Kalmash (1)
A land where the balance of the primordial age had been shattered. The elves’ final line of defense. A boundary where no light reached, where raw chaos began to stir. That was Kalmash.
You could even say it was the original root cause behind Blackmore becoming a demon realm.
That was why this journey had to be treated with exceptional care. Even knowing the original story, one moment of carelessness here could mean death. We needed to be ready for anything.
And the first thing I did was this.
“Rudine.”
“Mm?”
“Let’s go.”
“Mm.”
Rudine Carlyle. I needed her there—my reliable bodyguard and, more or less, a Mental Image battery(?).
And the cowardly fox, too.
“Adina, you’re coming as well.”
“M-me? Why?”
“Should I call Rudine?”
“...”
Part of me wanted to tell her to stay home and guard the place, but this time she was necessary. If we were going to cross the chaos-ridden wastes of Kalmash without getting lost, we absolutely needed her tribe’s special trait—her Spirit Eye.
With all that preparation finally in place, Balkan clicked his tongue and unfolded the scroll that would teleport us to the headquarters of the Monarch Assembly.
“Please place your hands on the scroll.”
Flash—
A burst of light tore through space from the scroll, and...
“...We’ve arrived.”
In the blink of an eye, we had been brought to the headquarters.
And now.
“You’re here? It’s been a while.”
Great Lord Arkan, who had been strolling through the plaza, greeted us with her usual childlike smile.
She gave me and my companions a sideways glance, then shifted her attention to Adina, the white-furred beastman beside us. An interested smile played at her lips.
“What brings you here? You’ve even brought along a whole string of guests.”
“I have a favor to ask.”
“A favor?”
When she stared at her, Adina flinched and hid behind my back.
Amused by the reaction, Arkan let out a soft laugh and looked back at me.
“A white-furred beastman... It’s been a while since I’ve seen one from the divine beast line. Well, all right. You said you had a favor? Let’s hear it, then. I’m a little curious what someone like you would ask of me. Haha.”
So she was going straight to the point, huh?
I didn’t bother dodging and answered her question directly.
“I need to cross the boundary.”
“By the boundary, you mean Kalmash?”
“Yes.”
I kept my face calm as I met Arkan’s gaze, but inside, my thoughts were anything but calm. The only route leading to Kalmash lay within the territory of the Monarch Assembly, and crossing it required the permission of its owner.
When Balkan first told me that, I’d been so dumbfounded I couldn’t even speak.
It was only a request for passage, but crossing the boundary was never a trivial matter. Going there was essentially the same as saying you were ready to die.
We weren’t moving as part of some proper procession, either, and I doubted anyone would look kindly on us treating something this dangerous so casually.
“You want to cross the boundary? The four of you?”
“Yes.”
“Haha, you really aren’t sane, are you?”
The Great Lord burst out with a hollow laugh, sounding almost impressed by the sheer absurdity of it.
“Do you even know what’s beyond the boundary?”
“I do.”
“You do? Then you’ve been there before?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“...What?”
It made no sense on the surface, but it wasn’t a lie. I knew what lay beyond the boundary because I’d read the original story, even if I’d never been there myself.
If she really could see through lies, then she should know there was no falsehood in what I’d said.
“That’s a problem.”
Arkan let out a deep sigh.
For a moment, an awkward silence lingered between us, and then her low voice continued.
“Opening the passage itself isn’t that difficult, but... there are rules to this organization, you know? And I’m the one who runs it.”
“What’s the point?”
“That passage was already agreed to be sealed at the council meeting. Unanimously, too. If I open a passage that was closed just for the sake of one human, don’t you think people will object?”
“If you, the Great Lord, opened it yourself, there wouldn’t be any room for complaints.”
“True. But why should I? Is there any reason I should put myself through that trouble?”
In other words, it wasn’t worth the cost.
Well, she wasn’t wrong.
The woman in front of me was Great Lord Arkan, one of the Six Heavens who stood at the peak of the continent—a transcendent powerhouse whose might reached the heavens themselves.
I’d almost forgotten that such a being had been living quietly beneath the title of Great Lord.
She wasn’t someone who would do me a favor just because I asked nicely.
