Chapter 97
Chapter 97
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 97
Chapter Title: I Used to Think That Too
-----------------------------------------------------------------
There once was a time when I thought that way.
“Huh.”
Climude swallowed a wry smile.
He couldn’t believe it.
All the preparations he’d made to take down that variable had gone up in smoke in an instant.
He’d been absolutely certain that this time, he could drag Halibal Belder to his death.
Even if it wasn’t him, he’d been confident he could at least claim one of the four.
‘What the hell was that art? It wasn’t in the reports.’
The bishops of the church possessed the authority to peer into the dungeons in real time.
He’d seen it with his own eyes.
Necredin’s final technique, Death Throes. A sure-kill move that dragged the one who slew it down to death in kind.
That technique had clearly driven Alicia Cyrus to her end. Yet this time, the Saintess had revived her.
It was absurd.
Reviving someone who had already met their death? Wasn’t that the very act of defying heaven that the Church of the Sovereign God had always guarded against?
It was a power akin to their own god, Tartarus. He’d never dreamed the Saintess could suddenly wield something like that.
‘If she’d been able to do that from the start, she would’ve saved the others in the past too. Her ability to resurrect must be something that happened during this raid.’
Climude recalled the time he’d reviewed the records of the beast dungeon and the doll dungeon.
That’s when he’d first felt an inexplicable sense of unease.
Halibal Belder.
He’d heard he was a genius.
But genius or not, did this make any sense?
Creating an art on the spot that no one had ever seen before, and using it to defeat an enemy that should’ve been unbeatable.
And doing it three times?
The Empire’s Greatest Sword or even the Knight Commander couldn’t pull that off, yet some academy freshman had?
So this time, he’d prepared thoroughly.
He’d thought there was no way he could slip through again.
So why had it failed once more?
‘Even this wasn’t enough?’
Climude was an odd one out among the bishops.
Unlike the others, who’d risen to their positions through overwhelming might or special authorities, he was the only one from the very bottom.
All he had was a silver tongue for deceiving others and a relentless knack for exploiting enemy weaknesses.
His moniker “War Chariot” hadn’t come from smashing through enemy lines head-on.
It was pinned on him because once he set a target, he’d crawl through the mud if he had to, until he utterly crushed them.
Even he had to stick out his tongue at how Halibal’s advance showed no sign of stopping.
“Genius types really are something else. Cut off their legs, and they come rolling in on wheels.”
For a moment, Climude wanted to see Halibal Belder with his own two eyes.
Even someone as versed in human psychology as he knew there were limits to judging people through footage alone.
“I’ll see him soon enough anyway.”
Climude had already entered the capital.
The raid on the undead dungeon hadn’t just brought losses to the church’s side.
With the path from the front lines to the capital now open, it had become far easier for the main temple to send people to the capital.
The stampedes at the front lines had quieted along with the dungeon raids, allowing the one he served to return to the capital for this victory banquet.
He’d come to the capital following her.
Slurp.
Just then, the candle before him flickered in the breeze.
“Climude. You ready?”
A bright, cheerful voice called from beyond the door, and Climude donned the mask of a kindly, dependable head butler.
“Yes, miss. You called for me?”
Standing before the door was a white-haired girl in an ornate dress, stamping her feet impatiently.
“Climude! Why are you so late? What were you doing in there?”
“I was just tidying up some documents, miss. Is something urgent?”
Termina Whiteusher, the young lady of the Whiteusher Marquessate.
A second-year at Ruidel Academy, she’d originally been part of the raid squad, holding back the monster hordes at the front lines as one of the upperclassmen.
Academy students were thrown into the front lines proper starting their second year, where they had to fend off the monster assaults—Tartarus’s stampedes—that spewed forth.
But the imperial family had invited every academy student to this banquet, and with the stampedes dying down, some rest-hungry upperclassmen had seized the chance to return to the capital. Termina was one of them.
To her, Climude wasn’t a church bishop—he was simply the marquessate’s loyal head butler.
“The dress for the banquet arrived! Hurry up and come look!”
Termina grumbled as she grabbed his arm and dragged him along.
“Haha. Of course.”
