Chapter 287
Chapter 287
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 287
Chapter Title: Chapter 14. One Empire, Three Legends (46)
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****
Shwaaaaa—
Rain. Not the cold drops falling on his head, but the cozy, sentimental sound pattering outside the window from inside a warm building.
Thinking back, the first sensation to reach him whenever he woke was always sound. Perhaps it was an old habit.
His eyes might only see the ceiling when he opened them, but sound delivered information from all directions. It was the kind of habit anyone who slept with a knife and shotgun under the bed would naturally develop.
The sound of raindrops settling over the ruined city beyond the thick walls.
The warmth of the fireplace and the crackling of burning logs.
Rhythmic breathing. The beating of a heart.
‘...I survived again.’
The last thing he remembered was free-falling from near-stratospheric heights, yet somehow he’d made it through once more.
Now it was second nature: as soon as his mind cleared, he checked the black box first.
‘Hey, Hide. What happened?’
[...]
‘Hide? You asleep?’
...Unfortunately, it seemed even the backup consciousness, Hide, had exhausted every ounce of body and mind and was out cold. He’d have to figure things out on his own until the thing woke up.
‘Let’s see... First, my body. Even twitching a fingertip makes my whole body scream. I was definitely crashing at the end... so I didn’t land with all limbs intact.’
‘Someone moved me here and bandaged me up. There’s a blood smell, but the bandages are clean. They’ve been changed regularly.’
‘Luxurious bedroom with a fireplace, stone building. Typical noble room, but... no elegance, just massive water pitchers. Five of them. And a full bathtub by the window over there. At least Ottoman cooperated in getting me here.’
Conclusion: situation resolved. The capital’s chaos ended in our favor. Ottoman among the group is well enough to tend to the others. Judging by the smoke rising over the city, not much time has passed since I blacked out. The rest: unknown. Can’t confirm at present.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Creak, rattle—
Right on cue, the sound of footsteps and a cart from outside had the Professor sitting up with a grunt. The faint vibration of a metal tray on wheels... probably a maid. One of the people who’d kept his body so well-maintained.
The heavy wooden door opened silently, and the maid pushing a cart with a damp cloth and soup for the patient went wide-eyed. The Professor gave an awkward wave and smile.
“Sa-Saint?”
She clearly hadn’t expected him to be up, but as a trained servant, she quickly regained her composure and backed out the door.
Moments later, the sound of a crowd charging down the hall.
Thud thud thud thud!
Clank clank clank clank!
The racket made it obvious what kind of people were coming, even without looking.
“Saint! Saint!!!’
Thanks to the maid’s first words, the Professor now knew why he was in this fine sickroom. He greeted the armored mob pouring in with a truly saintly smile.
Come to think of it, he had called these guys.
“Latura. Ro-Haram. Long time, no see, Gregorian brothers.”
“To recover so quickly... The Light has blessed you, Professor brother!”
Gregorius, captain of the Light’s Holy Knights, and his holy knights under him.
Judging by the brass candelabras and holy relics crowding the doorway, it seemed they’d been the ones to find him.
“Up we go. Anyway, Gregorian brother, I’m worried about my companions. Could you give them word?”
“But... Saint. Could you spare me a moment?”
The joy of seeing him awake faded, his voice growing heavy.
Solemn and calm. Yet unable to fully hide the emotional tremor.
Bad news always came with these omens.
“Has... something happened to my companions?”
“...Holy Knights of the Light. Withdraw for now.”
“Yes, sir.”
At Gregorius’s serious tone, the holy knights saluted their order and stepped back. With only the fireplace crackling between them, Gregorius eyed him cautiously and opened his heavy mouth.
“One touched by the Light’s will... I trust you’ll understand, even if it’s hard to accept.”
.
.
.
.
Shwaaaaa.
Pouring rain.
Crackle. Crackle.
The logs burning down to a dim glow in the fireplace.
Gregorius tried his best to make him understand what he’d witnessed, but the Professor’s face remained uncomprehending.
“...I have to see it.”
“Saint.”
“I need to see it with my own eyes. Now!”
Bang!
The long explanation ended, and the saint—who couldn’t comprehend what he’d heard—burst through the door. Gregorius simply watched. Considering the state they’d found him in, he should’ve pinned him to the bed by force, but
“...Latura. The Light has guided him, so no earthly tool can block his path.”
Instead, Gregorius offered a quiet prayer by the bed he’d left. May he overcome it. May he return unshaken to the Light.
****
Racing down the hall, many things came into view.
