There had been many who brought candles or fragrances. Finding those who proudly presented Hwamusipilhong obnoxious, Elik played the petty trick of making them exchange it back for gold. When she did, the profligates who had blindly followed someone else's shortcut would turn pale.
However, unlike those things that lost value over time, a bell preserves its value. Though it wasn't the answer Elik had hoped for, the bell her disciple made was a superior product whose clear sound resonated from deep within the heart. Even if sold as-is, it would easily earn back the gold that had been spent on it.
And yet he couldn't even do this?
She had praised the ingenuity he showed when he filled the room with light, giving high marks to his flexible thinking and glib tongue. But now, despite merely parroting shortcuts he'd heard somewhere like a myna bird, without even any salesmanship, he dared ask for her teachings?
Elik's face contorted viciously.
"You who brought back gold transformed into worthless iron—do you not even know how to turn iron back into gold?! You who turn gold into garbage, yet wish to become the king's disciple?! Get out! And don't come back until you've changed that back to gold!"
When Elik roared, the disciple retreated in terror. Having driven out the incompetent disciple in one fell swoop, Elik clicked her tongue and sat down.
The bell's sound was good. The sound of the bell.
However, such a technique was far too trivial for Elik, who possessed the power of Understanding. Because the moment she understood it, it became far too easy a technique....
In any case, no technique could move Elik. If that was the case, shouldn't he at least have had some ingenuity, like that brazen fellow who had brought candles?
If she had known this would happen, she shouldn't have praised him from the start. Elik lamented as she called for the next visitor.
A day passed.
Two days went by.
By the time three days had passed, Elik had attended to numerous disciples and welcomed guests who had come from afar. It was around the time when the memory of the disciple who had produced a good bell sound was gradually fading from everyday life.
"I, I have done it! Eternal Elik! I have accomplished what Your Majesty commanded!"
He had kept his word to bring back the bell transformed into gold. However, the method he used had far surpassed even the imagination of Elik, who had mastered all manner of techniques and knowledge.
Before Elik, a brilliantly shining golden bell was placed.
"I am in awe of Your Majesty's teachings! At first, I thought it was merely words spoken to drive me away... I lacked faith! Please forgive this foolish one!"
At first, she thought it was a poor prank. She thought he was trying to entertain her with some ingenuity of his own. So instead of roaring at him, she played along.
However... it became clear before long that the disciple's discovery was truth and principle.
"As Your Majesty surmised, all things are in fact one. Just as our artisans may use various types of iron in turn, yet fundamentally iron is one, all things too are composed of a single origin! In some pure form that constitutes matter! Naturally, it can be transformed!"
The disciple firmly believed that Elik had already awakened to the truth, and that she had posed the question because she wished to share that understanding with others. So whenever he saw Elik, he would give incomprehensible explanations.
However, Elik could not understand what he was talking about at all.
Logically, it made no sense. How could one turn iron into gold?
One could make weapons from iron. But even so, iron remains iron as it becomes a weapon. Even when mixing other types of metal to create an alloy, it was similar to adding sesame seeds to flour dough, not transforming it into glutinous rice or buckwheat dough. The latter would be called something other than technique. Fraud.
Elik, who possessed the power of Understanding, understood that clearly. However, what the disciple was speaking of was leaping far beyond the knowledge she had... no, the knowledge that humanity had accumulated until now.
"When I lacked faith, I dared not even guess. But Your Majesty told me, and my eyes were opened! Whether it is a very, very small lump, too small to see. Or whether it flows like water, I do not know well. Perhaps because it is so small, it may be unrelated to any form we know. Even fine sand would flow like water through the cracks between stones!"
She didn't know.
An uninvited guest had intruded into a world where everything was divided into possible and impossible. She didn't know. No matter what knowledge she applied, she couldn't even grasp a speck of what he was talking about.
However, having reigned her entire life... she lacked the gall to boldly declare "I don't know" about something she didn't know. That would amount to denying the name Elik, handed down from ancient times, and the power it contained.
Yuria Elik gathered her crumbling expression and spoke.
"You have grasped it correctly. I too had guessed something similar. Though I did not delve into it as thoroughly as you."
