chapter 153

Anastasia was stunned, and it seemed like she was unable to open her mouth for a while.

Then an extremely rare sight unfolded. Hector began to sweat profusely.

They had only seen his easy-going expression before, so it was quite refreshing to see him have such a reaction.

“I-, I’m sorry.”

“…”

“I never would have thought something like this would even in my wildest dreams. I swear.”

“…”

“M-, me too.”

Cairo, who was looking at this scene, couldn’t help but confess with a guilty expression.

“It’s my fault too.”

“Hm?”

“Anastasia is originally a male name.”

Frey tilted his head at that.

“Is it? It sounds like a female name because of the soft tone.”

“In the ancient eastern regions, it was often used as a man’s name. That was where the Great Sage came from. I noticed it before but I didn’t say anything because it’s common for Golems to not have a sex.”

Then he sighed.

“By the way, I wonder if Schweiser’s soul was…”

“…I have no soul.”

Anastasia replied.

She still had a confused expression on her face, but it seemed that she had resigned herself to her fate.

But what did she just say?

“What was that?”

“I don’t have Schweiser’s soul.”

It was said in a much clearer tone than before.

Frey’s expression changed, and Cairo couldn’t help but ask in a strange voice.

“Didn’t you say you were Schweiser Strow?”

“That’s right.”

“But you don’t have a soul?”

“Of course I don’t. Moving souls is not the field of alchemy.”

[Contractors.]

Diablo’s eyes shook slightly as he said.

[It’s the field of Contractors.]

“Right. This Lich is pretty smart.”

[…]

“Of course, most contractors could only dream about reaching such a level. Out of all the Contractors I knew, there was only one who would have been able to do so…”

Anastasia fell silent for a moment before saying.

“…but I didn’t have a very good relationship with her. I couldn’t ask her to do it.”

Frey narrowed his eyes.

“I heard that the Great Sage and the Black Witch weren’t very close, I guess it was true.”

“Even that was passed down? How shameful.”

Anastasia laughed bitterly.

“Besides, if I transferred my soul to this core, then my body would have died. Because of the various complications, I simply copied all of my memories and personality, and put them in the core.”

It was an incredibly shocking statement.

Copying memories and personality?

Frey wasn’t very knowledgeable when it came to alchemy, but he could tell from the faces of those around him just how ridiculous those words were.

“That… is that even possible?”

Cairo spoke with a trembling voice.

“I was only half confident at the time, but seeing that I’m able to think and move like this, it seems my gamble paid off. I must commend you for your alchemy skills. It wouldn’t have been easy to create a body capable of holding the core I created.”

Then, after inspecting her body once again, she said.

“Though it would have been better if it didn’t look like this. I thought it would have been good as long as it was humanoid, but this was out of my calculations…”

“Kuhum. Hum.”

There was a brief cough from somewhere in the room, but Anastasia simply shook her head. It seemed she’d already realised what happened.

After all, this was Schweiser.

“Right, I didn’t even ask your names.”

“Ah. S-, sorry. It’s an honor to meet you, I’m Cairo Wilsemann.”

“…Wilsemann?”

“Is something wrong?”

“Mm. No. It’s nothing.”

Frey felt a bit strange.

Though he didn’t think about it too deeply, it appeared that Cairo didn’t know that Wilsemann was Schweiser’s real last name.

‘He doesn’t realise that he is looking at his ancestor.’

Then was he from another line with the Wilsemann name? Or…

“I have one question I’d like to ask.”

Everyone listened attentively.

Then Anastasia spoke in a slightly cold voice.

“Who was it that found the core?”

Immediately, they all turned to look at Frey. Anastasia also turned to look at Frey.

Her turquoise eyes seemed to comb his entire body. As if she didn’t want to miss even a single detail.

“…”

He knew why she was doing this.

The place where Anastasia’s core was kept was in the final room in Schweiser’s dungeon. And in order to enter that room, one was required to answer the final question asked by Schweiser’s hologram.

Schweiser’s real name.

This was something that very few people knew.

In fact, seeing that even Cairo, who was Schweiser’s descendant, didn’t know, it was possible that Frey was the only one.

“I would like to talk to him alone for a moment.”

“That…”

Cairo hesitated for a moment, but Frey quietly glanced at him.

Then he nodded, and together with Hector and Diablo, he walked through the door.

Tak.

The door closed behind them.

The two faced each other. They were probably the only ones who had experienced something like this in the long history of the continent.

They had reunited with their best friend after 4,000 years, but they both had different names and faces.

Frey and Anastasia simply looked at each other for a while.

Not Lukas and Schweiser. It was Frey and Anastasia.

Frey had come to realise this fact once again.

“What’s your name?”

“Frey Blake.”

“…”

Anastasia’s expression became complicated, and there seemed to be many things she wanted to say, but Frey opened his mouth before she could do so.

“You can’t use the same name as before. It would be better for you to use the name Anastasia for the time being.”

“What…”

“The stories about us in the modern era seem to have been exaggerated far beyond our expectations.”

“…you.”

Anastasia’s eyes became red, and tears began rolling down her face.

“You came back…?”

“It took 4,000 years.”

Suddenly, Anastasia ran up and hugged Frey, and he hugged her back.

However, his expression became strange. He was clearly hugging his best friend, but what was this soft feeling?

“You bastard, you’re late, you’re really late.”

“It’s great that I could even return. If it was you, it would probably take 4,000 years more.”

“What the hell do you mean by that? Ugh. Dammit. It’s hard to even hug you properly. What the hell is with this body? You, you bastard, do you like this sort of thing? Were you the one who decided to make it like this?”

“It was beyond my control. But I don’t think it’s bad like this.”

“What do you mean?”

