Chapter 73

Chapter 73 : Recruiting Party Members to Grab the Past by the Collar (5)

I sprawled out flat on my back, panting.

Since it was hard to find a suitable clearing, we had come down to the forest floor and were continuing what was roughly disguised as combat training but was actually harassment.

Of course, I was the one being harassed.

The forest moss that had accumulated over long years cushioned my head softly.

The dazzling sunlight passed through the tall forest city far above and poured down the long distance to the ground.

Just as my exhausted body began to grow lush with the desire to simply pass out and sleep, Quiro approached and cast a shadow over me.

“You must get up.”

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

“I don’t see why I have to.”

“You must, if you do not want to die after getting struck by a stray blade.”

I tried rebelling against Quiro’s firm words, but it did not work at all.

After openly complaining so they would hear me, and receiving no response even to that, I took a deep breath and pushed myself upright. I would die of exhaustion before I died from a stray blade.

It was not that I failed to understand the necessity, but even now, rolling around a few more times would not change anything, would it?

On top of that, the one thing clear even in my hazy memories was that I had never been a physical-combat character in the first place.

“I can more or less handle things even without this.”

“Did you say handle?”

Quiro’s eyes gleamed dangerously.

I swallowed hard and sprang to my feet. It felt like I had touched a trigger.

“You handled things sooo well that you vanished without contact, with no one knowing whether you were dead or alive, lost your memories completely, and ended up rolling on the ground like this?”

It had not been long since those memories returned, so they still felt like someone else’s business. Hearing that made me feel a little wronged.

I brushed off the blotchy grass stains on my clothes and opened my mouth to protest, but Quiro’s words immediately buried mine.

“Karon may capture you at any moment and do who knows what. Surely you do not want to be juiced dry?”

“……Maybe not right away?”

“Karon suspected Lord Iwon’s existence long before he sent me here.”

I know that too.

“And now it must be certainty, not suspicion.”

I know that too.

“Karon intends to confine Lord Iwon and drain only the Power of Phantasm from you. The power of the Sovereign, who can stand above all things.”

I swallowed the words I had meant to use as excuses, loosened my shoulders, and let my arms hang naturally.

“Do you feel more willing now?”

“No. No matter how I think about it, this is not it.”

Even by average standards, Underfolk bodies were vastly superior to Surface Folk bodies.

Quiro was said to have reached the top even among those Underfolk, which meant facing them with my body, which was worse than a Surface Folk’s, was unreasonable.

I had never had good stamina.

Not in my previous life, and not in this one.

Sek was the sort to stand still and manipulate his surroundings, not the sort to run wild personally.

Was it not an inefficient waste of time to force hastily assembled hand-to-hand combat on someone like me? Besides, the weight class did not even match.

“I doubt there will be many cases where I have to fight barehanded, but what my body already knows should be enough. Even if I learn a little more for a moment, I will not improve much.”

“……Since you brought it up, may I ask why you do not use that?”

Quiro jerked their chin toward my ring.

The Red Ring sitting obediently on my middle finger had originally been Sek’s cherished item in the form of an earring.

It looked like a ring now because I had transformed it with the Phantasm Transformation Skill.

Since it openly radiated condensed red power and advertised itself as an object imbued with the Power of Phantasm, it had been the first thing I tried touching.

Part of my memories had been shared, and I had also recalled that it had existed in various forms.

“Who will take responsibility if I fully draw this out with my pathetic energy and it explodes?”

“Is the fact that the bound Phantasmal Species is in the form of a small bird related to that as well?”

“Probably. I am not as reliable as I used to be.”

“Then let us make it short and decisive. Just one match. After you use that and properly spar with me, I will follow Lord Iwon’s opinion.”

I stared quietly at Quiro, who crossed their arms and provoked me, then let out a sigh.

So they would only understand if I deliberately used an inefficient method and shoved the answer in front of their eyes?

“Only once.”

I do not want to vomit blood and collapse again.

I touched the ring and called the system.

Ding!

[Specifying target of 〈Skill―Phantasm Transformation〉.

〈Cherished Item of the Master of Phantasms〉 will transform.

Specify form.]

Hmm, a dagger?

For the specific form, I recalled the one I had used before and remembered clearly.

The ring wrapped around my finger distorted fluidly, then flowed naturally into my hand as if being gripped.

What had only been the size of a single ring swelled instantly like foam expanding, then created a magnificent red-bladed dagger.

[〈Cherished Item of the Master of Phantasms〉 has created a specific form.

Hidden abilities revealed.

Phantasm Absorption: Absorbs and nullifies all forms maintained by the Power of Phantasm.

Phantasm Release: Releases absorbed Power of Phantasm at will.]

Because my memories had been shared, I had roughly sensed the cherished item’s hidden abilities.

An optimal item for handling the Power of Phantasm.

However, since I had not received an exact confirmation in text, I had been uncertain. Now that it was openly shown before my eyes, I understood why people would drool over it and covet it.

“All forms maintained by the Power of Phantasm” included not only simple Phantasmal Existences, but also each race’s “Frame.”

To put it simply, it could absorb and nullify every attack that used a Frame, and even let me use that power as I pleased.

If this had a grade, it would probably be traded as an S-grade weapon.

I could not be more relieved that it was “bound.”

The moment the cherished item acknowledged me, the bound attribute activated automatically. This meant nothing else but that it would not be physically separated from me.

In other words, it was an object that crossed space and time according to its master’s will and flaunted its presence before me.

