World Keeper

Chapter 468: Roaring Shadow

The reveal of so many new worlds… well, it shocked me to say the least. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to buy even half of them. When I made a quick check of one of the words, I found that the civilization wasn’t too advanced.

From what I could gather, the system only advanced it up to the basic tribal stage before determining that the planet had successfully cultivated a sapient race. Maybe that was to prevent contradictions with alien races not making their way towards a Keeper’s world early.

If that were the case, then it depended entirely on how long it took my people to find these worlds to determine what level they would reach before that point. Assuming that they were even capable of surviving that long without the concepts of levels, given that I knew monsters existed on these planets.

Speaking of monsters, I briefly turned my attention back to Eingard. Since Ryone and I had spent four years looking at Sorii to determine the growth cycle of the Tree of Life, I had missed any developments that might have happened on other fronts during that time.

When my gaze fell over Eingard, I saw that… the storm was still in place. I saw the ruins of the habitation base, and the abandoned ship floating in orbit. Shaking my head, it was clear that Deckan gave up on establishing a colony on such a hostile world. Probably not the worst choice, though. Now that warp drives were developed, Deckan would again have their chance to establish colonies on other worlds.

Looking back to Deckan itself, I found several new satellites hovering in orbit around the planet, forming an array of sort. Once I appraised them, I understood that these were a new planetary defense system that had been created in order to defend against monsters such as the elemental swarm of Eingard. Again, probably a wise move.

A tall, muscular woman with black hair tied in a bun grinned as she looked up at the multiple flaming spheres resting within the ‘sky’ of the twenty-second floor of Fyor. By now, although the gate to the twenty-third floor had already been discovered, the environment of this area was not nearly as hostile as that of the previous two floors.

“Let’s do this.” She spoke to herself confidently, a small, demon girl stepping out from her shadow to walk next to her. Immediately, the two of them made their way to the Adventurer’s Guild, and walked up to the halfling receptionist on duty.

“Yes, how may I help you?” The young man asked, looking up at her muscular frame.

“I’m here to register myself and my friend with this world’s guild. Think you can help with that?” The human woman asked with that same grin. The halfling blinked in surprise, as normally such requests would be handled on lower floors. However, seeing that neither of the two of them were having any difficulties withstanding the pressure of this floor, he nodded.

“Very well, can I get your names?” He pulled out a small stack of papers from a drawer in his desk.

“Maria Maller and Petra Carna.” The woman said, pointing to herself first, and then the demoness. “Just came in from Earth.”

“Do you have any specialties you would like to list?” The halfling nodded, filling in their names and origin. “If you’d like, you can leave that area blank for confidentiality.”

“No need.” Maria shook her head. “I’m what you’d call a Maxer Warrior and Weaponmaster. Petra here…”

“I’m a Maxer Barbarian and Druid.” Petra spoke up with a sweet smile. Demons were not a particularly long-lived race, so being a Maxer at her apparent age was quite surprising to the halfling. Even moreso when one of her main classes was as a barbarian. However, hearing that the two of them both had physical classes did explain how they were so easily able to withstand the increased gravity.

“Very well…” He nodded again, filling in the information as given. “Would you like to register for a party?”

“That’s right, though for just the two of us. Shouldn’t be a problem, right?” Maria asked, causing the halfling to shake his head. “For the party name, just register us as Roaring Shadow.”

“An… interesting name, but very well.” The halfling nodded, taking the forms and hopping down from his seat. “Just a moment, and I’ll have your guild badges.”

Really, Maria? Roaring Shadow… Sora’s voice spoke up dryly from Maria and Petra’s shadow.

Heheh, I kind of liked it. Petra responded, causing Maria to grin.

Once the two of you are settled in, we’ll bring in Sora as the third member of your party. This time, it was Thelsa’s voice that spoke directly, causing the other three to fall silent for a brief moment. For now, try to explore this area. Once Sora joins, the three of you will start working on exploring the twenty-third floor.

They haven’t found the class orb for this floor yet, have they? Petra asked hopefully. Everyone’s assuming that it will be the Summoner orb. Should we try to get it?

Hells yeah! Maria nodded her head as the halfling returned carrying to platinum badges, showing that the two of them had the strength to survive on the highest level of Fyor. Of course we’re going to find it!

You two… Thelsa let out a long sigh. If it doesn’t cause any problems, you can find the orb. I don’t have the capacity to make a fourth shadow yet, so try not to be too reckless. Of course, she knew that that might be asking for a bit much. She had made Maria as a bold dungeon explorer, and Petra had already shown how energetic she was when it came to adventure.

“Here you go.” The halfling spoke as he presented the two badges to Maria and Petra. “Are you looking to take on any work immediately?”

