Soudouki Chapter 173

Chapter 173   Mythological World 2

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──It was a story from an era that was even older than the establishment of the unification dynasty.

「Zoras-sama, are you alright?」

The young man put his hand on the forehead of the wolf-eared male in worry.

It seemed that the fever had receded, but the man’s stamina was greatly exhausted. His condition was worrying.

「I’m fine. After all my toughness is the only thing that I can boast about since my body became like this.」

Zoras laughed self-depreciatingly for making the boy worrying like that.

Zoras, the grand wizard of Vanhutte Tribe had lived on the run for more than half a month.

Stress and fatigue piled up because he wasn’t used to live on the run.

He wondered how were his comrades who parted from him doing right now. He was worried for their safety.

「I wonder where is this area located?」

A beautiful girl with light blue eyes, Meira asked while looking around uneasily.

The boy──Ratash turned his intelligent eyes to her and answered clearly.

「I think we are about ten-odd kilometer from Angelholm.」

This place would be called as Nordland Empire later on. This place was still nothing more than an untouched frontier right now.

How many days had passed since the large scale insurrection broke out in the imperial capital Constantinos?

Half year was about to pass since that nightmarish failure of the teleportation experiment.

In the first place Vanhutte tribe wasn’t even human of this world, much less creature of this Aurelia Continent.

Their birthplace was a world that was called Finlandia. Vanhutte tribe was one of the minority peoples among there.

Driven by their homesickness, Vanhutte tribe forced the experiment for returning home.

The experiment to return to their birthplace should theoretically succeed, but it ended in a completely unexpected failure.

Their flesh body most likely had returned to Finlandia that they dearly missed.

However only their souls──were unable to leave from this Aurelia Continent.

And then the bodies of Vanhutte tribe were replaced by the bodies of beastman race who were treated no different than slave in Finlandia.

Guessing from the result, only their flesh bodies returned back by being replaced with beastman bodies──that was what happened.

Zoras closed his eyes in despair and looked up to the sky.

「I have to take responsibility for this failure──but this burden is too heavy for just one person, Kornea.」

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Zoras’s memory went back to when he was still a researcher in Finlandia.

A great war that enveloped the whole continent in Finlandia began.

The major country of the east Aggressia and the major country of the west Bezaus fought for the resource of the small country Pangea that was located inland. The small scale battle swiftly enlarged into a total war.

Vanhutte tribe that entered into a security treaty with Aggressia was also dragged into the war regardless of their wish.

The two major countries that divided the continent into two wouldn’t compromise at all. Fierce battles continued for more than several years and brought enormous mayhem to the continent.

Vanhutte tribe that was nothing more than a small country couldn’t prevent the economic exploitation before the pressure of a large country like Aggressia. Their people starved and their industry declined.

Amidst that, a certain wizard of Vanhutte tribe discovered a hypothesis about converting the energy of parallel world into magic power.

It was the discovery of Kornea, Zoras’s favorite disciple and also his lover.

That hypothesis still hadn’t reached a level that could endure argumentation. It was nothing more than an assumption that perhaps such thing was possible, but the large country that was losing its sense from the war couldn’t possibly leave it alone.

Because if this hypothesis was correct, then perhaps even this great war that had no end in sight could be ended in just one day.

The country of Vanhutte tribe was immediately demanded to verify the hypothesis with the terms that they would be protected from exploitation and given aid. This demand was in effect an order.

But, there was no way the enemy country Bezaus would just watch that happened quietly.

The major country Bezaus that was hostile toward Vanhutte tribe launched a large invasion operation at the same time with the verification test.

For Zoras who was a staff of the experiment, it was completely like a nightmare for him.

The major country Aggressia that was their ally in name only forced them to carry out the experiment, while their opponent the major country Bezaus put their dignity on the line to intensify their attack to prevent that.

At the end of the great engagement that involved more than one hundred thousand soldiers from both sides, the battle ended in the victory of Bezaus force.

Although their force had been greatly exhausted, Bezaus sent their elite force to the location of Vanhutte tribe in order to stop the experiment.

Even then, the diplomat officer who was dispatched from Aggressia forced them to continue the experiment.

It would be too late to run away with the experiment result at this point, and the difference would be too great for the advance of the research depending on whether the research was carried on before or after the experiment.

He had the mission to bring back a useful data to his home country no matter what.

As time progressed, the defensive lines all over the city were broken through and the force of Bezaus began to approach the research location. It looked like there was no time at all anymore to begin the experiment, but the desperate objection of Zoras and Kornea ended up in vain.

Due to the decision of top brass, the experiment was finally started in abandon.

The world boundary line was tuned with mana and the the power of other world was used to make the boundary between worlds became fuzzy.

If the experiment succeeded, that energy should become something that far surpassed nuclear explosion.

