Chapter 67
[Activating Unique Skill: Symbol Embodiment.]
[Torah, one of the symbols of No.2 The High Priestess]
An old scroll containing the law of secrets, nature, and healing appeared in Seong-Hwi’s hand. A bluish-silver light, resembling moonlight, shone once the scroll opened. Seong-Hwi’s eyes turned silver, allowing him to instinctively understand what the unconscious Fairy Queen’s issue was.
Her body is extremely weak because she used her mana to its limit.
It was similar to Seong-Hwi’s damaged body, where his E-rank Health couldn’t endure his C-rank Magic. He fully recovered with his healing skill over time since the internal injuries had only been from C-rank mana overuse, but he could see signs that the Fairy Queen had overused mana of A-rank, or even S-rank Magic. It was like loading live ammo into a toy revolver and shooting it. Like how the toy revolver’s cylinder would explode, the Fairy Queen’s body was already irreparable.
I’m surprised she’s still alive after drawing out more mana to block my attack in this state.
Seong-Hwi stared at the bald man and said, “Full recovery is impossible unless you have an Elixir.”
“I know. Please just do what you can.”
“How did she get like this?”
“She forcibly activated a skill to protect the cradles from the Shadow Fairy Queen’s monsters.” The bald man looked around and continued, “She... separated this space from the forest corrupted with Chaos Mana. This was after losing ten pairs of her wings.”
“Holy crap,” Seong-Hwi expressed.
He thought, She forcibly activated a skill nearly equivalent to a miracle. She’s in much worse condition than I expected.
Seong-Hwi did not hesitate further and activated his skill.
[Activating Unique Skill: Symbol Embodiment.]
[Ace of Cups]
[Two of Cups]
[Three of Cups]
[Four of Cups]
Ten blue cups appeared and fused into one, creating a blue cup that shone as if made of sapphire. Water began to fill the cup. The Torah enhanced the cup’s healing capabilities, turning the water silver like moonlight. Seong-Hwi slowly poured the water into the Fairy Queen’s mouth. Seeing the Fairy Queen’s breathing stabilize, Seong-Hwi canceled the skill.
[Canceling Ace of Cups.]
[Canceling Two of Cups.]
...
[Canceling Torah.]
Seong-Hwi turned to the bald man, asking, “Do you know the phrase give and take?”
The man nodded and replied, “Better than anyone. I used to work for a PMC[1].”
***
Seong-Hwi and the bald man laid Dryas beside the cradles and walked out to a nearby open space.
“My name is Gilder Roy. I’m from Toronto, Canada.”
“Cheon Seong-Hwi. I’m from South Korea.”
I’ve never heard the name before. Someone so skilled should have been relatively well-known, Seong-Hwi thought.
“Were you captured by Clan Trophy?” Gilder asked.
“No, I came in willingly.”
“Willingly?”
“It’s a long story,” Seong-Hwi remarked as he concisely told Gilder about the past events of following Clan Trophy to their base after their attack on Edu and ending up here after collaborating with the prisoners to find the dungeon entrance.
“A rust skill, huh? It seems to have high potential. Do you need the wings to strengthen the skill?” Gilder asked as he closed and opened his right hand.
Most of the rust had disappeared, but his hand still creaked, and moving it was uncomfortable.
“Basically,” Seong-Hwi answered.
Although it was to raise his stat caliber, it wasn’t wrong since Rust of Ruin would also become stronger once the caliber rose.
“That aside, you put your life on the line for the Rescue quest? Haha! I guess you’re not as bad as I thought you were!” Gilder shouted.
“What kind of person did you think I was?”
“A scumbag who loves to aim only for the opponent’s weakness. A sly fox.”
Seong-Hwi stared at Gilder in silence.
“Hahaha! I’m kidding! It was a compliment. After all, it’s a must to have the attitude to do whatever it takes for victory in a world like this,” Gilder said self-mockingly as if he couldn’t follow Seong-Hwi’s example.
Seong-Hwi asked, “So, do you have a plan? You said we’d defeat the Shadow Fairy Queen, but what’s she like?”
“I can tell you straight up. The Shadow Fairy Queen is a Chaos.”
