Chapter 20 - A Real Human Being ( Frieren )

***

Once we entered the room, the entirety of the Vigil spread out.

Twenty constructs in total. Following their predetermined routine that I involuntarily observed and categorized over the last couple of days, and thus knew perfectly.

Two powerful 'mage-constructs' close to the Teuflisch, from either side of him and me, two physically augmented ones, designed to emulate 'warriors' behind. The remaining sixteen would spread out in a designated pattern just behind our back, eight on one side, eight on the other, ranged units first, so they could engage any threat immediately, with the warriors behind to be able to circle around or through the support units if necessary to choose how to engage or receive a direct instruction from the undead's master.

When I started moving, I kept all of this in mind, somewhere in my lizard brain.

I moved, and I saw the construct twitch as I stepped in front of Teuflisch, twisting his staff sharply to the side. The Kraftstoß sphere formed at the same instant, flew to my right, and into the ceiling.

The Resonant Soul was on my proverbial fingertips, but in the last instant, I hesitated.

Not out of camaraderie or friendship, but because all of the Vigil constructs could keep up with my speed. They were combat machines of bone, magic, and preserved flesh, optimized to combat in their creator's stead. In pure physicality, the 'warrior' models were my superiors, even if not by much, and the 'mage' models could cast formidable spells, even if they are too predictable and way too blocky even by the standards of human magic.

The reason for my hesitation was the following: even as I engaged Teuflish to stop him, they didn't categorize me as a foe yet. But that could change if I were to cast an unknown invasive spell.

All of those reasons and observations weren't coherent thoughts at the moment. They flew by as half-formed concepts and hunches, as I moved.

And now I stood before Teuflisch, holding onto his foci, looking the man in the eyes.

"What… what are you doing, Albert?!" He asked, probably reflexively trying to tug his staff free, but without truly putting his back into it.

I didn't let him.

At this moment, his image was striking. Different. Teuflisch wasn't a very tall man, and I couldn't describe his build any other way than 'nerdish'. A man whose clothes looked too big on him.

He still wore the same cloak he so loved, made of stitches, and painted black many times over. Beneath it, and a layer of scarves, I could see the white shirt.

His eyes were piercing grey, usually absent-minded and a bit lost, but were focused, with silent fury and confusion. His face, pleasant if timid-looking, was twisted into a grimace of tension and bewilderment. The brown, somewhat disheveled hair that he combed daily, and yet couldn't ever force to settle, was still there, framing his face.

Everything about his features was the same as always. But the way he carried himself was different. Gone was his harmless look of a lost scholar who could seemingly forget his boots when going outside; instead, before me stood a man at the edge of his limits.

He had the possessed look, a look of someone who will act, that formed from countless minuscule details from body language to facial expression and tone.

That too was a realization that I arrived to instantly, never having the luxury of time to think it out. Just associations neatly connecting in my mind without even forming words.

There was another truth I was intimately aware of. Each Vigil construct is a difficult opponent for me. Surmountable, but requiring care and dedication to face, each offensive spell could kill or wound me, each defensive spell shut down my attacks, and the warrior constructs could endure my attacks and crunch through my defences for a time.

In my guts, I knew I could maybe handle five of them at a time comfortably, using the terrain. I could last against ten for a while if my only goal was to endure uncaring for mana cost.

Twenty, under the leadership of Teuflisch, will destroy me, were I to face them here, in this cage.

Incidentally, there was only one correct course of action that would secure my safety. A first beheading strike.

"Stopping a mistake," I said, letting go of his staff and lowering my hand, "This heart is too important."

I could see it, the flash of betrayal on his face, and a spark of rage. I knew I should act now, it will be too late once he resolves himself.

"Al, you…" He looks at me, his eyes trailing to the heart behind my back, a disgusted flicker on his expression before he looks back at me, "Is this all you can see? A way to advance your 'research'?" He spat those words out like poison, "You've seen what this thing did! What it can still do! We need to burn this abomination with fire and salt the earth!" he gestured wildly with his hands, and I shook my head.

"Killing it won't resurrect the dead," I told him simply, "And we need to know if it can even spread like this again, first."

I knew I should soften my tone now, sound caring, and come from an emotional angle to fortify the effect of my words.

I did not.

"Teuflisch, knowledge is knowledge. The sins committed to obtain some knowledge may be unforgivable, but burning the results out of spite helps no one." I explained, my tone empty.

He laughed. A sharp, partially hysterical sound.

"...he-he, knowledge? This knowledge must be destroyed, Albert; this is the point. This… all of this," He gestured around wildly, "Can never happen again!" He took a sharp, small breath, "Al, some things are better off not known. Not if they create horrors like the ones here! You… you should understand, you were a human too, weren't you? Step aside. Please."

This wasn't a request, not by his tone of voice, not by how the Vigil behind him shifted. Yet, there was a pleading tone, for just a moment.

"It's because I used to be a human that I am stopping you," I corrected him, standing firm, not changing my tone or expression, despite my instincts screaming at me to. "Because your actions are ultimately pointless."

I wanted to come at him from a position of reason. To explain how atrocities once committed in the camps of my own nation were the cause for the unprecedented advancement of medicine, how our technology, built to strike at a nation across the sea, ended up being used to reach space, and allowed a man to step on the moon. This was a topic I dwelled on a lot when I was a human, and in the end, while not all ends justify the means, when the sacrifices are already made and the results are laying in your lap, throwing them aside because the method of reaching them was inhumane - was ultimately foolish, it didn't honor those who suffered to produce the results, it was akin to spitting on the graves. I wanted to share this, to explain.

But I knew in my core he wouldn't listen. I can't reason him out of this, because his current state wasn't something he reasoned himself into.

So I spoke once more, my voice curated to be unchanged, my delivery flat and unconvincing, emotionless. Like always.

"Teuflisch, you are correct that my research is a mirror of Barmherzig's," I said, meeting his eyes, "We work in opposite directions, but his solution clearly bridged the gap from the other side," A human who became a monster… for a demon who was aiming to become a human, is there a better subject to study? "It may save me centuries of work, and I don't want it destroyed for that reason, it's true. However…" I threw my staff aside.

It clattered across the floor, under the bewildered gaze of Teuflisch, who glanced back at me immediately, his expression, for a moment, was filled with complex emotions.

"...I will reach the results I want in a few centuries by myself. I already saw enough, with my memory and curse, it's merely a question of enough attempts of trial and error to reproduce what interests me. I now know it's possible, and I feel enough in this very room to have a general idea of what has occurred, especially if I relive this memory enough. King Barmherzig's studies will live on through me even if you destroy that heart," I delivered the cold, hard truth, tilting my head just a bit, "Which is why destroying this heart alone is foolish. If you truly believe that this knowledge is better off lost forever, you should kill me." I saw him flinch at my words and the flicker of horror and understanding in his eyes. "After all, there is nothing you can say that will convince me to cease searching for a way to become a human again, Lisch." It was in how he flinched under my words, as if struck, that I knew the argument was chosen well.

It was simply the truth. Yet, and emotional one all the same, because he, a human, choose to see a friend in me. His anger, helplessness, this expression of dread, it told me that much.

This was satisfying, and I despised that it was. My goal wasn't to emotionally manipulate him; I simply delivered him the truth he was overlooking in his moment of passion.

There was an instant when Teuflish looked lost, as if bashed with something heavy against his head. He opened his mouth to say something, and closed it again, conflict clearly written on his face.

His muscles were spasming slightly, hand on his staff shaking just a little. His eyes were trailing up and down across me, as if searching for a solution, before being lowered to the floor.

