Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume 17 - Chapter 1

Chapter 1:

The Road to Asura

THE JOURNEY FROM Ranoa to the Kingdom of Asura usually took several months. But fortunately, we had access to the teleportation circles. 

Our first stop was Perugius’ floating fortress, where we could teleport ourselves and our carriage to a spot just north of the Asuran border. From there, we’d be travelling more conventionally down to our destination.

“Oh wow! This is incredible, Rudeus! That town’s just a tiny speck from up here!”

Eris hopped from her horse in excitement within moments of our arrival at the fortress. With her mouth wide open, she stared over the edge at the ground below, then snapped her gaze to look up at Perugius’ imposing castle. She looked more like a kid at an amusement park than a twenty-year-old woman. It was definitely cute, but I think most of us also felt a little secondhand embarrassment.

Still, her obvious excitement seemed to please Perugius’ servant Sylvaril, who’d been waiting for us in front of the teleportation circle. “How do you like the view from our floating fortress Chaos Breaker, miss?”

“It’s amazing!” replied Eris, with a big smile. “I’ve never seen anything like this before!”

Sylvaril nodded, looking very satisfied indeed. I guess he had a soft spot for the ‘little ray of sunshine’ types. Understandable. 

“It’s kind of you to say so. Allow me to introduce myself—I am Sylvaril of the Void, first among the servants of Lord Perugius. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“I’m Eris Greyrat!” 

By this point, Eris was shooting eager glances at the castle. Picking up on her enthusiasm, Sylvaril led the way forward, taking her on a kind of guided tour. The rest of us followed behind, watching them while smiling.

Eventually, our party arrived at the audience hall.

“Ah, there you are.”

Just like the last time, we found Perugius leaning in his tall chair with a haughty expression and his loyal spirits at his side.

We were mainly stopping by today to pay our respects. Ariel took a graceful step forward, ready to deliver some formal spiel. But before she could get a word out, Eris broke from the group and strode right up to the master of the castle.

“And who are you supposed to be?” Perugius asked, sizing her up with a glance.

I had a vision of Eris leaping forward to take a swing at him, and a chill ran down my spine. The man was more indulgent than you’d expect, but that didn’t mean he would tolerate that kind of disrespect.

As I stepped forward to intervene, however, Eris abruptly dropped to one knee. “It’s an honor to meet you, sir. I’m Eris Greyrat, who recently became Rudeus’ wife. Thank you for your hospitality.”

I stopped in my tracks and blinked in surprise.

“Ah. I am Perugius Dola, known as the Armored Dragon King. I know of you, Eris Greyrat. You’re the so-called Berserker Sword King who challenged Orsted himself, yes?”

“It’s nothing worth boasting of, sir, but I am.”

“Hm…” 

Eris was speaking in an unusually humble tone, but the words were coming out a little flat and forced. I was beginning to suspect she’d actually memorized all of these lines beforehand. 

“Well, Eris Greyrat, I find your modesty most endearing,” continued Perugius, looking genuinely pleased. “Allow me to apologize for that unfortunate incident eight years ago, when my subordinate assaulted you.”

Eris looked up with a dubious expression. Clearly the girl didn’t even remember what he was talking about. “Uh, it’s all water under the bridge!”

“Is it? My thanks, then. You’re most understanding.”

Chuckling softly, Perugius waved his hand in a lordly gesture of welcome. Eris rose to her feet and walked back to us with a satisfied smirk. I could practically hear her saying, See? I can handle this stuff just fine when I put my mind to it!

The girl really had rehearsed this whole thing. I was fully convinced of that now.

In any case, it seemed she’d left a good first impression on Perugius. He hadn’t been nearly so friendly to me the first time we met. I guess Eris’ openness was just naturally endearing.

Well, whatever. At least it didn’t turn into a brawl…

“Please follow me, everyone.”

A little later, after Ariel had offered her own greeting, we followed Sylvaril back out of the hall. The teleportation circle we’d be using was located a little farther behind the one we’d come through. We found it in the rear of a large, empty hall, glowing faintly in the gloom.

Sylvaril took the time to give us a lecture on the history of the hall itself, but I’ll just omit all that. The most important thing was that this particular teleportation circle would take us to a forest close to the Asuran border. Perugius had a number of other circles in his fortress, but this was the one that would bring us closest to our destination.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t like functional circles remained in every city on the map. All of those in the floating fortress itself were kept active by Perugius’ mana, but in order to actually use them, the circle on the other end also had to be actively powered. 

