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Last Embryo Volume 4 Prologue Part 3

Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist

Saying such ominous things pretty casually, Scathach-sensei approached the carcass stranded on the edge of the beach and began to search through the monster’s outer shell, but at this current moment, I was more interested in what she just told me than in helping her with the search itself.

「A subclass of the Giant Clan and the malevolent spirits that have been granted the Giant’s power? But I always thought that according to mythology it was the other way around: that Giants got their strength by borrowing the power of the malevolent spirits. If it is indeed like you say, then is it not strange?」

In any given folklore throughout human history, Giants have always been synonymous with one thing and one thing only: invaders. Foreign forces of evil seeking to destroy the order of any land they happened to set their sights on. Scandinavian mythos, Greek mythos, Celtic mythos. . . they might differ in many things and settings, but one thing has always remained consistent: the portrayal of Giants as the greatest hostile forces wielding enormous power. In that sense, Fomorians must be greatest enemies of the Celtic gods.

According to various rumors that I heard about them, they are said to be one of the main wrongdoers even in Little Garden, so that alone should be enough of a testament to their evil nature. Out of the incidents that took place in recent years, perhaps the most famous one that involved the Giants was the one where they launched an attack on The City of Water, Underwood over ten years ago. The city was protected by a powerful Dragon Horn-possessing Gryphon and his companions, but even though it was the topic of hot discussion among the residents of the South Side even now, I have to admit that the exact events of that incident are still unfamiliar to me.

「That is right. You are correct in thinking that Giants are synonymous with invaders. Oh, do not look at me like that, it was practically written all over your face, so it was not that hard to guess what you were wondering about. However, there is one thing you have to be aware of: even among the entire Giant Clan, the Fomorians are considered to be special. Even though they are called The Mortal Enemies of the Celtic Gods. . . but the truth is that before they got branded with that name, they were actually the Giants tasked with the protection of the Aortas of the Stars.」

That particular information was what surprised me the most out of everything that Scathach-sensei said so far. Aortas of the Stars is a collective name given to the major regions in the Outer World where the natural circulation of the divine blessings and natural spiritual power was especially high. There are no general rule as to what can become the Aorta of the Stars, but many of them are scattered all over the Outer World, in places and regions with special or atypical geology. The most famous ones include Yellowstone National Park, which is a large volcanic region located in the United States, The Siberian Traps, a large region of volcanic rock that collapsed during the Paleozoic era, and The Amazon Jungle, the largest rainforest on earth, oftentimes called The Green Lungs of the Planet. And there is also the country where I was bo… a country where I was supposed to be born, a disaster-prone island nation located in the region of the Far East. . . Japan.

These are all the major Aortas of the Stars from the Outer World. The main deities of the polytheistic pantheons of those respective regions tend to have their bases of operations build in close proximity to those Aortas, and access to them often results in them holding especially distinguished positions even in the cultural spheres of something as diverse and seemingly chaotic as Little Garden. Aside from the Aortas mentioned above, that is to say volcanos, rainforests and tectonic plates there are also the ones that can be divided to those belonging to heaven and earth respectively, but the area of the Far West, where the Celtic mythology was born, was not one of these Aortas. After all, one of the reasons why the British culture was able to flourish the way it did, giving birth to cities like London, filled with the spires of the skyscrapers that looked as if they wanted to touch the sky is because The British Isles have always been blessed with a rather stable geology and climate. The very same thing could be said about the other countries of Western Europe: they moved further and further away the Aortas of the Stars because unlike other regions of the Outer World, they have been built upon the stable ground, which in turn allowed them to achieve their current level of cultural and civilizational advancement without relying on the gods too much. Thinking about it now, was it not Scathach-sensei herself who explained that to me before?

「Ah, umu. Now I see what you are getting at. In short, you were trying to say that there should not be any Aortas of the Stars on the British Isles, Ireland or anywhere near them, right?」

「Yes, that is exactly what I was getting at. If an Aorta of the stars would ever be born there, you can be sure that it would be a huge incident, because natural disasters are always associated with them. Britain and Ireland are relatively peaceful lands with little means of countering any kind of cataclysms to speak of, so you can probably imagine what would happen if those countries would suddenly start experiencing one cataclysm after the other. To put it simply and without sugarcoating anything, Britain as we now know it would have been completely destroyed in less than a year.」

「That sounds like something that should be avoided at all costs.」

「I think so as well, but it was not always like that back in the days of yore. Things became like that only after the events described in the Book of Invasions, long before I was even born. By the way, have you ever heard of the term 『Astra』?」

Scathach-sensei’s words suddenly became much more serious, instinctively causing me to correct my posture.

「『Astra』? Is that a Latin word? Or perhaps the one from Sanskrit?」

「From both of those languages, actually, since their interpretations of it stem from a single word that carries its original meaning. It was a blessing spread by the predecessor of the 『Heavenly Hosts』 in two separate meanings in order to save the world from the ultimate ruin that has been prophesized to befall it at some point.」

Scathach-sensei’s words seemed to be pointing my attention towards the sphere of the Proto-Indo-European language. Nowadays, the word commonly known as 『Astra』 has two separate meanings. The first one is the one originating from the Latin language used in the area of Western Europe, meaning a star, or to be more specific, a Nova. The second one comes from Sanskrit, a classical language of South Asia belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. In Sanskrit, 『Astra』 is a term describing supernatural and divine weapons and instruments presided over by the deities of the pantheon of the Indian region. So as you can see, this one word can have two different meanings in ancient times, depending on the region of the world: a newly-born celestial body in the West and a divine weapon in the East. And since Scathach-sensei said that these two meanings were originally one, that that would have to mean. . .

「Does that mean that the original meaning of the word 『Astra』 is 『A Divine Weapon of the Newly-born Star』?」

「Oooh, I knew you would connect all the dots correctly in the blink of an eye. As expected of my beloved disciple. . . In other words, 『Astra』 can be described as a secret ultimate weapon necessary for humanity to avoid ruination that can also act as a symbol of hope for humans. Celestial Cows and other animals appearing in myths, star keys and even something as modern as ether particles. . . under the right circumstances, all of those things could be classified as 『Astras』.」

Finishing her search through the bodies of the smaller Sea Beasts, Scathach-sensei moved on to the corpse of the largest one among them.

「Of course, not every weapon can become an 『Astra』, and those that can do not necessarily have to be weapons. Look at the Celtic mythology for example. The Proto-Celtic language, known as the ancestral proto-language of all the known Celtic Languages is a direct descendant of the Proto-Indo-European language, and yet in the Celtic mythos coronational jewels or cauldrons could be said to be the Celts very-own 『Astras』.」