Tales of the Old World Demon Lord

Chapter 26 – A practice in vanity

[Eternum Calendar 1971]

A calculative and uncanny smile that could pierce through the thick tension of the room…

“Hmm, well… despite the circumstances, it’s quite good to see that you are once again in good health.”

An unbreakable façade, Enrich spoke as he walked past Sipher and Este with a light stride. The two turned to each other, nonverbally trying to get a confirmation out of the other if they knew what kind of situation this was. After a brief moment, both Sipher and Este negatively replied to each other by subtly shaking their heads.

To begin with, though they had only just recently met with Enrich, they had learnt enough about him to practice caution. Neither Sipher nor Este was the type to delve too deeply into politics thus neither could fathom Enrich’s thought processes. As a natural corollary to this, it was only a given that the anxiety was accentuated further upon hearing that the enigmatic Enrich and the ‘mysterious’ boy knew each other.

“That’s rather odd, because I sure don’t fell all that particularly in ‘good health’. Not to mention that if your side didn’t intervene in the first place I wouldn’t have had a need to put in the effort of recovering back to ‘good health’.”

Replied Morgant, sarcastically hiding from behind Francisco’s large wooden desk. Half of his body, and subsequently most of this visible injuries he had sustained, were hidden behind the table thus ensuring that his complaint had no real impact. That being said, this small, minute banter wasn’t Morgant’s original intentions for the meeting so this was all intentionally planned.

“Haha… now, now, isn’t that water under the bridge? Not only did his eminence give you his full approval thanks to that, but you’ve also subsequently, as you yourself have stated, gained a much more ‘useful’ ability in association with ‘our’ side. So why not let bygones be bygones and let’s start over.”

To Enrich’s answer all Morgant could muster up was a disapproving sigh. Indeed as he had put it, thanks to Enrich’s previous charade all possible obstructions and risk to contacting Astaroth were removed. If both father and daughter willed it, there would very remaining who would openly disagree with Morgant’s and Astaroth’s union.

They had only met once but Morgant understood that Astaroth had harbored feelings of fondness towards him. Most likely she had ‘seen’ some kind of future with her ability for such sudden attraction. Even if he had to fake reciprocation and the emotions, he would do whatever was necessary to obtain the power of ‘precognition’ to his side. After all, there would be no better source of information than knowledge of a reality that hasn’t even taken place.

‘Information is power’, Morgant was convinced of this; that no matter how powerful an opponent is or how just advantage they hold, information was the one thing that could change the tide of any battle. ‘Honor’, ‘Glory’, ‘Power’, ‘Pedigree’, ‘Discipline’, etc… those were the values etched into the hearts and minds of the primitive populace but to Morgant they were far too archaic and worthless. He understood that ‘Cunning’, ‘Exploitation’ and ‘Ruthlessness’ would win out every time if given the chance.

With another sigh Morgant finally decided to relinquish his spot on Francisco’s seat. Slowly moving about the perimeter of the room he lightly tapped on the walls.

“Haa… I suppose if you were to ask me whether I was satisfied with how the situation had progressed then I would by lying to suggest I wasn’t, but then again… it really hurt. Well whatever, you weren’t followed on your way here, right?”

Shifting topics, Morgant asked in a dismissive tone. While he had never specified the secrecy of this meeting it was implied by his personal invitation. What he was doing now by tapping across the walls was checking for anything out of place or hidden within the walls. Even though he wasn’t able to sense the presence of other living beings he was still observant enough to deduce even a minute difference in a familiar environment to confidently pin point anything amiss.

“I may not be the most prominent fighter in our midst, but I still know how to cover my tracks. At the very least, to my knowledge we were not tailed.”

Enrich replied, turning to Este and Sipher for confirmation as well. The two stared back for a moment before also giving a positive response. To their readily agreeable replies Morgant scoffed under his breath as he knocked against the wall one last time.

“I see… if you’re all that convinced of your own abilities then I won’t doubt you. Now, I suppose it’s time to get to the main topic of why I called you all here-”

“W- wait, wait, wait! Before we discussing anything else, why don’t we talk about the problem of your true identity first?”

However before Morgant could finish his sentence he was stopped by a gentle grip on his shoulder. Turning to his side Este stood back with a determined expression worn on her face, not letting him dodge away from this question he has kept for this long. She wanted to know who he was and why he saved her, it wasn’t that she wasn’t grateful for it, she was. Yet in her honest opinion of him, he didn’t seem like the type to do it without asking for some sort of compensation later down the line.

With a refreshingly derisive smile, Morgant answered in a cheerful tone.

“My identity? As you can plainly see, I’m a perfectly normal seven year old and a resident of this pure city of snow.”

“Exactly what part of you is to be construed as ‘normal’? Not only have you demonstrated an exceptionally strange power but you’ve even somehow managed to gather all the obviously red flagged people in the same room.”

Este responded as she pointed specifically towards Francisco and Enrich with her eyes. Seeing her take a defensive position, Morgant couldn’t help but let out a small giggle. Even now he didn’t know what kind of lineage the family of ‘Fallon’ possessed but if they were made of members like her then perhaps it was no big deal in the first place. He felt stupid for putting even an ounce of thought into this conundrum.

Gently prying her hands off his shoulders Morgant took a deep breath to clear his mind. Barely managing to contain his laughter he was able to reply to her question, though it was not a very satisfactory one. Nonetheless she had accepted it.

