The Return of The Mythical Archmage [EN]: Chapter 346

The sudden appearance of the dragon momentarily stunned me.

“A dragon…”

Before the birth of the Byteiner Empire.

In an era when myths were still reality.

There were beings who mediated between numerous gods and were tasked with protecting the balance of the world.

Those were the dragons.

“I heard that dragons were destroyed by the gods in the Mythological Era… How…?” Elena muttered to herself, her face filled with shock.

She must have been so surprised that her inner thoughts spilled out.

“…It’s dangerous.”

Mimir’s expression was no different from Elena’s.

Her face was full of shock, and she was biting her lip.

“If that thing is a real dragon… we have no chance.”

Mimir was right.

If that thing was a real dragon, we wouldn’t stand a chance.

The originator of the original magic, the source of Byteiner’s magic and black magic, and a monster with power that could overwhelm the gods.

Defeating a dragon would be a difficult task even for my teacher.

I have no chance of winning now.

“Successor. We have to run away,” Mimir warned me to flee this place immediately.

“If it’s still quiet now…”

“No.”

I cut off Mimir’s urgent words and said, “There’s no need to.”

“…Successor?”

“That monster isn’t a real dragon.”

If that monster were a real dragon, I would have had to run away as fast as I could the moment I made eye contact.

No, I would have died before I could even run away.

A dragon is a monster with that kind of power.

If it were a real dragon, we would all be holding hands and wandering the Sanzu River [the river of the dead in Japanese Buddhist tradition] without even having time to think.

“…You’re saying that’s not real?” Mimir looked at the dragon-like thing with an incredulous expression.

“It looks real to me…”

The books left behind from the Mythological Era had accurate records of the characteristics of dragons.

This thing was exuding the same appearance, aura, and energy as described in those books.

Mimir had every reason to believe it was real.

On top of that, it had the unique characteristic of avoiding my divine eye’s detection.

It was only natural to think it was real.

“It’s fake.”

But it wasn’t.

That thing wasn’t a real dragon.

“No, should I say it’s half real and half fake?”

That thing was something that imitated and reproduced a dragon.

It tried to create the real thing by mixing in the real, but in the end, it failed to reproduce everything and became a tragic monster that turned into a fake.

That was what that thing was.

“How do you know that?” Elena asked with a genuinely curious expression.

She hadn’t fully recovered from the shock of seeing the dragon, and her expression was quite sharp.

“Wasn’t your divine eye completely useless against that monster?”

“Yes. It doesn’t work. I still can’t see anything.”

“You can’t see, but how…” How could I be so sure that it was fake?

How could I grasp its condition so accurately?

That was what Elena was asking.

“They say that sometimes, the things you can’t see are the ones you can see best, right?”

Certainly, my divine eye was completely neutralized right now.

The strange energy that thing was emitting had completely rendered my divine eye useless.

All I could see beyond my divine eye was pitch-black darkness.

“That’s how I knew.”

From afar, it was just an unknown darkness.

Something unknown that my divine eye simply couldn’t penetrate.

Nothing more, nothing less.

But it was different up close.

Up close, I could see why my divine eye had stopped working.

A slight distortion in the darkness that I could see with my divine eye gave me the realization.

“…What are you talking about? Don’t be vague. Explain it properly,” Mimir frowned, looking frustrated, and urged me on.

I made eye contact with Mimir for a moment and nodded.

“Adela’s mind’s eye and my divine eye. The biggest difference between the two is whether or not they can sense through the soul.”

Adela’s mind’s eye cannot see souls.

But my divine eye can see souls.

That was the crucial difference between the two.

“The reason my eye can detect things more deeply is because it can sense the subtle energy flowing from each individual’s soul.”

There was a reason why my teacher had a nine-tailed fox as a partner.

Sensing through the soul was one of the main functions of the divine eye.

“So that’s why you couldn’t see it.”

“…I still don’t understand what you’re saying.”

I smiled faintly at Mimir and slowly turned my gaze to the dragon.

“To put it simply, this monster’s body and soul are different.”

“…What?”

“Huh?” The three of them widened their eyes at the same time.

“A drake’s body has a dragon’s soul inside it.”

That was why that thing wasn’t a real dragon.

It was just a pitiful drake that failed to become a dragon.

“A drake? This thing?” Adela looked at the thing with an incredulous expression.

“No matter how I look at it, its body structure is different from the drakes I know. It doesn’t have such huge wings.”

As Adela said, that thing’s body structure was hard to see as a drake.

“That’s right. This thing’s body structure is a carbon copy of the dragon’s structure that was left in the literature. There’s no way that thing is a drake,” Mimir was also right.

That thing’s body structure clearly resembled that of a dragon.

“That’s just because the soul’s level is too high, so the body changed to follow the soul.”

Mimir exclaimed, “Ah!”

“The soul also has a proper form?”

“That’s right.”

That was one of the phrases written in the books left by my teacher.

Because the soul has a form, it can only enter a body that matches that form.

That was what it meant.

“So that’s why the body structure changed to look like a dragon.”

Mimir stared at the thing with an intrigued expression.

“Interesting. I thought that the soul would simply fail to adapt to the body and end up rupturing.”

“That’s usually what happens.”

Combining different bodies and souls was like putting a B toy’s wrapping paper on an A toy.

Most of the time, the wrapping paper would be damaged because the sizes didn’t match.

“But drakes are called inferior copies of dragons, right? So the sizes would match to some extent. It was possible to forcibly fuse them.”

