Astartes of the Bear School

Chapter 2056 2028. The Shadow Willow Man

"Lan En and I are merely partners and fellow travelers," Melina said, riding Toret and looking up at the sorceress who was noticeably taller due to the presence of the Qilin. "Nothing more."

Margarita also looked Torina up and down.

When she saw that the girl was wearing Lann's cloak, she just smiled.

Melina's statement was ignored.

"It really is a soul entity, and not a demon spirit." Margarita still possessed a considerable amount of curiosity as a spellcaster. "A very peculiar state. However..."

Then, the sorceress's expression became mischievous and amused.

“Melina, may I call you that? Sure.” After receiving the girl's nod of approval, the sorceress smiled. “I heard from Lann that you used to always be around him. So last night, did you… hehe?”

If an ordinary person has this kind of expression on their face, they will be disgusted and called a 'pervert'.

But with the sorceress's temperament, appearance, and figure, even the most vulgar jokes sound alluring and seductive coming from her mouth.

However, Melina's expression remained unchanged, as indifferent and aloof as ever.

"Last night, because I suddenly arrived in the Shadowlands, I ran a little further away to see if anything happened during that time."

Melina spoke fluently and naturally, but Margarita's smile remained unchanged.

This little girl... Although she knew from Lan En that Melina was probably an incarnation directly created by Queen Marika, Melina, who only possessed vast memories and knowledge but lacked a real sense of life, was still quite young in Margarita's eyes.

If simply possessing the memories and knowledge of others, without firsthand, real-time experience, can be considered growth, then it would be far too easy for sorcerers in the magical medieval world to train new recruits.

Why bother opening two high-standard schools, one for boys and one for girls?

Queen Marika's memories and knowledge could allow Melina's mind and spirit to mature rapidly, but considering that she had only been in the world for a few months, Margarita could at most regard her as a teenage girl.

She's on the same level as Ciri.

The little girl clearly didn't realize that her response was a bit too quick and too accurate.

This is one answer, but one that doesn't match what she actually said.

For a moment, the sorceress simply smiled at Melina without saying a word. The atmosphere became ambiguous and strange.

But it's unclear whether Melina truly possesses extraordinary facial expression control or if indifference and calmness are simply her nature.

Melina's expression remained unchanged.

In this strange atmosphere, the velvet ball loosened its grip on Margarita's lower back and cautiously moved towards the Qilin's rear. Its large, watery eyes nervously darted back and forth.

But there was no chance for the atmosphere to escalate further.

After the Qilin and the Spirit Horse Toret had been running for so long, their makeshift camp, which they had set up yesterday, had long been left far behind and out of sight.

Along the way, Lan En deliberately avoided the small pavilions on the cemetery plains to avoid provoking the tomb-guarding birds that stood on the pavilions like matching statues.

After walking for so long across the cemetery plain, they finally saw that the unchanging withered grass and illusory spirit tombs were no longer before them.

A road that appeared and disappeared in the sea of ​​grass, and a pile of ruins that lay across the road, came into view.

"That is……?"

As the person with the best eyesight, Lan En was the first to voice his doubts, thus naturally ending the strange atmosphere that had been hanging between Margarita and Melina.

This is a ruin scorched by some kind of fire. The main structure is made of stone, but it is also possible that the wooden parts were burned away long ago.

Even if only stones remained, they were burned to a blackened color.

There's nothing strange about the burned ruins; Lan En has seen plenty of them.

But those things in the ruins...

"shadow?"

Margarita tilted her head, peered out from beside Lann's arm, and tentatively spoke.

There were many things wandering aimlessly in the ruins. Upon closer inspection, they were a group of dark, yet ethereal and semi-transparent humanoid shadows that could be seen directly behind them from in front of them.

It wasn't all human-shaped; there were also a few scattered, blackened, semi-transparent shadows of dogs.

"Is this... some kind of magic? Or some kind of curse?"

The sorceress attempted to speculate from a professional perspective.

Both Qilin and Toret stopped and paced back and forth outside the ruins.

Now that Melina had revealed herself in the Shadowlands, Lan En made no further attempt to conceal himself and looked directly at her.

"Miss 'Encyclopedia of the Borderlands' lives up to her name." "They have it all," Melina said with a complicated expression, looking at the shadowy figures with her one eye. "Those are the native inhabitants of the Shadowlands, the Horned People. Look at those shadowy figures; you can see many horns beneath their roughly human-shaped outlines."

"Queen Marika sent her son Messermo to lead an army into the Shadowlands. These horned people were burned by Messermo's fire; their bodies were reduced to ashes, and even their spirit-gathering horns turned to dust, leaving only their charred shadows."

