Restarting From Genesis

Merlin immediately checked his quest information, and while immediately scrolling past the wall of text he was already familiar with, he saw a couple of extra lines added to the bottom.

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[Hidden Mythical Quest]

A door without a key.

Within Megalopolis stands several ruins from an ancient civilisation...

...

During a full moon, a strange spectral film seems to fill the space within the door frame, and for some unexplained reason, souls and anything related to them are unable to pass through the door frame, whether that be souls themselves or even soul-infused equipment.

It seems as though this door frame has some connection with the goddess Hecate and the spirit realm. Her name is clearly written on the stone frame in what you believe to be ancient Arcadian. What is the purpose of the door frame, and why is it blocked off?

Figure out a way of opening the mysterious door frame.

• Reward: ???

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'So... It's a portal to the spirit realm, of which Hecate has some sort of domain over... Right.' Merlin thought to himself, 'So it's likely that my interest in the door frame is the reason why she has suddenly taken interest in me, and why she requested me for help.'

'There is a very large likelihood that this has something to do with whatever had cut off Hecate's connection with the temple and the prayers of her worshippers.' Merlin thought.

'She suddenly returned after I messed around with the rift.' He thought to himself, 'Something must be preventing her from interacting with the world. But that shouldn't be possible, she's a boundary diety.'

'There are too many holes in that idea... What sort of barrier could stop a boundary god but be slightly inconvenienced by some serial killer's dagger?' Merlin shook his head, 'Unless the blade is a little more special than I originally thought... But that's doubtful.'

"Dalai, as an earth mage, you have a spell for identifying the material components of a piece of equipment, right?" Merlin turned and asked Dalai, who was busy repairing another statue.

"I can... Yes." She said while finishing a repair, "Is this important?"

"It's relevant," Merlin said while pulling the Ghostsaw blade out of its sheath, "I would like to see what materials this blade is made from."

Dalai reached out to take the blade from Merlin's hands, but it seemed the sudden drop in temperature from merely getting close to the blade had caused her to retract her hand in surprise.

"It's a little cold to the touch, don't worry," Merlin reassured her while handing the weapon to her once more.

"While I do this, you'll run around collecting statue parts to be reassembled, right?" Dalai asked.

"Of course," Merlin responded.

Dalai had picked up the blade properly this time and sat down with it in her lap. When she began chanting and focusing her magic on the blade, it slowly began to hover slightly in the air.

Merlin let her do her thing while he started picking up chunks of rubble.

Several minutes went by, but the results of Dalai's investigation had come in.

"So? How is it?" Merlin asked.

"It's a special blade..." Dalai said while handing the blade back as quickly as she could, "First of all, it's clearly infused with the soul of a ghost."

"But not only is it infused with the soul of a ghost, but the blade also seems to have quite the strong affinity for the infused soul," She explained, "You see, it turns out that one-fifth of the blade is refined soul steel, which is why it has such a strong bond with the infused soul, any undead soul would."

'Ahh, that makes sense.' Merlin thought to himself. 'That's why it reacted so strongly to the portal in the first place.'

Soul steel is a special material that could be used in all manner of crafting recipes. It's a metal that had been fused with necrotic energies to produce a material that implemented aspects of both. Ores of soul steel rarely form in areas with high undead activity, such as in a crypt, a dungeon full of undead or even within a necropolis.

This ore could be mined by players for use in crafting, and it had quite a strong affinity with undead souls for the purposes of soul infusions. It was rather valuable for weapons in the early game, as it gave non-magical weapons the ability to damage certain ethereal creatures such as ghosts.

"Other materials that make up the blade are mostly regular sword steel, but there are traces of cobalt and tungsten mixed in..." She continued, "But, the most concerning material in this blade is what I believe to be blood... And lots of it."

'Oh, dear...' Merlin thought to himself, 'How am I going to explain that.'

"It's not even just that the weapon has been used to inflict several wounds in its lifetime... But blood seems to have actually been used as a material during its creation..." She said with a tremor in her voice, "Where did you get such a cursed weapon?"

"I received it from the corpse of a murderer who tried to take my life, but that's not the important part." Merlin said while trying to brush the whole blood thing away, "This blade is unable to pass through the mysterious door frame on a full moon... It's as if there's a barrier in the way that blocks souls and soul-infused items from crossing."

Dalai's previously worried face had partially lit up at the mention of the door frame, and especially a unique behaviour that she was previously unaware of. Although it seemed that a part of her was still worried about the blood, and now the mention of a murderer.

"Alright, let's finish up here," Merlin said while sheathing his dagger. "We can continue this conversation on the way back to the city."

Dalai nodded and quickly went back to restoring statues, although it seemed to just be enough to read the name tag and get an idea as to which god the name belonged to. And after a little while, it seemed that they were finally done.

"Got everything you need?" Merlin asked.

"Yes, let's go back," Dalai responded.

As the two stepped out of the temple and made their way back to the abandoned village, Merlin started explaining what he knew about the door frame. But once he brought up the strange old man, that seemed to be the only thing that Dalai focused on, even when he had more things to talk about regarding the door frame, it was rather strange.

Dalai had stopped the conversation briefly while she began chanting a spell, causing rocks and dirt to float into the air before compressing into the shape of two horse-like golems.

The two got on a golem each and began riding them towards the city. For the first few moments, there was silence between them, but Dalai spoke first.

"A door without a key," She said, "Did you hear this phrase from that old man?"

Merlin looked at her with a curious gaze.

"Yes, I did," He said, "Has the old man said the same to you?"

Merlin naturally assumed that Dalai had encountered the old man at least once while researching the ruins. He seemed to be very interested in the same thing that both of them were interested in, so it was only natural that they would cross paths eventually.

Even Merlin had met the man twice, and that was on both occasions that he visited the portal during a fool moon.

"Yes," Dalai said, although it sounded like she was choking up slightly, "I've heard him say it once or twice."

The atmosphere between the two had gotten strange for a moment, but it quickly recovered and Merlin had finally explained more about the door frame, his antics with the dagger and also mentioned his experience with Hecate at the temple.

All of these points seemed to cause Dalai to go quiet as she thought to herself. It was likely that she would come to a conclusion similar to that of Merlin.

as the two rode silently towards the city, now able to see that the wall was only a small distance away, a red alert box appeared before Merlin, informing him that he had five minutes to log out or be forcibly logged out.

Merlin swiped the notification message away as the horse golems began slowing down. Moments later the golems had stopped near the wall, and once dismounted by their riders, dissolved back into a mound of earth.

The two walked towards the gate, greeting the guards as they stepped into the city.

「You have completed the quest, "Revisiting the Acacesium temple.", rewards have been delivered.」

"Thank you, Merlin," Dalai said, "I'll be going back to my office to work on this translation. Feel free to pay me a visit at any time."

With that, Dalai began walking away from Merlin who remained near the gate.

"Take care," Merlin said before walking in another direction, he slipped into a more quiet location, where he told his stream that it was time to go. "Thanks for watching everyone, I'll hopefully see you all next week."

He turned his stream off before uttering the command to log out.

His body was quickly warped out of the game and into the black void, Merlin went through the many steps of logging out before the machine finally freed him.

After escaping his capsule, Arthur made his way toward the briefing room and took a seat in his usual spot, greeting the developers who were finishing off their briefing notes before everyone woke up.