The tidy interior turned into a hastily cleared scene of destruction, traces of ruin not yet cleaned.
The noble mansion was half intact, half crushed like it had been stomped by a giant.
Beyond the severed hallway, the rain-soaked cityscape lay fully exposed.
A city shattered, fragmented, burned—still billowing charred smoke even in the cold winter rain.
Yes. War. War brought sacrifices, and those weren’t always limited to countable numbers.
“Huff, huff!”
His exhausted body protested after just a few steps, but he had no time to mind his bursting lungs.
‘Why didn’t I notice?’
Aldrich explaining black magic principles. The broken soul and evil spirits.
Unburdening his past he’d never told anyone. That mindset.
The fallen saintess. The witch’s nemesis. For an ordinary human like him, the only way to reach an unstable near-immortal god.
‘It’s the last time. Really, the last time...’
Why hadn’t he paid more attention? Faced with the tower, why hadn’t he sensed something off when Aldrich shattered the soul jar Neria held? Too focused on his own survival? Casually assuming, as always, that they’d laugh it off at the end—“Whoa, almost died again!”—all chummy? Why? Why? WHY!!!!
Boom!
He wanted to scream loud enough to shake the city, but the companions’ lodging Gregorius mentioned was the building opposite. If. If... he’d really lost someone, he didn’t want to disturb their eternal rest with noise.
The swallowed scream exploded as fury into the wall. Whether from using aura or his pathetic glass body returning, his fist shattered alongside the stone, staining the white bandages red.
He roughly shoved aside the maids following in the rain and reached the door where his companions were.
Dim light. Familiar whispers.
He couldn’t stop a beastly groan slipping through his teeth at the sight of the crudely made cart, half-charred, parked by the door. During their empire travels, with him pulling the cart ahead, he’d always heard Ottoman and Aldrich chatting behind.
“Grk!”
At the doorknob, the Professor clenched his trembling hand until it hurt, swallowing hard whatever was tears or snot.
Calm down. No one here has more experience sending off comrades than me. As leader, as veteran, show composure. Swallow it, settle it. There’ll be time later. When the time comes... if he faced a blue-grassed tombstone...
...Hoo.
Steel resolve set, the Professor yanked the door with all his might to hide the shaking.
Creeeak—
Cold winter rain and wind mixed into the room swirling with quiet whispers.
“You... look a mess.”
“Ottoman. I... uh...”
What to say? Words welled from his chest, circled his throat, choking his breath.
The mage and mentor grasped his arm gently, as if understanding.
“Yeah. Looks like those folks talked. Must’ve been a shock. It was...”
His wrinkled hand shut the door and draped a blanket over the Professor’s rain-soaked shoulders.
“That friend... he’s in the far room inside. Doesn’t look well himself, so no need to see him right now. Warm up by the fire first—”
“No. I’ll go now.”
“...”
That resolute figure helped the Professor steady himself. Fatigue plain on his face, yet personally greeting and guiding guests. Normally, the weary elder would’ve taken his role.
...He’d chosen a good house. Dignified but not vulgar. Not too grand, but large enough to keep entrance noise from reaching inside.
Step. Step.
With each step: past Lucilla asleep exhausted on the sofa, Yggdrasil leaning against the wall nodding at him, to the inner room Ottoman mentioned.
Troll’s rough presence leaked faintly—Notum was inside.
The black robe on the door hook was surely Aldrich’s, but no mana sense anywhere.
...Crack.
Finally, the Professor crushed the doorknob in his grip.
His trembling hand pushed the door; fresh air suggested a purification rite.
Notum clutching her soul jar turned her gaze; a thick green hand reached toward the staggering Professor.
“Grooo. Professor.”
“I’m fine, Notum. I’m used to it.”
Aldrich lay in bed. Covered in clean, soft blankets, hands folded atop. As if he’d rise if called—exactly as in life.
‘Among the Saint’s companions, the black mage... has departed the Light’s guidance.’
Gregorius. To someone who only knew Ro-Haram, it was the utmost courtesy for a heretic black mage.
The Professor knelt by the sleeping man, quietly taking his hand. Wrinkled, callused. Come to think of it, he’d never held Aldrich’s hand.
“You’ve suffered... Aldrich. Now rest... rest easy... Urk...”
Finally, the dam burst, emotions flooding, words failing. Aldrich’s body in the warm room was warmer than his rain-chilled hand. Like grasping a living person’s.
Warm like the living.
A pulse beating.
“...Hm?”
Unthinkingly squeezing, it twitched as if pained. Holding longer, sweat formed.
