Chapter 180
Chapter 180
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 180
Chapter Title: How Do You Do That? That's For You To Figure Out.
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After Bianca swept through the storm of training,
Krash headed to his room.
"Alicia, go ahead and visit Aliod."
"Ah."
Alicia, Krash's personal maid, froze the moment she heard those words.
Aliod, the butler of Green Pine Pavilion.
He was Alicia's father.
After Krash had arrived at Green Pine Pavilion, the two had exchanged brief nods.
But while Aliod remained impassive, Alicia had kept stealing glances at him.
She probably just wanted to talk with her father after so long apart.
"I appreciate the offer, but I must attend to Lord Krash. Even Green Pine Pavilion cannot change that."
Alicia politely declined, and Krash chuckled lightly.
"Then that's an order. I need some time alone myself."
"...An order, my lord?"
When Krash brought up an order, Alicia hesitated.
But seeing the resolve in his eyes that he wouldn't take it back, she soon accepted.
"Thank you. I'll be back shortly."
With those words, Alicia bowed deeply and left gracefully.
Yet she couldn't hide her joy—her footsteps echoed quickly down the hallway outside.
Still just a young girl, she must have so much to say to her father.
'And truthfully, I do need some time alone.'
As Krash locked the door, he spotted the Crimson Garden crow that had followed him in.
She bobbed her head and perched lightly on the doorknob.
Using magic, she had sealed it shut.
Confirming that, Krash pulled a corpse rat from his pocket.
"Evelask."
At the summons, the corpse rat leaped up and sat on the floor.
In that instant, shadows writhed beneath its paws and surged upward.
From the suddenly rising shadow emerged a woman with long black hair and a strikingly prominent upper body.
As always, the dark circles under her eyes perfectly reflected her shut-in lifestyle.
Evelask Venapocchi.
The World Eroder and the world's one and only necromancer.
"What's with the proper clothes?"
Unlike her usual single oversized t-shirt, she wore a black women's dress today.
A top that accentuated her figure and a skirt that cinched her waist.
Long black gloves reaching her elbows added an inexplicable allure.
"Isn't it common sense that home clothes and outdoor clothes are different?"
Evelask replied with a slightly curt tone today.
As Evelask said, it was perfectly sensible.
But Krash knew from experience that even outside, her outfit wasn't much different.
Some change of heart, perhaps?
Krash decided to let it slide.
"The Mad Sovereign."
"Fetching him now."
Ever obedient, Evelask tapped the floor with her heel.
Just like before, black shadows bubbled up from the ground.
"Puhaak!"
Out came a man with blood-red hair.
Having seen his face recently, Krash knew him well and raised a casual hand.
"Mad Sovereign."
"Cough, kuh, you!"
The Mad Sovereign tried to shout upon seeing Krash.
But before he could, his voice cut off abruptly.
Because Evelask had seized control over him.
He had been revived through Crimson Garden, but his heart was in Evelask's grasp.
Thus, he could no longer act rebellious like before.
Krash slowly approached the Mad Sovereign.
He crouched down and gave the gritted-teeth man a slow smile.
"With your survival instinct, you get it. No matter what you do now, your life hangs by a thread."
Mute thanks to Evelask, the Mad Sovereign ground his teeth in frustration.
"Any outbursts are blocked from the start, so give it up. She can puppet you at will if she wants."
His face flushed with humiliation.
But he was quick to grasp reality.
"What do you want to know?"
His survival drive made him see things clearly.
So instead of arguing further, he chose to comply.
That's why reviving this guy was worth it.
Unlike the other Ixion members, he wasn't deeply attached to the group anyway.
"Who are the current Ixion members?"
He already knew their goals.
What Krash needed was intel on which World Eroders were involved now.
And.
"Why you stole the Poison Blood Sword, who you handed it to after, and who you traded with. All of it."
The potential imperial family connection.
He had to hear the details.
As a corpse puppet, the Mad Sovereign had no choice.
From the moment his mouth opened, Krash listened intently to every word.
Thanks to that, he got a rough grasp of Ixion's current World Eroders.
'More dangerous ones have joined faster than I thought.'
Total of fourteen World Eroders identified.
Among them, four that Krash deemed truly threatening, including the Black Witch.
'Factor in their minions, and the number swells even more.'
Krash crossed his arms and slowly tapped his forearm with a finger.
