Whoooosh!
The bright light vanished, and I came to see the world through Sof’s eyes.
Since Sof would never have come to Earth, I hadn’t expected to see the past of the Antarctic ruins. But the sight before me was far different from what I had imagined.
What lay before my eyes now was not a terraforming ruin similar to the Antarctic ruins, but a tall white mountain surrounded by a vast lake.
The mountain, standing alone like a tower, was extraordinarily beautiful, yet somehow bleak.
It was a sight I had never seen before, but I knew at once where that mountain was.
That mountain was the Sanctuary.
The place where I had recently detonated a nuclear bomb, and the place where the Demon King was sealed.
In reality, the lake had dried up, and the snow on the mountain had turned gray, so the impression had been completely different. Even so, I recognized it at a glance.
This was the place guarded by those who served the prophets called Saintesses, the sacred mountain said to touch the stars.
Before the Demon King was sealed, the Sanctuary was exceedingly beautiful.
However, the words that came from my mouth were entirely different.
“The Sanctuary has been ruined.”
Those were not my words, but Sof’s.
At first, I was puzzled, but as I followed his gaze, I understood what he meant.
The lake water, which should have been clear, had turned red.
And on the reddened lake floated countless corpses.
“So many dead. Was no one able to escape?”
As Sof murmured while looking at the bodies, Shamara spoke in a sorrowful voice.
“I doubt anyone ran away. They were all people who had sworn to protect this Sanctuary.”
At his lover’s words, Sof shook his head.
“How foolish. They must have already known they couldn’t stop the Demon King.”
At Sof’s words, Shamara smiled at him. It was the same sorrowful smile as before.
“Even if they knew, they would have had no choice but to stop him. Just like you.”
At her words, Sof turned his head as if he had not heard.
Sof used magic to examine the entire lake.
There were even more corpses sunk beneath the lake than there were floating on its surface.
The corpses in the lake now were the very corpses I had seen in reality.
The mummies that had burst out of the ground and attacked me.
Those mummies had been these corpses, transformed after being buried in the lake.
Shamara began to pray for the dead believers, and Sof looked up at the white mountain.
The place where Sof stood was far closer to the mountain than where I had approached in reality.
Naturally, I could not sense the shield surrounding the Sanctuary, either.
After finishing his conversation with Shamara, Sof looked up at the Sanctuary, and his silent companions began to speak.
“We’ve come this far in the end.”
“I suppose now is the time to settle this.”
The young mage Esh spoke with a sigh, and the combat relic user Gibor tightened the straps of his gauntlets again.
Gibor had thus steeled himself before the Sanctuary, but the mage Jafmel, who was beside him, interrupted him with an utterly off-topic remark.
“It is not a conclusion, but a beginning. Sealing the Demon King will not be easy, but even afterward, there will be no end of work to do.”
It was not wrong, but it was also a remark that rather spoiled the mood.
Gibor could not bring himself to refute him, but another mage took issue with his words.
“The Tower Master may have a great deal to do in the future, but once we seal the Demon King, I’m going to rest for a long time.”
At Esh’s objection, Jafmel said curtly,
“I am only the next Tower Master for now. It is a position I took because there was no one else, so once the Demon King is sealed, there will surely be plenty of people who want it.”
“Will there really?”
“You brat!”
He swung his staff at Esh, but Esh had already dodged far away.
While the companions chattered off to one side like that, Shamara’s prayer came to an end.
She thanked the companions for waiting, and the group immediately began climbing the mountain.
The cave leading into the interior where the Sanctuary lay was halfway up the mountain.
The cave entrance was large enough to be seen from below the mountain, but there was quite a distance to climb before reaching the slope where it was located.
As they climbed toward the midpoint, the surrounding environment gradually began to change.
It had not been apparent from afar, but now that they were walking, it became clear that the snow was changing.
Its surface was white, but the snow inside their footprints had turned gray.
And it was not only the snow that had changed.
The snow-covered trees and grasses had all dried up and died.
Seeing the snow’s color change, Esh shook his head.
“Such contamination... Unlike other monsters, can the Demon King contaminate the world itself?”
“Monsters transform dark energy, so naturally it would affect the world as well.”
Even after Jafmel’s answer, Esh did not let go of his doubt.
“But it makes no sense for the environment to change like this just because dark energy has been altered.”
Perhaps because he had created a spirit to manage the ice star, Esh understood the environment far more accurately.
“That is...”
This time, even Jafmel could not find an answer.
Just then, Shamara spoke.
“That is because the Demon King contaminated the Sanctuary.”
“The environment changes because the Sanctuary was contaminated?”
At the unexpected words, Esh asked her again.
“Yes. Because the Sanctuary is this planet’s main terraforming facility.”
Her answer surprised me as well.
“The Sanctuary is a terraforming ruin?”
Esh must have been surprised too, because the question immediately flew from his mouth.
“Yes. As you know, the Sanctuary is the place most closely connected to the planet’s power. Mages—no, we humans—would never have left such a place alone.”
Shamara looked up at the mountain and continued.
