Chapter 593 – 1,000 Years of Memory (3)
─Jeobuck, Jeobuck.
Covering her face with a drab robe and a cloth like a desert dancer, Equinox walked the streets of the city.
He was neither angry nor annoyed by the crowds he bumped into from time to time. It was the gait of a person who had set a destination.
“… I have to go.”
When I paused at the thought of Nefertiti, she rather tugged at me and hurried her way. But she couldn’t hide the sweat on her palms.
Hurrying after it, we arrived at a large building that was imposing.
‘Wizard Guild. A branch in this city?’
Equinox walked languidly, as if he had come in and out often, and entered a section of the building. People passing by her asked her to bow her back politely.
‘Perhaps she coaxed an entire branch, or made her subordinates her guild members.’
It was reasonable because the guild in another world was like a franchise. It was to use the branch manager as a subordinate and use a particular school like a villa.
At this point, she had already formed a close-to-religious group of warlocks following her.
It is a jjintung heresy that kills the living in hopes of a reunion with the dead. You could call it paganism itself.
Just 10 years ago, Equinox must have had this much power even in this world, which was not very interested in it.
It was possible for a thousand-year-old criminal.
“Oh, you’re here.”
That’s why I was surprised not by Equinox’s authority, but by the person Equinox was heading to.
It’s an elf I could recognize it at a glance because the hood of the robe on my head protruded wider than the human race. It was almost like a lozenge tent.
Do you have no intention of hiding your race? Compared to him, his voice and impression were bizarrely distorted, so it was impossible to find out anything other than his race.
Others would only guess that she was a woman from her tone of voice.
But I could intuitively figure out who it was.
“I heard you had a guest, but he must have been more amazing than I thought.”
Equinox calmly turned over his robe and sat down.
“And, it’s more rude than I thought.”
Equinox, who revealed a half-skeleton, half-flesh face, spoke coldly. He seemed to ask what he was talking about with his identity tightly wrapped up.
《Whoops. I had to hide his face. Of course, you have to take it off in this spot.”
The elf said in a soft voice and pulled back the hood. As I watched, I almost clicked my tongue in a disgusted mood, but I held it in until I sighed.
《This is Jerna Gracie.》
《This is Equinox.》
A meeting between 1,000-year-old old women? Equinox said as I was frowning at the illusion that something smelled bad.
“He made an interesting suggestion. Cooperation?”
“Yeah. Although we don’t have common interests——I think we might have common enemies.”
Yerna smiled kindly. Of course it was smoke.
I projected my will into Equinox’s memory. At the point of sitting here, this lich bitch still had little idea of Yerna’s true identity.
All I found out was that she was an archeology professor.
It was a great insight to notice that just by looking into their eyes just now, they were not ordinary elves, but the royal family of elves that had been destroyed in ancient times. But that was all.
《What kind of cooperation is this?》
Equinox asked politely. Behind this woman’s polite demeanor is indifference. She’d be more interested in polite words from the fast-food clerk.
If you are not an opponent like me who has the aptitude for holding a lot of dark and negative mana, or if you are not a person who agrees with you, you will see them all as stones on the roadside.
If it doesn’t attract interest, it’s an Equinox that will turn its back right away. Yerna smiled and said.
《I heard rumors that he has a lot of powers of creation, right?》
《… It’s a question that makes you want to sit a little longer.”
As if it had succeeded in attracting interest, Equinox returned a small smile.
The power of creation was not a power worth mentioning, like asking at a traditional market, ‘Is this mackerel so fresh?’. Equinox shook his hand.
Her men – all warlocks, I believe – were absent from the meeting.
Only Yerna and Equinox were left in the room.
《I said cooperation, but in fact, it would be more accurate to say it was a transaction.》
Yerna said, twisting her body as if leaning on her own hand.
《Actually, our basic goal is to give our bodies to a god who lost his life during the Age of Gods. Ah, this is a serious secret, but did you trust Equinox-sama?”
