Chapter 282
Chapter 282
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: One Empire, Three Legends (41)
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『Ahh, ahhhh....』
The fog dispersed, revealing the witch's true form. As the corpses comprising her body rained down like a storm, the Professor caught his breath.
It had been an attack channeling all his power thus far. Even if it couldn't kill her in one blow, he had thought it would at least inflict a fatal wound.
『Ahhh, ahhhh.... Why....』
But even with a hole the size of a bell tower punched through that colossal body of countless corpses, the groan escaping the witch's mouth was not born of pain.
It was a sigh laced with lamentation and rage.
『Why.... can't you understand?』
From the very beginning to the end. Even before entering this capital, up to now, he had ceaselessly tried to share his questions about her choices. He had poured his heart into showing them through recurring themes and the crossroads of decisions.
『To you as well. To you, the saint bound by the will of the gods, wandering the world just like me, I wished to impart the same teachings.』
Despite being intelligent enough to comprehend that will, the saint bearing the name of light could not accept it.
At first, it was the ordinary dilemma of choosing which influential royal to select. It began with concerns of mere worldly greed—money and power.
After the curse flower's bloom, through that human Othello. He proved that faith could flip like the back of a hand with a single whisper of doctrine, that such ideas spread like infection.
At the end of the saint's choice—to persuade the nobles between the emperor's power and the mighty witch's, turning the people to the emperor's side—even though it was clearly the right decision, it resulted in the death of them all. From above, the one looking down makes not the right choice, but the wrong one with fewer sacrifices.
Finally, through her past. The forgotten battlefield in history taught that even the gods weigh priorities, that imperfection exists in discarding something for a greater good.
『If you truly represent the will of the gods.... if you too have devoted your entire life to that voice.』
Drip.... splat.
『I believed you would understand me. Born to love them all, yet forced to lay one down from your embrace with your own hands—that contradiction's torment. I didn't want to believe it, couldn't comprehend it, and that lump.... yes. Even though it turned back on my own choice long ago, it still lingers within me. ‘Why, why did You make that choice? My light, why did You make me like this? Why. Why....’ It was akin to a question about my very existence.』
The Professor scanned his surroundings, gathering his strength as the witch's voice grew ever stronger.
“....So, from the Holy City all the way here. You've been so interested in me?”
『At the very least.... I thought I could obtain Roh Ha-ram's answer through yours.』
Plop, plop, plop....
As if the impact had been considerable, cursed corpses endlessly fell from the witch's body. The mountain of flesh adorned with thousands of eyes and tens of thousands of arms could no longer maintain its form and began to collapse.
Yet as its size diminished, the curse's power emanating from it intensified to the point of suffocation.
‘Even if the emperor excised it, she's a being who holds both divine power and qualification, if only partially. I didn't expect to send her to oblivion in one hit, but....’
Like shedding skin, a brilliant light poured from the crumbling pile of corpses.
Unlike her previous monstrous form, it was still grotesque—composed of abhorrent things—but something distinctly humanoid emerged.
She smiled self-mockingly as she watched her flesh, layered countless times with resentful spirits and curses, slough away.
It was a strike of absurd strength, enough to simultaneously dismantle decades of accumulated curses and flesh without divine infusion. That it came from the saint of light felt like the answer to the question she had awaited so long.
She had vowed to become a star for the forsaken. If there was no place for them, she would become that place herself, embracing them all—yet this final lingering attachment she couldn't discard.
『....Lathura.』
No longer able to hear the whispers of light, her century of anguish led to this answer, teaching her its utter futility.
『....This must be the answer. Without a moment's hesitation, advancing straight like the light itself. He remains.... unchanged.』
With that smile, her final attachment scattered.
A dress of bone and sinew, and a saintess with white cloth over her eyes.
The cloth blinding her symbolized shedding worldly judgment to follow the light of god.
Her fingers reached toward her eyes.
Finally, that ancient cloth stained with blood and filth vanished before her.
『Then I must give my answer as well. To send even a person to this daughter beyond Your voice's reach, to confirm it directly....』
The fallen cloth crumbled, and at long last, after endless years, Maria beheld the world with her own eyes. Casting off the final attachment of a mortal, she stepped toward immortal divinity.
A small but distinct fragment of god: the saintess.
She had made the mortal who should have been its master into a puppet, and the emperor's power—adrift like an illusion, merely sustaining the empire's prosperity without an owner. Ownerless divinity.
The fragment and half-power united into a complete form, identical to her essence of stitched rotting corpses and resentful spirits.
[Wooooooo—]
The tower of curse flowers. The tower bloomed by the dead shook with cries of reverence at its birth.
As if worshiping, the cursed ones across the capital knelt in awe. Like ascending to the heavens as her wish decreed, she began climbing the stairs of worship formed by the arms of the dead.
