Rebirth From Ordinary Person To The Strongest

"A peach?" I repeated, half in disbelief.

'Not just any peach,' Harunaga replied, his face contorting into a sly smile. 'This is the peach of the Immortal Realm.'

I frowned, puzzled. Harunaga seemed to speak of this "peach of the Immortal Realm" as if it were a well-known fact, something everyone ought to know. But it was entirely foreign to me. I vaguely remembered reading some story about a magical peach when I was a child, back when my mother would read to me. But whatever she might have told me had long since faded from memory.

"What exactly is this… Immortal Realm peach?"

'Have you not heard of Peach Boy, Momotaro?' Harunaga said, raising an eyebrow.

"Of course I know the story of Momotaro, the boy born from a peach," I replied, not hiding my confusion.

'No, that's not it,' Harunaga corrected with a smirk, shaking his head slowly. 'I'm speaking of another part of the legend—where an elderly couple eats a peach and miraculously regains their youth. That's how it all began.'

His words jogged a faint memory, an old tale that I seemed to recall, but only as a vague notion. Somewhere in the fog of my mind, I remembered an old folktale about a peach floating down a river. In that tale, an elderly couple had found the peach and, by eating it, transformed and regained their youth. And somehow, that led to Momotaro's birth. Maybe it was something I had come across on social media in my past life, a story that got a mention in passing. I had never thought of it as anything but fiction.

Harunaga must've noticed that something had clicked because he continued.

'That peach that floated down the river was no ordinary peach. It was from the Immortal Realm, brimming with otherworldly power. Legends say that the peach was so intensely sweet that one bite could make your throat burn and your heart race.'

"So if someone ate that peach… would it really heal them? Would it make them whole again?" I asked, my voice catching.

'Did I not say that it was a miraculous fruit?' Harunaga replied, that glint in his eye sharp as ever. 'A single bite is said to rejuvenate, bringing brightness to the spirit. Two bites grant eternal youth, and three bites… three bites offer immortality.'

"Immortality?" I repeated, my mind racing to process what he was saying. It felt too surreal.

'That is what the legend claims,' Harunaga replied, shrugging slightly.

There was no hint of a lie in his words. I had come to recognize Harunaga's tone by now; he wasn't lying, though that didn't necessarily mean he was telling the whole truth. Still, I had no reason to doubt him.

If this peach of the Immortal Realm really existed and had those miraculous powers… maybe it was more than just a tale.

Of course, no version of the story I remembered had the old couple attaining immortality. But that could be a detail that had been lost over generations or deliberately omitted. After all, some legends were sanitized as they were retold.

"And you're saying… that this peach is here? Now?"

'You're in Mino, are you not? Then the Immortal Realm is nearby,' Harunaga said, as though it were obvious.

"Why would that mean anything?" I asked, still bewildered by the leap he was making.

Harunaga gave me an incredulous look, as though I had missed something elementary.

'Do you mean to say that you do not know of the Immortal Realm at all? Every place brimming with magic, each magic-rich area where only a handful of beings can wield its true power, these are places where the power of the native gods holds sway. Surely, you understand that much,' he said with a slight frown, as if he were a teacher disappointed in a particularly slow student.

I had heard something along those lines before. Either Mr. Renji or Ms. Irena had mentioned that master swordsmiths built their workshops only in places where magic veins ran strong, tapping into the energy of the land. But I hadn't fully understood what that meant until now.

And now, Harunaga's explanation was providing me with a clearer picture, especially on how these smiths managed to reshape relics into enchanted swords. It wasn't simply through skill alone. They were utilizing the power of the land itself to enact changes on the materials they worked with, borrowing the magic that flowed directly from the Immortal Realm.

'So tell me, where do you think all of that power originates?' Harunaga continued.

"…From the ground, right?" I guessed. I remembered seeing the magic-rich water in the river earlier and Mr. Renji's explanation about hot springs. It had seemed natural to assume that the power of the land flowed from deep within, like magma.

But Harunaga shook his head, denying my assumption.

'If that were the case, then the entire world would have been overrun by monsters long ago.'

His answer surprised me. But after a moment, it started to make sense. I thought back on all the things I'd observed about magic and the peculiar ways it manifested here. The truth became clear.

"So… the energy that forms the magic veins comes from the Immortal Realm itself?" I asked, realizing that this had to be the answer.

'Exactly,' Harunaga said with satisfaction, nodding slowly.

My thoughts clicked into place, and I looked at him, the question hovering in my mind now plain to see.

'The story of Momotaro has its roots in Bizen, one of the renowned swordsmithing regions, just like Mino. In Bizen, too, swordsmiths gathered, taking advantage of the strong flow of magic. Why do you think the tale of Momotaro survived?' Harunaga continued, seeing my growing understanding.

If that was true… did that mean people really did eat the peaches from the Immortal Realm and gain their powers, just like in the story? If these legends had some basis in reality…

It felt hard to swallow, but I was starting to see the pieces lining up in a way that suggested it was more than just a myth. After all, if Momotaro was real, then other legendary powers could be too.

"So if someone ate one of those peaches, they'd… gain powers?" I asked slowly, still digesting this revelation.

'Yes. And it is for that very reason that swordsmiths flocked to those places, taking up residence to make use of the flow of magic from the Immortal Realm,' he said, his voice solemn.

Harunaga's certainty was hard to question, though I still struggled with the thought of a folktale being anything other than fiction. Yet the way he spoke made it sound entirely plausible, as if it were obvious. If I could accept that fairy tales had their roots in real magic, then maybe the legends of Japan were similarly grounded.

"So if I could get my hands on one of these Immortal Realm peaches… I'd have what I need," I said slowly, the thought dawning on me.

'Indeed,' Harunaga replied with a knowing nod.

"But how? Where would I even start looking?" I asked, voicing the question that had been growing in my mind.

This time, Harunaga only shrugged, an exasperatingly helpless look crossing his face.

'I have no idea.'

"…Excuse me?"

'I'm simply passing along what the old legends tell us. If I had known how to acquire one myself, I would have done so ages ago and secured my power. But here I am, a mere insect spirit, bound to a relic.'

As frustrating as his response was, I found myself unable to argue with his reasoning. Had Harunaga really eaten such a peach, then the tragic events surrounding the Ice Princess, or Hyousetsu Koujo, might have unfolded very differently.

"So you really don't know anything else?" I asked, hoping for some hidden detail, anything to go on.

'If only I did,' he replied, an ironic smile lingering on his lips.

Realizing he had given me all he could, I offered my thanks and released him. With a soft shimmer, his form dissolved back into the amber relic that now lay cold and still in my palm. I returned it to the necklace and lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

I'd been sure that speaking with Harunaga was my best shot at an answer. But in the end, it seemed he didn't know any more than I did.

Yet as I lay there, my mind kept returning to the peculiar swordsmith we'd met earlier. Could he know something about the Immortal Realm's peach? It was a long shot, but if anyone knew about it, maybe he did.

But then I remembered his unsettling demand, asking that Nina be left behind in exchange for forging my sword. The idea of going back to ask him for help felt daunting, if not impossible.

"Would he even tell me if I asked…?"

The uncertainty settled over me, and with it came a familiar helplessness. Even as I grasped at answers, it seemed they slipped through my fingers just as quickly.