米菲保护组织志愿者

Note: Text enclosed in square brackets [] is narration. Bullet-list items are dialogue.

P1: [More than a thousand years have passed. —Petrarch]

P2:

Guard: Hey, it’s been a long time since we’ve seen a brother from the Royal Capital out here.

Guard: (Oh, forgive me. A knight, no less.)

D: You have my thanks for your service. May the Law watch over you.

Guard: The exiles are being held in the main barracks to the northeast. Would you care to warm yourself here for a while? The horse knows the way. You could let that sinner walk the final stretch on his own.

D: No. Thank you for the offer.

P3: [As you can see, ] [I am a sinner sentenced to exile in the snowy mountains. ] [And as you can also see, ] [the knight from the Royal Capital charged with escorting me is not quite as devoted to his duty as his colleagues are.] [He has a strange name... ] [A single letter: D. At least, that is what he told me.] [It all began with that wretched thesis...]

D: It is not easy to slip past the guards’ eyes in the snow.

D: But we are almost there.

D: Bring the horse inside with you.

P4: [Before my exile, I was a student on the verge of graduating from Leyndell’s academy of Golden Order Fundamentalism. ] [My thesis was titled “Giant Morphology and a Historical Reconstruction of the War against the Giants from the First Principles of Fundamentalism.”]

Professor A: So...

Professor A: This is your reconstruction of what the giants looked like?

P5:

Professor A: I have no objection to the result. It is excellent.

Professor A: However, when fabricating your derivation, I suggest that you revisit formulas 2, 6, and 13 in Chapter Four, Section One of the Golden Order Principia, as well as formulas 5 and 6 in Chapter Seven, Section Three.

Professor B: I would add Axiom 1 from Chapter Twelve, Section One. I consider that problem more serious.

Professor A: I can tolerate stupidity, dullness, and ignorance in a student.

Professor B: But we must remind you incorrigible foreigners once again:

Professor C: Reasoning from effect to cause is a grave desecration of the discipline of Fundamentalism. Under the old law, it would be punishable by death.

Professor C: But because there have been so many offenders of late, the merciful bishop has commuted the sentence to exile.

Student: What?! No, please, let me explain... [Explanation was futile, because I truly had not used Golden Order Fundamentalism to derive the historical appearance of the Fire Giants.]

P6: [I come from beyond the Lands Between.]

Knight A: I sat in on a particularly interesting trial at the court today. Another case from the academy.

Knight B: A group of new recruits arrived recently. I imagine one of them will be made to escort the man up the mountain.

D: All the interesting cases come from the academy. Foreigners always find such inventive ways to blaspheme the Golden Order.

Knight A: Exactly, D. Let me tell you about this one...

Knight B: Ha! Today’s D must be Darian. His brother was never much good at telling jokes.

P7: [When I was still studying history in my homeland, ] [I learned a technique for reconstructing the appearance of living creatures from their bones. ] [After spending several months making no progress whatsoever on the mathematical derivation of giant morphology... ] [I realized that I would have to visit the snowy mountains myself. ] [Many giant remains have been perfectly preserved there by the cold, and it took little effort to obtain the data I needed. ] [As for the proof... I did everything I could to reverse-engineer one, but evidently, I made a mess of it.] [From an academic perspective, what I did was certainly dishonest. But I had no idea that the people of the Lands Between would send someone into exile over a flawed mathematical derivation—especially when I had calculated the part concerning the course of history entirely by myself.] [In any case, that was the unfortunate beginning of my acquaintance with Mr. D.]

P8:

Student: Forgive my curiosity... Were you once a hunter? I mean no offense. Your hunting skills are impressive.

D: ...That was a long time ago.

P9:

Student: You still will not eat?

D: I have already told you. I have not needed food for a very long time.

Student: My professors possess the same blessing of immortality as you, but they do not seem to have abandoned that particular pleasure.

Student: Nor have the people of Leyndell’s court.

D: That is none of your concern. Ask another question you should not, and you may go back to eating black bread.

Student: Ah... My apologies.

Student: ...In my homeland, there is a historical research technique called facial reconstruction. Those who practise it begin by working with animal carcasses.

Student: But I know nothing about hunting, so I always had to commission hunters to obtain them. You might say I have always admired the profession and been curious about it.

D: ...I know what crime you committed. I read your case file.

P10:

D: But allow me a question of my own. I assume that long before you examined the bodies of the animals around you, you already knew what they looked like in life.

D: Would your existing impressions of those animals not interfere with your practice? Why not look for unfamiliar bones in a mass grave or somewhere similar?

Student: You have a point.

Student: But if I used nameless dead people as my subjects, would that not be like solving a problem with no reference answer?