“The prophets of old and the Magic Kingdom built a terraforming facility in the Sanctuary. The largest and most powerful facility on this planet. And the prophets and believers have protected this terraforming facility for many long years.”
Shamara’s words resolved the questions I had held until now.
The ruins I had seen had been far too small to terraform this vast planet.
Moreover, even after that terraforming ruin had been restarted, the planet had not changed much.
Only the west of the mountain range, and even then only the areas around the ruins and the lake base, had changed.
I had kept finding that strange, and now I finally understood why.
“Was that also why the kingdom left the religion that followed the Saintess alone?”
Jafmel, apparently unaware of the circumstances as well, asked with a bewildered expression.
Sof answered in her place.
“It was one of the reasons.”
“Wait, you knew as well? Even I, the next Tower Master, did not know.”
Jafmel protested to Sof, but Sof did not so much as blink.
“I am an archmage, after all. Once you remove that ‘next’ label, you will hear of it too.”
At his smugness, Shamara told the truth.
“It wasn’t because he was an archmage. I told him.”
“I thought as much. Archmage, my foot.”
After hearing Shamara’s answer, Jafmel snorted at Sof.
At his snort, Sof shook his head, and the group climbed the mountain with smiles on their faces.
A short while later, the group arrived at the cave entrance halfway up the mountain.
The cave entrance, which must once have looked magnificent, had been badly damaged by battle.
The pillars were cracked, and dried blood was caked here and there.
An eerie wind flowed out from within the cave.
Wooooong!
The atmosphere they had forcibly lifted while climbing sank coldly.
But the group no longer made jokes.
Now they had to enter the Sanctuary to meet the Demon King.
Instead of joking, the group prepared to fight.
The mages prepared their spells, and the combat relic user checked his relics once more.
Esh, who had likewise been examining the inside of the cave, frowned.
“It seems the contamination inside is extremely severe. Even the wind is foul.”
It was exactly as he said. The wind blowing out from inside the cave was not ordinary.
Crackle!
The moment the wind touched the mages, sparks burst forth.
The contaminated dark energy contained in the wind was colliding with the mages’ energy.
If even the wind flowing out was like this...
Inside had to be a hellish place where humans could not live.
Of course, the mages could endure it if they spread shields, but shields had a time limit.
However, no one worried about that.
Sof stepped forward.
He raised his staff, then chanted an incantation.
“Let the earth be green, the air be clear, and the water be clean. Purification!”
It was an incantation that sounded somewhat like a children’s environmental protection slogan, but the magic was properly cast.
Swaaaaah!
The sparks vanished, and the contaminated air became clean.
The snow beneath the group’s feet turned white again.
The surrounding area had been purified by Sof’s magic.
The purified area was not wide, but it was enough to protect the entire group.
After confirming the domain of the magic, Sof said to the group,
“Let’s go in.”
With his words, the group of mages stepped into the cave.
Whoooosh!
Once again, the world turned white.
The memory had ended.
When the light disappeared, I was back inside the underground Antarctic ruins.
My hand was still resting on the shelf.
An empty stone chamber, where only the light from the spearhead illuminated the surroundings.
Lowering the hand I had placed on the shelf, I spoke to Sof.
“So the Sanctuary served as a terraforming ruin. I suppose you didn’t remember that either?”
[Now I know for certain. My memories were not erased by the passage of time. Someone forcibly erased them.]
Unlike me, who was surprised by the fact that the Sanctuary was a terraforming ruin, Sof was pondering his own memories.
[There must be some rule governing how I regain my memories as well.]
I had thought this before, but it was not only his memories that were restricted.
Sof was far smarter than I was.
It made no sense for someone like him to realize that something was strange about his memories later than I did.
What he now found strange was something I had been feeling for a long time.
But this time as well, I had no intention of telling him anything.
This time, I too understood it clearly.
The process by which he lost and regained his memories was proceeding according to someone’s plan, and it was for Sof’s sake and mine.
If not, there was no way I would have been shown Sof’s memories now.
I said to Sof,
“You can withdraw the shield now.”
At my words, Sof made no objection at all and immediately withdrew the shield.
The moment the shield disappeared, air filled with carbon dioxide and methane rushed in.
Naturally, I could not breathe, but I calmly called the magic to mind.
Magic that would break down carbon dioxide and methane to create oxygen, cleanse dirty water, and restore contaminated earth.
As I brought the magic to mind, a magic circle was drawn in my head, and formulas combined.
A complex magic circle filled my mind, and formulas piled up like a tower.
At the moment when all the formulas and the magic circle were complete, I chanted the incantation.
[Let the world be clear and clean. Purification!]
I could feel Sof grumbling when he heard my incantation, but it was still better than his.
In any case, the magic was cast with the incantation.
Shwaaaak!
The air changed so that I could breathe, and the murky smell disappeared.
The temperature became just right, and even the grime that had been stuck to the walls was nowhere to be seen.
It was all thanks to the purification magic I had revived after ten thousand years—the terraforming magic.
Antarctic Escape (1)