Tanaka looked straight at the girl’s back as if he was unsecured about what the girl’s intention was. Apparently, her name was Myulo, a sage of the forest. She told the three about the giant being the guardian of the forest that she assigned. It was meant to keep dangerous men out.
“Where are you taking us?”
Tanaka finally asked after it bothered him for hours. Myulo stopped on her tracks and looked at him. Yet, the answer was unspoken. She only reached out to her hand to the sky and, suddenly, the wind took a strange path, spiraling towards her hand and exploded. Smoke came out of the explosion of compressed air that it was hard to see. Light drew her sword and prepared for an attack while Charles was just surprised but was not doing anything.
In this situation, both the two have already readied themselves as they observe their surroundings.
Tanaka produced a light but he knew that it would not work since smoke was not darkness. He just thought that it could be of use. He was expecting that he would be attacked since the girl was suspicious. Yet the smoke was suddenly cleared and they all saw that Myulo did not move an inch from her standing. But what surprised them was the large large large large masonry wall behind her. It was not just a masonry wall, it was a very large fortess inside a forest!
“What.., is that?”
Light spoke slowly with aghast. The girl grinned and excitedly said,
“My name is Myulo and this fortress is called Myulian Fortress. It is a pleasure to meet you, AntiHero,”
Tanaka flinched at what she had said. She knew that he was assigned by the so-called goddess as the AntiHero, but why does she know? Perhaps she was also visited by the goddess? That was plausible. He had so many questions but he knew what he had to ask.
“Who are you?”
That question made Myulo smile but not a kind or innocent one, rather a more devilish kind.
“Why don’t we head inside?”
Tanaka did not trust Myulo but he followed her inside. Light and Charles followed them with confusion but still struggling to follow the conversation.
“What are they talking about?”
“Don’t know..,”
“I wonder what she said about being an Ant Hero? Is Tanaka really an insect?”
“May…, be..,”
Light with few knowledge about Tanaka, answered with doubt. Both him and the girl was conversing without Light which made her a little bit pouty.
“I have been researching for the past 2000 years and I know all magic skills that needed to be known,”
“So? I was asking who you were?”
He coldly spoke as Myulo began telling her story. He was a bjt irritated considering he was asking who she was. Suddenly, Light began to squeeze in between the two, hoping that Tanaka would notice him. Tanaka instead scowled at her.
“Those two thousand years I’ve spent became a godsend to now’s technology. Did you know that I was the one whom invented the blue gem?”
She spoke with confidence and pride. Although Tanaka was a bit doubtful, he believed the girl. It was because that the sight he had seen as they walked through the hallway was a bit peculiar. Not only does it seem strange, but the whole fortress walls was covered in blue gems that lit the hallway. He even saw gears that turned every now and then. Of there was anyone here, he would not have believed in the girl, but she was all alone as he could see.
“These machines were built by me. They run through the power of these blue gems like batteries as it provides Magic Power to it. Although blue gems have infinite charge unlike batteries,”
“Hn? I thought blue gems are only to know ones status?”
“Well, there is that.., The concept of that blue gem was to measure the Magic Power released naturally by your body which contains all your body’s identity and to calculate it as a number. Honestly, that kind of use is all a waste on a blue gem,”
Myulo sighed as she put her hand on her forehead. Since Tanaka was new to all this blue gem, he didn’t quite get was she was saying so he had Myulo explain all of that.
Basically, a blue gem is a power source of Mana. While it is like a battery, it has infinite charge since it seeps the mana of the Natural Magical Flow. Since the mana of the natural Magical Flow is poisonous to the human body without their magical flow, Myulo made it so that the poison of the Mana would be filtered out by the blue gem. So to say, blue gems can also be eaten to refill the Mana in the Magical Flow. Thus, it can save the lives of those who lost all of their Mana due to overuse.
