The Last Surviving Alchemist Wants to Live Quietly in the City

"Once upon a time, long before humans made a unit called a country, this wasn't a demon forest, it was a normal, rich forest."

The door of the temple, huge enough to look up, opened quietly without sound just because Frasija put her hands behind her.

Shortly after entering, a wide hallway of five meters wide leads to the left and right, with a garden-like place in front, that is, entering through the entrance and opposite the hallway, indoors but coloured with waterways and grasshoppers.

This hallway is arranged to surround the garden and appears to be partitioned by walls from halfway. I guess that's the central part of the temple because across the garden you can see such splendid doors that they're no different from the entrance to the temple.

The ceilings in the hallway are higher than normal houses, but about the ceilings in the halls and rally halls, and there seems to be an upstairs floor. All of the several columns supporting the high ceiling are stone constructed, with shades changing at the reddish, blackish and top and bottom. The gradient was like a formation, like a memory of the earth lying deep at the foot of the Devil's Forest, Mariella thought.

But the garden is blown out, and the ceiling part feels like it went out when I looked up to see if the sky was painted. The hallway and the garden are separated by a wall about the waist length, and if you get over it and cross the garden, you'll likely reach the center door in the shortest possible time, but instead of stepping into the picturesque and quiet landscape, you can also begin to reach out.

Really, what a quiet place.

This world of water itself, although not a noisy place, still felt signs of the demons. Though this garden is a beautiful world of blossoming flowers, one leaf, even a piece of petal, cannot feel the chirping of a little bird or even the wings of a butterfly.

The gardens, where you can't hear the smell of soil, the green scent, or even the sound of the water flow, are like looking at elaborate models, 3D drawings.

"This way," cried Frazija to Mariella, staring into the garden, then proceeded down the hallway.

"The swamps you've reached were beautiful, very clear lakes back then. That was the majestic beauty of this garden. From a distance, the lake surface reflected a forest as deep as a mirror, and the closer I looked, the clearer I could see to the bottom. God bless the lake with light, and every flame was so ashamed of its beauty that it lurked."

Although Siege and Eurique had the expression that they could not imagine from that gloomy swamp, such as the fantastically beautiful sights Frazija spoke of, Mariella knew the beautiful figure in her master's dreams.

"There was the spirits of the lake that controlled this pulse, or the pulse of the Devil's Forest.

It was a long time before Endalgia became the lord of the pulse near the labyrinth city.

You know it's the same vein around the Demon Forest and the Labyrinth City.

Don't you think it's strange that in a labyrinth city you don't understand the words of the Spirit and not the Devil's Forest? Because even if the ground pulse is the same, administrators vary from place to place.

Well, that's a common story.

It's hard for the Spirit to manage a wide range, and in the first place, the Spirit is a good addition.

Back then, the spirits of this lake had become the devil's side, so Endalgia wanted to give them a place to live. "

Although the story of Frasija is so critical that an end can be struck to years of controversy if heard by the scholars of the Imperial capital, for those who stay here, they are walking unnecessarily around looking at the situation as if they were on a sightseeing tour.

"Speaking of which, 200 years ago, the Devil's Forest was a demonic realm, and the Kingdom of Endalgia was a human realm, and you thought it was strange to be able to make potions either way, even though it was supposed to be a different realm..."

Even Mariella, the alchemist, is at this rate.

"Uh, Mariela, you said that. When I explained," Because it's near the Kingdom of Endalgia, "I was convinced of something. He's an honest kid, and he saved my life!

Haha the laughing master made me feel a little complicated whether I was being praised or laughed at as an asshole child, Mariella said, trying to get back to the story. "So?," he urged.

"This is a completely independent lake, not connected to any river. Actually, it's where the groundwater is gushing.

Look, there's a river diving underground from around the sandbox, right? This is the far downstream side of it. That's where the water's hitting rocks and some of it's gushing out.

It is very clear because it is water filtered by sand, and the groundwater veins are rich and, above all, inhabited by spirits.

So this lake, which gives grace to the forest, never withered water.

