#69
Imprint (2)
“You there, furball. Is this really a human?”
The old woman, blinking repeatedly, pointed at Harley and asked Beardo.
“What, have you gone senile, granny? Calling a person ‘this’! And Harley’s been through all sorts of twists and turns, sure, but he’s a proper human being!”
Even though the words hadn’t been directed at him, Beardo protested in a frothing rage.
In Act Four, Chapter Three of the turbulent “Harley’s Great Adventure,” there was a part where he had been captured by the evil black mage “Hans,” subjected to biological experiments, and escaped.
Perhaps Beardo was being considerate of him with that in mind.
‘He’s a surprisingly thoughtful fellow, unlike how he looks.’
Harley, who had inwardly flinched at being called a monster, folded his arms thick with bulging muscles and nodded in satisfaction.
“Hmmm… In any case, you’re saying he really is human?”
As if she couldn’t care less whether Beardo was flying into a rage or not, the old woman slowly examined him again.
“Well now, I’ve seen plenty of warriors in my time, but this is a first.”
“Old-timer! Explain what the problem is already. This is driving me mad!”
Unable to simply stand by while the old woman kept exclaiming in admiration, Harley cut in.
“It’s not exactly a problem. If anything, you could call it very good. Hrr hrr…”
“Oh?”
“Urgh… More importantly, the wind outside is chilly. Let’s go in and talk. Now that I’m old, my bones ache, you see.”
Patting her back as she rose from her chair, she led them into the house.
“Come to think of it, I haven’t even thanked you yet. Thanks for helping me when I was in trouble. I’ll bring some tea, so sit wherever you like.”
They stepped into an interior packed with all manner of odds and ends, sat down, and waited. Soon, the old woman brought out a tea brewed from some unidentified herb.
“Drink at ease. It’s good for the body. When you get old, you have to make sure to eat what’s good for you. Since you helped me today, think of it as a token of thanks.”
Harley immediately picked up the teacup and poured it down his throat in great gulps.
The steaming-hot tea, hot enough to billow with vapor, inflicted no harm whatsoever on his tough body.
“Hahaha! It tastes healthy! Now then, finish what you were saying earlier!”
“Tsk… Young men and their short tempers.”
After leisurely taking a sip of tea, the old woman slowly began to speak.
“You know at least that those without the proper qualifications suffer severe side effects when an imprint is carved into them, yes?”
“That much is basic!”
“An imprint fundamentally consumes a great deal of the body’s energy. Mana… that is, the aura warriors use also plays a large role, but life force is even more important than that.”
And she possessed the ability to see the life force flowing through a subject’s body.
“I was startled because I’d never seen this much life force before. I’ve seen Great Warriors a few times, but even they couldn’t compare.”
“Harley was that impressive? Of course, even without using aura, he was already at an incredible level…”
“With that much, he’s closer to a monster than a human. That’s why I asked earlier whether he was truly human.”
The overwhelming life force that poured out from the bodies of monsters, whose physical abilities far surpassed those of humans.
All of that was contained within Harley’s body, so it was only natural.
“Since an imprint forcibly draws out and uses the life force flowing through the body, the more abundant it is, the more powerful imprints one can carve.”
From the moment an imprint was carved, life force would be consumed continuously, so the fiery energy emitted by a warrior’s trained body was essential.
“But with this much, you could carve not a warrior’s imprint, but a Great Warrior’s imprint, and it would be more than enough.”
“Oh! Then is there a level above that?”
“Hrr hrr… There is something called the ‘Imprint of the Fighting King,’ but they say no one has managed to carve it in the past several hundred years.”
“Oho, the Fighting King…”
At the name, which he found exceedingly pleasing, Harley’s eyes flashed.
“Of course, I don’t know how to do that either. In the first place, it’s a procedure that requires several shamans assisting under the direction of a great shaman.”
“Well, that’s a shame, but it can’t be helped. Then carve the Great Warrior one for me for now. A man like me ought to have at least that much! Hahaha—!”
“That one’s a bit difficult too.”
“What? Why!”