Student: How could I verify that the reconstruction theory was sound, so that I might later apply it to something truly unfamiliar?

Student: I need a prior. And you are right—that prior should preferably not come from me.

Student: The ideal subjects would therefore be strangers who left portraits of themselves in life. But anyone wealthy enough to leave a portrait would never allow their noble remains to fall into the hands of an impoverished student.

P11:

Student: That is also why I came to the Lands Between—the realm of the immortal.

Student: Here, there is no complexity in interpreting ancient artefacts or human remains. There is no archaeology, no forensics... because every one of you is a living person from antiquity!

Student: Your memories and experiences are themselves the means of interpretation.

Student: This blessed land, frozen in time, is the paradise imagined by everyone who wishes to uncover the past.

Student: Except that after overcoming countless difficulties to reach it, I discovered that many things were nothing like I had imagined.

Student: I never expected you to calculate everything through mathematics with such fanaticism... even a past you witnessed with your own eyes.

D: Your technique seems remarkable to me. ...I have seen giants. They looked exactly as you drew them.

Student: Oh. Thank you...

Student: I had begun to think that everyone in the Lands Between had become as cold as the gods of this land.

P12:

Student: Mr. D, I do not mean you personally, but beyond these lands, people say that the long lives of this realm’s inhabitants have deprived them of many human emotions... emotions that can be learned only through the certainty of death.

Student: For a moment, I truly feared the court would cut off my head.

D: They would not have beheaded you. For foreigners, the maximum penalty is merely impalement.

Student: Very well. What excellent reassurance, Mr. D.

D: ...I was not born in the Lands Between either.

P13:

Student: Oh... Then you must have performed some extraordinary deed to become a knight of the Royal Capital.

D: ...Thorn-crowned foreign sinner, since you cannot lower your head enough to sleep anyway, tell me how your people reconstruct a face from a skull.

Student: What? I did not realize you were interested.

Student: Put simply, most of a person’s appearance... is determined by the bones.

Student: The size and spacing of the eye sockets, for example, determine the position of the eyes.

Student: The width of the nasal aperture and the angle of the anterior nasal spine determine the shape and length of the nose.

Student: The height of the cheekbones and the width of the jaw directly define the contours of the face...

Student: Once the bones have given us the essential reference points, we must add the appropriate quantity of flesh—that is, determine the thickness of the skin and muscles. On remains with surviving soft tissue, such as the giants in the snowy mountains, those characteristics are visible to the naked eye.

D: What if there is no soft tissue?

Student: That is where an indispensable prior must intervene. Some scholars have compiled useful data—for example, that northerners tend to have thicker tissue around their cheeks than southerners.

D: ...And what if you do not have that either?

Student: Then one can only rely on experience. A nobleman, for example, would usually wear his hair in a particular fashion...

Student: You cannot have no information at all, unless what you want to see is a skull draped in a sheet of human skin.

D: Fundamentalism does not work that way. Everything that has happened, and everything fated to happen, can be obtained through proper reasoning.

Student: ...I fear you have forgotten what brought me to my present fate. I am not a competent scholar of Fundamentalism.

P14:

D: Sinner, I know that your crime of violating the rigour of the axioms is grave...

D: And that you fully deserve this punishment.

D: But I wonder whether you would be interested in making a bargain with me concerning your freedom.

D: Come with me into the snowy mountains and help me with one task. In return, I can spare you from exile and send you home, beyond the Sea of Fog.

Student: ...

Student: Why? Is this some trap intended to add another crime to my sentence?

D: Whether to believe me is the only freedom you presently possess.

D: I have a skeleton in the snowy mountains.

D: I need you to help me... reconstruct his appearance.

D: This opportunity exists tonight only. Think carefully about whether you wish to accept these terms.

Student: ...Is it some kind of ancient relic? After all, there have been no skeletons in the Lands Between for a very long time.

P15:

Student: ...If my reconstruction is inaccurate, will you exile me on the spot?

D: That depends on your performance. I can tell when someone is merely bluffing in the hope of surviving.

Student: ...All right.

Student: I accept.

P16:

D: That person is on the top floor.

D: Come closer. I will remove your thorns, and we will climb up from the outside.

P18:

D: He is the man I want you to draw.

P19:

Student: ...He was a Sorcerer?

Student: He also appears to have been a nobleman... How could he have died and been reduced to bare bones like this?

Student: Even the most ordinary people in the Lands Between regard their bodies as noble and leave behind numerous portraits of themselves...

Student: Why would someone of such high birth need my... unorthodox methods?

D: He died in the age before the Elden Ring was repaired.

D: In those days, everyone was struggling merely to survive. Even stone and metal could be corroded and devoured by all manner of things... to say nothing of dead flesh.

