East Road Quest

Chapter 98: Ruby’s Memories

Just before the morning sun rose, the swamp was filled with fog.

The moisture held by the fog was so thick that the campfire had long since died out, and it was difficult to reignite. With the temperature dropping rapidly, Jade was dripping with a runny nose and coughing incessantly.

Emerald, who had announced they would move after sunrise, watched the situation and then decided to depart immediately. Jade agreed without hesitation.

“I’ve been thinking all night.”

Ruby, who had been deep in thought all night without sleep, opened her mouth with a solemn expression as if the silence until now was for what she was about to say.

“What were you thinking about?”

Merrald asked before Jade could.

While Jade and Sapphire were preparing to leave, Merrald was busy maintaining their weapons. It seemed like the start of his daily routine as he sharpened the dagger and checked the bowstring.

“It’s not something I told you.”

Ruby glared at Merrald sharply.

Jade, shouldering a bag filled with food and clothes, asked:

“What have you been thinking about?”

Jade was fully prepared for Ruby to unfold her thoughts on the devil’s weapons. However, Ruby blurted out something unexpected.

“I think I’ve met Sage before.”

“You’ve met Sage? When?”

Merrald looked even more surprised.

“I didn’t tell you!”

Ruby turned her gaze back to Jade.

“When?” Jade asked, taking Merrald’s question as her own.

“I can’t remember.”

“You say you’ve met her, but you can’t remember?”

“It’s hazy. Maybe because of the Heldra poison, or because the memories that surfaced while I was asleep are mixed with others.”

Ruby placed her fingers on her temples and twirled them as she continued.

“My head is swirling with fragments of memories, and I can’t distinguish which came first, which came later, or whether they’re real events or just figments of my imagination. It’s quite frustrating.”

Jade didn’t quite understand Ruby’s words.

“Just tell us what you remember.”

“I am wandering through the Elforest,” Ruby began, clutching her head with both hands and closing her eyes, speaking in the present tense.

“I am searching for a sage. A sage who will reveal who I am and answer all my questions. Humans said that only among the elves could such a sage be found. So, I wander the Elforest until I find one!”

Ruby’s voice grew fainter.

Merrald, showing a curiosity he hadn’t before, moved closer to Ruby.

“Describe the trees you see now.”

Ruby, with her eyes still closed, willingly complied with Merrald’s request.

“The trees are sparkling. Especially in the sunlight, they’re truly radiant.”

“The Sunlight Forest region. Did you see Sage there?”

“I went further. I’m not sure if it’s east or north. It’s not just the trees that sparkle in the sun. There’s a variety of trees intertwined, and there are many animals. They sparkle even more at night.”

Merrald easily understood Ruby’s description.

“The Moonshadow Forest. It’s adjacent to the Sunlight Forest region. Did you meet Sage there?”

“I did. But it wasn’t the Sage I know. The name wasn’t Sage either.”

Jade listened with a seriousness that almost contorted her face and then asked:

“So, what’s the name of the Sage you’re meeting now?”

“I only know it’s not Sage. Not a magician either.”

Jade couldn’t understand and just tilted her head, but Merrald got it.

“Ruby, you’re probably looking at the city of Seimurasha or the nearby forest. Since Sage is from there. Tell us more. What did you talk about with Sage?”

Merrald pressed for an answer.

At that moment, Ruby’s eyes snapped open, and she dropped her hands from her head.

“Why are you giving orders?”

“I’m just asking. What did you talk about?”

“Because you spoke up, the fragments of memory flew away.”

Ruby shook her hands as if shaking off water and continued.

“Now that I think about it, it’s quite unfair. Even if I forget, Sage should remember meeting me, right? She must have been pretending not to know! That detestable old flower. Next time I see her, I might just stuff a bouquet up her nostrils.”

Ruby spat out curses as if Sage was standing somewhere in the swamp.

Merrald snorted in anger.

“You disrespectful brat! How dare you speak of Sage like that?”

“Dare I like it. Do I have any reason to be polite to that old hag?”

“She saved your life, didn’t she?”

“For that, I am grateful!”
Ruby spoke nonchalantly.

Emerald seemed momentarily at a loss for words, then asked again, “So you mean to say you have no recollection whatsoever of what you discussed with Sage the Wise?”

“I remember bits and pieces. I sought a sage who would answer all my questions, and I thought Sage was the one. But Sage told me she wasn’t the sage I was looking for and directed me to the Eastern Continent.”

“The Eastern Continent?” Sapphire asked in surprise.

