Chapter 61
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 61
Chapter Title: Spirit Extinguishing Tears
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-Soon, we'll meet at last.
No one could say exactly when it had begun.
Since childhood, Eleanor had been in contact with the will of "some entity."
Sometimes it appeared as letters. Other times, it sounded like a voice.
But Eleanor could never identify who or what it was.
When it felt like writing, she couldn't even make out the handwriting.
Was it bold and vigorous strokes?
Or delicate and fragile ones?
The same went for when she perceived it as a voice.
Was it a woman or a man?
A child or an elder?
She couldn't discern a single detail.
There was only one person who knew about this phenomenon.
Her adoptive father—the man who had picked her up as a discarded child.
The Pope of the Ariclotos Church told her:
-You don't know who it is? And that's what scares you?
He pondered deeply for a moment after hearing her out.
-There's one way to stop hearing that voice. It might be a bit inconvenient for you, though. Would you still do it?
Young Eleanor nodded.
Her adoptive father then blindfolded her with a black cloth he produced from somewhere.
-Your eyes let you recognize where you are and what you're doing. That entity inside you perceives your location through your eyes, too.
So if you cover your eyes, it won't know where you are.
At first, it was uncomfortable.
But she gradually grew accustomed to it, and the frequency of the voice definitely decreased.
'How long has it been since I last heard this voice?'
Her consciousness began to rise to the surface.
Time leaped from her childhood to the present in an instant.
It felt like bounding up several steps of time's staircase at once.
And the final memory she recalled was:
-Eleanor!
Uncle. It was Uncle's voice.
And now...
Crackle—
With the sound of flames popping, Eleanor snapped her eyes wide open.
Her vision was still pitch black.
Before she could even register that, she sensed the surroundings clearly.
The smell of a rotting wooden building.
The warmth enveloping her skin.
The crackle of logs spitting embers.
And finally.
'The sea.'
She had never seen the ocean in her life, but if it was anything like the descriptions she'd heard, this must be it.
She felt a sea made of mana.
Eleanor immediately turned her head toward where that sea stretched out.
"You're awake."
"Making quite the racket about it."
A voice she'd heard a few times before reached her.
She had an excellent memory, but this one in particular—she knew she'd never forget it.
"Ah, Priestess. You're up!"
Turning toward the less familiar voice, she sensed a mountain made of red.
Its presence was faint for now.
But upon closer inspection, it was a mountain composed of countless corpses.
The karma at its root stretched back hundreds of years.
"Aiden. Fetch some more meat from over there."
"Yes!"
"No need. We have plenty."
Another voice.
This one came from near the fire—unfamiliar, with little emotion conveyed.
Looking that way revealed karma as well.
But not just one strand.
Dozens, hundreds, thousands of karmic threads tangled together into an immense mass.
It was tightly bound now, but if it ever unraveled...
Could the owner of that voice endure it?
"Hm."
She shook her head.
Three extraordinary souls had gathered in one place.
'No, four.'
Including herself—she didn't carry an ordinary karma either.
Eleanor received the plate that had been brought to her.
It felt warm.
"Why am I here?"
"Beats us. We followed the trail and found you lying here."
"...What about the others?"
"There were some holy warriors who'd passed out."
"Did they come with Uncle?"
"Uncle—you mean that big burly holy knight from before?"
"Yes."
"I'd love to hear exactly what happened."
"..."
Eleanor fell silent for a moment.
She had much to say, but no idea where to begin.
Jun spoke first.
"Did the sealing ritual fail?"
"Yes... That's the best place to start. To cut to the chase, yes, it failed."
"Sounds like it wasn't a total failure."
"The total eclipse hasn't happened yet."
At that, Jun glanced out the window and said flatly,
"It's a close call. Two days at most?"
"You can predict that?"
"I just know some things."
Eleanor wondered how a mere Silver-rank mage could pinpoint the date of a total eclipse, but she didn't press.
He hadn't seemed like an ordinary human from the start.
"Anyway, I need details. A botched ritual wouldn't make holy warriors go berserk like madmen."
These were holy warriors, after all.
Not as much as priests or holy knights, but they still wielded divine power.
It wasn't easy for such people to be corrupted by demonic energy.
"...The Holy Grail got contaminated. It happened in an instant."
The sealing ritual was conducted by five senior priests like Eleanor, overseen by one bishop.
Central to it was one of the Ariclotos Church's sacred relics: the Holy Grail.
"Ah, that thing."
Jun nodded as if he knew.
It felt like something clicked for him.
"You know about the Holy Grail?"
"Roughly."
The Holy Grail was linked to Ariclotos, endlessly absorbing and emitting divine power.
The five senior priests poured mana into it, which the bishop then absorbed.
The bishop wielded that immense divine power to complete the sealing on the five Named bosses.
That was the ritual's procedure.
"But something went wrong with the Holy Grail. At some point, it started emitting demonic energy."
The infused divine power turned to demonic energy.
The backlash ravaged the souls of Eleanor and the other senior priests.
Eleanor barely held on, but the other four collapsed immediately.
