CHAPTER 40: MEMORY

The sword was heavy, sharp, and sturdy. Lifting it, Zephyr took a step back to stabilize his body. Losing an arm was messing with his balance.

A moment later, he exclaimed.

"Hm...That’s odd!" He thought aloud.

Then he closed his eyes and focused on the sword. He was fully utilising his mana sense to look into it. And as he was doing it, he noticed something peculiar.

There was a mana core embedded in the hilt of the sword.

’A magical sword?’ Zephyr wondered.

The mana core was firmly embedded between the hilt and blade. He could sense a tremendous amount of mana flowing inside it.

If you compare it to his overall mana level, it would be a couple of dozen times more.

Zephyr was shocked to see it.

"Thank god he didn’t use it," Zephyr muttered and opened his eyes.

He didn’t even have to think to know the sword was a magical weapon that could release a powerful attack. Gale must have stored mana in it as a final trump card against his enemies.

Luckily, he didn’t consider Zephyr an enemy and didn’t use the mana. If he had, it would not have ended with losing just an arm.

"Gulp."

Zephyr swallowed hard.

’Although I don’t like to believe in luck, this time I really was lucky.’

Zephyr dragged the sword and walked forward. A couple of steps away, he could see his severed arm lying in the mud.

Watching it, he released a dejected sigh.

It was sad—losing an arm and all. He was not fully over it.

The only reason he was so calm about it was that there existed many ways to grow back an arm in this world. If not for that, Zephyr would have been relatively more sad.

There was no way to quantify how sad he would be.

After all, he rarely felt any emotion. And even if he did, he would suppress it to the bare minimum since he considered them unnecessary.

’Fortunately, this is a game world. And I can fix my arm.’ He mumbled before picking up the arm.

There was nothing he could do about it for now. But he didn’t want to leave it there either.

After all, who knows if a mad mage would use it to create a chimera? So, instead of leaving it there, Zephyr wanted to destroy it thoroughly. For that, incinerating was the ideal outcome.

"To survive, I must cremate a part of myself. How poetic?"

Zephyr put his severed arm into his inner robe.

Then his eyes moved far away to the side where Gale’s head had flown away. The mask was still attached to the head, and Gale had asked him to take it when he died.

Zephyr had an inkling that the mask had something to do with how he would receive the information.

’Can the mask speak?’

’You never know in this world.’

He strolled over to the edge of the garden. Gale’s head was sitting there on the far side of the garden, near a tree.

From the looks of it, the head seemed to have collided with the tree, cracking the outer bark.

"Old man, sorry about that," Zephyr muttered as he crouched down near the head.

Immediately, the foul smell of burnt flesh and hair flew into his nose. It was a disgusting smell that made him queasy.

Zephyr breathed through his mouth to avoid the smell and touched the charred skull.

Most of it was destroyed. But the mask was still attached to the front side.

Zephyr tried to rip away the mask.

And just as he began to pull, a sudden pulse of mana travelled through the mask into his body.

Then, it turned into a liquid metal, melting into his skin.

Panicked, Zephyr pulled back his hand.

But it was too late.

The mask fused with his hand before he could do anything else.

’What the...’ He exclaimed, watching the metallic luster being absorbed into his body, dispersing quickly.

’...the fuq is that?’

He felt no pain as the mask disappeared into him.

’Where did it go?’ He wondered, looking at his hand.

’Did I get scammed?’

Gale had promised to share more information. However, the mask, which he hoped would provide him with the information, disappeared into his body.

’Wait a minute.’ Suddenly, Zephyr paused ’What if the mask didn’t disappear?’

In this magical world, anything was possible.

So, he bent his middle and ring finger inwards, towards his wrist, and tried to shoot out the mask—like a certain webslinging menace.

But it didn’t work.

’Well, you never know until you try.’

He giggled, amused by his own antics, and closed his eyes. This time, he meditated to enter his mindscape.

And just as he thought, the mask was floating within his mindscape, next to the cluster of cores.

’What better place than a mage’s mindscape to share secret information?’

The cores were arranged in circular formations, each emulating a spell matrix. Anytime he wanted, Zephyr could rearrange the cores, creating different spells on the fly.

He marvelled at his glorious creation, the modular spell matrix he developed through pure desperation, for a while, and floated closer to the mask hovering nearby.

The mask or its previous owner seemed to have chosen his mindscape as the clandestine meeting spot. The reason for doing so was supposedly to hide certain information from his master.

Zephyr floated forward gently and observed it.

’If it had negative intentions, my mind would have rejected it. So, I can safely assume it means no harm.’

He lifted his invisible hand and thought of touching it.

Immediately, a cold sensation flowed through the mask into his consciousness, enhancing his mind’s clarity. Zephyr was pleasantly surprised when he noticed it had improved his overall sensory abilities. That included the mana gathering spell’s range. Now, he could absorb mana even quickly.

’Instead of fifteen minutes, I might only need ten to replenish my cores.’

Zephyr was happy. Even if Gale had cheated him when he said he would give information, he was okay with it. With that thought, Zephyr moved the mask towards his non-existent face.

’I hope this works.’

He muttered and placed it over his face, or what he thought his face was. After all, in the mindscape, he didn’t really have a physical body.

As soon as the mask touched his ’face’, lights flickered around him, bringing him to an unfamiliar scene.

Memories, one by one, began to flow into him. They were the memories of Gale, the knight.

As Gale promised, he embedded everything Zephyr was interested in the mask.

After watching each memory fragment, Zephy nodded understandingly. Finally, he began to understand what was happening around him, gaining a glimpse into the bigger picture.

The mysteries of the Island, the godspawn, and the reason for the necromancer’s presence unravelled before him one by one.

’The son of a bish kidnapped the villagers to feed the godspawn.’

Zephyr snapped out of his daze as the final memory was transferred to him.