“A Chaos, huh? I doubt she’s Lapang or Segal-rank. Adora?”
Gilder shook his head and answered, “Uluhatu. A Natural Chaos, at that.”
Seong-Hwi’s expression hardened.
***
Chaos were classified as a race, but in reality, they were just a group of monsters born from the ruinous power known as Chaos Mana. They were grouped into one race for convenience, but possessed different qualities.
Chaos monsters were usually born from Chaos Mana corrupting and mutating a lifeform to serve as a host. Hence, there could be as many different categories of Chaos as the various races in the Mirror World. It was similar to how different cocktails could be made by mixing distilled liquor such as vodka, whiskey, rum, gin, tequila, and brandy with other ingredients.
The majority of Chaos were Invasive Chaos, born from the corruption of existing races. However, Chaos could also be born without a host; such Chaos were referred to as a Natural Chaos.
Natural and Invasive Chaos were difficult to distinguish because they looked similar, but were fundamentally different. Natural Chaos were born from negative emotions such as hatred, worry, frustration, despair, and the like. The stronger the emotion, the stronger the Chaos born from them. Hence, Natural Chaos were usually several times stronger than Invasive Chaos.
And a Uluhatu-rank on top of that, Seong-Hwi thought.
Uluhatu was fifth in the Chaos ranks, categorized by the Second Fiend Curiositas. The lowest rank was Shen, Chaos monsters that fought only with physical capabilities. Next was Lapang, Chaos that could use Chaos Mana. The third was Segal, Chaos with a slight sense of reason, and the ability to use skills because they had better control over Chaos Mana.
The fourth was Adora, Chaos with a sense of reason similar to humans. They were crafty and each possessed unique skills, hence it was dangerous to treat them like the lower-ranked Chaos. The fifth was Uluhatu. The main difference between Adora and Uluhatu was that Uluhatu-rank Chaos had a secondary transformation.
A Natural Uluhatu, and a dungeon boss at that, Seong-Hwi thought with concern.
Not even Rankers could recklessly face such a monster.
***
“Fairies began to disappear one by one about thirteen hundred years ago,” Dryas, the Fairy Queen, explained the history of this world on the verge of collapse, after regaining consciousness. “I never witnessed it because I wasn’t born at the time, but from what I’ve heard, fairies were on the verge of vanishing from Pavelaya.” Dryas looked at Gilder, who supported her, and asked, “You called the phenomenon Lost. Right, Knight Gilder?”
“Yeah—I mean, yes, Queen Dryas,” Gilder said playfully as he awkwardly imitated a knight in the Middle Ages.
However, he was a large bald man with a menacing silver right arm as a weapon; Seong-Hwi did not feel a shred of decorum from Gilder.
Is he drunk on role-playing? Seong-Hwi wondered.
Role-playing was the act of a traveler playing along with the dungeon’s residents as they fulfilled the roles given to them via the quests. Travelers who got too immersed in their roles were called Role Players, and not in a good way.
Dryas said, “The vanishing fairies were a problem, but the biggest issue was that the Harmony Stone, the treasure protected by the Fairy Queen for generations, also disappeared.”
Seong-Hwi’s eyes shone once Dryas mentioned the Harmony Stone.
Dryas continued, “Pavelaya fell into disaster once the Harmony Stone disappeared. The most serious disaster was the rise in Chaos Mana.”
“Rise in Chaos Mana?” Seong-Hwi asked.
“Yes. The Chaos Mana corrupted the pure and innocent Pikos and turned them into Pirupikos.”
Seeing Seong-Hwi’s confused look, Gilder clarified, “A Piko is a fairy, and Pirupiko is a term for a corrupted fairy. In other words, they were corrupted by Chaos Mana and became Invasive Chaos.”
“And the rise in Chaos Mana also began to contaminate the Larayu Cradle,” Dryas added as she turned to the approximately one hundred leaf cradles.
She continued, “Fairies are born from a single dew droplet mixed with the energies of the sky and earth. These cradles protect the dew so they don’t evaporate.” Dryas lovingly caressed one of the cradles and remarked, “But once Chaos Mana filled the entire Pavelaya, the energies of the sky and earth stopped permeating the dew as well as it once did.”
