Immortal's Ascending Path - 55
Episode-55< Queen Bee in the Muwang Army >
'Who is it?'
Ella narrowed her eyes, watching the visitors. The three people who visited the shrine were unfamiliar strangers. How, and why, would outsiders visit this place?
By chance, a shrine in the middle of the mountain? That couldn't be. Even the villagers stopped visiting once a new shrine was built at the foot of the mountain, so why would outsiders bother?
The girl grew more and more curious as she looked at the woman on the left of the three.
'She looks like a Priest of Ganymea.'
The woman looked to be in her mid-twenties, with long, reddish-brown hair braided and draped over her shoulder. She also wore a drab gray Priest robe and a necklace engraved with the emblem of Ganymea.
'Did she come to monitor us?'
Priests and monks periodically visited the village to perform various rituals, including the Infant Sacrament, and they increased the frequency of their visits after the village's spirit medium died. This was because they were worried that the spirits would run wild and cause problems.
The girl stared at the Priest in front of her, thinking that she had come to the shrine for the same reason. Then, the Priest met her gaze with dark brown eyes and smiled softly.
"Hello, young sister."
The Priest walked over and greeted her, placing a hand on her chest.
"Ah... yes, hello."
"I am Roberta. I serve the Mother of Knowledge and Discipline."
Roberta pointed to the other two.
"And these are Ulrich and Fritz. They are here with me as guests. What is your name, sister?"
"Please, call me Ella."
"Ella." She savored the name. "What a lovely name."
Ella smiled awkwardly and asked.
"So, um... what brings the Priest here?"
"We're just passing by. One of my companions has visited this place before. They said they wanted to visit again, so we stopped by."
She added that it was unrelated to her duties.
'They've been here before?'
Who could it be? Ella examined the other two, then fixed her gaze on the young man.
The young man named Ulrich looked to be about the same age as the Priest, but he had no expression on his face. He scanned the shrine with a cold, emotionless face.
"It doesn't seem to be well-maintained."
Ella flinched.
She knew that it was no longer her responsibility and that it was not a criticism but a soliloquy, but it bothered her nonetheless. When her father was alive, the family came to take care of it every day, but after his death, their livelihood became precarious, and they didn't have time.
Valdema, the girl's brother, had to be called here and there to fill her father's void, and the girl followed him or learned how to do odd jobs.
The days they visited the shrine were once every few days. The spirits liked the shrine, but they were indifferent to its upkeep, so fallen leaves and weeds piled up and grew.
"That'sâ€""
"Who is the current spirit medium?"
Ulrich cut her off as she was about to say something.
"There isn't one right now."
"There isn't one? Does that mean they've passed away?"
"...Yes."
Ella hesitated before telling the truth as it was. The previous spirit medium was the girl's father, and it had been three years since he died, and there was no successor.
Then Ulrich said, "I see. So the succession has been cut off as well," before turning his gaze from the shrine to Ella. Just then, the spirits that had disappeared a moment ago reappeared around the girl.
They were usually noisy and chattering, but they were quiet at this moment. Was it caution? The spirits kept their mouths shut and watched the guests as if they were trying to read their faces.
"The spirits seem to be fond of you."
More like they see me as a pushover.
Ella tried to say her brother's assessment as it was, but swallowed it down. The spirits only cling to her when it's disadvantageous to them, and usually ignore even the smallest request.
"But there are few of them. There are bound to be many spirits where there is a spirit medium, but this is strange. Was there some kind of incident?"
The spirits hid behind the girl when Ulrich's gaze reached them.
"It's because the shrine was newly built."
"Newly built?"
When she told him about the shrine at the foot of the mountain, he made a sound of "Hmm."
"Indeed."
Ella looked at him carefully and asked.
"Have you ever visited before?"
"I have. I don't remember the exact number of times, but it's been quite a few."
Quite a few?
She blinked and re-examined the young man's youthful appearance. Even if he was young for his age, he wouldn't be thirty, but he said he had visited this place several times? And they had never met each other before?
He must be exaggerating after coming only once or twice. The girl thought to herself, but she couldn't hide her feelings, so she narrowed her eyes openly.
He smiled faintly as he saw the girl's expression.
"I don't know if you've heard of it. The last time I visited before, I used the name Cezar. That was right before I started using my current name."
Ella's eyes widened.
Cezar, Ella's eyes widened at that name. It was the last name written on the pedestal of Keme's statue, and it was also the name that the girl's father had told her about.
She was flustered because she didn't expect to hear that name in this place, but she soon calmed her heart. And she asked a question. It was something she had wanted to ask if she ever heard that name.
"Do you know someone named Damian?"
Then Ulrich, who called himself Cezar, answered immediately.
"That's my old name."
"Old, name?"
"It's one of the names I used at one time."
The girl blinked her wide eyes several times.
Were the two of them the same person? Her intuition wondered, so she asked another question on the spur of the moment. The girl also wondered, but he accepted it.
"...Rosenburg?"
"The answer is the same for that as well."
Surprise subsided and disbelief arose.
'Is he kidding me?'
Ella suspected that Ulrich was teasing her. Since the other person revealed his name first, shouldn't he just say, 'That's me too?'
