Chapter 56
Outside they had already finished preparing to move the giant worm.
Gurgle….
The huge-bodied giant worm waited for us, its whole body tightly bound in chains.
Maybe because of the earlier incident, they’d even fitted a large muzzle on its mouth.
“It’s huge.”
It was about one and a half times the size of an ordinary giant worm.
A body that size costs a lot just to move.
You have to load it onto a big cart and haul it by carriage.
Because of its bulk they’d hitched four extra horses to the carriage.
“Heh heh.”
The giant worm wasn’t the original target, but since we got it for free I couldn’t help but smile.
Next to the tightly bound giant worm, Yarta waited for us.
He bowed his head slightly with a face like he’d been chewing excrement and greeted us.
“I apologize once again for the accident that happened today.”
“It’s fine. I’m generous.”
“…Then. I will begin the taming ritual. Is there anyone here who already holds a taming rank?”
“No.”
You don’t always need a taming rank to command a monster.
With a skill like “Transfer Ownership,” which becomes available from Taming Rank 4, you can control a monster without having a taming rank yourself.
The drawback is that if the designated handler dies the monster slips out of control, and you can’t issue complex commands.
‘It’s such a docile monster, there shouldn’t be much to worry about.’
“Then I will only perform the ownership transfer. Who would you like to register as its owner?”
“Hmm….”
I had already decided who would be this big fellow’s owner in my head.
“Make it this woman.”
I pointed to Isbart. She jumped at my words and asked, startled.
“Me? You mean me? But ownership should be done by the Young Master or Count Aimon…”
“No. You’re the one who manages the Endel mine anyway. You were the one who wanted a giant worm as a present in the first place. Are you refusing because you plan to leave our family?”
“N—no! It’s not that! I just thought it was too extravagant a gift for me…”
“Then stop talking and take it.”
“Thank you….”
Isbart’s eyes became moist.
To be fair, even an older worm like that is worth a hundred gold; she should be grateful.
“I will begin the ownership transfer.”
The tamer standing beside Yarta stepped forward.
He opened his left hand wide and placed it on the giant worm.
Grrr!
The giant worm twitched a little, but it didn’t resist.
Swoosh!
A white light rose up over the tamer’s hand.
“Please show me the rune marking.”
“Yes….”
Isbart cautiously extended her left hand and the tamer placed his over hers.
The light flowed straight into Isbart’s hand.
“…It’s finished. This child is now yours.”
“Hyaa….”
Isbart marvelled at her glittering hand.
‘That was easier than I thought.’
“Try a simple command.”
“All right!”
Isbart thrust her hand out toward the giant worm and shouted.
“Um… Cry!”
Gurgle!
At her command the giant worm gave a short, single cry.
“Wow! It worked!”
“It’s responding well.”
Isbart acted like she’d just acquired a new pet, jumping with joy.
Beside her, however, Yarta ground his teeth.
I lightly patted his shoulder and said,
“What happened here today stays a secret. So don’t worry.”
“Thank…you….”
“Of course you should be grateful.”
I gave him a thumbs-up and climbed into the carriage heading back to the manor.
Having achieved my objective, I arrived at the manor in a pleasantly clear mood.
I intended to rest my eyes for a moment in my bedroom when Priana approached me.
“Young Master.”
“What is it?”
“I have an impertinent question… May I ask what your real purpose was for going to the Fesis Auction House?”
Hmm.
It seemed it had been bothering Priana.
I gave a small smile and asked back.
“I thought getting a giant worm for free was quite a profit. Wasn’t that enough?”
“Of course I think that you showed great skill in obtaining it. But…”
She’d spent half a day riding in a carriage only to come away with being shaken down.
It couldn’t be just for the old giant worm—she seemed uncertain how to put it since the person involved was someone they served.
“Heh heh. Of course getting that worm wasn’t the only reason.”
“…I knew it!”
Priana brightened as though a longstanding irritation had been lifted.
I took from my pocket the item I’d retrieved from the giant worm’s belly.
It was wrapped tightly in a snow-white handkerchief.
“This is it.”
“What… is it?”
When she unwrapped the handkerchief, the hidden object was revealed.
Inside was a single, coarse gray stone.
It didn’t sparkle like a mana core; it looked like a commonplace rock you might find on the road.
Priana tilted her head as if she couldn’t even guess what it might be.
I said confidently,
“This is not an ordinary stone.”
“Then… what is it?”
“A ‘perfect’ stone.”
“…Excuse me?”
Even as I spoke the phrasing sounded strange to my own ears.
Not a perfect gem but a perfect stone?
But there wasn’t a better word to express this stone.
Priana scrutinised the stone intently.
She could find no special characteristics and lowered her head despondently.
“Sorry, but I can’t understand what you mean.”
“Heh heh. Of course. To the eye it looks like any other rock.”
I had planned to rest briefly.
Now I pushed that off and said, “Come on. I’ll show you why it’s called a perfect stone.”
I led Priana to the manor’s training hall.
On the way I stopped by Harun and borrowed a pair of pliers—an anvil clamp.
