Harem Sync: Divine Edition

Chapter 108: Baptism (6): Sarcophagus

"So, everything you said..."

She tightened her grip on his fingers. Her voice came out almost unintentionally, like something she’d been holding back for days.

"About wanting to learn consecration..."

...

"About wanting to see me..."

...

"About being a Herald..." Her throat closed up. "...was it a lie?"

Haru opened his mouth.

But she continued, not aggressive, not angry, just hurt and tired of being hurt.

"You just wanted to use me to get into the Cathedral that day? To get what you wanted? Whatever it was?"

Finally, she looked at him.

Her eyes were moist, not from crying. From something before crying. Confusion, hurt, and something she didn’t yet know the name of.

"...and now that I know what you are..."

Her voice trailed off. "Gamers are evil, Haru." She looked away.

"They bring calamities, death, ruin."

...

"I know what the Church says about you."

Wind rustled through the trees. A leaf fell between them.

Haru looked at his own hands and let out a small, humorless laugh through his nose.

"...damn it."

He slowly ran a hand over his face. "How do I explain this to you..."

Lilithine didn’t answer, because she didn’t know what she wanted to hear either.

Haru stared at the ground for a few seconds and then spoke softly, honestly and without pretense.

"When I woke up in this world..."

The wind rustled through the trees.

"I just wanted to survive."

"Then I started doing things I never imagined."

"Then I started lying and then I kept lying."

He chuckled weakly, not out of amusement but out of recognition.

"And in the midst of all that..."

His gray eyes met hers.

"...I really enjoyed talking to you."

Lilithine’s chest tightened this time, and the worst part was that she believed him, and that hurt more than anything.

"When you smiled at me..." Her voice came out small. "...what part was a lie?"

Haru was silent and looked at his hands once and then at her.

"None." And at the same time: "A little."

And he didn’t know how to say both things at the same time without sounding like an excuse.

So he said nothing.

And sometimes silence says more than any honest phrase.

Lilithine stood up slowly, like someone who needs a second to gather what was scattered, and left.

But she stopped before turning the corner at the courtyard exit, her back to him, hands clasped at her sides.

She didn’t turn around.

"I still want to believe you’re a good person."

Her voice came out low, but firm, and tired in a way that wasn’t about sleepiness.

"Then don’t make me regret it."

And that was it.

Haru sat on the bench for a while.

He thought about the statue inside the shrine.

Worn marble, blindfolded eyes, an expression that wasn’t weakness, but the weariness of someone who had persevered nonetheless.

"Saint Lilithine. She who remained."

He sighed deeply, looked at the sky that was beginning to brighten, stood up, picked up the mop he had left at the entrance to the courtyard, and went to sweep.

...Isabela had followed Haru on impulse.

Not out of concern; she would say it was curiosity if someone asked. But when she saw him leaving the refectory with that expression of someone carrying something that didn’t fit into the night, she followed without thinking much.

He didn’t hear her call. He was too focused, walking quickly and following the trail of something she couldn’t see.

"He’s following someone."

Then she followed him.

She stood behind the pillar at the courtyard entrance, tall trees, stone bench, low wind, and watched.

She didn’t hear everything, but she heard enough.

The girl with gloves, the small voice, the pauses between sentences that weighed more than the sentences themselves.

And Haru, whom she knew well enough to know when he was cornered, sitting on the bench with his injured hands in his lap, not lying properly for the first time since arriving in the Capital.

When the girl left, Isabela lingered there hidden for another second.

Then she emerged slowly, brushing her hair back with a neutral, thoughtful expression.

"She’s the one who’s Lilithine..." She said nothing more.

...

Seline ate quickly and left.

Not because she was in a hurry, she was dealing with something worse. An elf’s mind didn’t ask for permission. It remembered when it wanted to, processed information when it deemed necessary, and brought it back at the wrong time but in the right place.

The battle against Haru and Genius was still there, not the fight itself, but the details. Haru’s reflection on the golden platform.

The library was nearly empty at that hour. Servants were tidying shelves, and students sat isolated at tables, their eyes heavy from a sleepless night.

Seline walked straight to the esoteric studies section; she didn’t hesitate, didn’t search. She knew what she wanted before she knew its name.

"Which one... which one..." Her fingers ran along the spines. "It has to be here."

She found it.

A gray leather cover, the title engraved without ornamentation:

"Anomalies, An Incomplete Treatise."

She opened it in the middle, flipped through the pages, and stopped.

She read in silence, her eyes moving slowly, then faster, then pausing on a line she reread three times.

> "Among necromancers there is an old saying: ’Every necromancer controls spirits. A Sarcophagus survives them.’"

