Vol 5 Chapter 43

[ If you enter the visible path, you will have the opportunity to challenge the legacy of the great iron race. If you enter the invisible path, death's... This part is a bit strange. Fire? Crossing the fire, you can meet the covenant waiting for the promised one. If you meet the name of the covenant, the master of the mountains, no one will be able to see the light, but if you are the promised one, do not hesitate at all. ]

"...What?"

Distracted by the voice speaking softly as if reciting a magic spell, Kapros only came to his senses after it ended and asked, to which Superior replied.

[ I just read the text in front of you as it is. ]

"You read it?"

[ It's been a while since I've seen that script. I created it, after all. ]

"You created it..."

[ I must have quite a few accomplishments, you know. That script, doesn't it look familiar? The surface text on this stick I'm in now is also that script. It's a revolutionary magic script that can manifest desired magic just by writing. Hoo-hoo-hoo. ]

A script created by Superior.

Though the voice spoke as if it were passing by naturally, Kapros's intuition quickly caught that this was no ordinary statement. He slowly opened his mouth, considering how to phrase his words to get a better hint.

"That's... quite a coincidence..."

He was about to say "what a great coincidence" when he hesitated.

Wait. Coincidence. A coincidence?

Kapros looked at the text again, then at the text on the stick hanging at his waist. The situation where text written in Superior's script and Superior who created that script were with him. Was this situation with two overlapping Superior keywords really a coincidence?

"Open map window!"

Swoosh!

'As I thought!'

Kapros looked at the map window, barely suppressing the urge to cheer.

There was a red dot widely covering a certain range of the Orgen Mountains, and a black dot that had just entered the edge of the red dot. The red dot indicated where the quest was, and the black dot showed Kapros's position. In other words, it meant that the fifth quest was sleeping somewhere in the De Gorka valley cave where Kapros had just entered.

Coming to De Gorka might have been a coincidence, but this situation was clearly inevitable.

If he hadn't met Superior in the fourth quest, he would have had to wander around here and there, believing only that this was near the fifth quest site, without knowing what the text engraved on that rock meant.

Kapros asked Superior, unable to hide his excitement.

"This seems to be the place where your fifth trace is."

[ Oh, is that so? ]

However, contrary to expectations, Kapros frowned at Superior's voice questioning in puzzlement.

"Why are you acting like you don't know? Isn't this a place you prepared? ...No, wait. Come to think of it, didn't you say earlier that this was your first time in a place like this?"

But it was clear that this place was Superior's fifth quest site. What was going on?

After keeping silent, Superior spoke after a while.

[ It is my first time coming here. There was no such valley in the land I remember. But if you're certain that this is a place where my trace remains, that might be right too. Maybe. ]

"What do you mean by that?"

As Kapros tried to restrain himself from speaking accusingly, Superior let out a long sigh.

[ Well... There's one thing I haven't properly told you. Remember when you asked if I could give you a hint about gathering evidence of being my successor? I said I couldn't. ]

To be precise, it was a slightly roundabout expression of asking if he could give a quest hint.

[ To be honest, it's not that I won't, but that I can't. ]

Not that he wouldn't teach, but that he couldn't teach? At this unexpected statement, Kapros confusedly stared at his waist, where he saw the stick emitting a faint red light in the darkness.

[ When I first met you, I must have told you. That I'm an avatar of the one called Lord Superior, and that I only have about 1/10 of his power. But that doesn't mean I'm not Lord Superior. I certainly think I am myself, and I have memories. But my memories only go up to when I was left at the castle in Rezul. I don't know what the main body did after separating me and leaving me here. At that time, I had a plan to create a place of trials where I could pass on power if successors gathered various pieces of evidence, but I hadn't definitely thought about the location. Since I, the avatar, was created as part of that plan, perhaps this place might be part of what was created afterwards. ]

Kapros's head started to spin trying to understand the complex explanation.

So, the Superior with him now is an avatar of Superior with memories only up to being left in Rezul, so he doesn't know for sure what the main body, the original Superior, did afterwards, making it difficult to give hints about the quest?

[ It's complicated, but that's right. ...Come to think of it, the one who left that text there might not have been some stranger who just used the script I created, but perhaps my main body? Well, I don't know about that, so I'll leave the rest to you. Think of my existence as just a bonus. No matter how hard you try, a bonus can't become the main thing, right? ]

Superior, who ended his words playfully, fell silent after that. Although Kapros had certainly heard that the Superior currently with him was an avatar of the original Superior, he hadn't expected anything like this.

'Anyway, if I think of him as a helper who's only unhelpful about quest locations, does that make more sense?'

In fact, thinking about it, how boring would it be if, having obtained the very creator of the quest as a helper in the game, he knew all the quest locations and methods? Kapros decided it was better to just not think too deeply about it and consider it a trick by the developers.

'Even so, it's clear that this Superior is a cheat-like helper. In a way, does this mean that future quests will be so difficult that this much help is needed to handle them?'