Chapter 11: Dragon Heart (2)

“Being able to see the future isn’t as impressive as it sounds,” Philly said. “Most of the time, it’s more a feeling than a vision. Excitement, joy, displeasure, anxiety. Rather than seeing a situation, I feel the emotions associated with that future first.”

She really did experience premonitions of the future. But according to her, they were closer to feelings than observations.

“Then when that rock fell earlier...?”

“Hmm, so that’s what gave me away. Yes. For some reason, I felt anxious, as though I shouldn’t take another step. I didn’t know it meant a rock was going to fall, though.”

So that was why Philly had been startled even after avoiding it. She had known there was danger, but not what that danger was.

“Then the reason you cast that spell on Aten...”

“If Aten stays with Aster, she’ll be unhappy,” Philly said firmly.

“I don’t know exactly what will happen in the future. But I do know something terrible will happen if those two are together. Every night, I experience this sickening, hideous feeling, as though it’s warning me.”

“...”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t tell her she was wrong.

Because she was probably right.

‘A game no one has ever beaten.’

Even I had failed, despite staying until the very end and trying everything imaginable after everyone else had abandoned the game.

Of course that was the future Philly had seen.

Aster was the man who would stand at the forefront of humanity. Naturally, his companion Aten would stand there too.

And so, when humanity met its end, they would also be the first to die.

An inescapable bitterness washed over me.

Ever since coming to this world, I had fought with everything I had to survive. I had found new applications for Weaving, acquired Black River and replicated Gram, repeatedly depleted my Mana to increase my total reserves, defeated the Golem, and stopped Serf.

But even after all that, Philly’s premonitions still showed the ending I knew.

I still hadn’t influenced this game’s future in the slightest.

I breathed in, then out.

‘Shitty game.’

My breath gave voice to the complaint I couldn’t bring myself to say aloud.

I asked Philly, “But how are you able to see the future?”

There was no skill called Foresight. Some characters occasionally possessed Unique skills, like Frondier, but if foresight were a Unique skill, there was no way a character with it would have escaped notice.

“How do you think I do it?”

“Could it be Divine Power?”

But Philly wasn’t supposed to have Divine Power. If she did, she would surely have used it in politics.

Philly shook her head.

“It’s nothing like Divine Power. Or, well... perhaps you could call it Divine Power in the truest sense?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m descended from the völva.”

This time, I was the one taken aback.

The völva: the sorceresses of Norse mythology. Appearing throughout Norse myth, from beginning to end, while remaining dead, they were said to be able to observe everything from the world’s creation to its destruction.

They sometimes appeared in Norse mythology to deliver prophecies, but that was only a tiny fraction of their power.

Past, future—it made no difference. They knew it all.

“Though they’re such distant ancestors that the blood has grown thin. That’s why my foresight is so limited.”

“... Then your parents could do it too?”

“My mother said she could. Though she never told anyone but me.”

Then was it possible for Aten too?

As though reading that thought on my face, Philly said, “I hope my daughters don’t have this ability.”

“... Why?”

“They should live their own lives. Nothing good would come of them becoming meddlesome mothers like me.”

With a sheepish smile, she added, “I hope the day comes when we won’t need foresight.”

“Well, then! That’s enough gloomy talk.” Philly raised her voice.

“Now it really is your turn.”

“The information about Dragon Hearts, right?”

“Yes. I’m going to use the Dragon Heart to bring my foresight to its full potential. I’ll see clearly with my own eyes what I must do, and what I must prevent, to save Aten—and, beyond that, the empire.”

Now I understood. So it really had all been for Aten.

I closed my eyes briefly to collect my thoughts. Then I opened them and spoke.

“... I have one request.”

“What is it now?”

“I can’t reveal the source of the information I’m about to give you. Nor can I prove its authenticity. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether to believe it, Your Majesty.”

“... Wow. You’re only telling me that now?”

Just take my word for it.

