Chapter 148: Lost Ti (1)
The God of Ti, Shurine.
A god worshipped with the sa na as Rine's true na.
Of course, since I had never once ntioned Rine's true na in front of her or others, no one showed a big reaction to the priest's remark.
However.
“…….”
Rine, who seed to sense sothing in the sound of the na, slowly lowered her head, appearing to be chewing over the priest's answer.
“Shurine…”
At that.
“Your na is similar to hers.”
Ibi let out a small laugh and muttered.
It couldn’t be helped that they were similar.
After all, Rine's na was derived from Shurine.
Of course, Ibi did not say this knowing the truth.
How could she know, in the first place?
But, whether due to luck or brilliant [Intuition] (probably both), Ibi often casually threw out penetrating remarks that pierced the core, whether she knew the truth or not.
Sure enough.
“…Is that so.”
Rine, who had turned her eyes away from the statue, suddenly looked up at .
Since I was the one who had first called her ‘Rine’.
Actually, the reason I started calling her Rine was largely spontaneous.
First of all, I absolutely did not want to call her ‘Eastwood’.
The system… the Status Window still listed the na Eastwood, but that was absolutely not a person's na.
It was just a damn product na given purely for the convenience of rchants, attached because she was found in the eastern woods.
If I hadn't known her real na, I would have had no choice but to call her that, but that wasn't the case.
I did know it.
Yet, giving her a completely unrelated, brand new na also made feel uneasy in a corner of my mind.
There was, of course, the factor that no other na imdiately ca to mind, but the biggest issue was that the thought, Who am I to give her a new na?, kept recurring.
For so reason, I felt a sense of overlap with those who had given her the completely unrelated na Eastwood.
Therefore, ‘Rine’ was the compromise.
I couldn't just call her Shurine… the na of the God of Ti, no matter what.
“Even the appearance is sohow similar… no, that’s not it. They don’t look alike at all.”
Ibi alternately looked at Shurine's statue and Rine's placid face, then let out another laugh as if to say, Surely such a thing couldn't happen.
“There’s no way this girl is a god or anything.”
Well… if you look only at the core, she is right.
A god.
That "no way" is the way.
Haven't I always been saying that Rine was a god-level archmage?
She has to be god-level.
Because she is a god.
Strictly speaking, she would be closer to an ‘avatar’ or ‘doppelganger’ of Shurine, the God of Ti…
But even calling her the original person is practically fine.
Or she could be called the ‘Second Generation’ Shurine.
If the person depicted by that statue that 'doesn't look alike at all' is considered the First Generation Shurine.
So it is complex in many ways… but the equation ‘Rine = Shurine’ itself is not wrong at all.
And indeed, she was even worshipped as Shurine, the God of Ti.
But Rine, who still did not rember that fact at all, looked up at the statue again, then suddenly turned her head away.
Like a person who thinks the strange sense of déjà vu she felt in a corner of her mind was rely her imagination.
However, unfortunately, it was not her imagination.
And she could no longer simply look away as she was doing now.
Now, she had to face that truth.
“──‘Shurina’.”
So, I inford my companions of our next destination.
“I think we'll make this place our next destination.”
Since we were all sitting at a table together after finishing our al, it was the perfect ti to announce it.
“If Shurina…”
“It’s the city that worships Shurine, the God of Ti.”
“That’s right.”
“Shurine? The god this girl asked about today?”
“Yes, that god.”
“What a coincidence.”
No. It was not a coincidence, but a necessity.
“Right on the day we talked about it.”
“Indeed.”
aning that seeing Shurine’s statue in the Pantheon was a predetermined event marking the full start of Rine’s ‘Companion Quest’.
And also aning that I had deliberately led us there to see that event in the first place.
“…Is there a special reason for this?”
He might not have figured out my full intentions, but Toric, who seed to have imdiately sensed that I had a specific motive, asked with a bit of bewildernt.
“To go from here towards The Wall… the Demon King's Castle, we don’t necessarily have to pass through Shurina, do we?”
Because it wasn't exactly ‘on the way’.
Shurina is located in the north.
It is the city closest to The Wall among the 12 Cities.
But while it is close to The Wall, it is not close to the ‘Demon King’s Castle’.
Strictly speaking, it's a roundabout route.
So it was natural to be curious about why I insisted on going to such a place.
Especially Toric, a veteran who had once road the entire continent as a Kaper and was deeply familiar with the continent's geography.
But for that very reason.
“…Aha.”
When I silently signaled with my eyes toward Rine, he, as expected, was the quickest to understand my intention.
“Is it because of her?”
“Yes.”
It was for Rine.
“Because of Sister Rine…?”
Lily, on the other hand, who had lived only in Sista Village until she embarked on the journey with us, seed not to understand why Toric was imdiately convinced.