Was this the butterfly effect from him and Sigrin?
Or some hidden force at work beyond his knowledge?
He couldn't say.
But one question lingered.
"Hell Fairy?"
A completely unfamiliar name had come up.
Krash didn't know every World Eroder.
He only knew Ixion members and those he'd clashed with directly.
He couldn't track every hidden one.
But he'd never heard of a World Eroder called the Hell Fairy.
"That guy's the one."
The Mad Sovereign continued.
"The one who asked me to steal the Poison Blood Sword."
Not the Black Witch, but this Hell Fairy had commissioned him.
Krash's face twisted at the revelation.
"So you stole the Poison Blood Sword and have no idea what they did with it after?"
"Why would I need to? I made the deal and fulfilled my end."
The Mad Sovereign snorted dismissively.
Krash glanced at Evelask, who nodded.
Everything he said rang true, without a shred of deceit.
"What did you get in return?"
"Blood Rakshasa Sword."
But the next part puzzled him.
One of the Ten Great Heavenly Swords, the weapon the Mad Sovereign favored.
Acquiring it so recently was odd.
"Didn't you already have the Blood Rakshasa Sword?"
"The blade I used originally came from my world. It dulled in battle, and that's when the deal came up."
So the Hell Fairy had existed in the original timeline too.
Krash felt a headache coming on.
If he'd planned to regress from the start, maybe.
But gaps in information were starting to creep in.
"Crimson Garden, know anything about this Hell Fairy?"
"Roughly."
The crow on the doorknob answered Krash's question.
"By my reckoning, a World Eroder whose alias surfaced recently. I saw her once as an Ixion member."
"What was she like?"
"Gave off a creepy vibe. More unsettling than the Black Witch. Handled impressive fire magic, and left no openings."
Krash's eyes narrowed slightly at that.
"Fire magic?"
"Yeah, her main magic was fire. A vivid blue flame."
Blue flames.
'Different from the one I know.'
The figure who came to mind was none other than the Red Witch, Abella.
Her title alone set her apart from Flame Lord Aslan as a fire magic master.
She'd been in hiding, so suspicion arose, but Krash shook his head.
'Timeline doesn't match.'
The Hell Fairy's deal with the Mad Sovereign happened when Krash was four.
He regressed at thirteen.
Abella, a year younger, at twelve.
Thus, the Hell Fairy was active when Abella was three—impossible.
"Mad Sovereign, is Ixion tied to the imperial family?"
The Mad Sovereign answered easily.
"Probably. Heard that Hell Fairy I mentioned acts as their inside contact."
Confirmed: the Poison Blood Sword incident involved the imperial family.
And the Hell Fairy was in league with them.
'Things are more tangled than I thought.'
Krash knew the imperial family's secret.
It was why the empire fell into decline, stripping the family of authority.
'Even Hardenharts—Second Prince leaked the secret, drawing the Poison King.'
No longer an issue now.
But the incidents stemmed from that secret.
'Ixion and the imperials linking up isn't strange.'
But an unheard-of World Eroder as the bridge? That nagged at him.
Even with the info, his head felt more cluttered. Krash exhaled deeply.
"Enough. No point overthinking it now."
Before overload, he sorted his thoughts.
And reached one conclusion.
"I'll just meet them myself."
Unknowns? Confront directly and extract intel.
That's why he'd gone through this with the Mad Sovereign.
Krash's eyes met the Mad Sovereign's.
As the man glared—what now?—a brief smile crossed Krash's lips.
"Mad Sovereign, time for your next role."
"What? There's more?"
He'd spilled everything, the Mad Sovereign mocked.
Krash ignored it.
"You'll attend the upcoming Ixion meeting in person."
His face paled instantly.
"Wait, hold on! Risk of getting caught there is huge!"
Krash shrugged at his protest.
"If you play it smart, no issue. Don't worry—just act like your usual self."
"Damn it, a dead guy coming back? How wouldn't that blow up!"
"That's for you to figure out..."
An wicked grin spread across Krash's face.
"Not my problem, right?"
The Mad Sovereign glared, curses on the tip of his tongue.
But he wouldn't risk his hard-won second life.
Puppet or not, survival was his top priority.
"Should've killed you properly back then."
Krash patted the grinding-teeth Mad Sovereign's shoulder.
"Do your best. Mad Sovereign."
We can be the best of friends.