52. Field Training (8)
The walls surrounding the Pung Empire were triple-layered, and of those three, two had been reinforced with magical defenses, making invasion by outside forces, magical beasts, or monsters nearly impossible.
However, the last and oldest layer—built a very long time ago—had long since lost its magical function, and now served as a tourist site instead.
The crowds were so thick that if you happened to get separated from your group, it would be difficult to find them again.
“……And I’m supposed to find a sorcerer in a place like this?”
Anella let out a long sigh.
The scenery was beautiful and the view was lovely, but there were so many people that she felt almost dizzy. To begin with, since she was here as an infiltrating Black Mage, she ought to have been carefully choosing places with as few people as possible, and she could not help wondering whether roaming around tourist sites like this was really the right thing to do at all.
‘I guess if I keep looking, I’ll find her eventually……’
According to what the old talisman peddler had said, the young sorceress did not appear every single day. She just showed up from time to time, like someone taking a stroll, whenever she felt like it.
Apparently, among the countless tourists here, there were also people who wandered around every single day in hopes of meeting the girl sorceress.
Most of them failed.
To be honest, Anella herself was not expecting much.
There were plenty of people who had searched for days on end and still never found her, so there was no reason to believe that a stroke of luck would somehow fall to Anella the very first time she came.
Bump!
She had been walking absentmindedly, admiring the castle-wall road, when someone approached and knocked shoulders with her.
The other person’s strength was so great that Anella was shoved slightly aside.
……Which was deeply strange.
If it had been shoulder against shoulder, that meant the other person must have been just as small as Anella herself.
And yet Anella, being a physical-type Black Mage, possessed strength beyond that of ordinary humans even without opening her black magic.
Something felt wrong.
Rather than annoyance, what she felt first was a chill.
Her expression hardened coldly, and just as she took a cautious step back, the person—whose face had been hidden beneath a wide bamboo hat—slowly raised their head.
The hat lifted, revealing a mask that covered the area around the eyes.
A pure white cat mask.
Even without hearing any detailed description, she knew at once.
This had to be the mask the old talisman seller had spoken of.
‘The sorcerer girl.’
And yet, why was fear rising up more strongly than joy?
“Oh my?”
A smile spread along the girl’s visible lips.
She approached Anella slowly, slowly, with the languid grace of a cat.
Then she took hold of Anella’s chin and drew it toward herself.
Anella’s eyes were forcibly fixed on the girl’s lips.
They were red—red like fresh blood.
“What brings a cute little Black Mage brat here? Did you perhaps come to see me?”
How was she supposed to answer that?
Anella forced herself to shake her head, but the smile at the girl’s lips only deepened further.
“No lying~ It’s written all over your face that you wanted to see me.”
“Why, why……”
“You mean why I’m here?”
With effort, Anella nodded.
‘The Witch King.’
A great existence called the king of all witches, one capable of toying even with the mind of the 9-Class mage and Head of the Green Tower at will—the natural enemy of all mages.
Why in the world was such a being playing at being some mere village sorcerer in the Pung Empire?
“Because it’s fun.”
It was an impossible answer.
As far as Anella knew, the Witch King’s true body had been sealed long ago, making it difficult for the original body to move directly.
This was probably a clone as well.
Was she really saying she was using a clone—something not so easy to make use of—just because it was fun?
Impossible.
“Ahaha, right. That was a lie. The truth is, ‘fate’ was being led here. A very, very tiny fate, so tiny that no one at all would have cared about it…… but I was interested. There was a certain boy who was destined to come here.”
“……A boy.”
“Yes. A boy I’ve been watching very~ closely recently. A very special boy who stepped outside of fate. And to make sure that child came this way for certain…… I needed a tiny little variable. Mm, for example? Something like a Persona Gate? That thing you people like so much.”
“A Persona…… Gate……?”
“Yes. It turned out to be harder to make than I thought.”
Anella stared at the girl with her eyes wide open.
That witch’s smile still would not leave her face, and it made everything about her unbearable.
‘She says she made a Persona Gate……?’
That was impossible.
Persona Gates could only be conditionally unsealed by special Black Mages who had entered into a contract with the Reverse World and received its call.
Witches were treated similarly to Black Mages in some ways, yes, but they had no direct relation to the Reverse World.
