Manus? Who Is He? (2)

Fabrice Legrand stood before us, his whole body exposed in its primordial form. There was nothing that could reasonably identify him as the same man we knew.

The body that had once been so muscle-bound—even when he wore the Exorsus guard commander’s formal armor—had gone gaunt.

It wasn’t just that he’d lost flesh; his entire skeletal frame had shrunk.

His age-appropriate white hair had been replaced by the black hair of a young man, and it was long enough that from behind he might be mistaken for a woman.

And above all, his face. It was not the Fabrice Legrand with a southern Korean-looking face I remembered. It was someone else entirely.

Thin lips, a narrow, elegant visage—the sort of man often called more beautiful than a woman.

“He’s a completely different person?”

“Yes. He had no choice but to become different.”

Talis still would not look at me. He and Bioss watched Fabrice as if expecting something; they spoke to me, but their gazes were fixed on Fabrice.

“Did you… torture him?”

I asked cautiously, knowing they had been close to Fabrice.

“Torture…? Ha. I’d rather we had tortured him.”

Talis’s voice had an edge of emptiness and bitterness.

“What?”

“Some damned god’s prank—I don’t know—but whatever it was, it’s been implanted very deeply. Even Fabrice himself probably had no idea.”

His tone was low, so low that if the god he meant had appeared, Talis looked as if he’d strike without hesitation.

“What do you mean…?”

“Begin!”

Bioss’s shout cut me off. Begin what, exactly?

At his command, Shio stepped forward to block our path, standing precisely at my side to shield the party.

Kuuooo—

A vicious, soul-piercing wail struck my mind, as if every hair on my body were being forced to stand on end.

I glanced back; Shio was protecting the rest of the party, and Hazel had finished the Space Separation.

Cheong hummed a spell slowly. Merus took out a red wooden dagger, gripped it, and began to mutter.

After confirming everyone was preparing their roles, I turned forward and instinctively took a step back.

Gul-ler gul-ler. Thud— thud-thud—

Fabrice’s gaunt body rose and fell in jagged breaths, the sound of bones shifting out of place reaching my ears.

A metamorphosis? No—this wasn’t that.

It didn’t feel like a metamorphosis or a change wrought by divine power; there was no flow of divinity at all.

Then what?

Shio’s voice answered before I could finish thinking. The answer surprised me.

“It’s the process of revealing the true body. For beings like Fabrice, it’s a humiliating moment.”

“True Body…?”

I was so shocked I almost forgot my manners.

True Body? Fabrice wasn’t some transforming monster or a beast.

“Why? Is it funny to hear ‘True Body’? You’re the one I find funny. On what basis do you insist Fabrice is ‘human’? By what evidence?”

“What? Well…”

I had no reply. To my eyes he had always looked human, so what else could I conclude?

“Because he looks human to you? Because he uses divine power like a human? Or because he reproduces like a human? Hah!!”

“Is that so?”

“You saw Fabrice’s altered appearance and asked if he’d been tortured.”

“…Yes.”

Who would have imagined this? A True Body.

“It’s not an appearance-change spell from magic. Nor is it the shapeshifting of sorcery. It doesn’t shift instantly into a human form; it requires a complicated, tedious process of stepwise modifying the mask to approach human likeness. Thus, the closer one moves from human to their origin, the more the appearance departs from human. In truth, if the being itself desires the change, it doesn’t require such a long, difficult process. Right now that creature was forced to reveal its body by the power of Talis and Bioss, so it’s in such pain and shame.”

“……”

“Anyway, the reason one chooses such a troublesome process is to bear the minimum penalties and losses while living as a ‘human.’ To live as a human while retaining original power, to bear children, and to enjoy everything humans can.”

“What…”

My one-word question carried many meanings—why insist on human form, why risk so much to be human?

“Why… haha. Those who possess don’t know how great what they have is. Heh, enough. In any case, that is that creature’s body—Fabrice’s true body.”

Something that had been Fabrice panted roughly.

The first thing that struck me was the outer hide.

Brown—no, golden—scales covered his whole body, packed so densely they recalled a dragon’s hide. Sharp, broad-edged scales bristled across him.

A long torso, three horns sprouting from the head, no visible legs or arms, and huge membranous wings.

If you roughly combined an Eastern dragon and a Western wyrm, you might get that form.

The aura it gave off was feral; even its labored breaths carried a flesh-slicing malice.

“This is…!!”

The atmosphere carried a familiar déjà vu.

I stepped back and, from the end of the room, watched Fabrice reveal his True Body and felt I knew what it was.

Ancient Prime Beasts.

The image overlapped oddly with Terrigena, the evil wyrm—the only Ancient Prime Beast I had seen and the worst among them.

Physically they weren’t similar, but their presence was.

“Why? Are you shocked because it looks monstrous?”