“Then...” Seong-Hwi trailed off.
“Yes, fairies ended up on the path to extinction.”
Seong-Hwi remained silent as he thought, Extinction, huh?
When the Capital was leveled by Regnator in his past life, Seong-Hwi wondered if the dragons would lead humanity to extinction as their livestock. This was why Seong-Hwi had run so frantically to keep the Destiny Stone, the humans’ Race Stone, out of Regnator’s grasp as if it were the last child of humanity.
“Three hundred years passed, and fairies stopped being born from the cradles. I am... the last fairy that was born,” Dryas said as she smiled sorrowfully.
So, that’s this dungeon’s history, Seong-Hwi thought as he nodded.
According to the dungeon theory, this world was a construction of one of the countless possible futures Pavelaya could have faced. In other words, this dungeon was a parallel universe of Pavelaya, thirteen hundred years after the fairies began to be Lost to the Mirror World.
“But then an incident happened a millennium after I began to protect Larayu Cradle from the corrupted fairies,” Dryas said.
Seong-Hwi shook his head. A millennium was difficult to understand with a human’s perception of time.
“One of the cradles ripped open, and a baby fairy was born. I thought she would be the one to free me from my solitude.” Dryas closed her eyes and momentarily reopened them, revealing her cold golden eyes. “But that child wasn’t the one I was desperately waiting for. She’s a despicable and disgusting creature who pretended to be a baby fairy after drinking the dew inside the cradle!”
“And that’s the Shadow Fairy Queen?” Seong-Hwi asked.
Dryas affirmed, “Yes. As Knight Gilder mentioned, she was a Natural Chaos. Once she matured, she stole my wings and... and... I...”
Gilder noticed Dryas getting emotional and interjected, “The Shadow Fairy Queen hid herself for a long time to absorb the power she obtained from the wings she took, but she has been back to action recently and is aiming for all the dews in Larayu Cradle.”
“She’s aiming for the dew? Why?”
“As we’ve said, fairies can no longer be born naturally from the cradles, but what about Chaos? It’s possible, considering the Shadow Fairy Queen is a precedent.”
Seong-Hwi thought, In other words, the Shadow Fairy Queen is aiming for Larayu Cradle to create more Chaos—more of her kind.
“What about the Pirupikos I saw out there?” Seong-Hwi asked.
“They’re either existing Chaos or the Shadow Fairy Queen’s bodyguards she created using the dews she stole from Larayu Cradle.” Gilder pointed at the leaf cradles and continued, “According to Dryas, there were many more cradles than these. There were thousands, but they were all taken.”
“Ahhh! It’s my fault. After all the warnings from the elders, I still screwed up! I should have protected them as the queen!” Dryas shouted sorrowfully as she recalled the stolen dews.
Gilder stared at Dryas pitifully and turned to lock eyes with Seong-Hwi. “You asked for the plan, right? It’s to reduce the number of the Shadow Fairy Queen’s bodyguards while we protect as many remaining cradles as possible. We’ll then aim for the perfect opportunity to defeat the Shadow Fairy Queen. With your help, we can attack and defend at the same time!”
Seong-Hwi thought in silence momentarily and remarked, “I’ll hunt the Chaos, you protect the cradles. I’m sure you’d feel more comfortable that way.”
He turned around and walked toward the exit without waiting for an answer.
***
Seong-Hwi left Larayu Cradle through the rock and looked around the dark forest, where there wasn’t a single sound of birds, insects, or nature. It was only natural for Gilder to protect the cradles and for Seong-Hwi to hunt the Pirupikos. Although they were both carrying out the dungeon purification quests, neither of them trusted the other. Gilder would never trust Dryas’s safety to him when it was clear how precious she was to him.
Besides, I also need Karma.
However, Seong-Hwi did not fully agree with Gilder’s long-term plan and wanted to end things as soon as possible.
Thumper is waiting for me to return, and I don’t want to invest too much time here either. First... I’ll scout the area. Seong-Hwi walked around the thick forest, thinking, I’ll help, but it might not be in the way they want.
1. Private military company. ☜