TTOB 09

Chapter 9

The Temple of the Blue Vine (1)

“Want some money? Why the long face?” “I’m fine.” “Fine, my foot… Your lip is sticking out a mile. Keep them and buy yourself some snacks.”

Kazar forcibly shoved a few coins into Ernolf’s hand. Ernolf stared at the coins with a gloomy expression. Following the fall of the Sarapi Empire, numerous nations had engaged in wars for supremacy. This period was called the early medieval era or the “Warring States Era.” During this time, currency was not unified, so coins from various dynasties were valued by weighing them. First the Cornu tribe, and now ancient coins. As clear evidence kept surfacing, he now had to accept the hypothesis that he had regressed roughly 1,600 years, from the 18th century back to the 2nd century.

‘To think I fell into such a chaotic era, of all times. Finding a way to survive must come before finding a way to return to the future.’

Catherine Wernicke. The name of his future fiancée came to mind. As he stared blankly at the coins sparkling on his palm in low spirits, Ernolf suddenly realized an important fact.

‘Wait a minute. If ancient Valdif copper coins are circulating in such pristine condition…’

Ernolf sprang up and staggered up the hill. Standing at the peak, he gazed at the vast land stretching beneath his feet. Watching the sun rise over the fog-shrouded horizon, Ernolf thought:

‘The ruins of the Sarapi Empire, the tombs of the Valdif royal family, the Sky Garden of Pelias, Kaluanui! It’s all before any dungeons were excavated! Everything is completely untouched!’

That wasn’t all. The Delano Temple, which had collapsed in a great earthquake, the Bogart Underwater Dungeon, which had sunk into the sea due to ground subsidence, and more. Ruins that had vanished due to natural disasters—making them impossible to even access 1,600 years later—were currently waiting for explorers in a state ready for excavation.

‘Not only can I see the lost ruins with my own eyes, but I can also excavate them with my own hands!’

Though he didn’t want to admit it, regressing 1,600 years in time was a miracle-like stroke of luck for an archaeologist.

‘I’ll plunder every single one of them. Having ended up in a state like this, I deserve at least that much compensation.’

He needed to plunder the ruins to raise funds for settlement, build a safe hideout, and then research a method to undo the possession and return to his original body. To do that, he first had to regain all the magic abilities he used to possess. As he steeled his heart toward his new goal, a breeze blew right on cue. With his hair and clothes fluttering wildly in the wind, Ernolf felt as though he had become quite a grand figure.

‘What’s with him?’

Curious as to what he was looking at, Kazar walked over to his brother’s side, chewing rhythmically on a piece of jerky.

‘Nothing special.’

Before his eyes lay the sickeningly familiar northern landscape—dark forests, desolate fields, and rugged mountain ranges lined up continuously. He didn’t know why his twin brother was acting like this, but at any rate, he liked that the guy was bursting with hope.

“Why are you staring like that?” “Because your face looks like it’s overflowing with motivation.” “Yeah. I am overflowing with motivation right now.” “Good.”

Suddenly, Ernolf grew curious about what plans Kazar had made for the future. Though Kazar had said he would live well like a king, they had never actually discussed how he planned to do it in detail.

“What do you want to do now? You’re not going to go around robbing other people’s pockets, are you?” “Am I a highwayman?” “You haven’t been much different up until now.” “What are you talking about…”

Kazar recalled Cassion, whom he couldn’t kill due to a lack of strength. If events unfolded as he remembered, Cassion would be moving toward the Kleron region by now, meeting Baron Buzoni.

‘Joining the nobility by marrying the baron’s daughter was his dream.’

Cassion harbored a severe inferiority complex regarding his origins. That was why he wanted to become a matrilocal son-in-law by marrying Baron Buzoni’s only daughter to raise his social standing—a goal he ultimately achieved in his past life.

‘I won’t let that happen.’

Kazar smiled quietly, imagining thoroughly crushing Cassion’s ambition and throwing the man alive to the hunting dogs as food.

“What are you thinking about?”

Having watched Kazar go silent immediately after being asked what he wanted to do next, Ernolf posed the question.

“I thought I should build up my strength.” “Oh…” “Why?” “I was thinking the exact same thing.” “Right, our current state is pretty pathetic.”

Ernolf nodded at Kazar’s words and lifted the rags he was wearing to inspect them. The fabric was so worn out it felt like it would dissolve if it caught rain.