Under normal circumstances, you’d have to ensure both circles were activated simultaneously by people on either side. Which sounded incredibly inconvenient. But there was a workaround of sorts, which involved a kind of special magical implement. Supposedly invented by the same genius mage who created the teleportation circles themselves, these implements were capable of automatically absorbing mana from their surroundings to keep the circles perpetually active. 

However, they only worked in certain areas where the air was thick with mana. That naturally limited the locations where the teleportation circles could be placed. This was probably the reason why the circles I’d used on my way to Begaritt, for example, had been in such inconvenient spots—deep in the forest, or way off in the desert.

Generations of researchers did eventually find a way around this issue. Circles in other places could be continually powered by magical crystals, as long as they were regularly replaced. It was a manually-powered alternative to the older, automatic design. The Kingdom of Asura was located in a region with very low mana density, so nearly all of its teleportation circles had been of this newer type. They were powered when strictly necessary, and left inactive otherwise; only a handful of people even knew where the magic crystals needed to be placed in order to activate them.

It was a moot point now, though. All the manual and automatic teleportation circles in the entire country had recently been destroyed by some unknown party. The only one who knew where to find them all was the Man-God. And the only person with the power to have them all destroyed was the High Minister Darius, who could call on private forces dotted all across the kingdom. Those were our best guesses as to the culprits at the moment, at least.

Unless you had a suitable place, suitable tools, and extensive knowledge of magic circles, you had no hope of making a teleportation circle yourself. In other words, we couldn’t have made one for ourselves inside Asura. We were going to have to take a somewhat longer road to our destination.

Anyway. We’d managed to work out our travel plans, but I had to wonder how Perugius was planning to show up later on. When I brought this up at our audience, he’d brushed off the question, telling me that I didn’t need to worry myself about it. 

Ariel seemed to be aware of the details, at least. Maybe he was planning some sort of dramatic surprise appearance.

***

We stepped into the teleportation circle, and soon found ourselves standing in a ruin. Its layout and construction were very similar to that of the building in the desert I’d teleported into on the Begaritt Continent.

From what Orsted told me, there had once been many structures of this sort all around the world, and many of the races had moved freely between the continents. After their misuse for military purposes, however, their use and construction had been forbidden. Some of the Dragonfolk had strongly disagreed with this decision. They secretly protected a number of the circles they regularly used with subtle magical barriers, which was the only reason there were still a decent handful of the things lying around. Some people just don’t give a damn about the ‘common good,’ I guess.

Not that I was complaining or anything. Thanks to their selfishness, we could move around the world a bit more easily.

We made our way out of the ruin and found ourselves standing in a thick, vibrant forest. Based on the map we’d studied beforehand, we were just a bit northwest of the narrow valley known as the Red Wyrm’s Upper Jaw.

Unfortunately, we ran into a bit of a problem right off the bat. We’d gotten our carriage onto the teleportation circle just fine, but now we couldn’t get the thing out of the ruin. You’d think somebody would have realized that was going to be an issue, right?

Before I could feel too disgusted with myself, though, Ariel’s two attendants began steadily taking the carriage apart. Bit by bit, they broke it down into pieces and carried them out the door. The thing had struck me as unusually small, but it was apparently a model that could be disassembled.

We strapped the parts of the carriage to our horses and made our way slowly to the main road, where the thing was quickly reassembled. The sun was setting by this point, though, so we decided to set up camp nearby and spend the night there.

Since we were surrounded by a lush forest, it was easy enough to procure both food and kindling. We hunted a few beast-like monsters for their meat, picked some wild plants for seasoning, and killed a few Treants for their wood.

Honestly, it felt like you couldn’t go ten feet in this world without stumbling over a Treant of some kind. There was even one living in my front yard these days. They were probably going to take over the planet sooner or later.

Normally an improvised camp like this would have meant settling on the bare ground, or maybe a log. But to my surprise, one of Ariel’s attendants rolled out some nice, thick carpets for us to sit on. I suppose royalty always traveled in style, regardless of the circumstances.

Sylphie and Ariel’s attendants took care of all the cooking that night. When I offered to help, they gently shooed me away. Given Sylphie’s superior skills, I probably would have been more of a nuisance than anything else. I told them to let me know if they needed any additional plates or cutlery; it was easy enough for me to make more of those.

