…to a place above the heavens to the palm of my hand…
The elf maiden was kneeling in front of the creepy daemon corpse. She chanted, her voice flowing like that of someone reciting poetry. The jingle-jangle of the kagura bells was a fine complement to her chanting.
… the princess who stands not before god, forsaken by heaven and earth, realms never to meet…
I couldn’t really tell what the chant meant. Sometimes I felt like I knew some of the words, but when I tried to understand the meaning, they ran together. When I tried to pick some words up, I would miss others, ensuring the overall meaning eluded me.
With this kind of setup, even if we were on Earth, I would’ve been certain a ghost or two would show up.
I stood behind her, examining the daemonic cornerstone set into the wall directly in front of the entrance. It was of a very particular size, and covered in carved runes. It could only serve one purpose.
It was a door.
The important components here were the cornerstone, the sacred tree, and that door. Each time the warrior clan moved, they carried all of these with them. According to the mystic’s explanation, once the ritual began, the door would open, and she would connect to the consciousness of the daemon.
I held up the ESP Medal and aimed it toward the mystic. I focused on the chant and melody, zeroing in on her thoughts, and before long, I was peering into her heart. The ESP Medal normally didn’t work on a person who was using Mind Wall, but a person could choose to allow a friend to make contact.
“Hmm?”
The moment I felt the elf’s consciousness flow into me, the light around us changed.
I could no longer see the shadow or shape of the cornerstone or the sacred tree. The door…was there.
I should probably explain. What was supposed to be a slab of stone had suddenly turned into a gaping hole.
“Is that… Lord Wizard?”
The mystic stood up and looked at me, surprised.
“If we are here together, it means that you are touching the consciousness of the daemon through my heart, right?”
“It seems that way.”
I wasn’t exactly reading the mystic’s consciousness. It was more like the sensation when I entered my inner world to use my spells. In both cases, I used a person’s consciousness to enter another world. Even if this time it was her consciousness, they were still similar experiences.
“As yet we stand outside the entrance to the daemon’s will. From here, we pass through the gate and go down deep. Are you ready?”
“I’m ready.”
I swallowed hard, gripping the spool with clammy hands. The red thread continued up out of the abyss behind us.
✦ ✦ ✦
I followed behind the mystic and went through the door. The light of ambient mana from before was gone, but even though we were surrounded by darkness, for some reason, I could feel my way in the dark.
On the other side of the door was a cave big enough to walk side by side. The floor and walls felt more like hard clay than stone. The cave was on a slope, and there was a warm wind flowing all around us.
This was definitely one of the creepiest adventures I’d ever been on, and it was supposedly dangerous, but I didn’t feel afraid for some reason. If anything, it really felt like a dream. Well, I was using the mystic as a medium to enter into the world of daemons’ will. It was the same sort of spiritual world as my inner world. In extreme terms, it really felt no different from dreaming.
“I’m sorry, can you wait here for a moment?”
“What’s wrong?”
I remembered that there was something I had to do, despite my fuzzy head. When I called out to the mystic, she stopped. I closed my eyes.
There was silence.
“Uh, hello? Wizard?”
It was exactly ten seconds. The mystic called out to me while I was meditating. The results were perfect, so I opened my eyes.
“Oh, sorry. I was just experimenting. It’s okay now.”
“Is that so…?”
The mystic tilted her head to the side and then went back to walking. I was sorry for doing that to her, but we were already in the consciousness of the daemons—in other words, hostile territory. I couldn’t tell her the results of my experiment out loud.