Chapter 242: 128. Queen Rox -2 (Part Two)
**
The next day, my group left the capital of Aihrance while Queen Rox bade us goodbye.
We rode on the carriage the Aihrance royal court had prepared for us.
As the carriage clunked noisily and marched forward, I couldn’t help but recall Queen Rox.
What a strange feeling this was.
I looked down at the letter she had given me before asking Hans, “Hey, Hans. Can you tell me what kind of magic is cast on this letter?”
A magic spell was cast directly on the letter. My [Mind’s Eye] couldn’t check it out as it wasn’t a magical item.
Hans, who was riding in the carriage along with me, glanced at the envelope. He was busy putting on a pair of leather gloves. “It’s a curse, sir.”
“Eh? A curse?!”
Despite seeing me flinch in surprise, he replied in an unconcerned manner. He was even putting on a leather apron as if he was getting ready for an operation. “Yes. However, it’s designed to be undone when something happens to the wellbeing of the caster, sir. The only danger here is the letter combusting when someone tries to forcibly open it.”
…Well, that’s a relief.
Which meant that this letter couldn’t be opened unless something happened to Queen Rox.
I put my thoughts in order before staring at Hans.
Cold sweat drops stained his forehead, probably because of motion sickness. His hands were shaking unsteadily as well.
“W-well, then. Should we get started, your highness?”
“…Are you really planning to engrave the Aztal Rune on my body in your current state?”
Hans picked up the tattooing needle with his gloved hands and adjusted the goggles on his face. He checked out my back and began snickering. “But sir, isn’t this what you wanted?”
“Make sure it doesn’t hurt, alright?”
“Should I anaesthetise you, in that case? Of course, there’s a slight side effect of all the pain manifesting at once later. As a matter of fact, a regular person might faint from it.”
“…No thanks, then.”
I’d prefer to get this done after setting up a camp somewhere, but that would take too long.
Hans got down to tattooing the rune letters on my bare back. It seemed that he managed to create the real deal after checking out the rune letters that appeared on Ordin Olfolse’s treasure earlier.
However, it was now my turn to break out in cold sweat. Stinging pain came from my back and I could feel my flesh burning.
“Please don’t worry, sir. There won’t be any scars.”
Hans seemed to be talking to himself and I could only groan softly at that.
Alice, who was sitting next to me, started wiping away my sweat. Hoping to forget about the pain coming from my back, I tried to talk to her. There was a matter I had almost forgotten about that needed to be discussed.
“Alice.”
“Yes, your highness?”
She lightly tilted her head.
If it’s her, she might have some idea.
…An idea on the cause of all those people who went through an awakening after I injected some divinity into them.
I told her the stories regarding the convicts in Ronia.
Alice’s eyes opened progressively wider. “Such a thing was even possible, your highness?!”
“Huh. So you also don’t have a clue?”
That’s too bad. I figured Alice might have some idea as to why this unusual phenomenon was happening, but it seemed that I had set my expectations a bit too high.
Could it be that such a way to awaken Priests was impossible according to the laws of this world? If so, should I blame this game system of mine…?
“Ah, please wait.”
Alice called out to me and I shifted my gaze over to her.
“Perhaps it’s not completely improbable…”
The end of her sentence blurred as she sneaked a glance at me.
I asked her, “What are you talking about?”
“There used to be two different ways of making someone awaken to divinity, your highness. One is the widely-accepted method currently in use, and the other one is…”
The current way was for one to study the cleric’s textbook, train, offer prayers everyday, and gradually come to awaken their ability to wield divinity.
But there was one more way.
“And it’s the method utilised in the ancient past, your highness. Which was to drink holy water and fervently pray to the gods.”
“…”
“This method involves drinking holy water that boasts very high purity during breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
This ancient method was to forcibly awaken oneself by making a person drink a ton of powerful divinity. In wuxia terms, it’d be like swallowing up lots of elixirs.
“Of course, that alone cannot completely explain this phenomenon, your highness. The number of people who can awaken through such a method are too few and this process is just too inefficient, so no one relies on it in modern times.”
Meaning, we still had no idea on the cause.