"Your Majesty is busy with affairs of state, so it cannot be helped. I am already overwhelmed with gratitude just by being the first disciple to comprehend Your Majesty's intentions!"
Not at all. That was not her intention. The disciple had simply misunderstood on his own.
"Could you perhaps show me that form?"
"Ah, well... I have thought about it, but... just as a blast furnace is needed to melt pure steel, a furnace hundreds of times hotter than a blast furnace would be needed to separate that pure form... Perhaps Your Majesty..."
Needless to say. She, who possessed the king's power, knew the answer.
Impossible. It could not be reached with current human technology.
"It is impossible. Even if the desired temperature were reached, the furnace itself would melt."
"As expected... Then there is no choice but to reach it through the Intrinsic Demon Path, if only as an expedient. The only way to spread the principle Your Majesty has awakened to throughout the world is the Intrinsic Demon Path."
If the Intrinsic Demon Path was the only way to reach it, then Elik could not follow. Elik shook her head.
"I cannot. One who possesses the king's power finds it nearly impossible to learn the Intrinsic Demon Path."
This was true. Those who possessed the king's power had generation after generation shown no talent for the Intrinsic Demon Path. Their overwhelmingly powerful authority had devoured the talent to manifest mental imagery.
However, that truth was used to conceal another truth.
The truth that Elik could not even fathom the principle, let alone manifest mental imagery.
Though the king does not know the hearts of the people, the people cannot dare fathom the heart of the king either. The disciple, who infinitely respected, revered, and adored the great Elik, cried out without knowing her true intentions.
"T-Then I shall become Your Majesty's Intrinsic Demon Path!"
"...Will you?"
"This too is a grace Your Majesty has bestowed upon me. Even if only to repay that! I shall use this power for Your Majesty for the rest of my life!"
Elik let out a hollow laugh.
What she had never learned and never taught, the disciple had reached on his own through a mere misunderstanding. Beyond even the king's power, to a realm that no human had yet reached.
Perhaps boredom had been a rather luxurious emotion. Compared to this sense of helplessness, inferiority, and base pleasure....
"I permit it."
"Thank you!"
"And from now on... spread your discovery more widely, Demo."
Demo, acknowledged by the king he adored, smiled radiantly and bowed his head.
"I shall obey!"
Several years passed since then. In the Gold Kingdom, people called alchemists appeared. Several technicians who had received Demo's teachings succeeded in transforming steel into gold. The alchemists naturally enjoyed wealth and power, and rose to become the true powers of the Gold Kingdom.
Where there is light, there is also shadow. As the alchemists rose, the blacksmiths and technicians who had formed the foundation of the Gold Kingdom had to endure painful times. Even the technicians the Gold Kingdom was proud of lost competitiveness before the alchemists who could produce gold directly.
Still, it didn't matter. The Gold Kingdom's gold spread throughout the world and returned as all manner of wealth. Even picking up the crumbs the alchemists dropped was enough to enjoy every luxury. Even renowned artisans spent their days steeped in drink, forgetting even their skills.
Covering the ever-widening cracks with the brilliance of gold and silk, the Gold Kingdom sank endlessly into extravagance and indulgence.
Then one day.
"W-We no longer accept gold at our shop from today..."
The collapse came quietly, as it always does, but surely.
"Th-There's too much. Gold pieces outnumber grain. Please give us something else instead..."
Who could have predicted this?
Gold. Long the symbol of wealth, a precious metal used as currency everywhere in the world. It also held high value as a catalyst for magic, so everyone coveted gold.
But when the gold produced by alchemists became more abundant than stones, humans began to treat gold like stones. Economic logic overturned thousands of years of established value.
Since it was the first time in history, no one expected it, and no one prepared for it. Naturally, no one had an appropriate solution either. The chaos grew uncontrollable.
"Please buy my gold!"
"With this much gold, why won't you give it!"
"Bandits attacking? Hire mercenaries! Tell them we'll give all the gold we have... What? They won't take it?"
The tower built of gold crumbled in an instant. Merely losing trust in gold, all the gold that existed in the Gold Kingdom lost its value in a single moment and became worthless junk. This was a feat that not even any alchemist had accomplished.