.
.
.
.
.
Uh... huh?
Looking up from Aldrich’s hand wet with his own streaming tears, the Professor saw Aldrich half-risen and Notum beside him staring down with indescribably awkward faces.
“Al...drich?”
“Uh... well... this is, quite novel... um. To be honest. Woke up to a big guy kneading my hand—feels damn weird. Mind letting go? Explain why while you’re at it.”
“You’d... passed on?”
“Who said? Me? What kinda jinx is that? To someone who nearly died.”
Whoosh!
Aldrich flung off the blanket, straightened his silk robe, and got out of bed.
“Waking in a day in that state, first words... unbelievable. Makes you seem more yourself, in a way.”
“No, it’s... the situation...”
“Roughly get it. You’re sharp as hell. Normally, your reaction would fit.”
He couldn’t grasp what was happening. Normally? So Aldrich had died and revived?
“You look dazed. Tea? Seems you need explaining more than me.”
“Huh? Oh... yes. Tea... sure...”
Sudden reversal left him lost, but he stumbled to the tea table in Aldrich’s room like hypnotized.
“Let’s see. Don’t know your method, but when you dropped the witch’s star and the curse over the capital finally scattered...”
Pour.
As Notum deftly brewed and poured tea with thick fingers, Aldrich recounted events while the Professor was out.
The story began with his death. Or the moment he was sure he’d met it. Then onward.
****
Death. Utterly familiar yet eternally alien to a soul sorcerer.
He’d known from his studies it wouldn’t be pleasant, but not this vividly horrific, Aldrich thought.
‘My gut... hurts.’
Perhaps because of his death’s form. The curse completed through a 52-year-old wound. The price for breaking endless reincarnation, freeing his mother from eons of torment.
That pain ripping the wound made Aldrich’s mind sharpen as he groaned.
Senses returned with awareness: cautious finger and toe wiggles. Bruises from collapsing into the spirit realm. Muscles throbbing from lying under debris.
‘Impossible... I’m alive?’
Unbelievable, yet the only explanation.
With Neria gone, life force leaking from his shattered soul should’ve killed him—but here he was, intact and moving.
No, more than intact. Body squeezed dry for his finale now brimmed with vigor, skin tauter, eyesight sharp as youth from old age.
Above all, the massive chasm in his soul was seamlessly sealed by unknown power.
Focusing senses revealed what filled it.
“Divinity... Mother, what have you...”
Incomplete, yet the witch had toed immortality’s edge.
She’d lost the power moving empires, decades of curse as witch—but until losing self to evil spirit, she clung to one will.
[I love you.]
[I love you...]
The emotion sparking it all. Endless love for the forsaken.
Small but touching god’s essence, it gathered Maria’s scattering soul, slipping into the fittest vessel for her purpose.
Skilled in dead, curses, souls.
Kind-hearted enough to pity them.
Now, a soul shattered, open to another.
Hoping someone—not her—would guide these forsaken,
The last fragment of a newborn-vanished god dwelled in Aldrich’s broken soul.
Leaked life’s place taken by Maria’s tiny, near-holy power.
Shattered soul’s frame circled whole—but evil spirit, unable to ascend. Neria’s soul, remembering the perfect fit for the crack, drawn by soft call.
Thus, a complete soul bearing small divinity.
“To think... the world... surely. If this is your design...”
God. My God.
Aldrich, seeing forsaken souls clearly in his eyes, sought God for the first time.
Mea Maria’s failed deification ended in failure. Her forsaken souls abandoned again.
Not Light’s faithful, not Ro-Haram’s heaven—for other dead, a soul sorcerer to guide them.
At last, Maria’s full death birthed a path Light couldn’t take.
Feeling the small whirlwind in his soul, Aldrich looked skyward.
“In the end, even You can’t be that heartless...”
In his eyes: collapsing sky losing its master, silver flash rising toward it.
Piercing chaos’s din, quiet metal ring and vivid silver aura literally cleaved the sky, opening new heavens.
Witch dead, her wish remained fittingly for Light and world.
Neria’s impossible wish—good mother returned—as Maria’s fragment softly in his soul, wrapped in Neria’s form.
...Crumble.
Crush. Crumble—
Shattered star lost final power, bursting. Witch-powerless corpses crumbled to dust. Deep-riven sky embraced the dust.
Shwaaaaa—
At last. Rain signaling the capital’s chaos ended.
Amid grace-like drops over burning capital.
To the old man granted new life and mission at life’s end, forsaken dead gathered.
