Chapter 97 - The Farm in Irttat

 

Chapter 97: Tower of Crows 05

"Was it because those people taxed and plundered so ruthlessly that they finally provoked divine wrath?”

"Last year was a year of disaster. Several plague outbreaks followed one after another. Countless fields were swallowed by weeds. The bodies of those who died from illness and hunger were carted by the wagonload to the foot of the Heroic Tower on the outskirts of the city, while vultures and crows circled endlessly overhead."

"I have heard that Grandé, where the plague first began, became a city of the dead for a time. It was also in Grandé that a miracle first descended upon this continent, and your name first began to spread among the people."

"In the wake of the plague, unrest has erupted throughout the south and has recently begun affecting the trains arriving in Viktori. Forgive my presumptuous speculation, but perhaps that, too, has some connection to you?"

That has nothing to do with me, actually.

Lucita scratched her head.

"And now you have come to Viktori, the heart of the Kenting regime."

"The recording conch, the extraordinary seeds, the stage where flowers bloomed overnight, a commoner elevated to nobility in a single step..."

"I know there exists a remarkable power called magic, monopolized by the upper classes and guarded as an unspoken secret. I also know that you were ennobled through extraordinary magical ability, and that you forcibly brought the Silver River Screen into public view."

"Without question, the Silver River Screen is a magical creation. My newly made friend, whom you likely know as well, Lady Duren of the Mage Tower, is its creator. I am grateful to her screen for the opportunity it gave me. Through it, I was able to express what I had always wanted to say and allow my garden to bloom wherever a screen was displayed. That opportunity also became the beginning of our friendship. 

Through her, I came to learn a little about magic in general.

The Silver River Screen is a magical creation. But the recording conch and your seeds are not, am I right?"

"You possess a mysterious power that lies beyond the boundaries of human understanding. People usually call such incomprehensible power a divine miracle, so please allow me to do the same for now. 

I attempted to confirm your origins by consulting documentary records."

"I spent almost every hour of this summer outside of work in the Past Archive. I began with the oldest prehistoric records. You know, among all the precious documents preserved from the great catastrophes five hundred years ago, the Past Archive alone contains nearly eighty percent of them.

I spent nearly all my savings pursuing this investigation. After all, it is the final great curiosity of my life. 

Regrettably, though the recorded myths and legends were vast beyond measure, I still could not trace your origins."

Lucita: Well... I'm only eighteen, actually.

So all that time spent poring over ancient documents had been wasted effort on Vivian's part.

Though...would she have found anything about Irttat?

She turned to the next page of the letter.

"But I noticed something else."

"In a book discussing the evolution of textile craftsmanship, passed down from prehistoric times, there was mention of a 'Lyte Loom,' said to have originated in 'prehistoric times,' with related records having fortuitously survived the Great Catastrophe. This loom supposedly laid the foundation for the principles behind contemporary textile machinery."

"So when this prehistoric text refers to 'prehistoric times' and 'the Great Catastrophe,' which prehistoric era and which catastrophe does it mean?" 

Lucita's fingertip rested on the word "prehistoric," and she found herself growing curious about this clever and bold Vivian.

She was an ordinary human born among the masses at the base of society's pyramid. From childhood, a veil had been drawn across the eyes of her curiosity, to say nothing of the innate gifts Lucita herself had been born with. 

The secrets of this world had always been monopolized by those in power, by the long-lived races, and by the god herself.

Yet through sheer perception and an insatiable thirst for knowledge, Vivian had single-handedly pried open a crack in the submerged truth and then boldly hurled her questions through this letter at the person she believed most likely to answer them. 

"With that question in mind, I read those books carefully again."

"Together, they seemed to confirm one fact: throughout the course of the world's development, civilization-ending catastrophes have occurred not once, but many times. These disasters appear invariably tied to war. We cannot easily determine their frequency or interval, and historians have generally treated the subject as a minor historical curiosity. After all, the world appears healthy enough today, and volcanic eruptions and floods seem far removed from everyday life."

"But I do not believe that is true. Disaster may be closer than we think."

"To speak plainly, the fires of war in the south appear ready to ignite. And it is precisely at this moment that you have entered the world bearing what can only be called a miracle. It is difficult not to feel anxious.

Strange omens have been multiplying. Peace appears to be on the verge of leaving us."

"I sound like someone who has lost her mind, don't I?"

"In truth, while writing these words, I found myself imagining that perhaps, the moment this letter was sent, I would open my eyes tonight to find you standing beside my bed, passing judgment on my crime of trying to peer into a deity's secrets. Having my soul stripped away. Being denied entry into the cycle of reincarnation. Something along those lines."

"A joke. Please forgive my impertinence."

"I am not a believer in any god, and I do not know your intentions, whether you intend to save or destroy. With the little life I have left, I simply wished to use this insignificant body to pursue my questions and seek my truth.

And so this reckless letter came to be written.

Finally, please allow me to ask one last question: will this war bring catastrophic disaster upon humanity, as it has so many times before in history? 

Yours,

Cesar Vivian"

Was it not for that very pursuit that she herself had left Irttat and stepped into the human world?

