Chapter 196 – Chapter 196 ― Repay for the Future (4)
Episode 196 ― Return for the Future (4)
“What kind of trouble am I going through, to throw my life away like that! Say something reprehensible!”
The moment Fiora stepped on the ground, she was stunned.
A time when even Emily, the Duke of the Forest Fairy, who must have been an outstanding magician, could not respond.
The forest fairy was shocked to see Fiora suddenly appearing.
“You… Fiora? That Fiora who was with Goddess Laurecia?”
It seems that bringing Fiora here was the answer. Looking at the name of Fiora, which I couldn’t find even though I tried so hard, pops up right here.
“You know me?”
“Amazing.”
The duke looked at Fiora with wide open eyes. Fiora jumped out and looked over at the forest elf while wearing antique-looking clothes.
“That sword was Fiora. You had that sword. Was it a relationship like this…”
While the forest sprite admired, Fiora took her light but long clothes and sat down next to Roan.
Fiora asked as she sipped the tea prepared for Roan.
“Roan. Who is this?”
“The Duke of the Forest Fairy.”
“Duke?”
Fiora put on a puzzled expression at the words she couldn’t readily understand, then she looked into Amelie’s face and she immediately said, ‘Ah…’ ‘ He muttered softly.
“Is she her offspring? So duke…”
As she muttered to herself, her expression was so subtle that Roan tried to read her emotions with ‘detection’, but the emotions evaporated in an instant.
After briefly reflecting on the past, Fiora spoke to the forest fairy in a sharp tone.
“Okay. As Roan said, tell me. How do you know me If you know my story, you can guess how long I spent being imprisoned by the sword. Leaving me like that, what do you say about the end?”
Fiora fired at her, and Amelie bowed her head with a bittersweet smile.
“Only the heads of our fairies have stories about you, Lady Fiora, in the memories handed down from generation to generation. But a very long time has passed. In the meantime, a lot of power was put into practice to seal the demons.”
The gaze of the forest fairy looking at the dim floor of the meeting hall also turned to the past.
“Earth fairies, dragons, and spirit beasts of your kind are all gone. Since the Goddess has become a being in a high place, it is difficult to get involved in earthly affairs now. All that remains is us.”
Fiora’s body trembled as she sat next to Roan. As if her forest nymph feelings were transferred to her.
“I know your sacrifice. You entrusted your life and the lives of the spirit beasts who entrusted their lives to Laurecia.”
She had said that Fiora had been a spirit beast, or the head of a spirit creature, but she knew for the first time that she even had a life.
Just as her lich has a separate life vessel, did Fiora’s people entrust all of her powers to her?
“Laurecia had divine powers that she couldn’t have as a human being, but she wasn’t strong enough to seal ‘greed. Someone had to step in, and I had to make a decision. Otherwise everything would be in vain.”
Fiora’s white hand groped for Roan’s hand. Her hands trembled slightly.
“It is funny. I jumped into that nonsense to save my people, but in the end, I had to take the lives of my own people to stop it. I needed strength, and I paid the price.”
Roan noticed what Fiora was saying.
Fiora’s skill, ‘causal reversal’.
The power to literally reverse cause and effect.
Fiora wanted a miracle to save the world,
Miracles have been paying for thousands of years.
A gloomy light appeared on Roan’s face.
Her skills are just as powerful
It is so dangerous.
Roan swallowed her fears.
Because she couldn’t even let that emotion out.
“Yes. Goddess Laurecia was so divine. Because she has been given countless lives in return. The Goddess sealed ‘greed’, she was told, and shortly after that her existence nearly annihilated you to dwell in her sword. Inside the sword that the earth fairies made and presented to our forest fairies.”
“Laurecia…”
Suddenly, Roan felt a sense of incongruity in the conversation between the two.
If Goddess Laurezia herself settled Fiora into her sword, why did neither the goddess nor her forest nymphs know where she was?
If her comrades, who shared her life and death with her, had lost her life while pursuing her goal together, if she had been saved by enclosing her in her sword.
I can’t throw away that sword.
Because it is a sword possessed by an ally.
If humans are dangerous, if forest fairies, ground fairies, and dragons, long-lived species, have passed it down from generation to generation.
Fiora wouldn’t have been wandering around the human world.
But even when she met her goddess, she was taken aback by Roan’s mention of Fiora.
Why didn’t they know where Fiora was?
I wondered for a while,
Duke Amelie is sharing with Fiora the story of her distant past.
Roan decided to put the question aside for a moment.
“Like that, ‘greed’ was sealed. And the continent has agreed to accept the results of that seal together.”
“Agreement?”
“Yes.”
Amelie nodded her head slowly.
“To dissipate the magic and create something to replace the magic power.”
Fiora’s expression softened.
Fiora responded with a snort of her own.
“So she became a goddess.”
“That’s right.”
Roan, who had been listening to the brief conversation between the two, asked.
“Replacing magic… Could it be holy power?”
“Yes.”
“An ordinary human will have powers to rival her gods, and her continents will come to an agreement to deify her… On the other hand, all beings who use magic are disparaged… Is that how the Goddess was created?”
Roan’s guess was correct.
Amelie nodded her head.
“Okay. It is said that the origin of ‘greed’ is in line with the origin of magic. However, magic was already the sweetest power for those in power, and it was in everyone’s life. To stop it, I needed another power to replace it.”
