“Want some money? Why are you so down?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re clearly not fine...... Your lips are sticking out a whole handspan. Hold on to it and buy yourself some snacks.”
Kazar forcibly pressed several coins into Ernolf’s hand.
Ernolf stared at the coins with a gloomy expression.
After the Sarapi Empire collapsed, countless nations had fought wars for hegemony.
This era was called either the early Middle Ages or the Warring States Period.
Because currency was not unified during this period, coins from different dynasties were weighed to determine their value.
First the Cornu Tribe, and now ancient coins.
As unmistakable evidence continued to appear, Ernolf had no choice but to accept the hypothesis that he had traveled back in time from the eighteenth century to the second century—roughly sixteen hundred years.
‘Of all things, I had to be dropped into such a tumultuous era. Finding a way to survive must take priority over finding a way back to the future.’
Catherine Vernike.
The name of his future fiancée came to mind.
Dejectedly staring at the coins gleaming in his palm, Ernolf suddenly realized an important fact.
‘Wait. If ancient Baldif copper coins are still circulating in such good condition......’
Ernolf sprang to his feet and staggered up the hill.
Standing at its summit, he looked over the vast land spread out beneath his feet.
As he watched the sun rise above the mist-wrapped horizon, Ernolf thought:
‘The ruins of the Sarapi Empire, the Baldif royal tombs, Pelias Sky Garden, Kaluanui! It is before all kinds of dungeons have been excavated! They’re all unopened!’
That was not all.
The Delano Temple, which had collapsed in a great earthquake, and the Bogart Underwater Dungeon, which had sunk into the sea because of ground subsidence.
Sites that had vanished in natural disasters and become impossible to access sixteen hundred years later were now still waiting for explorers in a state where they could be excavated.
‘Not only can I see vanished ruins with my own eyes, I can excavate them with my own hands!’
He did not want to admit it, but traveling back sixteen hundred years was a stroke of miraculous luck for an archaeologist.
‘I’ll loot every last one. Ending up like this, I deserve at least that much compensation.’
He needed to loot ruins to secure funds for settling down, establish a safe hideout, research a way to undo his possession and return to his original body.
To do that, he first had to recover every magical ability he had once possessed.
As he steadied his resolve toward his new goal, the wind blew at just the right moment.
His hair and the hem of his clothes whipped violently in the wind, making Ernolf feel as though he had become someone quite great.
‘What is he doing?’
Curious about what he was looking at, Kazar went to his brother’s side and noisily chewed jerky.
‘There’s nothing special.’
The familiar northern landscape, familiar enough to be sickening, spread before him: dark forests, desolate plains, and rugged mountains.
Kazar did not know why his twin brother was acting this way, but he liked that Ernolf was filled with hope.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Your face looks like motivation is overflowing from it.”
“Yeah. I’m brimming with motivation right now.”
“Nice.”
Ernolf suddenly wondered what plans Kazar had made for the future.
Kazar had said that he wanted to live like a king, but they had never discussed exactly how he intended to do that.
“What do you want to do now? You aren’t going to go around picking other people’s pockets, are you?”
“Am I a robber?”
“Up until now, haven’t you been pretty close?”
“What are you talking about......”
Kazar thought of Kasion, whom he had failed to kill because he lacked the strength.
If events proceeded as Kazar remembered, Kasion would be in the Cleron Region by now, meeting Baron Buzoni.
‘His wish was to marry the baron’s daughter and become part of a noble family.’
Kasion had a severe inferiority complex about his origins.
To raise his status, he had wanted to marry Baron Buzoni’s only daughter and join the baron’s household as a son-in-law.
He had ultimately succeeded.
‘I can’t let that happen.’
Imagining himself thoroughly crushing Kasion’s ambitions and throwing that bastard alive to hunting dogs, Kazar smiled quietly.
“What are you thinking?”
After asking Kazar what he wanted to do in the future, Ernolf had watched him fall silent for a while before asking the question.
“I thought I needed to grow stronger.”
“Oh......”
“Why?”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
“Yeah. We’re in a pretty sorry state right now.”
Ernolf nodded at Kazar’s words and lifted the rags covering his body.
The cloth was so worn that it looked as though it would dissolve if it got wet in the rain.
“It’s a different context. But as you said, we are a sorry sight. It’s as though some monster chewed us up and spat us out. What is this state......”
Hearing Ernolf’s words, Kazar looked over his own body.