I saw the instance when he gave up, leaning onto his staff, as if unable to hold himself steady on his feet anymore.

"...damn you, Al." His voice was barely audible, but in the silence of this room, interrupted only by the rhythmical throbbing of the heart, he may as well have screamed those words at me. "I… I can't." He shook his head, "This… I need to think."

I should've felt sympathy. Shame, perhaps, from putting his principles against the weight of my life, a life of a creature he considered a friend. It should have been devastating.

All I felt was satisfaction and glee from a victory.

I could acknowledge that it was wrong, but I had no time to dwell on it.

"...go outside, get some fresh air," I recommended, holding back the desire to soften my tone. I refused to make my words a verbal 'cookie', a pat for the 'dog' I just kicked, to reinforce the manipulation and come out looking better for him.

Sharply turning around to the heart, I started making my way towards it. "I will conduct the primary testing to make sure this thing isn't merely dormant, and isn't dangerous anymore," I added clearly, walking towards it and preparing diagnostic and clairvoyance spells, "If it still presents a credible threat, I will inform you."

He didn't reply, but I could hear the sharp sound of his cloak shifting and him walking away, before the Vigil followed.

Soon enough, I was alone.

As promised, I conducted the testing briefly. As I studied the heart closely, the roots connecting to it were also petrified; only the crimson, pulsing thing remained.

It took me three different diagnostic spells to realize that what I found here, in those ruins, was a treasure. It was a thing of flesh, and I didn't dare try to cut off or interact with it physically, but the mana-rebound from some of the spells I routinely used in my vivisections reminded me of a monster core.

A fusion of both, without a doubt.

Yet, it didn't react to my mana. It also didn't react once I dropped a droplet of water onto it, or, a moment later, a droplet of my demonic blood.

It showed none of the gluttonous tendencies of the lesser root monsters, despite being the heart of the greatest one.

I wanted to study more, I had more things to try, but I promised to only check it for safety, and I did that much before heading back up.

The complete silence of it, once I was truly and utterly alone in those corridors, was comforting.

***

"Over here," Teuflisch called out to me quietly, once I climbed the petrified root enough.

Finding it wasn't a challenge. Most passages we passed were indeed overgrown, if not outright shifted by the time and mass of roots, but many hallways remained relatively intact.

I simply followed one that had recent footprints, knowing I would find Teuflish there.

The mass of roots that surrounded a castle and made it look like a massive, disfigured head was mostly beneath us. The balcony I arrived at was torn from the outer building's facade and carried upwards.

Most of the vigil stood upon the crowded balcony, but parted once I got close, allowing me to see the necromancer, sitting on the edge of the root supporting the balcony, looking into the dark city below and towards the massive cocoon of roots surrounding the entire center of Irem.

He also didn't have any light here until I arrived.

"It's a dangerous spot," I commented absently, approaching, as I glanced around the structure, "We don't know how much additional weight it can hold."

I wasn't sure if Teuflisch would survive a collapse. With his constructs' capabilities and his own magic, I'd wager it would depend more on luck than skill.

He didn't reply. That, and his body language, told me enough.

For a moment, I stood by his side, but in the end, I elected to sit down some distance away, letting my legs dangle down just like he did.

"Not much fresh air here. But at least the air isn't as dry as it used to be anymore." He commented after a moment, before glancing at a sphere of magical light I have hovering over us, "Dismiss the light if you will."

I did as he asked after a moment.

My eyes adjusted almost instantly, unburdened as they were by some of the limitations of flesh. It took me a moment to notice the light from above.

I glance up, feeling dull surprise.

Above us, through the fractured dome of petrified roots, the cavern revealed itself.

The luminescent magical crystals were my immediate thought.

But I knew better once I had a moment to study what I saw through the roots above, on the true ceiling of the massive cavern where Irem resided.

Those weren't merely crystals scattered across that impossible ceiling like spilled salt. They were built there in the form of constellations. Because I had to account for astrology in some of the more complicated clairvoyance rituals I tried my hand on, I read up a bit on the subject. I could make out the Hunter's Arc, seven bright points connected by fainter crystals that traced the bowstring's curve. Further along, the Twin Serpents coiled around each other in threads of blue-white light, their heads marked by clusters so bright they cast faint shadows even at this distance.

As always, the stars of this foreign world brought me no comfort, only a sense that I didn't belong.

Those weren't merely imitations of stars themselves. The shapes of the constellations were framed by thin trails of luminescent crystals, painting the mythical creatures and beings on the ceiling.

Even if I only saw a fragment, I could tell it was a rough approximation of a genuine night sky. Not the whole of it, but as if someone snapped a picture and carefully recreated the sky of that one instant in stone.

I couldn't imagine how much that would cost in resources and time.

Between the major formations, countless smaller crystals dotted the darkness like genuine stars. They certainly looked like them, even with my augmented vision due to the distance and the dark-to-light contrast. Where the root barrier above had collapsed, great sections of this underground sky stretched unobstructed, and I could see how the ancient architects had even captured the gradual fade of stellar light toward what would have been the horizon, dimmer crystals creating the illusion of atmospheric distance.

The silence made it feel larger, somehow. As if the vastness above us was pressing down with its own weight of stillness.

"It's bewildering that we never noticed," Teuflisch's voice was quiet, as he, just like me, was staring above, "Busy as we were with our little chase of the mystery."

I nodded, knowing he probably could catch the motion in his peripheral vision, or at least sense the air shifting.

"I recognize those. They're called light-eaters amongst Middle Lands miners; they don't produce luminance on their own, rather, they absorb the light shone on them and then reflect it when left in complete darkness. Those crystals must have been absorbing all the light we were producing throughout the week." I voiced my thoughts out loud, shifting my eyes to the necromancer by my side.

I wasn't concerned or anxious. But I should be, as I had no idea what was going on in his head.

I felt tense, still ready for combat. This wasn't a conscious reaction. My consciousness dictated that I should have faith and not act out of mistrust.

"The heart is safe to be around, it's inert to the slight probing attempts I have made," I was the one to break the silence, after a while, "I might have missed something, but to proceed in testing, I would need to bring a lot of equipment from the Behemoth over. For now, it can't act, not with the pitiful amount of mana it has."

I expected his shoulder to tense. For some loud and antagonistic reaction.

This wasn't what I saw. What I've seen is Teuflisch's shoulders, slumping further. He had the posture of a man who just wanted to hide.

He has been quiet for a while after. I waited patiently.

"Al, your search…" He hesitated, looking down, somewhere below, "Your search for your humanity… would you truly be satisfied with a result like this?" He gestured around, "Or for whatever alternative to this, that your search will find?"

I considered his question.

"I assume you refer to the tragedy that happened in the city, rather than the visual component or the breached taboos of magical cultures?" I questioned rhetorically, still thinking.

Yet, I received a weak nod from my peer.

"I…" I hesitated. The deeper I dug into myself, the further I was from being sure what the truth was, "I do not know?" I took just a moment to continue, once I realized there were questioning notes in my answer, "Naturally, my first response is a no. But the passage of time has already changed me considerably from the man I used to be. If I find an imperfect and terrible solution, and will try for centuries to make it safe, but would be unable to? I am not sure what that me might do." I confessed.

The greatest temptation I could imagine for my current self. Solution so close, yet dangling away, like a carrot on a stick. What might that push me to do?

"Outside of such an unlikely scenario, I am not pursuing a solution. I pursue the solution. With infinite potential of magic on my side and without being restrained by time, I think I will find a way to achieve my goal without doing anything regrettable." I shared what I always told myself; those words flowed more easily, being more familiar to my usual way of thinking.

