Eden (2)
The chaos was compounding. Paladins brazenly barricaded the thoroughfares, locked in a brutal shoving match with city guards desperately trying to push them back.
If the Imperial Knights arrived on the scene, it would devolve into an outright slaughter—and in that moment, the pandemonium would spiral entirely out of control.
Then where in the world was Cult, the man orchestrating this deafening commotion in the first place?
Think. I have to think.
Whatever contingency plans I had drawn up, they were utterly meaningless if I couldn't pinpoint his exact coordinates.
“The paladins blocking the streets are nothing more than diversions. Cult isn't at any of those checkpoints.”
I unfolded the map and scrutinized it. Watching the paladins blockade the streets district by district, it might seem as though they were guarding something vital, but against the Imperial Knights, their lines would fold like wet paper.
Hiding the real target among decoys wasn't an option here. Regardless of troop quality, every single one of those blockades would be pulverized in short order. Therefore, the entire circus was merely a ploy to draw eyes away from the truth.
—He will not be there.
“I know.”
—If it is all an obvious sham, why waste time scouring a map?
“Have you ever heard the saying, ‘The foot of the lamp is dark’?”
—A novel phrase to me.
“It means what lies right under your nose is often the hardest to find.”
—Hmm... Then you suspect he might not be at the barricades themselves, but lurking somewhere close by?
“Exactly.”
That was why I was cross-referencing each paladin's outpost one by one. I had to find a plausible hiding spot for Cult somewhere in their immediate vicinity.
“Wait, this is...”
—Oho. It seems that Prophet fellow is a step ahead of you. You are dancing right in the palm of his hand.
“I know.”
I rolled the map back up and shoved it into my coat. The results of surveying the paladins' deployment and the surrounding terrain were damning.
Every single detachment of paladins had their backs turned toward prime hiding spots. Thirty barricaded districts, and thirty adjacent locations perfectly suited for someone to conceal themselves or conduct an occult ritual.
I had been played.
It was practically a sneering trap aimed straight at anyone who arrived at the exact same conclusion I had. What made it far more vicious was that none of those thirty spots could be comfortably dismissed.
—A trap tailored precisely for an overthinker like you. What will you do? Lodge a report with the Imperial Knights?
“No. Those bastards won’t lift a finger unless a threat is staring them dead in the face.”
The Imperial Knights were monstrously strong. Because of that, they never mobilized unless a threat was distinctly verified. One might call it callous, but given that they were elite, high-value assets, they simply didn't have the time to investigate thirty separate ambiguities one by one.
—Then will you ignore them all?
“...We don’t have the time to sweep every single one.”
—And what if he truly is in one of them? That would be quite the catastrophe, wouldn’t it?
“Why are you trying to rattle me, Playwright?”
—Because it is amusing.
“You senile old bastard.”
—I hear that often.
The Playwright was thoroughly adhering to his role as a detached spectator.
“We’ll just have to pass this information along to Cattleya.”
For now, all I could do was wait for Yuna to return. If it was Cattleya, she would probably send Yuna back equipped with a Silver Mirror. And even if she didn't, Yuna would snag one on her own initiative. Our thought processes were cut from the same cloth; I trusted her to manage without being told.
—Feeling anxious?
“State the obvious, why don’t you.”
—Still, attempting to assess the situation with a cool head is commendable. That is the virtue of a researcher.
“Is that so.”
—In that case, shall I share an interesting tale with you?
“I'm listening.”
—Have you heard the saying that the foot of the lamp is dark?
“I'm the one who just said that to you.”
—Indeed. You were the one who spoke it. That is precisely why I am saying it to you.
“What in the...”
I was about to ask what kind of senile nonsense he was spouting, but the words caught in my throat.
The foot of the lamp is dark.
Why was he throwing those exact words back at me? Egocentric as the Playwright was, he wasn't the type to parrot someone else's words without a calculated purpose.
—Most inventions begin with a spark of chance. It is only when an obvious premise collapses that one’s eyes truly open.
The collapse of an obvious premise.
Did he mean that instead of trying to deduce Cult's scheme, I should be looking at the blind spots of my own plan? Or was he referring to the foundational assumptions of the plan itself?
That plan had practically disintegrated the moment this whole mess began anyway. Who on earth could have predicted that Cult would gouge out his own eyes?
