Chapter 474

“AAAAAAAAH!”

We ran like our lives depended on it. In the pitch-black underground passage, where the only light came from Narke’s wand, we had to run faster than the water rushing toward our feet. Even as I ran, part of me kept insisting that this couldn’t possibly be happening, but if we wanted to live, we had no choice. I used the barrier to reduce friction, sliding for a bit before running again, then sliding again. Elias kept muttering beside me.

“This is insane. We’re screwed. The pigs drowning… We were the pigs… The pigs!”

“There’s no way!”

“Then what the hell is this?! Why is a perfectly normal passage filling with water?! Did someone get possessed by some evil spirit?! Oh, Lord, save us, fuc—…. He’ll probably say, ‘Why are you so afraid, you of little faith’… Oh, wait. That was in the mural too!”

Ah, damn it. Possession? Was this because of me? The biblical scene where demons possessed pigs and sent them to their deaths had nothing to do with me—

Of course it didn’t. Get a grip. Murals coming to life and all that only happened in movies. I kept running, kicking at the water that was steadily rising around us. Elias ran with his eyes squeezed shut and his head thrown back, giving it everything he had as he continued muttering.

“Hey, Jesus is supposed to clear the water for us. That’s what the mural says. Anyway, this must’ve been some elaborate system designed to stop intruders. There was probably a pressure sensor at the entrance that detected us and opened the floodgates!”

“How does it tell friend from foe?”

“It doesn’t! It just dumps all the water! AAAAAAAAH!”

Elias let out some bizarre battle cry and suddenly shot ahead on his own. I was so dumbfounded that my mouth fell open. With no other choice, I sucked in a deep breath and pushed off the ground as hard as I could. Elias belatedly used mana to yank me forward, helping me along as he shouted loud enough for his voice to echo through the passage.

“Guys! We’re mages, remember?!”

“Right, we are! So what?!”

“Make the barrier thicker and block the water!”

“You think I haven’t thought of that? What happens if we block the water here and the pressure blows the whole passage apart?”

“Fuck, you’re right… But if you think too much about stuff like that, you’ll never do anything! Just go for it!”

“Hey, wait! If the passage collapses, we’re screwed with no way back! And you’re telling us to just do it?!”

Regardless of what I said, Elias pulled out his wand and aimed it at the torrent rushing toward us from behind. Blue light burst from the tip.

—使禹治之. 禹掘地而注之海, 驅蛇龍而放之菹! 水由地中行…!¹

“What language was that? Chinese?”

“I learned it from some Eastern magic book or whatever! Anyway, now the water should—!”

The water should what?

I felt a glimmer of hope and turned around. The water that had been rising horizontally across the floor was lifted into the air. My eyes widened at the unexpected sight. But then it gathered into a single stream and began spiraling through the air, twisting like a drill as it came flying toward us. I stared at the incoming torrent in horror and screamed.

“AAAAAAAH!”

“Ugh, that’s disgusting! I actually don’t know this one very well. I must’ve memorized it wrong.”

“You don’t know it?! If you don’t know it, couldn’t you have used something you actually knew properly?!”

“But at least the water gathered!”

“What good does that do?!”

“Bwahahaha, aaaaah…”

Narke laughed with the same strange sound as before. I couldn’t tell whether he was laughing or crying, but I felt like crying. No tears actually came out, but that was certainly how I felt. I drew my wand from my waist and spun it between my fingers. Pointing the lengthening staff behind us, I shouted.

― Then the LORD said to Moses, Why are you crying out to me?

Rumble―…

A strange sound came from the gathered water as the light touched it. Flashes of light shot through the tunnel like lightning. When the white light spread all the way through the murky lake water and the mana gathered within it flashed brilliantly, I swung the staff once more.

― Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water.

BOOOOM―!

A blast of wind driven by the water swept over our skin. It was cold. Fragments of light that hadn’t touched the water spilled through the air, making the dark tunnel flash white. The water that had gathered into one mass split in two, climbing up along the walls until it reached the ceiling. It continued to swirl around us, holding its shape with water surrounding three sides of the passage.

Elias let out a little “ha” and held out his hand to me. A high five? Had he picked that up from Julia? I smiled, slapped his hand, and kept running.

‘At least this way, we wouldn’t have to block the water and risk blowing up the underground passage.’

The problem was how long I could keep this magic going while running. How long could I maintain a spell that interfered with a force of nature like this? The bones from my ankles to my shins were starting to ache. I could put up with it for now, but if this kept up, I might end up walking around on crutches like Elias. Just then, Narke suddenly turned toward us and shouted.

“Lukas, Elias!”

