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[Translator - Pot ]
[Proofreader - Kawaii ]
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Chapter 215: Secret of the Bloodline
"Phew."
I was dressed in formal attire, freshly groomed, and fiddling with the jewelry box containing a necklace I'd brought as a gift for my mother.
"Young master, I feel like my heart is going to burst."
"What a pitiful fellow. Take a deep breath."
"Yes, sir."
We were waiting outside my mother's separate quarters for Friederun to emerge.
"Do you think Mother will like this necklace?"
"Without a doubt. It's an exquisite masterpiece of craftsmanship."
Olivier assured me.
"If our butler guarantees it, then I must trust him."
In truth, I don't have much of an eye for artistic appreciation. When would I have had time to develop such sensibilities?
"Don't worry, sir. Even to my eyes, it's a treasure without equal."
Even Head Butler Aiden took his nephew's side.
"And please don't be too nervous."
"I wish I could help it."
Today, my body refused to listen to me. My heart was pounding wildly, like when I'm sprinting at full speed.
"Young master, thank you for waiting."
At last, Friederun appeared.
"...Lady Lusatia awaits you."
She bowed her head respectfully.
"I apologize, but I would be grateful if the others could wait outside."
...The door closed behind me.
I followed Friederun through the pitch-black separate quarters.
'Dark, terribly dark.'
It felt like walking through a cave.
"Young master."
Friederun's moist voice awakened a sense of reality even in that darkness.
"This is the place. I will wait outside."
The door was open.
...Beyond it, at last, was the mother I had longed to see.
* * *
Lusatia Grunewald.
Before marriage, her name was Lusatia Eisenach.
She was a princess of the mountain tribe and, as Balthazar Eisenach's top disciple, the inheritor of all the clan's wisdom.
'Moreover, she now holds the august position of nobility as the fourth wife of Duke Georg Grunewald.'
Yet this same woman had been in seclusion for seven long years, having fallen ill with a trauma during the extermination of her clan.
I had finally succeeded in moving her heart with the survivors of the Eisenach clan and the justification of revenge for them.
"...Allen."
My mother's voice, cracked like a riverbed in drought season, was filled with emotion.
Although unfamiliar, it somehow felt familiar, as if it had remained somewhere in the crevices of my lost memories.
'Allenvert, this is the voice of your mother that you've longed for so much.'
My chest surged. Like a volcano erupting from the bottom of the sea.
I knew this was both the heart of the boy Allenvert and the heart of Karzan, the man of the underworld.
"Allen. You've grown into a fine young man."
From my mother's greeting, delivered after hesitation, I felt the passage of time.
"...Indeed, it has been a long time since we've seen each other."
I took my mother's thin, pale hand.
'There's no strength in it at all.'
Like someone who hasn't been eating properly.
'Not only meals and water, but has she not seen proper sunlight for seven years?'
My mother had strangely white skin. Rather than translucent, it was closer to pallid from lack of blood color.
'Almost like Skella.'
Skin as white as a vampire's, with black hair and mysterious blue eyes.
I realized that the color of my eyes was inherited from both my father and mother.
"It has been a sorrowful, deeply sorrowful time, Mother."
"...Allen."
A tear fell on the back of my hand.
If a person afflicted with a trauma had stayed indoors for seven years without even seeing sunlight, how hellish and eternal must that time have felt?
"But I suffered a fever so intense that I forgot even that sorrow, and became a new person atop the ashes of lost memories."
I spoke honestly.
"I couldn't even remember your face. I couldn't recall your image even in my dreams."
"..."
Lusatia stroked the back of my hand compassionately.
"I'm sorry, so sorry. How lonely, resentful, and frightened you must have been."
"The boy from then has already disappeared from my memory, and I've already grown into a proper man. You needn't pity me so much."
I spoke rather maturely, but I already knew myself that this wasn't my true feeling.
"Allen, then how do you find the forgotten face of your mother?"
I raised my head to look at my mother again. She was beautiful and delicate, like a doll.
"You've grown so thin. Much more than I imagined."
Her thinness was like mistletoe, enduring a lonely winter.
"I've been sorry all this time. I won't bother to excuse my weakness and cowardice."
But, my mother continued.
"The reason I've shamelessly appeared before you is to help, as a mother, with the plans you've made for yourself."
A warm and peaceful energy transmitted from my mother's hand.
