Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume 15 - Chapter 13

Chapter 13:

Explanations

I NEEDED TO TAKE a step back and review all of this.

First of all, Orsted was a member of the ancient Dragonfolk race, brought to this era from the distant past by a special method of reincarnation.

There were two other unusual things about him: he was cursed, and he was under the influence of a “secret art.” The curse made everyone in the world despise him. The secret art caused his mana to regenerate very slowly, but hid him from the Man-God’s eyes, and also let him see the future in broad, general strokes.

Why had he come here from the past, curse and all?

It started when the Man-God murdered the very first Dragon God. All of the many Dragon Gods who’d followed lived only to pursue revenge; destroying the Man-God was a goal shared by the entire Dragonfolk race. As the son of that first Dragon God, Orsted had travelled to the future to realize that dream.

“Does that sound about right?”

“Yes. You certainly grasped all that quickly.”

“How long ago were you reincarnated, by the way?”

“Ah… it was roughly two thousand years ago, I believe.”

Two thousand years? He’d been living in this body for that long? Wow.

Anyway… his story was coherent enough, but something about it felt a little off somehow. Where exactly was that feeling coming from? Maybe the part about him not regenerating mana? Perugius had a summoning spell that could drain mana from his opponents, and I had to assume Orsted could use that too. Wouldn’t that solve the problem by itself?

Hmm. Nah, there had to be some reason why it wouldn’t work. Maybe you couldn’t store that mana permanently inside yourself.

Well, how about Orsted’s intense hatred for the Man-God? The fact that the Man-God killed his father was a solid explanation on paper, but somehow his animosity felt too intense for that to be its only cause. I didn’t get the sense that Orsted was so obsessed with his father’s memory, really.

“I get the feeling that you have a strong personal hatred for the Man-God, Orsted. Is there some reason for that you haven’t mentioned yet?”

“Who wouldn’t despise that vicious piece of filth?”

“…Fair enough.”

Over the course of two thousand years, the Man-God had probably done all sorts of horrific things to Orsted. Even if he couldn’t talk to Orsted directly, he could still send him messages through others. Hmm… maybe Orsted’s current condition had something to do with the conflict between his father and the Man-God, too?

Anyway! There were a few things I still didn’t entirely understand, but I probably knew what I needed to about Orsted’s background at this point. Whatever it might be, he definitely had something motivating him to fight the Man-God. That made him the enemy of my enemy.

There were plenty of other questions I needed to get around to as well. For example…

“During our battle earlier, you mentioned that I possess something called a Laplace Aspect. Could you explain what that is?”

“How much do you know about Laplace?”

“Well, I know he caused a great war four hundred years ago in which humankind was almost defeated. People say he had an immense amount of mana, but was incapable of using Battle Aura. Uhm… although he was very powerful, Lord Perugius eventually sealed him away with the help of two companions… Oh, and he betrayed the Superd.”

I’d heard a bunch of other rumors about the man, but those felt like the most important points.

“Is that all?”

“Oh, right. I did hear he’s supposedly going to be resurrected soon.”

“Did you know that this ‘resurrection’ will be accomplished by means of the Dragonfolk’s reincarnation technique?”

“Uhhhm… no, I think that’s news to me… Oh, wait. The Man-God might have mentioned it, actually.”

My memory was a little fuzzy on that point. Anyway, the word reincarnation sure was coming up a lot in this conversation…

“Hmph. A little later, I’ll want to hear everything that creature discussed with you… or tried to make you believe.”

“Sure.”

“For now, however, let us discuss Laplace.”

I could feel Eris radiating irritation from the seat beside me at the mere mention of that name. I understood why. The two of us were both good friends of Ruijerd’s, and Laplace was his mortal enemy. That made Laplace our enemy as well.

Still, I needed to make sure I kept my cool here, no matter what Orsted said next. Getting mad was Eris’ job, and calming her down was mine.

“The Demon-God Laplace, as you may know him, is in fact the pitiful shell of a man once known as the Demonic Dragon King,” Orsted continued in a matter-of-fact tone.