His hand reached out and caught us. The moment I felt the mana through that touch, we fell into empty space.

“Uh—”

Instead of the waterway and tunnel that had disappeared behind us, all I could see was the pitch-black night sky. I already knew what had happened before I even looked down. Narke had calculated the Z-axis of our coordinates in the air instead of on the ground. Yes, we were literally in midair. There was no ground beneath us!

“Wait, aaaaaah!”

“Huuuuuuuuuuh?!”

Thud—!

The impact hit, and I squeezed my eyes shut. Familiar divine power rose beneath my cheek. Narke’s barrier had caught us. Only then did I realize that we were lying on top of a huge oak tree with sparse branches.

“Ugh…”

I didn’t even have the strength to get up. I lay there staring at the sky, catching my breath, and muttered, “This is insane…”

What even was this? What the hell were we doing…? I was so dumbfounded that I actually laughed. Did sneaking across the border illegally really have to be this difficult? This was why people should just live without breaking the law.

Anyway, we were finally in Switzerland. Looking up at the white lights scattered across the sky, I whispered, “Illegal border crossing successful.”

“Yay~ We survived.”

Elias kicked off Narke’s barrier and got up—the barrier rippled beneath him, nearly sending him tumbling out of the tree—and then sat down beside my head and tugged at my cheek. I had no idea what he was doing this for or what was going through his head, but that was Elias for you. I didn’t even have the energy to stop him, so I simply let him be and closed my eyes.

If I hadn’t had to survive Adrian Askanien and could have simply gone with the flow, I think I would have approached Elias back then and gone on trips like this with Elias and Leo every time. Whether that would have been a good thing or not was something I would have to think about later. I opened my eyes again and spoke quietly.

“About that tunnel. I think it was still being used until recently. At the very least, the monks on that island know it exists.”

Elias, who had been fixing my hair—or at least that was putting it generously—nodded.

“Yeah. Judging by the fact that they replaced the door recently. Do you think it flooded at some point?”

“For one thing, water must have been flowing into and out of that tunnel periodically. The moment we went in, I noticed how incredibly damp it was.”

“That’s really suspicious. That means those monks could sneak into Switzerland too~!”

“Exactly.”

Elias fell into thought. I slowly continued, “What if the water didn’t come in because we stepped on the ground, but instead flowed in and out according to a certain cycle? Then the monks would know which days of the month the tunnel could be used, and on those days, they could freely cross into Switzerland and come back without anyone knowing.”

“Oh.”

“If the lake overflows or if there’s a high tide, the passage would fill with water too. Otherwise, it wouldn’t. What do you think?”

“Sounds plausible. But whether there’s a high tide or not, the passage is underground. How would the water get in?”

“You have a point. We’ll need to investigate. Let’s go back and take another look after some time has passed.”

“There’s no need to investigate. Lukas is probably right.”

At the words coming from farther away, Elias and I turned toward Narke at the same time. He was looking toward the horizon and the mountains, where there wasn’t a trace of water in sight.

“Someone could have pumped water into it themselves, or a river could be filling the passage directly. Before we came here, I saw something like a line sticking slightly above the surface of the lake.”

A line? Narke continued quietly.

“I couldn’t tell what it was back then, but thinking about it now, it might have been a pipe or a chimney. When the water level rises, water could flow into the chimney, fill the hollow space, and then seep into the passage through the spots where some of the bricks had been removed. Though I could be wrong… I don’t know where the water drains once it gets in, though. We’ll have to investigate that when we return.”

Narke smiled at us.

“What matters right now is that we’ve finally made it to Switzerland.”

“Yeah… finally. Thank goodness. Where are we?”

“Zermatt. Under the Alps. It’s not that cold, is it?”

“No.”

Elias answered firmly, his teeth chattering.

I agreed. Not that cold, my foot. It felt like it was below freezing. I slowly sat up and looked around. Snow-capped mountains stretched into the distance, their peaks covered in brilliant white. As far as I knew, Zermatt was fairly close to Italy.

Narke gauged the height of the barrier beneath us, then simply jumped down to the ground. It reminded me of the day I first met him. He called up to us from below the tree.

“Come on! Get down, guys~”

I instinctively started to jump down, then remembered the state of my legs. Narke seemed to realize what I was thinking only then and raised an eyebrow. He spread his arms wide as if he intended to catch me.

“Are you kidding me?”

“Hahaha~”

“Forget it. I’ll just step down on the barrier—?!”

Elias suddenly scooped me up from behind and jumped. I barely had time to react before he poured mana into his legs and landed lightly on the ground.

“Done~ Easy, right?!”

