Chapter 456
Chapter 456
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 21
Chapter Title: Another Solo Play (15)
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“This is our first meeting! I’m Hide! Not the Saint, not the Professor—Hide!!”
Thud!
I prostrated myself flat on the ground with speed befitting an Auror Knight.
“...Hic!”
The queen’s three loyal retainers, faced with her tearful eyes still brimming, unleashed a killing intent so thick it made their skin crawl.
No, it wasn’t just intent. The moment the words “spare—” escaped the queen’s lips, Quadurbu’s long arm came hurtling toward my head with a sound like a battering ram.
With my body pinned down by the hundreds of spikes the lipid slime had morphed into, staying put would’ve meant that arm pulverizing me and the slime together like pounding a porcupine.
Crunch!
“Don’t act rashly, Quadurbu.”
The one who grabbed it was the lion-headed king, who had been soothing the queen at her side.
“...This is someone my retainer brought. Shouldn’t it be my problem to handle?”
“That’s only if he’s confirmed as the problem. Didn’t he already declare he harbors no enmity?”
“He made Her Majesty, in her own chambers, utter ‘spare me’ with her own lips! Even with the three of us here, he made her tremble in fear! Do you truly believe his death needs any greater justification than that?!”
“...Her fragile Majesty is before us.”
Grind!
“Don’t spew that savage aura like a rabid dog drooling. I’ve told you time and again. Do you wish to prove your lowly origins?”
“Grrr! Let’s see if you can keep your title as king after I rip that doll-mask head of yours off!”
Crack!
In the once-quiet audience chamber, their ferocious auras visibly clashed.
‘Real monsters.’
Where Quadurbu’s long arm met the lion’s forepaw, heat haze shimmered. No aura or mana flow—just pure physical forces interfering, converting to thermal energy.
The two mutants glared as if ready to kill each other right then, while the lipid slime stealthily blocked the queen’s front.
“Um, ex-excuse me...!”
What broke the hair-trigger tension was a frightened voice from behind them.
“H-Hide. Um, y-yeah~ I-I think I know! Y-Yeah, we’ve m-met! Of course!”
“...?”
Nigmi, putting on an awkward act of familiarity with a voice that sounded utterly fabricated.
The heated atmosphere cooled in an instant as their gazes shifted to me.
“Answer. Her Majesty has asked you.”
“Uh, um...”
‘If I say ‘no, we haven’t met,’ I’m dead, right?’
Naturally, Nigmi and I had never met. The only time I’d seen her was in World 3, as an existence in Professor Park’s consciousness—merely spotting the named “Nigmi.”
‘I already greeted with [nice to meet you!], you airheaded queen!’
A sidelong glance showed her anxiously peeking at the king and Quadurbu, forcing an awkward smile.
‘...She wanted to stop the fight, huh?’
You know how it is. When mom and dad are arguing at home, the kid in the next room suddenly bursts out with, “Uh, Mom? I need the bathroom,” wedging herself in—cute, transparent meddling.
The analogy was a bit off, but that’s exactly the vibe. She didn’t want them fighting but had no clue how to stop it, so she blurted something out.
“L-Long time no see? Nigmi?”
Blush!
See that? Her face lit up when I played along.
Everyone in the audience chamber except Nigmi saw through her shallow ploy, but things unfolded as she intended. The two mutants, moments from slaughtering each other, melted like snow at the sight of the queen’s smile.
“So, how have you been? What brings you here, um...?”
Oblivious to the mood, Nigmi kept up her act that [Hide is someone I know, so no need to fight], probing my identity all the while.
‘Finally got a chance to speak. What to say?’
Now that I could utter a word, utmost caution was needed.
‘First, my identity. Nigmi played along under their watchful eyes, but curiosity about this [Hide] with Professor Park’s face remains.’
Nigmi’s reaction upon first seeing me wasn’t light.