“The… Demonic Dragon King?”

“Indeed. He was once one of the ancient Dragonfolk.”

Wait, what? Wasn’t he the Demon God? That means he has to be a Demon, right? 

“The Demonic Dragon King Laplace was among the first generation of the Five Dragon Generals.”

Okay, I’d heard of those guys before. They’d once been under the Dragon God’s command, but ended up betraying him… and supposedly, their battle ended with no one left standing.

“Laplace escaped the destruction of the world of dragons, and wandered this one in the pursuit of a singular mission. At that time, he was known as the second Dragon God.”

So the guy was a Dragon King, and a Dragon God, and a Demon God? That was entirely too many titles. I was starting to get a headache over here.

“The man worked feverishly to develop some means of destroying the Man-God. Calling himself the Dragon God, he gathered talented followers to him, teaching them all the arts he knew; and over many long years, he developed his techniques still further. All so that I, the strongest of the Dragonfolk, could inherit his legacy when reborn in the distant future.”

Wow! The strongest ever? And so modest too!

“But in the Second Human-Demon War, Laplace faced the Fighting God, an apostle of the Man-God. And in that battle, his soul was split in two.”

This was another story I’d heard at some point. At the very end of that war, the Golden Knight Aldebaran had supposedly faced off against the Great Emperor of the Demon World. Kishirika later told me it was actually a battle between the Dragon God and the Fighting God… so if Laplace was the Dragon God back then, that Aldebaran guy must have been the Fighting God.

Hmm. Wouldn’t that mean Laplace was fighting on the side of Demonkind?

“Thus divided, Laplace lost his memories. One half of him became the Demon God, who loathed humanity beyond all reason. And the other became the Technique God, who sought the strength to destroy gods.”

Oh, now the Demon God was finally making an appearance. Along with, uh, the Technique God. I seemed to remember he was the top-ranked member of the Seven Great Powers…

“Huh? Wait, so the Technique God is also Laplace?”

“Indeed.”

Uh, that seemed like one hell of a revelation. Was it really okay for Orsted to just tell me about all this? Gah! This was way too much information all at once. I couldn’t even process it all. Orsted was the son of the first Dragon God, but Laplace was the second Dragon God?

Let’s see if I can make some sense of this…

First of all, the original Dragon God sent Orsted to the future to kill the Man-God.

Laplace was one of the Five Dragon Generals at this point, but he either stayed loyal to the Dragon God, or rejoined him after realizing the Man-God was up to no good. He survived the Dragon God’s death and the destruction of his world, and fled over into this one.

Once he was here, Laplace started wandering around the world, teaching generations of Dragon Gods his secrets and honing his techniques so that Laplace could pick them up someday in the future. Then the Man-God set the Fighting God on him and put a stop to that. But Laplace got lucky… or maybe used some last-ditch technique to save himself. Although he was split in half and lost his memory, he managed to live on as two separate individuals…

That was the general idea, right? Probably? I wasn’t too confident I’d gotten all of the details right.

“Hmph!”

I looked over at Eris, who had a big, irritated frown on her face. I recognized it as her standard “I didn’t understand a single word of that!” expression. It was a bit of a relief to know I wasn’t the most confused person in the room. 

Orsted wasn’t done talking yet, though.

“The Demon-God Laplace, stripped of his draconic essence, retained two things: the belief that his purpose was to slay all humans, and his enormous knowledge of the magical arts. And so, he united Demonkind in order to eradicate humanity.”

“The Technique-God Laplace, stripped of his magical powers, instead retained his vast trove of skills—and a vague but powerful compulsion to pass his knowledge on to others. Accordingly, he created the Seven Great Powers, and devoted himself to the refinement of their techniques.”

The Technique God created the Seven Great Powers… yeah, I think I’d heard about this before. It did make some sense, since he was number one on the list.

Wait a second, though. Wasn’t the Second Human-Demon War like… five thousand years ago or something?

“…How do you know all this, Sir Orsted? By the time you were reincarnated two thousand years ago, the Second Human-Demon War had been over for a very long time. Laplace had already lost his memories, right? Who could possibly have told you his story?”