But from the people who didn't think so, this would have seemed like a very mysterious place to clean everything up. "

Mariela remembered her first dream. It is the dream of those who are still immature to come to grieve the filth of hunger.

"So you've come here to scold me, haven't you?

The master nodded quietly at Mariella's inquiry.

"Every time a famine strikes, every time a demon strikes, every time a variety of catastrophes afflict us, humans come across the woods to cleanse this lake, and that's how they survive."

Frasija, with her hands on the door at the edge of the hallway, turned her gaze toward the garden. Looking back at the garden, Mariella noticed that the garden was completely different.

I'm not talking about the season. The place, which was a beautiful garden, was transformed into a forest of deep, dim, but majestic atmospheres, as you might recall from earlier stories.

"Come on, inside"

As Frazija forced me, the tip of the cuddly door was a huge library of left and right walls filled with books surprisingly all the way to the ceiling.

In the middle of the wide hallway, there is also a narrow line of bookshelves, large and small, and lots of books are piled up on the floor.

"This is spectacular!

Grand Dollar, who seems to have some appetite for literature, looks at the rich collection of books as he pulls his mustache, and Edgan, who would sleep in three seconds if he spreads them, yawns heavily at the smell of paper and ink he can stand in, even though he doesn't even have the book in his hand.

Sieg looked indoors with both eyes and gave Mariella a slightly suspicious look, and Mariella nodded back gently as she noticed something.

"Nobody in the Imperial City remembers this lake anymore, but I've come to mourn it over and over again, and I've set my course.

There's a dirty way to flow.

Therefore, the filth that occurs around the Imperial City flows here at will without having to do anything at the earliest. "

Frazija continues her conversation as she walks through several rooms. Through the door, up the stairs, or down. Every room is a library filled with tons of books, and even though we can recognize that there are a lot of books, any attempt to recognize one of them blurs the letters or makes it look like a letter we don't know, and Mariela and the others can't know what books are housed here.

"This must be a more beautiful lake than anywhere else, but it's not a miracle lake that soothes and cleanses dirt.

More and more, it flowed and accumulated, and it became a whirlpool of filth.

These woods and creatures have become demonic woods, bearing the filth of every land that holds the lake. "

"So what about the Spirit Hall of the Lake here!?

Franz was the one who broke the same silence that surprised the formation of the Devil's Forest. Ask Frasija, who walks slowly, in a more restless manner than anyone since entering this temple.

"No problem. Yes, there was no problem.

No spirits, no demons. Whether it's dirty or not.

You know that, right? If it rains, the earth moisturizes, and if it dries up, life runs out.

The Spirit accepts just being but remaining.

If there is any fouling, it will only be lodged and slowly returned to the earth's pulse.

If the filth accumulates too much, there will be a mass of demons, which will strike people, but that doesn't change that much from an epidemic or a famine coming.

Even if you get swallowed up by filthy thoughts and lose your sanity. The demons and spirits of the forest are just accepting if the old man doesn't change from finishing the life after me.

So there was nothing wrong with it if you try to be the spirits of the lake. "

Frazija stopped and slowly looked back at Franz.

"Franz, your worries and your anger, it's human values.

You know what I mean? Because that's what spirits are supposed to be.

But, you know, there was this one I thought I didn't like.

“I want to be clean, clean and unclean, I want to be with you sane."

He who wished for it. "

Frazija opens her hands.

The figure was bright red as it was illuminated by the flames, and Mariella and the others realized that at some point the area was dim enough not to be seen.

Nearby books are illuminated and slightly floated, but how big is the place now? I should have come through earlier, but I feel like I'm in an endless vast hall.

"Come on, Mariela. We reached a deep place in the Devil's Forest, my beloved disciple.

That's all I can lead.

This is the center. This is the truth.

For those who have truth here, but know not even what knowledge is, they are equal to the books they see in the dark, and do not give any guidance.

Come on, show me the answer.

Where this place is and what this world is.

Give me the key to the exit with everything you've got. "

Even though there is no wind, my hair spreads, making me think of the flames that burn.

It's already dark around here, except for Frazija, who can't even see Zeke in Mariella.

Shiny eyes, their thin pupils, made Frazija seem like a good person.