《Can you make me a body suitable for that with the power of creation?》
As soon as she stabbed the core, Yerna shyly affirmed.
“Uhuhu, it must be difficult. It’s not at the level of changing the organs of a living thing. Our god is neither material nor spiritual, so an ordinary body cannot endure it.”
《What about stealing the bodies of other gods?》
“It must have been a little difficult.”
“I’m sorry you came to visit me, but I’ll refuse it.”
Equinox didn’t ask if Yerna’s answer, “It’s hard,” Was because of her lack of ability, or if it was because her body could not be transplanted because she was so rejected even after being taken away.
And why you need a body, and what kind of god you want to save.
Not to mention, how much body is required.
《Huh? Did I do something rude?”
So it must have been. Jerna also noticed that Equinox had lost all interest in her proposal, unlike a few seconds before.
It was understandable that he hadn’t shown interest until the story of the power of creation came out.
She seemed to be listening and then suddenly cut it off as if she didn’t care what she was talking about, and it was even funnier that she didn’t notice that it was strange.
But I knew the cause of that sudden reaction.
“Beyond not having common interests, the goal itself is completely opposite. I wouldn’t say I would find a god and kill him, but I don’t even want to find a dead god and bring him back to life.”
It is Equinox that hates the gods who failed to manage this world and the other world properly.
If she had said that she would rather destroy mankind, could she have agreed to it with the intention of accepting in advance the humans who will one day fall into the underworld where she will rule.
Of course, Yerna’s office worker, Henir, and his friends would obviously want to kill each other without leaving a single soul behind, so this deal was never going to come true in the first place.
“Indeed… ?》
Even though she didn’t know that far, she knew roughly that she couldn’t cooperate with her no matter what the cost.
“Then what? Can I ask you just one question?”
And when that happened, this motherless bitch of the world would lose all of her courtesy from her snout.
“Ask me a question.”
“Why is it half to the left and half instead of up and down?”
《… I beg your pardon?”
Thinking that Equinox would ask why Yer Nagai’s proposal fell through, she half-opened her eyes at the absurd question.
“Isn’t that right? Since the power of creation is a superior ability to divine power, I understand that you need body parts to absorb the mana of light.”
Yerna giggled and picked up what looked like a dancer’s face covering that Equinox had left on her table. It was an object used to cover half of the skull.
“But then, instead of leaving only one side of the body based on the top of the head, you can leave only the upper body. Then you won’t have to hide your pretty face every time.”
《… …》
“To build dignity as a lich? If that’s the case, I might as well leave some of them. Or are you trying to imitate one of the old gods who ruled the underworld? You seem to hate God, but that’s not it.”
If it’s to deal with the power of creation, it’s enough to just store it in the soul.
It wasn’t difficult for a lich who could share soul and body like a life vessel. In other words, Equinox left behind his own flesh intentionally.
And in every intention there is a personal will.
Yerna smiled, leaning her face on her clasped hands.
“Otherwise… When she met the family she wanted to bring back, did she even want sympathy? Do you think you sacrificed and worked hard enough to make your pretty face look like this?”
《… OK, I know enough.”
At that moment, what passed across Equinox’s face was the past of a thousand years ago.
She is the one who ended her last moments with her deceased father, calling her a monster.
That’s why I dared to leave the scars on my chest and half of my face in this body. Equinox smiled coldly and accepted Yerna’s provocation.
《If you want to take away my authority, come anytime.》
“Hehe, I don’t really need that much.”
Equinox smiled and brandished his staff.
─Poojak!!!
The beautiful high elf sitting on the couch instantly turned into a bloody mess that covered the entire room in red. Retracting his hand, Equinox looked down at the pool of his blood.
“Next time, I’ll see you as a person, not as an alter ego.”
If it had been deliberately provoked, he would have cut off the connection with his alter ego right before he died. Although it did not receive any damage, there was a high possibility that the main body was nearby.
If so, it was worth finding out.
Equinox turned and left the room. The warlocks who came in as if she and her shifts were arranging the body of the alter ego made of her flesh and blood.
