After receiving Fia's encouragement, the Tarnished bid her farewell and returned to Liurnia to rendezvous with Rogier. However, before that, he had a promise to keep: delivering the Glintstone Key to Thops.
Warping to the Church of Irith at the entrance of Liurnia, he saw the man's polished, bald head reflecting the dim light of the church.
(That head is as shiny as Patches'...) The Tarnished suppressed a laugh, remembering how he once rubbed Patches' head so hard it caught fire, rendering the man permanently bald. A tragedy, truly.
"Ah, kind Tarnished! You've returned safely from the Academy," Thops cried, rising with genuine concern. "You aren't hurt, are you?"
"I'm fine. A Carian Knight made it in before me and cleared out most of the rabble."
"A... Carian Knight?" Thops looked saddened. Despite the Academy's cruelty toward him, he bore them no malice. He understood that the war between the Moon and the Stars was a tragedy of history.
"Anyway, look at this." The Tarnished tossed the spare Glintstone Key to Thops. "Our deal is done."
"A Glintstone Key! You... you actually found one for me! Thank you, oh, thank you!" Thops trembled, clutching the key as if it were a divine relic. "Now I can return to the halls of learning... I can finally finish my research." He tilted his head back in a strange, jubilant pose.
"Good luck, Thops. I expect great things."
"I won't let you down! Come find me at the Academy later—maybe by then, I'll have something worthy of teaching you!" With a wide smile, the old scholar gathered his things and departed.
A Cold Reunion
The night air of Liurnia was thick with magic. Rogier stood on a ridge, gazing at the frozen stars. "The legend says the Black Knives were last seen here... but why this place?"
"I might have known I'd find you here, Rogier," a low, metallic voice rang out from behind.
"D..." Rogier turned. It was D, Hunter of the Dead, clad in his twinned gold-and-silver armor.
"Are you still wasting your breath on those half-dead abominations? Give it a rest," D said coldly.
"I won't give up, D. If the world needs a fool to believe in salvation for Those Who Live in Death, I'll play the part."
"Tch. Look at you," D sneered, glancing at Rogier's paralyzed legs. "You were a brilliant spellblade once. Now you're a cursed cripple. It's pathetic."
"And yet, you were the one who carried me back to the Hold, weren't you?" Rogier smiled.
"Pure coincidence," D barked, looking away.
The silence between them grew heavy, the weight of their conflicting ideologies threatening to draw blades. Just then, the Tarnished arrived on Torrent, breaking the tension.
"Having a party without me?"
"Ah, you got the letter," Rogier said, relieved.
"Rogier, you dragged him into this?" D demanded. "It's one thing to ruin yourself, but don't involve others in this filth."
"Relax, Gold-man," the Tarnished said, dismounting. "I'm here for the loot. I heard there's a tomb with some interesting history."
"Hmph. As long as you don't interfere with my hunt for Deathroot," D muttered. He pulled out a dark, twitching eyeball—the Beast Eye. "This points me toward the rot. It's twitching violently toward the northeast."
"My leads point there too," Rogier added. "Specifically, a set of ruins matching a map the Sorceress Sellen gave our friend here."
The Flaw in the Golden Order
"Northeast it is then," Rogier said, reaching out a hand to D. "D... let's cooperate. Just this once."
D stared at the hand. "I won't help you save them."
"D, don't you see? Killing them one by one is like trying to empty the ocean with a spoon! The system itself is broken."
"If I bring the Deathroot to Gurranq, he can seal Destined Death again! The Golden Tree will be restored!"
"Seal it again?" The Tarnished stepped between them, his voice sudden and sharp. "I don't know who this Gurranq is, but he's fighting a losing battle. The Golden Tree is failing because it's a closed loop that leaks energy."
"How dare you—" D started.
"Listen!" The Tarnished grabbed D by the shoulder, pinning him with a strength that brooked no argument. "Think of the Erdtree like a reservoir. It gives out 100 units of power. When a soul 'returns to the roots,' it should bring back those units. But it doesn't. It brings back 80, or 70. There's friction. There's waste."
D stopped struggling, his eyes wide behind his visor.
"Godwyn was the Crown Prince. He held a massive chunk of that power. When his soul was murdered, that energy didn't return—it corrupted the 'reservoir.' Sealing Destined Death didn't make the world eternal; it made it stagnant. You're trying to fix a dam that's already crumbled into the sea."
"That's... that's impossible," D stammered. "The Golden Order is perfect."
"It was a beautiful dream, D," Rogier said softly. "But even dreams end. The 'Deathless' world you fight for is exactly what created the 'Death' you hate. Without natural death, the world is just a graveyard that hasn't realized it's full yet."
"Shut up!" D shoved the Tarnished back, his voice cracking with fury and fear. "I will not hear your heresy! The Law is absolute!"
D turned and stormed off toward the northeast, his cape billowing.
"Well," the Tarnished sighed, "at least he's heading the right way. Shall we, Rogier?"
"To the Black Knife Catacombs," Rogier nodded, though his eyes remained shadowed. "Let's see what kind of 'truth' is buried in the dark."
•
And, that's for today! I have translated around 80chs of this series, and among it was few extras and interlude. However I won't post those additional chapter here, at least until the main story end. But if you can't wait to read it, you can found more on my Patreon here—↓
patreon.com/EBBYRITH.
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