3 bar menu

Volume 1 Epilogue Part 1: Founding of the Nation 『Erucy』

 

---

PICTURE

Lucy danced airily as her light clothing fluttered around her body seeming like a fairy-tale.

Matching Lucy’s dance the women clearly cried out the legend of this dance.

「Long ago this world was covered in darkness. Monsters flooded the earth, the Demon King ruled over all, and engulfed the bastions of civilization.」

Monsters and Demon King.

They were a natural phenomenon that would appear in a world with sufficient mana.

Mana was the power of blessings and in response an opposing negative force appeared. It was known as Erna.

Erna was a power of pure calamity. No one was able to control it, it simply spread destruction and fear everywhere.

Erna took people’s fears and negative emotions giving them form, power, and direction.

Fear of monsters, fear of demons, fear of nature. Giving these emotions form and turning into the beings called monsters. Finally amongst these monsters a leader would be born, a Demon King.

Generally a Demon King would have a humanoid form. This was because the thing people feared most was other people.

Consequentially, the Erna that has taken human form will gain intelligence. Their intelligence allowed them to spread and gain more and more fear. As a result the Demon King would end up as a being expert in spreading fear and more intelligent than people.

「The world was filled with despair. The people feared and lost their will.」

Anything you made would be destroyed and in the end you would die anyways.

In such a world there was no possibility of culture developing. If you took one step outside of town there would be monsters everywhere. This kind of situation eliminated any interaction between towns.

A closed and decaying world. I saw many worlds like that.

To prevent such disasters there were many worlds that completely abandoned the blessings mana gave. Without mana, erna would not exist and monsters wouldn’t be born. However, once such a thing happened it would become prohibitively difficult to use magic. An example of that would be Earth.

「Within the darkness there were champions who rose. The human knight, the cat tribe warrior, and two high elves. Finally there was an angel with a body of steel.」

These five were famous. It was spread throughout the world in the multiracial Choline Kingdom and even in the Empire.

「They overcame many difficulties and finally defeated the Demon King. The monsters who lost their leader became fragmented. However, it came with a heavy price. Many towns and cities were destroyed in the fighting and every hero except for the youngest High Elf girl died. That young girl was precisely our originator Shurano-sama.」

In the books Shurano-sama returned to her town and reassured people with a smile even though she had lost her precious friends.

Even though she was filled with despair, she smiled for their sake.

For some reason a girl’s face flickered to life inside my mind. A scene that was engraved into my very soul.

A noise ran through my mind. Strangely the memories burned into my soul became clearer and clearer.

I was only unable to remember two things.

However I felt like I knew about this.

There was only one real reason things would be like this. 『I』 had intentionally concealed this memory.

「Shurano-sama realized that the Demon King would revived before long.」

That was obvious. Once the Demon King was defeated the erna would disperse with him.

However, eventually the erna would once again gather, read the people’s fears, and give birth to another Demon King. In a world with mana you could slow the process by proactively hunting monsters. This could disperse the erna in an endless process.

「Shurano-sama decided that she would not allow such a tragedy to occur again and set off. It was then that an Archmage named Shujina appeared. This Archmage was drawn to Shurano-sama and journeyed along with her.」

The music grew fervent as Lucy’s dance intensified.

「Shurano-sama and Shujina-sama traveled the world casting down 9 different seals using the world tree as the catalyst. They would collect the evil powers and extinguish them. Since then the monsters and Demon King have no longer appeared.」

I felt interest when I heard about those seals.

Unlike mana, erna could not be controlled normally and its production could not be halted.

In that case you would need to use a different power, gather them together, and force them to smash together and mutually extinguish. That was the method I would use as well.

It was an incredibly high level and complex technique. However, if you used Yggdrasil as the highest class catalyst, a mage of my level or greater could accomplish it.

「After the long sealing journey ended, Shurano-sama returned here by herself, gathered the persecuted elves, and created a single village. This was the beginning of our village. She lived her life protecting our village, unbound by anyone before finally she peacefully went to her rest.」

The music took on a melancholic tone as Lucy’s dance finished.

The elves clapped energetically.

When Shurano-sama returned from the sealing journey she did not return with the Archmage.

No one knew the reason. Maybe there was no longer any reason to be together once the seals were complete or maybe she simply took into consideration the elves who were persecuted by the humans…there were many conjectures but no concrete answer.

However, there would sometimes be human children that bear striking resemblance to Shurano. Many would likely believe they were somehow related.

They might even say they were Shurano-sama’s daughter but that was impossible. Children would be of the same race as their mother. The Elven Shurano-sama would not give birth to a human child.

That’s right, that girl wasn’t a proper thing like that…she was simply a substitute for the woman I couldn’t reach…created from parts of the repair function of the seal from Yggdrasil and Shurano….The imitation of Shurano I had made…her name was….

『That’s wonderful. I’m already sick of seeing tragedies. This world is a special one to me. I wish for this child I leave behind to…..no…it’s fine. By all means I will save her……』

For some reason the words from those memories disappeared from my head as quickly as they appeared. The misgivings about that Archmage and that girl as well.

It was as if someone panicked after the memories leaked and hurried to delete them.

A dull pain ran through my mind.

「What’s with this dizziness?」

I couldn’t help but say. My head was strangely heavy and my memory was a bit hazy. It felt like I had forgotten something that had just happened.

---