“I discovered Laplace’s personal writings in an ancient Dragonfolk ruin.”

“Oh. I see…”

The man must have kept good records before he lost his memory. Too bad neither of his current selves had ever stumbled across them…

“Now then, shall we return to the matter of your abundant supply of mana?”

“Please do.”

“The first Dragon God created something known as the Reincarnation Art. It is a means of sending your soul into the future and taking over the body of another being, as a form of rebirth.”

“…”

The way he’d phrased that felt… a little disturbing.

“However, the body and the soul are normally all but indivisible. A foreign soul would be rejected by the body instantly, causing the Art to fail. It was for this reason that the first Dragon God injected elements of himself into a number of individuals. The children of those people inherited these aspects of him, and were altered very slightly by them. His plan was to produce an ideal vessel for his soul, even if it took hundreds or thousands of years of slow and steady changes.”

“…”

“The reincarnation itself occurs when a body perfectly suited to your soul is conceived. You then take the place of the soul that would otherwise have been born, and emerge a newborn infant. A number of the Dragonfolk have come to this era by means of this very technique. Perugius is among them, although he remembers nothing of his last life, as he left it while still a child.”

So reincarnation… involved stealing the body of a baby, basically. Overwriting its soul.

I stared down at my hands. I’d been reincarnated myself. Did that mean I’d stolen this life from the real Rudeus Greyrat? 

“Are you still listening to me?”

“Huh? Oh. Yes. Of course.”

As I looked up, I found that Orsted was studying my face closely.

“Let us return to the story of Laplace. The Demon-God had lost his sanity at the moment of his sundering, but it seems he remembered the details of the Reincarnation Art, or perhaps found some record of it. After Perugius defeated him, but before his body was sealed, he released many Aspects of himself into the world—and sent his soul into the future.”

“…”

“In the present day, individuals who bear these Aspects and share certain traits with him are appearing in increasing numbers. Some possess large supplies of mana and a great proficiency for magic; others are born with green hair, or even possessing Demon Eyes.”

I knew someone who met a lot of those criteria. Green hair, lots of mana, and a knack for magic… that was everything except the Demon Eye. “Does that mean Sylphie has an Aspect?”

“Yes, Sylphiette is one of those I was referring to. Although her hair seems to have turned white now, for some reason…”

“But she’s not actually the reincarnation of Laplace, right?”

“Of course not. He could not possibly be reborn as a woman.”

It was bit of a relief to hear that. But now that I thought about it… there was a likelier candidate than Sylphie to consider.

“You think I have an Aspect too, right?”

“Almost certainly. A body capable of containing that much mana could not have come into existence otherwise.”

“…You know, I always thought I increased my mana capacity by training really hard as a kid.”

“That’s also true, of course. Your body merely had the potential to hold vast quantities of mana. Had you not practiced magic from a young age, you would likely have ended up with only a little more than an ordinary person, much like Sylphiette. Your enormous mana capacity is the result of your own hard work, and you have every right to take pride in it.”

Was that a compliment? Maybe I should be puffing out my chest a little…

“Uhm, just to be clear. I’m not the reincarnation of Laplace either, am I?”

“No. It will be decades before he’s reborn, I expect.”

Well, that was good to know, at least. And I was relieved to finally have a clear answer about why I had so much magic to throw around.

I felt a little guilty about the fact that I was basically borrowing Laplace’s powers, considering my friendship with Ruijerd… but hey, it’s all about how you use it, right?

To be honest, there was something else that was bothering me more.

“…”

Orsted watched me in silence for a while, then let out a small sigh. “There’s no need to feel guilty. I know that you’re a reincarnate yourself, but no Rudeus Greyrat exists within my memories.”

“…Could you elaborate a little?”

“Those who inherit a Laplace Aspect often possess great magical potential even as an infant. And your body is capable of containing a particularly great amount of mana. It would be no surprise if a fragile newborn soul failed to tolerate such a host.”

“Sorry, what does that mean, exactly?”

