12 – Threats looming

I spent the morning resting and chilling at the Guild. I sold my cores, 12 Tier 9s that net me a good sum of money: together with the quest completion bounty of 5 gold pieces (it was split in half with Lisette, who was not back from her materials gathering just yet), I had a grand total of 51.5 gold. Yeah, I know, the cores only sold for three gold each. The boy at the front desk told me that I wanted to sell them for more, I needed to do it myself. The Guild only offered its rates and its rates only. Well, unless it was for a Quest. Whatever. I just took the money and was content with it, deciding to wait for Lisette while sipping on a beer at one of the tables outside. It was a fairly sunny day, the only times it got a bit chilly were when the ominous plume of smoke that cut the sky in half moved in front of the sun, pushed by an unseen wind current. Nothing that the alcohol couldn’t fix.

The tremors had gotten worse. Sometimes I even had to keep my wooden mug from falling off the table when one of the stronger earthquakes hit. The volcano was definitely awakening, and it was making sure that all of us were very aware of this fact. The people were scared, and in the city I could taste the air of uncertainty. Even though the majority of the inhabitants of this town were connected to the guild, not all of them were actual adventurers, and not all of them had the nerves, the personal power, or the recklessness that allowed them not to worry. Only a select few.

“You’re wasting time!” Goddard told me.

“What do you mean?” I feigned ignorance. “I’m enjoying my time in this world. How is that wasting?”

“With the volcano awakening and the new Guild master arriving here tomorrow? Everyone is working overtime like crazy!”

“And why would I need to do that?”

“I don’t know how you can waste so much time and feel alright with yourself. See you.” He said, and stormed off.

I heard a chuckle behind me, and when I turned around I saw Melina standing against the door. She was watching the horizon, still heavy of breath from all the frantic running around she had been doing all morning. Her hair was like the unruly fur of a wild animal, and her clothes were dirty and unkept. Still, she retained her usual air of grace and elegance that most well defined her. A faint breeze, warmer than the wind that had been sweeping through town the whole morning, caressed her face and for a while the sun lit her golden eyes.

“He’s a piece of work, isn’t he?” she said.

I shrugged. “I get him. I was like him when I was young. Having a limited life span does that to you, especially considering that he just got reminded of it. It took me a long time after I achieved immortality to really learn to slow down. But at the same time… it’s not always a good thing, slowing down. You see, being immortal means that you can do everything. But being able to do everything makes it so that nothing is meaningful. I started to slow down, and I never stopped actually slowing down. What I could have done in mere months I did in centuries.”

She didn’t seem surprised to learn that I was immortal. Did she know already, did she deduce it from how I behaved or what? I thought about asking her, asking about what she knew about me, and some other things. I thought about it so much that I missed her next question, and she had to repeat it.

“How did that happen?” She asked. I pulled my awareness away from the many questions by deciding that I was powerful enough not to care. Or I would soon be anyway.

So, how did I end up lazy and unmotivated?

“I was immortal. Every day I thought: who cares? There’s an infinite amount of time to do what I want to do, might just as well do it tomorrow. After a week I started to say next week. After a year I started to say next year. You see how I can easily spiral out of control, right? I spent a good century not doing anything. In a way, mortality is the only thing that keeps us from becoming empty shells of our former selves because the looming threat of death, no matter how far away in the future, pushes you in those times when you are not motivated to do anything.

Have you ever stopped to look at people, adventurers, Cultivators if you have them here? The lazy ones are always the ones who don’t expect to die. Those who think themselves immortal. Smarter or stronger than everyone else. Arrogant, maybe. I think they are shortsighted at the very least but… I can’t blame them.

It takes courage to admit to one’s finiteness, you know. To admit that you are mortal and fallible and will never reach perfection. And yet, once you do, you will find out that a great weight has been lifted off of your chest and you can finally start acting.

I was arrogant. All the way to my death. But now I get it. It took me dying to finally understand, but now I do.”

She took a long breath.

“Wow. I did not expect this.”

“They don’t warn you against this kind of side effect. It just… happens. I met many so-called immortals in my travels. Trapped in their tombs. Very much dead too. I always wondered how that could happen. If you are immortal, how come you still die in the end?”

Melina hummed. I continued.

“I think it’s because they just grew complacent and eventually… lost all purpose. I don’t really know. But uh, I have never met another immortal who was still, you know, alive.” I paused, memories and images coming to my eyes as I spoke. I remembered the tomb of a lich king who professed his own immortality and his unbreakable will to dominate all life… and never actually did it. I shrugged. “Don’t worry! I’m usually not like this. I just like to… reflect, sometimes.”

“So, you are immortal?”

Finally the question.

“No, I am not, and I was not before. I thought I was, but the reality is that I was just very strong and with a very long lifespan. Something then happened that reminded me of my mortality. That’s how I ended up here.”