Now that Ernolf mentioned it, his appearance was far too shabby.
Tirad’s clothes, in particular, were so worn that his buttocks were visible through a large hole.
Even if they were brothers, the glimpses of buttocks were terribly troubling to Kazar’s eyes.
They needed to get proper clothes as quickly as possible.
“Let’s go to the village.”
“Let’s go to the village.”
Having said the same thing at once, both men deeply furrowed their brows.
“Does Resonance work on things like this too?”
“Fuck. How are we supposed to live if we share even trivial things like this?”
“It’s a relief it doesn’t.”
“Agreed.”
“Don’t copy me.”
“You don’t either.”
Bickering, the two of them descended the cliff.
Ernolf traveled on the horse Kazar had stolen from the mercenary company.
This time, they were headed not for a tiny village, but for a fairly large estate.
The closer the rural city came, the more intrigued Ernolf became.
‘A typical ancient Sarapi Empire style.’
As they drew close, Ernolf saw the ancient Sarapi Empire letters for “Talisa” written above the gate.
‘Talisa? Hm. I don’t recall that name.’
The history of the Teres Continent was divided into the eras before and after the collapse of the Unified Sarapi Empire.
The era in which Kazar I had been active was the early Middle Ages, around the second century of the Common Era.
Small and medium-sized kingdoms had risen everywhere and waged constant wars, large and small. It was a chaotic era also known as the Warring States Period.
‘There must be plenty of information that was lost over sixteen hundred years.’
A city that had not remained in the historical record was all the more interesting to Ernolf.
“Hey, did we come to sightsee? Why are you moving so slowly?”
Kazar’s grumbling interrupted Ernolf’s reflections.
Kazar was following behind Ernolf, carrying an enormous boar monster over his shoulders.
Its scientific name was Insanus Aper.
It was commonly called a Mad Boar, and its size was enormous enough that even Kazar, an Aura User, complained about how heavy it was.
“W-what is that?!”
“Gasp...... What kind of pig is that huge?”
As Kazar approached the city gate carrying a boar monster as large as a house, the people passing through the gate drew back in fear.
“Cast some weight-reduction magic or something. You’re the only one travelling comfortably......”
“Where would I learn magic like that when I have not been taught? Besides, we agreed to hide our strength.”
“Then why am I doing this?!”
“At least one of us needs to look impressive, so we are not underestimated.”
Ernolf answered indifferently.
This was already the third time they had had the same conversation.
“I liked the earlier plan better. The one where we fire off a flashy spell and get treated well!”
“What good would it do for a mage to reveal his strength from the start? I’d only be the first one to get stabbed.”
“What about me? Is it fine if I’m struck first?”
“It is more advantageous for you to get hurt than for me to get hurt. I would die instantly, but you would still endure for quite a while. And I possess healing magic, however weak it may be. If you get hurt, I can heal you, but what can you do if I get hurt?”
“Damn it, I get it, so stop!”
“Do not be too upset. If you get hurt, I hurt too.”
Because they would both feel the pain due to Resonance, Ernolf comforted Kazar by saying that it was better for only one of them to be hurt.
Kazar had become irritated and was about to throw down the boar when a village guard blocked his way with a spear.
“It’s dead, right? It isn’t walking over here on its own, right?”
“Calm down. There’s a person underneath it.”
The guards were intimidated by the size of the boar monster Kazar had brought.
It was fortunate that the boar was dead.
If it had still been alive, it would have easily destroyed the palisade defending the city as though toppling a sandcastle.
The watchmen standing atop the palisade also swallowed dryly as they watched the dead boar.
“Who are you, and where did you come from?!”
“We’re Ernolf from Isburuho and......”
“It’s Kazar!”
Kazar shouted from beneath the boar.
Ernolf shook his head and let out a sharp sigh.
Before coming here, the two had agreed to use the aliases “Ernolf and Sigmund” rather than “Kazar and Tirad.”
Because they were escaped slaves from a mine, they had agreed it would be better to do so in order to avoid pursuit.
But when the moment came, Kazar broke the promise and gave his real name.
“Where is Isburuho? Do you know?”
The guards tilted their heads after hearing the place name Ernolf had roughly made up from his memory of an old map.
“It’s a tiny little village in the far north. Since it is such a remote backwater, people who live in a city probably would not know it.”
No one could resist flattery.
It was not such a large city, but Ernolf deliberately played upon the guards’ sense of superiority.
