Chapter 96
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 95
Chapter Title: Secret of Birth (2)
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Beatrice.
The moment I heard that familiar yet nostalgic name, I thrust my head toward the portrait in front of me, scrutinizing every detail.
Lustrous black hair flowing like silk. Porcelain skin. A kind, beaming smile. And eyes brimming with trust and goodwill toward others.
She looked like a child who had just passed her tenth birthday, but imagining her grown-up form wasn't difficult at all.
"Mother?"
"...So it was true."
Wilfried let out a sigh. At the same time, he snatched the portrait halfway from the chancellor and examined it over and over.
The conclusion remained unchanged.
The last daughter of House Calypso. That was the identity my mother had kept hidden from me until the very end.
"What in the world... How..."
"Calm yourself first. I'll explain everything from the beginning. That's why I've gathered only the bare minimum of people."
With a steady voice came a gentle pressure on my shoulder, like a faint aura enveloping me.
Not forcing me down, but wrapping around me softly—I realized then that, without my knowledge, my own aura had been writhing, on the verge of spilling out.
I hurriedly suppressed it. Only after a short, deep breath did I open my mouth.
"Your Majesty recognized her the instant you saw my mother's face in my memories."
"I wasn't entirely certain. Lady Beatrice was officially declared dead along with the destruction of Calypso, after all. ...But I trusted my instincts. I, of all people, couldn't fail to recognize Beatrice."
"What do you mean by that?"
"...Beatrice was once my fiancée."
"Ah."
The moment those words hit me, everything clicked as I caught Wilfried's affectionate gaze, fixed as if on somewhere far beyond this room.
The reason why, while other aged nobles hesitated or paid it no mind, only Wilfried had been so certain.
Men never forget their first love, after all.
...As expected of my mother! Reeling in a crown prince without breaking a sweat.
For a fleeting moment, I let out a hollow chuckle at the possibility that Wilfried might truly be my father.
Wilfried continued, his face etched with guilt.
"Since I promised a full explanation, let's start with this. What do you think Calypso was like before it turned into what it is today?"
"Well... I suppose it was something like an outpost to fend off disasters, akin to Zahav Castle or the Magic Tower."
"No. Even in the distant past, Calypso was much like it is now. Of course, far more livable back then, and entry was free for most—save certain exceptions."
According to his explanation, Calypso had long served as the empire's reformatory.
A place for those with talents too valuable to execute outright, or bloodlines and backgrounds too perilous to touch rashly.
Send them there to be reformed into new people. That was Calypso's true role.
"Your Majesty. That's..."
"Absurd? Impossible? I know what you're about to say. But it worked in Calypso. More precisely, the house's Bloodline Ability made it possible."
"Bloodline Ability... you mean?"
"Affinity."
Wilfried nodded, a faint smile playing on his lips.
"House Calypso's Bloodline Ability is Affinity. It lets you bond swiftly with any being, any person, and win their favor. ...And once close, it can steer them in a desired direction."
"Ah."
Most people hate being despised by those they like. And if they can, they want to help somehow.
That's why you hear tales of wild souls tamed by marriage or parenthood.
Calypso's Bloodline Ability amplified that into deliberate, potent affinity potent enough for multitudes at once.
To exaggerate, it felt akin to the hypnosis 'app' (sort of) I'd received from the God of Nightmares this time around.
"By now, you're wondering: the Grand Dukes were heroes who led the charge against the God of Tragedy on the Night of Tragedy, dooming their lives to suppress lingering disasters. Can mere affinity accomplish that?"
"Well, yeah."
"Simple enough. Calypso's Affinity isn't limited to humans."
Human or not didn't matter. Any sufficiently intelligent being was compelled to adore Calypso.
Spirits dubbed nature's incarnations, shunning humanity; certain high-intellect monsters resisting the God of Tragedy's dominion; even otherworldly beasts bound only by contract for lack of common tongue.
Calypso earned goodwill from them all, enabling an unprecedented summoner to command every manner of existence.
"Of course, being a coerced force from a Bloodline Ability, it falters against those of true stature... but the Calypsos were good souls by nature."
It stood to reason.
A bloodline steeped in universal goodwill their whole lives. Weed out the reckless ones who abuse it... and what's left are those who love the world as fiercely as it's loved them.
Even absent the Bloodline Ability, such empathy is rare and prized.
Few can properly convey their feelings to others—let alone overwhelmingly positive ones.
They say you can't spit on a smiling face. How could anyone hate one who radiates boundless goodwill, Bloodline Ability or no?
