Chapter 70 - The Path of Pride
“...Considering the gravity of the situation, the kingdom hereby grants you a secret mission. Find a path to the deepest reaches of the Demonic Forest and establish contact with the Estarians. We understand this will take time. We also understand that this is not a task that can be completed within a single lifetime. Therefore, this secret mission is issued as a royal decree to be fulfilled by you and your descendants. His Majesty the King has granted royal approval for the exploration of the Demonic Forest. This is an official document bearing the royal seal and name. A secret messenger will deliver it to you. With this, you and your knightly house have become a special family to the kingdom. To put it plainly, while you will remain publicly a vassal of the high countess’s house as a knightly house, your family will now be directly subordinate to the kingdom. The high countess’s house is aware of this, which is why the second son of your knightly house has become her spouse. Regular reports on the progress of the Demonic Forest exploration must be submitted to the Prime Minister’s office. That is all.”
The directive from the Prime Minister’s office made the gravity of the situation impossible to ignore. Less than a month after the Prime Minister concluded his covert inspection of the frontier and returned to the capital, a special secret messenger—a royal guard directly serving the King—delivered a lengthy handwritten order from the Prime Minister and a royal decree from His Majesty granting approval for the exploration of the Demonic Forest to the Fortress.
The surrounding circumstances had been solidified, and I was given no right to refuse. It was said that the King himself had declared the exploration of the Demonic Forest essential for the kingdom’s peace. The role had been assigned to me. And fulfilling it to the best of my ability would directly contribute to the peace of our homeland. In silence, I accepted this duty.
――――
I was in my office, attending to my daily tasks. It was a quiet time. Stacks of documents brought from the main estate were piled high on my desk. As the commander of the Guerilla Unit, my responsibilities extended beyond wandering the Demonic Forest. Though my status was modest, I belonged to the noble class. The villages, the town, and the governance of our homeland were also part of the duties entrusted to our knightly house.
As the third son, I, too, was a member of this knightly house. Therefore, it was only natural that I should shoulder a portion of these duties. The only thing I disliked was how much time it consumed. The sound of my writing instrument scratching across the documents filled the quiet office.
Though my hands were busy, my mind was a whirlwind of thoughts and ideas. Parallel thinking was something I had been drilled on relentlessly at the Magic Academy. Even as I carried out my duties, I could feel the breadth of my thoughts expanding.
...The series of significant events that began that day. The unbreakable promise with the Prime Minister, who resided far away in the capital. Even so, I myself could not handle this alone, and even my superior, the heir, would find it impossible. No, this matter was too great for a frontier knightly house.
Under normal circumstances, this would be a matter for the kingdom’s official institutions to handle directly. However, we had been ordered to keep it secret. The Prime Minister had judged that the more people involved, the harder it would be to control the situation. As a result, the responsibility fell solely on me.
Yes, by becoming the person in charge of the Demonic Forest exploration, I had been given a reason to remain tied to my homeland.
Yes, all information regarding the slaves captured and exploited by the imperial army during that campaign had been deeply concealed. Following that, the Prime Minister’s request was for me to document the results of the Demonic Forest exploration in report form. Interaction with the Estarians race remained an uncharted experience for us humans.
Communication might prove impossible, and hostility was a real possibility. Moreover, it was safe to assume that they possessed unknown powers. After all, they lived in the deepest reaches of the Demonic Forest. That much was predictable.
At worst, the Prime Minister might even wish to pretend that our encounter with them never happened. The Estarians’ appearance closely resembled what scholars in the capital imagined demon-folk to look like. If the situation were made public without restraint, the reactions of the nobility and the neighboring kingdoms’ aristocrats would be unpredictable.
This was not a place where foreign royals or high-ranking officials could be brought en masse. Even if forced, there was no way to guarantee their absolute safety. If such esteemed individuals were harmed, even accidentally, perceptions of the Estarians would immediately turn negative. Therefore, their existence had to remain classified information for now.
Furthermore, there were too many mysteries surrounding the Estarians. The Estarian elders deemed the wisdom and technology of the so-called ancient Estar too advanced for us. Until we could independently explore the deepest reaches of the forest, this wisdom and technology had to remain hidden.
The words of the Estarian elders—We wove the Demonic Forest into this world—echoed in the historical records and myths of humans. They also appeared frequently in the fairy tales passed down among the people of various nations. Whether this was fact or fiction was irrelevant. Many archaeologists were still searching for the truth, believing that these tales contained truths beyond mere allegories.
For this reason, it was easy to imagine the Estarians being viewed as demons (TL/N: Changed “magic-folk” to “demon”). Humans have a tendency to exclude what is different. They harbor prejudice against those who look or possess powers unlike their own. The fact that noble status was guaranteed by the amount of internal mana one possessed was related to this. Another example was the light skin, silver hair, and deep blue eyes common among the northern nations. These regional traits had led to northerners being labeled as barbarians in our kingdom, especially after the numerous wars, including the recent campaign.
However, they were still humans. Northerners, centralers, southerners, easterners, westerners... Though their appearances differed, they were all humans. Therefore, cultural exchange through dialogue and interaction was possible. But the Estarians were different. Their appearance was too distinct from humans. Even their lifespans were vastly different.
I believed that their long, incredibly long lives spent in an environment saturated with dense mana had caused them to fundamentally diverge and evolve from humans. This conclusion was likely influenced by my memories of a past life. It could be described as an extreme form of Galapagosization. Simply put, the knowledge of what was called evolutionary theory had been ingrained in my soul as common sense.
A shared origin, but a different path of evolution. Similar but different. Though rooted in the same source, they were no longer the same. Two beings whose evolutionary paths had been shaped by their environments. I imagined that mana had accelerated this process over tens of thousands of years. Considering the difference between magical beasts and ordinary animals, the answer became clear. No, the distinction between livestock and magical beasts was even more apparent.
Livestock, no matter how many generations were bred, would never become magical beasts. However, there was an exception. In a village at the edge of the forest where poultry was raised, such a case had occurred. The village chief, wary of night thieves and bandits, built a poultry shed in the shallow layer of the Demonic Forest. However, it was discovered that within a few generations of breeding, the eggs hatched into bird-type magical beasts. The chicks grew rapidly, reaching adulthood in no time. They quickly devoured the chickens in the shed and began attacking people. The village chief, realizing the gravity of the situation, reportedly informed the feudal lord.
Now, building livestock sheds within the Demonic Forest was strictly forbidden.
Therefore, it was almost certain that the Estarians had diverged from the human race. The deepest reaches of the forest were believed to have a mana concentration beyond imagination. This had been confirmed when the Guerilla Unit reached the entrance to the Middle Forest. As a base and a meeting place with the Estarian girl, the hut atop the waterfall was undeniably in an exceptional location.
The flowing water carried away the ambient mana, making it possible to stay there. Otherwise, the mana concentration in that area would be toxic to humans. It could cause various health issues similar to Mana Intoxication, akin to the rare disease Mana Overload seen within the kingdom. Staying in such a place for long was impossible.
Therefore, exploration beyond the Middle Forest had to be approached with caution.
Comments
Post a Comment