CH 293

After slipping out of the Under World, the souls swam down the narrow road to reincarnation, crossing through the barrier that isolated the worlds.

However, there was one infant soul who tried to enter, but was rejected.

The soul was too big for its vessel.

After bouncing off, the soul floated dazedly for a while, and then went inside of…a different vessel.

“I don’t recognize this ceiling.”

My eyes opened.

I could tell that my memories were muddy.

(Why am I here? What happened?)

I shook my head over and over and tried to grab at any memories that were in reach.

My name was Golan.

A young Ogre… No, that’s not right.

“I evolved into a Susanoo-no-Mikoto. And then what happened after that?”

My last memory… I had been fighting against someone. Ah, now I remember.

“It was Nehyor. I had found him and challenged him to a fight. And then what happened?”

Everything after that was foggy.

Did I win? Or did I lose?

There were fragments in my head.

I knew that I had struggled.

For some reason, I could not fight well. I couldn’t see how I would be able to win.

“Ah, that’s right.”

—Mana Eater.

I used it.

It was starting to come back to me now.

I had been covered by salt of holy power, and my mana level had decreased.

“Not so much decreased, as erased.”

There was no sensation of it being used up or leaving me.

It was as if it just suddenly vanished.

“That’s why it’s called Mana Eater. Using it at the last moment, that does sound like me.”

Mana was dangerous. Not something you should just take into your body without thinking.

After learning how to use Mana Eater, I had tested it out on my own kind…Saifo and Beka.

In the end, I had felt terrible nausea and a feeling of fatigue soon after.

Apparently, your body would reject it if you directly tried to absorb someone else’s mana like that.

Like having water in the lungs. Your body could only recognize it as something that shouldn’t be there.

“It got better after some practice, but not perfect.”

It was necessary to convert it so that the mana’s properties would match you while you absorbed it.

Kind of like an AC-DC converter.

To be honest, it was so troublesome that I had doubted that I would ever use it.

And so I had stopped training with Mana Eater after that.

It had fallen to the rank of a possibly useful but overly troublesome skills.

“Ultimately, I used it when I had no other choice. I would have likely lost if I didn’t use it. So, it was all good in the end?”

Apparently, I had become competent enough with it.

More memories started to come back.

At the end of the fight against Nehyor, I had succeeded in cutting his head off and killing him.

Though Vampires were good with healing, there was nothing they could do after you crushed their head.

“Tralzard should be able to take care of the rest.”

Yes, she wasn’t the kind of person who you wanted to see a close up of, but her fighting capability was unrivaled.

So I was sure that she would be able to deal with the situation.

“And then the other me…”

His last moment came back, almost against my will.

When Nehyor’s head had bitten into me, something horrible had entered into my body.

A powerful poison.

I didn’t know the details, but it was likely something that only a few of the Vampires had.

And I had been bitten—and then we died.

Normally, our souls would have gone to the Under World, where our souls would be purified, and then we would be reincarnated.

As the other me had already been mostly purified from the salt of holy power, he would go straight to the path of rebirth.

That narrow road at the bottom of the sea.

The open mouth that led to a new life.

But because we were stuck together, we could not enter.

If I moved away, the other me would have continued on the path.

“So I suppose I robbed him of that.”

Because after cutting him off, it was I who headed down towards reincarnation.

“He wanted me to take his memories…”

His soul was purified.

Even if we meet again in this life, we would not know each other.

“But I know. His memories will always be here.”

I hit my chest.

“…So, where am I? And what is this body?”

I looked down. I was not wearing any clothes.

And when I touched my head, I did not have the horns that Ogre types were known for.

The body itself seemed sickly. And that feeling of ‘having mana’ that applied to all residents of the Demon World had become very thin.

“It’s almost as if I’m human.”

I appeared to be lying on a stone table, and my back hurt. That too was very human.

“And there’s someone sleeping next to me…a woman?”

A human woman who appeared to be in her mid-twenties was lying down on the stone table as well.

I looked around. It was a light decorated stone building.

As we were indoors, I didn’t know where we were.

“Well, at least it’s not cold.”

I got off of the table and poked the woman’s cheek.

“No reaction. I don’t even know if she is alive or dead.”

She also wasn’t wearing any clothes, but nevermind that.

I was very curious about where we were.

There were no windows in the room.

The only thing here was a stone door.

I grabbed the handle.

“Hmm…it is heavy.”

It’s like we were being trapped inside.

But when I tried pulling harder, the door opened.

—Pishiiiii

There was a terrible crushing sound as it opened.

And then a strong gust of wind flowed into the room. It was warmer than the air inside.

“A hallway.”

A straight hallway stretched out ahead.

The walls, ceiling and floor were all made of stone.

I left the room and walked down the hallway. There must be something up ahead.

And then from the other end, a creature approached. It swam through the air like some kind of snake or dragon.

I had seen creatures like that in the Demon World. Their heads bobbed up and down as they moved through the air.

“My, my. I see that someone has come in. I am Pojun the Lindwurm, the Keeper of the Sealed Tomb.”

“What? Sealed Tomb? What’s that?”

“You don’t know of the Sealed Tomb… How odd. May I ask you where it is that you came from?”

“Where…from the Under World, I think?”

“And where is this Under World that you speak of? Could it be that King Yamato has created a new Under World?”

“Huh? King Yamato?”

What was this place?