The Faraway Paladin (最果てのパラディン)

My memories of that time were vague and murky.

My life felt like stagnant water. I grew more and more impatient,

but everything felt tedious and difficult.

I wanted to take a step forward, but I felt so scared.

This pain in my chest. This agony.

A long time ago, when the earth came into existence,

the manor that made up the world

was too ponderous to hold its shape

and merely swirled in a muddy mass of chaos.

Then the first of the gods appeared

and said, let there be earth.

The manor solidified, becoming the ground, and the manor

overhead thinned and became the sky.

Yeah, but, Gus, I only asked you

how words are related to magic.

Just be quiet and listen to me.

I'm not even getting paid to teach

all this, you know? Yeah, fine.

The creator God made the sun and moon

and separated the land from the sea.

Fire, wind and trees came next, followed

by other gods as well as humans.

Gus the ghost is a little eccentric,

and he can be overbearing at times,

but he's smarter than anyone else. And

he teaches me a whole lot.

All the words and symbols that the Creator God used,

what we now call writing, are referred

to as the words of creation.

These words, whether they're spoken or written down,

all possess very profound power. Power? That's right.

If you write the word ignis, it defines the existence of fire.

And then if you speak the word Erasmus.

That is the word which means erasure.

The fire will be extinguished. And that's

what magic is. The power of words. Magic.

The God of justice and lightning. Volt.

The earth. Mother. Mater. The god of fire and technology. Blaze.

The god of wind and commerce. That's whirl.

The goddess of water and greenery, Rhea Silvia.

The god of knowledge and light.

Ancient words of magic. Offered up to the gods. Words of creation.

Oh, I get it. Parts of the inscription

are scratched out so the words powers won't activate.

Graceville.

Are you curious about him? Yeah, well. Sort of.

That's Gracefield, the god of light who

governs the cycle of death and rebirth.

He's the child of the lightning god

volt and the earth mother mater.

You worship the earth, mother mater, don't you?

Yes. You've got it right. She's the god

of child rearing and the bounties of the earth.

Of the six principal gods. She's particularly

revered by people in rural areas.

So when you do your daily prayers,

the Earth mother is the goddess you pray to, right?

Mary. What do you say we head back

and have dinner now? Sound good? Yeah.

Huh?

Oh. Blood.

Oh, well, that's a really nice bore.

off of this guy today. Well, uh.

Thank you so much. Hey, that kind of hurts.

Oh. Looks tasty. Go on, eat up. Don't worry, I will.

Oh, it's so good. Thanks so much

for the food. Blood. You too. Murray?

Yes. Gratitude is good. After you grow a little bigger,

I'll teach you how to go and hunt for yourself too.

What hunt? Hunting teaches you all kinds of valuable lessons.

Although you're going to have to get used to taking lives.

Oh. What's wrong? Are you losing your nerve?

Stop it! He's still too young for that.

She's right. Huh? He needs to learn the basics before that.

But I must say, I'm impressed. I can't believe he's only three.

And he's already learned to read and write.

He just might be as much of a genius as I am.

I don't think it could hurt to teach him some magic.

Hey, come on, give us a break.

What if he becomes an old miser

with an oversized brain like blood?

The skeleton looks scary and it can seem out of control.

But he always keeps things lively and friendly.

Don't you? What do you mean? What's

with the crack about the overtime? Hey, Mary, what's.

Wrong with strengthening the bug. About this bread?

Just when do you bake it? That's a secret. Huh? The three of

them keep a lot of secrets, like why they live here and why

there are no other humans here except for me.

From the time I was born. I've

never met anyone else but the three of them.

But the biggest secret is why are they undead?

There are so many things I want to ask them, but I can't.

Because I'm keeping a secret from them myself. That secret is.

Thanks for dinner. That I'm a human

who still has memories of my previous life.

My memories are vague and murky and I can't

get them into sharp focus. A ceiling. A monster.

Oh, mommy. Ghost.

They're gonna kill me.

Ah!

What?

This is the 186th morning. After that day,

half a year since I started living with these walking corpses.

It's time to eat.

What a good boy you are. Well, um.

Uh oh. Are you feeling full already?

I can't speak it very well, but I can

generally understand the language that they speak. Now.

Shall we go take a little walk outside today?

Outside? I. I've never been outside before.

She smells like incense. I wonder what it's like outside the temple.

That breeze. So refreshing. And it smells

of plants wet with morning dew.

Isn't it beautiful out here, Will?

It really is beautiful up there.

There. It's all right. There's nothing to be afraid of.

At first I thought it had fallen down into hell.

After living such a hopelessly vague and empty life,

such a punishment wouldn't have been a surprise.

I'm wrong. This has no punishment. It must be.

The grace of God. I feel like

something that I'd wastefully thrown away without a second

thought was given back to me once again.

Oh, well, my sweet, tender little boy. This.

This time I'm truly going to live.

I'm going to live in this world.

Ah, I'm finally done.

We gotta build your muscle and stamina first.

Without the strength to back them up, your skills are useless.

Well, couldn't you see that making up for your

lack of strength is a skill?

Listen, do you really think you could knock me down? Well, no.

With the right skill, you might be able to knock me over.

But there will be times when that skill won't work for you.

But you can't separate your muscles from your body.

The brute force that muscles give you can

solve most of your problems in life.

Learning skills comes after that. Understand?

It seems like muscles are kind of masochistic, huh?

Flamel Ignis. Erasmus. Fool. Your pronunciation is imprecise.

Given your talent, you really need to learn

to control your accuracy or you'll kill yourself.

That's scary. Well, magic can be a scary thing.

Do you have any idea of the reason

why words possess so much power?

I'd guess it's for the same reason

we think a chair is a chair, right? Indeed.

After all, when we see a wooden stool that has four legs,

no matter what color it might be,

or whatever kind of wood that it's made of,

we don't even think of calling it something

like four sticks and a round slab,

and we wouldn't call it a table.

We just instinctively categorize it under the chair label.

So in short, what that means is that words

are what define and differentiate the way things are.

Of course, I'm just repeating what someone told me, you know?

Well, it seems you might actually be a genius after all.

But isn't there anything I can do to get more consistent results?

Fraid not. That's just what words are all about.

There are always fluctuations in speech. No one

is able to say a word in exactly the same way twice.

The only answer is to let your

instincts determine the ideal level instincts.

But you should start off by learning

how to use your minor magic more skillfully and accurately.

But hopefully you'll do your best to

get by without even using that.

Without using magic. How's that possible?

I'm talking about money. That again? Man,

how can a ghost worship money as much as you do?

Oh come now, you don't know what you're talking about.

Money is extremely important. Money is what

makes the entire world go round.

With money, you can solve anything without magic.

Buy tools, hire help. And the ability

to make a profit is just as important as magic.

Why, oh why must I have hands

that are incapable of holding silver and

gold any longer? It isn't fair.

I want to feel money and count

gold coins with my own hands. Curses! You're not normal.

Creatures such as these are. Beasts. Demon

beasts are a particular type that are extremely aggressive.

Wow. That's. Old Gus has taught you about the myths, hasn't he?