Ruby placed a hand on her head again, but this time she didn’t speak in the present tense.

“Yes, the sage was an orc! That orc taught me where the angels live, and thanks to him, I was able to meet them.”

Ruby poured out her surreal tale as if it were nothing, then removed her hand from her head and spoke as if reflecting, “There are too many gaps in my memory. Now that I remember Sage the Wise upon arriving here, if I go to the Eastern Continent and meet that sage, perhaps the rest of my memories will return.”

Jade felt as if she had overheard the secrets of creation from a passing merchant.

Unable to contain herself, Jade asked, “Now that you remember, tell me more. Where do the angels live? Above the clouds? In the sky?”

“Should I say it’s a place that feels above the sky because the clouds are beneath? Anyway, it hardly matters since angels can fly.”

Ruby’s response was casual. It sounded less credible than a sailor’s tale of boarding a ghost ship, drinking with ghosts, and obtaining a treasure map.

Ruby shook her head again.

“No, my memory must be wrong! I don’t recall crossing the sea when I went to the Eastern Continent.”

“Then did you fly there?” Jade inquired.

“I walked.”

“You walked across the Mediterranean? You know how to walk on water?”

“No. I walked on ordinary land. There were times I swam for a few hours to cross a river or traverse a lake, but I have no memory of crossing a vast sea. Not that I’ve never been to the sea, but that was after meeting the angels… or was it before?”

Ruby’s confusion grew.

Emerald clarified for her, “Did you perhaps keep heading north?”

“I don’t know the direction. But I do remember this: the trees there were frozen like ice, sparkling like jewels. Wait a minute! There were guardians like you there, weren’t there? Unlike you, they all kindly showed me the way.”

Ruby spoke as if challenging.

“That place is the Ice Forest, the northernmost part of Elforest. Guardians watch over it in preparation for the end times to come. My sister Artemisia is also one of those guardians,” Emerald recited.

“If you pass through the Ice Forest and head further north, you’ll reach a desert of ice and snow, no longer part of Elforest or the elves’ domain. The cold there is so intense that your breath freezes and falls to the ground. After enduring that fearsome cold, the Eastern Continent appears.”

Jade tried to picture the map in her mind and asked, “So you keep going north and then east?”

“No. If you keep going north, you’ll reach the Eastern Continent. I haven’t been there myself, but it’s a familiar tale.”

“Where does such a place exist?”

“It exists. You probably won’t understand. Let’s depart.”

Emerald seemed displeased ever since the Ice Forest was mentioned. Even now, as he left, his pace seemed hurried.

The guide moved, and the rest had no choice but to follow.

“So, is this the second time you’ve met Sage?” Emerald asked, keeping his eyes forward.

“The third time.”

Ruby tapped his back, and with each touch, the blade of Buffalo appeared and disappeared.

“To find a weapon to defeat the angels. I’ve decided that to beat the angels, I need a weapon of the opposite nature, a demon’s weapon.”

Jade shuddered at his conclusion.

Efficiency in battle… Ruby had no distinction between good and evil when it came to victory.

“So you came to Sage a second time to ask how to obtain a demon’s weapon? Surely Sage opposed it?” Jade asked hastily.

“It doesn’t seem like she opposed it?”

“She didn’t oppose it?” Jade was taken aback.

“This advice I remember clearly,” Ruby said, reconstructing Sage’s words.

“…Is fighting angels fun? If you want to keep enjoying the fight, never seek a demon’s weapon. The moment you obtain it, the battle will no longer be enjoyable but rather desperate, and you will always end up crying…”

Ruby lowered her hand from her head and continued, “Instead, she advised me to seek a weapon forged by a dwarf blacksmith. And so, I obtained a staff made of Umparuton. It was a satisfactory result.”

Jade finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Emerald, feigning disinterest, continued to walk through the marsh. However, his fiddling with the dagger of Buffalo suggested that Ruby’s story had indeed bothered him.

“Is this staff made from Umparuton… essentially a weapon of the angels?” Jade asked with a long yawn.

It was early morning, and she hadn’t slept well the previous night, feeling quite exhausted. Yet, she took some comfort in the little rest she did manage to get.

“Not all angels wield such weapons, but many do possess Umparuton arms,” came the reply.

“Then we must make it our mission to find this weapon. With it, we wouldn’t need any demonic armaments, would we?”

“It only needs to be similar. Then I could easily discard such a dull blade at your whim,” Ruby retorted, slapping her back once more.

In a brief moment, the black sword revealed itself with a metallic ring before turning transparent.

It took half a day more to completely emerge from the Whispering Marshes.