The next page had a diagram, a normal human soul represented as a single, compact point. A Sarcophagus soul represented as a chamber divided into compartments, each occupied by a different symbol.

Like a tomb. Like a temple. Like a prison.

The text continued:

> "A Sarcophagus is not a race. It is an anomaly. The soul does not occupy the body; it behaves like space. Like a small world. Spirits are naturally drawn to it, just as water finds the lowest level."

> "The problem is simple. Every spirit possesses existential weight, memories, desires, instincts, accumulated hatred. When it enters an ordinary person, that weight begins to crush the host’s soul. That is why possessions happen. That is why vessels fail."

> "But Sarcophagi possess natural chambers. Compartments. Voids where spirits exist without immediately destroying the host."

Seline turned the page.

> "That is why they are so valuable. That is why they are so hunted. That is why so many disappear."

> "A living Sarcophagus is worth more to certain necromancers than an entire army. Some are turned into mobile laboratories. Others into prisons for dangerous entities. The most unfortunate become both."

She turned another page.

> "There is a difference between an ordinary Sarcophagus and a Great Sarcophagus. The ordinary one can contain dozens of spirits. The Great one can contain entities capable of destroying cities. There are records of Sarcophagi carrying dead dragons, ancient heroes, saints, demons, and fragments of deities."

> "Most go mad. Few survive. Even fewer remain human."

> "For a Sarcophagus does not control spirits."

> "It coexists with them."

> "And the more spirits it carries... the harder it becomes to distinguish where the host ends. And where the dead begin."

Seline slowly closed the book and stared at the cover for a moment.

"That gamer... but which characters are Sarcophagi in the game..."

"Remember, remember..."

She went to her room, lay down, and fell asleep on purpose.

And she woke up in the neon void, but there was no god there, only her.

"My memories..." she said.

A screen appeared in front of her and she began to search.

Images flashing by, battles she had fought, characters she had faced, files she had read before transmigrating.

"What character is that Gamer?..."

...

The artificial forest was in a sector no one had shown him.

While cleaning, Haru found a small passage between two buildings that suddenly opened into a nonsensical space: real trees inside the academy, dirt floor, light filtered through foliage that shouldn’t have fit in there.

He stood at the entrance for a second.

"Hehehe... this is my resting place from now on."

But rest had been the last thing that happened.

Three hours later, he was sweating, Vorath heavy in his hand, performing the same movement for the hundredth time: diagonal cut, side step, wrist rotation.

Wrong. Again.

He stopped. He opened the book he’d picked up at the library, thin, with a worn cover and a dull title: "Fundamentals of Sword Combat, Basic."

He reread the page he’d marked.

"The art of the sword is not strength. It is circulation. Mana must flow from the cultivation center through the dominant arm to the blade, creating..."

He closed it.

"Even if I force myself to do it, I can’t."

He sat on the ground, his back against a tree, Vorath lying beside him.

"There are arts that require specific mana circulation. To learn how to circulate mana effectively... I need to learn how to cultivate."

Cultivation. The art of constantly recharging mana, not just recovering what was spent, but expanding what one had. Raising the level. Building a reservoir.

"The foundation of every practitioner."

"Every practitioner except me."

He took a deep breath, assuming the position the book described: spine straight, hands open on his knees, focus turned inward.

He tried to circulate the mana center as the text described: "a point of light at the center of the chest, expanding with each exhalation..."

His heart stopped.

Not metaphorically. It really stopped, half a second of absolute silence inside his chest, like a stalling engine.

Haru opened his eyes and coughed violently, bent forward.

Muscle spasms ran through his left arm, climbed up his shoulder, then vanished.

He stood there, gasping for breath.

"...Shit."

He ran his tongue over his lip, still split from the night before.

"It’s as if my body refuses to cultivate."

It wasn’t the first time he’d tried, but the result was always the same: rejection, like a transplanted organ the body won’t accept.

"Unfortunately, I can’t recharge my mana any other way than through female touch."

He thought of Kira, of how many pairs of panties he’d saved.

"Will it always have to be like this...?"

He didn’t answer himself.

The boss’s bell rang in the distance, three spaced-out chimes.

"Let’s line up."

Haru ran off.

He arrived in the dorm room exhausted, with the efficiency of someone who has nothing left to give, partially took off his uniform, didn’t finish, and collapsed onto the bed.

He fell asleep before his head even touched the pillow...

When someone tugged at his ankle, he didn’t wake up; when they tugged again, harder, he opened one eye.

The Chinese guy was there, nunchaku on his belt, with the look of someone who’d slept well and was ready to share his energy with the world.

Laughing.

"Wake up, Haruki."

He tapped lightly on the sole of Haru’s foot.

"Time for the Baptism."