Chapter 114
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 114
Chapter Title: Mausoleum of the Forgotten Sanctuary
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Like all noble families, preserving one's bloodline carried symbolic weight while also being a profoundly difficult matter.
Maintaining the legitimacy of the founding lineage offered immense advantages in perpetuating the family, but it inevitably came with issues like illegitimate children and bastards that couldn't be avoided.
A single night of pleasure was one thing, but evidence of infidelity was fatal enough to bar one from debutante balls and high society alike.
After all, scandal was the very antithesis of the virtues that noble blue blood was supposed to embody.
As a result, the current tendency was to hush things up—"there might've been a few bastards, sure, but as long as they didn't surface"—provided they stayed buried.
But that was the present; the ancient imperial family had been ruthlessly obsessive about legitimacy.
The reason for such stubbornness had long been forgotten in the mists of time...
*If that's the only way to keep the bloodline pure enough to hold the seal firm.*
Princess Lilian drew in a sharp breath.
Her white hair and golden eyes—features she'd never paid much mind to.
Traits that perfectly mirrored the founding emperor had been passed down intact to her.
Her siblings each bore similar features—muddy whites or brown eyes—but with subtle differences.
"No need to be nervous. Just drop a few drops of blood."
"That won't work."
A soft, lilting voice.
Professor Aiden rose with a hint of irritation.
"Never thought you'd come crawling here on your own."
"Ahaha, no need to get so mad. It's been ages since we last met. Even I was kinda looking forward to it?"
"You must've been thrilled."
Aiden sneered and took a step forward.
His hair fell straight before curling midway into loose waves, and his otherwise listless, disinterested face bore a flicker of subtle intrigue.
And above all, those two sharply defined horns.
Goat-like, they curved in neat spirals, glossy black with clear edges.
Princess Lilian hurriedly ducked behind Aiden.
"Professor... a demon..."
"Already picked up another souvenir, huh? Don't you ever get tired?"
"Even if I did, it wouldn't match your own changes. You've really grown into it now. No trace left of those dainty little horns from back then? Bielle."
"...How about saying I've matured instead."
The demon called Bielle shot Aiden a slightly petulant glance.
It was a mix of annoyance and embarrassment, the kind where you wanted to deny it but had nothing solid to deny.
"Haa, whatever. That's what I looked like as a kid—don't tease me about my horns. Even you must've toddled around on unsteady legs once."
She pursed her lips and let out a dramatic sigh.
Muttering something about how calling her a mature woman now felt a bit off, Princess Lilian stared at their exchange in confusion.
A demon.
One standing above even the demon worshippers.
One of the culprits who had half-destroyed the academy, no less—yet the vibe between Aiden and this demon felt far too cordial for sworn enemies.
Just as she opened her mouth to voice it, Aiden beat her to it.
"So... you showed yourself to me to beg for death?"
A series of cracks echoed as he deliberately loosened his knuckles.
Tense seconds dragged on like an eternity in the powder-keg standoff.
The princess watched their confrontation with bated breath, her face drained of color.
When whales clashed, the shrimp got pulped—and in this cramped space, if these otherworldly monsters went at it, she'd be the one exploding.
But as if sensing her dread, Bielle raised her hands theatrically with a playful wave.
"Oh, come on. Even I wouldn't pick a serious fight with you, Professor. My life's precious too, you know."
She flashed a sly, guarded smile.
It cut through the thick tension like oil on water.
Professor Aiden's face slackened back to its usual mask of boredom, as if the wind had gone out of him.
"And if you keep glaring at me like that, I might just bail without delivering my message."
"What's that supposed to mean."
"A threat?"
"Is that your idea of a threat?"
Aiden pinched his brow as if nursing a migraine from her childish ploy.
"I'm the best in the world at making a clean getaway!"
She snorted, planted hands on hips, and puffed out her chest.
"Before showing myself to you, I set up eighty—no, eighty—teleportation circles around this place. Chase me, and you'll have to smash every single one. Unless you enjoy playing whack-a-mole everywhere..."
"Cut the nonsense. You're giving me a headache. So, what's your business?"
Bielle's impish giggle faded into a sly crescent smile, her eyes narrowing.
The gaze pierced not Aiden, but Princess Lilian cowering behind him.
"About that key."
"Since when do you refer to people by object names?"
As the princess flinched under the chilling stare, Aiden extended a hand to shield her from Bielle.
At that small gesture, the princess exhaled the breath she'd been holding.
*Even bantering so casually like that...*
To outsiders, they seemed like chummy acquaintances laughing it up.
But a single stray thread of the raw emotion simmering beneath could snuff out any bystander's life.