Aldrich accepted his fate.
****
Slurp—
After the long tale, Aldrich wet his throat with cooled tea and continued.
“...That’s how it happened. Silly, in a way. Even turned, Mother was Light’s saintess. Dead becoming stars—Light doctrine. Turn eyes slightly, plenty places for Light-forsaken... but coin’s heads hides tails forever.”
Thus, the baton passed to him, untouched by Light.
The Professor’s head spun at events beyond his sight—side branches of immense scale.
Falling star, Guy Nax cleaving it to truly open new sky.
Witch, Aldrich, Neria. Telmayr house’s last three. Hard to grasp rationally, but solid happy end for them.
And...
“So... you’re a god now?”
“Ah. Yes.”
Unwittingly, bearing part of Mea Maria’s deathbed divinity in his soul.
“Ho ho ho. Joke. Incomplete divinity, most corrupt stripped—mere speck left. Human power handles it. Calling that ‘god’ is absurd.”
Unimaginable twist; Professor felt clubbed thrice over.
Sorting dizzy head, he recalled the bastard implanting ‘Aldrich dead’ in his just-awakened mind, grinding teeth.
“Then why’d Gregorius phrase it like that? To screw with me?”
“As Light holy knight, seeing me hold heretic divinity-like... natural. Gathering Light’s discarded aligns with witch, so ‘departed Light’s guidance entirely’ fits.”
Damn it all.
“Th-then. Lucilla’s swollen eyes, asleep like cried herself out?”
“Ah, Lucilla. Thought she hid quietly in holy city, but no. Frail girl ran rampant in this warzone. Hard to believe, but in ruined palace, she bore first emperor’s sword Lionel, crossed capital finding new master. Exhausted from everyone till you came.”
Not cried out from grief, but the one he thought couldn’t shine in capital’s curse—from legends, collapsed asleep.
Beyond prediction, beyond imagination. Lionel? Founding sword filling history books’ illustrations? Higher rank than Ego Sword, unheard if unworthy—even carried by Lucilla as porter?
Aldrich taxing enough; Lucilla pushed him to abandon understanding. Oh, Notum. This one chugging tea like a drum had fused with ancestral spirit into covenantor too. Fine. Great. Everyone but me snagged legendary something.
“Then, Gregorius’s meekness? When I was hero, he danced sword denying unverified. Empire slapped ‘saint’ label, suddenly obedient? Thought grief over ‘dead’ Aldrich.”
Everything strange on waking explained by ‘Aldrich dead’.
Mentioning holy captain’s oddness, Aldrich gulped tea painfully, pointing and chuckling.
“Ah, him? Deserved. Very. As you said, he trusts only eyes.”
“...Pardon?”
“This time, Gregorius saw clearly. Saintly you, martyred fulfilling mission. Better see yourself. Yggdrasil sketched that scene nicely. He wanted one, I asked too. Not amateur work!”
It took time to comprehend the paper Aldrich grinningly handed.
Fine drawing: half-burnt temple, soot-clad people fervently praying around. Mounted holy knights gaping upward, detailed.
Above. On temple spire’s tip, a pierced man like a painting.
Blood from chest wound poured over soot-covered temple. Mission done, satisfied smile on his final face.
Concise, dramatic—excellent. But sketch of real scene, copied true.
“So... that’s me?”
“Ho ho ho. You, of course. Imagine Gregorius: raced empire’s edge to capital, Light comet crashes omen, light’s master at crash site—there, saintly martyr pose on temple, picturesque smile, you ‘dead’. At least looked it. Didn’t see, but Yggdrasil: ‘Middle-aged knight bawled like child, scrambled temple dragging Professor.’ Epic, no? Atheist’d yell Latura!”
“Argh, Ro-Haram you bastard—no, god...”
Professor clutched head at whoever dropped him there. Capital’s ruin plus picture—outcome obvious without seeing.
“...How deep am I in capital mess?”
“Deeply. Curse gone, civilians sane in panic—natural. Wounds bloody everywhere. Amid chaos, temple fresco scene looms. They flock.”
“My God...”
All griped legendary shares; seems he wasn’t outsider.
“Congrats. Light followers exploding, pushing state religion change. Over half high nobles—highly viable.”
Ro-Haram. Sly god took old debts and gains.
Chaos insane, Professor clutched face. Endless to sort, but one clear priority.
“...Thanks for living, Aldrich.”
“Ho ho. Happened that way. No thanks needed.”
Pure pandemonium, but—even tenfold worse—
Better than dead Aldrich. Felt good.
****
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