Ruby was eager to reach her destination alone, to confront Cauking and end the situation in one fell swoop.

Even if she couldn’t undertake the quest for the Holy Grail alone, for reasons ‘here and there’ as Jade had put it, eliminating the demons’ leader seemed like a task she could handle by herself.

The plan was simple.

She knew their lair; standing before it and calling out, “Cauking, show yourself!” would surely draw someone out, and she could eliminate them one by one until Cauking had no choice but to appear.

Then she would strike.

End of situation.

Jade, slow in her steps, and Merald, who had no choice but to walk late alongside her, guiding her, finally arrived.

Ruby threw a half-mocking, half-apologetic remark at Merald.

“You’re no longer needed. I’ve taken care of everything.”

In her daydreams, having dispatched Cauking, Ruby hastened her journey, even freeing herself from the shackles around her neck. She imagined finding the Holy Grail in the eastern continent, handing it to Jade, bidding farewell, and then setting off to exact revenge on the angels. But snapping back to reality, she saw Jade, slow-footed as ever, stumbling into another swamp, further delaying their already sluggish journey.

“What a waste of time. I don’t even need the light of annihilation anymore.”

Ruby hoped the fish-like Komoras would attack once more. If she could effortlessly dispatch them with the sword of Buffalord, perhaps Jade would be swayed by her argument.

Suddenly, Ruby wondered if the weapon she currently possessed was superior to the angel-specific Umparuton arms.

In her memory, Umparuton weapons didn’t have a particular ‘function’ for vanquishing demons. The shackles and chains she wore, also made of Umparuton, proved as much, offering no special power against demons.

“Come to think of it, angels always prepare for battles with demons, but they don’t seem to have weapons specifically designed to counter them,” Ruby mused aloud.

To Ruby, it was a logical conclusion, but to Jade, it seemed like a random interjection.

“Do you always speak so abruptly? Is this related to the earlier conversation about angelic weapons?”

Eventually, they left the marsh behind, and for the first time in a while, they trod upon firm earthen paths. Grass and trees replaced the reeds and moss.

“Angels have ‘innate weapons,’ making Umparuton arms mostly unnecessary. If they can wield magic of light, there’s no need for specialized weapons to defeat demons,” Ruby concluded to herself.

“Innate weapons? Like blades growing out of their bodies?” Jade inquired.

“Fire and claws, wings are enough. While some angels may lack these, most are incredibly powerful. I was scorned and discriminated against by the angels for not having them.”

“If you remember anything about the angels, could you elaborate?” Jade asked, intrigued.

“What’s there to elaborate? It’s all in the scriptures. Even though you were excommunicated, you’ve read the scriptures, haven’t you? And Sapph, of course?”

Ruby looked between Jade and Sapph as she spoke.

Sapph answered first.

“The scriptures say that whenever angels appear, they are always accompanied by light, fire, and wind. Sometimes clouds gather, and thunder and lightning strike. Is that true?”

“Angels do love grandeur, so it’s possible. They did the same when they came to capture me. They could have caught me if they had attacked stealthily, but they chose to stir up the wind and land with a thunderous boom! From a human perspective, it would seem like thunder and lightning.”

Ruby clenched her fist to demonstrate.

“Of course, I can make such a noise without the angels’ weapons. When I lived atop a high mountain, I deliberately caused an avalanche, earning the nickname ‘Great Demon of the Snowy Mountain’ from the locals. Hahaha.”

“An avalanche on purpose? Why would you do such a terrible thing?” Sapph asked.

“There are times when causing one deliberately is better. No one died, so it’s fine.”

“Avalanches are terrifying disasters. When could that ever be better?”

“If you don’t know, just shut up, you blockhead!”

“…That insult doesn’t sound very nice.”

“You sound like a bee drowning in honey! Insults are meant to be unpleasant!”

Merald stopped in his tracks.

“Sorry to interrupt, but we need to keep our voices down from now on.”

“There’s nothing more to say. But why?” Ruby asked defiantly, not lowering her voice.

“Because we’ve arrived at our destination.”

“Don’t you know their eye magic? They’ve already detected our approach!”

“There’s no need to draw more attention to ourselves.”

“Hmph!”

With one last snort, Ruby fell silent.

“By destination, you mean… here is that…?” Jade trailed off.

Merald spoke in a hushed tone, “Indeed. Combining the tales of Buffalord and the words of Captain Buren, this place is the stronghold of the Cow King.”

Merald halted in his tracks.

Before them lay a vast lake, obstructing their path.