The guards decided that it was plausible and asked why they had come.
“We happened to catch a pig while passing through and came to sell it.”
Was that the sort of boar one could casually catch while passing by?
To the guards, it was not the boar that seemed monstrous, but the two boys.
“Uh, how long will you be staying?”
“We will stay for two or three days, then leave right away. We lost our clothes while travelling. As soon as we obtain some clothes, we will leave.”
Ernolf and Kazar had cut up a blanket from Kasion’s Mercenary Company and tied it around themselves in place of clothing.
The guards exchanged looks and discussed the matter among themselves before opening the way.
Talisa was larger than the village they had visited before.
Tall palisades surrounded the settlement, and a low hill stood in its center. Upon the hill was a wooden fort that appeared to be the lord’s residence.
When they entered the market at the heart of the settlement, they saw a temple.
A massive wooden statue wrapped in vines stood before it.
Ernolf’s eyes lit up at the sight.
The tree had no leaves, but the vines wrapped around it were lush with foliage and covered in blooming flowers.
‘The vines seem more full of life than the tree. It is as though the vines are parasitic upon the tree.’
Before the Vesta Church, one of the monotheistic faiths, came to dominate the continent in the middle of the Middle Ages, various ancient beliefs had been spread throughout the Teres Continent since antiquity.
Ernolf possessed considerable knowledge of ancient faiths, yet he did not know of any temple that used parasitic vines upon a tree as its symbol.
‘I do not know which god this temple worships. But... Why are sick people filling the courtyard?’
After briefly falling into thought, Ernolf turned his head toward Kazar.
“Kazar, do not sell that. Bring it to the temple.”
Kazar, who had been haggling with a butcher over the price, turned toward Ernolf with a murderous glare.
“How did I bring this all the way here just for you to give it away for free?”
“Who said I was giving it away for free? Look.”
Ernolf gestured with his eyes toward the temple courtyard.
There, priests were handing out potion bottles to sick people.
“It looks like they treat the sick there. Go get your wounds treated.”
“Ah.”
The instant Kazar looked at the temple Ernolf pointed to, he remembered its name.
‘Blue Vine Temple.’
There was a reason Ernolf did not know about this temple.
‘This is the place I burned to the ground along with the city eleven years later.’
The Blue Vine Temple in Talisa was famous for healing physical injuries.
But after becoming the king of the Pengril Kingdom, Kazar had burned it all down and wiped it from the map.
There had been a reason for doing so, but people only remembered it as one of Tyrant King Kazar’s evil deeds.
‘You’re telling me to get treatment at this unsettling place?’
Kazar furrowed his brow and glared at the priests walking about the temple courtyard.
Having regressed fifty years, Kazar knew their true identities.
But Tirad did not.
To refuse treatment, Kazar would need to persuade his brother, yet he could not think of a good way to do that.
“You can treat me.”
“Why should I, when healers are right in front of us?”
For a mage to produce an effect equivalent to that of a healer, they had to pour in ten times as much mana—or even more—to barely achieve a similar result.
There was a reason for the saying, “Magic to mages, treatment to healers.”
“Looking up there, it seems they have opened their archive to the residents.”
“So?”
“You will patch the hole in your back, and I will fill the empty spaces in my head. Let’s go.”
It was an excellent opportunity to taste unspoiled, raw ancient knowledge.
Ernolf was impatient to rummage through the archive.
“You want to read books?”
“Yeah, you understood me properly.”
“Do you know what books are?”
“What do you mean? A book is a book.”
“You need to be literate to read them. How are you, who cannot even read, going to read a book?”
The sharp observation stung Ernolf.
There was no way that Tirad, a mine slave, could know how to read.
At times like this, there was only one effective strategy.
Stubbornly insist.
“Why can’t I read what ordinary people can read? If I match the pictures to the words, I will roughly understand the meaning.”
“Isn’t that looking at a book rather than reading it?”
“Is there a law saying that a slave who has never learned letters cannot read books?”
This time, Kazar was stung and left speechless.
“A mage says he wants to look at some books. Is that really something to oppose so strongly?”
“When did I ever oppose it......”
“Then hurry and move the pig.”
Without another word, Kazar carried the Mad Boar to the temple and offered it to them.
Mages were fundamentally greedy for knowledge.
The thought that someone like Ernolf had never held a single book from the day he was born until the day he died weighed heavily on Kazar’s heart.