“Haha…”

“What’s wrong? We’ve already done this before.”

“…….”

Right. At Giesing Stadelheim.

Elias was grinning mischievously. I smiled back at him before turning to Narke. Narke gave me a look, then sat down beneath the tree. I sat down beside him, and he placed a hand on my boot and began to recite a spell.

— The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.

Light seeped into my leg. It felt refreshingly cool, as though the mana flowing through it had been neatly put back in order.

“What was that?”

“It won’t heal you completely, but I can at least get your mana flowing properly again. That should help you recover faster.”

“Hm. Thanks.”

“Let’s do this from time to time.”

“Well… we’re going back soon anyway.”

“Yeah. But still.”

Narke gave my leg a light smack before getting up and walking over to the other side of the tree trunk. He gauged our position by looking at the surrounding landscape, then turned his wand into a shovel and began digging into the ground. I watched, impressed that he’d apparently stored away all sorts of things that seemed completely useless.

As a matter of fact, when people illegally warp, they usually calculate the coordinates themselves and move to some secluded place. Going to an official warp point only increases the risk of being caught for no reason. But if you calculate the coordinates incorrectly, you can die in the process. Just like when we fell out of thin air moments ago. If there is an object at the coordinates, warp magic adjusts the calculation so that the caster lands on top of it instead of merging with it. But if you’re unlucky enough to memorize coordinates beneath the ground, no adjustment is going to save you. You’re as good as dead. The best you can hope for is that your descendants eventually dig up your body.

But Narke hadn’t come here by mistake. It seemed he’d had a reason to come to these coordinates from the very beginning. Narke let out a relieved sigh.

“Found it.”

“What is it?”

“There’s a box I buried here when I was younger.”

“When you were younger?”

“Maybe I wasn’t that young. One day, before I went to Germany, I just thought I should do something like this.”

Narke pulled a glazed wooden box out of the hole. Its edges were decorated with gold. He opened the lid, swept the contents into his clutch, and handed several items to us.

“I thought my future self would use them. I guess the me of today was sending a message to the me of the past.”

What Narke handed us were prayer beads and silver bands. To my surprise, when I slipped one of the silver bands around my wrist, it shrank on its own until it fit perfectly. I stared at it with an absurd smile, as if I were looking at an earthworm wrapped around my wrist. Narke helpfully explained.

“It’s an artifact that blocks mana~ I used to wear it when I was working, but I thought it might be good for you two to use them today as well.”

“Gotta love new technology.”

“Haha. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has been using this technology for decades. We’re the only ones who can use it.”

“Hmm. Right.”

I couldn’t help wondering who the Papal See’s spy was that had managed to communicate with Terminus Eukairia despite the Papal See’s incredible technological prowess. I put another band around my neck and one around my ankle. Narke did the same, then tapped the band on his wrist against the one around his neck.

“To take them off, just tap them together like this. They merge together~ Then gather them all around your wrist and take them off at once.”

“Isn’t this mercury? How is silver this liquidy?”

“It’s not liquid. It’s just a mass of mana~ Haha. It does feel strange, but it shouldn’t make you sick.”

“Shouldn’t?”

When I questioned him with a smile, he laughed along and quickly changed the subject.

“It can’t be helped. With these, even though we’re mages, the barrier won’t detect us. Pretty convenient, right? So don’t take them off.”

“What?”

There was something like this?

Had he been unable to bring them into Germany because his luggage would be inspected? Or had he simply never intended to tell us about them until now? Narke stayed silent with a smile for a moment before answering playfully.

“These are really valuable, you know. Don’t lose them. Got it?”

“…….”

The fact that he’d had enough foresight to bury exactly the right number of these beneath a tree in Switzerland was remarkable in itself. There might have been even more bands in the box, but it was still astonishing that he’d prepared enough in advance for the three of us to have one on every limb that mattered. Elias stared at Narke for a moment before nodding.

“Maybe we should start by turning your subordinates inside out. If they have these things, couldn’t they just sneak out of the country whenever they want?”

“That may be true, but if they’re with the Papal See, the barrier here wouldn’t be a problem whether they’re leaving or entering anyway. The important thing is that all of their heads were searched and nothing was found. There weren’t even any traces of their memories being erased.”

“Hmmm.”

“Maybe there was something wrong with the inspection itself. What if they were in on it and simply let each other off the hook?”

“Now that is a very realistic problem… So I guess we really have no choice but to go there and investigate.”

“Yeah. We still have to keep the clue about Saint Mark in mind.”

“You know, we passed through so many ‘Marcos’ on the way here. Do you really think that clue is still relevant?”

“Yeah.”