I can understand the situation.
A new goddess is created,
She replaces magic through her holy power that the goddess is said to grant—the goddess said she only primed her original power, not herself, but she—.
The subject of magic or divine power is mysterious, but it is a common occurrence in reality.
That way, those in power would have been able to maintain their power, and the world system would not have collapsed.
“A new divine magic has been created based on the power of the new goddess. It was easier to learn and use than the ancient ones. Suddenly, the power of magic disappeared, and humans began to develop technology at an explosive rate.”
“When she awoke from her sword, she was shocked to hear that the priestess’ goddess was Laurecia. For a while I thought they were tricking me by trapping me in the sword.”
Fiora sat on her knees together, resting her chin on his chin.
“Yeah, the world has changed so much. In my time, magic was like air. Sorcery and mysticism pervaded their way of life. But when I opened my eyes, the world was something I had never seen before.”
Fiora began to confide in her Roan as well, a story she hadn’t told.
“Civilization in the past was far less insignificant than it is now. From your sword and armor to sophisticated buildings and carriages… At that time, it was an era where you couldn’t make such polished things. It was beautiful, but not as hard as it is now.”
It was an insignificant civilization in the past.
Bronze Age, Iron Age… What is this feeling?
It seems that it was much better magic than now that compensated for the falling technology.
But the world changed overnight.
In order to make the new power mainstream,
The original source of power has no choice but to be rejected.
Because humans are very difficult creatures to embrace multiple forces at once.
As a result, forest fairies may have been ostracized for using magic.
Forest fairies are a race whose magic runs thickly in their blood. You can’t avoid using magic. In the end, it must have been separated from humans.
Perhaps…
Roan’s eyebrows twitched.
“The Dark Forest is… It’s probably not to protect the forest fairy, but to sever the power of magic… Is it like that?”
Fiora was shocked.
“Locked up… Going to be?”
A faint smile appeared on the side of the duke’s face as he stared at the brazier.
“That… There’s no way everyone would have accepted that…”
The forest fairy’s expression answered.
Fiora seemed so confused by the situation, she stammered, flustered.
“Ah, in the first place, why did you go through such a hard time… My people, dragons, fairies… They are beings that live by the power of magic. In order for us to survive properly, we sealed ‘greed’. But everyone has disappeared, leaving only humans trapped in the forest?”
Passion flashed in Fiora’s eyes.
Roan for the first time
She realized that she was peeking into her ‘real’ emotions.
The old debts of her feelings and words that Fiora had to put out thousands of years ago are now brought out one by one.
Roan bit her lip.
There was anger in her words.
“For a world like this… It wasn’t like this. The seal wasn’t perfect? I can’t believe that word anymore. It couldn’t have been.”
Fiora shook her head as if in denial of what she had heard.
The duke answered softly, as if to soothe her.
“That’s right, Miss Fiora. The seal itself is said to have been successful at the time.”
“Okay. It has no choice but to be.”
Fiora’s red lips bit mercilessly.
She said in a low voice as if gnashing her teeth.
“We risked our lives to seal it. But there’s no way Laurecia and the others backed off, knowing that it wasn’t perfect. We all had a lot of things on our backs, so we took on such a heavy responsibility.”
“That’s right. I had to. But it took a very long time before I realized something was wrong.”
Fiora demanded an explanation from the forest nymph with her glowing eyes.
“Becoming a world that gradually reduces the power of magic, inevitably all of us… As Fiora-sama said, it means that the dragons, our fairies, and even the remaining spiritual beasts will have no place to set foot in this world.”
Amelie rummaged through the hearth.
Looking at the red-hot charcoal, she recalled the past that even she had never experienced.
“With new powers and new enemies, humans have become stronger. On the other hand, the positions of dragons, fairies, and spirits diverged. The dragon, who was proud of his magic, could not accept such a decision. The dragons, including Duke Bülts, fiercely resisted that decision.”
“You… What did Acheru say?”
“Duke of Acheru… The representative of the forest fairies and the land fairies made a pact with Laurecia. They couldn’t betray the goddess, so they had to be hostile to the dragon.”
“Also…”
Fiora’s voice trembled with anger.
“These idiots again… Fought… ?”
Emily couldn’t lift her head in embarrassment.
“It is said that it was a war that lasted for hundreds of years. At first, our fairies and Yeongsu faced the dragon. Fighting only awakens the devil. But the dragon didn’t care. It was only after a long time had passed that we realized that the handful of spirit beasts that remained were eventually extinct and the gnomes had almost disappeared.”
Even in the eyes of the forest fairy looking at the hearth,
A strange feeling arose.
Those feelings that can’t be read at first glance
Roan couldn’t read it.
It was contempt.
“The fact that the seal is not perfect, and that all but one race are dying together.”
“… What?”
“We all know what idiots a dragon blinded by man can do.”
Fiora widened her eyes.
For a while, all I could hear was the sound of the fire burning in the furnace.
Suddenly, strength began to gather in Fiora, and Roan winced back, squinting her eyes.
The moment Amelie calmly turned her head to her.
Like a flower blooming
Nine tails emerged from Fiora’s back.
Anger like fire flowed through her vocal chords.
“… Wiltz, Wiltz is… No way. Could it be that you signed a contract with ‘Greed’?”
Amelie reluctantly nodded her head.
