Erie
HOW long had she been unconscious for after losing the fight to Jair?
Erie finally regained consciousness.
“Where am I…?!”
When she came to, she was inside what looked like a hospital room. Two beds stood side by side inside the wooden room. Erie was resting on one, while Heath lay on top of the neighboring bed.
Why am I inside a hospital…? I thought Jair had caught up to us… she thought when the door opened and someone came inside.
“You’re awake, Erie Reyer? I’m glad you aren’t seriously injured.”
“Ah! You’re…!” Erie sputtered in surprise.
Before her was a middle-aged man wearing a white lab coat. He was St. Rollins Academy’s adjunct professor Crank Getz.
“Why are you here, Professor Getz? Where am I?” Erie couldn’t help but ask the man who presented the lecture on Berserker Golems that she had attended the day before.
“This is my home and a clinic I operate. I discovered both of you lying unconscious in the middle of the road and carried you here.”
His explanation reminded her of the rumors saying that aside from his job as an adjunct lecturer, Getz also operated a small clinic on Chest Island. Had he passed by the road where Erie fainted coincidentally?
The wounds covering her body had been treated and bandaged. From what she gathered, he had tended to her while she was unconscious.
“U-Um…thank you very much, Professor Getz.”
“You don’t need to thank me. I did what is only natural for a doctor.” Getz perched on the edge of the chair next to her bed and held Erie in his astute gaze. “More importantly, care to tell me what’s going on? I wondered why you were both absent from school. I never expected to find you collapsed on a road in Chest Island.”
Erie hesitated over whether she should answer. But she wouldn’t be able to ask what she needed to know if she didn’t tell him. So she decided to answer him truthfully.
“To tell you the truth, I’m being targeted by a man…”
“You’re being targeted? That doesn’t sound pleasant. Can you explain more?”
“The thing is, the man used a certain item… Professor, do you know what this is?” Erie pulled the black cube from her chest pocket.
Getz’s expression instantly went stiff. “That’s—!” He took the cube from Erie’s hand, carefully studied it, then sighed. “…How many years has it been since I’ve last seen one of these?” he muttered with a bitter edge to his words.
Erie eagerly leaned across the bed. “You know what it is, then!”
“Indeed. I don’t know why you have it, but I know what this is.” He thrust the cube toward her. “This, Erie Reyer, is what is known as ‘Sehem-hamphorasch’—also known as the ‘name of the 72 gods,’” he answered definitively.
“Sehem-hamphorasch…?”
“When exactly they started this is unknown, but the Torah Church has wondered whether there’s anything that can outdo Engrave Incantations in bringing Golems to life for ages now. They perused ancient documents and learned that the very method they were searching for was buried on this archipelago. And what they excavated was Sehem-hamphorasch.”
Erie listened attentively to Getz’s explanation, not letting a single word slip by her.
“It’s an item that was used by ancient Golem Tamers, long before the Torah Church was established,” Getz elucidated further. “Just embedding it into a doll’s chest grants life and unimaginable power. The Golem gains regenerative abilities and an endless life span. What’s more, they are even capable of existing on land unblessed by the Church’s divine protection. Merely burying the item into the ground makes it automatically take on human shape and move… Sure enough, the method was optimal, far more advanced than the Engrave Incantations we currently use. It is the secret technology of the ancients.”
Erie recalled how the Adamah burst from the ground and Eben’s outrageous strength. Without question, those were not normal Golems. To think it was all the result of the cube’s power…
“But…why doesn’t anyone know anything about such a powerful item?”
“The existence of those cubes is the Torah Church’s most classified secret. To begin with, the cubes are extremely rare. Only four were excavated from this island during the archeological dig, as far as I know. Furthermore…”
“Furthermore…?”
“No one could Tame them. Every single Golem birthed by the cubes went berserk the moment they were named,” Getz said in a chilling voice, his tone embittered. “The Rabbis consequently had to pull out of researching the cubes. Eventually, they wrote them off by concluding that nothing can outdo the ‘emeth’ Engrave Incantation.”
“I see… But how come you know about the cubes, Professor Getz?”
“I heard about it directly from a Rabbi who researched the cubes.”
“A Rabbi?”
“The man’s name is Arusrad Grinzam. He’s the most powerful Golem Tamer in Torah Church’s history, and my old friend.” Getz spoke of his friend with a forlorn face.
Curious about this Rabbi he referred to as an old friend, Erie asked, “Where is he now…?”
“Grinzam devoted his entire life and career to that research. But eight years ago, he tried to make off with all of the Torah Church’s cubes.”
“He stole them? What did the Church do about it?”
“Naturally, they amassed the full force of the Church to hunt Grinzam down. He took on an army of Rabbis and fought as a fugitive on the run. Since the Church lost many of its best people during the incident, the Rabbis call it ‘The Grinzam Disaster.’”
“…!”
“In the end, Grinzam fell from Head Island’s western cliffside into the ocean below. A body washed ashore several days later. Though the corpse was severely damaged, it was unmistakably him. I’m the one who conducted the autopsy,” Getz admitted, sadly shaking his head.
I can’t believe this cube has such a dark history…! But then, who is Jair really? Why does he have so many cubes, when there should only be four in existence?
Getz returned the cube to Erie as she was lost in her thoughts.