A voice proclaiming to the world: she had become not merely the world's stain, but a rule comprising the world itself.
『I, born as a saintess. Lived fully performing what I was born to do across hundreds of lives, in that joy.』
The tower of flowers grew endlessly. Piercing the fog blanketing the capital, piercing the clouds, its body of dead flesh reaching toward the sky, endlessly.
『Mission and love. Extending that light to the world's end toward endless peace, treating them all with love. Choose but one of the two essences that form me.』
Upward, ever upward. The tower reaching for the stars finally halted its growth, blooming a colossal flower shadowing the entire capital in an instant, then withering and twisting.
At its pinnacle, the moment the witch's hand—having ascended the stairs of dead bone and flesh—touched it.
Shatter—
Like an illusion, it bore a massive fruit of curse and fog.
Obscuring the moon, the stars. A sphere vast enough to absorb all light illuminating the night path.
『....Now, I am their mother. Transcending good and evil, life and death, I shall embrace them all in my bosom. In the name of Echo Maria, not saintess. As the malign star that shatters the world, I shall become one with them all. No one shall be forsaken in the name of the world again.』
Sucking in all she had cast aside with her hands, their sanctuary returning to nothingness: the malign star.
Born a saintess, reborn a witch, now self-made god.
Echo - Maria.
“....A bit excessive for a dress rehearsal.”
Faced with opposing a god out of nowhere, the Professor found the situation too absurd even to laugh at.
-Splash.
[Aldrich.]
[Time is needed. It's visible, but I can't approach. Too many souls surround that entity. Incredible. Binding the cursed with affection. How could it be this insulting....]
[....Ottoman.]
[Notum and I alone aren't enough! When you shook it greatly, we tore out what seemed the tower's cores, but in the blink of an eye, new ones took their place! You'll need to repeat that soul-shaking impact on the witch at least three times!]
“....Three times.... Easier said than done.”
The Professor gazed at the witch enveloped in violet radiance and the red malign star blotting the sky.
The deeply rooted curse flower tower extended roots, absorbing blood, corpses, and curses across the capital.
The absorbed became curse flower fruits, bursting to spew violet fog.
The curse fog flying like a bridge to the heavens touched the malign star, enhancing its light and size—still on the boundary of illusion and reality.
The witch's true form. Fallen saintess, saintess who betrayed for the forsaken. Her final aspired shape.
Malign Star, Echo Maria.
“....Fantasy apocalypse with Armageddon? What's that about.”
At the red star growing clearer and inching toward the capital, the Professor wracked his brain.
His utmost strike, drawing every last muscle from head to toe.
Even with doping from Edeorna's arm, allies said several more were needed.
[....If so. Can we tear out all the curse flowers forming the tower's cores?]
[Maintain the status quo.... I believe so.]
“Damn it.”
Even that would only be like plugging a leak with a hoe blade.
‘....Nothing. No matter how I think, no way to block that with my abilities.’
The wedge was ready. Aldrich and Nell. Ottoman and Notum. Crucial was creating an opening to drive it in.
No answer in what he knew, but one thing worth expecting remained.
“The emperor. Who claimed to read the empire's past and future, thus omniscient, and fell into sloth thereby.”
He chose his own dissolution to prevent the witch's curse completion, all imperial divinities absorbed by her.
But if he truly possessed insight near omniscience, he knew the moment the emperor—witch's antithesis—vanished, her power would fully blanket the capital. That with power absorbed thus far, she could reach godhood.
Why choose such a death?
Something was afoot. Something happening beyond his knowledge.
In games, such quests existed. Unsolvable by player efforts, solutions approaching from beyond sight.
Now, he could only believe the emperor's arrangements proceeded thus.
One hunch.... Yggdrasil.
‘The guy who followed me like a madman to die together vanished at some point. Heard footsteps behind until just before entering the palace.’
Noticing the stalker elf's absence turned faint suspicion to conviction.
Beyond his sight, something was happening.
As always. Charlotte in Turan, Astra in Storm Hill. Bork in Haunu. Each tale had leads; this grand event's spotlight didn't shine solely on him.
‘Status quo. As Ottoman said, our frontline team must prevent irreversible collapse until preparations finish!’
Splat. Fizz.... splat!
The witch's shed skin. Corpses amassed over a century, her most enduring twisted affection embodied, began rising one by one.
Knights pierced by spears and swords.
Soldiers half-crushed, even headless ones.
Those with melted skin woven tough as armor blocked his path, violet glows fierce in their eyes.
One face seemed familiar.
Horribly distorted, yet recognizable.
“Randell.... was it, Sir?”
“A time... I lived... by such a... name....”
Leading them, countless knights and soldiers—and civilians—forsaken on the same battlefield as the saintess.
