Chapter 50
Chapter 50
Episode 50.
Grand Duke Tracan stood tall.
The upper half of his torso was completely empty.
Neither the silver-gray hair that proved his ducal lineage nor the pitch-black pupils were visible anywhere.
The prince remained rooted in place, motionless.
Silence flowed. The crimson cross-section gushed blood in spurts. Finally, Tracan's body slumped to the ground.
Only then did everyone face reality.
The future of the duchy had crumbled.
Students screamed, black knights drew their swords while weeping, and pale-faced sorcerers pulled out spellbooks from their robes.
Hearing the commotion inside, the sorcerer battalion violently threw open the dining hall doors.
A black knight let out a furious cry as he charged toward Aiden.
"Assassin of the Grand Duke—!"
The black blade descended toward Aiden's head. He twisted his body fluidly. The sword slash cleaved through empty air, leaving the knight's flank completely exposed.
The knight seemed unable to control his emotions. Aiden clenched his fist tightly and drove it diagonally downward into the black knight's temple.
Crack! The sound of shattering. The impact was solid, but it wasn't the sensation of crushing a skull—his aura had shattered instead.
As expected, this one was fairly skilled.
The black knight was sent flying backward, crashing into several students. The colliding students were flung away, landing hard on the unyielding floor.
Crunch—the sound of bones breaking echoed.
The screams grew louder, but a quick-thinking few had already opened their spellbooks.
"Garvue has betrayed the duchy!"
"Kill him!"
Knights charged with aura-coated blades while sorcerers and students began chanting incantations.
A violet light began corroding the interior.
A grotesque centipede burst from a spellbook, baring venomous fangs. Black lightning scorched through the air in a straight line. Filthy pathogens sprayed in all directions. The black knight's hatred-filled sword strikes surged forth.
All the malice descending upon Aiden was blocked by a golden wall. Kwaaaaang! Sacred energy and demonic power collided in a thunderous explosion. Darkness and light swirled together in a violent maelstrom.
It was Goth's silent hymn.
Above his head, bandages danced as if possessed by will.
The prayers inscribed on the thin fabric ignited in pure white light, causing the holy barrier to glow even brighter.
Simultaneously, a massive calculation formula unfolded across the ceiling. Jude's sacred spell—a high-tier magic of the third circle or above.
"O sacred Vacheksar."
From the magic circle, swords blazing with holy fire gradually took form.
"Burn away this malice—!"
The moment the words ended, they rained down upon the earth.
Sizzle—piercing indiscriminately through students and sorcerer-soldiers alike, showing no mercy.
The agonized wails filled the dining hall.
"Garvue!" Jude shouted urgently. They couldn't afford to waste any more time.
By now, the duchy must have already issued an emergency alert.
Aiden seized the chaos to sprint toward the window where his comrades were.
At that moment, a series of short, sharp explosions erupted from the dining hall entrance.
Brains and bone fragments flying through the air.
Siron. Her hands were crushing the skulls of the heretics.
The Valkyrie, flushed crimson, swept through the interior like a chariot.
"Vera!"
At Aiden's voice, Siron whipped her head around. When he gave the success signal, she flashed a bright smile.
Then she dashed toward the window like an arrow.
Aiden immediately turned and drove his fist into the massive window. The glass shattered with a crash. Goth expanded a barrier to protect his comrades from the falling debris.
Everyone stepped onto the windowsill. The view opened up before them.
The dizzying heights touched the clouds. An achingly blue sky stretched endlessly into the distance.
Below, the sprawling capital city looked infinitesimally small.
A gust of wind whipped through, tousling the holy knights' hair.
Siron pointed somewhere into the sky with her index finger.
"They moved faster than expected."
A small dot grew larger as it approached. A sky vessel. It was flying toward the Magic Academy from the Ducal Palace at incredible speed.
They must have already noticed the prince's assassination. No doubt transporting the ducal guard and high-ranking sorcerers.
It didn't matter. They had anticipated this.
Aiden glanced at Jude, who nodded in response.
Then he began drawing a calculation formula in the air.
A sacred magic detonation sequence. A spell Jude had already prepared in advance.
The formula embedded inside the sky vessel must have reacted by now.
"O sacred Vacheksar."
The calculation formula ignited with holy light. The approaching vessel began radiating a brilliant glow.
By now, those aboard must have realized—but it was already too late.
"Bring down divine punishment."
As he finished the incantation, an explosion tore through the atmosphere. Blinding white flames engulfed the sky vessel, setting the heavens ablaze. The recoil of the blast became a gale-force wind that surged outward.
The burning vessel veered off course.
The duchy's sole—and so proudly flaunted—airship began its descent toward the earth.
Engulfed in sacred flames, it fell helplessly.
The malice of the vermin aboard had been purified.
But it still wasn't enough. It seemed intent on judging every last pest crawling below.
This was divine punishment meant to turn the duchy into a sea of flames.
Watching this, Aiden tore off Garvue's lifelike mask. The holy knights did the same, shredding theirs and scattering the pieces into the wind.
They could no longer move around wearing those faces. By now, messenger birds would have already reached the higher-ups with reports.
Aiden looked at Goth.
"Let's begin."
He nodded.
A white glow flowed from the bandages, enveloping the holy knights.
A holy force field to absorb the impact. Jude layered a reinforcement spell over it.
Siron tucked Goth under her arm, and Aiden hoisted Jude onto his back.
The holy knights took one more step toward the edge of the windowsill.
After a deep breath, they stepped into open air.
*The capital's main thoroughfare seethed with crowds.
All ducal citizens. They stared blankly upward.
A white-hot inferno was rapidly descending.
