Chapter 140
Chapter 140
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 140
Chapter Title: What Must Be Done
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‘Why on earth did I ever start this nonsense…….’
You don’t want it to be yours?
Even for Kaikilia, this was remarkably tame. It was closer to a proposal than a threat or command. For that alone, I was grateful.
In the past, I would have accepted it as a decent offer. Back then, I never imagined the story would twist this drastically.
The Holy Kingdom had a stuffy atmosphere in the game, and its image suffered due to the near-mandatory delivery quests required before meeting the Pope.
Now it just felt like an ordinary religious nation worshiping the sun and moon. Maybe this was fallout from the characters’ genders and appearances changing, altering their personalities too.
‘I do need to think about what comes after clearing the main story.’
Brenac 4’s main story ended with defeating the final boss of each route, but the ending scroll didn’t roll immediately after. The true ending came after seeing the protagonist’s subsequent path.
On the small scale, they could live a pastoral life, unburdened. On the grand scale, they could ascend to the imperial throne. Or accept a noble title somewhere, or cross over to the Holy Kingdom.
Countless endings existed, depending on completed quests and events.
Since I’d possessed this body, I wondered if seeing an ending would send me back to my original world, like in so many possession stories… but preparing for the chance I couldn’t return wasn’t a bad idea.
Housing wasn’t an issue anyway. I’d already gotten an offer to live with the Popes in the Holy Kingdom, and staying as a knight in Aurora’s territory forever was an option too.
Whichever I chose, after slaying the World Devourer, I wouldn’t need to worry about how to live in this world.
If anything, if I returned to my original world, what happened here would be the real problem. Leaving the Lizena Popes behind would prick my conscience too much.
“What are you pondering so deeply?”
“…My apologies, Your Majesty.”
Kaikilia’s face had drawn right up to mine before I knew it. Her apricot lips parted, her breath brushing my lips before scattering, her scent flooding my nostrils.
I offered a meek apology. I wanted to bow my head, but her firm grip on my chin made that impossible.
“I have just shown you a mercy that no other rabble could even dream of imagining. That is how highly I regard you. I have given you ample time to think, so now I shall hear your answer. What say you? Will you become mine?”
Her voice even sounded slightly elated, uncharacteristic for Kaikilia, but my response was already decided.
I took a deep breath to steady myself, met her golden eyes, and spoke.
“My apologies, Your Majesty. I cannot.”
“……”
The upward curve at Kaikilia’s eyes and lips returned to normal. In an instant, her face was impassive again as she stared at me silently.
I couldn’t tell if she hadn’t expected rejection, or if she’d anticipated it but wore that expression just to test me.
Her statue-like face fixed on me as she murmured in a cold voice.
“You cannot, you say.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“My patience is not infinite. Explain properly why you refuse my proposal. Is your title insufficient? Are the rewards lacking? Do you wish me to place not just the Golden Twilight Knights, but the Silver Dawn Knights beneath your feet as well?”
“It is not that what I have is insufficient, Your Majesty.”
“Then speak. Why do you refuse my proposal?”
She released my chin. Kaikilia straightened her back and leaned against the throne again. Her right elbow rested vertically on the armrest, her fisted hand propping her right cheek. Her golden pupils turned toward me.
Perhaps due to the pose, I recalled the last audience. I glanced at her cautiously, but fortunately, she didn’t seem inclined to shove my head between her legs this time.
If she had, the countless people behind us would have gotten a clear view of my head buried in the Emperor’s privates.
“What Your Majesty offers is far from lacking. If anything, it is overly generous for someone like me.”
This wasn’t empty flattery; I meant it.
I was the guy who’d abandoned all human relationships to obsess over Brenac 4. Could such a person properly lead a knights’ order, even if suddenly thrust into command?
Taking orders was one thing; giving them didn’t suit me. If I had to accept a position, vice-commander would be more fitting.
“Then why refuse?”
“There are things I must do.”
I answered honestly.
“…What did you say?”
“There are still things I must do, so I cannot accept Your Majesty’s proposal.”
Her eyes bored into mine, as if gauging the truth of my words. I stood calmly. It was a simple fact—I had unfinished business.
Plowing through the main story as is was hopeless now, but the World Devourer had to be dealt with no matter what. Leaving it be made me too uneasy.
In the game, you could ignore the main story forever without it destroying the world, but here, it might actually do so.
Moreover, it had come to me once already. No reason it couldn’t twice. At minimum, I needed to preemptively remove its invincibility essence.
And there were personal tasks aplenty.
I needed a rune to ignore combat fatigue debuffs, and to make the World Devourer easier to kill, more leveling up—my melee character’s final build wasn’t complete yet.
Wingless Nightmare. Specific runes. Enchantment black magic. And another rune to properly utilize that black magic. Those four were the core of the Nakla mod melee build.
Until I gathered them all, I had to roam the Empire diligently, and staying in Aurora’s territory was best for that.
“What tasks do you mean?”
I’d anticipated the question and opened my mouth without hesitation.
“To fulfill Your Majesty’s wish.”
“……”
A crack split across Kaikilia’s emotionless, statue-like face.
I hadn’t planned to hunt demons originally, but given she’d pounced on me before, I could kill two birds with one stone—gain some EXP while fulfilling her wish.
With Wingless Nightmare, plus solar and lunar eclipses, demon bosses were no issue. Even modded up, fundamental counters remained.
I could just drop by when convenient, smash them, and leave. Beating the ones in the Empire and Holy Kingdom should suffice for her wish.
The demons inside Hell wouldn’t emerge anyway.
Kaikilia, seated on the throne, gazed down at me for a long while before murmuring something too quiet to hear. From the atmosphere, it didn’t seem negative.
“If that is your will, I shall not force you.”
I inwardly sighed in relief at her words, but she added one more.
“Very well, then. Choose.”
“Pardon?”
“I said, select the personnel to subordinate to your knights’ order. Did I not say I would give you half the Golden Twilight Knights?”
“……”
I glanced at the Golden Twilight Knights with a troubled expression. She wasn’t picking for me—I had to choose?
What was I supposed to do?
Now, with half the Golden Twilight Knights subordinated to Delta, the Silver Dawn Knights, Aurora, and the remaining half of the Golden Twilight Knights all gone, the central hall was eerily silent.
Kaikilia, left alone, leaned back against the throne and tilted her head slightly upward, staring blankly at the chandelier on the ceiling. From earlier, words her past self had spoken kept resurfacing in her mind.
“If he surpasses even I, Kaikilia Ribanus, then as a lifelong companion, he would be a man without the slightest flaw… was it?”
Back then, those words had been dyed in competitive spirit, but now it was different. They were steadily becoming truth.
“Surely you received aid from that man as well, Minerva.”
Minerva had holed up in the Mage Tower since yesterday, showing no sign of emerging. Her mages were the same.
They’d remain secluded like that for at least a month.
The Mage Tower stood right beside the palace, so its garden was effectively the palace garden too. Kaikilia couldn’t have missed what happened there.
She’d long known Minerva brought the crystal scroll. And that Minerva was the ostensible discoverer.
But Kaikilia had seen through the lie ages ago.
If that woman truly knew the crystal scroll’s location, she’d have scrambled to obtain it, grinding her mages to dust if needed.
Of course, Minerva hadn’t, leaving one possibility: Delta truly found it, but for some reason, the two concocted false testimony.
Her curiosity about that man’s identity grew by the day. Now he even knew the locations of ancient scrolls?
“It is regrettable that I cannot keep him at my side immediately…”
If he spoke so firmly, waiting was the proper course.
Kaikilia’s fire would not extinguish first.