Chapter 28: Liana, Once Again
The brilliant light surrounding Kaian finally shattered.
And the new form that gently descended before Finn was so astonishing that...
Kaian placed both hands on his hips and proudly declared,
"Ta-da!"
"Behold, the Hero of the Golden Plains!"
"Mister Pickaxe has arrived!"
Finn doubted her own eyes.
She even rubbed them several times.
"...What is that?"
Dust-brown work boots.
Worn blue overalls.
Dirty gloves that looked as though they should be covered in soil.
A ridiculously high-quality pickaxe gripped in those gloved hands.
And finally...
A sun cap so painfully bright that Finn could barely look at it, because its brim had been lined with silver-white metal.
Finn stammered.
"You..."
"Did you put Amber's Sealing Stone..."
"In the middle of the pickaxe?"
"Yeah!"
"That way, I can attack and immediately speak the activation phrase."
"Efficient, right?"
His bright innocence physically hurt.
"Why..."
"Why would you do that?"
"There are swords."
"Axes."
"Bows."
"Lots of cool weapons!"
Kaian lifted the brim of his sun cap and tilted his head.
"Isn't this cooler?"
Finn looked horrified.
Kaian only tilted his head farther.
He genuinely believed he looked cool.
I learned this while farming.
Overalls and boots allowed excellent movement.
They resisted dirt and impact.
The boots, especially, would not easily be damaged even if his hand slipped and a sharp tool scraped across them.
And the gloves!
They had anti-slip treatment.
They protected his palms from old farming tool handles.
They stopped tools from slipping because of sweat.
And even when he changed his grip mid-swing, they helped keep the handle from flying out of his hand.
Kaian became excited.
"And look at the pickaxe blade!"
"I mixed obsidian into it!"
"Piggy had tusks exactly like this when I met him in the volcanic region."
"That means it can hold fire mana and become even harder."
"It can bring down even a really thick tree in three or four hits."
"Cool, right?"
"Amazing, right?"
Kaian seemed completely unable to see Finn's blank expression.
He was far too busy bragging about his pickaxe.
"I've never used a sword or bow."
"But I've swung a pickaxe until my arms nearly fell off!"
"The Golden Plains are unbelievably fertile."
"No matter how many rocks I dig up, more keep appearing."
"Seriously."
"It's horrible."
"Now I can tell exactly where I need to hit just by looking."
"I'm basically a master."
"Oh, we're going this way."
Kaian bounced ahead.
Every once in a while, he turned around to continue explaining to Finn.
"And this sun cap!"
"I wrapped it with the silver-white metal from the vein."
"Silver melts easily under heat."
"So I can make it flow like this and collect it."
"Or gather it all to one side."
"Cool, right?"
"I also made the strap wrap around my entire head so it won't fall off."
"Want me to make one for Finn too?"
"...No."
Finn decided to ignore the reality that her wonderful prince had transformed into an outstanding farmer.
And made a vow deep inside her heart.
Once they returned...
She would absolutely show Kaian books about fashion design.
Thanks to Kaian freely controlling the maze walls, the two traveled by the shortest route and reached their destination.
"This is it."
Only one wall remained between them and the residual mana.
Kaian placed a hand against the enormous maze wall.
Then warned Finn.
"We don't know what abilities it has besides illusion magic."
"So hide properly."
Finn nodded firmly.
"Okay."
"Don't worry."
"If things go bad, I'll run away by myself."
"No, not that far..."
"Please help if you can."
Finn giggled.
"We'll see."
Then she slipped into the chest pocket of Kaian's overalls.
"All right!"
"Open it!"
"Let's go!"
"Haah."
Kaian pouted and concentrated mana into his palm.
Inside his inner world...
Creating a door in the wall felt easier than opening a heavy door in reality.
I guess I use imagination instead of muscles here.
For example...
When he needed to open a massive section of the maze wall like this...
He first created a handle.
Then I imagine a giant.
A giant so enormous that its head touched the ceiling and had to tilt sideways.
Then the giant grabbed the handle and opened the wall for him.
Imagining the giant politely saying...
Please come in.
That part was optional.
At first, Kaian had tried strengthening his muscles and opening the doors himself.
But this method suits me better.
It's more fun too.
An ordinary mage would never spend this much mana just to open a door in a maze wall.
Doing so right before battle would be considered wasteful.
But Kaian possessed an absurd amount of mana.
So the concept of waste still did not exist for him.
He cast magic freely without limiting his imagination.
All he had to do was imagine something clearly.
Rrrrrrrrumble...
Bright light began spilling through the opening wall.
As if she had only just remembered, Finn looked up at Kaian.
"Wait."
"The residual mana will look like your mother."
"Can you really attack her with that pickaxe?"
"What are you talking about?"
"How could I attack Mother?"
Finn tilted her head.
Kaian tilted his head too.
Rrrrrumble...
"Then what are you going to do if you won't attack?"
"Who said I'm not attacking?"
Their conversation spun in circles.
Rrrrrumble...
"Huh?"
"So you're attacking?"
"Your mother?"
"I said I'm not."
THUD!
Meanwhile...
The giant fully opened the door.