For someone as habitually suspicious as Philly, those were probably the words she hated most. But there was no helping it. I had no way to explain my source or verify the information.

I began with this.

“Dragon Hearts can be used.”

“...!”

Philly’s eyes widened. Some of her languor disappeared.

“The immense quantity of Mana is part of why humans become incapacitated after swallowing a Dragon Heart, but its nature is the greater problem.”

Dragons in Etius weren’t particularly sacred beings. They were simply monstrous beasts, more akin to natural disasters.

And so their crystallized essence, the Dragon Heart, was violent in nature too.

“So you have to change its nature first.”

“Change its nature? How?”

“By breaking it.”

Philly’s mouth fell open at my answer. Well, that was a perfectly natural reaction.

“You have to enclose the Dragon Heart in a spherical Mana barrier and break it inside. That will keep the Mana contained within the barrier, allowing you to use it.”

When I used this method while playing as Aster, I had Runia Frisel’s help. Runia was a genius at Mana manipulation. She had done everything, from creating an enormous Mana barrier to breaking the Dragon Heart inside it.

Anyone could have thought of this given enough time. The problem was that it required breaking a Dragon Heart.

Only two Dragon Hearts currently existed.

That single sentence made their rarity painfully clear.

Even if it seemed worth trying, no one could bring themselves to decide to break one.

For that reason, Dragon Hearts had always been poisoned chalices within the empire: precious, magnificent, coveted by all, yet impossible to use.

“Will that really let me use the Dragon Heart?”

“Whether you believe me is up to you, Lady Philly.”

“Hmm...” Philly sank into thought. My explanation must have sounded too plausible to dismiss as a mere lie.

Philly’s skepticism extended even to unlikely possibilities. Just as she doubted what everyone else found believable, she also questioned whether what everyone dismissed might be true.

“Hmm, hmm... I’ll give it a try when the opportunity arises,” Philly said at last.

It seemed she had decided to take my word for it, at least for now.

Well, she would do anything for Aten.

* * *

A few days later came Constel’s practical exam.

“As you know, today is your practical exam.”

All the first-years had gathered on the field. After lining up the students, their teacher Ales began to speak.

“You’re still only first-years, but I’ll tell you this now. If you graduate safely from Constel and become professionals, you’ll take on a variety of important positions. Most of those jobs will require you to accept danger.”

“Professional” referred to anyone who earned money through combat and magic: soldiers, hunters, court mages, mercenaries, and so on.

Enrolling at Constel meant aiming to become a professional after graduation.

“When you face danger, there’s no guarantee you’ll always have strong, dependable companions beside you. Often, you’ll have to work your way through it alongside people whose goals, personalities, and teamwork don’t mesh with yours. Sometimes, you’ll have to coordinate with someone you only met that day. That’s what being a professional means.”

Everyone nodded, their expressions growing serious. Satisfied with their response, Ales continued.

“The practical exam is fundamentally an individual competition, but you’re allowed to form teams. However, the points you earn will be divided among you.”

Then Ales held up a phone.

“If you want to form a team, touch the backs of the phones you were given earlier together. That will register you as a team.”

Go solo if you were confident in your abilities; team up if you weren’t. An objective assessment of your own abilities was another important part of this practical exam.

The task was “monster extermination.” It was a large-scale exam using the entire field.

Drones patrolled the field, giving the supervising teachers an overview of the entire area. Spectators could also watch the drone footage.

We couldn’t see the audience from the field, but by now they would be seated in the stands, watching us through the drones.

The exam itself was simple. Kill monsters and collect parts as proof—horns, ears, and the like. Bring those materials to a teacher at the end, and they would be added to your score. The scores would determine our rankings.

Simple and straightforward.

There were, however, grounds for disqualification: dropping out midway, losing consciousness, or seriously injuring another student.

Any of those meant a zero. No matter how many monsters you killed, you wouldn’t receive a single point.

“All right, begin!”