The friendly facade was just a veneer.
They tempered their snarls and bared fangs only enough to allow conversation.
Mistake that for docility...
A chill ran through Princess Lilian; she rubbed her throat.
*It's because her opponent's Professor Aiden.*
An overwhelming force she couldn't hope to match, so she approached with a fox's swishing tail, all friendly-like.
If Aiden weren't here and she faced this demon alone...
The princess swallowed hard.
That demon would drag her to an altar without a drop of blood or tear shed, pure demon-style.
"Gasp, huff."
"Bielle."
At the warning-laced word, Bielle shook her head breezily.
"I just looked, that's all."
"Princess Lilian is a civilian."
"..."
"No second chances."
"Got it, got it. Can't even look now, huh."
She shrugged with mock nonchalance and beamed.
"I came all this way because you killed a bunch of my kids on your stroll here."
"And?"
"Honestly, if it were a fair wheel fight, I'd let 'em die. But pointless deaths? We don't have the manpower to spare, and even if they're small fry to you, those were assassins we'd trained for over a decade. Hurts to lose 'em."
Just when it seemed she'd gotten to the point, Bielle's smile vanished.
"...And we didn't account for you being this strong."
Princess Lilian grasped the implication.
The fifty-odd monsters from the palace.
Each stronger than Philia, per Aiden.
Yet they'd failed to even scratch him without his sword.
"So watching my kids die in vain like this feels off. We fumed over missing the key back then, but now you've brought it right to us. Crisis and opportunity? So..."
Her smile twisted into a vicious sneer, oozing malice amid bloodshot cruelty.
"Basement level 4—we'll greet you there with everything we've got on hand. This time, we'll take the key we missed at the palace. Guard it well."
With a ladylike curtsy worthy of nobility, Bielle faded into hazy mist, swallowed by the shadows.
"Unlike you righteous types, Professor, we're pros at pickpocketing and dirty work. Better watch out."
*If you don't want to lose that key.*
As the last shadows cleared, Aiden scowled deeply.
"Quite the welcoming committee."
"Welcoming committee?"
"What else would you call it?"
It looked more like a declaration of war no matter how you sliced it...
"Let's hurry up and clear it out so we can move on."
He waved it off casually, glancing at Princess Lilian with his usual apathy.
She met his eyes, bewildered, then nodded hesitantly.
"Ah... yes."
Demons, professors—all far from ordinary. They were from another world entirely, so Princess Lilian stopped trying to process it.
Worrying herself sick seemed pointless, and Aiden's composure was oddly reassuring.
"I'm just the shrimp stuck between two whales, squeaking away."
"What're you on about."
"Nothing. Why would I worry? You'll handle it all, right, Professor? Isn't that so, oh mighty whale?"
Resigned, Princess Lilian pressed her fingertip—nicked with a small cut—to the magic circle.
In that brief moment, Aiden tilted his head at her ramblings.
* * *
Unlike basement level 2, level 3 looked starkly different.
While level 2 had been pitch-dark, level 3 blazed with light rivaling the surface, sustained by lingering magical treatments.
Even the princess—who hadn't expected much from facilities centuries old—gasped in awe at this hidden greenhouse-like space underground.
"How are there trees down here?"
"They're not trees."
"But this is..."
No matter how she looked, they were tree roots.
White tree roots, at that.
Once the initial shock faded, though, an inexplicable familiarity seeped into her body, feeling oddly off-putting.
Feeling close to something she'd never seen before?
Something was wrong here, somewhere.
Princess Lilian shuddered, as if to prove it herself.
"This place... it's too weird. What even is..."
"The mausoleum of the Forgotten Sanctuary."
What?
She glared at me, demanding how such a creepy place could be a sanctuary.
"And a mausoleum without a single gravestone? If bloodline magic restricts entry to imperial kin, those buried here would be royals too. No gravestones at all..."
At that, I spread my arms wide, presenting the scene like a tour guide.
"But there are roots, aren't there? White ones."
"So that's... uh... white?"
*Why emphasize 'white' like that...?*
I grinned mischievously at her subconscious mutter.
"Doesn't it match your hair perfectly?"
White, pillar-less tree roots.
Laid everywhere—even over stairs—to bind something, supporting and intertwining in a tangled web.
"It's a mausoleum. To block the energy rising from the seal on level 5, imperial bloodkin would come here at the end of their lives and turn themselves into roots sustaining the seal."
This was the pact between Elise and the tribal chief Donapart.
In exchange for yielding their lands to found the empire, the chief and his kin became these roots in the sanctuary at death's door.
"Had this custom continued, you'd be one of these roots too."