“There are no true immortals.” She said.

I shook my head. “There is at least one. The one at the top of the food chain.”

“But,” Melina argued. “Not even he is, is he? What if someone gains enough power to take his place?”

I hummed in agreement, but my mind was not set. I thought of the Keeper, and something about that existence just didn’t fit the picture I had of the world. He was an alien, an outsider, someone who didn’t play by the same rules that we did. However, I didn’t see any point in discussing this with Melina, for I doubted she would understand the point I was trying to make. In this world, of course, she was right. The one looming threat of death, however distant, could never be won. There was magic and strange powers always at play. Unseen dangers could always come out of nowhere and just change everything in an instant. An immovable truth can be shaken if someone applies enough force.

You are reading story Isekai of the Ultimate Ritualist at novel35.com

I idly thought about what the Technocrat once told me, when we were talking about this kind of stuff. He always enjoyed philosophical chats, although he confessed that he didn’t see any actual use to it beyond wasting some time. He said something that stuck to me. He said: what if nothing is real?

There was something he was striving for. He was obsessed with it, and eventually it became the reason the two of us parted ways. But maybe he was right, and after meeting the Keeper I had to admit that I didn’t think that the Technocrat was such a crazy man after all.

I wondered. Did he finally succeed in his quest to find the Master Universe?

“Say,” I decided to change topic. “I would like to buy some land, build myself a house. Where can I do that?”

“In the city hall.” She said, looking at the horizon.

“I will go check it out then.” I said. She just stood there. “What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing.” she shrugged. “I should get back to work. The new Master is coming tomorrow and we need to prepare for the expedition.”

***

I asked around, but nobody seemed to know anything about the expedition. It wasn’t stuff for the low rankers, it seemed. Rumor was that they were moving Noctis up the danger scale after Melina submitter her report about the volcano back at the Guild, and soon the place would open to adventurers of all tiers to be able to come here. The protection of being a training ground for budding adventurers who wanted to use the forest and the Labirintine Dungeon to grow in power without worrying about the competition was about to expire. And yet, with the news of the new Guild Master coming in a day’s time, even though they could not participate in the expedition directly, all the adventurers had gotten busy with all sorts of contracts and Quests, trying to make themselves useful and trying to look good in the eyes of the new power that was coming to take Melina’s place.

I asked her. She wasn’t leaving or going away, but she was not going to be master anymore either. Just a regular Tier 13 adventurer. I wanted to talk with her about it but she cut me short and disappeared again, busy as she was with the preparations for tomorrow. The new guy, I thought had some pretty big shoes to fill.

I was about to go to the town hall to see what kind of bureaucracy was necessary to purchase a plot of land when my Guild token beeped. Or, rather, it sent me a telepathic notification that my request for Derillomuf I placed yesterday had been completed. 25 pieces of gold had been taken out of my account, and the Derillomuf was waiting for me to pick it up at a designated locker.

“There goes half my money!” I said to myself.

I opened the small wooden box with slow, controlled movements. Liù, perched on top of my head, stared at it without even blinking. The box made of ornate wood, carved and decorated with a thin layer of gold, was surrounded by powerful magic. I could see it swirling and getting sucked into it like a whirlpool sucking the water from a lake, powering the spatial magic that allowed it to materialize items from far away. As the lid came off, the rush of air was accompanied by a soft hiss, and I carefully reached inside with my hand and pulled the Derillomuf out.

Liù cocked her head.

It was a small green leaf.

I stared at it.

Liù stared at it.

Then I burst out laughing.

“Mwhahahah” I held my stomach. “What did you expect! It’s just a leaf, yeah!”

I kept laughing while the pixie tried to punch my in the gut with her little fists.

“Fine, fine.” I tried to hold the laughter in with little success. “I shouldn’t have…” I wheezed. “Come on. We waited two days and spent a fortune, and then it turns out it’s a leaf! A leaf!”

I knew how Derillomuf was supposed to look like of course, but Liù didn’t. It was a good laugh, and the puzzlement on her face when she saw that it was only a leaf was priceless. In any case, with this I finally had all the ingredients I needed to finally do the Dexterity ritual I wanted to do. All I needed to do was to hop in the mirror dimension using the orb in the other room and I was done.

Ritual successful: Left Hand of Aer’Naari: Dexterity increased by 80%
Synergy Achieved: Hand of Aer’Naari and Left Hand of Aer’Naari: Strength and Dexterity +20%

Finally, as I came out of the orb with the intention of grabbing something to eat, Melina approached me. She motioned for the orb again.

“We need to talk.” She said.

“In the orb?”

She nodded.

“A realm has opened,” she said once we were back inside, away from prying eyes and ears. “And it’s time you know what is really going on.”