The atmosphere screamed. A piercing noise drilled into eardrums.
The shape and sound grew larger.
Tower sorcerers began unleashing every spell they had.
They extinguished flames, slowed the descent, and slightly altered the trajectory—but they couldn't erase the catastrophe itself.
Had Kadak been here, it might have been different.
Now, they could only desperately search for the archmage who had already turned his back on them.
Fear-stricken faces multiplied. Screams of realization snowballed until finally, some began to run.
Soon, everyone was running.
With no unified direction, chaos erupted as people tangled together, shouting to get out of the way.
A scorching heatwave hit. Tension and heat drenched spines in sweat.
The calamity touched the tallest building. Crushing it effortlessly, it reached toward the ground.
Upon impact, eardrums of nearby residents burst. Flames surged, swallowing the surroundings.
Those fleeing were overtaken in an instant, becoming fuel for the inferno.
Facilities researching demonic energy triggered chain explosions, scattering debris everywhere.
Kwaaaaaaang—! The blast shook heaven and earth. The descended judgment ravaged the duchy.
Far away, with a much smaller noise, the holy knights landed, shattering the ground upon impact.
Aiden and Siron collapsed, clutching their legs in pain.
Siron grimaced.
"......
Not something I'd do twice."
Aiden agreed.
Jude and Goth weren't faring much better, their heads spinning.
Fortunately, the landing spot was decent—a marketplace outside the explosion's radius. Nearby ducal citizens stared at the holy knights in shock.
Of course, none thought they had fallen from the floating island.
They probably assumed the blast's recoil had flung them here.
How were they even still alive? Such questions and astonishment filled the air.
Aiden bit his lip and slowly stood.
Another distant explosion sounded. Twisted metal plates and shattered stone rubble flew, turning the marketplace into a wasteland.
People realized this place wasn't safe either. Covering their heads, they began fleeing further away.
The holy knights entered a nearby clothing store and changed out of their blood-stained student uniforms into plain attire.
Originally, they were supposed to escape the duchy now.
But amid this land of screams, they revised their plan. There was still work to do—something the holy knights all agreed on.
They headed toward the duchy's outskirts, where sorcerers and ostracized mages resided.
It was also where Kadak's mansion had stood.
Aiden scanned his comrades.
"Never say my name. Not Garvue, nothing."
"Don't worry."
"We won't make that mistake."
Garvue had become the name of a traitor—unusable now.
And Aiden was the hero's true name, explicitly recorded in scripture.
The duchy would undoubtedly know it.
Siron glanced around and spoke.
"It'll take about two hours on foot from here."
The entire duchy's layout was mapped in Siron's mind.
Their destination was Kadak's mansion.
If things went well, they might even drag two more floating islands down to earth.
The calamity brought by the sky vessel would seem like child's play in comparison.
*Weaving through the chaos, they arrived in just an hour.
The village lining the coast was the residential area for mages.
Though the duchy shunned mages, it couldn't suppress them outright.
Because of one figure—Archmage Kadak.
A mage even sorcerers revered. But that was the past. He was no longer in the duchy.
Thus, the remaining mages were in a weakened state.
Many were likely fleeing to the empire—though whether the Church would accept them was uncertain.
Though they hadn't chosen sorcery, they couldn't resist its sweet temptations and had turned a blind eye to the duchy's atrocities.
An act contrary to the teachings of the Varantes Church.
In a way, the duchy's mages were wretched hypocrites.
Aiden walked through the deserted streets.
Most had already packed up and left. Or died.
Siron's footsteps halted abruptly.
"Here."
An ordinary two-story mansion. In truth, this was Aiden's first time visiting.
In the original story, events tied to the duchy unfolded independently of players, leaving no room for interference.
Too much had derailed. The backlash of straying from the intended path.
Then again, since no player had ever cleared the game, walkthroughs were only useful for the early stages.
With these thoughts, Aiden entered the mansion.
Jude surveyed the ransacked interior and spoke.
"Looks like they've already swept through."
Sorcerers and mages alike must have scavenged whatever they could from the empty house.
After all, it once belonged to an archmage.
Aiden smiled bitterly.
With so many people having picked it clean, was there anything left?
Even if hidden rooms or spaces existed, if mages couldn't find them, Aiden's chances were slim.
He decided to temper his expectations.
"We'll search for an hour, then leave."
He intended to comb through every inch.
He pulled out books from the shelves one by one, tapped walls for hollow spaces, and even dug through the floor in vain—no basement.
For an archmage's mansion, it was disappointingly ordinary.
Just as he was about to give up, Jude approached.
"There's an oddly shaped groove on the study wall. But no space behind it."
Aiden nodded.
"Let's check that and go."
He followed Jude to the spot.
A large grandfather clock had concealed the wall, where a small pattern was engraved.
"Doesn't seem meaningful, but the shape was unique, so I thought I'd mention it."
Aiden studied the groove—then a smile flickered across his face.
"Good job."
Elohimderk. Aiden immediately reached for his neck but grasped nothing.
He wasn't the type to wear a spent necklace around pointlessly.
He hadn't anticipated needing it here.
He hated himself for it. All he could do was sigh.
*The white snowfields. Deril and Yuron. Then Sein's gaze shifted skyward.
Something streaked upward, trailing a blue light like a tail.
Deril tilted his head.
"That's near the fermented fish paste area, right? Yuron, you weren't there, so you wouldn't— Haha!"
Whack—!
Gielran struck Deril's head hard with a wooden sword.
"Pathetic fool. Getting distracted with that kind of skill!"
Sein watched the flying blue light with a wistful expression.
"That's the necklace we gave the Holy Knight. Looks like he left it behind at the ruins."