"Thus, Calypso endured as the empire's reformatory for ages. Time varied, but all returned remade. ...And it proved ideal for staunching the eastern disaster."
"What exactly was the eastern disaster? After becoming Patriarch of House Zahav, I scoured records on what Calypso held back... but found scant details. Scarcely anyone even mentions it now."
When House Calypso crumbled and the east shattered in real time, plenty fretted over the disaster.
These days, though? That concern had all but vanished.
Wilfried spoke gravely.
"What follows is secret. I won't demand oaths... but kindly keep it close."
"I promise. Unless utterly vital, these words stay buried."
"Good. First, the eastern disaster that intrigues you most. Unlike the rest, it lacks physical form."
"Pardon?"
"The God of Tragedy fell, yet divinity's immortality barred total annihilation. Our forebears sundered Tragodea into five and sealed the pieces."
A tale I knew well.
Head to the north, left arm east, right arm west, torso central, legs south.
But what followed was unknown to me—veiled from the public eye.
"Yet it wasn't mere dismemberment. They cleaved away the God of Tragedy's powers and authorities."
Wilfried spoke in a wistful tone, like recounting ancient lore.
"Sealed with the head in the north: the Authority of Stratagem."
The power letting a god with one lone believer defy every deity and mortal across the continent.
The root twisting all worldly events into tragedy through cunning artifice.
Dungeon happenings veer tragic by design; unleashed, the north's peril would mandate tragedy across the realm.
"With the right arm in the west: the Authority of Blindness."
Playwrights' puppets swear they live by their own volition, unbound scripts.
The God of Tragedy's extensions, forged in false free will and zeal.
...Mortheus's erratic words and deeds made sense at last.
Mortheus and his undead thralls endlessly reprise the drama defying the Night of Tragedy.
Ignis and I? Cast as the ensnared tragedy's dupes.
"With the torso in the center... not truly an authority. More the authority of authorities."
Divinity itself—the essence crowning a heart's god as god, most of the colossal divine power amassed continent-wide through terror. Suppressing that falls to central titans like the emperor and Adriana.
"With the lower body in the south: the Authority of Sin."
Tragedy's crescendo. Every vile, sordid impulse, inexorably dragging souls to doom.
Intelligent monsters earn the name because their core natures are too grotesque to abide society.
Goblins converse yet view every female as breeding fodder, species be damned.
Orcs enslave the weak, scorn honest toil, worship only war and slaughter.
Monsters: instincts warped and magnified into action.
Dungeons spawn them endlessly because sin overflows, donning monstrous guise.
"And finally, with the left arm in the east: we call it the Authority of Pity."
"What..."
"Every tragedy's lead must stir pity in the crowd, no? The Authority of Pity was the God of Tragedy's inaugural gift to his sole acolyte."
Unlike others, Pity wields no broad sway.
Solely for one soul.
It remakes a life into one wholly pitiable.
Thus, at wretched existence's close, the victim's final words before self-slaughter... somehow manifest.
The God of Tragedy once sought world's end to honor his believer's dying plea.
Consensus among gods and priests then: the Night of Tragedy itself birthed from Pity's authority.
"Lacking tangible form or menace, the Authority of Pity nests in hearts. Any could unleash it as calamity—hence House Calypso, adept at reforming all, stood best suited to bind it."
Yet Grand Duke Ephestion failed to quell it, for reasons unknown.
House Calypso annihilated in a flash. Pity freed.
The imperial house's first act: seal Calypso.
May the unleashed power touch only within. Should one claim it, may grudge consume no farther.
...At very least, spare the world-wide malediction of the Night of Tragedy.
Thus intent-born, Calypso became the empire's grandest slum.
"Naturally, Calypso blood exempted from blockade. They could've fled at will..."
"But they didn't. Duty-bound souls."
"...Indeed. Affinity's mighty, yet impotent alone. Clan razed ere they mastered pacts with mighty beings—Lady Beatrice was but a mortal woman. Even so, she stayed and did all she could."
Prostitutes peddle love at core.
But one beloved by all who sells it?
Mother must've earnestly strived to redeem Calypso through her gift.
To my dazed blinking, Wilfried said,
"...Belated words, but at last, I'll restore your rightful inheritance."
Grateful tidings, truly—yet my mind wandered elsewhere just then.
'But my Bloodline Ability doesn't seem to be Affinity.'
Adaptation, rejection, resistance, evolution, and such.
None among my candidates resembled Affinity in the least.
...Father's side, perhaps?
My head began to ache faintly.