Free Web NovelChapter 15: The Walking Catastrophe [1]
"I have been waiting, Lady Zelda."
It was a young voice, but it spoke without breathing, and without an ounce of feeling behind it, as if whatever spoke had never learned that a voice was meant to rise and fall with each syllable.
Rian’s gaze dragged toward the sound.
He couldn’t see from whom it came from, until a pair of red eyes came into existence from the dark.
They looked sinister at first, almost lifeless, until the eyes began to approach him.
What stepped into the light was a young girl, one who barely reached his shoulder in height.
A white halo floated above her blonde hair.
She wore a white shirt tucked into a knee-length skirt, with a short black jacket over it that fit close to her frame.
’...What the hell is she? I didn’t even notice her standing right in front of me.’
It was Rian’s first time seeing anything like this.
She looked human enough. But that strange white halo, floating above her head, unsettled him more than he cared to admit.
’She addressed me as Lady Zelda,’ Rian heard her clearly.
He first thought that she must have mistaken it, but—
"Lady Zelda, How have you been?"
She politely addressed him by her name.
’The heck...?’
Again...?
At this point, Rian had to genuinely look around him.
But except him, no one was here.
The young girl’s red eyes didn’t blinked, it just stayed focused on his face.
Rian raised his hands and pointed his index finger at his own face, as if asking, ’are you talking to me?’
The young girl nodded, ’precisely.’
Rian didn’t feel any malice from her end, but even so, he was extremely cautious.
Just in case of emergency, he had already raised several undeads from all those skeletons outside. And with his Weapon Art and Curse Art, his body would endure any heavy strike.
"Lady Zeld—"
"Stop calling me that, can’t you see? I am not Zelda."
As he spoke with her, Rian quietly used「Curse Art: Clairvoyance」.
For a fraction of a second, his blue eyes glowed.
He looked the girl over, trying to make out what exactly she was, and to his surprise, her insides were nothing like a human’s.
It was all mechanical.
Countless small parts, fitted together and running on Holy Mana, which she drew in from the air around her. That was what powered her, every tiny component inside her body. From the movements of her eyes, the parting of her lips, even the faint shift of her skin, all of it was crafted so precisely that it mimicked a living person.
Rian searched for the source of her Holy Mana.
’...How is she pulling in Holy Mana this refined, all the way out here in the Dark Empire?’
And the answer was that strange white halo above her head.
It was filtering the Holy Mana out of the air and feeding it into her.
’...Clever.’
The girl spoke up again.
"My apologies. But you are my Lady Zelda and it is an honor to meet you again, after so many centuries."
"Stop that. Can’t you see I’m a man? Call me sir, not lady."
She tilted her head.
"You have changed your form, Lady Zelda?"
"...the heck?"
"You always wanted to be a boy, I see now, so you have finally done it."
She said it with the patience of someone reminding a friend of an old habit. "Though you never kept the same face. It made this greeting difficult for me."
Rian stared at her.
’...What the hell was this woman?’
"I’m not Zelda."
"Of course, my Lady."
"....."
Rian gave up correcting her.
"What are you? And why do you keep calling me Zelda?"
The girl’s eyes lowered to the Archon Blade of Zelda resting in his hand.
"Only Lady Zelda, the first bearer and creator of the Serpent of Time, may wield the Archon Blade."
’Huh...So I was right.’
Then again—
"The creator of the Serpent of Time? You mean this Holy Mark?"
Rian lifted his left arm, where the Holy Mark lay hidden beneath his glove.
Seeing it, the young girl nodded, confirming that she was referring to this.
He still remembered Jeanne telling him, once, that the Holy Mark’s true name was the 「Serpent of Time」.
"What’s that supposed to mean?"
Had Jeanne, in any of her earlier regressions, ever met this girl?
’...She never mentioned anything about her.’
Then again, Jeanne never shared anything personal with anyone.
Rian would have been the last person she’d open up to about her private life.
’...Maybe she found her but never brought her back to the military base. Or...’
’...She could have died, right after Jeanne found her.’
Both were possible.
Rian glanced at the young girl again.
Had he not used his Curse Art on her, he might have genuinely mistaken her for a child.
"Did Zelda create you?"
"She did."
"What’s your name then?"
"I am a Sister."
"...Whose?"
"My name is Sister."
"Then say it like that."
As Rian calmly spoke with her, he pulled several important pieces of information out of her, about the Labyrinth, and about her as well.
The first was that Zelda had been the very first to ever bear the Holy Mark in this world. And that she was the one who had created it, not some god Jeanne used to waste her prayers on.
’...Heh. I always knew they were all fake.’
As for why Zelda created the Holy Mark?
Even this girl didn’t have the answer.
To her, that information simply wasn’t in her memory.
Now then, the young girl named Sister had assumed it was Zelda herself who had returned, because only Zelda could bear the Holy Mark, and only she could make the Archon Blade obey.
’...Guess she doesn’t know the Holy Mark can be worn by anyone.’
To inherit it, one either had to be lucky enough for it to appear on them a month before the current Saint died...
...or have it passed down directly by the Saint themselves.
The same way Rian had gotten his.
The second piece of information he got from her was about the Labyrinth itself, that just like this one, there existed another Labyrinth somewhere in the world.
He asked her where, but she didn’t know.
Its location wasn’t among her memories either.
’Useless piece.’
Rian recalled that, in his past life, Jeanne had only ever visited this one Labyrinth. She never once bragged about finding a second.
A grin crept onto his face. ’...What if I find it this time?’
A place like this had to be holding something just as powerful as the Archon Blade.
"Alright. It was nice meeting you, Sister. I’ve got to get going now."
And as Rian turned around to leave, Sister spoke up again, in that same flat breathless voice.
"Please take me with you, Lady Zelda."
Rian had kind of expected this.
But the thing was, in a couple of days he’d be leaving for Caelistra.
He couldn’t exactly afford to babysit a mechanical girl. And more to the point, who in their right mind would willingly haul one mechanical girl around?
The upkeep alone would be a pain in the ass.
Sister watched Rian think it over, and, sensing his hesitation, she began listing her own features.
"I do not require food. I do not sleep. I do not tire. I will serve Lady Zelda without rest, without complaint, and without wage. I do not age. I am weatherproof, fireproof, and resistant to most curses. My joints do not creak. I hum pleasantly if requested."
A pause and she added. "I also do not pass gas, unlike organic servants."
"Alright that’s enough—"
"I have been told my singing is tolerable."
"Listen here, I already have a maid who handles all of that I don’t need a second one."
Sister went quiet, she thought for a moment before replying.
"Then ...If Lady Zelda wishes, I could help you search for the second Labyrinth."
"That won’t be necessary. I can find it just fine on my own."
Rian just wanted to be rid of this walking headache.
But then—
"...In that case, the last thing I can offer is myself."
Rian slowed.
"You may study me, take me apart, examine my workings, learn how I was made. I would not mind."
She’d hit the nail square on the head.
She had just offered a lunatic, a man who cracked open Demon Lords for the sole purpose of studying them, an entirely new subject, something no one in this era had ever seen.
A machine from a lost age, offering to let him look inside her.
As those words left her mouth, Sister watched Rian’s expression shift into something she couldn’t quite read, something strange, something almost hungry.
"...On second thought, Lady Zelda, I change my mind—"
"I accept. You’re coming with me."
[A/N: Every 100 Powerstone = 1 extra ch]