“…The child would likely have been stillborn, had you not assumed its body.”

Oh.

Well… okay then. As long as I hadn’t murdered the real Rudeus. I didn’t want to think I’d stolen a life with this much happiness in it, you know? But if the alternative to my arrival was Paul and Zenith mourning their first-born child, then it was all for the best. It was time to put this depressing line of thought behind me. I was the son of Paul and Zenith—the one and only Rudeus Greyrat.

With that matter settled, I decided to move on to my next burning question.

“Uhm, I’ve heard that the Displacement Incident happened as a result of Nanahoshi being summoned. Do you think you could explain in more detail?”

“…There is a great deal about those events I don’t yet understand. No such thing ever happened before.”

“Well, I’m a reincarnate, and I was close to the epicenter of the disaster when it took place. I feel like there’s some chance I caused it, somehow…”

“What…?”

All of a sudden, Eris reached under the table and grabbed my thigh. When I looked over, I found her staring at me and subtly shaking her head. In an attempt to reassure, I reached behind her… and began fondling her butt. Her rear, both soft and muscular, offered an exquisite tactiow ow ow oh crap my thigh! No pinchy! No pinchyyy!

“I cannot deny the possibility, I admit. You, Nanahoshi, and the Displacement Incident are all… new additions to history.”

God, I thought she was going to rip an inch of muscle right out of my leg…

I glanced at Eris’ face. She was glaring at me with an expression that read “This is a serious conversation, remember?!” in big, bold letters. It was nice to see that she’d learned how to read the room a little.

In any case, it sounded like Orsted didn’t know much about the Displacement Incident either. Nanahoshi had come up with some weird theories on her own, but… there was no need to get into all that right now. In fact, I felt like I’d asked enough questions for one day. My head was about ready to burst with new information as it was. If I kept this conversation going much longer, I wasn’t sure I’d even be capable of understanding anything Orsted told me. Better to pick things up where I’d left off some other time.

“…I don’t know how useful it will be, but I have some information from the future that I wanted to show you.”

“You do?”

“Uhm… yes, I think so. Take a look at this.”

I handed the diary from the future over to Orsted. He flipped it open and quickly skimmed through the first few pages; but after a few moments, he looked up from it with his brow furrowed. “It will take some time for me to read all this. The handwriting is rather poor.”

“Well, that’s okay…”

Was my handwriting that crappy? Nanahoshi had said the exact same thing. Anyway, it wasn’t fair to expect great penmanship from a diary. But I’d have to take things nice and slow next time I wrote someone a letter.

“Oh, right. Before we get into that, can I ask you about something else?”

“What is it?”

I paused for a moment. Was it a good idea to even bring this up? Orsted had treated me much more nicely than I’d expected so far… but I felt like I was about to push my luck.

“You see, uh, Sir…”

“There’s no need for these formalities.”

“Well, Orsted… Sir… I’m going to be your subordinate from now on. Correct?”

“…Yes. So long as you accept that role.”

“Right. So, uhm… this is very awkward, really, but…” I glanced over at Eris, then continued. “Could we discuss the terms of my employment?”

“Your… employment?”

“Right. I’ve got a family now, as you know… and if possible, well… I’d like to have some time off. To spend with them. Every now and then, at least.”

Don’t get me wrong. I was ready and willing to work my butt off for this guy. That said… sometimes you need a break to remind yourself what you’re working for, right? I wanted time to look in on Lucie, tutor my little sisters, enjoy Lilia’s cooking, bask in the sun with Zenith, roll around in bed with Sylphie, roll around in bed with Roxy, and roll around in bed with Eris. Was that too much to ask?

“That may depend on your performance, Rudeus Greyrat.”

“Oh. Right. Sure.”

Crap. Maybe it was.

Sorry, Lucie! Daddy’s off to work away from home! I’ll be back once we’ve saved the world from the Man-God, okay? Farewell for now! Make sure to eat all your veggies!

“However, I’m no Atofe. It was never my intention to tear you away from the family you risked everything to protect. And I don’t have any plans of dragging you around with me for years on end… currently, at least.”

