Eye of the Typhoon (1)

They certainly seem to be having a wonderful time.

Asella, the continental Hero, couldn't help but let a warm, tender smile spread across her lips as she read through Grylls's latest post. Truth be told, the atmosphere on the Gallery had been foul lately. Political flame wars regarding El Dorado's turmoil, bloody rumors concerning the extremist Blood Cult, and even users arranging real-life duels to settle grudges had flooded the forum boards.

Fleeing for her life was grueling enough on its own, but having to moderate the extradimensional board while such disasters erupted one after another had thoroughly exhausted her. To make matters worse, her fellow deputy moderator, the Heavenly Demon, had ended up entangled in one of those very real-life blood feuds, leaving Asella completely on her own without any support.

I wish posts like this were the only things people shared every day.

Although the Gallery was fundamentally a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠den of raw, unvarnished human desires, it occasionally welcomed genuinely touching posts. Silly clips of domestic beasts, proud updates about growing children, small victories, and heartwarming everyday anecdotes—to Asella, encountering such posts felt like discovering an exquisite flower blooming quietly inside a desolate trash heap. They were endlessly precious.

If only El Dorado could find a peaceful resolution as well...

Her smile faded. Asella lowered her gaze to her lap, where a crumpled newspaper rested in her grip.

The front page was plastered with reports of the unprecedented crisis that had shaken not just El Dorado, but the entire continent. It was this exact incident that had made it almost unbearable for Asella to perform her duties as head moderator.

Staring at the printed words, her chest tightened with bitter anguish. Why... why did he ever utter such dreadful things?

The infamous Dogs and Pigs Comment leaked from the Pope's private chambers had struck Asella like a physical blow. It wasn't a baseless rumor concocted by anonymous internet trolls; it was an undeniable revelation exposed directly by Kadir, the renowned Wizard King of the Iris Kingdom. The Vatican had scrambled to dismiss the recording as a magical forgery, but would a man of Kadir's stature ever stoop to such deceit? Not in the slightest. The Archmage was known far and wide as an eccentric academic, but he was certainly no fool who would orchestrate international slander without cause.

The Goddess entrusted us with building a better world before she departed. Why has it come to this...?

The office of the Pope was meant to serve as the Goddess's humble vicar, not a tyrannical crown of absolute supremacy. Likewise, the Hero was created to be the Goddess's defensive blade, forged to protect the innocent from calamity—never to terrorize them. Yet the current pontiff had completely forsaken his divine mandate, wallowing in corruption and blinded by pride.

What, then, was she supposed to do as the Goddess's designated guardian? Should she raise her blade against the Pope in accordance with the righteous fury of the populace? Or should she remain silent and wait patiently until the church leadership regained its sanity?

I... I still don't know.

Leveling her steel against the Holy See would be nothing less than open rebellion. In the entire history of El Dorado, such an atrocity had never occurred. Yet looked at from another angle, the mere fact that an unthinkable rebellion was being contemplated proved just how profoundly the nation's leadership had rotted away. When rot set in, it had to be excised cleanly before it infected the entire body, and severing it required a sharp, uncompromising blade. A blade sharper than any other.

...That blade doesn't necessarily have to be mine.

Asella shook her head, trying desperately to push the thought aside. She was already branded an apostate and a traitor by the state. Would it be wise to step onto center stage under such circumstances? She doubted it. A little longer. Just wait a little longer. Surely an opportunity would present itself eventually—a shining chance to set all things right once and for all.

"Pardon me."

A voice broke the silence, making Asella stiffen instantly. She turned, her heart hammering against her ribs as she wondered if the inquisitors had finally caught her scent. Yet the figure approaching her didn't seem to be an official hunter. Any papal search party would have marched in polished steel ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠plate, but this individual was cloaked head to toe in a dusty, ragged travel robe.

Keeping her guard high, Asella shifted her weight subtly, already mapping out an escape route along the alleyway. "Can I help you?"

"I heard a rumor that the traitorous Hero was hiding around here."

"..."

Asella's eyes narrowed into slits. They're definitely hunting me. Her appearance was virtually impossible to conceal beneath a simple travel hood. Beyond her suspicious vagabond attire, her hair was a brilliant, vivid shade of orange—a striking trait possessed by almost no one else on the continent. The fact that the chosen Hero possessed flame-orange hair was common knowledge, making her dreadfully easy to identify. Worse still, the ornate, gilded scabbard of the Holy Sword Revolution stood out starkly against her threadbare traveling gear. No matter how low she kept her head, rumors inevitably followed in her wake.

They've already caught up to me...? Though I suppose I should be grateful I lasted this long.

The pursuit had slacked off briefly due to the riots tearing through El Dorado, but the reprieve had clearly ended. Asella eased her rear foot backward, tensing her muscles to spring away. But before she could bolt, the cloaked figure spoke again, her voice carrying absolute certainty.