Teuflisch didn't answer immediately.

"Right now, you advance by experimenting on monsters. You told me that eventually you will have to work on demons." The necromancer turned to be, and smiled without much humor, "But provided we didn't find what we did today, what would have been next, Al? To become a human, don't you need to study them, to study us, too?"

I met his eyes calmly, even as I felt the conflict start to rise deep in me.

"The studies of humans don't have to be invasive, nor forcefu—" I once again defaulted to what I was telling myself.

"With what spells? Al, you know as much as I do how little magic is developed to interact with a human body directly," He interrupted me.

Annoyance flared in my chest.

"...then I would have developed the spells I need myself." It wouldn't be the first time.

Teuflisch simply looked at me, a small smile devoid of humor still on his lips.

"And what if it takes too long to develop each new magical tool? What if you realize that you need a greater variety of humans to study than what you have access to? You said it yourself, your only limit is your patience."

I stared at him for a long moment.

"I can't see the future," I told him simply, "So answering your question, in such circumstances… I wouldn't know how well I will hold up to my ideals through the years."

This admittance wasn't easy to make. Mostly because just thinking of it infuriated me. I always chased such thoughts away, telling myself that if I have time to idly guess what may break me, I may as well do some work.

"Are you trying to make an argument that I am dangerous to humans?" I asked, without any humor, "I always told you this much."

Teuflisch didn't look taken aback, nor angry or resolved, he simply nodded. There was a grim understanding in his eyes.

I, the demon Albert, will always present a threat to humans for as long as I live, because I know I am not infallible, and I don't know what the future could bring.

One day, I may indeed forsake the ideas I live by today. One day, I may indeed fall to my nature and start to lie, steal, and kill in earnest.

"You aren't really concerned about the possibility." The necromancer's sharp observation tore me out of my thoughts.

Once again, I felt a flicker of surprise. How could he tell so much if my face was decisively blank, not a single muscle flinching? With my body being completely at rest? With my mana being suppressed and calm?

Yet, he was correct.

"I have faith," I told him simply, and saw small signs of confusion on his face, "In my Lord too, but I wasn't referring to Him. I meant faith in myself. Faith that I can, and that I will do better."

There wasn't much else I could offer. This wasn't a position of reason. Robbed of most emotions and worldly pleasures, I only had two things in this life to build myself around: reason and faith.

Reason was needed for me to function. Faith was needed for when reason failed. There was no great secret to it, no hidden spell or a complex philosophy, humans are inherently limited, not unlike demons. There are veils beneath which we can't peer, circumstances we can't predict, dangers we can't forestall or prepare for.

To walk worth, while acknowledging this much, you needed faith. To take just one more step, even if you don't see where you are going.

As long as you have faith, one step at a time, you will head on a journey before you know it.

After a long moment, Teuflisch slowly nodded, tearing his eyes from me and looking down.

"Faith, huh…" He was looking down for a few moments, "Al, back there, in the throne room… were you really going to let me kill you? Or did you just… have faith?" His voice wasn't mocking; there were genuine lost notes to it, as if he was deep in his own world, thinking.

"I know you hate when I stress this point, but down there, I've been moments away from killing you," I told him blandly.

The young man, for some inane reason, chuckled out loud at that, covering his mouth with the back of his hand, as he tried to suppress chuckles, fruitlessly.

"...that said, it was a leap of faith in a sense. I couldn't be certain what you would choose, standing at a crossroad such as this." I told him genuinely, "I disarmed myself and knew I could die for doing so, but I didn't resolve myself to die. I…" I hesitated before confessing, "I knew that in this room, were a fight were to break out, I would have to kill you or die myself. Most likely the second. Yet, even now, I don't know if I can just accept death because I refuse to kill someone else. That said, I refuse to strike first." In other words, I wasn't sure if I would snap into action once my life was threatened, even if I could hold myself back until the threat was only implied.

This wasn't about the Commandments. Sometimes, sinning was necessary to avoid committing a larger sin; killing in self-defence was one such act. It didn't make killing any less of a sin, but repenting for committing something you never wished to commit in the first place was, in general, much easier on one's consciousness and soul than repenting for a sin committed out of convenience or due to temptation.

No, this was my own hesitation. I didn't wish to kill because it is a sin, but I also didn't wish to kill a fellow man because I was 'afraid' of where it could lead me. Especially Teuflisch in that moment, whose actions in striking me would have been, by all intents and purposes, justified.

In his place, I think I would've struck down a demon who was admitting to wishing for access to a similar monstrosity to the one that consumed a city whole.

With that in mind, if I did strike him down there and then, how many other demon-hunters would I justify myself in killing?

I disliked this trail of thought greatly. It made me weary because I felt the gaps in my reasoning, and that weariness instinctively turned to a growing, shimmering anger, so typical for a demon.

"As always, digging so deep into yourself just because I asked." There was an awkward, almost an embarrassed note to the necromancer's voice when he spoke, chuckling slightly, "You don't have to explain it Al, just this once… I truly get it." He finished darkly.

After a moment, with some surprise, I realized that he was right.

It seems I wasn't the only one tempted into murder tonight, yet refusing.

"You were right. About you and your search, and…" He hesitated, clearly pained and mad at the admission, "...that destroying this thing would only complicate it for you." He let out a breath, glancing towards me, "After all, I can't imagine asking you to abandon your life's goal." His tone softened, the annoying empathy was there, but also regret and pity.

The pity didn't offend me; it couldn't, demonic pride didn't recognize such a thing, as it was born from empathy. If anything, intellectually, I knew I was a pitiful creature.

"Naturally," He continued, looking me into my eyes, "It means the heart needs to be studied. I will have conditions."

Slowly, I nodded.

"Naturally. Such as?"

The man shook his head.

"I will figure them out in detail later. But at the very least, you won't be sending just anything to Äußerst…" He hesitated, "Maybe some of the things we find or derive from this, after my approval."

I nodded simply at that. I have no complaints with this condition.

Teuflisch looked outright lost, unsure what else he could say. He glanced away. I did so too, after ten or so seconds, knowing I may unnerve him with my attention otherwise.

Teuflisch spoke up after only a minute or so.

"Do you think… whatever we saw there could help with truly conquering death? For humans? Without turning it into…" He gestured around, "This?" His voice was far too conflicted to make sense of what he truly meant. "Do you think such a pursuit… is even worth it if it leads to results like those? No, in the first place… is it natural for a man to strive to never die?"

"I think that any attempt at something brings one closer to the goal," I told him plainly after a moment, "As for this… Teuflisch, what Barmherzig searched for wasn't immortality. You saw his beating heart, did it look to you like an immortal king?" I said, looking into his eyes, "There isn't such a thing as immortality for earthly creatures like you and me. The sun will one day die. The stars will grow silent. Even creatures like me can be struck by lightning or a falling meteor and perish. I don't age, but it doesn't mean I am everlasting. Every day is filled with a danger of death through circumstances I can't predict; the chance for me to perish tomorrow isn't great, but it isn't zero. Through infinite years, it's a number game; eventually I will perish, even if I do everything in my power to avoid it." And that's without mentioning if demon cores can even last forever. Lasting for a few millennia isn't the same as lasting for a million years, for instance. Who knows what processes and critical errors may accumulate in a monster core over periods of time this long?

I took a moment to compose myself before speaking up slowly.