At Ales’s flat signal, the students began moving. Some raced off to secure favorable locations, while others wandered around looking for teammates.

I took a look around me.

“Well, shall we get started?”

I loosened up.

At Constel, practical exams mattered more than written ones. And for me, they were far more daunting too.

I couldn’t cheat like I had on the written exam, and my abilities lagged behind those of the other students.

But I had no intention of forming a team.

It might seem advantageous for weaker students to team up, but it rarely worked out that way. With no restrictions on team formation, strong students would team up with other strong students anyway. Then those teams would sweep up all the monsters.

Meanwhile, I could hunt monsters my own way. I knew quite a lot that no one else did: the field’s terrain, the types of monsters, their weaknesses.

I just had to make the most of that knowledge and diligently beat the crap out of some monsters.

‘I hope the top students put in some effort.’

They might as well wipe everything out. This was about rankings, after all. If the students at the top took care of everything, climbing the ranks would be easier for me.

“First, somewhere to store the materials.”

I stopped there.

A chill ran through me. An ominous, unnerving sensation—and yet somehow familiar.

I slowly turned around.

“... Hi.”

There stood Aten, as though that were only natural. Just as she had followed me around the classroom for days, she stood there, all in white.

“Hello, Frondier.”

“... Aten, why are you beside me today?”

At my question, Aten blinked, then gave a little “Ah!” of realization.

“Of course. I forgot.”

Then she held out her phone.

“If I’m going to follow you around anyway, we should form a team.”

...

Ha ha.

* * *

“Elysia! Sale! Over here, over here!”

Seated in the stands, Philly waved to draw their attention, looking far more childlike than her age warranted.

Embarrassed by her behavior, Elysia and Sale covered their faces and sighed.

“Mom, you don’t need to do that. You’re the only one in this whole section.”

Just as Elysia, the First Princess, said, Imperial Palace knights surrounded Philly at regular intervals, leaving no gaps.

It would have been impossible not to notice her.

“Hee-hee! But places like this are exciting, aren’t they? It’s nice. It feels like I’m out on a picnic with my daughters for the first time in ages.”

“... Well, I suppose it’s not all that different.”

Elysia and Sale sat down beside her. Elysia briefly surveyed their surroundings.

They weren’t the only prominent people in the empire here. In addition to Constel’s outstanding second- and third-years, there were renowned working professionals, mercenaries, and members of prestigious noble families.

‘Hm?’

Then someone caught Elysia’s eye: a tall man seated in the stands.

Rodrick Terst.

Elysia immediately frowned.

‘What is that man doing here?’

The Imperial Palace was currently embroiled in fierce political maneuvering. The greatest cause was the simple, easily exploited fact that all of Philly’s children were girls.

The empire’s emperors had always been men. Philly’s opposition argued that even if she was the emperor’s principal wife, a woman could not inherit the throne.

And at the head of that faction stood Rodrick Terst.

Rodrick was the son of the concubine the emperor had taken after marrying Philly—an imperial prince, in other words—and his influence was second only to that of Philly’s daughters.

His looks and abilities had earned him a considerable following, though unsavory rumors about his character surfaced from time to time.

‘I don’t have a good feeling about this.’

Oblivious to Elysia’s worries, Philly was absorbed in the enormous Wizerview screen in front of them. As the footage switched between drones, Aten appeared on-screen quite often.

“Oh my, oh my! Did you see? Aten’s on the screen! Look at her!”

“Yes, yes.”

The perfunctory reply came from Sale, the Second Princess.

She was an imperial princess. How could they possibly leave her off the screen?

What was remarkable was how genuinely Philly could fuss over it.

“... But, Mom.”

“Yes?”

“Who’s that, then?”

On one of Aten’s frequent appearances on-screen, she had held her phone out to someone.

They had already heard the rules of this practical exam. Holding out her phone meant she wanted to form a team.

And standing in front of Aten’s outstretched phone was a male student.

Philly saw him too. She hummed thoughtfully, then gave a small laugh.