“Though our words stem from different contexts… as you said, our state is indeed pathetic. What is this look? It’s not like some monster chewed us up and spat us out…”

Listening to Ernolf’s words, Kazar scanned his own body. Hearing it put that way, their attire was indeed excessively shabby. In particular, the clothes Tirad wore were so tattered that his buttocks peeked through a giant tear. No matter how close they were as brothers, those fleeting glimpses of butt cheek were deeply distressing to the eyes. It seemed they needed to acquire proper clothing as quickly as possible.

“Let’s go to a town.” “Let’s go to a town.”

Saying the exact same words at the same time, the two grimaced heavily.

“Do we resonate on things like this, too?” “Shit. If we share even petty things like this, how are we supposed to live?” “Glad to know you agree.” “Same here.” “Don’t copy me.” “You stop it first.”

Bickering back and forth, the two descended the cliff.

Ernolf traveled riding the horse Kazar had stolen from the mercenary corps. This time, their destination was not a tiny village, but a fairly large manor town. The sight of the rural city drawing closer piqued his interest.

‘Typical ancient Sarapi Empire architecture.’

Upon closer inspection, the ancient Sarapi Empire script on the town gate spelled out ‘Talisa.’

‘Talisa? Hmm. Never heard of that name.’

The history of the Teres Continent is divided into BC and AD with the fall of the unified Sarapi Empire as the turning point. The era when Kazar I was active was around the 2nd century AD, the early medieval period. It was a chaotic era where small and medium kingdoms rose everywhere and constantly engaged in conflicts of various scales, earning it the name “Warring States Era.”

‘Over 1,600 years, a lot of information must have been lost.’

Because it was a city that hadn’t left its mark on history, it intrigued him all the more.

“Hey, are you here on vacation? Why are you moving so slowly?”

Kazar’s grumbling interrupted Ernolf’s reflection. Kazar was following behind Ernolf, carrying a colossal wild boar monster on his shoulders. Its scholarly name was Insanus Aper. Usually called the “Mad Boar,” its size was so immense that even Kazar, an Aura user, grumbled that it was heavy.

“W-What is that?!” “Hah… How can a pig be that big?!”

As Kazar approached the town gate carrying the wild boar monster as large as a house, people passing by recoiled in fear.

“You could at least cast a weight-reduction spell or something. Leaving only yourself to travel comfortably…” “How would I know a spell like that when no one taught me? Besides, we agreed to hide our strength.” “Then why am I doing this?!” “At least one of us needs to look impressive so people won’t look down on us.”

Ernolf answered indifferently. This was already the third time they had held this exact conversation.

“I liked my previous plan better. The one where you fire off a flashy magic spell and we get treated like royalty!” “What good comes from a mage revealing his strength right from the start? He’d just take a sword strike first.” “What about me? Is it okay if I take a hit first?!” “It’s more advantageous if you get hurt than if I do. A blow that would instantly kill me is something you can probably endure quite well. Plus, I possess healing magic, meager as it is. If you get hurt, I can heal you, but if I get hurt, what can you do?” “Ah, damn it, fine! Stop it!” “Don’t feel too upset. If you get hurt, I hurt too.”

Ernolf consoled Kazar, saying that since both of them would suffer anyway due to the ‘Resonance’ ability, it was better for only one of them to take the physical damage. Just as the irritated Kazar was about to slam the boar onto the ground, a town guard holding a spear blocked their path.

“Is that thing really dead? It’s not walking on its own feet, right?” “Calm down. There’s a person underneath it.”

The guards were intimidated and terrified by the size of the wild boar monster Kazar had brought. It was fortunate that the boar was dead; if it still had breath in it, it would have easily demolished the wooden palisade protecting the city like a sandcastle. The lookouts watching from atop the palisade were also swallowing hard, keeping a close eye on the dead boar.

“Who goes there, and where are you from?!” “I am Ernolf from Isvrho, and…” “I’m Kazar!”

Kazar shouted from beneath the pig. Ernolf shook his head and let out a long sigh. Before arriving here, the two had agreed to use the aliases ‘Ernolf and Sigmund’ instead of ‘Kazar and Tirad.’ Since they were escaped slaves from a mine, they had agreed that it would be best to do so to avoid pursuit, but when the moment arrived, Kazar broke his promise and gave his real name.

“Where is Isvrho? Do you know it?”

Hearing the place name Ernolf made up on the spot by digging through his memory of old maps, the guards tilted their heads in confusion.

“It’s a tiny, boondock village tucked away in the far north. Since it’s deep in the countryside, folks living in the city wouldn’t know it.”