"In my world, without healing magic, fifty or sixty was usually how long men lived in a similar age. With the advancement of medicine and the abundance of food, that number shifted to seventy and eighty. With proper diet and healthy lifestyle, for longer still." I told him simply, "One day, people of my world will find a way to stop the body from deteriorating with age. It is inevitable. I find no heresy in this, because all people will still be destined to meet the Lord, in the scale of eternity, what are centuries and millenia?" I explained simply, "So there is no sin in pursuing a way to shed the limits of one's own body. We were given our two hands to build a life for ourselves, and given free will to direct us. If you are willing to shed the limits of how much you can carry by building a cart, why can't you lift the limits of how many days you have on this earth with other tools?" I offered my own thoughts on the matter.

"...the studies of such a thing can still grow ugly. But you are right, it was someone's choice to do this," Teuflisch said quietly, tapping the root beneath us, "Instead of refining it somehow. Searching further, making no shortcuts." He seemed to dwell on it for a moment before sighing.

"Let's go back to the camp for today, I… I will need time to think, Al. Tomorrow we return with the equipment." He offered.

I simply nodded at that.

Teuflisch already gave me more room today than I ever could've expected.

***

The following is an entry from Albert's research journal.

…considering the feedback from the deep-scanning core formula, I believe the primary results are as follows:

The Heart isn't merely in hibernation. It is completely inert, rebuilt from what it has been.

I draw this conclusion from the study of the core; even the non-invasive methods we utilized show bits and pieces of previous connections and fragments, cannibalized into a much denser' inner core that currently composes the creature.

That said, this creature's core is tremendous in size and terrifyingly complex. My own core, a core of a demon, the most developed monster I studied so far, looks like a single-cell organism by comparison. The whole heart, despite being bigger than a bull, carries inside of it a single core; it physically serves as a container; the core was etched into flesh. For comparison, my own core occupies the same place as the very center of my heart, about two centimeters in diameter. And the Heart's core is incredibly complex, hundreds of thousands of connections constantly firing magical impulses between themselves, but it wasn't thinking, nor was it evolution of some kind. This was a passive activity.

And it consumes almost all of the mana the creature produces.

L deduced that the living tissue consumes some of the remaining one to produce oxygen, water, and nutrients that it needs to sustain itself. What remained was the mana I sensed, as weak as a human toddler, and that's the reserves the heart had after a thousand years.

L also claims that the 'cannibalizing itself' seemed to be an apt description. The flesh tissues he observed were completely different from the 'dead root samples', yet carried one fundamental similarity: they were perceived by his mana as dead tissue, despite clearly being alive. Or at least appearing alive in most ways I could perceive.

The roots were completely hollowed out. L theorizes that the nutrients from them were brought to sustain the heart.

The creature was likely cannibalizing itself once it ran out of the resources to consume, and likely what I observed inside the core was the creature itself, Barmherzig, trying to hold on for as long as possible. Clearly, originally, it needed to consume some amount of food, not unlike me, but the resources it had within the barrier were limited. So naturally, the creator of the spell tried to alter its nature to not need food, and arrived at an imperfect solution, judging by the fact it didn't reanimate even now, and that even the roots inside the throne chamber were cannibalized.

It likely implemented a solution it had on hand, even if, by all intents and purposes, it killed its mind.

For now, the most valuable part of The Heart for me to study was the connection between the living tissue and the core. In monsters, such as myself, or wild creatures, the core is physically overlaid with mana-flesh, not actual biological meat. Here it was overlaid with biological tissue, even if a weird one.

The best angle is probably to focus on the necromantic approach while trying to make sense of the core's structure. I need to try and find familiar elements I found in monsters in the wild. With some luck, it may allow me to understand which parts of the being are responsible for what functions.

***

Teuflisch's and my primary concern, at first, was making sure The Heart wouldn't burst into the Horror again.

So we spent days making sense of what we observed before doing anything else, and, as far as we deduced, it was safe. Whatever capabilities it once had were clearly absent now. Not even Teuflisch's own blood, carefully dripped on the heart by me, made it react.

While the chance of it awakening once more wasn't zero, it was hilariously low. For that reason, we decided to shift to other matters.

The first thing we did was return to the library and carefully repackage all the scrolls and records we could, to make sure none would be lost to the environment or any unforeseen issue.

True, the scrolls were preserved this far, but the previously dry air of the cavern where Irem was located helped with this greatly. Now, with the fresh air blowing into the cavern, and whatever liquid was dripping through the cracks and other passages, there was a risk we weren't ready to take.

With that done, the next goal was naturally to have a look around the castle. The chance of some hidden danger still being around was slim, and both of us held no hope for finding anything valuable.

We've passed plenty of destroyed rooms, some personal quarters, a dining hall, a kitchen, and a few cabinets, from what we could tell.

It was hard to judge how the roots physically rearranged the building, lifting some sections and lowering others, and with anything organic long gone. The only thing we clearly recognized was the armories.

The room we reached now was different. For starters, the passageway lacked the ever-present roots.

Once we stepped inside, the reason for that became obvious enough.

The chamber was seemingly organized with the roots in mind. There was a great hole in the ceiling and in the floor for them to access it, and the rest of it…

The rest of it was a testament to obsession.

Stone shelves lined the walls, carved directly from the rock itself rather than built. Each one bore deep grooves where roots had clearly rested for centuries, the grooves that seemed to have been carved with those roots in mind. The stone was worn smooth by their slow, persistent presence was smooth where they must have been shifting to access the equipment or scrolls. Between these grooves, glass vessels remained, some intact, others mere fragments. The intact ones held dried residues of various colors: ochre, deep purple, and a metallic silver that still caught the light, a few intact ones still had samples of ores, magical and mundane. Whatever preservation spells had protected them had long since failed, leaving only hints of their original contents. Some sample bottoms that must have contained organics were carefully broken into by the roots.

The far wall drew my attention immediately. Hundreds of small compartments had been carved into it, each one precisely sized to hold a single scroll case. Most remained sealed, their brass clasps green with verdigris but structurally sound. The cases themselves bore mana patterns I could recognize from the library with my eyes closed: moisture barriers, pest repellent, temporal stasis. Triple redundancy for preservation. Above them, larger alcoves held what could only be tomes, though calling them that felt wrong. These were older, their bindings a strange hybrid of scroll-rod and codex, as if someone had been experimenting with the very concept of how to store knowledge.

Teuflisch moved to examine a workbench that dominated the room's center. It was gigantic, easily as large as my Behemoth, and littered with equipment. Some rusted, some preserved, like those measuring scales, but all enchantment on them withered to dust.

"Look at this," Teuflisch said quietly, gesturing to a series of grooves carved into the bench's stone base.

I approached and saw what he meant. The grooves formed a perfect drainage system, all leading to a central collection point where a crystal bowl still sat, intact and waiting. Dark stains marked the channels. The bowl itself contained a thin layer of crystallized material, rust-brown and flaking.

I noticed something else: the pattern of root access. Unlike the throne room, where roots had grown wild and consuming, here they had been... invited. Deliberate channels had been cut into the walls at regular intervals, each one leading to specific shelves or storage areas. The roots hadn't destroyed this room; they had used it. Continued to use it, perhaps, even after Barmherzig was sealed away.

A smaller alcove near the table caught my eye. It held personal effects, or what remained of them, all carefully, almost reverently arranged. A brass astrolabe, its measurements still readable. A set of surgical instruments, their blades black with age but edges still keen. A leather journal, preserved by the same triple-redundant spells as the scrolls, though its binding had cracked and pages yellowed. And strangest of all, a child's toy: a wooden horse on wheels, painted blue and gold, completely untouched by time or decay.

"He had access here even when isolated for all those centuries. He must have prepared for someone to come here." I said, not really a question.