"It really is you, Asella."

"...Excuse me?"

Asella paused, blinking in confusion. The voice struck a sudden, familiar chord. It belonged to a woman, carrying a distinctive, husky rasp that lent it an unforgettable charm.

Fwip!

With a brisk sweep of her arm, the stranger threw back the deep hood of her cloak, exposing her face to the daylight. Asella's eyes went wide with shock. Framed by short, neat brown hair and sharp, cat-like eyes that curved slightly upward at the corners, the woman's face carried a familiar cynical edge—one that failed completely to diminish her striking, androgynous beauty.

"R-Rece, sister?!"

"Yeah, you little brat. It's me. Your big sister. You holding up alright?"

It was Rece, her closest companion before she was driven out of the kingdom. To Asella, an orphan with neither mother nor father, Rece had been the closest thing she had ever known to blood family.

A bright, radiant smile broke across Asella's face at the sight of her dearest friend, but confusion quickly caught up with her. "H-How did you manage to find me all the way out here?"

"Shadowed the paladins tracking you, of course. Managed to slip past their perimeter and get ahead of them just now."

"Wait... does that mean...?"

"Yeah. Those bastards are already inside this city."

The news fell like lead. They had to abandon this district immediately.

"Then shouldn't we get moving right away?"

"Damn right. Got a safehouse in mind?"

"Yes. Let's head there while we figure out our next move."

Choosing speed over idle sentiment, the two women darted through the twisting back alleys. As they navigated the labyrinth of cobblestone streets, they quietly brought each other up to speed on the chaos of recent weeks. What had become of Ludwig? How bad had El Dorado deteriorated? How was the Pope reacting to the outrage?

"That rotten piece of trash," Rece spat, her husky voice laced with venom. "Even with the entire city on fire, he refuses to step down. Keeps spouting bullshit about how he can't abandon the throne the Goddess personally entrusted to him."

"..."

"He even orchestrated that purge against Master Ludwig, doing whatever the hell he pleases without an ounce of shame. If this keeps escalating, it's going to turn into a full-blown bloodbath..."

The state of affairs back home sounded far grimmer than the censored press let on. Asella sank into grim contemplation. Countless citizens had taken to the streets to protest, but without a recognized leader to unite behind, their efforts remained scattered and vulnerable. If only they had a proper symbol—a rallying point—they might truly stand a chance of toppling the Pope's tyranny.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"...sella."

"..."

"Asella!"

"E-Eek?! Ah! What?!"

Startled out of her reverie, Asella jumped, nearly tripping over her own boots. When she turned in bewilderment, she found Rece staring at her with exasperated concern.

"What's eating at you? I've been calling your name for three blocks."

"Oh... it's nothing. I'm just... a little tired, that's all."

"Tired, huh? Well, can't say I blame you. Let's find somewhere decent to rest our feet before we do anything else."

"Okay..."

Asella offered a subdued nod, taking in the state of her companion. Rece's sharp features were dusted with grime, her cheeks hollowed from sleepless nights and relentless travel. When you were on the run from the state, a proper bath was an impossible luxury.

Why did someone as good as her have to suffer like this?

Had it not been for Ludwig's sacrifice in taking the doomed exile mission upon himself, Rece would have been dragged straight into the lethal horrors of the Forest of the Four Seasons. Ludwig was somehow managing to survive against all odds, but Rece had clearly endured hellish trials of her own just to reach this point.

Things can't go on like this.

No more innocent blood could be allowed to spill. The Pope was not serving the Goddess; he was simply fattening himself on her divine authority, exploiting her holy gifts to satiate his bottomless lust for power.

As the resolve in Asella's heart began to crystallize, something remarkable happened.

Shwaaaa—

At her hip, the Holy Sword Revolution began to emanate a soft, crystalline luminescence, answering the rising conviction of its wielder.

"Mmhmm-hmm~ La-la-la~"

Within the Iris Kingdom's soaring spire, Kadir—known on the Gallery as Allfather—was in extraordinarily high spirits. And for good reason: he had acquired a research specimen so miraculous that an archmage might spend ten lifetimes without ever catching a glimpse of it.

"Truly... an exquisite sight to behold," he murmured, his eyes gleaming with scholarly mania as he gazed at the golden, fragrant lump sealed securely within a translucent magical containment field.

The miraculous golden stone before him was none other than Sky Whale ambergris, generously gifted by Grylls for academic study. The sheer confirmation of a Sky Whale's existence had already sent seismic shockwaves through continental biology, and now Kadir possessed an intact portion of its miraculous bodily excretions. While ordinary ambergris was already a prized alchemical treasure, ambergris harvested from a mythical sky leviathan was a priceless relic whose value defied quantification.