When everyone became poor simultaneously though nothing had changed, riots broke out. People no longer tried to fight with the logic of gold. Instead, they took up weapons of steel. The artisans who had lost wealth and power, pushed aside by the alchemists, gained prominence once again as the age of steel arrived.
The first action of those who took up weapons was to attack the alchemists. They killed the alchemists, who were the root cause of all this, and seized their property. Until that point, alchemists were merely technicians who could turn steel into gold, and were complete novices in combat, so they were helplessly defenseless against the successive attacks. The gold they had so believed in, and the people they had hired with that gold, could not save their lives.
The hunting and execution of alchemists took place nationwide. Gold stained with blood was scattered on the ground. A sudden storm of blood swept across the entire Gold Kingdom.
"High traitor Demo, hear me. Your foolish actions have plunged the nation into misery—a crime difficult to forgive."
Demo, the first alchemist, could not avoid that disaster either.
"Put shackles on his neck and hang an iron ball from them. Then, whip him and make him wander the Gold Kingdom. I shall leave the judgment to the people of the Gold Kingdom."
Now that hatred toward alchemists reached the heavens, the creator of alchemy would die stoned by the people.
The king of the Gold Kingdom, Yuria Elik, looked down at Demo with cold eyes and pronounced his death sentence.
---
Yes. I felt it. This memory resembled the past memory I had seen in the depths of the Bottomless Abyss.
There is such a thing as residual consciousness. When a human who has reached a high realm dies, the magical power and qi they accumulated in life continue to linger even after death. Occasionally, they forcibly move their bodies, reproducing habits from when they were alive.
Whether through cremation or burial, if funeral rites are performed, or if the corpse is damaged and cannot maintain its form, the residual consciousness also disappears. But if the original form is maintained through some means, it continues to remain. Like at the bottom of the Bottomless Abyss.
And... like this Golden Palace.
If there's a question, it's why I'm sensing King Elik's consciousness instead of the Golden Mirror.
"Tir. How is it? Do you feel something... Tir?"
Huh? Where did my bodyguard go?
She was definitely beside me and we walked here together, but she disappeared at some point. What is this? Reading her thoughts, it seems she's somewhere nearby.
More than that... something is strange.
We pushed through the cornfield, so why is there an open space?
No matter how full of tall corn it was, when I was approaching just now, there was no such wide clearing. Beyond the corn, the only thing visible was more corn. But after passing the Fury Association Head and crossing just one row of corn, a clearing suddenly appeared.
It was an idyllic scene. A large village hall doubling as a storage shed was visible. There was no decoration whatsoever, but that made it all the more endearing. Behind it was a low hill, and behind that, a stream trickled by. The sound of the waterwheel turning was loud.
A rural landscape that could be found anywhere.
Naturally, it was not visible from outside. It felt as if I had come to another world.
As I looked around, farmers walked out from the cornfield behind me, pushing through the stalks.
Farmers carrying armfuls of corn headed toward the storage shed. Without a word, they filled it with corn, then went back to pick more. Like worker ants.
However, I couldn't sense their presence. Their thoughts couldn't be read either.
Because all of them working here were homunculi.
"N-Now, you! How did you get to the Golden Palace!"
Amidst this, an old man wearing a straw hat looked at me with an expression of shock. It was Hekto, the Suppression Association Head. As expected, this person was connected to the Golden Palace.
'How did you get here! It shouldn't even be visible from outside!'
Seeing as his thoughts are readable, this person is the original. I read your thoughts and came here.
"You said you'd give me a day's grace! This is a breach of contract!"
"Huh? What are you talking about? I was looking around the cornfield and drifted here by chance, and this is the Golden Palace?"
"Wha...!"
The flustered Hekto soon gathered his thoughts and shouted.
"Don't lie! In this vast cornfield, you found the Golden Palace guarded by a Guardian precisely, and you call it chance? Don't spout such nonsense!"
As expected, his mind works quickly. But so what? What can you do about it? Other than stubbornly insisting it's a lie, what can you do? If you can't prove it, then it's the truth.
"It's really a coincidence. I simply arrived here while scouting. If you had obediently revealed the location of the Golden Palace, I wouldn't have come even by chance."
"The moment you were scouting, you intended to come here!"