The man who’d risen from the very lowest turned his gaze toward the capital’s highest heights.
“If you picked it out, miss, it’s sure to be the most splendid dress in the capital.”
As he closed the door and stepped out, the only thing left in the room was a faintly burning candle swaying in the wind.
The candlelight illuminated a single small painting.
“The Final Battlefield,” depicting the last great war between the Sovereign God and the Evil God as described in the Church of the Sovereign God’s doctrines.
At its center loomed the Evil Dragon with black horns and wings, poised to devour the entire world.
Tartarus himself.
Opposite him stood the Sovereign God confronting it amid countless others, flanked by an angelic figure wreathed in a halo.
The Sovereign God’s vanguard, the Heavenly Apex God.
The sole sword fated to cleave Tartarus asunder.
The being now dwelling within Aren.
It was a commonplace painting, found anywhere tied to the Church of the Sovereign God.
But this one bore something absent from the original “Final Battlefield.”
Above Tartarus’s head.
There, faintly sketched, was the form of a human.
Barely noticeable unless you looked closely, but undeniably there.
A rider, astride Tartarus’s head like a mount.
Its shape was indistinct, but the long trailing robe and the crown upon its head were vaguely discernible.
⁎⁎⁎
Capital Luft.
If all academy-related facilities were concentrated in Naveil, Luft held a different kind of centrality altogether.
The empire’s most populous city, the undisputed heart of the realm.
And at the very center of that heart, at the eastern edge where the sun rose, a building thrust skyward like a spear.
That was Solanis Palace, residence of Emperor Cyrus.
Radiating from the palace were impeccably paved roads and orderly streets.
He rarely had cause to visit the capital, but each time he did, he marveled—and today, the sights were especially grand.
A victory banquet celebrating the conquest of the third abyss.
Solar emblems—the empire’s symbol—fluttered from every street, with guards standing at vigilant attention.
The streets teemed not with trams or trains, but with opulent carriages emblazoned with the crests of noble houses.
The procession stretched endlessly toward the palace.
The flag on my carriage fluttered too.
An emblem of ice-forged water lilies.
The crest of the Ren family.
This was my first time in a noble carriage. Hell, I’d hardly ever ridden in any carriage before.
It was luxuriously appointed inside, as befitted nobility, but the distinctive jolting from the four-horse team was something I just couldn’t get used to.
‘In a world with trams and trains, why no cars?’
This inefficient way to travel.
Might as well run there.
I grumbled inwardly and shifted in my seat.
But the real source of discomfort was something else.
“Halibal. Look over here.”
I turned my head, and Cecilia was staring right at me from the next seat.
That’s how it happened.
Cecilia had accepted my partner request, so here I was, attending the banquet with her.
Gone was her usual training garb; instead, she wore a lavish dress that bared her shoulders.
Each movement rustled softly against my ears, and the faint perfume she never wore filled the cramped carriage.
Pinned in her hair was the water forget-me-not brooch I’d given her.
I was dressed in the formal attire Adelin had fitted me for.
She was the ditzy type, so I hadn’t trusted her choice much, but surprisingly, the outfit she’d picked suited me pretty well.
Then Cecilia leaned toward me.
“What’s this? Your collar’s sticking out.”
She straightened my clothes as if it were the most natural thing.
I meekly let her hands adjust my collar.
I’d only learned after submitting my partner request, but if it hadn’t been me, Cecilia might’ve gone with Eugene.
The heirs of the noble and imperial factions needed to put on a show of harmony in public, or so it went.
‘If Cecil wants it, no helping it.’
Thanks to Senia saying that, she’d stepped in as his partner this time.
Mine wasn’t attending the banquet.
I’d figured she would, as one of the raid’s key players, but she’d turned it down herself.
Having resolved to live as a Saintess, she’d returned straight to the White Sanctum once the dungeon was cleared.
Word was, after ignoring their summons for so long, this raid had prompted a change in attitude.
She was diving headfirst into the Church of the Sovereign God’s internal politics, starting a tug-of-war with the Pope to solidify her own faction.
Given the reason, the imperial family didn’t seem to mind her absence.