I found myself with nothing to do while the food was being prepared. I briefly thought about keeping watch, but Ghislaine and Eris were already standing guard, so I wasn’t going to be too useful there either.

I had no specific role to play on this trip. That was actually a first for me. I’d travelled solo for years, and as a temporary member of many parties, but I’d never been total deadweight before.

Back in my adventuring days, my large supply of mana meant that I was assigned all sorts of odd jobs. I could create plates and forks from thin air and produce clean drinking water on command; those kinds of skills were highly prized. But now that I found myself in a well-supplied group with two attendants who could use magic, I suddenly had nothing at all to do but sit around. It felt a little awkward. 

Then again, I wasn’t here to wait on Princess Ariel hand and foot. My task was to identify the Man-God’s disciples and deal with them, one way or another.

Currently, I had some suspicions about Ariel’s knight Luke, as well as the Asuran minister Darius. That was two out of three. It seemed likely that the third and final disciple was either the North Emperor or the Water God, who’d joined the cause of our enemies.

Orsted had given me instructions on how to face them both. But before I actually met them on the battlefield, I needed to take some time to carefully consider how those fights would play out in practice.

I glanced over at Luke with these thoughts running through my mind. He was standing at attention beside Ariel, clad in his impressively shiny armor. For all appearances, he was ready and eager to defend her from any unexpected danger.

There was a very good chance Luke was currently a disciple of the Man-God. Still, I believed he would put his life on the line to defend the princess. It wasn’t like being the Man-God’s disciple made you his loyal puppet or anything. I knew from experience how it worked—the slippery little jerk would give you all sorts of advice that seemed helpful, only to betray you at the very last moment.

In other words, the Man-God’s disciples were usually his victims. Even good, honest people could be misled by his lies. It wasn’t Luke’s fault he had an evil god manipulating him. That made me very hesitant to even consider killing him. Apart from everything else, he was a key member of Ariel’s faction who’d provided her with all sorts of support over the years. He’d still have a crucial role to play, even after she became queen.

Of course, the Kingdom of Asura wouldn’t be helping Orsted in his quest for another hundred years. Luke would be dead by then either way, so maybe his fate wasn’t that significant. Still, it had to be important for Ariel to be an effective queen, right? Having Luke around might help her maneuver things in the right direction…

Well, maybe. Or maybe this was one of those fixed “turning points” in history. In other words, if Ariel became queen, things would work out somehow. And if the First Prince took the throne instead, we were headed for a bad end no matter what.

The idea still seemed really odd to me. Reality had to be more complicated than a scripted video game, right?

At the end of the day, I had to rely on Orsted’s knowledge about this stuff. And it was hard to say if he would ever give me a complete explanation of things. He’d never gone into much detail about the crucial events that would occur a century from now. I’d pressed him once about the Man-God’s claim that his actions would “destroy the world,” and he’d simply said, “That is a possibility, to be certain.”

Honestly, killing the Man-God seemed to be the only thing that mattered to Orsted. I didn’t get the sense he cared about what came after that. And at the moment, I couldn’t afford to worry about what might happen a hundred years down the road. I had my hands full keeping my family safe in the present. Was that irresponsible? Shortsighted? Yeah, probably. Couldn’t bring myself to care, though. The people living in the future could deal with their own problems.

Still, I had to wonder why my descendants would join Orsted knowing that his victory might destroy the world. Maybe they weren’t going to know. The idea made me feel kind of bad for them.

It couldn’t hurt to leave them a message explaining it was a possibility, right? Probably?

“Rudy, dinner’s ready! Ghislaine, Eris, come get some food!”

My thoughts had wandered quite a bit by the time those words snapped me back to reality. I’d have to write a nice long diary entry after we made it back from Asura. I had a feeling some of this stuff might slip my mind otherwise.

***

Ariel retired to her tent at nightfall. The rest of us would be camping outside, keeping watch over the area on alternating shifts.

There were seven of us in the party, apart from the princess. Two of us were enough to keep an eye on things, but we’d have one shift with three people in it. We decided that one person on this larger shift would leave the camp and patrol the nearby woods, looking for anything unusual. This would have to be someone capable of defeating monsters on their own—which meant me, Sylphie, Eris, or Ghislaine.

That first night, this role fell to me.

“Okay, I’m going to go take a look around.”

I nodded to the others, stepped away from the light of our fire and made my way into the depths of the forest. Soon, I was surrounded by inky blackness, with nothing but a torch to light my way. I could sense there were no enemies in the immediate area, but it was still slightly unsettling.