Teuflisch nodded slowly, running his fingers along one of the root grooves. "Yes… he did prepare for something. This wasn't desperation. This was..." He paused, searching for the word.

"A choice on his part." I finished.

My words hung in the air between us, heavy with implication. Whatever had driven Barmherzig to become the thing in the throne room, it hadn't been a sudden choice. And even since he has been sealed, sentenced by the resistance to a slow death, he still could reach this place, his study.

The scrolls, which undoubtedly were organic in nature, were left here, preserved. This wasn't an accident. He chose to leave them here.

I moved to the scroll cases, examining their seals more closely. Each one bore a date and a symbol I didn't recognize. A personal cataloging system, perhaps. The latest dates were clustered near the bottom right, the earliest at the top left. A lifetime of research, carefully ordered and preserved. Perhaps more than a single lifetime.

"Al," Teuflisch called out, making me approach.

I understood the mixed feelings in his tone as I passed around one of the two vigil constructs that accompanied us, seeing a scroll Lisch lifted from the workbench.

Lisch offered it to me with great hesitation.

I understood. The last thing he wanted was to give any affirmation to the mad king who created this hell. Yet, he also knew that mindlessly destroying was pointless.

"Thank you," I said, as sincerely as a demon could, giving Lisch a small nod, before accepting the folded scroll.

Carefully, I unraveled it. The handwriting was terrible. More of the child's scribbles than legitimate handwriting. Each letter was way too big, written awkwardly as if the paper shifted during the writing, and even torn a little in places.

Yet the enchantment on it endured and preserved the message for us.

I started reading out loud.

"Thoughts grown cloudy. Limbs stiff. Been countless years since wrote or read.

Today is the last day. I have no hate in my heart. Only Irem. People live on in the heart.

Child of rebels or graverobber, save the people. All I was - here. Please, use.

Today I will rest. I am sorry."

I glanced up at Lisch, only to see his face twisted into an expression of anger, pity, and disgust.

"I don't think he merely grew senile," I offered quietly.

The necromancer nodded slowly.

"You said the core was rebuilt. What did you compare it to, a 'brain surgery on yourself without anesthesia?'" Lisch recalled, his brows furrowing, "Yet, he was still in a state of mind to preserve this study, to write this message, and… he says this is the 'last day' twice, in different words."

"He might have been growing obsessed and mad?" I offered, more for the sake of argument, out loud, then truly behind the idea.

"Undoubtedly, but there is a reason to the madness." He echoed, turning sharply towards the sizable library, "I propose we take a look there."

I simply nodded, glancing just once at the weathered journal left with other mementos, but quickly tearing my gaze away.

"Let's."

It took us some time to make sense of the organizational order, and to have Lisch's constructs carry some of the scroll cases.

Apparently, some of the compartments in the walls were far greater then we assumed. One particular scrolls case I extracted as twice my height, and the little niche it was tucked away in seemed worn on the edges, as if, I assume, roots brushed the stone enough for it to lose some of its colour.

Meaning this was something the monster-king used often even after his transformation.

I glanced towards Lisch, and the man was busy flipping pages of the old, worn journal, the one I assumed to be the king's mementos of his early life.

Observing him for a moment, I saw only the man who reverently, and with great pain was reading through the lines of the memoir of the man he looked up to, and the one he probably despised the most at this very moment.

Slowly, I held up the scroll case with a basic application of telekenesis, stepping back and lifting my staff, undid the bronze cap, and started to extract it, without physically touching it.

The scroll slowly unfolded in the air, supported by my magic, and made me mentally take a step back.

This was a grimoire. A grimoire of impossible complexity. It lacked the usual 'lore segment' and 'author commentary' part the modern grimoires tended to have, and instead features the raw instructions of how to conduct a magical procedure without specifying nuances or how to do it.

I would only call it a draft of a grimoire.

My eyes trailed through templates etched in papyrus, subtly activating them one after another, through technical-notes explaining in what part of the process each template was to be utilized…

The diagrams themselves and the text on the scroll was tiny, comically so. Like the 'fine print' in the contracts of the jokes in early 2000s. But it was necessary, because the sheer amount of information depicted here was tremendous. This wasn't a grimoire for a folk spell or a combat spell, but for a ritual.

My eyes slowly trailed down as I tried to pick anything specific I could recognize, something to anchor myself…

I froze.

"Lisch," I called out softly, "I need you here."

I could hear the man shifting, closing the journal and approaching, but I paid it half a mind, laser-focused as I was on a familiar segment.

"What… what is this…?" He mumbled, trailing off, and studying the gigantic grimoire just like I had.

"This here," I said, making one of the magical lights supported by my power to shine brightly on a single spot of characters upon the scroll, "Is a very basic weave that… I utilize as part of Resonant Soul," I said softly.

I glanced at Lisch, who was staring at me in shock.

"It's the one that prompts a soul to be more stable once magically interacted with, so it won't lash out with subconscious magical response to deny the intrusion," I told him softly, "It's executed differently here, but the purpose is the same." I could tell, because I utilized a very similar weave in one of the previous iterations of Resonant Soul, before I found something better and more consistent.

I gently approached, tapping a finger on the part I was tall enough to reach.

"And this here is a mental-magic component," I told him softly, "See those elements?" I didn't wait for him to respond, "Those are different from the weaves I had you use in the labs, but it's to interact with a monster core, I used similar once for fragment extraction and preservation. Here, it's utilized to 'hook into' the core, and," I traced the script, "It funnels into a mental magic component. I am not very good with those, and the example here looks like a typical Mythical Era nonsense of a template, but from what I could tell it's a mental magic that allows one with stronger will and magical power to dominate a lesser will. Only blunt mental magic like this could work on monsters somewhat… especially here, when it hooks directly into the core." I stepped back, glancing back at Lisch.

He too was staring up into the scroll.

"Those fragments, here and here… they are modified grafting methods," He said quietly, referring to a sub-discipline of necromancy utilized to merge different dead tissues, "There are some changes, but they are recognizable… except the core template is missing, replaced by this instead," He muttered softly.

I understood immediately. Core template of necromancy is the template that makes the spell interface with the dead flesh.

I moved my eyes towards the technical text next to geometrical figures and arcane circles drawn to depict the magic on papyrus. The section next to the mental magic was what caught my attention.

"Temporary measure when grafting a seed," I read out loud, "Once implanted, the monster-element of the 'seed' is too aggressive and attempts to consume the body from within. For that reason during the initial decades of the merging, the 'seed' needs to be carefully controlled and directed through its growth and bonding with the body, and its mind needs to constantly be suppressed remotely. If that is done, the subject will suffer no negative consequences of the transformation while reaping more and more benefits with the passage of years."

I moved my finger down, to the very end of the complex ritual.

"This procedure is to be conducted after three decades since the initial bonding," I read out loud, "The goal is to completely merge the 'heart' of a monster and the chosen subject, making it a single entity controlled and directed by a human body and brain. Procedure is too complex for anyone but me to attempt."

I pointed towards an enormously complex template just beneath. It was indeed one of the most complex rituals I've ever seen.

"I don't recognize this," I tell Lisch quietly, "Some elements are to interface with the core I think, but those weaves are so tightly intertwined with elements I don't understand, that it's impossible for me to make sense what they do and in what sequence."

The necromancer stared at the scroll for a moment.

"This is the procedure to create those… 'chosen'." He said, looking at me unsurely, "The entire ritual. It wasn't just an infestation it's…" He trailed off, looking genuinely lost for words.