Despite Harley’s protest, the old woman leisurely drank her tea, tormenting him with suspense.
“First, there are no materials. As you know, it’s been a very long time since a warrior from the south came all the way here, so I’m completely unprepared for that.”
Having spent many long years merely treating minor illnesses, the only materials she had on hand were those used for that purpose.
“That much, I can quickly—”
“And second, in order to carve a Great Warrior’s imprint, you need an achievement worthy of it. It isn’t something you can carve simply because you have a lot of life force or mana.”
It seemed the higher-level the imprint, the more demanding the conditions attached to it.
If those were violated, the side effects he had heard of before would likely gnaw away at the person in question.
Muscle loss, hair loss, aging, decreased virility…
‘No!’
Faced with side effects that were all fatal in their own way, Harley quietly gave up.
“So what is this achievement you need? Do I have to slay a dragon or something?”
Still, he couldn’t help feeling regret, so he asked her in a sulky tone, almost as if picking a fight.
“Hrr hrr hrr… There’s no need to go that far. Let’s see… Yes, the northern mountain range beyond the Steel Fortress. Hunting an ogre, the predator there, alone should be enough.”
‘Hm?’
“An ogre! Granny, do you even know what kind of monster that is?”
Beardo, who had been listening from the side, shouted in shock.
An ogre was an apex predator with a body nearly five meters tall, muscles of tremendous density, and sharp senses.
It was also a glutton that, in order to maintain that body, had to spend every waking moment hunting and eating except when it slept.
Even if several high-ranking mercenaries attacked one together and suffered enormous losses, it was uncertain whether they could bring it down, yet she wanted him to hunt one alone.
“If he intends to challenge the level of a Great Warrior, he should be capable of at least that much. In truth, this is the bare minimum.”
“Mm… Well, if it’s a Great Warrior, I suppose that much would be possible…”
“And if he succeeds in the hunt, the parts can also be used to carve the imprint. High-ranking monsters make excellent materials for shamanic arts.”
After speaking leisurely, the old woman sipped her tea again.
And Harley silently rummaged through the subspace magic tool at his chest.
“So for now, receive another imprint, grow stronger, and slowly challenge it la— Pffft—!”
“Ugh! What are you doing, granny? Spitting in someone’s face all of a sudden… Huh?”
He began pulling out monster parts one by one.
A huge bone, tendons, eyeballs, bottles filled with blood, and more, evenly assorted by type.
“Uh… Don’t tell me these are…”
Beardo stared back and forth between the items and Harley with a blank look on his face.
“An ogre! These are ogre parts! And fresh ones, hunted only a few days ago!”
The old woman, who recognized them at once, cried out in astonishment.
As she said, they were very fresh.
After all, he had gone beyond the Steel Fortress to hunt it and had only just returned yesterday.
‘I forgot to dispose of them because I heard about the shaman as soon as I got back. This worked out nicely.’
He had saved himself the trouble of going back out to gather materials.
“I’m asking just in case… but don’t tell me you hunted this alone?”
Had she sensed something from the fact that he had produced the materials at this timing?
After examining the items Harley had taken out in detail, she looked at him with a disconcerted expression, only blinking.
“Hah… Hahahaha—! You ask the obvious, old-timer! An ogre is nothing to this body of mine! Pahahaha!”
He burst into confident laughter.
“Then there’s no problem carving the Great Warrior’s imprint with this, correct?”
“Th-that’s right. I’ll ask again, just in case, but you really did catch it alone, yes?”
“Of course! I know perfectly well what side effects there might be. Why would I lie about something like this?”
At his words, the old woman slowly nodded, filled her empty cup with tea, and sipped again.
“But granny. If you’re skilled enough to carve a Great Warrior’s imprint, that means you’re quite a capable shaman. Why are you living like this in a place like this?”
At that moment, Beardo, who had roughly wiped the tea from his face, asked in a sour tone.
She paused for a moment while bringing the teacup to her lips, but soon drank a sip as if nothing was wrong and replied as though it were no big deal.