It’s a tool used to clamp an iron plate between its jaws to bend it.
This time I clamped a stone firmly between the jaws instead of a plate.
After confirming the stone was held securely, I stepped back.
“Priana.”
“Yes, Young Master.”
“Try cutting that.”
“The stone?”
“Yes. You can manage that?”
Priana looked slightly affronted.
The Aura Sword, a rank 5 sword technique, pierces even thick iron armor.
No matter how ‘perfect’ this stone claimed to be, his sword technique should have no trouble cleaving it.
‘That’s what he’s thinking, right?’
“All right. I’ll try.”
Priana drew his sword from his waist and summoned aura to it.
A clean blue aura bloomed around the blade.
…Slash!
A clean, concise strike traced an arc across the stone.
The blade cut through the target without unnecessary flourish.
“…I think that did it?”
Considering I’d risked having it swallowed by a giant worm, being cut so easily felt anticlimactic.
Priana still didn’t understand what was going on.
“Hahaha! Didn’t I tell you to cut it? It looks fine to me.”
“Eh?”
“Take a look. See if the stone was cut.”
Priana blinked and examined the stone.
When he checked the condition of the target his eyes went wide.
Although the sword’s arc had clearly passed through, the stone retained its original form as if nothing had happened.
“T—this is…?”
“Did your sword miss by accident? Try it again!”
…Slash!
The Aura Sword again brushed the target.
But the result was the same.
No scratch, no fracture—completely intact.
I removed the stone from between the pliers.
Priana stared at it in a daze.
“Huh…”
“This isn’t a hallucination. This is the power of a ‘perfect’ stone. No matter how you cut it, it returns to its original shape.”
I poured aura into my Yongrin Sword to show him.
When the aura touched the stone’s surface it sliced as if nothing resisted, but the moment the blade was removed the fissures on the stone resealed themselves.
“How is this possible?”
There are similar things among mana cores.
Some mana cores with self-repair skills can use stored mana to restore themselves.
But there isn’t a mana core in the world that recovers this fast.
Especially not a dull, blackish stone like this.
So where on earth had such a mad object come from?
“What on earth is this rock?”
“Someone made it experimentally.”
The answer was simple.
This stone was manufactured.
A stone that restores itself no matter how it’s cut.
“Made? Who would make something like this…?”
“Who else? Whoever could turn a plain stone into this without using a mana core.”
“…No way?”
Only one person on the continent could have made such a thing.
Priana’s face filled with shock.
“Oberon Steira. This is a relic he left behind.”
It was less a relic and more like trash he’d grown bored of and discarded.
“Now you understand why it’s called a perfect stone?”
“I—yes…. If it’s a stone made by Lord Oberon, there’s no adjective more fitting than ‘perfect.’”
Priana examined the stone with fascination, turning it over in his hands.
Then, noticing something odd, he tilted his head.
“But why was such a great item inside a giant worm’s belly?”
“Hmm… That’s a long story.”
I felt slightly lazy explaining, but Priana looked like he might go insane from curiosity, so I began.
“You know Oberon disappeared after the Great War, right?”
“Yes. I’ve heard that for fifteen years not even his shadow has been seen.”
“Do you know what happened to the research materials he left behind?”
“I thought they were all burned up in the fires of the Great War…”
“That’s just the surface story.”
Ah….
Up to that point everything was common knowledge.
But there was something not widely known.
“To make it easier, let me give an example. Techniques and insights from higher sword ranks are kept secret by the government. You know that, right?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then what do you think about the arcane research notes Oberon left behind?”
“That is…”
Priana couldn’t answer easily.
Oberon was Magic Rank 9.
A doodle from him could be the reason someone rose a rank.
He was the one who had broken the final wall that no one had penetrated for thousands of years.
After he vanished, the leaders of the allied kingdoms all feared in unison.
Like a powerful empire disappearing in an instant, they feared another monster might appear that could wipe them out in a moment.
“So the Kingdom Alliance summoned every giant worm on the continent. Then they reset everything in places with traces of Oberon by letting the worms eat them.”
“……”
“Some worms only swallowed useless scraps, but others ate Oberon’s experimental subjects. The worms that consumed Oberon’s experiments ended up aging slowly or not at all.”
“Oh….”
That’s why we found a giant worm over fifteen years old at the Fesis Monster Auction House.
By luck only one remained, and from that one I got this stone.
It was a gamble; I didn’t know what I would find.
Luckily what came from its belly was something I recognized.
Actually, many of the trash items Oberon left behind show up later in the story.
I just accelerated the timing a bit.
Among various scraps, this was one of the least dangerous.
If something dangerous had come out I would have hidden it somehow.
“You really know everything, Young Master!”
Priana looked at me with a slightly moved expression.
Fortunately he didn’t ask how I knew.
Frankly, there have been too many strange things up to now.
Now he just accepted it as it was.
“So what do you plan to do with it? Are you planning to use this to break the second wall?”
“No.”
I curtly dashed his guess.
Then, with a fishy smile, I answered,
“I’ll sell it.”