In other words, she had failed the [History] Check.
So, I explained it instead.
“Shurina is also known as the city of the Northern Elves.”
Just like Rine.
“And as everyone knows, Rine’s mories are still incomplete.”
I had already told everyone several tis how Rine ca to travel with .
Especially, the fact that she had no mory of her life before becoming a slave.
However, no one had specifically made an issue of it, and more than anything, Rine herself had no ‘desire’ to find her lost mories, so it simply hadn't been ntioned until now.
Above all, in this party at least, Rine was simply ‘Rine’.
“It is even said that virtually all Northern Elves are originally from Shurina. ──So, perhaps we can find a clue to Rine’s lost mories there.”
It is not perhaps we can; we definitely will.
“My, mories…”
The person herself reacted as if she hadn't given it any thought at all until I brought it up.
From Rine's perspective, whose mories were all ‘erased’, it must feel less like searching for sothing lost and more like searching for sothing that never existed in the first place.
But wouldn't that make Rine… Shurine too pitiful?
To not even know that she was forgotten and for no one to try to find her.
Naturally, I had no intention of letting that happen.
All the more so because I knew the truth.
In short, this wasn't simply about finding lost mories.
It was about finding a lost self… a lost ‘existence’.
“When I first started traveling with Rine, I made this promise. ‘This future journey won't be just for , but for you as well.’”
So, I told them I intended to keep that promise.
“I want to do anything I can if it could be a clue for Rine to find her lost mories.”
In any case, there was justification.
Unless we had to go in the completely opposite direction, heading to Shurina in the north ant we would still be getting closer to The Wall.
Although I had said it was a roundabout route earlier, it still ant the paths would connect eventually.
“──Is everyone, okay with this?”
Of course, this was only if all the other companions agreed.
“Of course!”
Miki was the first to reply.
“If I can be of help to Sister Rine, I’m wholeheartedly in favor!”
Following him, Lily and Toric also nodded and offered a word or two, voicing their agreent.
Naturally, everyone’s gaze turned to the last remaining person, Ibi.
“What?”
Ibi, receiving all of our attention, propped her chin on one hand and let out a small snort.
“What are you expecting from ?”
As if to ask if it needed to be said out loud.
“Should I just object pointlessly, saying I don’t want to go sowhere cold?”
As if, she would have followed anyway, even if it had been the completely opposite direction from the Demon King's Castle.
With this, our next destination was decided.
Rine still showed a placid reaction to the companions' decision.
This was partly because she naturally lacked emotional expression, but also because it didn't quite resonate with her.
As I said before, Rine was currently at a level where she had no desire to search for her own mories.
aning she didn't even know why she should search, let alone what she was supposed to search for.
However, despite all that.
“…Thank you.”
Rine now knew well that, at the very least, everyone cared about her.
“Everyone.”
Enough to express her gratitude with a bow.
***
Although the City of Ti, Shurina, was decided as our next destination fairly easily.
“It will be a challenging journey.”
As Toric said, the journey itself would be anything but easy.
The city closest to The Wall ant it was also a dangerous city.
More accurately, a dangerous zone.
Because it was the area with the highest average level of enemies, the most dangerous area inside The Wall.
And furthermore, the opponents we would encounter upon arriving in Shurina after breaking through that challenging path would also be extrely dangerous entities.
More so than the Dark Elf soldiers we fought recently, or even Kain, whom I killed with my own hands, a Corps Commander of the Demon King's army.
That’s understandable, as it was an event related to an entity that was once called a true god, even if she had lost her mory and power.
More precisely, we would confront the entity who made such a true god-like being live as a slave, stripped of all her power and mory── ‘The God Killer’.
Naturally, it had to be dangerous.
The fortunate thing, however, was that our level had risen again thanks to ‘hunting’ the aforentioned Dark Elf soldiers and Kain.
Strictly speaking, we t Kain much earlier than the conventionally recomnded level, so the experience gained from ‘winning’ that fight instantly boosted our level by 2.
Thanks to this, our party’s current level was 14.
At this level, we should be able to just barely handle Shurina’s ‘difficulty’.
Of course, on the premise that we were thoroughly prepared.
“Ah, you’ve arri──”
──Crash!
To prepare for this, after first witnessing the fixed event(?) that occurs every ti we visit Nero’s atelier.
“Ouch…”
Nero, as if to hide her expression mixed with pain and humiliation, put her round glasses back on her face and said.
“The, the items, are complete…!”
This ant that the requested items—the ‘elixirs’ made from the Gloom concentrate we acquired from Krom, which could temporarily and greatly enhance Ibi’s physical abilities just as they had in Krom—were complete, and at the sa ti.
“Finally.”
The legendary-grade artifact for was also complete.
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