—And the moment doubt takes root, the moment you begin to perceive what was once invisible...
What had I overlooked?
What was the premise I had taken for granted?
I rewound my memories through every beat leading up to this moment.
Before Cult's two body doubles banished the night with divine dawn. Before the paladins barricaded the streets to manufacture chaos. Before we escaped the mansion, and before Lobelia and the Oracle set off tailing those doubles.
Cult and our group had clashed.
The outcome had been our total, humiliating defeat. The fatal blow had been failing to realize that Yuna's presence was already compromised.
—You must not lose sight of that moment.
Cult had deduced long ago that Yuna was the Safe Clown and that she lingered around me.
If so... what if?
“Don’t tell me that bastard...”
—Have you figured it out?
What if Cult had anticipated my secondary plan and turned it against me?
I snapped my head around and looked up at the place from which I had fled.
The Ereticus Marquis Estate.
A bleak, desolate manor where not a single soul could be seen.
“Darkest under the lamp indeed...”
When Cult chose not to kill Yuna and me, he had turned his back, ostentatiously pulling his hood over his head as if preparing to leave. Seeing that, we had assumed he departed the estate.
I hadn't escaped his ritual at all. I had simply been guided into believing that I had.
“He really played us for fools...”
Cult had never set a single foot outside the marquis's estate from the very beginning.
—Well, now that your brooding seems finished, shall we return to our earlier topic? How exactly do you possess knowledge of the future?
“Look, I’m in a hurry, so let’s table it for later! I told you I’ll spill after this is over!”
—Playing hard to get, are we?
Blinding, incandescent Holy Power saturated the air.
Knights and priests stood in disciplined formation, and at their center stood the bearer of the Prophet's Eye.
Surveying the battle-ready lines, Lobelia exhaled a weary breath.
Thwack!
At that exact moment, an arrow struck the cobblestones directly at Lobelia's boots. It was an arrow shot by Stan.
After checking the note tied to the shaft, Lobelia muttered with an exasperated scowl.
“He says it’s a trap. What a nuisance.”
“Looks like we walked right into it, doesn’t it?”
Stepping up beside Lobelia, Ariel offered a faint, wry smile.
“Not the first time. Which means...”
“Should we break through like we always do?”
Ariel answered as though reading Lobelia's mind. Watching her, Lobelia gradually summoned crackling sparks of crimson Red Lightning across her knuckles.
“Yes. In the shortest time possible.”
KRA-BOOOM!
Riding a deafening discharge of thunder, Lobelia hurtled straight into the heart of the enemy lines. Her primary target was crystal clear.
“First, let’s see that face of yours!”
Having breached the core of the enemy formation in an untraceable blink, Lobelia swung her arm with violent force.
WHOOSH!
A gale saturated with lightning surged outward like a tempest, ripping away the deep hood that had concealed the double’s identity.
“Ah...”
The moment Lobelia saw that face, she instinctively recoiled.
Her opponent was a frail-looking child.
Even considering that this was Cult's body double, he was far too young. Fissures webbed outward from around the boy's eye sockets, presumably carved by the sheer pressure of the forcibly implanted Prophet's Eye.
He wouldn't last long.
The power of the Prophet was so overwhelming that ordinary mortals could never endure it. His entire body had to be wracked with the agony of being torn apart from the inside out.
“Why go this far...?”
Yet, as Lobelia gazed into the boy's eyes, she could tell that this was a choice he had made entirely of his own volition. Though Lobelia had clashed with all manner of adversaries, encounters like this were exceedingly rare. She could have understood if he acted out of malice or bloodlust, but the child displayed not the slightest shred of hostility. He merely stood there like a sacred emblem.
“Did you despise the world that much? Enough to endure such torment?”
“Because I'm sad...”
The boy answered in a choked, hollow whisper.
“I was so sad that I couldn't bear it.”
The cracked fissures spreading beneath his eyes looked heartbreakingly like trails of bloody tears.
“The day my parents were murdered... I lost all reason to live.”
“So you decided to throw your life away so cheaply? That is far too reckless. You are still—”
“Do you know something?”
The child had lost his parents to bandits.
“Not everyone knows how to hate their enemies.”
The boy did not know how to hate. He did not know how to harbor a grudge.