"That left only the bishop."
But even he couldn't hold out long. The moment he realized something was amiss, he tried to stem the demonic energy pouring from the Holy Grail.
"From the looks of it, that failed too."
"...Yes. It did."
Demonic-tainted divine power instantly filled the camp.
"So all the clergy there got contaminated?"
"Yeah."
Jun let out a deep sigh.
"Why does everywhere I go turn into a mess?"
His lament made Eleanor feel unnecessarily guilty.
'Come to think of it, it was like that during the raid, and last time too.'
Jun had fought fiercely back then.
His soul's quality had grown since—probably more major incidents followed.
"Sigh... I finally call you here, and this happens. Sorry."
Eleanor apologized honestly.
She had summoned Jun because of his staff.
The End of Lamentation.
She hoped unraveling its secrets would reveal her own origins.
And the identity of the entity that had spoken to her since childhood.
"Can't be helped."
Fortunately, the mage grasped the situation quickly.
Now they just needed to descend the floors.
Realistically, he had no means or reason to fix this.
They needed to descend as fast as possible and report to the Church.
And warn the surface to prepare.
With the sealing failed, the five Named would soon break free and start slaughtering and devouring each other.
Dimension Reverse would follow.
Four people couldn't stop that.
"Keep up the escort duty. Head down to the lower floors and report this situation..."
"What are you talking about?"
"Huh?"
But his response left Eleanor baffled.
Like when she heard that unidentified voice, she couldn't quite process Jun's words.
"What about your Church people?"
"Well..."
There was nothing to be done. At least while the demonic energy flowed, the undead wouldn't attack.
They could only hope the Church resolved it.
Of course, Eleanor's heart wasn't at ease. Uncle was there too.
The man she'd relied on her whole life.
But if he died here, the catastrophe from 50 years ago would repeat.
As a priestess of the gods, she couldn't allow that.
Yet Jun pressed on undeterred.
"Those folks won't hold out much longer."
"What do you mean?"
"Divine power's still protecting their brains. But it's not infinite."
Three days at best. Two at worst, and some would be fully consumed by demonic energy.
"So."
The man bearing a vast sea of mana said,
"There's still a way to turn this around."
* * *
Jun recalled the holy warriors he'd seen before.
'If their brains were fully soaked in demonic energy...'
They should've turned undead.
Yet they wielded swords clearly and fell to [Sleep].
Their brains were still functioning normally.
"That's true, but..."
"That contaminated Holy Grail—if we fix it, won't they return to normal?"
"Probably."
But it wouldn't be easy.
Holy knights would guard the base camp.
Among them, surely Uncle—Bern—an advanced knight.
"Four of us can't handle it."
"Yeah, four would be tough."
Holy knights were no joke. Even regular knights were tricky; Aiden and Maya couldn't fully block holy knights at full power.
One each would be their limit.
But.
"I have a way."
"A way?"
"Wait a sec."
With that, Jun headed outside with Aiden.
Soon, mana stirred nearby.
"These people..."
"They were wandering around."
He'd brought three holy warriors.
The ones put to [Sleep] earlier—they'd woken and roamed again.
Now they slumbered deeply once more.
"Try healing them with divine power."
"Hm."
Eleanor channeled divine power.
Holy golden light bloomed from her hands, gently enveloping the holy warriors.
After a few minutes.
Eleanor, sweating coldly, let out a sigh.
"...No good."
The demonic energy in the holy warriors wasn't ordinary.
Mixed into the Holy Grail—which absorbed and emitted divine power—the two forces that should repel like water and oil had perfectly fused.
Separating it would take at least a day or two.
If mere holy warriors were like this, how much worse would the holy knights be?
"Hm. As expected."
Jun muttered as if he'd anticipated it, then fiddled with the bracelet on his wrist.
A black void opened before his hand.
"Subspace?"
A rare item.
And a bracelet, not even a pouch.
"Got lucky."
Reaching into the black hole, Jun pulled out a metal case.
"Only a few left, so just one demo."
Inside were ten gray gems.
Shaped like tears.
But the moment she sensed their aura...
"Gasp..."
Eleanor felt her breath catch.
The energy from them felt like death itself.
'No. More precisely.'
It was extinguishing. Something that had lived in her body her whole life.
First time experiencing this, Eleanor tensed up.
Jun noted the cold sweat beading on her forehead and nodded slightly.
'Definitely effective.'
He picked one of the ten gems and swallowed it without hesitation.
"Ugh..."
Closing his eyes, focusing inward, changes began rippling through Jun's body.
"Whoa, Senior?"
Wondering what magic he'd show, Aiden watched eagerly.
"That..."
As gray particles seeped from Jun's body, Eleanor swallowed again.
"...Shut up."
Maya plugged her ears, annoyed. Her ancestral spirits were screaming and shouting inside her.
They yelled for her to get away from Jun immediately.
Finally, Jun eyed Eleanor and Maya's reactions and nodded.
"Perfect effect."
The tears that killed death, obtained from the Witch's Forest.
Spirit Extinguishing Tears.
The moment had come for that recipe to shine.