“Hm…”

After five minutes of steady walking, I’d travelled a good distance from our camp.

That was when someone suddenly stepped forward out of the darkness.

A moment before, there’d been nothing in front of me. And now I was staring up at a tall, silver-haired man with sharp golden eyes and a terribly intense face.

Yelping reflexively, I fumbled with my torch, very nearly dropping it.

“Eee! Uh… pardon me. It’s good to see you, Sir Orsted.”

“Right.”

I seated myself on a nearby tree root, trying to slow my racing heart. Orsted settled down on another, facing me at a distance of several feet. The man had trailed our footsteps. I’d known that was the plan all along, of course. Perugius was probably aware of this as well, since Orsted had likely used the same teleportation circle as us.

I was expected to make periodic reports to Orsted during our journey. The others might get suspicious if I disappeared on my own too frequently, so the plan was to meet up once every several days, whenever it was my turn to scout the area.

“How are things so far?”

“Luke hasn’t done anything suspicious, and the journey’s going smoothly at this point.”

These were the two things he’d tasked me to monitor. But it was only the first day, so there wasn’t much to say. Orsted clearly hadn’t expected anything else, either.

“That makes sense,” he said with a nod. “I wouldn’t expect anything to happen too quickly.”

“Right.”

“However, be on your guard when you pass through the Upper Jaw.”

“Yeah, absolutely.”

The Red Wyrm’s Upper Jaw was a narrow chokepoint that connected the Kingdom of Asura and the Northern Territories through the tall mountain range that separated them. It was a single path, just wide enough for two large carriages to pass each other by. Orsted had very nearly killed me in a similar pass down south, which was called the Red Wyrm’s Lower Jaw.

Once we made our way down the valley, we’d arrive at a large, dense forest known as the Red Wyrm’s Whiskers. This place was well-known to the people of Asura, although they often just referred to it as part of the Upper Jaw. This forest was technically in Asuran territory, but the physical border wall was located just to its south. There the kingdom had built a great fortress which completely sealed off the pass; it was manned by hundreds of soldiers at any given time.

That fortress had several purposes. Primarily, it prevented the forest’s monsters from wandering south into Asuran territory, and discouraged any attempts at invasion from the north.

There was one other crucial reason for its placement, though. That forest just to the north was a very convenient place to dispose of inconvenient people. The Red Wyrm’s Whiskers were essentially outside Asuran territory, and the density of the trees made witnesses less likely. The forest was crawling with monsters and border-straddling bandit gangs, too. It was the ideal place to make someone disappear.

Assuming Darius was really getting advice from the Man-God, there was an excellent chance we’d encounter some kind of an ambush there. Dispatching his forces further north would be a risky violation of another country’s territory, and once we were south of the fortress, any attempt on the princess’ life would likely be witnessed, and word of mouth would spread the story. The forest was the single least risky place for him to murder Ariel. That was where he’d strike for the first time.

Or so Orsted had concluded, anyway.

“I’ll proceed as planned, then?” I asked.

“Yes.”

If there was an attack, I could use it as evidence to discourage any further travel on the main roads. Once I convinced them that heading straight for the capital would be too risky, our search for alternative routes should lead us straight to hiring Triss and her group of bandits.

If there wasn’t an attack, Orsted was planning to take action himself. Which meant a false flag operation, basically. Orsted had brought a number of summoning scrolls, and magic crystals to activate them with. The monsters they would summon weren’t native to this area, so I could convincingly argue someone had sent them after us.

Either way, things should work out according to our plans.

“If there is an attack, the North Emperor Auber Corbett will likely be there. Be very cautious when you face him.”

“Yeah. We went over that already, right?”

“We did, yes…”

The Asurans had apparently hired the services of both the North Emperor and the Water God, but the odds were good they would send the former to kill us. According to Orsted, Auber’s style was well-suited to this kind of dirty work. The man was a perfect personification of the North God Style, as bizarre and unpredictable as they come. Everything about him was odd, from his clothing to his hairstyle to his techniques. They called him the Peacock Blade, and he was a master of surprise attacks.

“I can’t help but worry,” Orsted murmured.

“About what?” I asked.

“You, of course.”

I just blinked at that.

“There’s a battle close at hand,” he continued, “But you seem… almost unconcerned.”

Unconcerned?

