“What’s that? Bottled soot?” Zabado asked.
I cocked my head curiously too. I had no idea what was inside, either.
“Impossible,” Shida, who sat next to me, muttered. “Humans produced this?”
He was glaring at the jar with more disgust than I’d ever seen him display before. It seemed he knew what was contained within it.
Did he use appraisal magic?
I considered using it too, but the jar was too far away for me to see clearly. The war room was spacious, and there were about fifteen feet between my seat and Dad’s.
“Yes, it seems they made this thing,” Dad said gravely. “And it wasn’t made twenty years ago. The research behind it was done fifty years ago.”
“H-Hey, could you explain things more clearly?! What is this thing?!” Zabado shouted, tired of being ignored.
“Don’t shout, you bald geezer. Can’t you tell what it is just by looking?” Shida asked him coldly.
“Shida!” I scolded him.
That’s rude! I mean, he’s always rude, but still!
But then, I looked at the jar Dad was holding. “H-Huh…?” I gasped.
“Did you realize what it is?” Shida asked me.
“Y-Yes…” I whispered back.
The contents of the jar—was Camilla. I could sense it. It wasn’t purified despite being in proximity to me, so I assumed the jar was acting as a buffer somehow. Otherwise, it made no sense that Camilla wouldn’t be purified with the Stella right next to it.
“This is what’s called Camilla, converted into material form,” Dad explained to the room.
“What?!” several people shouted around the table.
“Camilla, in substance form?! That’s absurd!”
“Impossible!”
“How can that be?!”
The kings and representatives of the country all raised their voices in denial. The only ones to react differently were the representatives of De Marl—Rondered and Lico. They looked at the jar, grimacing. It seemed they knew about this beforehand.
“Camilla in material form…” I muttered in disbelief.
I always thought only Kaguya had physical form, but the possibility of Camilla being in material form astounded me. Why would anyone make this?
“We had Edesa Kura’s mechanical alchemist, Reiden Park, tell us all about it. Fifty years ago, the Edesa Kura king from two generations ago, Graulis Kura, discovered a stone slate and urn in the Lost Regalia ruins and took them back to Edesa Kura without the Ureron clan’s approval,” Dad explained. “King Graulis was both an architect and an alchemist. And ironically enough, he ended up using his alchemy techniques to revive the Kaguya with a Will of Its Own. Ever since then, the king seemed to have gone mad and began engaging other countries in war. The next king, Sidore Kura, then took his place, and the wars increased in severity, and Edesa Kura greatly increased their domain. I’m sure you all know the rest.”
“Well, yes.” The various representatives nodded, their expressions sour.
“Much like King Graulis, King Sidore was an alchemist,” Dad continued. “Reiden testified that he taught him alchemy personally. King Sidore took over King Graulis’s research, which produced this material Camilla, as well as the glass container that would contain it and keep it from leaking outside. It was produced from enslaved citizens of countries defeated by Edesa Kura. As a result, however, many of them were afflicted with an uncurable Severed Breath Syndrome.”
“What?!” I said under my breath.
Severed Breath Syndrome—that’s the disease Grandpa and Grandma had! They got it because of this thing?!
“Hm, it seems the glass jar is blocking out the Stella’s influence,” Shida pointed out.
“O-Oh! Yes, I suppose it is,” I said.
“Yes, come to think of it, it’s within the Stella’s effective range, but the Camilla inside the jar isn’t being purified,” Renge said. “So the material this jar is made of is capable of that…”
Indeed, the black mass inside the jar remained just as black. It occurred to me that the magic they used when I was captured and the metal coating Feles Kura’s body might have used the same principal.
Right, when the Kaguya with a Will of Its Own was born, Akari had already passed on. Grr, I can’t believe they misused alchemy to make something like this! Do they value human life so little?!
“Are you saying this jar is canceling out the Holy Woman’s…the Stella’s power?!” the elven king asked.
“No, it’s not completely negating it, but it does manage to stave it off to some extent,” Shida said gravely, massaging his brows nervously. “I see, so the Kaguya with a Will of Its Own was using this materialized Camilla to continually mature the Sugula. How crafty…!”
It was releasing Camilla where my Stella couldn’t affect it, so no matter how many monsters I purified in Deshmel, I couldn’t do anything about this bottled-up Camilla.
That really was a brilliant play by the Kaguya. It really planned everything ahead of time.
“That’s the situation at present,” Dad said. “At least 20 percent of the people we rescued from Edesa Kura have Severed Breath Syndrome that we know of. Apparently, they were continually making these Camilla-filled jars within their country.”
“Tch… So that’s the cause of Severed Breath Syndrome?” Lico asked. “And the people made this Camilla, knowing that it did this to them?”
“Yes.”
“That’s terrible…” Lico hung her head.
Rondered wrapped an arm around Lico, tapping her shoulder comfortingly.
Wait, he’s being real casual about this, but should Rondered be touching her like that?!
“Now that we all understand the situation,” Curalius began, “let’s begin discussing the details in earnest.”
The representatives of each country and race grimaced and fixed their gazes on her.
“In two weeks, the Sugula will fall—plummeting straight toward Deshmel. Just like it did two thousand years ago,” she announced in a firm voice.
“T-Two thousand years ago…?” Fei Lu’s representative asked.
“Yes. I believe Marcus and Renge already told the humans and the demi-humans all about it. Two thousand years ago, the Sugula was created in this world and began looming over us. I am a dragon with powers of protection and healing, and so I hardly have any destructive capabilities,” she told them. “As such, I asked Renge, who governs over disasters and calamities, to destroy it for me. I’m sure some of you saw what his powers are capable of. The only thing that can counter a calamity like the Sugula is another calamity beckoned by Renge.”
A few of the knights grimaced. All of the human countries’ VIPs had received reports about what had happened from the alliance army’s knights. They all looked away and swallowed nervously. The elf and dwarf kings both narrowed their eyes.
The power of disaster and calamity. Renge’s power. The story of what had happened two thousand years ago felt like a fairytale that was too distant to be real. Especially for me, since I knew how much Renge disliked fighting and hated nothing more than to take lives.