Immortal's Ascending Path-54
Episode-54< The Final Examiner >
"Wake up."
In her dream, the girl Ella heard a voice.
At the soft, whisper-like call, her deeply sunken consciousness began to rise, following the voice. But her eyes remained closed, and the world was dark.
"It's morning! Time to wake up."
The voice tickled Ella's ear again, but instead of opening her eyes, she mumbled something unintelligible and tossed and turned.
"Are you really not going to wake up?"
There was a hint of annoyance in the voice. In her mind, the girl replied, 'I'm going to wake up,' but the other party couldn't read her thoughts, and her actions were sluggish.
Soon, with a whoosh, a cold sensation covered her face. The girl was startled and sat up, her eyes wide open. The morning sunlight was so bright that she couldn't help but squint, and her face was damp with water.
"W-What is it?"
"I told you to wake up, didn't I?"
The girl wiped her water-soaked face with her right hand and looked at the figure hovering before her.
It had the form of a human, but it was slightly larger than the girl's hand, translucent, and floating in the air despite having no wings.
It was a spirit, an entity called a servant of the gods.
"Are you awake now?"
The spirit, shaped like a human, slightly puffed out its cheeks and placed its hands on its hips, as if to express dissatisfaction. It was so small and had such a young appearance that it only looked cute even when angry.
However, its abilities were not cute. When the girl remained silent, the spirit raised both hands above its head. Water droplets began to form on its palms.
Only then did the girl urgently shout, "Wait!"
"I'm awake! I'm awake, so put that away!"
The spirit squinted at the girl.
"Really? Are you really awake?"
"I am!" At the girl's shout, the spirit lowered its hands. The water droplets scattered into the air, and the girl let out a deep sigh of relief.
"Why did you wake me up?"
"Why do you think I woke you up?"
At the question, the girl frowned.
It was obvious. A spirit was more like a child, simple and full of greed. Knowing the answer, the girl said, "Wait a moment," and got out of bed to open a desk drawer on one side of the room.
"That's it! That's it!"
The spirit flew over and whined at the sight of the wooden box taken from the drawer.
"If you wake me up like this again, I won't give you any."
The wooden box contained snacks that the girl had put together. As the sweet scent of dried fruit gently tickled its nose, the spirit wiggled its feet in the air.
"Okay! I won't do it again! I promise!"
Ella inwardly snorted.
Promises meant nothing; it would come back in a few days and drench her again.
The girl glared at it, but the spirit, preoccupied with the snack, didn't notice. The spirit snatched one of the snacks the girl was holding and flew out the window.
Watching this, the girl sighed deeply. It was early morning, but sleep had already fled. She tied her wet hair back and left the bedroom.
#
Descending the stairs and entering the dining room, she found someone already there. It was her older brother and the eldest, Valdemar. He was sitting at the empty table, his forehead resting on his clasped hands. His eyes were closed, and he was frowning.
Lost in thought, unaware that his younger sister had entered, he raised his head only after the girl sat down. He was only twenty-four years old, but there were clear wrinkles between his brows.
"You're up early, Ella."
He looked at his sister, his expression softening before hardening again.
"Did those kids do that?"
"Do what?"
"Your hair is wet. Did those guys come?"
"Yeah. They were whining about wanting candy."
The wrinkles between his brows deepened.
"They're treating you too carelessly."
He was about to continue but paused and closed his mouth. The girl knew what her brother had swallowed without hearing it.
'You shouldn't look foolish to the spirits,' 'You should be the one in control, not the one being controlled.' That's what he was going to say.
But as he was about to say it, he wondered if he was in a position to say such things himself, and also, he thought it would be too harsh to say such things to his young sister, so he stopped.
"I already gave them a piece of my mind."
Ella knew this, so she smiled brightly.
The eldest was eight years older than the girl, and there were several siblings between them, but today only the two of them remained. In the process, the fifteen-year-old girl had become an adult early.
"Okay. Good job."
After a while, the two had an early breakfast. Silence hung in the air during the meal, a silence created by the approaching future.
'Soon, we'll have to leave this place.'
She scanned the dining room once.
It was a sight she saw every day, but looking at it with the certainty of leaving, it felt different.
The two lived in the largest mansion in the village. They were not nobles, but they had lived their lives being revered like nobles. But that kind of life was now over.
'Because neither my brother nor I have been recognized as spirit masters.'
What the siblings had enjoyed was borrowed. It was originally given to someone with a certain position, and although their father had the position, the children had not inherited it.
The village was soon going to choose a new person to take over the responsibility in place of their father. The moment that person was decided, Ella and Valdemar would have to leave the mansion. The girl understood this, but she couldn't help but feel regretful.
#
In our world, there are beings called spirits.
As far as the girl Ella knew, spirits were beings created by the gods of the heavens long ago. When the gods extinguished the fire that covered the world to make the land fertile, they created spirits to cultivate every corner of the world.
Spirits were workers who helped the gods cultivate the world, and even after the gods left, they remained in the world and continued their duties. However, they did not possess eternal life, so their numbers dwindled over time.
It was right to uphold the duty given by the gods until the day they died, but what should one think about the duty being cut off when a spirit died? Many spirits thought this way and passed on their duties to others.
Ella's father was a person who had inherited a duty.
The villagers called him a 'spirit master.'
- A spirit master is someone who controls spirits.
Her father had told her that.
He was truly a person who controlled spirits at will, a person with the power to do so.
He moved spirits to bring rain, stop snow, and plow the land. Although the range of his power was limited to the vicinity of the village, the spirit master was like a god within the village.
But then her father suddenly met his death.
- Did you two perhaps inherit the power from your father?