“No thanks, mister.” Petra gave that same sweet smile. “We want to look around the area first. But we’ll come back and let you know when we’re ready to take on guild business!”

Maria simply chuckled at that, lowering a hand to ruffle Petra’s hair, careful of her horns. “What she said.”

“Then I wish the two of you luck.” The halfling nodded, dismissing them so he could help the next person in line.

The two members of the Roaring Shadow party began walking out of the guild hall, glancing towards each other with knowing smiles. Maria waved an arm, and a giant axe appeared next to her, larger than her entire body. “Let’s go have some fun.”

Petra let out a laugh, and the two kicked off the ground, running towards a distant mountain range that could be seen on the horizon. A renowned dungeon explorer of Earth paired with one of the top ten dungeon masters. No matter how people looked at the party, they seemed to fit perfectly with one another.

“How’s this, Tsuba?” Dana asked, presenting a grimoire to Tsubaki. The two of them were currently seated within the courtyard of the Sky Citadel, with Dana having a small brush tucked between two fingers.

Tsubaki simply smiled, her radiance currently restrained as she took the grimoire and opened it. The two of them were currently practicing a new theory that they thought of. When a spell was recorded into the grimoires, their pages would populate with various symbols and patterns. Thus, they believed that it should be possible to write the spells directly into the grimoire without the need to personally cast them.

“What’s the purpose of the spell you wrote here?” Tsubaki asked before even looking at the paper. This was the first step that they always took, as it ensured the greatest accuracy of the trial.

“It’s supposed to be a spell to lift a rock.” Dana answered without a moment of hesitation. If the two of them managed to perfect this technique, then it would be possible to mass produce these grimoires much more easily with pre-written spells. They could even use the method on enchanted paper to create a new type of magic scroll.

Tsubaki nodded her head, looking for a nearby rock to test it on. With a bit of focus, one of the border rocks from the garden flew over and rested before her. Then, she aimed the grimoire at that rock and activated the spell within.

The rock… did not float. Rather, it shot forward, bouncing off of the ground and shooting into the air. Tsubaki was only barely able to catch it in time before it collided with the barrier of the citadel. When she returned, Dana gave an embarrassed laugh. “W-well… it did something, right?”

Tsubaki paused for a moment, before giving a warm smile. “That’s right… it did.” Maybe not the effect that Dana intended, but the simple fact that a magical effect had been written by hand meant that such a thing was possible. They just needed to crack the pattern behind how the grimoires recorded magic.

To test that, Tsubaki opened the grimoire again, preparing to recast the magic with the correct method. When she did, though, she noticed that the previous spell was still there. It was normal for a spell to vanish from the grimoire after a complete cast, unless said cast was used only to further empower the spell within the grimoire.

“Now that… is interesting.” Tsubaki muttered, flipping the page and recording the ‘correct’ spell. Then, she cast that recorded spell, confirming that it vanished after use. “Very interesting.”

“I guess this means we’ll have a new type of magic scrolls soon, huh?” I asked Ryone as the two of us stared at the screen, watching Tsubaki and Dana’s experiments.

“Indeed… and durable ones, too. Current scrolls are destroyed after use by the mana within them being unleashed. If they are able to create reusable scrolls using the grimoires as a base, it would only be rivaled by the card magic of Deckan.”

I gave a small nod at Ryone’s assessment. “Of course, I don’t think that they’ll ever become more capable than those cards, since stronger spells will require multiple pages, whereas any spell can fit within a single card. But the technology to produce those cards only really exists within Deckan, so this will be seen as a welcome alternative by the other worlds.”

“Hey, mister.” Ryone grinned, poking me in the side. “Leave the market analysis to the Goddess of Merchants, will you? Though I don’t necessarily disagree with you. Once mass production is possible, there will probably be scroll versions of the different household card spells in Deckan. They may even be cheaper to produce, since they don’t require the contribution of spiritual energy.”

That was an interesting point as well. As long as a machine was capable of imprinting mana and natural energy, as well as the raw materials, it could endlessly produce grimoires. Meanwhile, cards did not require any raw materials, but cost spiritual energy.

The spirit was a hard thing to recover, so dozens of people were needed every day to contribute to the mass printing machines in Deckan. They were paid quite well to come in one day a week and have a small amount of their spiritual energy siphoned, then given the rest of the week to recover.

Because of this, it was hard to tell which would really be more popular. After all, it also had to be considered that the cards were easier to carry than a larger scroll…

I shook my head, getting rid of those thoughts. That would be something for my people to figure out, not something that required me to worry over it. “By the way, where’s Leowynn?” I asked Ryone. I could feel her presence nearby, but didn’t want to pry too deeply.

“Hmm? She went to play with Aurivy, I think.” Ryone nodded after she said that. “Aurivy wanted to try out some different games, and wanted her help.”

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