We crossed the vast plain, went over the hills, and entered once more onto a mountain path thick with trees.
The terrain was fairly rugged, and since we were climbing a pathless mountain, our pace slowed more than expected.
We hadn’t originally planned to come this way, but after hearing that war might break out in the place we’d meant to head toward, we changed our route.
If war broke out, it would become difficult to leave the city, so there was no other choice.
“Get on my back for a bit.”
“Yes.”
We came upon a rocky cliff, so I floated the backpack with telekinesis magic and carried Iliana on my back.
Then I concentrated mana into my legs and quickly climbed the cliff, hopping from rock to rock.
Iliana could now manage basic physical reinforcement, but not enough to leap several times her own height.
Of course, Cassian, as if it were only natural, bounded up the cliff at almost the same speed as me.
Around this time last year, he’d had to crawl up things like this. It was tremendous progress.
As soon as Cassian reached the top of the cliff, he looked down for a moment before opening his mouth.
“By the way, Master.”
“Hm?”
“Can’t we just fly? You could teach us some kind of flying magic.”
I wondered what he was talking about, and it turned out to be flight magic.
“You can’t learn that yet.”
“Why? That witch named Edel flew around just fine…”
“That’s because she’s lived a long time.”
Flight magic looked simple, as though one were merely floating their body in the air, but it required extremely advanced technique.
“Don’t you remember how you nearly died after practicing body-warming magic however you pleased?”
It was like continuously maintaining a weak heat through magic.
If one couldn’t continue to finely control the mana acting on the entire body, something could break, or in severe cases, be torn off.
For that part, either one had to spend time and effort getting used to it, or else simply raise one’s realm to the point where manipulating mana was easier than breathing.
The problem was that wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
For reference, in my case, it had been the former. And the bit about something being torn off came from experience.
I hadn’t even been able to handle mana properly back then, so why had I been in such a hurry? Thinking back on it now, it had been unbelievably stupid…
“I’ll teach you whether you like it or not in about three years, so don’t worry.”
“Tch.”
◇
Tap, patter.
“Ah, rain.”
The weather, which had been clear until morning, gradually clouded over, and dark clouds began scattering raindrops one by one.
When I looked up at the sky, it was dyed gray from one end to the other.
“What do we do?”
“It might start coming down harder, so for now, let’s find some shade—”
Shaaaaaaa—
Before I could even finish speaking, the raindrops abruptly grew thicker, and in an instant, a deluge poured down, covering everything around us.
“Ah, it’s cold…!”
The raindrops were so heavy that they pierced right through even the outerwear that would have repelled a light rain.
The one fortunate thing was that, thanks to the uneven terrain around us, it was easy to find a place to avoid the rain.
“Master, there’s a cave over there!”
When I looked where Cassian was pointing, I did indeed see the entrance to a cave, roomy enough for more than five people to enter.
We hurried into the cave, being pelted by the rain falling through the leaves.
Since wearing wet clothes would make our body temperatures drop even further, we immediately lit a fire, took off our outerwear, and hung it up to dry.
“Uuuugh, it’s cold.”
“Summer is already pretty much over.”
There was still time before winter arrived, but it was cold enough when rain fell like this.
Especially when our bodies were even slightly wet like this, never mind being inside a building.
Perhaps because he was cold, Cassian couldn’t stay still. He even ignored the campfire and began wandering around the cave.
“Still, it’s a relief we found a cave like this… Huh?”
“What is it?”
“Master, look at this. There’s something inside.”
I approached Cassian and examined the place he was pointing to. Through a narrow gap deeper inside the cave, just barely wide enough to pass through, I could see a silhouette like a stone statue.
It didn’t look particularly spacious, so I created a small light and floated it inside.
Then a stone statue slightly smaller than Iliana, along with what looked like a half-broken altar in front of it, revealed itself.
“…What is that?”
Iliana, who had somehow come up behind us to look as well, asked.
“It looks like a shrine that worships a god. And a rather old one at that.”
Though calling it a shrine was generous, as it was a shabby thing consisting of nothing more than a single stone statue and a single altar.
“A god? You mean that god the church talks about?”
“No, obviously not that god. You could call it a local deity, I suppose.”
The only true god remaining in this world now was the god worshipped by the church, but the gods people believed in were quite varied.