Flattery never fails. Although it wasn’t that big of a city, Ernolf deliberately stroked their sense of superiority. Thinking that made sense, the guards asked for their purpose of visiting.

“We happened to catch a pig while passing by, so we came to sell it.”

Was that really a wild boar of a size one could catch ‘by chance while passing by’? In the guard’s eyes, it was not the boar, but the two boys who looked like monsters.

“H-How long do you plan to stay?” “Just two or three days before we move on. We lost our clothes during our travels, so we’ll leave as soon as we acquire proper attire.”

Ernolf and Kazar were wearing pieces cut from the Cassion Mercenary Corps’ blankets, tied together here and there to serve as makeshift clothes. The guards exchanged glances, silently conferred among themselves, and opened the way.

Talisa was larger in scale than the previous village. A high wooden palisade surrounded the town, and in the center of the village stood a low hill, atop which sat a wooden fortress that appeared to be the feudal lord’s residence. Entering the market located in the town center, a temple came into view. In front of the temple stood a giant wooden statue wrapped in vines. Seeing it, Ernolf’s eyes sparkled. The wooden tree had no leaves attached to it, yet the vines wrapping around the tree were in full bloom with lush foliage.

‘The vines appear more full of life than the tree itself. It’s almost as if the vines are parasitizing the tree.’

Until the Vesta Church, a monotheistic religion, came to dominate the continent in the mid-medieval era, various ancient faiths were scattered all across the Teres Continent. Though he possessed considerable knowledge regarding ancient faiths, Ernolf did not know of any temple that used vines parasitizing a tree as its symbol.

‘I can’t tell what god this temple worships. But… why is the courtyard filled with sick people?’

After brief contemplation, Ernolf turned his head toward where Kazar stood.

“Kazar, don’t sell that—take it over and give it to the temple.”

Kazar, who was in the middle of haggling over the price with a butcher, turned to look at Ernolf with fierce eyes.

“Do you know what I went through to carry this all the way here? And you want me to give it away for free?!” “Who said anything about giving it for free? Look.”

Ernolf gestured toward the temple’s front courtyard with his chin. There were priests handing out medicine bottles to the sick.

“It looks like they treat the sick over there. Let’s go get your wound treated.” “Ah.”

Looking at the temple Ernolf pointed to, the name of the temple instantly flashed through Kazar’s mind.

‘The Temple of the Blue Vine.’

There was a reason Ernolf didn’t know about this temple.

‘It’s the place I burned to the ground along with the city eleven years from now.’

The Temple of the Blue Vine in Talisa was famous for curing physical trauma well. However, after becoming the King of the Pengrill Kingdom, Kazar burned the entire place to ashes and erased it from the map. There were valid reasons for doing so, but people merely remembered it as one of the misdeeds of the tyrant King Kazar.

‘You want me to get treated in this unsettling place?’

Knitting his brows, Kazar glared at the priests roaming the temple courtyard. Having regressed fifty years, he knew their true identity, but Tirad did not. To refuse treatment, he had to persuade his brother, but no particular method came to mind.

“Why don’t you just heal me?” “Why should I when there are healers right in front of us?”

For a mage to produce the same effect as a healer, they had to pour out ten times or more mana just to barely achieve a similar result. The saying “Magic for mages, healing for healers” did not exist for no reason.

“Looking up there, it seems they open their library to the residents.” “So?” “It means you can patch up the hole in your back, and I can fill the empty space in my head. Let’s hurry.”

It was a golden opportunity to taste raw, undamaged ancient knowledge. Ernolf grew eager, itching to dig through the library right away.

“You want to read books?” “Yeah, you heard right.” “You do know what a book is, right?” “A book is a book, what else would it be?” “You need to know how to read script to read them. How are you going to read books when you don’t even know letters?”

At the sharp point, Ernolf felt a pang of panic. Tirad, a mine slave, could not possibly know how to read. In times like this, there was only one effective strategy: stubbornly push through.

“Why would I be unable to read what ordinary people read? If I match the pictures with the text, I can roughly figure out the meaning.” “Isn’t that just looking at pictures instead of reading a book?” “Is there a law stating a slave who never learned to read isn’t allowed to read a book?”

This time, it was Kazar who felt a pang of panic and was left speechless.

“When a mage wants to look at a few books, is that really something to oppose so strongly?” “When did I ever oppose…” “Then hurry up and move the pig.”

Without another word, Kazar carried the Mad Boar over and offered it to the temple. Mages fundamentally possess a strong greed for knowledge. Recalling the fact that his brother had never held a single book in his hand from birth until death, Kazar’s heart grew heavy.