Narke answered Elias firmly. Elias raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips. Narke gestured for us to hold hands, and the three of us stood in a circle. It was time to cross the border into Italy.

“We’re going to the Swiss border checkpoint now. Ideally, I’d take you to Rome to have some fun and eat all sorts of things, but…”

Narke looked up at the night sky and muttered. As for Rome or anything else, I just wanted to get out of Switzerland as quickly as possible. Staying around like this in an Alpine village below freezing was getting pretty difficult.

“It’s still nighttime, so there’s not much fun to be had, huh? How about we go to Venice first, where St. Mark’s Basilica is? Once we get there, Elias, I’d like you to connect the clues in some creative way like you did before.”

“Sure! Then let’s go to Rome and eat some meat.”

“Sounds good~”

Narke answered with a bright smile. I smiled at the two of them before asking, “Guys, all that sounds great, but how are we supposed to cross the border? Even if you know the Italian coordinate system, Narke… you can’t use the coordinates unless we actually cross the border.”

“Right. Elias, I need your help. We’re going to a checkpoint near the Swiss Guard. Today is the deadline to apply for that.”

“The Swiss Guard~?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it that thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

I frowned at their exchange. What the hell were these two talking about?

“Eli? Wait a minute—!”

Before I could even say ‘wait,’ we warped to another location. It really was near a checkpoint, and across a street surrounded by trees, I could see the lit-up checkpoint building. I sighed heavily and rubbed my forehead.

“Hey, I have a guess about what you’re planning right now, so could you explain—”

Before I could finish, Elias grabbed my shoulders.

“No, Luka. Just hit me once. Really hard. Hard enough to make my nose bleed.”

“Are you crazy? Why would I do that?”

“Aaaaaah~”

“What do you mean, ‘aaaaah’?! Get a grip!”

I pried Elias off me in disbelief. But he clung to me again like a leech and muttered, “Then just pretend, okay? Luka, even if you never went to school, you know how to throw a punch, right? Right? You know how to fight too, don’t you?”

“No, I mean—why?!”

“That’s not it. Act more like, you know, those kids who don’t study. Starting today, you’re a high school student who doesn’t study. Get ready to goof off. You’re supposed to be out having fun, but you can’t because I took your money.”

“It’s pretty specific.”

“Gaaaaah!”

Elias suddenly swung a fist at me with an exaggerated yell. I recoiled in shock, twisting my body slightly to the side. Seeing that, Elias seemed to gain confidence and started going even more wild, trusting me to play along. I instinctively reached for my wand, only for Elias to land a punch on my shoulder. I gritted my teeth against the pain and dodged his next blow. Elias looked even more surprised than I was, his eyes going wide as he swung another punch at me—apparently, there was no getting out of this.

“You’re supposed to dodge, Luka!”

“Wait, what—”

“Why aren’t you hitting me?! Come on, hit me!”

“Are you insane?!”

“Aaaaaah! Yeeaahheeeaaargh!”

Elias started overacting so ridiculously that it was almost absurd. He seemed to be trying to draw people’s attention with all the noise. I dodged his punches and looked around.

‘What about Narke?’

Where the hell had he gone this time? Why did we even need to do this just to cross the border? Was he planning to draw their attention and use a mind manipulation spell? But if that were the case, there was absolutely no reason to go this far. There had to be another reason.

How exactly were we supposed to cross the border by doing this? All I could picture was us failing to cross the border and ending up in a prison. Was getting locked up in a Swiss jail really our goal for tonight?

I had absolutely no idea. I couldn’t figure out what Narke and Elias were planning.

BANG!

Elias finally grabbed me by the collar and slammed me onto the ground. His face looked like he was about to cry, yet he kept shaking me by the collar, silently urging me to hurry up and act.

‘Whatever. I give up…’

No matter what, I couldn’t actually hit Elias. I had to at least escape. Given our builds, I was at a considerable disadvantage in this position. I grabbed Elias’s arm and pulled my leg inward. I pushed off the ground with my left shoulder, pressed my right leg against his calf, and twisted my body around. The moment I flipped Elias onto the ground, the beam of a flashlight came rushing toward us.

“You there! Students! Hey, students!”

Two or three people who looked like guards came running out of the building toward us. I stared at them in shock, mouth agape. I had to explain that this was a misunderstanding. There was no way I could end up in a prison after coming all the way to this country.

Just as I put my hand on the ground to get up, Elias grabbed my arm tightly.

“Don’t go!”

Translator Note

1. A passage from Mencius (孟子), “Duke Wen of Teng, Part 2” (滕文公下) describing Yu the Great’s efforts to control the great floods. ↩︎