Student: Before the Elden Ring was repaired?! Good heavens... Then he must have been your ancestor.

P20:

D: You need not concern yourself with that.

D: Work here. You may draw for as long as you like. I believe there are sufficient writing and drawing materials on that table.

D: But you must not light a fire in this room, nor use warming stones or anything similar.

D: You must not open the window either. Please endure these lighting conditions.

D: Should the cold become unbearable, go downstairs and rest.

D: I will bring you some blankets as well.

Student: Wait, Mr. D. I can see that he is important to you, so please be sure to tell me exactly what you require. Otherwise, if the final result fails to satisfy you, you might—

D: On my honour as a knight, I swear that I will not break my word.

D: But you must also be diligent in your work. During this time, I will attempt to study this foreign discipline.

D: Do not imagine that you can deceive me. [And so... I began this strange undertaking.]

P21:

Student: ...Are you going to stand there and watch me the entire time?

D: Would that interfere with your work?

Student: No... No, it would not.

Student: While you were conducting business at the exile camp, I completed the most basic measurements.

Student: Today, we will begin with the simplest part: the nose.

Student: The upper half of this man’s nose is easy enough to determine, but I am deeply uncertain about the lower half. Do you have any clues?

D: Can you not infer it? Did you not mention something called... an anterior nasal spine?

Student: If that part still existed, it would be easy.

Student: But he... He is far too badly worn. Almost no traces remain where cartilage or soft tissue might once have been attached. To be honest, I am curious how he survived all these years without crumbling into dust.

P22:

D: ...What is mine like?

Student: (So that is what Mr. D looks like.)

Student: You... You mean I should draw it to resemble yours?

D: No. Draw the opposite.

Student: Forgive my impertinence, but that is an unusual family resemblance.

D: Because your conjecture could not be further from the truth. He is not my ancestor.

Student: Have you attempted Fundamentalism? I mean, for this reconstruction.

D: Who do you think all the paper and writing implements in this room belonged to—the skeleton?

P23: [I did not know how ancient the remains Mr. D had asked me to reconstruct truly were. ] [But they were certainly the most completely skeletonized remains I had ever seen. My knowledge was wholly insufficient to infer what manner of flesh, as elegant as his clothing, had once clothed those bones. ] [I did not know what had happened to him. Decay, which had long vanished from the Lands Between? The knife-like winds of the snowy mountains, carving at him year after year? Some mysterious sorcery holding together bones that should have collapsed long ago? ] [Yet my studies at the academy had at least left me with something useful: I could understand the Fundamentalist manuscripts scattered across the floor. Every one of them led to an exceedingly... strange conclusion. ] [I began repeatedly glancing from the corner of my eye at Mr. D’s stern, pale face... ] [and then, exactly as he had instructed, I drew everything in reverse.]

P24:

Student: In any case, this is the limit of my ability. I did not spend this much time even on my graduation thesis.

Student: I fear it is also the limit of what can be recovered from the subject.

Student: Please, take a look.

Student: Well? ...Does it meet your needs? You may verify it through the first principles of Fundamentalism, should you wish.

D: I do not know.

P25:

D: To thank you for your efforts, allow me to tell you one more fact that does not conform to your expectations of this land.

D: The blessing of immortality was bestowed upon our flesh, but not upon our memories.

D: Everything that extends beyond the natural limits of a human lifespan...

D: Must eventually escape from our memories.

D: I was born mortal. The same is therefore true of my prior concerning this man.

D: We will set out tomorrow. I will escort you all the way to the coast at Castle Morne. I have already arranged a ship.

P26:

D: I will open the window.

D: After spending so many days with a corpse... you ought to see the light again.

Student: Ah... But did you not say...

Student: It is so bright...

P28:

R: Are you still angry?

P29:

R: I came back through grace again, did I not?

D: The golden radiance of grace conceals the shadow of death.

D: But that is no reason to squander your life, or the Erdtree’s grace.

R: “Squander”? My, I believe I just heard a follower of Golden Order Fundamentalism question the eternity of gold. Please tell me I misheard you.

D: ...Yes, you misheard me, you fool.

D: Fine. I admit that I am hardly any better than you.

D: Regardless, I will not forgive you if you get yourself killed again over something so insignificant.

P30:

D: Listen carefully... Choosing to walk a path in search of Death does not mean that we may squander the blessing of life as we please.

R: Very well, cleric. But I still do not quite understand.

R: Even though my damaged body was reborn through grace, my life was neither consumed nor wasted. Or, to use the words you prefer, my soul remained within the Erdtree’s embrace all along.

R: At most, I merely consumed one use of the intact body I was born with. And from what we can see, the number of such uses is unlimited. Is it not?