However──

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「No good! The tuning level is lower than hypothesized!」

「What about the circuit error?」

「There is nothing out of place based on the self-diagnosis!」

「Why is this? Even the inversion effect?」

「Cut off the energy supply right away!」

「It’s already impossible! The encroaching other world energy is bigger than here!」

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If the world boundary was destroyed, the two worlds might fuse and one of the worlds would break. Or perhaps both worlds would break and a completely new world would be born.

That was why it was necessary to tune the boundary line to be fuzzy. That tuning was about to fail.

「Block the energy’s encroachment at the very least somehow! The whole world will perish in the worst case!」

Zoras gritted his teeth. As expected he should stop this experiment no matter what the cost before it reached this point.

「If it’s like this we have to give up on the tuning!」

There the experiment leader Kornea made a terrifying decision.

Kornea was dauntless and decisive with even more boldness than man. That was Kornea’s true nature and the biggest factor of how she surpassed her teacher Zoras as a researcher.

Zoras absolutely wouldn’t be able to take the same decision like her.

Zoras was able to guess what Kornea was thinking.

If the total amount of energy here was inferior, they would focus their side’s energy temporarily to surpass the it and repel the encroachment of the other world’s energy.

Zoras couldn’t even imagine what kind of side effect would be brought here from the backlash of doing such thing.

However if they just kept watching quietly without doing anything like this, most likely the world would end when the energy encroached further and reached the critical.

When he noticed Zoras already grasped the right hand of Kornea so strongly it was painful.

「A researcher has to be responsible for the result of the experiment that they have started, isn’t that right?」

「……Yeah, that’s right.」

「I wonder if we can completely take responsibility for this?」

If they failed, the number of people who died wouldn’t stop with just tens of thousands of people. Perhaps even the world itself would perish and mankind would go extinct.

「But as the one protecting knowledge, researcher isn’t allowed to just watch the ruin quietly. Even if the responsibility is far bigger than what this body can shoulder. Besides──」

「Besides?」

「There isn’t any need to take responsibility alone. Though perhaps someone like me won’t be any help at all.」

「……Thank you.」

Kornea’s eyes already turned forward shyly.

「Strengthen the boundary line using all our mana and repel the other world boundary!」

If it was impossible to do the tuning, the only way was to knock it away instead in order to prevent the encroachment.

But, the mana of the other world’s side was already stronger than here even in normal condition. They most likely had only one chance. Failure wouldn’t be permitted.

Kornea desperately fought hard without any regard to that heavy pressure.

The encroachment was forced down with strength and the world was saved at the very end──when Zoras and Kornea were convinced of that, a single cannon shot changed their destiny.

Bezaus army that finally arrived at the research facility immediately switched track to destroy the place rather than recovering the research for themselves as soon as they saw that the experiment had started.

The ceiling was destroyed and the gauge measurements that showed stable value all showed abnormal reading all at once.

「Zoras!」

「Kornea!」

Zoras’s body was instantly swallowed inside the radiant light that was like a sun.

That was his last parting with Kornea.

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Zoras was in this Aurelia continent when he came back to himself.

He couldn’t even begin to deduct why he was transferred to this world along with his flesh body like this.

Because everything was the result of coincidence from that attack.

「Kornea?」

No matter where he searched, he couldn’t find Kornea who he thought was transferred together with him.

Zoras searched for the figure of his lover like mad.

However what he found was the staffs who were in the same research facility, the diplomat officer of Aggressia for some reason, and several hundred civilians who didn’t know anything.

After that even when they searched throughout the continent, the residents of Finlandia who they found were only those.

Aggressia’s diplomat officer──a military officer in his forty with the name of Amian demanded the to Zoras and other researchers to bring them back to their original world.

He had to return back to his homeland that was in the middle of war as soon as possible.

Zoras also felt the same in wanting to go home.

Because if Kornea wasn’t in this world, the possibility was high that she was left behind in that world.

Zoras wasn’t ignorant of what would happen to Kornea if she was left behind in the research facility that was attacked by Bezaus.

But there was the realistic problem of how extremely difficult it was to build the facility for them to return home.

They were completely lacking in manpower to carry out such large scale experiment.

The number of Finlandia people who drifted into this world was only 240. In addition only eighteen of them were magical expert.

The number of technicians who participated in that tuning experiment was easily more than a thousand.

When he learned that there was no prospect of returning home, Amian got mentally sick when not even three months had passed and committed suicide suddenly one day.

The number of Finlandia people who committed suicide like him was more than ten people within a very short time.

Despair gnawed into Zoras’s chest.

But, Zoras didn’t consider giving up on returning home even then.

If they had no technicians then he could just raise them.

The people of Aurelia continent that he had come into contact with while searching for his comrades were relatively gentle and he had enough interaction with them.

Since that day, the mind-numbingly long journey in order to return home by guiding and educating the native Aurelia continent people began.

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