For a moment, she felt as though she were seeing this turbulent, unenlightened age through Vivian's eyes.

Who could endure an entire lifetime, from birth to death, beneath a sky permanently hidden behind a heavy veil?

Lucita was quiet for a moment, then folded the letter carefully and put it away in her storage space.

Just then, Violet vaulted over the courtyard wall facing Rosebush Street, landed lightly, and clapped her on the shoulder: "Hey! What are you thinking about? You've been staring into space."

Lucita jumped and turned around: "Goodness! How do you climb over walls without making a sound?"

Violet's breathing was slightly quick, and her eyes were bright. She raised her wrist and shook the quartz bracelet on it — a set of storage vessels Lucita had made for her.

Sure enough, Lucita raised an eyebrow and followed her cue: "Something good for me to see?"

Violet gave her wrist a flick, and a thick sheaf of hand-drawn kraft paper appeared in her hand. She waved it in front of Lucita's face: "Here."

"What is this?" Lucita had already half guessed. She reached out and took it.

It was indeed a set of military crossbow blueprints.

She flipped through several pages, then looked at Violet.

The elven king explained with satisfaction: "I've studied them carefully. The design is very different from the crossbows we use now. The range is somewhat shorter, but the mechanics are more sophisticated. The engineering precision is a step above ours. Add our people's unique methods of vitality enchantment and adapt the design to our combat habits, and it becomes something entirely different."

The lines on the kraft paper had been drawn with a quill: fine, straight, neat, intricate, and pleasing to the eye.

The blueprints were impressively detailed. Yet they were only crossbows.

Over the past five hundred years, civilization had rebuilt itself atop the remnants of prehistoric society and made considerable advances in certain fields. Steam trains had crossed the continent for over a century. Yet, at the same time, the overwhelming military superiority of mages had stifled conventional weapons research. Even after five hundred years, people still fought with longswords and armor.

As for the elven race, their situation was even more extreme. With their innate gift of vitality, nearly all of their weapons development had revolved around enchantment.

The gift of supernatural power was both a blessing and a constraint.

So when the crossbow had appeared before Violet, it had immediately captured her attention. 

Day after day she lingered in the royal guard's barracks. Recently she had even taken a crossbow from the armory to take apart and study, and every morning she woke she had it in her arms, examining it.

Even after five hundred years of imprisonment, with bones that had nearly begun to rust, the blood that flowed through the old king's bones was still the blood of someone made for war.

Lucita handed the blueprints back to her: "From the latter half of last year, the human continent has been growing unsettled again."

"Yes," Violet replied, thoughtful.

"Let's leave in winter," Lucita said, concern creeping into her voice. "We'll go to Alberga, the Frost-White City, your homeland. After that, we'll return to the Esti Mountains. What do you think? This is no longer a place worth lingering in. At the very least, let's send Linnea and Delphine back first." 

Violet agreed readily: "And you? What are your plans?"

Lucita didn't answer.

The two exchanged a glance — one pair of eyes black as lacquer, one pair green as jade — both with something settled and dark beneath the surface, as though each had privately come to some understanding they were keeping to themselves.

In the middle of their conversation, Delphine and Linnea came home in the fading dusk.

Seeing Delphine's form gradually materialize, Lucita's eyes softened at once. She immediately set aside all her other considerations, and couldn't help but call her name with a smile: "Delphine!"

Delphine was in the middle of discussing the day's lessons with Linnea, and looked up in confusion: "Sister Lucita? What is it?"

Lucita's eyes were bright: "Do you want a body?"

!

Delphine thought for a moment she had misheard: "What?"

Lucita repeated the question, and explained: "Today the seed shop lost money because I accompanied a little girl to her family's wheat field and ended up meeting a scarecrow..." 

She gave a brief account of the events that had led to her understanding of the patterns of vitality's flow, leaving out Gaia's appearance and the details of her mastery over the mental cosmos, and finally concluded: "You are also an independent spirit. I can create a true body for you — a body of flesh and blood, one that will grow and age, grow tired and need rest."

Delphine listened, and her eyes grew gradually brighter.

Before Lucita had even finished speaking, accompanied by Linnia's astonished "Oh!", Delphine's lips had already begun to curve upward. Yet the first thing she said was: "Congratulations, sister Lucita."

Violet smiled in her eyes, deep in thought.

The patterns of vitality's flow…

As a naturally gifted elf, she had been able to cross through the world's layers and reach the realm of life since birth.

But there was a difference. The vitality she perceived always appeared as fixed attributes, without any tendency to interact, flow, or transform. The vitality of a young sprout was green, soft, and tender. The vitality of an elderly person was gray, thin, and unstable, often dissipating at the edges.

Vitality can be shaped because it flows. Was that the deeper truth?

She was still turning Lucita's description over in her mind when she heard Lucita ask with a laugh: "What would you like to be? An elf? A mermaid? If it's a dragon, that's not entirely impossible. I'd just need to make a trip to Grandé and then back to where you were born to analyze the skeletal remains of the dragon..." 

She hadn't even finished before Delphine was already shaking her head, her voice light but steady: "Human. I want to be human."

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