"An attempt at giving immortality to others." I finished for him, my eyes greedily drinking in the contents of the scrolls, so I saw everything at least once, and could relive it with Resonant Soul, "A genuine one, with no strings attached. Lisch," I tapped one of the earlier notes that read 'creates a functional divider between a consciousness of the seed and the subject,' "There is no mental component to control 'the chosen'. There is only one to control the monster living within to direct the… merging. Those people weren't some sort of meat puppets." I took a step back, feeling how my entire view on what happened in the city shifted, "When the barriers rose, the ones in the city weren't crawling towards it because they were isolated from a cluster… it was because they knew their only salvation is if Barmherzig reestablished control."

I could see that Teuflisch was far more shocked by the revelation than I was. Unfortunately for us both, this was only the beginning of our discoveries.

***

A day after discovering Barmherzig's study,

We stood before the pulsing heart.

I lifted my hand, prepared to cast a spell, mana rising in me for an instance.

Lisch gripped his staff tighter, glancing at me. Understandably, he looked like he didn't have a single hour of sleep, and was incredibly anxious.

I touched the heart.

One of the templates of the Resonant Soul fired off.

For a moment I froze.

My curse was created on a very simple sets of axioms I knew were true. I knew that souls existed. I knew that they interfaced with the bodies. I knew that souls carried memories.

The first and the third axioms were true because I was here, reincarnated. The second was true, because I still had the memories of my past life.

Knowing those three sets of vital information, constructing Resonant Soul was about putting those basic understanding into practice.

The very first thing Resonant Soul did, even its current polished and improved version, was to send a resonant pulse. An echolocation into the body, that forced a soul within to respond, allowing my further templates to lock on the said soul.

The resonance traveled through the heart, but what responded wasn't a soul.

It was hundreds of souls. Perhaps thousands.

I tore my hand away, looking at the heart in bewilderment and shock.

"Al?! Albert, are you alright?" I blinked, realizing Teuflisch was shaking me by my shoulder.

A moment later I understood that I didn't even try to rip his throat out once he unexpectedly touched me.

"I am well," I said, carefully pushing his hand away, "It's… it's there, Lisch," I said, unable to put it into words, "I need to make sure." I requested him softly.

After a moment, he nodded, retreating a few steps.

I gestured with my hand, a circle started to etch itself in stone around the throne with a pulsing heart on it.

"I am not well-versed in mental magics," I told the man simply, "So I will have to use some crutches."

"Mental magic? Al, we agreed not to try this!" He reminded, and I spared the man a glance.

"That was then, and this is now. Lisch, the words in his note weren't a metaphor. 'People of Irem live on in the heart…' it was meant literally. There are countless souls in there." I said, seeing the man's eyes widen, "And I need to see if they are well, or in eternal hell. It will determine if we have a right to do anything but give them a swift end."

The necromancer was clearly taken aback by the implications of what I said, but I didn't have much time to spare his feelings more thought.

I focused on the heart.

A gesture, and twenty-one ethereal candles ignited around the magical circle I inscribed unto the floor. The component for containing outer mana was set, a component to suppress the magical reaction from within the target, if it didn't actively resist, was set.

Now…

I weaved the spell I used only once before, when I had a hired adventurer, a fellow mage, allowing me to practice on him.

I didn't truly have much interest in mental magics, beyond constructing shields around my own mind, but I was curious enough to get a basic overview.

This one of the most basic spells of the discipline. Allowing you to glimpse surface thought of the subject.

Carefully, the spell was set, and I laid it on the heart…

"Tommorow, we can do it tomorrow." A woman's voice. Soft, full of dream-like quantity.

"For Irem! Show those barbarians!" A man, repeating orders.

"Oh Goddess, praise be…" An older man.

"Simply swap the mercury for…" Woman.

"Apples…" Child.

"Beautifullove today." Child, girl, man.

"̷̈́̈͜Ḋ̸̠Ë̵͚͍͖́L̴͎͔̖͛̔E̴̥͕͝Ḡ̷̜̱̤̇͒Ḁ̶̘͌̕T̸̳̻̣̓̑E̷͕͍̋̂̑P̸͎͇̕͜R̷̬͈̳̀̕I̴̲̗̾͑C̵̫̝͒̍E̶̟̩͕͛̃S̸̻̹̃ͅH̸̦͂O̵̙͗͜Ų̷͆S̵͈̏̚E̷̳͔̓ͅC̸̺̠͌̄̂U̷͚̱̿͂T̸͎̂̕Ë̸̝̩́F̷̧̞̯̈́͝Ơ̵̺̈́R̸̨̳̈́̕G̷̹̱̑̚Ǐ̴̤̝͋V̷̤̬̲́̀E̴̾͜͜Ț̷͌Ȋ̵̱͚͎͌M̶̺͔͑̾M̷̯̄̀O̷̳̗͠R̴̢̗͈̃͝Ȯ̷̡̙̽W̵̡͇͗̿B̴͎̖̳̈́Ṷ̷̠̿̅Ǐ̴͙̻̬L̴̗͚̿͘Ḏ̴̾̐͝…̶̟̀̋͆"̶̧͖̀

Countless voices, countless surface thoughts, too many to count, too many to comprehend, too many to process, too many to…

"...ight?! … ert!... ere …?!"

I was shaken, bothered, annoying. I tried to swat the fly away. Wasn't working. Everything was spinning. Head hurt so much. Can't…

Need to lay down.

The impact against ground hurt. But it was cool against the head. Pleasant. Everything tasted like blood…

It was hard to tell exactly when my thoughts returned to some semblance of thought, and I realized that I was laying on the ground. My body was repairing itself. Not in my physical body, but somewhere deep inside.

I sat down suddenly, making Lisch who was sitting nearby jump in place, startled.

"Are you alright?" I asked him, checking the man for wounds, and finding none.

He chuckled awkwardly.

"I am. Luckily you were stunned enough to miss… how are you?" He immediately asked, clear concern in his voice.

I focused on my own body. My core… ah, I see. The feedback must have overloaded me.

"Mostly well," I echoed, before focing on what I remembered from the response of my magic, "Lisch, all the people inside… they are dreaming. Not in a nightmarish sense. Simple, normal dreams. Until the spell caught too many stray thoughts, it seemed like an unconscious dreams without end, where whoever is sleeping isn't completely aware or conscious just… out of it." I summarized my brief impressions immediately.

I could see him exhale, probably without even realizing it.

"Goddess…" He brought a hand to his mouth, his eyes darting back and forth as he stared into the ground, "But… what do we do now?"

This was a great question. A question I had no answer for.

***

Enchanting was one of my most studied area of magic. Mostly out of necessity, no one needed or created the magical tools I needed for my studies, so it was an inevitable eventuality that I started to do so myself.

It was because I was already well-versed in enchanting that I dabbled in golemomancy.

Still, my focus in enchanting was quite skewed. Unlike that enchanter woman in Sturmkamm Valley who was well-versed in the fields of enchanting that was actually in demands, that is making basic wards, protective equipment and magical trinkets, I was specialized in a very specific field.

It didn't mean I was completely inept with other enchanting, it just meant I wasn't very good at it due to a lack of practice.

And now, browsing my own grimoires and checking what we found in the Irem's Academy, I was trying to construct a single protective enchantment around the heart. Mostly of the pest and insect repelling variety, because I have a strong suspicion those can legitimately start eating away at it, now that the barriers were gone.

It was deep into constructing the protective structure I will have to erect, that Teuflisch decided to visit my study.

A knock on the door was self-explanetary enough, as was his mana signature outside.

"Come in," I invited, as I was focused on finishing putting to paper the template I thought would be essential.

