Mordred’s finger traced the edges of the screen. While the Shinkansen lacked physical windows, extended periods within its confines were known to adversely affect human psychological well-being. Therefore, the interior facing the external world was adorned with screens, seamlessly projecting the outside scenery into the train.
The Shinkansen hurtles through the air at a velocity beyond mortal comprehension, Mach 10, so the scenery is filtered by the screens before reaching human eyes. Still, the Land of Autumn Rain of Morgen World presents a picturesque landscape, brimming with its own unique charm.
Currently, the train is passing through the skies of a water-path resource point. Intense thunderstorms, accompanied by heavy downpours of dark raindrops blocked most of the view, reducing the line-of-sight by a great degree. However, no matter how perilous or chaotic the situation outside, the Shinkansen passengers couldn’t feel the slightest turbulence.
As the thunderstorm’s flashes illuminate the screen, Mordred’s memory is gradually being refreshed. Like a fragment of a core memory, a small piece begins to play in his consciousness, evoking a bittersweet wave of nostalgia.
‘If I recall correctly, the atmosphere of Jupiter is filled with thunderstorms too…’ He felt a sudden pang of homesickness. ‘I want to go home…’
“Hey!” A man’s arm suddenly patted his shoulder, bringing his distracted thoughts back. Mordred looked at the owner of the hand only to find out it was Nagata, the youth who worked together with him during the last battle against the formic beasts.
“You’re out early…” Mordred commented.
“Yeah, but you’re earlier than me.” Nagata nudged, “Some of us want to hang out and talk about our encounter with the Captain of Twin Helix. Do you have some time?”
Mordred pondered for a brief second, weighing his options. “Is there any significance in gathering and talking about useless stuff? I’d rather meditate.”
“Don’t be like that, you’ve been holed up in your room ever since we hopped on the train. Besides, I can tell that you’re not familiar with the captain of your patron Hunter team. I’m sure you’re interested in what we’re going to talk about.”
“Miss Shion?” He raised his eyebrows.
“Unlike other rank 1 Official Hunters, she doesn’t produce the slightest amount of radiation. Don’t you want to know more?”
“Heh.” Mordred followed Nagata’s footsteps. “You got my interest.”
…
The room has already filled to the brim with youths, sitting in a circular position.
“Captain Yukikaze Shion is the 68th princess of the Yukikaze clan, she’s currently 21 years old and cultivates sound-path.” A mage apprentice elaborated on what she knew about Shion while everyone else listened, “If you want to understand why she’s so strong, you have to know what happened to her.
At the age of 14, a Yukikaze clan’s routine extradimensional expedition went horribly wrong, causing her to be captured by a group of necromancers. She was already a rank 1 Official at that time. To be fair, if you want to kill a Yukikaze clansman, you can simply achieve that, but doing so would brand you with a special mark which was extremely difficult to erase. It’s no different than suicide since the Yukikaze clan has a special group highly specialized in hunting people down.
So, what the necromancers did was to sell her… Wait, sorry, that came out wrong. What I meant was to sell her body parts to those who are interested in the Yukikaze clan’s inheritance. They harvested her pair of magic eyes, her two hearts, her intestines, a few spinal segments, all of her rib cages, and her four limbs…” The youth is seemingly unable to endure narrating what Shion has gone through.
After a brief moment, she continues, “To make time for their escape, the necromancers left Miss Shion for death in the wild, but not after ensuring her survival for at least a couple of more days. I heard they smeared her corpse with numbing poison to slow her death, but when the Yukikaze clansmen found her two weeks later, she was miraculously still alive. It was found out later that Miss Shion had been using a minor sound-path method to make her veins pulse by itself which allows her to barely survive without her two hearts.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Holy shit…” Another youth uttered in amazement. “Is that actually possible?” His question sparked a short session of discussion.
