Chapter 202: Savros’s Quirk |
Morale Support: Scherzo
Patreon: https://patreon.com/ScherzoTranslations
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During the time spent by Reiner absorbing and understanding the spell models he needed, he wasn’t disturbed by other tasks. The office remained quiet all afternoon: everyone was engrossed in their own activities, and no unexpected incidents occurred.
A chime signaled the arrival of five o’clock in the afternoon, marking the end of the workday. Igor had already packed up and left as soon as the chime rang. Roger seemed to still be in his lab, perhaps waiting to leave after finishing his experiment.
Lord Percival hadn’t interacted much with Reiner today. Towards the end of the workday, he went upstairs to attend a meeting and hadn’t returned since.
Hannah slowly tidied up the materials on her desk, seemingly pondering over some incomprehensible question. As she was leaving, she bumped into Savros.
Crash–
As Hannah collided with Savros, he took a step forward, causing a pile of cards of unknown use to scatter all over the floor spectacularly.
Hannah knew she had done something wrong. She wanted to use her Mage Hand to pick up the cards on the ground, but Savros stopped her with his hand.
“It’s fine, I’ll do it myself. These cards have a specific order, you might mess it up.”
Savros sighed and then bent down, carefully picking up one of the cards as if cradling a child and placed it on the table.
Seeing this, Hannah didn’t say much and left the office dejectedly.
Reiner had been sorting his own materials when he saw Savros picking up the cards one by one and carefully organizing them into categories on the table. He didn’t understand why such an inefficient method was being used.
Curiosity prompted Reiner to stand up and walk over to Savros, bending down to pick up one of the cards.
The card was palm-sized, with an unfamiliar word combination in the upper left corner, followed by a jumble of common language letters written in cursive. Below that, in the common language, were the words “noun, fire.” Further down was a sentence written in the unfamiliar script, followed by a sentence Reiner could understand.
“They lit a fire in the dark forest.”
“Is this… a word card?” Reiner couldn’t help but recall the word explanations in dictionaries and asked subconsciously.
Savros stopped his movements, his face turning red as he stared at Reiner, then he somewhat excitedly took the card from Reiner’s hand and carefully placed it among the piles of cards on the table.
“Don’t touch my things,” Savros whispered.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…” Reiner raised his hands to show he meant no harm. He noticed the piles of cards, and besides the one about “fire” just now, the top card of another pile was “run,” while the first card of another pile was “melancholy.”
“Noun, verb, adjective… Could it be, Mr. Savros, that these are word cards of some language?” Reiner couldn’t help but ask.
“You can tell?”
He seemed somewhat surprised. Although it was something easy to understand, no one, whether colleagues or superiors, had ever understood him since he started this work.
Those people simply didn’t bother with these things at all.
“Um, this should be a noun, this is a verb, and here’s an adjective, and these, um, sorry, my grammar isn’t that good…”
Reiner pointed at the cards, making Savros’s eyes light up.
“These shouldn’t be vocabulary from the common language, right?” Reiner looked at the word “fire” marked on the card, realizing that this writing was more complex and difficult to write than the common language.
“Seraphino.”
Savros suddenly replied.
“Seraphino language, also known as Seraphino poetry, because its words have phonetic harmony, reading them together feels like reciting a poem.”
He then picked up the “fire” card that Reiner had just picked up and read aloud a sentence, apparently, the sentence recorded on the card.
As soon as Savros spoke, Reiner felt a change in his entire demeanor. From a middle-aged man with a slight hunch, Savros suddenly transformed into a carefree and unrestrained poet.
Although Reiner couldn’t understand a word of what he said, the sentence naturally carried a certain rhythm, as if it were a long-standing ballad.
“It sounds beautiful,” Reiner exclaimed.
“In fact, my pronunciation may not be standard. After all, the philological work is very difficult, and I can hardly find any relevant records,” Savros muttered.
“What language is this? I’ve never heard of it before.”
Reiner knew that the languages of this world were not limited to just the common language. The so-called “common language” was actually the official language of the Ancient Magical Empire, and because it was also the standard language for spellcasting, it was the most widely circulated. However, every apprentice mage had to learn magical runes, which were a language with a longer history, including many small countries that had their own languages.
“This is a language from a half-plane. This half-plane was discovered in the early days of the establishment of the Ancient Magical Empire. Some mages took ordinary people to explore it, but later, due to a series of disputes, the portal to this half-plane was blocked. This half-plane remained completely isolated for five hundred years.”
Savros had already packed up most of the cards. Holding a card in his hand, he slowly sat down.
“When contact was reestablished, this originally barren half-plane had already developed its own splendid civilization. Their language had also evolved and became the Seraphino poetic language. This is a unique language and the closest to magical runes. If successfully deciphered, people will have a deeper understanding of ancient history and the nature of magic.”
Reiner nodded. It was like being an archaeologist deciphering ancient texts, but he soon felt puzzled.
“But, Mr. Savros, why are you alone doing this work? Since that half-plane has formed its own civilization, perhaps there are corresponding records.”
He asked. Savros seemed to be working alone on something related to language, which was too strange.
Upon hearing Reiner’s question, Savros fell silent.
After a long time, he sighed and then said, “No, most of the documents related to Seraphino poetry have been lost, and only a few remain in circulation.”
“Why is that?” Reiner was somewhat puzzled, but what Savros said next made him suddenly realize.
“Because the half-plane where the Seraphino poetic language is located collapsed shortly after contact was restored. The entire civilization was destroyed in an instant, and the mages, who were unprepared, didn’t even have time to salvage a single document. And that was ten years ago.”
Savros seemed somewhat disheartened. In his statement, the rise and fall of a civilization happened in the blink of an eye.
“Perhaps you’ve guessed it already. That collapsed half-plane was called Midgard.”
Reiner’s eyes widened.
That was the half-plane where Dana’s parents had met their demise!