“Wait, really? That’s kind of a relief to hear.”

Phew. From the sound of things, I was going to get some days off after all. Being separated from everyone I loved would have been… challenging, to say the least. Keeping them safe was my top priority, but I wanted to be around them, too.

“Is there anything else you want from me?”

Orsted’s eyes were fixed on me in something that looked a lot like a glare. Could I actually say yes to that question? What if he got angry with me?

No, no. I needed to grow a spine. This was my one window of opportunity. We didn’t have a contract or anything, so it was crucial to get this stuff worked out up front.

“…Uhm, are you okay with me asking for more?”

“I will do my best to meet your needs.”

Ooh, that sounded promising. Hmm. Would asking for a salary be taking things a bit too far?

I mean, it wasn’t that unreasonable. If you want someone to do a job responsibly, you pay them for it. By taking your money, they accept responsibility for their work. Anyone who works for free will do so irresponsibly… or so I’d read in some manga once upon a time.

Naturally, I wanted to be a responsible subordinate to Orsted. And surely taking some cash from him would be the perfect way to demonstrate this.

“Uhm, so… since I’m going to be out of the house a lot, my family’s going to lose one of its breadwinners. I wasn’t bringing home that much to begin with, and… well, I actually ran up quite a few expenses, uh, preparing for our battle the other day. We still have some savings for now, but I could see them running out one of these days. If I’m not working, we’ll probably have to cut back on our dinner menu a little. And we’ve got a bunch of growing kids to—”

“You want money, then?”

“Well, sure, if you want to be blunt about it! Heheh.”

As I giggled evilly out of sheer embarrassment, Orsted reached into his coat and pulled something out, which he then dropped casually onto the table in front of me. It was a dagger… no, a shortsword… in a beautifully ornamented sheath.

“This is one of the 48 magic swords crafted from the bones of the Dragon King Kajakut by the famous Demon swordsmith Julian Harisco. Its name is Eminence, and it should sell for 100,000 Asuran gold coins or so. That ought to last you for a while.”

“Wh-whoa…”

Did he just say a hundred thousand?! An Asuran gold coin’s worth, what… something like a hundred thousand yen, right? So that would be… ten billion yen?! A guy could live off that kind of money for the rest of his life! Hell, you could probably build yourself a castle!

“Do you need more?”

“N-no, of course not!”

Holy crap. What was this guy going to expect me to do in exchange for something this valuable? Oh, right… he wanted me to fight the Man-God. I guess this made me a hired gun. But for some reason, getting paid this much to do the job made it seem a little scarier.

There was kind of a practical issue here, though. How was I going to turn this thing into cash? Who the heck was actually going to spend that much money on a single sword? It seemed like the sort of thing the Asuran royal family might do. Maybe I should go squeeze some wealth out of Ariel’s brothers?

“It’s just, w-well… I think it might be difficult to find someone who can afford to pay a fair price for this sword around here…”

“Hm… I see. You have a point. Perhaps these would be preferable, then.”

This time, Orsted took out a small leather bag. When he dropped it carelessly on the table, it clattered like pebbles in a can. I picked it up and peered inside. It was packed full of transparent stones in all sorts of vivid colors. “Are these… gems?”

“They’re magic stones. I picked out a number of small ones with particularly vivid colors. Sell them to any Magicians’ Guild, and you’ll walk away with a sizable sum.”

These were all colored magic stones? Weren’t those things really rare? Unlike that legendary sword, this wasn’t build-a-castle territory, but I could probably bankroll a good decade of decadent living with these. 

I was starting to feel kind of nervous about accepting all of this. I couldn’t help shooting an uncertain look over in Orsted’s direction.

“Do you need more?” he asked calmly.

What?! You’re not done throwing money at me yet?!

No, no. Anything more would just be… scary at this point.

“No. This should be fine for now, thank you…”

I carefully stashed the shortsword and the magic stones away. It felt kind of uncomfortable just having them in my clothing… almost of like I was carrying explosives or something. Maybe I could ask Eris to take the sword, at least…

“Very well then,” Orsted said with a nod. “I’m going to get started on this diary. What do you intend to do in the meantime?”