Her brow furrowed involuntarily when she thought that her serious question was met with a joke.
"It's hard to believe, isn't it? That's natural."
He shook his head, saying that it would be strange for someone to believe it right away.
"Are you kidding me?"
"No, it's true."
The girl saw the smiles on the faces of Roberta and Fritz. It didn't look like ridicule. It seemed that a different emotion than what the girl was thinking was lingering inside.
"I'll do it this way then. I'll say the names in reverse. There are a lot of things forgotten in oblivion, but at least some of them will be right. Would that be enough?"
And Ulrich began to list names.
Ella's expression hardened as she heard all kinds of names. She didn't know all the names he was saying, and he didn't say all the names she had heard from her father either. At best, half of the names he listed and half of the names her father said matched.
But it was enough to shake the girl. How could he know? Did he come to the shrine without her knowing and memorize them? No, even if that were the case, how could he know the names engraved in ancient characters?
Even the Priests and monks who had visited the shrine so far could not read those characters. But how could someone who wasn't a Priest know how to read ancient characters, and even know the names written in the mountain shrine?
If all the names he listed were his, as he claimed, why would he use so many names? He looked a little younger than Ella's brother.
"The name that your father said is the name of the visitor. It's the name of the person who visited to check whether the person who inherited the duty is a suitable person or not."
"The person who checked...?"
"You know what spirits are, right?"
Ella replied that she couldn't not know since she was the daughter of a spirit medium.
In the beginning, when the gods created the world, they created spirits to help them cultivate the world.
"Then do you also know the difference between spirits and other life forms? Do you know what is different from us humans, or dwarves, fairies, and even animals like horses or chickens?"
When she hesitated to answer, he turned his gaze to the Priest.
"There are many differences, but the biggest difference is reproduction. Spirits are born without reproduction, in places where the flow of mana is pure and the concentration of mana is high."
Ulrich nodded.
"Also, unlike animals, there is a hierarchy. Just as there are ranks in the government or the Public Church, spirits have a hierarchy. And each rank is given a role and made to be faithful."
He stretched out his right hand. The spirits, who had been hiding behind Ella and peeking out, looked at him carefully and flew to his hand.
"Some people have described these spirits as bees."
The girl looked at the spirits flying around her. The spirits, which were smaller than her index finger and had translucent human shapes, belonged to the bottom of the hierarchy, according to Ulrich.
"That analogy is somewhat correct. The hierarchy only considers how much mana they have, and how much talent they have because of it. Except for the person at the top of the hierarchy, all spirits are like worker bees."
The lower the rank, the weaker and less intelligent the spirit was, and conversely, the higher the rank, the larger, clearer, and more thoughtful the spirit was. Of course, spirits were spirits, so they were like children.
Ulrich gently stroked a spirit smaller than his index finger.
"..."
The playful appearance he had shown so far was nowhere to be seen. The spirits sat on his wide hand and waited obediently for his touch. It was unexpected that they were showing such a rare reaction to someone they were seeing for the first time.
"As you may know, in the old days, there were four spirits that the gods themselves had created at the top of the hierarchy. They were cold-hearted beings who only followed the instructions of heaven, and some called them the kings of the spirits."
"And now, spirit mediums have replaced them."
He answered "That's right" to Roberta's words.
"The spirit medium is the person who inherited the role of those four."
The four spirits, who were directly created by the gods but did not receive eternal life, chose the person who would carry on their duties. That was the spirit medium that Ulrich was talking about.
"But nowadays, there are very few people who know that."
Roberta smiled bitterly, saying that nowadays, people tend to call those who borrow talents based on their friendship with spirits that.
"Language is something that changes, so there's nothing we can do about it. If you want to delve into the etymology, you can think of them as those who cultivate our world and those who have the duty of heaven."
Ulrich shook his hand slightly and sent the spirits flying. The spirits laughed and fell from his hand, but soon returned to his hand and clung to him.
The caution from the beginning and the obedience from a moment ago were nowhere to be seen, and they were full of playfulness, and Ulrich smiled faintly as he looked at the children.
Just as he was seeing these childlike aspects of the spirits, there was a reason why the four kings of the spirits did not pass on their duties and powers to the same spirits. There were no spirits like the four of them.
The spirits created directly from heaven and the spirits born naturally on earth were completely different beings.
No matter how much a spirit born from nature grew, it was still a child. How dangerous would it be if such a child was given the power to control other spirits and nature?
"However, they didn't just pass on their authority to their successors. Think about it. What if a person with duties and authority abandons their duties and abuses their authority?"
It would be difficult to determine the superiority or inferiority of giving it to a spirit.
"And what if the succession is cut off? Of course, other spirit mediums can take over as a temporary measure, but it's not a fundamental solution. Therefore, the four of them called upon many people other than their successors and asked them for a favor."
Ella stared at Ulrich. It was too much for her to follow what he was saying, but as she tried to cram it into her head as much as possible, she somewhat anticipated what he would say next.
"Is that favor to watch over them...?"
"Yes, so that what they wanted would be done."
Ulrich stroked the whining spirits again.
"I'm the only one left among the watchers today. Likewise, the only reason I came back here is for that reason."
< Queen Bee in the Muwang Army > End