'What's this?'
Surprisingly, the caliber of that power was by no means low.
"And also, to tell you the truth that you should rightfully know, now that you're ready to hear secrets."
"...!"
Suddenly, a glow appeared in Lusatia's eyes. A warm yet mysterious white aura enveloped her.
'How peculiar. The light, wavelength, and energy.'
It was an aura with quite different properties from an ordinary mage. It seemed closer to what could be accurately described as a tribal mage or more precisely, a shaman.
But one thing was clear.
'Look at that overflowing dignity and radiance.'
She was not simply a fragile, delicate noblewoman who had been in seclusion due to mental trauma.
No, rather, my mother appeared to be much stronger than I had thought.
"First, it would be best to tell you about the secret of that curse, which is like a heaven-sent punishment."
"!"
Perhaps that was the knowledge I needed most.
"...As I expected."
My mother nodded as if she had anticipated this after seeing my expression.
"It seems you had already guessed to some extent."
"That's right."
The doubt I had harbored for so long was now close to certainty.
"The cause that made you terminally ill originates from my bloodline. That is correct."
My mother explained.
"However, it is both a curse and not a curse at the same time."
"What do you mean by that?"
The energy flowing from my mother's fingertips gently touched the poison energy dwelling in my dantian.
Yet those rough and fierce entities showed no particular reaction. It was like watching a scene where a wild beast accepts the touch of a human it has recognized as a friend.
"Its name is 'Dark Mana.'"
At last, the long-hidden secret was revealed from my mother's lips.
“A power that has manifested sporadically in the Eisenach bloodline since ancient times,a form of ‘atavistic inheritance’.”
"...!"
My mother explained.
"That power is literally close to dominion over the attribute of darkness itself."
"...Are you saying I'm a dark mage?"
My mother shook her head as if the idea were absurd.
"Dark magic! It's a power of an entirely different dimension from the crumbs begged for at the feet of demons."
"Huh."
It was an expression that conveyed confidence.
"Look."
White aura rippled from my mother's hand.
"If the sun of day illuminates everything, then the moon of night watches over everything. Generally, the essence of light lies in revealing, while the essence of darkness."
My mother grasped the aura.
"Lies in covering, hiding, concealing, and devouring."
"...I see."
"In some sense, it is significant that the swordsmanship of the Grunewald is named 'VAzure Sea Moon Shadow Swordsmanship.'"
My mother joined her hands together.
"Night and moon are a single pair. A rainy night, a pitch-black night covered with clouds, a night sky without a moon. How dark and ominous they are."
"Indeed, a desolate darkness."
"Meanwhile, the moon is an entity that watches over, illuminates, and also keeps silent over the night."
If so, there was even a kind of symbolic meaning in the union of Eisenach and Grunewald.
"Allen, the Dark Mana dwelling in your body is truly both a blessing and a curse given only to the chosen ones."
"A blessing if overcome, but a curse that torments and kills its owner if not, I suppose."
"That's right."
My mother nodded.
"But the founder of our Eisenach clan overcame it and wrote a shining legend in a distant corner of ancient history."
At this point, I asked something I was curious about.
"Is this Dark Mana such a remarkable power?"
"Indeed it is."
At this point, my mother narrowed her eyes.
"I heard that in your previous battle with the beast Nepherus, your hand absorbed its breath on its own."
"So you knew."
"Through Friederun."
That was probably my father's intention. However, I didn't bother to bring up that story now.
"That power saved your life once, didn't it?"
"Yes. I've utilized it usefully several more times since then."
"I would expect so."
My mother nodded as if it were natural and said:
"But that is merely the most basic, first-level power among the mystic abilities possessed by Dark Mana."
"...!"
I asked in surprise.
"Is that true, Mother?"
"Our ancestor systematized various ways to utilize abilities using Dark Mana. It's no different from a martial art tradition."
"But it's a martial art that not just anyone can learn. One permitted to only one person every few generations, I suppose."
That's because only those born with Dark Mana can learn it.
"That's why even I only understand this power conceptually, please understand."
My mother said.
"Anyway, it is an ability given to someone who first awakens Dark Mana. Its name is 'Absorption.'"
"Absorption."
"Literally, it's the power to suck in incoming attacks and make them your own."
"Indeed, after absorbing once, my mana amount increases."