Those first embraced by her, longest companions, became high undead infused deepest with curse power.
“Silently... watched.... Displeased to see the loathsome apostle of light meet our saintess, yet that too her long-held wish.... For her who forsook rest for us, we hoped it a small solace. Thus we cleared the path, welcomed you....”
Subtle rage laced the undead's gloomy voice. Not the raw hatred undead hold for the living.
Rather, vibrant fury, fitting the living.
Voices bearing firm conviction and ego, alien to undead.
They advanced with staggering yet resolute steps, sharing words as one.
“Turned our backs... on the light... yet no shame in that vow.”
“The weak...”
“Comrades...”
“My brethren... forsaken by the world....”
“Lathura.”
“Lathura.... Echo - Maria.”
Slash!
Pffft!
Crack, thud!
At Randell's signal of yanking the sword from his chest, those who prayed for the profane charged the Professor.
“....Lathura.”
The Professor met the charging foes with fists extended, voicing the same prayer.
Omitting light's name was minimal courtesy.
The capital's night under the risen red malign star.
Within the witch's tower, curse and violence swirled as one.
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“Urgh—!”
Like lightning hurled at the night sky, a searing beam shot heavenward with blazing light. Lucilla could only stop speaking and cover her ears at the terrifying sonic boom trailing it.
The power's flux dazed the mind even at a distance. Something massive unfolded where she wasn't—and not far.
A rough hand gripped Lucilla's staggering arm.
One of two in dark robes: the taller man.
“You okay...?”
“Ow, ugh.... N-not.... sure. Yggdrasil, you?”
“I'm fine. We've passed cautious movement. No major loss.”
Yggdrasil wiped blood from his ear and turned. Familiar aura. The blazing light unfamiliar, yet evoking someone just by sight.
“Professor. Surely his power.”
“....No one else wields such brutish, flashy force but the hero.”
The pillar of light vanished skyward, thinning the fog briefly—only for denser fog to pour, ominous crimson moon rising. Lucilla grew more urgent.
‘No time.’
Unfounded certainty, near merchant's instinct, hammered her heart.
She knew Lion Sword's vital role amid this city's curses and spells. Yggdrasil's conviction he could never wield it made her think—not coincidence, but the sword chose her for meaning, entrusting itself.
Foolish, fairy-tale drivel for a noble lady—but with a colossal flower-tree tower piercing heavens, red moon blotting sky, capital gone mad, who cared for realism.
Then, why choose her?
‘Not some nonsense to swing it myself.’
She was a merchant, never doubted lifelong.
A sword seeking merchant's hands wouldn't mean wield it.
If—truly wild thought.
As the golden aura whispered, amid legends clashing in this capital, if something only she could do, must do.
Merchant's work. From here to there. Moving goods to where needed, life's blood of world. If fate truly guided this legendary sword to her.
Likely, chosen as bearer.
‘Can't wield it myself. But find who can. Surely aid comrades battling at that horror's heart!’
Thus, following faint pull pulsing with her heartbeat. Sword's cry echoing it, she reached here.
Capital outskirts, small back gate like rat hole from All Ampria to Holy City.
Up to blocking the two cloaked figures.
“Here. This sword clearly seeks you.”
“....”
Face, name, robe's contents shadowed by night—all unseen.
‘Certain. It's him.’
Odd sense, merchant's eye—all confirmed.
‘Worn brown robe. Dirty-seeming, but fine fabric, no loose threads.’
‘Smaller robe rustles walking—dull metal friction, soft alloy woven intricate, gold ornaments likely. Laden heavy, steps cautious.’
‘Grabbed my arm: “Okay...?” Near slip to informal. To obvious noble like me, stranger, natural condescension.’
Yes, definitely him.
Lucilla untied the sword at her waist, offering cloth-wrapped whole.
But the man only stared.
“....I refuse.”
Same rejection as first meeting.
“Think I have time to argue? It's fate. You feel it too—drawn without touching!”
“Thus, I refuse. Sick of fate's whims. I'll live fully as myself now.”
“Hah, but....!”
Ignoring Lucilla's plea, the man turned toward Holy City's back gate.
Sword flashed in his golden eyes under red sky, but he turned away as if forgetting.
No more fate's sway. His sword lost, long fate's chains snapped—he vowed then.
To live proven by his name, not saint.
“....Go first, Mother. No life remains for us here.”
The smaller-robed gazed at him under hood as he urged.
Lion-mane wild hair. Eyes molten gold. Set mouth, weary gaze.
Prince Gainax rejected fate seeking him, turned steps outward.
“What now, Lucilla?”
“....Follow.”
“Follow and?”
“....Sell! Cling till he buys! Somehow! Hard sell!”
Shouldering Lion Sword wailing fiercer, Lucilla dashed after Gainax.
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