“It feels better than hugging a man.”

Anastasia spoke in a disbelieving voice.

“You can make such jokes while looking at me?”

“Kuku.”

Frey chuckled.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed so cheerfully.

* * *

It was almost as though they had returned to the past. It was a bit strange.

Both had different looks and names from the past. Yet the fact that they were best friends was not changed or doubted.

The more they talked, the more convinced they became.

Both were sure that the other was their closest friend.

They talked endlessly in quiet voices. Then they were silent after a while.

It wasn’t that they had run out of things to talk about. It was their first reunion in 4,000 years.

Even talking for a month wouldn’t be enough.

So there was no rush. It wasn’t like they wouldn’t be able to talk as much as they wanted after, it was just that there were some things that had to be discussed first.

“I saw the memory of the earth through Hruhiral. Iris killed you.”

“…as expected. Iris was the one who killed me.”

Those words sounded a bit awkward.

“As expected?”

“My memories are up until ‘I’ went to see Iris.”

“…I see.”

From the way he spoke, it seemed that he had slightly expected to be killed by Iris.

Anastasia hesitated for a moment before continuing.

“I had my suspicions.”

“About what?”

“That Iris betrayed us. For a reason…”

“That may be. But that is not a good enough reason. You know it too.”

Anastasia fell silent.

“Either way, she still killed you, and destroyed the relationship between Kasajin and Lucid. We cannot forgive her for that. And she has to pay the price for what she did.”

“I don’t think it’s my business anymore.”

Then she spoke with a complex tone.

Maybe it didn’t feel real because she had no memory of dying to Iris.

“You’ll have to make the judgement on your own… but do you think of me as Schweiser?”

“What do you mean?”

“I told you. I’m nothing but a copy of his memories and personality. To put it bluntly, I can’t actually call myself Schweiser.”

Anastasia said this in a slightly uneasy tone.

Nevertheless, Frey understood her troubles to an extent. She didn’t speak about her feelings, but it was clear that she was unsure about her identity.

This was natural. The situation she was in was quite special.

Therefore, he spoke in a calm voice.

“That’s something for you to ponder.”

“Huh?”

“I have a lot of other problems to think about. So roll that around in your head on your own. I don’t know if I’d have the time to think about that in the first place.”

From now on, he would be extremely busy every second he was awake.

When she heard Frey’s casual response, Anastasia’s expression became blank.

“Is that it?”

“When you get your answer, tell me. Whether you’re Schweiser or someone else. Then I’ll think about it.”

“…haha.”

Anastasia laughed.

“Right. You were always like that.”

“There are more things you need to know. I’ll try to be as concise as I can, so listen carefully.”

“I’m all ears.”

How the world changed, what was the continent’s current situation, and how they would move in the future.

Frey spoke for a long time.

* * *

“You did a good job today, Great Warrior.”

An Orc bowed his head.

Ivan roughly bandaged his arm while grumbling.

“I’m not a Great Warrior.”

“You still say that. Give up. You are a warrior among warriors, and you have the charisma to lead the tribe. Without you, the monsters would have already wiped us out.”

It wasn’t exactly monsters. Instead, they were actually Demigod Creatures. They were fast, strong, and tough.

They were so powerful that even Silkid’s greatest warriors were barely able to handle them.

These creatures first appeared after the fall of Talhadun.

After that, these creatures began appearing randomly all over Silkid, and began an indiscriminate massacre.

No city was considered safe from these monsters, as they came in huge armies, like ants.

Ivan was wandering around Silkid looking for Kasajin’s items when he saw a group of creatures attacking this group.

He couldn’t pretend he didn’t see them, so he saved them, but since then, these guys had been calling him ‘Great Warrior’, and started following him.

‘It hasn’t been that long but they’ve already grown a lot.’

At first, there were only around twenty people, but now, the group had swelled to around 100.

Getting food in itself was tricky, but the truly annoying part was word of mouth. Most of the Warchiefs, the core forces of Talhadun, had died in the fall of the city.

Fortunately, several Warchiefs and other great commanders had survived, but the fact remained that they were few in number.

Therefore, for the people of Silkid, rumors about Ivan would have the same response as the coming of the Saviour.

A hero wandering around Silkid and gathering strong warriors! His fists made it seem as though the Magic Warrior King Kasajin had returned!

At first, it was just considered a silly rumor, but it gradually gained weight, and eventually, it sprouted wings and flew away.

It took less than a week for that to happen.

And from that point, they began calling Ivan ‘Great Warrior’. Of course, Ivan loathed this title that had been placed upon him.

‘It’s rotten. Who cares about that.’

Ivan clicked his tongue as he had that thought.

Then a Centaur walked into his tent.

“Great Warrior, someone has come to see you.”

“What is it? Are there more warriors who came because of the rumors?”

“I don’t think so. She didn’t appear to be a warrior.”

Annoyed, Ivan could only wave his hand and say.

“Tell them to come in first.”

“Understood.”

Soon, someone walked into the tent.

When she walked in, the dark tent seemed to brighten up. This wasn’t a metaphor. Her hair, which looked like fire itself, seemed to contain light more intense than the candlelight in the tent.

Ivan narrowed his eyes.

‘Definitely not a warrior.’

It was usually apparent on a woman’s body whether she trained or not. His teacher looked like a child, but under that fragile appearance, her condensed muscles were easily visible.

In that sense, it was clear that this woman was far from a warrior.

“Who are you?”

“…I’m called Torkunta.”

It wasn’t the strangest name he’d heard.

“Right, Torkunta. What is it that you want?”

“I have something I’d like to ask.”

“What is it?”

The woman, Torkunta, took a deep breath before speaking in a heavy voice.

“Kill me.”