Chapter 70
Chapter 70
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 70
Chapter Title: Ghosts of the Past (8)
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Everyone knew it was the Empress's doing.
But since I'd already anticipated it, the shock wasn't all that great.
"The problem is the purpose behind saying it."
The Empress was letting out a soft chuckle from behind the veil.
As if she simply couldn't hold back his enjoyment of this moment.
I quickly racked my brain, trying to gauge the Empress's intentions.
"Announcing that he took Luella himself is proof he's already predicted my reaction. It's confidence that he can handle whatever I do."
I glanced at the Rigid Body Armament hanging at my waist.
Even in this private audience, the Empress hadn't tried to disarm me.
Was it his judgment that I wouldn't attack him? Or certainty that she could survive even if I did?
If neither...
"She's a madman."
With that realization, I could finally make an accurate assessment of the Empress.
The woman before me was a lunatic who would stake even her own life.
She was more gambler than leader.
I set aside any thoughts of killing the Empress.
I judged that lunging at her would be falling right into her trap from the start.
Had I dragged this out too long?
The Empress leisurely tilted her teacup and spoke.
"Don't overthink it. Whether harm comes to you isn't for me to decide. You just need to ask whatever you're curious about. Wasn't that exactly why you demanded the right to question me?"
"..."
I stared at the Empress's face.
It was still shrouded by the veil, her expression still unreadable.
The questioning privilege I'd earned from our first encounter guaranteed absolute truth for three questions.
A normal person might have mixed in lies, but...
"To the question of where Luella is, he said it's where the demigod I killed resides."
Too vague to call an outright lie, too uncertain to count as a proper answer.
Did he only speak the truth while twisting it so the meaning wasn't easily grasped?
"They called Great Beast corpses 'remnants of gods' in the Southern Kingdoms."
If that wasn't nonsense—if it was truly the case—then the Empress's answer offered something to infer.
If Great Beasts were remnants of gods... then something on a grander scale would be a demigod.
Officially, every Great Beast I'd killed was concentrated in the North.
The first one had been too.
"If the demigod is Erebeon, then Luella is where the corpse of the Erebeon I killed lies."
In other words, the North was the most likely spot.
Which meant the question I posed was—
"—What do you intend to achieve through Luella?"
"To usher in the era of humanity. Though, that will need a bit more explanation."
The Empress spoke as if he'd anticipated that question too.
"The first Great Beast died a total of three times."
"What...?"
Erebeon, the first Great Beast.
The tyrant surrounded by countless humanoid Great Beasts.
For that thing to have died not once, but three times.
Stunned into momentary silence, I listened as the Empress continued.
"Once in the distant past, once during the second subjugation campaign, and finally by your hand. Do you grasp what this fact implies?"
Officially, the Empire had launched three subjugation campaigns against Erebeon.
The first two had both failed, with the third only succeeding through desperate effort—or so the story went.
If the second campaign had actually succeeded, then the Erebeon I'd faced was—
"—It revived."
A massive knight clad in gigantic armor.
Countless humanoid Great Beasts arrayed around it.
I'd always wondered why Erebeon had taken the form of a knight...
If it had revived after being slain, that would explain it, at least somewhat.
"But the second subjugation being recorded as a failure..."
Did it revive the instant it died? Or was there another reason?
Either way, it tied into why it had appeared as a knight.
Sensing that I'd pieced the situation together, the Empress let out another chuckle.
"You're no slouch, it seems. After three times like that, who could dare predict a fourth? That's precisely why monsters and Great Beasts still linger, even after you slew the first Great Beast."
I could accept the Empress's explanation, but one lingering question kept me from fully buying her logic.
If it was destined to revive no matter how it was killed, what did any of that have to do with using Luella?
The answer came in the Empress's next words.
"Through that vessel, I intend to seal it away eternally... so it can never escape the abyss."
Using Luella as a vessel to seal Erebeon.
I doubted whether it was even possible, but this was the Empress's scheme.
If she'd deliberately lured me all the way here for it, that meant the methods had already been thoroughly verified.
"And the reason she's telling me this... is to warn me not to interfere."
Seeing the sunken look in my eyes, the Empress nodded as if to confirm my thought.
"One who forged Creation can't be saddled with such a heavy burden. You're not so dim as to fail to understand my intent."
The shocking truth that Erebeon would revive.
And the plan to seal it away using Luella as the vessel.
I couldn't shake the suspicion that everything—from Red Star to the bio-experiments in the South—was tied to the Empress's scheme.
No, it definitely had been part of her plan.
Otherwise, she never would have considered using the vessels produced in the South.
I formed a hypothesis.
The hypothesis that the Empress had deliberately turned a blind eye to Red Star.
"Deliberately letting Red Star fester while... siphoning data from both the South and Red Star?"
Ordering me to eliminate Red Star because it had outlived its usefulness.
Which meant dispatching Franz to the South had been...
"Outlived its usefulness?"
More capable and cunning than I'd imagined.
"As expected, it's diverged from the original story. The Empress himself, even the game's lore—everything."
What had caused the original story to change?
A butterfly effect even I was unaware of?
Or was this world something entirely separate from the original?
Too many potential causes overlapping.
It felt like just one of them, or perhaps all, or maybe neither.
"No. Focus on the essence."
I just needed to rescue Luella.
I swept away the swirling thoughts in an instant and voiced the question that had nagged at me since hearing her plan.
"If Erebeon is a demigod... then where's the real god? Did you think I'd just nod along to a sealing with no evidence, simply because Erebeon might revive?"
I understood calling Great Beasts remnants of gods, and Erebeon a demigod.
But then, where was the actual god?
I rose slowly from my seat, gripping the handle of my Rigid Body Armament.
The tension gradually mounting.
"With this, your third question. I'll answer it as well."
The Empress rose alongside me.
One of the five veils fluttered down, revealing her golden eyes in sharper clarity.
"No god remains in intact form. You saw them yourself in the South—those mongrels. That's your proof. Bodies warped by the influence of dead gods. Now, you'd ask why no intact gods exist."
Another veil fell away.
Over the now-clearer golden eyes appeared a vertically slit reptilian pupil.
"Long ago, a one-armed man slew every Transcendent Being on the continent in an attempt to reshape the world. All the gods perished in that bloodbath."
Yet another veil concealing her face drifted down.
Only two remained.
The fierce golden glow, sharp as a blade's edge, made my limbs begin to freeze bit by bit.
The Empress's tone had shifted to one of overwhelming pressure.
"Then you'd ask how I know that—and why I'm telling you. That's simple too."
Just one veil left.
"Butterfly effect. Ever heard of it?"
Butterfly effect.
So famous it needed no explanation.
Yet a peculiar concept that never would have arisen—or been known—in this world.
But why did the Empress know it?
Before the thought could fully form, the Empress pressed on without waiting for my response.
"Of course you have. You'd already know it. It's the very concept you explained."
The veils parted fully, revealing the Empress's face.
Jet-black hair, vertically slit reptilian eyes, skin covered in countless tiny scales.
An appearance blended with draconic features.
The doll-like Empress glared at me without any further concealment.
Those golden eyes seemed fixed on me, yet their focus was subtly adrift.
They gazed at me without truly seeing me.
A gaze like mine—perhaps my past self's.
Affection and longing, hatred and rage, pity and compassion.
Countless emotions of unknown origin flickered into being, then faded.
"What was the beginning and what was the end... it no longer matters."
The Empress closed her eyes, murmuring to herself as if reaffirming it.
"Yes. I'll finish what you failed at twice. I'll unravel the butterfly effect you set in motion."
Which meant—
"—You stay out of it."