In truth, it was an unfairly powerful ability. To be able to steal another's mana and make it my own?
"If you develop the ability further from there, you can freely attract and take away even things that aren't mana. Even if you activate the ability toward a distant wall, they say you can move yourself there."
"Huh."
I immediately thought of ways to utilize this ability.
"In a vast and extensive city like this, I could move almost like a bird, couldn't I?"
"That would be the case. The name of that ability is 'Adsorption.'"
"Absorption and Adsorption, I see."
I looked down at my left hand.
'If utilized in actual combat, it would be truly useful, wouldn't it?'
In battles between masters, one such trump card can instantly change the flow of the fight.
"Those two abilities are extremely basic, but they hold significant meaning. The fact that the Absorption ability manifested to protect you itself means that Dark Mana is in the process of acknowledging you as its master."
"...Indeed, that must be the case."
Looking back, I have fought with this Dark Mana numerous times, subdued and expelled it, imprisoned and watched over it, breaking its spirit.
'...So that was the equivalent of taking the reins of that wild beast-like, crazed horse.'
"After mastering those two, from the next stage onward, you can display abilities no different from magic."
My mother's explanation continued.
"I've never seen it myself, but according to what's been passed down, by spreading Dark Mana wide like a curtain, ultimate stealth becomes possible, devouring even sound and presence."
That explanation gave me a sense of déjà vu.
"For instance, an assassination blade that suddenly pops out from an enemy's blind spot in that state is said to be truly unavoidable."
How coincidental.
Isn't that similar to the ability Venion demonstrated before me?
'Surely Venion couldn't have inherited Dark Mana as well.'
Perhaps someone contemporary with the Eisenach ancestor imitated the martial art they displayed and passed it down as a new branch of martial arts.
In any case, people would have fiercely refined their martial arts over the long years.
"This power is called 'Stealth,' and the power to deprive enemies of sight and hearing by draping that curtain over them is called 'Erosion.'"
"Stealth and Erosion."
Indeed, it was an explanation closer to magic than martial arts.
'Just like the ancient magical arts Huten showed.'
...Then, am I about to gain the ancient martial arts preserved by Eisenach in addition to the modern martial arts that Grunewald has inherited and developed?
'How preposterous.'
Suddenly I felt as if I had become some child of destiny. Who would have thought that this emotional reunion with my mother would turn into such an occasion?
"There are many more diverse abilities besides these, but there will be opportunities to tell you about them gradually."
My mother gently covered my hand.
"Allen, I'm sorry. Because I didn't tell you about this secret, you must have despaired before the fate of being terminally ill."
"...Mother, probably."
I seemed to understand why she had hidden the secret.
"You thought that as long as I was a man who would despair at 'merely that,' I wouldn't be able to become strong enough to handle Dark Mana anyway."
"...I'm sorry."
My mother admitted.
"I thought it would be impossible for tender, gentle you to overcome that painful path of training and conquest, and the struggle with your brothers that you would face in the process."
"Having made them my enemies, I would have died 'even earlier than the terminal timeline' due to the checks of my brothers and the schemes of the other wives."
My mother bit her lip.
"With Verdzig as a competitor, that would have been more than enough. You were a clever child overflowing with talent, and that snake-like boy wouldn't have left you alone."
That's indeed true. That man who controlled Barclava's mind, instilled fear in Karl and Ulbhild, and tried to use Somerset's downfall for his own political gain, 'the me from then' wouldn't have been able to overcome him.
"Then I thought it better not to give you false hope."
How painful must that decision have been?
I am a man with enough reason to understand my mother's heart and not resent it.
Above all.
"But now everything has changed."
My mother nodded.
"Yes, meeting you in person, I can see that."
That must be the reason my mother met with me to tell me all the truth.
"Allen, now you must become even stronger."
My mother said.
"To fully govern Dark Mana, you must learn the peerless martial art passed down to a single person, left by our ancestor who was 'the strongest of their time' in ancient days."
"It's good to have more reasons to become stronger."
My mother nodded.
"For that reason as well, you absolutely need to complete your maternal grandfather's revenge."
"Why is that?"
"Because."
My mother answered.
"In the depths of our clan, seized by the usurper Grimnar Angantyr, the martial arts of our ancestor remain sealed intact."
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[Translator - Pot ]
[Proofreader - Kawaii ]
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