“My sadness was far deeper than any hatred, so I...”
The boy had simply suffered in silence, curling inward upon his own grief.
“I just wish for a happy world. A world where no one has to suffer like I did. If I can help bring that about, I don't care if my body breaks into pieces.”
To realize that ideal, the child had chosen to consume his own life as kindling. Rather than living for vengeance and spite, he wanted to strive for a gentler world. That held true even now, with Lobelia bearing down upon him. The boy did not know how to fight. He was merely channeling the Prophet's power to shield and protect everyone around him.
“Because I believe the Prophet will build such a world.”
“I see...”
Lobelia squeezed her eyes shut.
He was the most agonizing kind of opponent to face—all the more so because he bore not an ounce of malice. The child was practically a sacrificial lamb who had climbed onto the altar of his own accord.
“This is going to be a troublesome fight.”
Killing the boy would be effortless. No matter how miraculous the Prophet's power was, and even if every paladin present swarmed her at once, they were hopelessly outmatched against Lobelia. At best, they could buy a handful of minutes.
Lobelia knew this, which was why she had intended to resolve the matter in the shortest possible window. However, she discarded that intention now.
“Yet this, too, is the duty of imperial royalty.”
She would save the child.
She would subdue him without taking his life.
She would rescue this young lamb who harbored no resentment toward anyone and had mounted the altar merely dreaming of happiness. If she could not shoulder the life of a single suffering child, she possessed no right to ever become Emperor.
“It’s a transparent trick, but I’ll dance to your tune, Cult.”
For the boy's sake, Lobelia chose to take the long, arduous road.
At the exact same time.
The Oracle found herself in an entirely different predicament from Lobelia.
“Die, false prophet!”
“Kuh!”
The opponent facing the Oracle was the textbook definition of a deranged fanatic. Belligerent, arrogant, and relentlessly persistent.
At this rate, I won’t be able to withdraw!
The other body double of the Prophet, having discarded his hood, was a paladin clad in full armor beneath. Bolstered by an immense reservoir of Holy Power, the paladin doggedly closed the distance to prevent the Oracle from escaping.
“This power! This omnipotence! The Prophet has chosen me!”
While the Oracle was an extraordinary visionary capable of peering into the future, frontline brawling was hardly her forte. Although she was formidable in her own right, she lacked the overwhelming martial supremacy of monsters like Lobelia or Ariel.
“How persistent!”
The Oracle repeatedly hurled tarot cards to obstruct the paladin's advance. Cards infused with mana could do little more than nudge the fanatic back an inch at a time. Even that was rendered moot against a foe steeped in the Prophet's power. Wounds aside, even his shattered armor reverted to its pristine original form, driving the Oracle to boiling frustration.
“Hup!”
She needed a decisive blow.
While keeping the fanatic at bay with an unrelenting flurry of kinetic cards, the Oracle prepared a high-yield offensive spell. The spell she wove was the High-Tier Magic, Hellfire.
It was a spell whose sole merit lay in pure, unadulterated destructive yield—yet the intricate formula required to condense that singular firepower was enough to classify it firmly within the realm of High-Tier Magic.
ROAAAR!
The colossal sphere of flame conjured by the Oracle rocketed toward the knight.
BOOM!
A titanic detonation erupted the instant Hellfire found its mark. For a brief second, the inferno billowed outward as if it would swallow the entire street, until—
CRRRR-AAAAASH!
The swirling flames and shockwaves violently reversed direction, collapsing back inward toward the epicenter as if converging upon a single point. A supreme spell of destruction that slammed its entire overwhelming payload into one pinpoint focus.
“Now, while he’s—”
However, there was no way something of this level would finish him off. The power of the Prophet would continuously revert the man back to an unblemished state.
With her repertoire, she could not kill him.
Therefore, she had to disengage. This opponent wasn't the genuine Prophet anyway; continuing this engagement was nothing but a waste of time.
And yet...
“I will never let you escape!”
“You truly are a nuisance.”
The problem was that the enemy's sole purpose was to force that very 'waste of time.'
Even with half his flesh melted away, the fanatic charged relentlessly toward the Oracle, his body knitting back together in real time.
“Do you truly intend to cling to me until your dying breath?”
The Oracle had no choice but to accept the grim reality: this battle was going to drag on for far too long.