In remote places where the church’s influence was weak, even spirits that were merely a little stronger than usual were often worshipped as gods.
Or, in the case of transcendent beings, there were instances where only the great deeds they had performed in the distant past remained, causing them to be regarded as gods.
Gods did exist, but fundamentally, faith was a concept that could take shape even if the god did not exist, or even if it was false.
“I think I can get through…”
Cassian pushed his body in to try going inside. He got a little stuck, but he made it through without issue.
Since Cassian had been able to enter, Iliana and I also passed through easily, though it was narrow.
When I examined the stone statue up close, I found that it had an appearance that made it impossible to tell whether it was male or female.
Judging by its outward appearance, it also seemed quite young.
I thought it might be the sort of being like a spirit, without gender, whose appearance barely changed no matter how much time passed.
Or perhaps it was simply an imaginary being carved into stone.
“Teacher. Here, I think something is written.”
“Where?”
When I looked at the place Iliana pointed to, though it was badly worn, there was indeed something written there.
“…I don’t know.”
The problem was that I couldn’t read it either.
I had seen the script itself before, but even that was distorted here and there, and crucially, it was a language I didn’t know.
Unless it was from a very ancient era, there shouldn’t have been any languages I didn’t know.
“Even you don’t know, Master?”
“It’s not as if I know everything.”
Still, a god worshipped by people who used a language that even I had forgotten.
I placed my hand on the stone statue and slowly, gently stroked it from top to bottom.
It was hard, and perhaps because it was inside a cave, it had suffered almost no damage. Even so, it had no sharp edges and was blunt, making me feel the passage of time.
A stone statue at least several thousand years old.
It had surely spent long ages forgotten.
I did not know whether the being that served as the original model for this statue still remained, but I felt a little sorry for it.
From the pouch at my waist, I took out a few berries I had picked while climbing the mountain earlier and placed them on the broken altar.
Then I clasped my hands together, closed my eyes for a moment, and opened them again.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s simple, but I’m holding a rite. Even if I don’t believe, it carries the meaning of remembering.”
“Ah, then me too.”
“I-I want to as well.”
Cassian and Iliana went outside for a moment, then returned carrying dried bread and a few pieces of jerky.
Then they placed them on the altar and closed their eyes with me in prayer.
So that, across the long ages, it might be remembered again, if only briefly.
…Of course, we took back the things we’d placed on the altar and cleanly ate them all.
It would have been a waste if they rotted.
◇
Morning.
When I looked outside, the rain had stopped at some point, and the sky was clear and blue without a single cloud.
After finishing a simple breakfast, we were preparing to set off again when Cassian rummaged through the auxiliary backpack, and something suddenly popped out from inside and rolled across the ground.
What had fallen was a single sheet of paper, slightly wet and folded up in a crumpled mess.
“Ah.”
As if he had forgotten about it, Cassian stared at the paper for a while, then handed it to me.
“What is this?”
“The witch asked me to give this to you, but I forgot.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know? I read it, but I couldn’t tell what it was. She said you’d be able to read it, Master.”
I tilted my head and unfolded the crumpled paper.
And I immediately understood why Cassian had been unable to read it.
—〈To the great Redeemer of Humanity, this lowly witch, Edel Pol Larsent, reports. I…〉
Because it was written in the script of an ancient empire that had disappeared long, long ago.
Amid the insane chaos of that age, not even ruins or anything of the sort had remained, but it was still used among witches.
However, separate from the fact that it was written in archaic Imperial, the contents of the letter were nothing special.
About a third of it was incoherent rambling about who she was and what kind of magic she could use.
The rest was not particularly useful either.
Toward the very end, perhaps because she had much to write but little space left, the writing grew smaller and smaller, which was almost enough to make me laugh.
Cute, one might say.
Then, with about three lines left at the end, my eyes stopped on a single sentence.
—〈…Furthermore, seven years ago, I witnessed a fully grown black dragon, the likes of which I had never seen before, heading south. I believe this to be a serious violation of the covenant, and…〉
I narrowed my eyes and read the sentence once more.
A dragon.
And a fully grown adult one at that.
Come to think of it, I hadn’t kept discipline among them for the past few hundred years.
I would have to remember this.