Chapter 76

Sheryl stroked her neck while smiling.

Lumpy welts had formed where the fork had pierced and torn. The unpleasant welts would remain until the healing art was completely finished.

“Are you alright?”

A man in uniform was kneeling on one knee while looking at Sheryl.

“Yes, I’m fine. I trusted the Commissioner would resolve it.”

“You were already watching everything.”

“That’s right.”

“Then I dare to ask. That man—why did you bring him here?”

Sheryl smiled gently with her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I can’t tell you that yet.”

“Ah, if the deity has spoken thus, this humble servant can only accept.”

The Commissioner bowed his head.

“Where is that man now?”

“He’s on the second floor. As you instructed, we haven’t harmed him. Though we did bind his hands and feet.”

“Well done.”

Sheryl received guidance and went up to the second floor. The guards who’d been watching the room at the end of the corridor stepped aside.

When she entered, she could see a man bound to a chair. His eyes and mouth were covered, but she could clearly see the terror he must be feeling.

“Would you close the door? We need to be alone.”

“Understood. We’ll withdraw until there are further instructions.”

At the Commissioner’s signal, the guards who’d been watching inside the room also left.

They were adorable humans who listened well. The kind who’d jump off a building without hesitation at just the mention of a deity’s name. Pitiful, pathetic, and all the more amusing for it.

She approached the man and removed his blindfold.

When their gazes met, the man made muffled sounds while nodding his head repeatedly.

“Shh.”

Sheryl gently pulled down the cloth blocking the man’s mouth.

“What’s your name?”

“Qu-Quilbion.”

“Your age?”

“N-nineteen.”

“I see, Quilbion. Do you remember how you got here?”

Quilbion shook his head violently left and right.

“I swear to the heavens, before the deity’s name without a single lie—I truly don’t remember.”

“I see, I see. Don’t get excited. I’m not trying to do anything to you.”

When she smiled softly, Quilbion’s rigid face gradually relaxed.

“How far do you remember?”

“I remember grabbing the prophet and then, then……”

“Do you remember stabbing here with a fork? Slashing it too?”

Sheryl lifted her neck to show the wounded area. Quilbion gasped in horror and bowed his head.

“All I remember is holding a fork covered in blood. How I met the prophet, why I came here, why I committed such a terrible act—nothing……”

“How strange.”

“Pardon?”

“The scent remains. This nark is definitely connected. But you’re not that child. You’re the same yet different. So this is how you move around?”

Sheryl stood behind Quilbion. She placed her hand on his trembling shoulders.

“Try to remember carefully. Do you really not recall anything? You were definitely that child. That scent—it’s still here even now.”

“Prophet, I truly……”

“Don’t panic, think calmly. There’s plenty of time. Don’t be nervous, steady your breathing. Whooo, whooo. Yes, that’s right.”

Quilbion steadied his breathing.

“Let me change the question. You’re saying you have no memory of the past few days, right?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the most recent memory that comes to mind? Other than stabbing me.”

“Well……”

Quilbion stammered as he continued.

He’d made a contract through the guild in the previous city and loaded passengers bound for Bund into his carriage.

“And?”

“I definitely remember up to the road. Then a pack of wild dogs appeared, so I stopped the carriage briefly, and after that I can’t remember. When I opened my eyes, the prophet was beside me……”

Quilbion’s body trembled at the memory of all that blood.

Sheryl grabbed Quilbion’s head and gently turned it to the left. She brought her face close enough to feel his breath.

“Just where are you?”

“P-pardon?”

“This is troublesome. There’s so much I need to learn through you. If I make everything that’s yours mine, so many things would change.”

That event had been inevitability disguised as coincidence.

The small human named Twella being there, sending a signal to yield her place to me, Winte appearing and releasing tremendous power—everything was meant to happen.

All those events occurred for the sake of a single outcome.

“To save you, that child abandoned her own potential. It was a truly amazing clash and explosion of power. My very existence almost dissipated. But I endured, and now I’ve met you again. This truly is…… destiny.”

Sheryl placed her palm on Quilbion’s left chest.

“Prophet?”

“The power of a great existence, Twella’s Karma, and the life of my main body became entangled there. The remnants of that power must have settled within you. For weak beings like you, that would have been no different from catastrophe. Out of a hundred, a hundred should have died. Out of a thousand, a thousand. But you survived and gained this distinctive status.”

She raised her finger and slowly pushed it in.

Her finger burrowed inside as it pierced through flesh.

“Ah, ah, aaah……”

“Shh.”

Sheryl lightly touched Quilbion’s lips. The lips melted and stuck to each other. The sight of him continuing to cry out through his unopened mouth was simply adorable.

“It’ll be over soon. You’re just a shell left behind here anyway. No, maybe not a shell. You must have your own life. But the current you is useless to me, you see?”

She gripped his heart and pulled it out.

When she tapped the split ribs, the bones contracted and the scattered blood gathered before Quilbion.

Sheryl examined the heart that had been beating before stopping.

She could see traces of nark.

It transcended all the laws of this world and was connected to reality.

“No. Here and there would both be reality.”

Sheryl devoured the luscious heart in one bite. Red blood droplets spattered all over the pure white vestments.

She could feel it.

Where the nark was heading.

But the power was so faint that it was difficult to pinpoint the location.

Sheryl walked to the window. When she opened it, a refreshing breeze blew in.

“It’s a beautiful place.”