“In due to I’ll make sure to answer any outstanding questions you may have, however for now I believe it is much more prudent to focus our attentions on resolving the little problem ailing our dear city.”

“What? But I-”

“Princess, I think we should back off this topic for now.”

It was Sipher who had stopped her after noticing the pressing stares of all the others gathered in the room. Also finally understanding their anxious looks Este decided to back off the topic as her partner had suggested.

“Fine, but after this is all over I’ll have you explain everything. Got it?”

“Of course.”

Morgant replied with a grin, one that Este did not have much appreciation for as it felt as though he was mocking her with it. It was a bitter feeling, to be looked down upon and underestimated to such a degree by someone who was younger than her. Yet as Morgant and the others had pointed out, the current situation took precedence over her pride.

Seeing that everything had been temporarily swept under the rug, Morgant returned to Francisco’s desk and sat upon his chair. Secretly recalling a small yellow crystal, the [Monolith Shard] out from his [Inventory] he presented before his congress. It emitted a putrid and nauseating aura, yet they had all inspected it with great interests, wanting to figure out more about its possibly origins and mechanisms.

“That’s the piece you took from that Goblin.”

Sipher commented on the obvious before giving up on trying figuring out the secrets of the yellow crystal. He thus took a step back to give others the chance to decrypt whatever secrets laid insight this ominous artifact. After all his only true objective was to protect the young princess Este and nothing more, so whether this small, backwater city fell or prospered was really none to his concern. The only reason he had decided to help solve the problem ailing the city was because Este wanted to do so. Though if he was made to state one other reason it would certainly be to understand more about this 'mysterious' boy who held rather unusual powers.

“Correct, I’ve been studying this shard ever since, but ashamed as I am to admit it, I have not been able to understand completely the mysteries surrounding it. That being said, my efforts weren’t exactly fruitless either; I’ve managed to deduce some critical points to it. Well, I’ll get the obvious out of the way; anything that dies within its effective vicinity will be afflicted with the ‘crystalline curse’. There are three main components to the curse…”

The first component was the ability to give the afflicted nigh unlimited tolerance to pain. This was experienced firsthand by most of the people in the room thus they understood immediately. Even as their arms and legs were torn off their ability to continue on fighting did not decrease. However rather than calling it ‘tenacity’ it was more apt to call it ‘obliviousness’. The afflicted didn’t even realize their bodies were being destroyed and only continued on with its stated task simply because it couldn’t feel any of the pain. Thus the only effective way to handle them was to destroy their brain or their entire being.

The second was their heightened natural prowess. This too was something most people in the room had experience themselves, namely in the form of fighting empowered goblins. Mere goblins were not strong enough to form any sort of threat, even to the most untrained civilian, however these goblins were different. Their crystalline curse increased their natural strengths many folds and reflexes to the point that they gave even the highly trained knight, Sipher, some problems. The only part that did not seem to see any increase were their defenses as Este had no problem demolishing them in large groups.

The third component was the ability to mask the afflicted victim’s aura, effectively giving them invisibility. As Morgant had a similar ability to them in this regard he had thought it would be easy to understand how theirs had worked but reality was not so comforting. The best he could do was come up with a few theories. One possible explanation was because of their lack of ‘intent’, since the afflicted have no wills of their own their subconscious intentions cannot be read. Another possibility was that the Monolith shard’s aura masked the afflicted victim’s aura to an extent where they seemed invisible.

These were the results of Morgant’s careful and extensive experimentation done on small insects and other lower life forms. After spending some time on it, he had come to understand certain things about the crystal itself as well. The most prominent being that the crystal had the ability to have a will of its own, though not necessarily a mind or any other faculties that could substitute for cognitive capabilities. Meaning that while it did not have desires or thoughts of its own, it could technically ‘try’ its best to carry out its purpose. Of course its purpose was decided upon by the one directly interfacing with the crystal or in this case the ‘true’ mastermind.

“Hmm… I’m rather impressed that you were able to figure out such details in the small amount of time you’ve had. Although I must admit the part about how these crystals have the ability to form a will is a little disconcerting. If used correctly, or rather in this case, ‘incorrectly’…”

Enrich responded to Morgant’s explanation in a worried tone of voice.

“Ah, right about that, it’s actually the reason I’ve called you all here today. I think I’ve understood what the mastermind’s true plans are.”

Once more Morgant had stolen the center of attention and brought it upon himself. As they all heard that he was able to deduce the motives behind this terrible incident they leaned forward intently.

“You have?!”

Sipher immediately jumped up and asked, almost in a threatening manner.

“Yeah, his plan is probably to… turn himself immortal. Immortality is his goal and everything else up to this point, the goblins, the dears, the missing townspeople, everything was just an experiment or practice for that.”

Pausing in the middle of the sentence as well as repeating the mastermind’s motive was all done for dramatic effect and emphasis. He wanted to make sure that everyone in the room had heard and understood what he was trying to say.

“Im- immortality? How…?”

Este asked in a feeble voice.

“It’s the crystals. By utilizing its special properties a person can afflict the crystalline curse upon themselves without losing their will or mind.”

“But… how?”

As Este asked further, Morgant answered with an uneasy grin.

“Simple… by exploiting the Crystalline Curse.”