"Ugh!"
"I don't know anymore!"
Finn became anxious and completely hid inside Kaian's pocket, leaving only her face peeking out.
Kaian puffed out his chest confidently.
"Don't worry."
"I read books for fun."
"I'm the brains here."
"I have a plan."
He confidently walked into the room overflowing with light.
And once again...
Liana stood there waiting for him.
"Welcome back."
Only this time...
Kaian's two older brothers stood beside her as children.
Kaian muttered helplessly.
"Now it's a family gathering..."
Liana and his young brothers were practicing dancing.
The brothers tripped over their own feet.
Then fought over who would dance with their mother.
Liana laughed aloud at their behavior.
Then looked at Kaian.
"Our youngest."
"Come here too."
The familiar and endlessly gentle voice he had longed for every night caused Kaian's eyes to waver.
But Liana's face was still hidden by shimmering light.
As if trying to conceal that weakness...
The illusion reached out toward Kaian with an even gentler voice.
"It's okay."
"Mother will teach you slowly."
Kaian clenched his fist.
If he stepped close enough to take that hand...
He felt as though he might finally see his mother's radiant smile again.
But he did not move.
Instead...
Kaian quietly looked at the brothers standing beside her.
He muttered,
"This is strange after all..."
His brothers beckoned for him to come over.
But there was one major problem.
Their faces were perfectly clear.
Kaian fought back tears and slowly shook his head.
"I don't remember my brothers looking that young."
Only then did Liana's illusion lower her extended hand.
Kaian desperately wanted to run forward and grab it.
But he could not.
Even if he had to cut off both legs...
He could not.
He controlled the emotions raging inside him.
Then continued as clearly as possible.
"If you wanted to move me..."
"It would've been easier to show me what my brothers looked like when they attended the Academy."
"But you didn't."
Why?
That was not Kaian's only question.
"If you really wanted to completely fool me..."
"The fastest way would've been showing Mother's face."
"But..."
"Before and now..."
"All I see there is light."
Those two inconsistencies gave him one answer.
Why could it accurately create the childhood faces of his brothers, which Kaian himself did not remember...
While failing to create the face he longed for most?
Kaian looked up with certainty.
"These are all Mother's memories, aren't they?"
That was why his brothers' faces were clear.
And why the face of the person who actually owned those memories could not be seen.
People looked into mirrors every day and still had difficulty remembering their own faces perfectly.
Kaian slowly looked over his brothers again.
So this is how my brothers looked in Mother's memories...
They looked innocent.
Adorable.
Full of happiness.
His mother had faithfully carried out her role.
She had engraved the sight of her two beautiful sons completely into her heart.
But...
There was no way to know how beautiful she herself had been at that time.
Or how happy she had looked.
That had probably been the role of his father and brothers.
...So Mother's face will never appear in this scene.
Kaian looked around the room with tear-filled eyes.
"So this is how bright our home looked through Mother's eyes."
Kaian tried to remember the house as he himself had seen it.
But...
Screaming.
Blood.
Fire.
Everything else had become blurry.
Kaian asked himself a question.
Have I ever actually remembered the times when I was happy?
Did the peaceful feeling of home still remain inside him?
Or had hatred and rage blinded him so completely that he had thrown every memory of the past into the flames?
Kaian pulled the sun cap low over his face.
"...No wonder Mother doesn't want to let me go."
Tap.
For an instant...
Finn felt a droplet fall unexpectedly onto her head.
But she did not get a chance to check.
Kaian suddenly sprinted to the right.
Tap tap tap tap!
The moment Kaian entered the room through the maze wall...
He reconfirmed the strange feeling he had sensed when he first met the fake Liana.
Just as I thought...
The position where the illusion appears and the position where the mana feels strongest are different.
In other words...
Something else inside the room was creating the illusion.
That's probably the true body of the residual mana.
Kaian could roughly sense the direction where that core existed.
But wildly swinging his pickaxe in that direction would be dangerous.
What if the residual mana's true body is a tiny bead?
Or several smaller fragments?
He had no chance of hitting it through rough guesswork alone.
So what could he do?
Kaian decided to gamble on one possibility.
The light around Liana's face.
His theory was simple.
What if that was not self-generated light...
But light being projected by the residual mana's true body?
There has to be a reason it uses light instead of smoke or some other blur.
This room was the best place to test the hypothesis.
This residual mana had failed to join the others and remained trapped alone.
So Kaian assumed it was relatively weak.
Even if the gamble fails, it's okay.
He could simply rebuild the maze and find another method.
Either way...
He could not take another step without testing the idea.
Kaian tightened his grip around the pickaxe.
Right.
This is exactly why I wrapped the sun cap with silver-white metal.
Silver-white metal possessed high magical conductivity.
And excellent reflectivity.
If my theory is correct...
If he placed the sun cap between the illusion and the point where he sensed mana...
The light emitted by the residual mana's true body would reflect directly back toward its source.
Then I'll know exactly where to swing the pickaxe.
That was the thought process that led to the moment...
Finn felt something wet fall onto her head.
Tap tap tap tap!
Kaian finally put his plan into action.