Which meant opening a Persona Gate should have been impossible for them.
At least…… that was how it was supposed to be.
“There’s nothing in this world that can’t be done, really. Just look at Eltman Eltwin. He had a disability that obstructed magic itself, and yet he still became the principal of Stella, didn’t he? Ahaha, fate is so funny. Everyone struts around as if they’re something special, when all they’re doing is walking the path that was already decided for them.”
Smack!
Anella slapped the Witch’s hand away and hurriedly leapt backward, gathering black magic into both hands.
Her heart pounded violently.
If she took her eyes off the other woman, it felt as though her head might come flying off at any second.
And yet she could not help but look elsewhere.
‘What is this……?’
Where had all the people gone—the overwhelming crowd that had packed the place just moments ago?
The sky had turned pitch black, and the clouds stood frozen in place as if snagged on something.
“Oh? You’ve got something interesting.”
“Ah……!”
A single old, torn talisman hung in the Witch’s hand.
Anella frantically searched through her clothes, but as expected, there was nothing there.
‘When did she……?’
Flicking the talisman between her fingers, the Witch inspected it front and back, then stroked her chin and asked,
“Who gave this to you?”
“Actually…… I think I already know. It carries the scent of a soul I’ve never felt before.”
Was there truly anything at all that this Witch did not know?
Grinding her teeth, Anella endured the suffocating feeling that everything about her had been stripped bare and laid out in the open.
“Why are you carrying something like this around? Why would that child have given this to you? Mmm, did you want to evolve or something? Or is it a forbidden love between a mage and a Black Mage? Oh my, how romantic.”
“Or…… did you want to become human?”
Flinch.
When Anella’s brow twitched, the Witch burst into loud laughter.
“Ahahahat! That’s hilarious. Do you really think something like that could actually be possible?”
“……Baek Yuseol said it was possible.”
“Really? Then what should we do with this, I wonder? This talisman, I mean…… it’s already used up every bit of its power. It’s no different from a scrap of trash now. Up until recently, I’m sure it was a truly magnificent talisman. One with such perfect craftsmanship that even I couldn’t make something like it. But not now. Right now it’s just garbage. And you’re just an idiot who’s been relying on trash like this. Do you understand?”
“That can’t…….”
Baek Yuseol would never have given her garbage.
Anella wanted to believe that, but could there truly be any lie in the Witch’s words?
Who, then, was she supposed to believe?
“But that doesn’t mean there’s no way.”
The Witch blew softly onto the talisman.
At once, a pale white light gathered into it, and strange letters began to come alive little by little.
“Now then, prove that flimsy little faith of yours.”
Flutter—
The talisman flew through the air, brushing past Anella’s cheek before shooting off toward somewhere in the city.
“N-No……!”
She desperately reached out her hand, but the talisman had already flown far away and vanished from sight.
Unable to give it up, Anella leapt down from the wall and even used black magic as she broke into a full sprint after it.
Behind her, the Witch watched and curled up one corner of her lips.
‘Turning a Black Mage back into a human……’
Not a single case like that had ever existed.
A Black Mage was a being created when a human soul was corrupted by the Reverse World, and because no method existed in this world to purify that, there had never been any precedent.
And yet Baek Yuseol had tested that possibility through Anella.
Tested?
No.
He had been certain.
‘That…… is an ancient relic.’
Just from the fact that he had entrusted something so precious to Anella, the answer was obvious.
Baek Yuseol had definitely given her that talisman because he was certain he would turn Anella back into a human.
Black Mages could not return to being human.
That too was a written fate.
But if Baek Yuseol intended to defy even that—
‘This should be fun to watch.’
[Entering Persona Gate, ‘Shadow Cast on the Wind.’]
[This has been identified as a 3-Risk Persona Gate.]
The moment we stepped into the Gate, the Jikbakguri Glasses instantly analyzed the interior situation and gave me a briefing.
I carefully scanned my surroundings.
The point was to capture everything in the glasses and preserve every clue without missing a single detail.
This Persona Gate was somewhere I had never once visited even while playing the original game, so I needed a thorough analysis through the Jikbakguri Glasses.