I heard the necromancer enter, glancing around awkwardly.

"A minute please, sit down for now," I gestured towards an empty armchair without looking.

In a minute or so, I lifted my eyes up, seeing my colleague sitting there, studying me as I worked.

I lifted an eyebrow.

"I see you haven't slept tonight, again," He offered a bit awkwardly, scratching the back of his head.

I nodded.

"I can go without for a while, now is the time when a lot of things should be done quick. I will catch up on my rest soon enough." This was both my attempt to placate him, and a genuine truth.

For the most part, I believe I was quite reasonable with my working schedule.

Lisch chuckled, but nodded easily.

"I… well, I wanted to tell you that I made up my mind," Lisch said, his posture relaxed but steady, a small, but confident smile playing on his lips, "The Heart… I can't let it stay like this. What happened to those people… is the fault of my predecessors. It's only natural I will fix it."

I studied the man for a long moment.

"I don't think this is a fair thing to say," I offered, "A child isn't responsible for the sins of the father."

He just waved me off.

"It's not about the guilt or anything of that sort, Al. It's just that… well, some part of Irem still lives, does it not?" He said quietly. "Back there, in the throne room, you said for me not to worry, that you will handle it. Bu that's not fair to you, is it? You have your own dreams and goals. Your own studies. This whole mess… frankly, has nothing to do with you."

I opened my mouth to deny his words. True, finding a way to help the people currently slumbering in The Heart would distract me from my quest, but I can't simply pass it by. To myself, I already justified it. The fruits of King Barmherzig's studies were in my possession now, it's only naturally that I will pay back for owning them.

Yet, Lisch rose his hand, in a silent gesture asking to let him speak.

I closed my mouth, frowning a bit.

"I have no doubt you would stay here and do exactly what you said you would. But I don't feel comfortable pushing this unto you, when by all rights, I should be the one most responsible," He finished, his voice soft.

For a moment I studied him.

"Then you are staying here, with me?" I questioned, tilting my head, "You realize that searching for a solution may take decades," At the most optimistic. Possibly longer then Teuflisch's own lifespan.

"I will stay here. But not now," He said, glancing aside awkwardly, "I… have previous commitments, back in the empire. My personal library and equipment would also help greatly, not to mention that I won't be able to last here without livestock or crops." He shook his head, "No, if I want to stay here and do this properly, I first need to go back to the Empire and be done with my unfinished business."

I nodded to that, seeing where he was coming from.

In truth, I didn't agree with his choice. Teuflisch was still young. His time is limited, he shouldn't be spending it in the middle of nowhere, in the dusty underground.

But in the same vein, I understood. He might have been a young man, but he was still a man. He understood the decision he was making, that it will consume his life.

"You will have to start the journey back within a week if you wish to reach civilization before the winter starts," I offered him honestly, "I will help you with whatever you need. How long will you be gone?"

Teuflisch grimmaced a bit.

"I… I am not exactly certain, Albert. It may take decades at worst. There are… a lot of things I need to do once I am back, including military service that is ten years at a minimum." He looked terribly embarrassed to admit to it for some reason.

I simply nodded.

"Thirty or forty years is fine, I don't think I will wish to leave by that time anyway." I offered him simply, much to the man's confusion, "There is another matter I wanted to discuss, I wanted to summarize the history of Irem, from the history scrolls and tidbits we discovered. Would you mind discussing it via mail while you are gone? You may redact the draft and publish whatever you find acceptable back in the Empire."

Teuflisch stared blankly at me.

Then, to my utter bafflement, he started to laugh.

He didn't stop until he was wheezing.

Was it something I said?

***

From the draft titled: 'Assembled True History of Irem, name pending' by Albert and Teuflisch.

Written a year since the initial descent into Irem.

…in essence, it is due to this factor that Irem was the dominant power in the region at the time, despite originally being built underground to avoid the abundance of flying monsters residing in nearby mountains.

This is also where the history of Barmherzig becomes relevant.

Born a third prince, the man could only be called a true genius. It isn't a secret, but some people are born with an inexplicable aptitude for certain professions or crafts. Magic is no exception.

But talents in magic varied greatly. It is well-known that the Great Mage Flamme was mostly famous for her terrific prowess with barrier magics and enchantments.

Similarly, Barmherzig was a genius of a similar caliber (Note A: Debatable. Note L: We have no reason to assume otherwise; we never had either around to confirm); however, his talents laid elsewhere.

Barmherzig understood how bodies functioned and how to apply said intrinsic understanding to magic. It couldn't be waved away and explained with knowledge alone, as many books in the archive note.

Barmherzig singlehandedly revolutionized the necromancy of Irem by the age of twenty, earning fame, adoration of the masses, and recognition.

[The early life of Barmherzig was, and his rise to power is described here in detail, referencing in many parts his personal diary.]

…it was at this point, some time into his reign, when the study of one of the odd monster subtypes with remarkable ability to shift their bodies (Note A: The one we named proto mimics), yielded results. The process that allowed for that shapeshifting was magical in nature, in essence, a self-inflicted curse.

Barmherzig didn't manage to reverse-engineer it, but he managed to learn from it, deciphering some of the principles utilized.

It was from those principles and spell templates, and many other discoveries throughout his life (A: mainly, scroll 213, section 13, scroll 234… [twenty other references listed]), that he managed to find a secret to eternal life.

A transformation into a monster that fully preserved his mind, but turned his body into something everlasting and powerful. He knew the procedure was safe, had tested different stages of it on prisoners assigned to death row, but he reserved the final transformation for himself.

Judging by the personal note, it wasn't due to excessive pride or the wish to hold immortality for himself alone; rather, he didn't wish for anyone else to suffer if the procedure failed. Even the death-row prisoners mentioned before that were used for earlier testings were utilized only when there was no other way he could find to proceed further, and Barmherzig lamented greatly over such actions in his personal notes.

The ritual was conducted by his twenty most trusted students, and with his personal royal guard, named vigil, standing guard and preparing to execute him if the procedure failed.

It's hard to judge if the process was a success; the history books found in the library were always heavily biased, and Barmherzig ceased writing personal notes, citing perfect memory.

But the research notes of his later projects seemed to indicate his state of thinking wasn't altered significantly; some writing habits and choices of words could still be recognized, and in general, in more public records, the King were described as perfectly articulate and exceptionally wise and charismatic. (L: You don't have to include that. We already established that history books about the current monarch aren't exactly reliable.)

It is around the time of the transformation that the resistance might have formed. (A: I would be castrated with a rusty knife back where I used to work for writing down such a sentence. L: This is the first draft, let it go)

The resistance was composed of a great variety of people harboring deep suspicion about the king's nature and intentions. But the movement wasn't gaining traction for a while, and seemed to be composed mostly of dissatisfied people of influence whose interests weren't aligned with those of the King. (L: I still believe you are reaching here. A: You might be correct. But even if the personal correspondence we do have is spotty on the subject, because it belongs to one of the more 'recent members', those are familiar patterns I encountered studying rebellions. L: I don't understand how you operate, and why you accept this supposition as valid, when you hated assuming the date of when resistance had formed. A: It's a déformation professionnelle. Best move this discussion elsewhere.)

It was once the Chosen appeared that the situation changed substantially. King Barmherzig must have commanded great adoration of the people, seeing that he was still widely respected and, by some small margin, even worshiped by the people. It changed significantly once he developed a procedure he called 'ascendance' for his 'chosen pathfinders'.

It was reiterated many times to the masses, but King Barmherzig never ceased searching for a way to bring immortality to his people. Preferably in a less grotesque fashion than the immortality he himself gained.