“Ah…”

But sometimes, a B toy’s wrapping paper fits an A toy.

Either they were made by the same manufacturer, or they happened to be the same size.

The wrapping paper would be crumpled and have holes here and there, but it would still be possible to wrap it.

That was the current situation of that monster.

“Then the reason that thing isn’t moving is…”

“It was lucky enough to fuse, but it doesn’t have the strength to move the forcibly changed body.”

That was the whole story of what had happened to that poor drake.

“Okay. I understand now. It’s a fusion of different souls and bodies,” Mimir nodded, looking like she understood everything.

“The discrepancy between the different bodies and souls caused confusion in the successor’s divine eye. And the result of that confusion converged into an undetectable darkness. Is that about right?”

“Exactly.”

Because it was related to the soul, my divine eye was neutralized.

And because it had nothing to do with the soul, Adela’s mind’s eye was fine.

“It’s all so… complicatedly intertwined,” Adela, who had been quietly listening to the conversation, casually said a word.

She didn’t seem to have fully understood 100% of what Mimir and I had said earlier.

She had a lackluster expression on her face.

“Still. If that’s the reason, then we don’t have to worry about the divine eye being neutralized.”

She hadn’t understood 100%, but she seemed to have grasped the core of the matter to some extent.

As expected of Adela.

She had a considerable understanding.

“Right. The fact that it’s undetectable due to the discrepancy between the soul and the body isn’t something we can use even if we know it.”

The possibility of Veil Stole ignoring my divine eye and acting had disappeared for now.

I let out a sigh of relief inwardly.

“Now the key is…”

But that didn’t mean that everything was resolved.

It just meant that the possibility of my divine eye being neutralized had disappeared.

The seriousness of this matter hadn’t changed.

“How did these guys come up with the idea of fusing souls and bodies…”

The existence of the soul was not publicly known.

It was something that only a very small number of people, including me, knew about.

How did they, who, find out about the existence of the soul?

How did they find out, and who came up with the idea of fusing them like this?

We had to find that out.

…And.

“Where did they get the dragon’s soul? Those are the two things.”

A race that was destroyed in the Mythological Era.

Where did they get the dragon’s soul?

We had to find that out.

“I don’t think it’s likely, but they might have additional dragon souls.”

Then, a difficult situation might occur in many ways.

I didn’t think they could actually revive a dragon, but if such a thing were to happen, it could become a truly global threat.

We had to stop that no matter what.

“Then let’s wrap things up and get out of here.”

“Wrap things up?” Adela asked back, implying what kind of wrap-up I was talking about.

“We have to liberate the soul of this poor dragon,” I pointed to the dragon that was still staring at me from behind and answered.

“Besides the fact that it’s pitiful, if we leave it here, we don’t know what the researchers will do.”

“Ah.”

We had to cut off the danger in advance.

“Then are you going to kill it?”

“No. That won’t solve anything.”

Simply killing it wouldn’t solve anything.

“Even if it was by chance, that thing’s body and soul are intertwined right now. If we kill it in this state, the body and soul could collide and collapse.”

And the collapse of a soul with the immense power of a dragon would be replaced by the name of a disaster and come for us.

That wouldn’t do.

“Even if that wasn’t the case, if we openly kill that thing now, the researchers will notice that there was an intruder.”

“Ah, come to think of it, we were infiltrating, right? …It was so easy that I forgot,” Adela nodded slightly, looking like she had forgotten.

“Then what are you going to do?”

“It’s simple.”

I grabbed the red necklace I was wearing around my neck.

The medium of Factio, and the medium that connected me and Miho.

The Stone of Covenant.

“There’s a saying. Medicine to a pharmacist. Souls to Miho.”

“Ah~”

The beautiful red color absorbed my mana and glowed faintly.

Mee-!

Miho appeared with a lively cry.

“Were you resting well?” Miho immediately snuggled into my arms.

She seemed to have been sleeping until just now, as a large eye booger was hanging from her eye.

I removed the eye booger and then stroked her head.

As if she liked my touch, Miho made an even more melodious cry.

“Sorry for waking you up while you were sleeping. I called you because I need your help. Can I ask you for a favor?” Miho’s ears and tail perked up.

A solemn expression.

It was an expression that conveyed her willingness to do anything for my request.

“Do you see that poor friend over there?” Miho lifted her head from my arms and turned around.

And at that moment, Miho’s eyes widened.

An expression that asked what that thing was.

…

In Miho’s expression, there was a hint of disgust and a large amount of anger.

As a guardian of souls, she couldn’t forgive whoever created such a terrible being.

“I’m asking you. Please give that poor soul a peaceful end.”

Miho nodded with a determined expression.

It was an expression that said to leave it to her.

Miho stepped out of my arms and stood firmly on the ground.

And one step, one step.

She approached the thing that failed to become a dragon.

And on the third step.

Whirr-!

Miho’s body was engulfed in pure white flames.

“…Miho, she’s grown a lot.”

“Yeah. She’s grown a lot.”

Miho, who had reappeared, had become a dignified divine beast.

She swayed her seven tails and continued to walk with an elegant posture.

…!

In the midst of that.

Miho’s body twitched.

A reaction as if she was greatly surprised by something.

“Miho?” Miho’s body stiffened.

A look as if she was frightened by something.

An unknown sense of unease washed over me.

And.

“No way…” That unease soon became a reality.

I slowly raised my head.

Koo-ooo-ooo-ooo-!!

The dragon that shouldn’t have been able to move was moving.