The Liberomancer [Isekai Progression LitRPG]

The village chief told me a few other tales from his village as we continued to travel towards his village, but there was only one which really stood out to me.

"Long ago," he began. "Before the lizardmen existed and the world was shrouded in endless darkness, there was only the sky above and the sea below. The sky manifested itself in the form of an endlessly large dragon coiling around itself. The sea, in the form of a dragon which endlessly coiled on top of itself." In his story, the sky and the sea dragon had names, but they were completely incomprehensible to me. I did figure out that the sky was supposed to be male and the sea female from context, however. "Since time immemorial, the sea and the sky had been in love with each other, but they could not be with each other. The sky above, the sea below, and an endless gap between the two of them. Although they could call out and speak to each other, they could not reach across the void between the two of them. But, the distance only made their love for each other greater. Their fondness grew every single day until not even the vastness of the sea nor the immensity of the sky could hold them."

"Their raging love manifested itself into two flames deep within them. When the sky could not keep the flame contained any longer, when he felt that it would cause his stomach to rupture, he released it out of his mouth. That ball of flame lit up the entire world, becoming the sun that we know today. Although the two had been able to hear each other's voices long before, it was the first time they were finally able to gaze upon each other and their fondness for the other grew even deeper. 'Oh sea, you are vast and unfathomable, that is what I have come to love most about you,' the sky said. The sea responded, 'Oh sky, you are endless and I wish you would continue to shelter me for all eternity.' The sea could no longer contain herself, and another ball of flame erupted from her. This flame burnt the sea, causing endless steam to erupt and creating the clouds that wander across the sky even today. The fire and the sea clashed with each other for ten days until, as a result of their interaction, a massive island was formed which was the continent as we know it today."

"The two dragons were now overjoyed, as the sea began to crawl onto the island, and the sky began to descend. At the highest peak, the two were finally able to meet, and from their union, the lizardmen emerged into this world," the village chief said, ending this story.

The story, while it attempted to explain how the lizardmen came into being, said nothing of humans or the other races that lived on the continent. Then again, most stories told by the humans regarding Serragnin were much of the same, just reversed. If other races were ever mentioned, it was almost always in a negative light.

I had learned quickly enough that not all such stories were to be taken seriously - and while some of them might be based on a kernel of truth, the majority were just like folktales back home. The issue was that given that magic was a reality in this world, it was a bit harder to tell the difference between what was intended to be metaphorical and what was supposed to be literal. At least, for someone like me, who was relatively new to everything in this strange world, it was hard to tell what was just fanciful tales and what was intended to be taken as factual. The people of this world had a better grasp on telling what the 'fake magic' was in their stories compared to 'real magic' but the line was not so clear to someone who was foreign to any kind of magic.

With his earlier story, I could believe that there really were giant squids of enormous size in this world. Did I fully believe the story of the lizardmen sending a fleet out to attack it? Well, no, I thought it was more likely that the corpse of one had just washed up and someone invented the rest of that story.

This story, while interesting, was far more abstract and harder to take seriously.

However, I could feel the seeds of something being sown in my mind as I mulled over it. The puzzle pieces were there, but they hadn't been assembled to form a coherent picture yet. From the stories he was telling me, and from our journey, the outline of another Rank Two grimoire began to form in my head. That was good, because my wellspring of ideas had run dry a while back and I could only try to purchase or swap for other Rank Two grimoires. I could see Rank Three on the horizon, but the last few steps were taking an agonizingly long time.

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"Thanks for entertaining me," I said.

"No problem," he said. "Will you not do the same? I love telling stories to my grandchildren, and I'd love to have another one to share. I don't know any human stories though."

"Hmm…" I thought to myself. There were a lot of myths from Earth that I could tell him. I thought initially that he might prefer a seafaring tale, but then realized he had probably heard enough of those already. I decided to go with something else. "This tale is about a boy by the name of Icarus…"

There were a lot of ways to interpret the first story he had told me with the giant squid, but I think one of the themes that could be interpreted from it was 'don't fly too close to the sun' though in the story's case it was framed as 'don't sail too far out into the ocean.' I could be wrong, but as I finished my story, the village chief nodded in appreciation.

"Thank you- that is… quite a story," he said. "Speaking of, do you know how to fly, Sir Liberomancer? I have heard of some who can…"

"No, I would like to get a grimoire that can, but they are very hard to get," I told him. They were Rank Three at the minimum, and even for Rank Threes; especially hard to get. Hei Nan did not have a single one.

We ended up reaching his village before nightfall - much like Granny Qi's village it was rather haphazardly organized. There was some semblance that a portion of the houses had been built with something in mind, but the others were just structures hastily constructed by people with little afterthought.

I had been a bit worried about how I would be received in the village, being human and all. The village chief had been nice enough but I still had my doubts.

I really couldn't say that I was met with negativity, if anything, the villagers were quite curious. A bit too much given all the stares that I got which were borderline uncomfortable, but given the fact that I was human, and a Liberomancer, I could see things from their point of view. As it was, I was there to do a job for them, and they understood that and didn't do anything to bother me.

As I expected, dinner mainly consisted of fish, but I did learn a new recipe from them that I figured I could try out. It was extremely salty, but that was just how the lizardmen liked their fish - not that it was inedible mind you, just not what I would've chosen to munch on.

At the crack of dawn the next day, I headed out along with the village chief to check up on where the Elephant Frog was located.

As they had said earlier, it was laid out over a section of the farm near the river like a huge boulder. I didn't know whether it was asleep or not, but it was definitely not the same Elephant Frog that I had found near Granny Qi's village as this one was emerald green and not the earthy brown that had helped the other one blend into the surroundings so well.

I was not going to approach it myself, instead, I used [Summon Elephant Frog]. Magical beasts had many varying properties between each individual of a species - much like with humans, some would be stronger, bigger, or faster than others. I willed the spell to give me an Elephant Frog with the highest Luck stat possible, as I knew that factored into how they settled territorial disputes. I also wanted a male, because if that one was male as well, it would not back off if it saw a female challenging it.

But, it seemed that I needn't have bothered.

"Oh, it is a female," I said.

"How can you tell?" the village chief asked.

"I can't," I told him. The summon and I shared a psychic connection which allowed us to exchange information instantaneously with each other, but with the Elephant Frog's limited intelligence, I couldn't get much more than very basic emotions. It was not able to form even the simplest of sentences.

But, my summon could tell that this other frog was female, and was able to transmit this information to me in its own way. It was hard to describe because it was not using language or words, but I still understood quite a bit of what it was thinking. "But my summon can tell that that is a female. This should be easy, unless it's mating season or whatever and that complicates things."

I didn't actually know whether or not summons could breed with normal magical beasts - whenever summons disappeared, they completely disappeared along with their bodies, though whether their bodily fluids would still work or not…

Eh, best not to think about it.

My summon approached the frog and let out a loud croak. The sonorous war cry of an angry frog reverberated throughout the surrounding area. The other frog immediately woke up and got into a defensive position upon hearing this. My summon then glared at it, as if to say, 'this is my backyard, move or things are going to get ugly.'

The other frog did not contest this, and then hopped on back towards the wilderness where it had come from, away from my summon.

"That should do it," I said, watching it merrily hop away. "See? I told you that I could do it without killing it."