Well… maybe I wasn’t as tense as you might expect, under the circumstances. But I felt like we were prepared for this. Orsted had told me how to fight Auber. There was no guarantee he’d show up, but if he did, I’d simulated our battle in my mind many times over the last few days. I knew the man was a dangerous opponent. I didn’t see how getting nervous was going to help matters. Keeping my cool was important if I wanted to survive. There was no guarantee I’d be victorious, but… it was probably better for me to stay relaxed, right? Probably.

“Take these with you, just in case.”

Orsted retrieved a few pieces of paper from within his coat. They were scrolls covered in complex magic circles.

“This is King-tier healing magic,” he explained as I accepted them. “You’re only Advanced in that school, yes? Use these if the need arises.”

“Oh. Thank you…”

I couldn’t tell you what King-tier healing spells did off the top of my head. I felt like they were strong enough to regenerate a lost limb, if necessary. My evasive and defensive abilities were somewhat limited, and my opponent’s offensive skills were top-notch. It probably was a good idea for me to have something like these up my sleeve.

“I didn’t even know there were magic circles for healing magic this advanced.”

“Almost all known spells can be replicated through the use of circles.”

“Almost? So there’s some exceptions to the rule?”

“Yes. Certain unique spells with unusual means of activation, primarily.”

“Like what?”

“The Howlcasting of the Beastfolk, the gravity magic of the King Dragons… spells of that nature cannot be used without an understanding of the principles involved.”

Howlcasting had to be what I’d always called vocal magic. I’d managed to pick up a bit of that myself—enough to startle people with my voice, at least. It was hard to say how much of that effect came from the magic itself, though… having someone shout at you is kind of startling in general.

“You said your future self could use gravity magic, yes?” Orsted continued. “That must have taken considerable time and effort. You must study the forms, understand them thoroughly, and learn how to put them into practice.”

“People, uh… say you’re capable of using basically every kind of magic. Can you cast gravity spells yourself?”

“I can. They’re not especially useful for my purposes, however.”

That’s Orsted for you. Really, why did I even bother asking?

“Did you learn all of your spells and techniques one by one? You weren’t born knowing all of this, were you?”

“No. I had to learn everything I know over time.”

Hmm. At the moment, I could only vaguely imagine the principles behind gravity magic. I didn’t even know what the magic entailed, exactly. But if I spent long enough puzzling it over, maybe I’d eventually hit on some clever way to make an object weightless or something.

I didn’t have time to pursue something I might never figure out, though. For the foreseeable future, I needed to focus on the task at hand. This sort of stuff could wait until I had a chance to catch my breath.

Okay. Anything else I need to ask about…? Oh, maybe Luke.

“Just one last thing, Sir Orsted. If Luke does turn out to be a disciple of the Man-God, you’re letting me decide whether to spare his life, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s say I spare him, and Ariel manages to become queen. What would happen to him in that scenario, you think?”

“Nothing in particular. Once we make it that far, it will mean his release from the Man-God’s curse.”

“The Man-God can only have three disciples at once, right? Can we really let one go, and just hope he stops controlling them?”

“There’s no need to worry about that. The Man-God can only influence a disciple until his foresight of their future becomes clear.”

Wait, what? Couldn’t you have mentioned this a little earlier, boss? This seems kind of important! Doesn’t that mean he could suddenly swap out a disciple in the middle of a fight or something?

“Additionally, his foresight is limited by the presence of certain turning points. In this case, the outcome will hinge on Ariel’s attempt to defeat Darius and Grabel. The Man-God cannot see the players’ future past this as of yet.”

“So that means… they won’t be changing disciples on us until the outcome is decided?”

“Exactly.”

Okay, yeah. This would have been good to know earlier. Well… at least he told me now, I guess. No point filing a complaint about it.

So. Until this power struggle was completely resolved, the Man-God’s disciples weren’t going to change. And once it was all over, they’d naturally be freed from his control… although it was possible he might reach out to them again later on to use them in some other scheme. 

On another note: it sounded like no matter what, the Man-God couldn’t take on a new disciple until we reached the turning point. Which meant that killing one of them would reduce the number of pawns at his disposal for now.

It was definitely the smarter choice to take them out, if at all possible.

“Okay… I should head back now. They might get suspicious if I’m gone too long.”

“Very well.”

I rose to my feet, and the first of our regular meetings was adjourned. I hurried back to the campfire and reported that I hadn’t seen anything unusual. The next shift soon took our places, and I slipped under my blanket.

The first day of our journey had passed uneventfully enough.