The One Who Pierces the World

Front Table of Contents

The "Jester" learned from the priest who brought his meal that the decisive battle had begun.
After elegantly finishing the forest delicacies, he stood up slowly and touched the wall made of ghost bone.
He could have escaped at any time. The elves seemed to think that no one but them could manipulate ghost bone, but that was not the case.
To begin with, what is ghost bone? It is a special tissue formed in the core of aged trees—but that is merely a superficial understanding. It is a sensory organ for the forest's will to perceive its own body, and at the same time, it is the forest's |Numinous| itself.
Then, what is |Numinous|?
Every intelligent being lives while wishing for something. Wealth, honor, love, or something else entirely. They seek these things, crave them, and sometimes even achieve great things. Desire and longing are the driving forces that allow people to perform miracles beyond biological limits, and |Numinous| is an extension of such miracles.
Those who obsess over something, crave it, wish for it, wish for it, wish for it until they are mad, and continue to seek a specific thing to a level that could be called insanity where that is all they can think about—their pure-colored souls undergo magical mutation and can deviate from the laws of the world.
In other words, that person has become an independent small world themselves. Therefore, within that person, world laws different from the outside world swirl. Convenient laws that make their maddening wishes come true. However, that alone has limited influence on reality. It only causes changes that are completed within oneself. Objectively, they are almost no different from a mere madman.
However—those who have reached some kind of agreement or compromise between their own mad thoughts and the outside world. Those who, while carrying an unmanageable self, were able to sincerely accept the current situation of being surrounded by a completely different world. Those who were able to affirm the world without bending their own desires in the slightest. Such small worlds that have attained some kind of enlightenment become able to push aside the pressure of the outside world and leak their desire-laws to the outside of their bodies.
—That is |Numinous|.
The nature and form of |Numinous| vary depending on the wishes of the intelligent being that originated it. One who sought wealth would create a domain that attracts money and goods within its range. One who sought love would create a domain that makes the target favorable to them. However—such ordinary wishes rarely reach the level of |Numinous|. If you live and act while wishing strongly, those desires will be satisfied to some extent. Satisfied desires settle down and can never reach the level of mad thoughts. The greater the gap between the wish and reality, the easier it is for that soul to undergo magical mutation.
But a contradiction arises here. The larger the gap between ideal and reality, the easier it is for a small world to be born, but the larger the gap, the harder it is to affirm the outside world.
Those who awaken |Numinous| are rare beings who have overcome that contradiction, and there are not many of them in the world.
The will of the forest that rules the Obscure Kingdom overcame this contradiction in the ancient days of the gods. Its desire-law leaked into the outside world in the form of ghost bone, becoming a bond with the elves.
Therefore.
He took a pure white dagger from his bosom and slashed at the ghost bone wall casually.
Originally, it should not have pierced it. The strength of ghost bone is greater than steel. But—
With a slick sound.
A vertical slit appeared in the wall. It was not destroyed; the ghost bone opened its mouth naturally.
The white dagger that had been transferred into this prison housed the |Numinous| of a certain person. The extremely special obsession and mad thoughts he held were overflowing into that bone-like blade.
The wish he held was—"May all things be meaningless."
He does not recognize intent in what is called causality. He does not recognize context. He does not recognize karma. He will not let the world fall into a farce convenient for some selfish person. The reality we live in is always unreasonable, abrupt, absurd, and governed by chance, and that is precisely why it is worth living. It is worth fighting for, he thought.
The nature of the |Numinous| that manifests—"Negation of other |Numinous|." The world must be returned to how it should be.

"Hmm, this prison was in a pretty deep place."

Crossing the slit created by the dagger, the "Jester" leisurely escaped his captivity.
He could have left whenever he wanted. But there was no point in the "Jester" becoming free alone. He had to coordinate with Gideon. Until then, he had dared to accept his position as a prisoner, where he could remain at the center of the Obscure Kingdom without being disturbed by anyone.
The "Jester" wore a smile on his cheeks. He floated a musical score-like magic circle around his body and floated softly into the air.

"Now, shall we begin the end, Gideon? A man who turned his back on love because he loved too deeply. Your long-cherished wish will now be fulfilled."

And, swinging his dagger upward, he dug through the ghost bone in a straight line toward the person waiting for him.

●

A swarm of rotting flesh stalks the night forest.
Without even a single groan, they violate the sacred cradle. If they detect the presence of life, they attack with a speed unimaginable from their previous sluggish movements, infecting them with the curse of decay.
The undead army was already recovering the losses they had suffered in the battle at the border. Large beasts living in the forest had become new kin and joined the ranks. But—the upper limit was 50,000. The damage to the forest's ecosystem was limited.
Finn was grasping these situations one by one through information transmitted by the tactical fairies.
Knights were galloping through the night forest like the wind, riding on the backs of tree-spirit deer.
Finn accompanied them, clinging to the back of one of them, Line.

"Lord Finn, is it not time yet?"

Line was impatient. She must really hate that the undead were entering the forest and causing havoc.
However, there was still no report from the tactical fairies stationed at the border that the entire enemy army had entered the forest.

"Not yet. —In the north-northeastern part of the operation area, a group of enemies is approaching the prohibited line."
"Ugh, then let's head there."

After that, Finn and the group of Obscure knights ran around the forest, making full use of the teleportation network and the tree-spirit deer. They would charge into enemy swarms and then immediately turn and run. While repeating such sporadic attacks, they controlled the distribution of the undead. They drove them, scattered them, or made them chase on purpose, giving a certain tendency to the enemy's maneuvers.
In other words, they were making them not notice the true boundary line of the prohibition law.
If this were realized, Gideon would immediately order a retreat from the forest. That would make all their efforts go to waste. They would have to go back to staring each other down at the southern limit of the forest and engaging in a quagmire war of attrition to protect the burning shimenawa. There would be no point in having lured them into the forest in the first place.
In the first place, his goal was not to militarily conquer the Obscure Kingdom. The 50,000 kin were just a distraction, a way to buy time. He had to annihilate the undead as soon as possible and rush to the royal capital.
For that reason, it was necessary to have the enemy misunderstand the nature of the prohibition law.

[To be continued]

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