MacGuffin No. 081?
Judging by the number alone, it was being treated as more important than even 『No.101 / Demonic Sword and the Sun Priestess』, or 『No.94 / God-Slaying』 which contained the essence of the Dearside school.
Meteor Gold was the material that composed the Dragon-Slaying Sword Plebelziam, the biggest piece of foreshadowing in Reca Chronicles. From the very beginning, this was no ordinary story.
I looked at the Emperor expectantly.
“The spiritual entities born from the meteorite were not evil beings to begin with. They were originally close to Great Spirits. However, as time passed, they eventually fell and became what they are now. The purification barrier beneath the capital was designed with the intention of removing the evil energy they had acquired after the fact and returning them to their original form.”
“…I see. Do you also know why the demons from the meteorite fell?”
“Unfortunately, the line of research was cut off three hundred years ago. Back then, the emperor at the time chose to focus on nurturing talented spirit mages rather than pouring money into further research, and the purification barrier stopped developing. To maintain secrecy, all the researchers were executed. As time went on, naturally, there came to be sections in the research records that could no longer be interpreted. Therefore, even I do not know any further details.”
“Hmm…”
Seeing me fall into thought, he added,
“…I’m not sure if it’s related to what you’re curious about, but there is one thing that bothers me.”
“What is it?”
“Master Stroke, you sent a letter containing information that the head of the Schnifelt family had made a move against our imperial family. That means you also know about those who rebelled against the Dragon God a thousand years ago, doesn’t it?”
“You’re referring to the faction led by the Schnifelt family—the ‘rebels’?”
The Emperor nodded.
“It’s merely my own inference after cross-referencing the founder’s research notes with various documents… but throughout the documents, there were passages that hinted the demons from the meteorite were among those rebels. It would be reasonable to assume they are connected in some way.”
“The documents you cross-referenced—were they perhaps the Dragon God Scripture?”
“That is correct.”
[MacGuffin No. 280 / 『Secret of the Dragon God Scripture』 has been recovered.]
[Achievement Points + 2,000]
In truth, I had already suspected that the Dragon God Cathedrals were deeply connected to demons in some form. After all, one of their scriptures, the Dragon God Scripture, contained detailed records of all sixty-six demons.
“That is all I know.”
Emperor Eliodoro fell silent after those words. It seemed I had obtained everything I could from this place.
“…It was an informative meeting.”
We quietly rose from our seats.
Then we left the mansion without anyone noticing.
There was a lot of new information.
But there were even more questions that had branched out from it.
…Let’s organize this.
According to the Emperor, the demons from the meteorite who had joined the rebels had fallen for some reason.
And Irumokwi, who was well-versed in ancient history, had mentioned things like “host” and “corruption” after seeing Plebelziam during the previous battle. That had happened during the decisive fight against the Praszkeak Guild. It was impossible not to suspect that there was some connection between Plebelziam and demons.
I took out the modified magic lamp (S) from my robe and spoke to it casually.
“Hey, Irumokwi.”
= What is it?
“Back during the last fight, you said something after seeing Epio and Plebelziam. About corruption or whatever. What exactly did you mean by that?”
= Aww, were you curious about that? If you kill me, I’ll go back to the main body and tell you everything directly.
“………”
Without a word, I wrapped the magic cloth around the lamp again.
Although I had the clone of Irumokwi who had made that remark in my possession, a clone was still just a clone. Unfortunately, even if I used Sinisha’s 『Redial (U)』, I couldn’t read memories from before it had separated from the main body.
That meant I had no choice but to keep making inferences with the information I currently had.
- Plebelziam is a Dragon-Slaying Sword.
- And originally, it was (probably) a Demonic Dragon.
- It also has a strange connection with the Sun Priestess.
- At the same time, it is related to demons.
- After becoming a sword, it has “corrupted” many “hosts.”
“…No, just what the hell is this thing’s true identity?”
The demonic sword Plebelziam.
Even in the original story, where not much detail had been revealed, it had been a mysterious existence. But now that I had entered the novel myself, it felt like an onion that kept revealing more layers no matter how much I peeled. At this point, it was clearly connected in some way to the most important piece of foreshadowing, 『MacGuffin No.001』.
No matter what, from now on, I would have to prioritize gathering information about Plebelziam above all else.
The vacation I had enjoyed for the first time since leaving home had come to an end.
After returning to the clan house, I headed to the office under Camillo’s guidance.
“These are the documents that require the Master’s approval.”
“…There really is a mountain of them.”
Most matters could be handled at the discretion of Camillo, who was in charge of finances, or Lei, the Sub-Master. However, there were cases where the Seal of Utility, which symbolized the Clan Master, was absolutely necessary. Normally there weren’t many such matters, but because the Blispiel Clan had been rapidly expanding its influence recently, I had quite a lot to do.
“At least it’s a relief that I just need to stamp them and move on….”
It was simple labor that only required mechanical hand movements. With Chesa’s help, who could imitate my mana wavelength through 『Wings of the Firebird (S-)』, I stayed up for several nights and managed to process all the documents safely.
While the two of us were resting after finishing the work, Linia entered the office.
“Master. It seems the guests will be arriving soon.”
“Guests? Who?”
“They are envoys from the beastkin tribe. They have come all the way here from Safaria in person.”
“Ah… I did receive word in advance.”
A few days after receiving that report, I led several clan members to the entrance of the free neutral city. There, we welcomed the delegation sent by the beastkin kingdom of Safaria.