A world beyond the Designer’s providence.

What could this place be?

For just a moment she felt greedy, but Sheryl calmly organized her emotions.

Sense of purpose must not be dispersed.

She had to perfectly accomplish one thing before planning the next.

Sheryl placed her hand on the windowsill and drew in a deep breath.

“If you get to come again next time, I’ll take everything then.”

After smiling contentedly while watching the people coming and going, she placed both hands on her head.

Then she twisted it to the right with all her strength.

Crack.

Her view that had been looking out the window spun half a circle to face inside the room. Taking in the sight of the dead Quilbion, her body tumbled outward.

Ah!

So this is what dying feels like.

A deep darkness like peace descended, then gradually receded.

Sheryl opened her eyes with a slight smile.

“Still, this place is better.”

Inside the black cocoon.

She smacked her lips while observing her spirit and body that hadn’t yet regenerated.

The sweet taste of the nark Quilbion had left behind lingered in her mouth.

She wanted to meet him quickly.

If she could take everything that child had, perhaps she might reach Winte.

“Hehehehe.”

Sheryl laughed delightfully while spinning round and round inside the black cocoon.

*

Quilbion folded his ring and pinky fingers while forming a hand seal. The trees rooted in the ground trembled, then soon pulled up their roots and began moving.

Thud, thud, thud!

He watched the dozen or so trees moving with their roots as legs, then released the hand seal.

When his will was withdrawn, the flow of nark also ceased, and mana fell asleep as well.

The trees swayed unsteadily before falling over with a loud crash.

“I think I’ve gotten used to ‘Trees Run’ too.”

The centipede wrapped around his index finger, Pun, raised its head.

– What’s this for?

“If I master it, it’ll help with something.”

Sorcery, Trees Run.

Quilbion couldn’t understand why the sorcery had such a name. Whether it was the goblin creator’s hobby or had some other meaning.

Quilbion tried to move the trees again by forming the hand seal.

This time he moved the nark without being conscious of the sorcery name ‘Trees Run.’

The massive trees did move, but their speed became so slow they could race a snail.

This damned sorcery had the annoying restriction that it required precisely recognizing and even voicing the sorcery name for enhanced effectiveness.

This too was said to be the creator’s Karma.

Quilbion raised his head.

He could see Winte swimming up in the sky.

“Winte!”

Even calling out loudly, Winte didn’t even glance over. Having no choice, he kicked off the ground.

His body shot straight upward. He immersed himself in the water puddle created in midair. Winte called this water puddle a swimming pool, not a bath.

“About this sorcery—can’t I modify it however I want? Having to keep thinking of the name is ridiculous.”

“Sorcery is the language of goblins. It’s how they communicate with the world. You can modify it if you perfectly understand the philosophy and structure of the goblin who created the sorcery, but not yet.”

“The things I learned before worked fine even when I modified the hand seals however I wanted.”

“Because those were designed to be used that way. You should be grateful to the kind goblins.”

Saying it was a power system and that he could use anything he learned, but when he actually looked into it, it was endlessly complicated.

Quilbion looked down at the ground and asked.

“Winte, can you modify that sorcery?”

“Unfortunately, even I can’t touch that one.”

“It’s not some world-destroying sorcery, just one that makes trees run—you can’t change it?”

“Feel carefully the Karma contained in the sorcery. You’re just trying to understand and use it, but where did you throw away the empathy?”

“What empathy should I give it?”

Winte closed his eyes as if there was nothing more to say.

Quilbion descended to the ground and used the sorcery again. After forming the hand seal and bringing to mind the sorcery incantation, just before concretizing it, he tried to feel the Karma contained in the sorcery as Winte had said.

But how exactly was he supposed to feel it?

It was while he was pondering.

Someone whispered. Quilbion focused on the voice. Chattering away—it seemed like human speech but wasn’t properly recognized.

There was no need to rush.

Time was the most abundant resource, after all.

He sat and listened carefully.

He maintained the phenomenon induction without releasing nark. The power containing his will kept circulating within his body.

The voice gradually became clearer.

Then at some point, the voice became loud enough to burst his eardrums.

All trees, run with me!

The resonant voice repeated the same sentence over and over.

Run, run, run.

His body trembled beyond control.

He wanted to run to the end of the world.

The nark also responded to the passion and ran wild.

Nark condensed in the hand forming the seal. It became difficult to hold it back any longer.

He released the condensed nark all at once.

Sorcery spreading in all directions.

RUMBLE.

The entire surrounding area vibrated.

Thousands of trees pulled up their roots and began running while shaking the branches reaching toward the sky.

Quilbion entered between the trees and ran together with them.

Days, perhaps months.

Only after collapsing from exhaustion did he realize what he’d done.

Quilbion came to his senses and looked around.

The trees that had formed the lush forest had all been pulled out and were lying on their sides.

The canopy of leaves that had covered the sky had disappeared.

The blue sky visible in full view.

Quilbion brushed off his knees and stood up.

There was a sphere in his hand.

He recognized at a glance that it was the essence of ‘Trees Run.’

“So that’s how it works.”

Quilbion gave a hollow laugh and swallowed the sphere.

Without forming a hand seal, he simply flicked his finger. All the trees lying down stood up.

They regained their original form, planting their roots deep in the ground.

The verdant forest was restored.

He could hear applause from up in the sky.

When he looked up, Winte was giving a thumbs up while smiling.