“I could wait for you to finish.”

“I believe it will take me a full day to get through this.”

“Hmm… right. Well, I don’t know. It’s still pretty early… maybe we should just continue our conversation for now?”

“It seems that you consider this diary important, so I would prefer to read it first.”

It was hard to say how important it really was at this point. But I felt like it was worth having him take a look through it, at least. Orsted had the ability to see the future, but only in a vague way. By comparing his knowledge with the details in that diary, there was a chance he’d figure out something valuable.

“All right then. I guess I’ll head back home for now and come by again tomorrow.”

“Very well.”

“…Are you planning to spend the night here, incidentally?”

“I am, yes.”

“Okay. No problem.”

With a respectful nod to Orsted, I stepped out of the cabin and turned toward the city of Sharia.

***

In the warm evening light, I made my way along the road back home, staying just a few paces behind Eris. Thanks to all the complicated things I’d discussed today, my head was feeling heavier than usual. The only thing my weary brain was capable of focusing on was the shapely pair of buttocks just in front of me.

Eris’ butt really was amazing. I’d never seen such a perfect synthesis of muscle and fat. Somehow, it was both compact and plump. The girl had curves, all right. This was probably what people meant when they talked about “sex appeal.”

Incidentally, Eris’ pants were pretty tight around her butt, which emphasized its shape in a pleasing way. They made it very clear just how much volume she had in there. What exactly would you call those things, anyway? Tights? Leggings? It wasn’t a style you saw much of around here… Hmm. Was that some kind of leather they were made of? No, they looked too flexible for that… maybe it was fabric instead?

I felt like touching them would be the quickest way to check. Yes, that seemed like an excellent idea. I might lose consciousness for a little while, but that was a small price to pay for solving such a profound mystery.

All right, Eris… Can you counter my new technique, the Grope of Light?!

“Rudeus…”

Eris suddenly turned around and I hurriedly looked up in order to meet her gaze.

“You’re still Rudeus, right?”

As always, there was a cryptic little frown on her face. From her tone, though, I knew she had to be talking about all that reincarnation business we’d discussed earlier.

“Yeah. It sounds like I’ve got that Laplace Aspect thing mixed up inside me somewhere, but I’m still the same person I was yesterday.”

“So nothing’s really different now, right?”

“Right. I learned a few new things about myself, that’s all. I haven’t changed a bit.”

I kept my answers simple and straightforward, with no apologies or excuses. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if Eris had been keeping up with my conversation with Orsted. The man seemed to feel that reincarnation was a perfectly ordinary, everyday phenomenon, and I’d read enough science fiction in my previous life to make sense of his explanations. But without that kind of background knowledge, it might have been almost incomprehensible.

Then again… Eris was about twenty years old now. She was past the age where you could get by without doing any thinking for yourself. There was a part of me that wanted her to stay clueless forever, but that was just a stupid, selfish dream.

“Hmm…” Eris nodded at my words, although it was hard to say if she really understood them. “Do you want me to keep this a secret from Sylphie and Roxy?”

“If you don’t mind, yeah. I’d rather tell them myself, when the time’s right.”

In reply, Eris took three quick steps forward, then stopped abruptly in her tracks.

The setting sun was behind her now, silhouetting her against the evening sky; her hair shone like rubies as the light played through it. Even in the shadow, her striking facial features and intense gaze were mesmerizing.

 Damn. She really is beautiful.

“All right,” she said. “You have to hold my hand, then.”

Eris held out her hand, and I took it without another word. It was as lovely to look at as the rest of her. It was also calloused, and a little on the tough side. Very different from Sylphie’s hands, or Roxy’s. 

Warm and strong, that hand wrapped itself around mine. I squeezed it firmly back, and began to walk. 

This was the first time in ages that I’d strolled along side by side with Eris. For some reason, it was enough to make me very happy.

And when my thoughts turned to the new chapter of my life that would begin tomorrow, my heart throbbed slightly—with excitement.