The one who stepped forward as their representative was a middle-aged man with cat ears on his head.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, everyone from Blispiel. My name is Dno Wi Gates, Foreign Minister of Safaria.”
“I am Aiden Stroke, Clan Master of Blispiel. We will treat you comfortably.”
“I’m not sure how to respond to such a warm welcome.”
Afterward, we headed together to the conference room inside the clan house. Dno, seated as the representative of the beastkin tribe, cleared his throat and spoke.
“We have heard the story from the envoys of the Glicia Kingdom. To get straight to the point, we would like to receive custody of the ‘witch’ Aliki.”
“Hmm…”
The beastkin tribes of Safaria each served two leaders.
The ‘Chieftain,’ who was the practical leader of the tribe.
And the ‘Yonyeo’ (燎女), who was the symbolic leader.
Sotiros’s father, the Tiger King, was the chieftain of the Tiger Tribe, one of the many tribes. On the other hand, Aliki was the Yonyeo of the Cat Tribe.
According to the setting materials, it was an unprecedented event for an outstanding Yonyeo like Aliki to flee from Safaria.
There was some background to this. After awakening to the Soul Imprint 『Fanatic Brainwashing (U)』, Aliki had attempted to brainwash the entire Cat Tribe and turn them into her personal subordinates who would only serve her.
Of course, the attempt had failed, and Aliki ended up fleeing from Safaria’s executioners. It was then that Hagel discovered her and brought her into the Dragon Horse Cult.
Hagel had promised that one day he would steal the national treasure 『Dragon God’s Tear (S+)』 and place the tribe leaders beneath Aliki’s feet.
Of course, that promise had not been fulfilled in either this history or the original one.
After pretending to think for a moment, I opened my mouth.
“Very well. However, in exchange for handing her over, our clan would like to receive exploration rights to ruins within Safaria.”
“Ruins, you say? Are you perhaps referring to the recently discovered ‘Path of a Hundred Beasts’?”
“Ah, I’m not talking about ruins that have already been discovered and are being prepared for exploration. If other ruins are discovered in the future, I would like to exclusively choose one and obtain the exploration rights for it.”
Safaria was a region where quite a few Magitech Empire-era ruins were discovered. Since high-value items were often found inside them, my request wasn’t something difficult to understand.
After pondering for a while, Dno asked,
“It might be possible if we attach a time limit. It would be troublesome if Master Stroke’s descendants were to claim ownership of the ruins hundreds of years later. We’ll have to think about what would be an appropriate period…”
“Let’s make it twenty years.”
Dno’s eyebrows twitched at my preemptive strike. With a flustered expression, he cleared his throat and said,
“Safaria is a land of gold where many ruins are discovered. Twenty years is an absurdly long time. A much shorter period would be… yes, how about five years?”
“That’s far too short. Let’s go with fifteen years.”
“Ugh…!”
Dno showed signs of agitation.
Watching him, I smiled inwardly.
Because the Cat Tribe had produced a traitor like Aliki, I was deliberately taking a hardline stance in front of the other tribe members. He probably wanted to successfully lead the negotiations and raise his tribe’s standing within Safaria, even if only a little.
But it would be problematic if the negotiations completely broke down.
After rolling his eyes, Dno carefully spoke.
“Ten… four years…”
“Let’s make it thirteen years. We can’t afford to make any more concessions on our end. There are plenty of forces that want custody of the Dragon Horse Cult’s Vice-leader. We could always negotiate with them and receive compensation instead.”
While it was widely known that Blispiel had defeated the Dragon Horse Cult, almost no one knew that the Vice-leader who had been a Yonyeo of the Cat Tribe.
If Aliki’s custody were handed over to another force, this information would inevitably spread, and it would damage Safaria’s reputation.
It was the situation the beastkin wanted to avoid the most.
“…Haa…”
Letting out a groan, Dno eventually nodded weakly. In the end, the agreed exploration rights period was set at thirteen years.
“…I will report the details of today’s negotiations separately to the Beast King. Please visit Safaria whenever you wish.”
“I’ll be counting on you.”
Having suffered a setback, the beastkin delegation stayed in Elanore for two days before departing.
In truth, the ruin I wanted would be discovered within the next year. Even so, I had deliberately set generous conditions to avoid giving the impression that I could “see the future.”
I had already achieved far too many successes.
Still, it hadn’t yet reached a level without precedent in history. Thanks to that, I was still only receiving looks of envy and admiration. But if this continued to intensify, those gazes would soon turn into suspicion. If it became known that I possessed something like prophetic dreams, I would become a target of caution.
It was important to always know where to draw the line.
Later, while several clan members living in Elanore were gathered together chatting amicably, Plebelziam spoke to me.
[…Hey. You’re not seriously thinking of meeting that woman behind those animal-eared bastards, are you?]
“Why wouldn’t I? Unlike other people, you should know exactly what it means for information to reach the Beast King, Plebelziam.”
F…
[Tsk… I’m going to have to see that damn face again.]
Plebelziam spat out a curse.
Even within beastkin society, only some of the upper echelons knew this fact, but standing behind the Beast King was an existence that wielded tremendous power.
The shadow ruler of Safaria—the Earth Priestess.
Beastkin society had produced the symbol of the ‘Earth Cathedral,’ a faction that had followed the Dragon God for generations, and they had enjoyed wealth and glory under the divine power she possessed.
“When we visit Safaria in the future, I’ll arrange a place to negotiate with the Earth Priestess.”
By recruiting Hagel, we had secured the basic pieces. It was about time to start preparing the bait and traps to properly bring the Schnifelt family into our fold.