She’d encountered the “Warlord” of World 4 and fled. Her scales flaking to reveal red flesh here and there, her personality regressed almost to infancy—it all stemmed from that encounter. So, I needed to make clear I wasn’t Professor Park.
‘[Hello, I’m Hide, sort of the Professor’s son]? Nah... In mutant society, son or daughter means direct legion commander. They might think I’m an assassin sent by the Warlord.’
But denying any connection outright with our identical faces would backfire. I had to reveal our relation. Yet that would trigger Nigmi’s ‘Professor PTSD,’ and one more ‘s-save me’ would mean my actual death.
‘Purpose. Don’t forget the gamble of entering this mutant den.’
Though Nigmi calmed the king and lords, they might never let me back in the audience chamber. I’d terrified their queen, after all. So, state my purpose now while I had the chance.
...Gulp.
‘No time for long talks. If Nigmi gets anxious again, they’ll drag me out.’
‘One sentence. Solve it in one sentence.’
In the blink of an eye, countless assumptions flashed through my mind. I inhaled, glancing around.
The snow-white humanoid albino, Queen Nigmi, perched on her rocky throne like it was clinging to her.
The king and lords gazing at her entranced. Their bizarre relationships eluded me, but their power was crystal clear.
‘...Safe to speak here.’
Power meant influence—the scale of [authority] that entity held in Gedroits’s world. Meaning, the system couldn’t casually eavesdrop like with other NPCs.
“I am Hide, son of the Saint Professor you fear so much, Nigmi.”
So, I said it.
“Th-that monster’s son... wants me? Hic! Wh-why?”
.
.
.
.
“To kill him.”
Thud!
Before Nigmi could grasp the words, the king’s claw was at my throat.
Drip.
Blood seeped from where the claw touched my neck.
“To kill my father, now the Warlord. I’ve come for the empire’s strongest relic, slumbering in the imperial capital.”
Plop.
A drop of blood fell to the floor like a tossed word in the audience chamber.
Immense disgust radiated from the lion’s eyes right before me, and from the two lords now guarding the queen. Sure, for those who cherished her so fiercely, my bold declaration of patricide must’ve been gravely offensive.
“The Saint... that monster of a Saint, the resurrected Warlord... kill him? W-with what?”
But their queen, as if hearing words she’d awaited her whole life, gazed at me with thrilled anticipation.
“...With a sword. One that shares the empire’s history—humanity’s history, even. It once rent open new heavens, proving its fame endures from primordial times, and vanished again amid imperial crisis.”
“The key to opening new heavens for the empire, [Lionel]. It should withstand even his monstrous power.”
At my purpose, never voiced lest the system overhear,
“Ah.”
The queen replied with a single profound exclamation.
It meant the groundwork for a long talk was laid.
****
Step. Step.
Thud. Thud.
“...”
“...”
After the long talk ended, to let the somewhat excited queen compose herself, the king asked me to withdraw for now.
“...Cauld. That’s my name.”
Then, finding me outside the audience chamber, he quietly led the way, bidding me follow.
Breaking the silence of the dim corridor came the king’s name.
“Ah, th-thank you—”
“Don’t misunderstand. I simply didn’t want such an honorable position serving Her Majesty closest at hand to come from the mouth of one who’s declared his fate patricide.”
This lion-headed mutant seemed thoroughly repulsed by me from that one remark.
“You lot don’t look like one big happy family either.”
Grrr!
“Had Her Majesty not taken a liking to you, that comment would’ve cost you your head.”
“Good thing, then. Means for the foreseeable future, you can’t lop it off no matter what I do.”
The lion-headed king, Cauld, growled once more but couldn’t retort. As he’d said, Nigmi truly fancied my tale.
=========
‘I-I have strong, wonderful children too, but it never occurred to me to kill him.’
‘Truth is... I saw it. In Mother’s nest, the Saint who’d lost his monstrous body derived from Mother killed her and died pointlessly.’