The plush ball exclaimed in surprise, "It really is a shadow, meow?! A shadow... can exist on its own?"

“Messermo’s Fire?” Lann recalled Melina’s conversation with him yesterday. “This is the unique power of the fire of the queen’s son, whose symbol is the 'serpent'?”

Melina shook her head.

"The power of the Messermo Fire is only a part, not even the main part." The soul girl stroked Torret's mane and sighed, "What really works... is the incomplete Golden Law."

The Witcher frowned: "What do you mean?"

"The Shadowlands were separated from the Borderlands by Queen Marika and sealed here."

"If the Borderlands became what it is today, increasingly crumbling, a few months ago due to Queen Marika's inexplicable impulsiveness and the shattering of the Elden Ring, then the Shadowlands..."

"This land, which was personally sealed and isolated by the Queen, was the first place to break away from the Golden Law that covers the world. In other words, the Golden Law here was already shattered the moment the land was sealed and isolated."

Melina's finger pointed to those aimless, endless shadows.

"Even if their bodies are burned to ashes by the fire of Mesmer, they will not die. Even without a body, they still have a soul and a shadow. Even if they become shadows, the broken Golden Law will not allow them to die."

"And that's how it will turn out."

Upon hearing this, Margarita felt a cold pain in her back molars.

Immortality that covers everyone in the world, and even if someone encounters an accident, there is a stable and reliable chance of reincarnation... When I first heard Lan En talk about Margarita of the Golden Dynasty, I thought it was a connection between the chaotic magic tide and the magical Middle Ages and a divine realm.

But now, looking at those things that were burned alive to ashes, yet remained alive throughout the process, even as blackened shadows... Margarita never knew that immortality could be such a painful thing.

At that moment, Melina turned her head, her right eye, which was open, looking at Lan En.

It's as if it's continuing a story, or as if it's declaring something.

"It's hard to say how long ago the Shadowlands were separated from the Borderlands. But one can imagine that after the same amount of time, the Borderlands, with its broken magic ring, will become what the Shadowlands are like now. Someday."

The Witcher knew that Melina, his 'fellow traveler,' was reminding him: if he didn't burn down the Golden Tree and go inside to repair the Ring, the whole world would eventually end up like Shadowlands.

Melina didn't care much about what was happening in the Shadowlands. Even before, when she was introducing things to Lann, she said that Michaela wanted to become a god in the Shadowlands, which didn't conflict with their plans.

All she could think about was the giant fire cauldron on the snowy plains north of Rodel.

Light the flames in the cauldron and set the golden tree ablaze.

But the Witcher glanced to the other side.

Torina floated beside him, her smile as serene as a peaceful slumber.

It seems that no matter what decision he makes, Torina will always have this expression.

It must have been because Melina's words, "Even if life is destroyed and only a shadow remains, you must not die," were too frightening that Qilin automatically went around the edge of the ruins without Lan En's prompting.

That was a huge bend, and the ancient dragons of the New World didn't want to see a single 'shadow' of them at this moment.

Qilin went first, so Toret had no choice but to follow.

The strangeness and danger of the Shadowlands seem to be everywhere.

Not long after passing through the ruins, on the withered grass, Lan En and his group found the source of the heavy footsteps they had been hearing all night.

It was a giant willow-framed man whose upper body was an open fire cage.

The limbs, shaped by being bound together with burning steel bars and rattan, had charred corpses tied around the ends of the limbs.

This thing's flames are incredibly powerful, and also incredibly agile. Wherever the flames flicker, they always leave behind unusually thick trails of smoke.

It stomped its foot, and a wave of fire spread from its foot, setting the withered grass of the cemetery plain ablaze.

The force and range of the fire waves were exaggerated. As far as Lan En could see, every time it stomped its foot, the fire waves that spread out would burn an area of ​​at least one kilometer in radius!
However, the withered grass on the cemetery plain seemed to have another power; every time it was burned, it would soon turn from scorched earth, leaving nothing behind, back into a sea of ​​withered yellow grass.

Its open fire cage can spew out countless fireballs, like stars, streaking through the air as it chases its target. Its turning agility is such that it can even stop abruptly and then turn 180 degrees!

According to Melina, that was the fire of Messermo.

Lann could tell at a glance that this thing was some kind of golem that patrolled a fixed route, so he had no intention of getting involved with it.

The Messermo fire on its body was indeed very powerful, but it was ultimately just a golem.

Although the fireball's trajectory was exceptionally agile, its flight speed was very limited. Qilin and Toret only accelerated slightly before leaving its pre-set target range.

(End of this chapter)