“What’s wrong with this place? I earn enough to eat, and people without much can live helping one another.”
“You mean the people who didn’t even show their noses when you were the one getting harassed?”
“…Everyone has their own circumstances, don’t they?”
There were many meanings contained in those words.
Since it seemed she did not want to speak any further, Harley opened his mouth to quickly finish his own business first.
“So when can I receive the imprint? And if possible, I’d like to receive other imprints too…”
“Tsk… You’re as impatient as ever.”
The old woman clicked her tongue, thought for a moment, and answered.
“For now, I have nothing prepared, so it will take a day to gather the other materials and make the preliminary preparations. Come back the day after tomorrow.”
“If you tell me the materials, I can gather them in no time—”
“Ahem! Shamanic arts are not something that work just because you rush them!”
Preparing each thing with care according to the proper timing and calming one’s mind were also parts of the shamanic process.
“And half the cost is paid in advance. As you can see, I have nothing, so I can’t even buy materials.”
Thanks to the expensive monster parts and Hubert’s smoothly running business, he was in a very comfortable situation, so the cost did not matter.
“Can I receive other imprints then as well? If possible, I’d like to do that!”
“After one is carved, your body needs about a week to adapt. And during that time, I need to replenish my strength too. Do you think carving an imprint is easy?”
After all their business was finished, Harley and Beardo rose from their seats, agreed to meet the old woman again the day after tomorrow, and left the house.
On the way back through the alley.
“Hup~! Now then, shall we go finish what we couldn’t do earlier?”
At his words, uttered as he stretched refreshingly, Beardo looked puzzled.
“Huh? Harley, were you doing something before coming here?”
“Hahaha! What are you talking about, my friend? There’s something we left unfinished together, isn’t there?”
It seemed this friend of his was rather forgetful.
For his sake, Harley gently explained what they needed to do.
“Those guys from earlier. We need to clean them up, don’t we?”
“Huh?”
Beardo wore a blank expression again.
It seemed Harley would need to explain in a bit more detail.
“In my experience, if you leave guys like that alone, they’re guaranteed to cause trouble later! We need to clean them up beforehand!”
Of course, the source of that experience was Earth’s popular culture, drenched in clichés.
“Is… is that so? In my experience, if you scare them that much, they keep their heads down on their own and don’t come near you.”
“Ahem, you’ve lived a more sheltered life than I thought, my friend.”
From the perspective of a modern man soaked in every sort of sensational content, Beardo’s response was truly far too naïve.
Of course, Harley had initially thought that much would be enough as well.
Their opponents were merely a gang of ruffians, while they were famous mercenaries with muscular giant builds, and he had even used 「Wildness」 to brand fear into them.
Most likely, unless something unusual happened, they would crawl on their bellies as Beardo said.
But the shamanic old woman had turned out to be more capable than expected.
On top of that, the first imprint was two days from now, and afterward, he would have to receive them at week-long intervals, so there was no telling how long it would take…
‘That’s more than enough time for fear to fade.’
So he needed to make things a little more certain.
“Oho… As expected, you’re an indomitable warrior who survived every kind of hardship. I’ve learned something, Harley. So how are we going to find them?”
The men had already fled and were nowhere to be seen, and they did not know their base either.
“Heh heh— They must live around here anyway. If we beat down everyone connected to them one by one, won’t they pop out eventually?”
“I see! What if they bear a grudge instead and try to take revenge?”
“Then that means we didn’t beat them enough! The whole reason we’re cleaning them up in advance is to prevent this incident from turning into that! We’ll just have to beat them down more carefully and thoroughly!”
“I see… Excellent! I’ve never seen a warrior as meticulous as you, Harley. You possess not only strength but intellect as well!”
“It’s nothing. This is all the product of experience. Turaba, you can become like this too. Wahahaha!”
The two disappeared into the alley, conversing in a warm and friendly atmosphere.
But the content of their conversation was nothing short of sinister.
And so, until the sun went down, several rounds of wailing echoed through the streets…
After which, they were able to finish their work neatly and return home with refreshed hearts.