The idea was to plant 'seeds'. Implanted in the brain, those were the seeds of his body altered to function as symbiotic organisms. Once implanted in humans, normally, they would burst and consume the human, lacking much thought. But Barmherzig was able to influence them from afar, as long as the 'chosen' stayed close enough, he could make the seed sprout, transforming the 'chosen' into a perfect hybrid. The parasitical, turned symbiotic organism would then proceed to fully merge with the body of the chosen over the passing decades, until eventually falling under the control of the infected person, functionally achieving the goal of functional 'immortality' while preserving a mostly human-shaped body.

The issue is that such an idea sounds too good to be true. We know that resistance thought so too, and that they speculated that the King was infecting people, turning them into his puppets, while slowly devouring the city.

It's what we assumed too, before seeing the research journals with a detailed methodology of the exact opposite. The procedure was never intended to take control, even if, inadequately, it gave some power to Barmherzig over the 'chosen' until the changes were properly integrated.

Presumably, suspecting how his actions may have looked from the outside, or perhaps heeding his advisors, Barmherzig conducted a large campaign and created a cult in his name. Seeing the personal journals of the man who demonstrated all signs of a social recluse (L: I still disagree with this, I don't see it. A: No comment.), the probability of Barmherzig doing this to feed his ego was unlikely.

From this angle, the 'ascension' of the 'chosen' was presented as both deeply religious and also a strictly beneficial procedure. Unfortunately, several incidents regarding the chosen who were cut off from Barmherzig influence shook that image, according to the resistance's correspondence. The resistance themselves were convinced they were ruled by a monster wearing the skin of their king.

How much of this was an unfortunate coincidence, and how much a calculated move by whatever enemies the genius mage had, is history by this point.

We know, however, that even the elves invited by the resistance to help with the Sealing of Irem seemed to have believed that King Barmherzig was a genuine monster, but they never seemed to have directly met with the king himself.

In any case, what is important to understand about 'ascension' as it was given for the most part to the nobility, who were, in large part, a true warrior caste of the city, as well as the valuable elderly who were approaching their deathbed. The procedure to plant a 'seed' was costly and long, due to various reagents necessary to control the growth of the 'seed' and for Barmherzig to maintain a stable and total control of it; as such, the procedure couldn't become truly public, which gained the king a lot of animosity even from amongst the people who believed in his methods. (L: I still think we should add that a kingdom where no adult can leave the city premises is as good as dead. It's a good point to mention. A: It's self-explanatory. If we ever publish this, the reader would need to be retarded to miss that.)

Nonetheless, the dissatisfaction grew, as did the enemies of the king. Then came the sealing.

It's difficult to piece together the precise sequence of events that happened on the day of the Sealing of Irem and anything that transpired after.

Barmherzig himself ceased taking any notes ever since the sealing. Probably both due to the scarcity of the written material, and because he didn't have time or energy to do so. (A: I despise the way this is phrased. L: If you pull me away to review this line one more time, I swear on the Goddess I will hurt you.)

The following is the best reconstruction of events possible at the time with the information available.

From the resistance's correspondence, we can deduce that a grand total of eight barriers were erected. Those barriers were originally built and erected with the permission of the Crown, and were intended to serve as an extension of the defensive fortification around the city.

Some of the scrolls in the Academy talked about the project briefly, and why so many resources have been pulled towards it; apparently, with the rise of King Barmherzig to immortality, the expansion of the kingdom…

[What follows is roughly ten pages of descriptions of Irem's outer and inner policies.]

Back to the barriers, however. While they were built with the King's permission, they were subverted, more than sabotaged, judging by their complexity and how, on inspection, when they still stood, they clearly were designed to contain something within rather than something without. The correspondence available does not provide how or by whom the barriers were twisted away from the original purpose; the one who kept the correspondence didn't seem to be high enough up the ranks to know. (L: Either that, or a lot of such sensitive information was in a 'burn after reading' category. A: I concur. Most of the information in the letters we did find was too generalized and relatively innocuous by itself; anything actually criminal was probably not preserved in case the stash was discovered.)

The first barrier was set up around King Barmherzig's castle. The second, around one hundred meters around it, encompassed the very heart of Irem's inner city; the outline of the barrier on the maps we found amongst the correspondence of the Resistance seemed to match the petrified spherical cocoon of roots. The third barrier was around the Inner City itself. The fourth, around Irem's outer edges.

And the other four barriers were placed some distance apart, with about 10-20 meters between each, located much more tightly than all the other barriers.

The sequence of events on the day of the sealing seemed to be as follows: the first barrier around the castle was erected, and, immediately after, the second, around the center of the Inner city.

The third barrier was erected later, likely once some evacuation efforts were conducted. The fourth barrier might have been erected more than a day later. Finally, the remaining barriers were activated some time after the fourth. (L: I've had quite enough. I am scrubbing your whining from the pages. If you want to discuss this again, do it in a letter, and not in a manuscript. This segment will be kept unchanged unless we find sufficient evidence to rewrite it.)

This conclusion is made due to a variety of evidence; while all organic matter was absorbed within the city, making it considerably harder to spot where people took their belongings from and where they didn't, it's certain that the outer Irem lacked almost any precious metal in the form of silver, gold, or jewelry. While this can be partially attributed to the Outer City plainly being poorer, the fact that even inns and craftsmen's workshops lacked coin or even some of the essential rusted tools of craft seemed like conclusive enough evidence that people of the Outer City plainly had time to evacuate, unlike residents of the Inner City, who at best managed to escape with their lives.

But that is not to say that the residents of the Inner City who weren't part of the 'chosen' all perished.

Once the first barrier around the castle came online, Barmherzig must have instantly realized what it meant for his people on the outside, implanted with the seeds. From seeing some of the notes Barmherzig took on himself, it's clear that his mana capacity rose drastically once he shed his human form; it was one of the main reasons for him to undergo the transformation. (A: [provides a list of citations and references to Barmherzig's scrolls; the details of the reference seem especially meticulous and jarring compared to the lack of them throughout most of this section])

He likely couldn't sense the other barriers' activation, and the barriers around Irem, by virtue of their design that blocks mana sensing, and visual distortions that make it incredibly difficult to see anything on the other side visually. As such, he attacked the first barrier with all the strength he had, knowing he had, at best, precious minutes to access the 'chosen' on the outside who were succumbing to the seeds that, once directionless, were consuming them from within.

The first barrier was broken almost instantly, and it's assumed that the chosen on the other side were immediately swept into the roots and physically integrated into Barmherzig's body, at least partially, to help stabilize their condition.

Likely, once confronted with the existence of the second barrier, Barmherzig realized that he must act cautiously and couldn't expend mana carelessly, yet he was still short on time if he wished to save more of his people. Hence, he grew massive tendrils to exploit the physical vulnerabilities of the freshly erected barrier, and pressed on it from literally every direction in 360 degrees.

While Barmherzig likely managed to save most of the 'chosen' between the first and the second barrier, his more cautious approach at destroying the second barrier undoubtedly cost him a lot of time. Therefore, only the most resilient and/or lucky of the chosen between the 2nd and the 3rd barriers, that is, anyone in the Inner City who wasn't at its very center, could have been saved. The bodies still preserved in that area appeared to be consumed by roots from within. They are likely the chosen who already had nothing in them left to save by the time Barmherzig's roots could access them, and so, while integrated into the network initially without their bodies being broken down, possibly out of respect, later, their remains were consumed like all the other organics in the city to help sustain those still alive.

Chapter 21 - Chapter 20