounded finger until it healed, tail wagging all the while.

“That is a brand. In the distant future, when I return, I hope you will help me.”

I did not think I had been abandoned.

“Me” had been given a mission.

Waiting for that unknowable day, thinking of the Sovereign who would return, gladly accepting this self that could not die.

The returned Sovereign was fragile.

As “I” had always done, I licked his wounded foot and received a pat on the head.

The words telling me to help remained like a brand. Though the overwhelming energy of the Sovereign had fallen asleep, he was the only thing I had waited for through the long years.

Ah, master of all Phantasmal Species.

The Sovereign has returned.

“Me” was glad.

Just as I had been, once, in some distant past too far away to measure.

Because I could remain beside his long life once more.

Ding!

[Acquired 〈Skill—Phantasm Transformation〉.]

[Phantasm Transformation—Active

Transforms objects and living beings imbued with the ‘Power of Phantasm’ within the Phantasm Domain.

Form restrictions apply according to Executor’s grade.]

[Viewed an ancient thought through Fragment of a Phantasmal Species (Special).]

[Form of specific Phantasmal Species (Bound) determined.]

When the phantasm that had not merely confused my vision, but swallowed even my sense of self, ended, I saw the crow-tit’s red eyes clearly before me.

Blink.

The transformation of the crow-tit floating in the air happened in the time it took to blink once.

Instead of fluorescent violet fur, it boasted blazing red fur, swept splendid horns back behind its head, and wagged its fluffy tail.

The gaze directed toward me, the atmosphere it gave off, the familiar size, the appearance I had missed.

“Woldeer……?”

I was confused because I could not tell whether only the form had been borrowed, or whether Woldeer’s thought had been transmitted.

Even though the crow-tit had eaten the fragment Woldeer left behind, I had never imagined it would appear in such an unexpected form.

Then the creature came closer and rubbed its head against my arm. Just as I had seen in the phantasm, I stroked its head.

[“Master.”]

Subtitles appeared above the creature’s head as it let out a low growl.

At the sudden appearance of the familiar subtitle form, a laugh escaped me.

[“It has been a long time.”]

“You, ahem. Are you really Woldeer? Are you that Woldeer? You were not dead?”

[“My will continued.”]

“Since when?”

[“Since the moment the fragment containing my entirety was held, since the Sovereign who came to find me before that.”]

Revival, possession, synthesis. It did not matter what it was.

I steadied my breathing and recalled the resurrection of the Stronghold Phantasmal Species I had seen in the former Sky’s Domain.

If the fragment was not destroyed, they revived at some point in the same form.

Woldeer had continued.

Whether as a soul, a ghost, or a revival.

Ding!

[Grade insufficient to maintain specific Phantasmal Species (Bound) form.]

[Specific Phantasmal Species (Bound) form will be determined randomly.]

[Code of 〈Relic of an Ancient Civilization―Blue Inferno〉 applied.]

Just as when the creature had first appeared, taking up half the office with its huge body while rubbing itself against me, it assumed another form in an instant.

A red bird about the size of a palm, larger than the crow-tit.

On its head grew a feather longer than its body, where flame bloomed, and flame-like down puffed up its fluffy chest.

The form also resembled the Firebird in the mural the Ruler of the Sky had shown me. Though rather than having that splendid dignity, it was closer to a cute bird that had gotten a little fat with fluff.

“Crow-Tit? What about Woldeer?”

[“My essence does not change. I am Woldeer and also Crow-Tit, Master. Call me whatever you prefer.”]

The creature spread its long wings wide and shook off tiny embers, then shook the flame-feather on its head and settled obediently onto the sofa.

Did that mean the form was not important?

“Then how about Fire-Gazing for your current form?”

As I quietly watched the flame on the swaying feather, I felt pleased for no reason and tried naming it that.

[“……As Master wills.”]

For some reason, the creature seemed sullen.

“That was a long pause. You do not like it?”

[“Master’s naming sense has had significantly low expectations since Woldeer, so it does not matter.”]

Chirp-screech!

You said it had been a long time. You showed every sign of being glad, and you cried happily when I called you Woldeer too.

Feeling strangely hurt, I poked at the creature’s puffed-up feathers, then my eyes lit up at the name that came to mind.

“Fluffnix is good. Let us go with that. Decided.”

As I shrugged and laughed in satisfaction, I heard cackling from the side.

It was Murel.

“That name…… even if it is Lord Iwon’s partner, would it not hate that?”