And no one had inherited the power from their father.
- No. Father did not perform the inheritance.
- Then who can control the spirits?
The person with the power to control the spirits had disappeared.
- There's nothing we can do. From now on, we'll have to ask them for favors.
The worker created by the gods was freed from its shackles.
Spirits were not evil beings, so they did not cause chaos even if the duty given by the gods disappeared. However, the village could not bear the sense of loss. They were not willing to easily give up the abundance they had gained through the spirits.
People each claimed to be spirit masters. Even without the power, they could continue the abundance if they received the favor of the spirits, and they would gain authority as spirit masters.
Valdemar was the best among them. There had been no better spirit master than him for the past few years. He had often been around spirits by his father's side, so he was more familiar with them than anyone else and it was easier for him to gain their favor.
But favor is something that is bestowed.
'My brother didn't admit it, but...'
What if someone else had a deep friendship with the spirits?
If there was someone who was more friendly than her brother and that person could draw out the favor of the spirits, wouldn't that mean they were a better spirit master than Valdemar? When such a person actually appeared, Valdemar lost his footing.
After their father passed away, no one had dared to object, let alone praise him, but in just a few months, people had turned their backs on him. They unhesitatingly claimed that he should hand over the rights to someone else.
"Where are you going?"
Valdemar asked as Ella got up from her seat.
"I'm going to the shrine."
"The shrine? Ella, you don't have to worry about it."
"I'm going because I want to, not because of you."
As she said it lightly, as if joking, Valdemar gave a bitter smile and replied, "Okay."
#
The shrine was on the mountainside near the village.
There was a flat area about halfway up the mountain, and for some reason, a small house had been built there long ago. And an idol was placed inside a single room.
It was a place to honor Kemel, the god symbolizing the earth and blacksmiths, the god who created the bearded dwarves. It was also a home for spirits. The servants of the gods longed for their creator and liked to stay in the shrine, so they always gathered there and chattered when they were not doing anything else.
When Ella climbed the stairs for a long time and arrived at the entrance of the shrine, spirits gathered around the girl.
"Ella! Are you alone again today?"
"Where's Valdemar? Did we make him angry with our pranks?"
"Didn't you bring any snacks?"
The spirits here were smaller than the palm of a hand and almost transparent. They were so faint that they could easily be missed. This was because they were low-ranking spirits and could not properly maintain their form.
"He'll come later."
The girl nodded, handing out the snacks she had brought from the mansion.
"Yeah."
It was a lie, but she didn't show it. The smaller the spirit, the younger its temperament. They were happy over trivial things and sad over trivial things.
If she told them that her brother, who had often visited the shrine since childhood, would no longer come, they would be sad all day. They wouldn't understand even if she told them the reason.
'And... the number has decreased again.'
The girl counted the number of spirits floating around.
The number of spirits staying in the old shrine was decreasing day by day. Had they moved to the shrine down the mountain? The village had built a new shrine to buy the favor of the spirits and offered sacrifices there.
Spirits drawn to the offerings left the old shrine and most of them did not return. Children with short thoughts, like the spirits flying around the girl, went down to receive the offerings but soon returned, but if they could reason even a little, they simply settled down there.
'From now on, this place will be abandoned too.'
There was no need for two shrines, and the old shrine was in a difficult location for people to come and go. It had remained in place until now because the previous spirit masters had insisted on a meaningless tradition, but with them gone today, there was no one to stop it.
The girl entered the shrine and prayed to the idol of Kemel, and carefully cleaned the inside. It was something the family had always done during her father's lifetime.
- We do not belong to the Public Church, but we are people who worship God in the same way. The shrine is our temple, so we must not entrust it to anyone else.
He was a strict person. The fact that he had no successor was also his fault. People around him had told him to prepare a successor early on, but he had postponed it, saying that there was no one who met his standards. As a result, the inheritance was cut off by a sudden, innocent death.
The girl shifted her gaze to the foot of the idol. The idol stood on a pedestal the height of the girl's knees, that is, a foundation stone, and letters were engraved on the front of the foundation stone.
- These are the letters that the gods directly taught to the things on earth. The letters we use today are the changed forms after the passage of time.
The girl did not know how to read ancient letters.
'Vinicius, Carmelo, Dante, Gallardo—'
She only recited what her father had recited.
'Rosenburg, Damian, Cesar.'
The ancient letters on the foundation stone were names.
Why were names, so many names, engraved under the idol? Moreover, to the girl, each name seemed to have been engraved by a different person. The forms were different. Some were crooked, and some were elaborate.
The girl had asked her father once. Her father had not told her the answer. However, he had said that they were important names.
'He said I would know if I became a spirit master.'
At the time, she had ignored it. She was too young to take every word of an adult to heart, and she thought it had nothing to do with her.
But her memory had secretly engraved her father's request somewhere in her head, and when the time came, it pulled it out.
- If a person with this name comes, pay close attention to them.
Years had passed since she had memorized the names. There was still no one who claimed that name. Occasionally, she asked guests who came from outside the village, but it was the same. Very rarely, a few answered that they had heard of it, but the traces of the name that the guest knew and the name of the foundation stone could not find any connection.
What did her father mean?
"What's wrong?"
The spirits beside her disappeared. It was a rare occurrence. What could a life more like a child than a child see to hide its appearance? What great thing could happen in the shrine on the mountainside, of all places?
The girl tilted her head and went out of the shrine. The area was filled with the sound of insects chirping, and people were climbing up from the stairs below.
There were three people. A woman wearing Priest robes, a young boy, and a young man with jet-black hair and eyes.
< The Final Examiner > End