Myulo said that she introduced it as that but nobody had used it that way and modified it as to calculate the status of a person. Therefore, the people weren’t able to identify a cure to those who have lost their Mana. Useful as it was, there was a huge setback on the Blue Gem. It is that it does not replace the Mana of the Natural Magical Flow and was a cause on the deteriorating energy to the world. Thus, begun Myulo’s recent research in the Blue Gems. The Blue Gem would work like the respiratory system as such that it could replace the Mana of the Natural Magical Flow. But the problem is that every time Myulo encodes a Magic system, it destroys the Blue Gem.
“Wait, so you have visited the people of this land?”
Charles asked as he had thought that he had never seen her face in the public before. But of course, she had lived a long time which was impossible for a normal human and also without growing old, she might have visited before he was born or when he was young. But to his memory, the blue gem was discovered 900 years ago so it was before he was even born.
“I’m surprised that you’re not surprised that I’ve lived a long time. Also, you haven’t thought of me as a liar,”
Myulo talked as if she had known what they where thinking at all. Well, she was right, to be honest. Tanaka was not doubting her, instead, he was making sure she was not an enemy. Light was also prepared for any slight hostility towards them but it had yet to come or may not come at all.
At the end of the old mossy hallway, they arrived at a door of normal size. It was not that great like that of the dungeon’s boss’ as it looked normal. Yes, normal.
They went inside the room and what surprised them was not the beautiful expensive jewelries that layed all around the room, instead, it was the large aquarium that almost filled the room and also gave off the blue-colored aura. The room, peaceful as it was, was full of books laying around, some was even piled on a plate.
He was starting to question Myulo’s tastes. They sat down the couch as Myulo insisted and were delivered with a cup of coffee.
“What…?”
“This? Oh, right. This is a coffee. This was yet introduced to you.”
“C- coffee?”
“A coffee is made with the extract of the roasted beans of a coffee plant,”
“You are quite informed, Mr. AntiHero,”
Myulo said teasingly but Tanaka only reacted to AntiHero. She must really be acquainted to Mayajifu, or possibly, the previous AntiHero.
“That look on your face asks such personal and private question,”
With that , Charles was taken aback. He knew not that Tanaka was the type to ask private question but if he really does, then it must be important.
“Well, you have guessed it right but it seems your companions don’t know of the situation,”
Tanaka nodded and Myulo grinned. She knew that Tanaka didn’t want to let Light and Charles know of him being an AntiHero. With Light and Charles hanging in the air, they both took their coffee and was toured around the fortress. The three were met by the lovely bluish light. Myulo guided them to their rooms to stay the night in. Both have soft large beds that seemed princess-like but the atmosphere was that of a dungeon rather than a lively one. Light’s room was separated from the two, of course, but Light had wanted to have a room together with Tanaka.
“So? What about you? Who are you?”
Tanaka confronted Myulo at the middle of the night. Before this, Myulo was studying her current experiment which was the possibility of a blue gem acting as a substitute to a life form’s heart. If you’re curious about her appearance, think of a 15-year old girl with glasses. Attractive?
As she was confronted by Tanaka, she stood up from her old wooden chair. She dropped her glasses into her desk and closed on Tanaka.
“The truth is, I, Myulo, am the daughter of the previous Anti-Hero, Just Ririth,”
Ririth? Where might Tanaka have heard this? At…. at the church! He had heard this name at the church where he was taken to a basement for torturing. He saw the statue of a girl and engraved on it was the name of Ririth. The mysterious girl who was holding a Bokken that he saw in the basement of the churchyard.
So she was the previous Anti-Hero. Maybe that was why the statue was not in the church but was in the basement. The church was avoiding on letting the people know about the Anti-Hero and also the thing Charles was talking about was the King destroying all evidences of her and burning down the pages of Ririth’s history. Was she really that bad to the King that she was an existence needed to be destroyed even in history? Tanaka had thought for a second.
Myulo had shown an old book which seemed to be the journal of Ririth. As Tanaka tried to reach it, He felt the same pain as he went through last time. Blood spurt out of his mouth and felt nauseous. All of a sudden, his mind went blank and fell into a deep sleep under the cold floor of the rocky fortress.
KuukiYomenai 