Aside from Mine, it looked like everyone I knew was coming to the banquet.
Sure enough, as the carriage slowed, familiar faces began passing by outside the window one by one.
Students I’d met at the academy.
Elia, for instance, was with Sadie—the brown-haired girl with freckles across her nose.
In the original story, the two artisans made a popular pairing.
Elia’s face was flushed bright red under the lights.
Congrats.
Ran was alone, but surrounded by over five young nobles.
As the Fist King’s disciple, she was nearly as famous as Aren.
Plus, her voluptuous figure made her stand out wherever she went.
Ran clenched her fists, her displeasure plain as day.
‘That’s why I told you not to go alone.’
Thanks to Adelin, and condolences to Ran.
I spotted Mar and Pasha too. A few of the students who’d begged me to teach them swordsmanship waved our way.
The rest of the students mingled in their natural cliques.
But among them, there were an unusual number of unfamiliar faces.
People I’d never seen at the academy.
“A lot of new faces.”
Cecilia voiced what I was thinking.
“Upperclassmen, maybe?”
‘Could be.’
I’d heard rumors that some front-line upperclassmen were returning early for the banquet.
People I wouldn’t normally tangle with until the second semester.
Like in any world, upperclassmen loved lording it over underclassmen like it was human instinct.
And what they got up to upon returning? Kicking away the ladder beneath the first-years.
Sure, they’d been on the receiving end too.
I got it, but it was still a hassle.
‘At least they won’t start crap right at the banquet.’
…There once was a time when I thought that way.
The carriage halted, and I stepped down first to help Cecilia alight.
The first sight to greet us was this.
“So you’re the successor to the Extreme God Single Sword, the one who led the raid?”
A guy who looked like an upperclassman picking a fight with Aren.
Aren was in male disguise.
Dressed in men’s formal wear, but her petite frame and youthful face couldn’t be fully hidden.
A burly upperclassman blocked her path, arms crossed.
Other upperclassmen lurked nearby.
“Hey, you gonna answer or what? You really Aren Bright? You look way scrawnier than I thought.”
His attitude was cocky, but his aura was sharp. Front-line veteran, clear as day.
The surrounding first-years whispered.
“…Aren’t those second-years?”
“Aren’s the hero of this raid… Is this okay?”
Aren looked tense in the unfamiliar formal wear and unwanted attention.
Her hand instinctively groped for her waist, but of course, there was nothing there.
“…Please step aside.”
“Oh ho? Listen to that voice. One dungeon clear, and you already think your seniors are a joke?”
The upperclassman sneered, looking Aren up and down.
‘You’re the joke. That was the Evil God’s abyss.’
Even in the original, it was ridiculous. Upperclassmen picking on the protagonist who’d cleared three Evil God dungeons.
Dealing with them one by one was a side thread in the main scenario.
“Listen up, you lot too! While we were holding back monsters on the front lines and shitting blood, you were sucking honey back at the academy!”
‘Here we go. Ladder-kicking.’
This crap right at the palace entrance.
Were their brains stunted from all the fighting?
Honestly, I didn’t want to get involved.
The upperclassman took Aren’s silence as assent and upped the ante.
He shoved her shoulder with his hand.
“Why so quiet? Truth is, you were hiding under Her Highness’s skirts, right?”
Alicia was a princess, and well-liked among upperclassmen too.
Using her as a shield to bash the first-year Aren.
That’s when Richard sidled up beside me.
He gave Cecilia a curt bow, then muttered low.
“What’s with that moron.”
He glared at the upperclassman like he was witnessing something repulsive.
Richard still didn’t think much of Aren, but after clashing swords multiple times in the raid squad, he at least acknowledged her strength.
‘In the original, that was your moron role.’
The words nearly slipped out.
That’s when an unbelievable figure caught my eye.
Upperclassmen trying to slink away from the confrontation. Among them, a hulking butler attending a white-haired girl.
‘…Why the hell is that bastard here?’
Tartarus Church’s 6th Bishop.
Climude Raju.
The bishop who’d twisted the undead dungeon’s patterns all to hell.
Standing plain as day at the banquet hall entrance.