‘He was surely dead, yet he resurrected. I remember his aura down to my bones. Different form, but the Warlord I chanced upon... was definitely that monster Saint who massacred our kind.’
‘A guy who resurrects even after death—never thought to kill him.’
‘B-but if it’s his son. If it’s blood kin born of his line, m-maybe...!’
=========
The reason Nigmi cowered despite commanding such a mighty group was clear: the Professor, whose death she’d confirmed, reappeared before her in an entirely new form.
The very perpetrator who’d once slaughtered her family, now resurrecting after death. No wonder she’d think no scheme could evade his grasp.
Then, someone with the same face and aura appears, claims to be his son, and confesses long plotting his death—how could she not take interest?
‘Her speech, mannerisms, thought process... all rather childish.’
I’d prepared to weave everything from my past life to admins and divine beings, expecting disbelief. But from the moment ‘Professor’s son’ dropped, Nigmi bought it outright.
Believing the story she desired as fact before logic kicked in.
Irrational, brainless thinking: the Professor has some ‘mystical power’ for resurrection, so his blood kin—I—must have ‘mystical power’ to stop it.
“Yeah. From an outsider’s eyes, our relations do seem odd. Definitely not a harmonious family.”
Whether responding to my earlier quip or not, Cauld muttered like to himself as he led through the dim passage.
Step. Step. Step.
As if choosing words, he slowly spoke amid the silence.
“You proposed a deal to Her Majesty. That her nightmare, the massacre Warlord, is your target; you’ll erase him from this world with your own hands. In exchange, open the path to the imperial capital. That’s what you said.”
“Mm.”
“I know humans well. Breathing. Eyes. Speech. Or sweat. Blood flow. Various bodily secretions besides. Over the past three years observing humans passing through here, I studied their tells when lying.”
“You spoke no lies. Erasing your father from this world truly is your sole goal.”
‘Not wrong. My aim is getting Professor Park out of Gedroits’s world, after all.’
Impressive senses for that to be possible.
“But as you see, Her Majesty bears deep mental and physical scars. Likely from the Saint she fears to even name. ‘Professor’ or ‘Warlord.’”
Crunch!
The sound of the king’s foot crushing the corridor floor in unchecked emotion.
“...Her Majesty forbade us seeking him out. Speaking his name, delving our race’s past, investigating that ‘Saint’—all forbidden.”
“Does Nigmi’s command compel obedience?”
“Her Majesty compels us nothing. We follow of our own accord, by any means. However.”
Clunk—
“Overhearing someone who knows the Warlord and his ilk muttering to themselves wouldn’t violate Her Majesty’s orders. My ears are sharp, after all.”
We’d arrived; Cauld ahead flung open a door.
‘...Book smell?’
Accompanying the trapped air wafting out was the nose-stinging scent of aged paper.
Fortunately, like the audience chamber, soft light filled the room, making its nature easy to discern.
A massive chair, barely fitting Cauld’s frame.
The rest of the spacious room crammed with bookshelves and tomes.
Slipping familiarly through the cramped stacks, Cauld sat in the central chair and gestured to the pile before it—my seat.
“Our language. This place’s humans. Why we follow Queen Nigmi Majesty, why we don’t hate humans, why we obsess over this vast, cursed ruin of an empire. Trifles to sate curiosity, facts that could spell regret if unknown—all mixed in. You’ve many questions, no?”
“...You’ve plenty about me too.”
“And surprisingly, your claim of ‘knowing Her Majesty long ago’ rang true as well.”
The lion-headed mutant king, Cauld, chuckled lowly.
“From here on, we’ll ‘mutter’ one by one. I’ll share all about us; you, all about Her Majesty and what entwines her. A trade, piece by piece.”
“Do that, and I’ll aid you. My retainers will clear your path to the capital, guard your rear.”
The massive lion-like mutant gleamed with strange zeal amid the book piles.
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