P31:

D: Erdtree above, I thought it impossible for anything even more heretical to come out of your mouth.

R: Ha! Do not say that too soon... Darian, have you ever heard of something called a Primal Glintstone?

D: ...I know only that Glintstone is the medium through which you Sorcerers cast your magic.

R: Correct. In that case, you might say that a Primal Glintstone is a medium through which the magic of life can be cast.

P32:

R: There is a ritual implement known as the Primal Glintstone Blade.

R: If it is used to cut open a person’s chest, that person’s heart will transform into a Primal Glintstone. Mm... Imagine it as resembling any other piece of Glintstone you have seen.

R: Transplant the Primal Glintstone into any lifeless vessel—a puppet, for example...

R: A doll...

R: Even a properly preserved corpse... though it would be preferable to cover it with at least one layer of skin.

R: The owner of the Primal Glintstone will then be reborn within that dead vessel.

P33:

D: You are not saying that this is the form of existence you seek, are you?

R: Not quite. That is the art of the primeval sorcerers, and I do not entirely agree with their scholarly views.

R: I merely mean that our cultures may regard the body and life in very different ways.

D: ...I have little desire to understand your strange ideas at present. Lie down and sleep.

P35:

D: What exactly is so amusing, Rogier?

R: What? I was not laughing, was I?

R: Oh, you mean that last death. Incidentally, the last person to say something like that to me was my mother, even though she was the one who made me this way.

R: I thought we had finished discussing this subject long ago.

D: Perhaps we will have, on the day you stop walking so lightly into death and stop greeting it with that smile.

R: Wipe your face first.

D: Besides, there have been so many occasions when you did not need to die at all—just now, for example. Then you could have kept your handkerchief for yourself.

D: I cannot produce a thesis for you at this moment, but... it is different.

P36:

R: ...Darian, you have killed so many of Those Who Live in Death.

R: Have you ever seen even one sorrowful skeleton? Every set of remains with teeth wears the brightest smile imaginable.

R: If you believe that those who suffer beneath an improper death are happy, then by all means, interpret every smile as an expression of flippant amusement.

R: I often think that the eyelids, lips, and muscles beneath the skin that give expression to the natural human body will all decay eventually.

R: So rather than being an outward sign of joy, an expression of happiness, or a mask for mockery... perhaps a smile is simply what a human being looks like underneath.

R: I did not mean to make you think that I had disregarded what you said... all right? I truly could not evade that last attack.

P37:

D: I had never noticed any of that...

D: Most of the time, I cannot bear to look twice at those people tainted by Death.

D: But I understand your meaning. What you are saying is that the body is something that inevitably disperses with time and cannot be compared with the intellect or the soul.

D: ...In the past, a body blessed by gold was sacred. After the souls of the Erdtree’s people returned to the tree, they could still return to the bodies into which they had been born. That was the true nature of their immortality.

D: It is also the reason you can now experience death repeatedly as though it were an experiment.

D: But can you tell me why a Primal Glintstone—or some still more blasphemous thing of which I know nothing—cannot survive independently in this world?

P38:

D: Why does it always need a pair of eyes with which to see...

D: A pair of ears with which to hear...

D: A pair of hands—or several pairs—with which to touch and experience the world?

D: You, and all those scholars who declare the flesh worthless in your writings, still choose to clothe yourselves in fine garments rather than simply going about like witless animals.

R: That is not a very good example. I only just lost every jewel from my necklace.

D: Then consider another... A disease that damages the body can make a person cease to be who they once were. Must I remind you of the time you became delirious from poison?

D: The moment your fever subsided, you asked me to forget that you who was not you. Unfortunately, my memory is reasonably good.

D: To say nothing of the immortal people whose bodies now rot throughout the Lands Between, or our half-dead old friends, Those Who Live in Death.

D: If the body is truly so insignificant, why do we regard everything they suffer as a tragedy that must not be allowed to exist?

R: A tragedy? Yes. Something that must not be allowed to exist? I never said that.

P39:

D: You and I have purged so much Deathroot together.

D: Do you know where it comes from?

P40:

R: I thought that was the final answer our journey was meant to uncover.

R: Do you have a new theory?

D: I merely mean to say...

D: Rogier, Death has always watched us like an insect hiding behind a blade of grass. And it threatens the body and the soul equally. Do not imagine that either is less important than the other.

R: Very well... I shall be grateful for the Erdtree’s present blessing of an eternal body.

R: Ha! No wonder those who live beneath the golden light have so little interest in commissioning portraits. An eternal body needs no picture by which to be remembered, does it?

D: You do not have one either, Carian.

R: I do, back in my homeland. Though I doubt anyone can still see them now.

P41:

R: Mm... Perhaps when people recover their senses, I will consider having portraits made for both of us.