Sio glanced at me, misreading my reaction to the kinship between Fabrice’s True Body and the Ancient Prime Beasts; her tone flashed cold. There was envy in it as well.

“No, it isn’t.”

“No?”

Silence fell. Bioss and Talis simply watched. Was there more to come?

Then Fabrice’s formerly closed eyes opened, and he looked around slowly.

—Why me…? Hah, is it like that?

“Yes.”

—Haha. Seems I visited the gods’ playground too often. To end up like this….

“Deal with it. It’s a disgrace to behold.”

—That must be done. But, you see….

“All right.”

—Impossible.

This altered Fabrice no longer spoke aloud. The voice resonated in my head, like a Setting notification appearing as telepathy.

“Is that so? Something that even a transcendent like you can’t handle when it reveals its True Body? May I take a look?”

—Please.

Talis lowered himself and seized one of Fabrice’s horns.

He gripped the central horn among the three and a momentum flowed from him, filling the room.

A muffled, heavy sensation—like stepping into a steam sauna thick with overpowering herbs.

Time dragged, making breathing uncomfortable.

“What is this…?”

—Have you found it?

“I can’t believe it!”

What had Talis seen or sensed? Momentum streamed from his body as he rose from his seat.

If Shio hadn’t blocked him, Hazel’s Space Separation alone would not have been enough to handle that force.

Sio, focusing all her power on defense, said nothing.

For me it felt the same; Talis’s momentum was so enormous it seemed like a rigorous trial rather than an immediate threat.

Fabrice’s True Body remained rigid and motionless.

“You lunatic! Calm down—what the hell is this?”

Talis, finally reined in by Bioss’s roar—the only one unfazed—stared, lips trembling, unable to speak for a long while.

Then abruptly he beckoned me. I checked around; no one else could possibly be in the cramped room behind us.

I wondered if it was Shio, but he looked at me with a disdainful face.

“Me?”

“Come quickly. I can hardly believe it either.”

He wasn’t his usual prankish self.

I hurried to his side. Talis grabbed my wrist and made me take hold of Fabrice’s horn.

The long, substantial horn—thick as an adult male’s wrist—felt surprisingly warm.

But warmth aside, I didn’t know what they wanted, so I looked to Talis.

“Fabrice will allow it. Put divine power into his body and scan him. Ah, you’ve got that thing, right? The power where your eyes sparkle as you scan someone—use that too.”

“…Ugh.”

No matter how urgent, blurting someone’s information out in front of others—!

I swallowed my retort and slowly injected divine power into Fabrice’s body to probe inside.

At the same time,

‘Confirm.’

“Huh?”

“Damn it! You noticed?”

Talis flew into a rage at the mere fact that I’d seen something that had clearly unsettled him.

When he looked up, the hardened face of Bioss came into view.

“What is this?”

“Damn it. Damn it, damn it!! How could ‘him’ be like that?! Not some other god, but him!!”

“…Fuck. I almost did something stupid.”

Talis was agitated, and Bioss devastated.

“…Is the ‘him’ you’re talking about the same as the ‘him’ I’m thinking of?”

A sudden thought struck me. Seeing the data I’d gathered, Talis’ agitation, and Bioss’s bitter expression, I asked, doubting it.

There was no answer from either of them. Their faces twisted with a complex mix of emotions.

“…How could that be? Wasn’t he someone you both knew?”

If he’s who I think he is, this makes no sense. Even if others don’t know, he shouldn’t be like this.

“…I don’t know. But we should ask. Find out.“

“…I see. So we have you.”

“…What are you scheming to do with all this nonsense? It’s already infuriating that you spoke so loudly everyone could hear my power!”

Yes. For a moment I’d forgotten the Legion members might have glimpsed the meaning of ‘confirmation.’ The thought made me furious.

“Who’s listening! You stupid disciple? And I need to ask your god. Hey, you’re listening, right? Our conversation right now?”

“You’re listening…? Huh?”

A black dome enveloped Bioss, Talis, Fabrice, and me.

Perhaps our earlier conversation had seemed unobserved. Even Lee Hyo-ju, wielding “Governing Gluttony,” and Hazel watched with worried expressions.

“Kim Han’s god, you’re listening, right? A barrier of this magnitude is nothing to the divine eye. Manus, the whole body—I need to find out about him. Where he is now, what he’s up to, what he’s done in the past.”

Talis addressed me as he spoke, then passed the task to Ludiker.

Without another word, he held Fabrice’s horn and channeled his divine power for over thirty minutes. Then, with a deep sigh, he stood and said,

“I need to rest. Damn it.”

He collapsed into his seat.

Naturally, the shroud of divine power around us vanished, and the Legion members turned to call my name.

The confusion made my head spin.

On December 24th—eight days left in the fourth year of the “Battlefield of the Gods.” On Earth’s Christmas Eve, we returned to the mansion, accompanied by Talis, Bioss, and Fabrice.