Even when I had become bait for the Phantasmal Species before, it was more accurate to say the necklace in the bag had flown to me on its own, not that Pan had separately brought it for me.

It had responded to my will that it would be nice if I had something.

“Do you not need to take out a weapon?”

“If I do― Lord Iwon will be injured.”

Neither of us could be called first.

CLANG—.

The first exchange, as both of us kicked off the ground at the same time, began with Quiro catching the dagger barehanded and twisting the blade with force.

The first ring, which had sounded like metal striking metal, only died down after Quiro shook off the dagger’s power as it smoothly dug into their palm and left a scratch.

“You hit me with those absurd hands?”

“I can control my strength.”

After quickly putting distance between us, I fixed my grip on the dagger with my other hand because my palm was stinging, then charged properly.

When Quiro was barehanded, I had been relieved by the restriction that they were not holding a weapon and had not thought much about it.

But once I held a weapon, its purpose for killing naturally came to mind, and I did not welcome that.

Whether I lost or struggled, I wanted to finish this as quickly as possible.

Only after several more exchanges, and after I was forcibly injected with a very clear lesson on why Quiro’s hierarchy had been second only to Sek’s, did Quiro release me.

I lay spread-eagled on the ground again, panting, and transformed the dagger I had created back into the original ring.

“Before considering efficiency, you must build your stamina first.”

Looking up at Quiro, whose hair was not even disheveled, I cursed inwardly.

From where, and how much, is this one dissatisfied with me, to be doing this?

Murel, who had been watching us from a stump wider than his own height, grinned and said only one thing.

“As expected, Lord Iwon cared more about aesthetic sense than performance.”

“Why? They say what looks good tastes good too.”

“But that is a weapon, not food.”

“Even if I had considered performance in the first place, I could not beat that one.”

After collapsing to the ground, I realized something. Quiro’s purpose was not to train me and prepare me.

Their purpose was to vent dissatisfaction at the lord who had not only abandoned them for a long time, but had even hidden his own death thoroughly.

While they were at it, they had also thought about efficiency: if my stamina actually increased and bought me time when I had to run away, that would be even better.

So I really had been getting harassed.

“This is rebellion against one’s superior.”

---

The office was crowded.

There was the one who said they would sleep at the ruler’s castle but commute here, the one who was bored with nothing to do and wanted to play with the Quartet, and Fluffnix, who was flying around excitedly because he had finished digesting the Black Mist he had swallowed in Mist’s Domain.

On top of that, even Chezer Pan, the Ruler of the Forest, had come and occupied the cramped office.

In the morning, Quiro’s physical conditioning had drained the strength from my arms and legs, and in the afternoon, the people flooding in had drained my mental strength.

I rubbed my face and lamented.

“Can’t I enjoy even a moment of peaceful forest life?”

Suppressing the urge to push Pan out of the hammock on the terrace, I pressed hard at my throbbing forehead.

Would it be less tiring if Pering suddenly went mad and ran wild, or if Karon stormed in saying he had found me?

“Why? What is it? Is this the scene of some new kind of protest?”

Pan, who had been lying there like a corpse with both arms hanging limply outside the hammock, half-opened his eyes at my words.

He had seemed like he would die after handling the work Pering had thrown away for a while. Was he finally alive again?

Sitting in the terrace chair where Murel often perched, I tapped Pan’s leg.

“Do not interfere in front of someone else’s business. Go to the castle and sleep.”

“Heartless bastard.”

“……What?”

“Since you are Underfolk, do you prefer Underfolk after all?”

“Cut the bullshit.”

“The blow from reality, from the fact that our warm bond of mutual affection was so shallow we could not even exchange greetings, has clawed at my insides, so I have no strength to get up.”

“Anyone would treat you like this if you occupied someone else’s hammock and sprawled there.”

I finally pushed Pan away as he muttered limply and ignored every complaint from the bastard rolling on the floor.

I already knew why Pan was acting like this, limp with weak will and lethargy.

This was a kind of lovesickness, a one-sided-love syndrome, something close to the depression mode of an unchosen second male lead.

“Why is one month so long? It has not even been ten days yet. With what strength am I supposed to endure the remaining days?”

Pan chewed over the date Ariti was supposed to return and crouched in the corner, making the atmosphere gloomy.

I clicked my tongue. Sleep was out of the question.

I was also worried that if I kept being infected by Pan’s gloom for the entire remaining period, I might become that stupid too.

“Do you like the Ruler of the Spring that much?”

“Ariti is not such a concept.”

“Then what concept is she?”

“Reverence?”

“…….”

My shoulders grew heavy, wondering whether Pan would soon become as intense as our house’s obsessive fan.

I closed my eyes and thought.

Among the many parts of the Original Work I had viewed for my own purposes, the part that had taken up the majority and that I had considered useless was Ariti and Karon’s romance.

At the negotiation room too, those two had a few points where the reason, justification, and singularity fit together perfectly, as though some unknown existence had openly tried to tie them together.

There was one problem here.

Why was the Original Work titled 〈Your Regret After Killing Me〉?

It had not appeared in the loaded portions yet, but iiiif a day came when Ariti died, or was killed, it was difficult to predict how Pan, who only looked like a stupid bastard before my eyes, would transform.

In an extreme case, it was possible that this bastard, not Karon, would start the war.

And that raised one question.

Should I prevent the war, or start it?

I had to seriously consider which side would contribute to destroying the Original Work and ruining the world.