Just as I began smacking my lips in disappointment…
I spied Alice clutching her fist tightly.
She was silently contemplating something.
At the end of her deep pondering, she cautiously opened her mouth. “There is a story that comes from the ancient times.”
I tilted my head at her sudden story-telling.
“It’s a story about a miracle performed by a Saint.”
“A miracle, is it?”
“That person used the miracle granted by Goddess Gaia to heal people, and all those who received his healing expressed their gratitude by believing in the gods.”
Began believing in the gods, is it?
That means…
“Yes, the number of the believers increased explosively back then. And although only a little bit, some of them started using divinity.”
“…”
“This is one of the miracles that takes place whenever the world finds itself in great turmoil, your highness.”
Quite a few gods existed in this world. And they would occasionally send people with their fragment to the mortal realm, hoping to restore the balance of the world.
“That is the task of the Saint and the Saintess.”
Alice quietly whispered that.
Whenever the world experienced countless calamities, Saints and Saintesses would be born.
They answered the will of the gods to correct the order of the world, subjugated the ones trying to break the balance, and offered salvation to the masses.
And the ones trying to upset the balance of the world right now, were…
Alice began nodding as if she had made her mind up over something. “I’ve become sure of it now after listening to you, your highness. That power to increase the number of believers, it…”
She stared straight at me.
“Your highness, you’re definitely a Saint with a god’s fragment.”
I became speechless after her declaration.
**
I had no awareness of me being a Saint whatsoever. Besides all that, it didn’t matter to me whether I had a god’s fragment or became Gaia’s proxy or whatever.
I’d get my proper answer once we reached the northern region, anyway.
“It’s all done, sir! We’re finished with a portion of it for the time being.”
Hans lifted up a mirror. I took a look at my back through the reflection. The golden-coloured rune letters were emitting faint glow on my skin.
I grinned at that sight.
There they were, the god’s letters.
With the imitation, I could only perform complete regeneration and divinity amplification, but the story was going to be a lot different now.
There was another ability that I hadn’t touched yet.
‘Ability transfer.’
That was the ability Mikael, the former leader of the Church of Caiolium, used to great effect.
But since my Aztal Rune was the real deal, its effect should be far more eye-opening, that’s for sure.
And I was getting this powerful itch to test it out.
While the carriage continued to clunk away, I extracted a piece of bone I got from Titalos.
Alice asked, “What’s that?”
“The bone of a Wyvern.”
It was one of the ancient dragon species that happened to be capable of flight in Titalos.
No matter how diligent the ancient Necromancers applied their knowledge gained from the grimoires, they still required quite a considerable level of mastery if they wanted to control an ancient dragon.
However, my story would be a bit different from theirs with the Aztal Rune now in the mix.
“Stop the carriage.”
Hans called out to the carriage driver sitting in front of the cab, and the carriage came to a stop. We went outside.
I dropped the Wyvern bone on the ground, then summoned holy water through my fingertip. The water seeped into the bone.
At the same time, the Aztal Rune tattooed on my skin began emitting golden light.
[Divine Aura has been used.]
The ground broke apart and bones made out of divinity rapidly gathered before us.
A pair of thick legs firmly stood on the ground. A lengthy spine connecting the neck and the tail materialised next.
The undead raised its snake-like skull as a pair of bone wings spread open wide.
A blue-coloured rune letter was engraved on the Wyvern’s skull.
With this, I finally managed to ‘upgrade’ my undead by another level through [Divine Aura], which wasn’t possible before.
I didn’t even need to be in contact with the undead, either. The ‘ability transfer’ of the Aztal Rune was more than enough for the job.
Hans flinched in shock and froze up on the spot, while Alice was quietly muttering to herself in a daze, “A Bone Wyvern…”
A Wyvern was believed to be the descendant species of a dragon.
I extended my hand. The Wyvern lowered its large skull towards me and began rubbing itself on my palm.
“The northern region is still pretty far from here.”
I turned my head towards Hans and Alice, and grinned brightly at them.
“So, wanna take a ride?”
< 128. Queen Rox -2 (Part One and Two) > Fin.