This miraculous secretion grants living beings the supernatural grace of flight. Astonishingly, one doesn't even need to consume it—merely inhaling the incense it produces is sufficient to trigger the effect.

These were facts he had pieced together through the casual disclosures of Grylls and Praise the Sun. Truthfully, the scholar within Kadir had nearly suffered a stroke when he learned how those two barbarians had squandered such sacred materials. Using Sky Whale ambergris as mere fishing bait or burning it away as common room fragrance was an unspeakable travesty. Never mind the hazards; the sheer academic waste was agonizing! Still, the empirical observations they provided were undeniably valuable.

The fundamental mysteries of the Sky Whale are undoubtedly locked within this essence.

The Sky Whale was a creature of pure myth, casually spitting in the face of established natural philosophy. How could an aquatic colossus lacking wings, belonging to the depths of the ocean, swim effortlessly through the boundless azure? It was vastly more nonsensical than the mythical giraffe Grylls had once described.

I would love nothing more than to beg Grylls for additional specimens, but...

The piece currently in his possession was roughly the size of an adult man's clenched fist. While immense by ordinary standards, a true scholar's greed was bottomless. Kadir couldn't help but feel a twinge of hunger for more.

Still, I should count my blessings. Grylls even mentioned he would pass along any surplus he didn't need.

The ambergris was undeniably wondrous, but whether it had any practical utility for wilderness survival remained doubtful. Levitation was a magnificent gift, but the methods required to unlock it were fraught with peril. Knowing Grylls's cautious personality, the young man was hardly desperate enough to discard his dignity and swallow raw whale droppings for a temporary parlor trick.

Knock, knock, knock.

"Lord Kadir? The grand conference regarding the Sky Whale phenomena is scheduled to convene shortly."

A muffled voice sounded from the corridor, interrupting his reverie. The magical world had been thrown into sheer pandemonium by the leviathan's emergence, and because the Magic Tower was an asylum densely populated by obsessive eccentrics, interest in the Sky Whale was burning hotter than anywhere else on earth.

"I shall be along directly," Kadir replied, reluctantly stepping away from his workstation. While he had zero intention of revealing his private stash of ambergris, attending the assembly was a prime opportunity to pick the brains of his eccentric peers for novel analytical theories.

Casting one last lingering, deeply affectionate glance at the golden stone, the Archmage turned and stepped through the reinforced doorway.

Click.

The latch locked into place, leaving the cavernous laboratory blanketed in solemn silence. Arcane tools, alchemical retorts, and ancient grimoires stood in orderly rows across the dark mahogany benches. Yet outshining every enchanted treasure in the room was the golden specimen suspended within its protective ward.

And then...

FLASH!

Without warning, a brilliant pulse of golden light erupted from the core of the stone, as if some long-dormant mechanism had suddenly snapped awake. Under ordinary circumstances, an alchemical stone emitting a faint glow would hardly qualify as extraordinary. But what followed an instant later defied all comprehension.

RUUUUUUUMBLE—!!!

A colossal shockwave tore through the foundations, sending violent tremors surging through every stone, beam, and enchanted reinforcement of the Magic Tower. The sudden earthquake sent everyone inside into complete disarray. Kadir himself staggered, his eyes widening in sheer disbelief; in all his centuries residing within the tower, he had never once experienced a tectonic tremor. Artificial quakes sparked by catastrophic alchemical accidents were a semi-regular occurrence, but this vibration belonged to an entirely different scale of magnitude.

"W-What is happening?!"

"Is it an earthquake?!"

The commotion was even worse on the streets below. Citizens and visiting sorcerers in the surrounding plaza stumbled about in panic as the ground heaved beneath their boots, centering around the colossal spire. But the true horror was only just beginning.

BOOOOOOOOM—!!!

"L-L-L-Look over there!!"

"W-What in the world is that?!"

A pedestrian shrieked, his trembling finger pointing toward the heavens. Dozens of heads snapped upward in unison, their jaws dropping as they beheld a spectacle that battered the very boundaries of sanity.

The Magic Tower was already famous across the Iris Kingdom as an impossibly tall marvel of magical architecture, clawing into the clouds. But at this very moment, the titanic spire was climbing far beyond its intended zenith. As if the very foundation of the earth beneath it had detached from reality, the titanic monolith was rising toward the stratosphere—slowly, smoothly, and with absolute, unstoppable majesty.

"T-T-The Magic Tower...!"

"The entire tower is taking flight...?!"

"B-By Aragon almighty..."

Defying every law of nature, the sovereign bastion of the continent's archmages had begun to float into the sky.

"Man, that's fun. Hey, Wonmo! Wanna go for another round?"

"Kyuu!"

"Alright, alright. Just one more lap."

"Me no want!"

"Nobody asked for your opinion, Ggobongi."

I chuckled, floating gently toward the ceiling. You know, once you got the hang of this weightless drift, it really was a hell of a lot of fun.