But I couldn’t afford to back down, either. Even while we stood here wasting time, Elfride was being swallowed by chaos.
So I decided that if she said there was no reason for her to endure the inconvenience, I’d give her one.
“You’re right. There’s no reason for you to help me.”
I fixed her with an unblinking stare and spoke evenly.
“But I’ll make you a promise.”
The more one advanced toward the transcendent, the duller the world’s stimulation became. Arkan was no exception. To her, everything in this world was unbearably tedious.
And yet, buried beneath that boredom was a hidden hunger—a ceaseless longing for something that could shatter it.
So I said it.
“If you open the passage, it’ll be fun.”
It was only a short line, but it was enough to shake Arkan to the core.
“...Fun?”
The Great Lord narrowed her eyes.
Her gaze pierced straight through me, as if she were trying to dig out my true intent.
“Are you that confident?”
“Yes.”
“My standards are pretty high, you know.”
“I can promise you that it’ll be worth the trouble. If you refuse my offer, you’ll definitely regret it.”
I was certain of it.
Once she saw what was sealed within Elfride Trivia’s body—the thing imprisoned inside the fifth Seed of the Apocalypse—she would have no choice but to be interested.
So what I was saying wasn’t bluster.
It was genuine, honest truth born from knowledge of the future.
And Arkan would know that. She’d already confirmed, over and over, that nothing I said was ever a lie.
At last, after her insight had checked my words more than once,
“Haha.”
she smiled.
And her answer, delivered in that same innocent voice, was—
“All right. I’ll open the passage.”
The First Lord Territory.
It was where the headquarters of the Monarch Assembly stood, and the only district in Blackmore that actually resembled a city. Since only the First Lord Territory was located within Blackmore out of the five lord territories, no one could know the headquarters’ exact location unless they were a high-ranking official.
And even within that territory, if you went all the way to the western edge, you would finally see the city’s last boundary. That was the passage leading beyond the border.
The entrance to the passage was sealed by the primal pillars the elves had erected, and by now, only Arkan could open it—aside from the protagonist of the original story.
And now, guided by Arkan, we moved endlessly toward the western edge of the First Lord Territory.
As we drifted farther from the city center, the density of buildings gradually thinned, and empty lots and wasteland began to spread out in their place.
How long had we walked like that?
We’re here.
Something enormous had begun to emerge in the distance.
What lurked beyond the thick fog was a towering pillar that seemed to stab straight into the sky. Two main pillars stood guard on either side, and a crossbeam linked them together to complete the shape of a gate.
With every step, the gate grew clearer.
The pillars soaring toward the heavens were all black, and strange patterns had been carved into their surfaces.
Rudine’s eyes had turned red before I even realized it.
The side effect of awakening the Red Eye.
“Luke.”
“What is it?”
“Those pillars...”
The world seen through the Red Eye was simple.
Living things, and things that were not.
But what entered her vision now was...
“They’re alive.”
Before the words had fully left her mouth, Arkan lifted a hand.
The moment her carefully outstretched right hand touched the surface of the pillar—
“!!!”
Whoooosh.
Waves of mana surged outward from Arkan in all directions without pause.
As if the signal itself had become a command, the patterns carved into the pillars scattered black light.
Dark mist seeped from the carvings and began to whirl like a violent current.
It flooded the space between the pillars, weaving itself together until a massive passage took shape.
“D-dammit...”
Adina clamped down on her triangular ears and shivered violently.
Still crouched behind my back, she kept muttering that the energy here was vicious, that she’d only come because she had no choice, and other complaints into her collar.
Clang! Krrrk!
Then, as if endowed with a will of its own, chains suddenly shot out and wrapped around the pillars, interlocking with one another.
And a vile stench, like rotting corpses, began to drift through the air.
“U-uhhh...”
Adina’s trembling grew even worse.
Rudine was still staring into the passage with her Red Eye open.
“Phew.”
Arkan let out a short breath and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.
As she withdrew her mana, the black torrent filling the space between the pillars began to blur.
And as it blurred, something beyond it came into view—an endless stretch of desolate land beneath a sky where light itself seemed to be dying.
The identity of this place was—
...Kalmash.
We had finally arrived.