“Sound-path is about vibration and waves, I think that is possible, but only if her understanding of sound-path is profound. After all, making her own veins pulsing by itself in exchange for a heart for a prolonged amount of time must be incredibly taxing. If her calculations are wrong, she might shatter her veins…” A smart-looking youth interjected. “Ah, sorry, please continue.”
“Right.” The first youth continued her narration, “According to rumors, the Yukikaze clan went to the Kingdom’s capital, imploring the Kyuubi to save her. Unfortunately, due to the secretive nature of the Yukikaze clan’s cultivation system, the favor of our patron deity is incapable of saving her… Even if they successfully ‘resurrect’ her to full health, she won’t be able to cultivate in their original system. I heard that she was originally a once-in-a-thousand-years grade-SS spirit talent and had a pair of extremely powerful magic eyes that could deduce- and imitate- magic spells with a single glance. Losing them was no different than losing her future…
However, she did not give in to despair.
What she had lost, she will regain through her own effort. The Yukikaze clan spent a lot of resources to purchase a copious amount of body mods from Kaiserreich to turn Miss Shion into a Convert: a joint of man and machine. Ever since then, she has become the greatest Official antimage in the Southeast Hunter Academy. She was so famous there that some Mage Lords asked her to spar to improve their methods…”
“Being capable of bouncing back from the depth of despair to achieve what she is now… Miss Shion is truly a woman of focus, commitment, and sheer fucking will.” Nagata commented next to Mordred.
“Hmm.” Mordred didn’t think too much about how she became famous. He already knew that the identity of Yukikaze Shion must be as eye-catching as possible, but he wasn’t sure about which portion of her backstory was fabricated. Nevertheless, he got what he wanted. Now he knows what the public perception of her was: as a woman who survived life-and-death struggles through (mostly) her effort.
Naturally, most people would forget that it was the Yukikaze clan that supplied the imported body mods that made up her current body. If it was a talented nobody like Satoru, he’d just die or perhaps, turn into a corpse-puppet of those necromancers in the first place.
Nevertheless, her story was somewhat motivational to the general public.
Now that everyone is more aware of who Shion is and what kind of background she possesses, the youths begin to whisper amongst themselves. It took some time for everyone to calm down from excitement.
The first youth resumed her narration with a fervent gleam in her eyes, her voice carrying the weight of conviction, “Now that we have entered into a Soul Contract with Miss Shion and earned her trust, I believe we stand apart from the rest. We share a bond that, while not bound by blood, is nonetheless substantial enough to elicit genuine care and concern for one another. Wouldn’t you all agree?”
A hushed intensity settled over the group, each member subtly acknowledging the gravity of their newfound connection. This shared secret, the Soul Contract, bound them together in a way that transcended the ordinary bounds of camaraderie, or at least it made them think so. They were now a clandestine assemble, united by their shared destiny and knowledge that they were something more than they appeared.
Seeing the exchange escalating into promises to protect and support each other in some way without making the eyes of others turn towards them, Mordred conceals a smirk. ‘The soul rune can also be considered as an extension of a [Life-Alteration Surgery]. However, instead of altering the physical body, it works by altering the host’s sense of worth and ego. The rune that Shion engraved on their sea of consciousness works incredibly fast… it was able to unite them into groups in a short amount of time. Is this… the early stages of a cult?’
According to his calculation, this must not be the first time Shion had done this. Even if Shion didn’t do it, other Color Fragments would’ve done the same. Mordred isn’t fully aware of the scale of this scheme, but it must be massive. After all, his enemy is literally the strongest faction in Morgen World, the Sacred Alliance. What he can see right now must be the breadcrumbs left behind.
‘As expected of my pre-reincarnation self. I might not be as powerful as Asmodeus in terms of raw power, but my greatest strength isn't open combat but intrigue and assassination. I should assume that there are already apprentices converted into sleeper agents in the Royal Academy…’
“Alright, I’ll leave first,” Mordred announced. Some like Nagata and Kaishin confirm his departure, but in the minds of the apprentices, ‘Satoru’ has already become a member of their group.