A 3-Risk Persona Gate was not, in truth, all that dangerous, and with Hong Biyeon and Ban Diyeon both being 4-Class mages, while I also possessed abilities on that level, it was not as though we were seriously lacking in firepower.
Still, since there was no knowing where or what might happen, caution was necessary.
“Don’t let your guard down. Stay sharp.”
Ban Diyeon advanced carefully, her long staff leveled out in front of her.
“……It looks ordinary, though?”
That was what one of the students said.
And she was right.
For something that was supposed to be inside a Gate, the place looked remarkably normal.
Which made sense, because the scenery we had seen just before entering was spread out before us exactly as it had been.
“Is the setting…… the Pung Empire?”
A street of the Pung Empire.
Buildings of the Pung Empire.
Roads of the Pung Empire.
The only differences were that the sky had been dyed pitch-black, making everything dim and gloomy, and that there was not a single person in sight.
The fact that a street which had been overflowing with noisy crowds just moments ago was now completely empty made the place feel eerie and cold.
“Do your own phenomenon analysis. We’re not going to interfere.”
This was first-year field practice.
Ban Diyeon and Ryuderik, as second-years, would offer the students a bit of help, but the actual work had to be handled by the first-years themselves.
“I’ll calculate the background limit line.”
“Good. Then I’ll trace the route and figure out the story.”
Phenomenon analysis inside a Persona was extremely difficult for a single person to do alone, so cooperation was essential.
“P-Princess? Which part are you going to handle?”
“I’ll do it alone.”
……Of course, there were exceptions everywhere.
“Hey. We came here as a team, so let’s work together.”
I slipped in quietly and said that, and Hong Biyeon’s expression instantly darkened.
Had the idea of being told to cooperate with lesser beings, when she could do it perfectly well by herself, offended her that much?
“……Just this once.”
“Oh? Uh, sure.”
Considering the way she usually was, she gave in pretty easily, which surprised me a little.
‘Then I guess I’ll……’
With the Jikbakguri Glasses alone, I could probably have done more than phenomenon analysis—I could likely have located every bathroom in the Gate too—but since this was still practice, I intended to match pace with the other students.
Besides, I was not the type who liked standing out on my own in the first place.
So I quietly handled only the parts the other students asked of me and worked together with them to squeeze out the result of the phenomenon analysis—
when a small message appeared at the bottom of the Jikbakguri Glasses.
[The item ‘Wraith’s Vengeful Spirit Talisman’ has been partially recharged.]
“……Huh?”
What kind of out-of-nowhere nonsense was that?
“What’s wrong? Is there some problem?”
“No. Nothing. And that formula is backwards.”
“Huh? Thanks.”
After diverting the attention of the student who had noticed my reaction, I focused my gaze on the Jikbakguri Glasses.
‘What happened?’
The Wraith’s Vengeful Spirit Talisman had already exhausted its function, but it was an item that still had a chance to revive.
Even if it had been utterly wrecked while saving Flame, it was still an artifact-grade object.
I had split it in half and given one part to Anella.
Even though its active effect had run out, it still retained the ability to accumulate ‘faith.’
That faith ability was useless to me, and I had judged that it would be far more helpful if it awakened in Anella’s possession someday, when she was meant to become human.
So I had given it to her as a gift……
‘But now it suddenly recharged?’
That was way faster than expected.
No—to begin with, I had only ever thought of the Wraith’s Vengeful Spirit Talisman as a supplementary tool for her eventual humanization.
Given the current level of technology, I had believed restoring it was impossible.
‘Why did it recharge?’
[Cause undetermined.]
More than that, though, there had been something odd from the start.
Right now, we were inside a Persona Gate, completely cut off from the outside world.
No matter how good the Jikbakguri Glasses were, they should not have been able to bring news from another world.
‘How did you figure out the talisman had recharged? Don’t tell me you can communicate across dimensions now?’
[Interdimensional communication is impossible.]
‘Then?’
[The presence of the Wraith’s Vengeful Spirit Talisman has been confirmed in this location.]
……What? Here?
That answer left me staring blankly.
The talisman I had given to Anella had somehow been detected inside the Persona Gate—
and on top of that, it had recharged.
‘What in the world is going on……?’
Somewhere, something I didn’t know about was unfolding.
