Chapter 59
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 59
When Swallow and Melju reached the upper floors of the castle to find the crystal, they discovered a massive, living creature in its place.
It was serving as the power source for the magic circle. Although it looked nothing like the crystal from the teleportation device they had seen in Riaze, it undoubtedly contained an immense amount of mana. There was no mistaking it.
The only problem was how to remove it. The grotesque thing was rooted to the floor. To get it out, they would have to destroy it in a single blow, but that would likely collapse the floor as well.
This is a bit troublesome, Swallow thought. Normally, he would have just thrown a punch without a second thought, but he could feel Patrick’s presence directly below them. On top of that, there was another undead presence with him.
Patrick was clearly fighting his own battle. It didn’t seem right to interfere.
“Let’s head back,” Swallow said to Melju.
Leaving the bizarre creature alone for a day wouldn’t make it disappear. He planned to talk to Patrick first, then figure out a more skillful way to remove it.
But just as he decided to turn back—just as Melju’s wiretapping magic picked up the conversation below, and just as Swallow felt the black mana of the undead flare in all directions—their plans changed.
They weren’t going anywhere.
“Looks like we came to the right place,” Swallow grinned as he landed on the floor below.
Melju sealed the door with magic, preventing any humans from rushing in at the sound of the commotion. Swallow casually took in the scene.
Patrick had his helm off, even with the human lord standing right there.
“No need to hide it anymore, huh?” Swallow asked.
“This was never going to be a quiet affair, Boss.”
“What have you learned?”
“Everything.”
“And the human?”
“Useless, I’m afraid.”
“Good.”
As they exchanged clipped words, a massive spear of fire shot toward Swallow, faster than an arrow.
He casually swatted it away with one hand. The deflected spear slammed into the inner wall and exploded violently.
In the next instant, a black thorn erupted from Swallow’s body, shot through the thick dust, and skewered Uhomel’s torso.
With a deafening crash, Uhomel was slammed into the wall.
The entire castle shook.
Uhomel groaned. “Could it be…”
“I told you,” Patrick said. “Our companion is a bit stronger than you think.”
“…”
Uhomel fell silent.
This was absurd. The entire premise of his plan had been shattered. Why was Swallow here? No message could have been sent.
And how did he know there was a crystal upstairs…?
His gaze shifted to Melju. She looked incredibly young, but the sheer amount of mana radiating from her was extraordinary. He could guess what she was.
The Demon King.
I have to inform Lord Erebos. As quickly as possible, by any means necessary.
But escape was impossible. His body was shattered, the thorn pinning him in place. Worse, he could feel his mind being stained and consumed by the ancient monster’s power, starting from the point of contact.
Deciding to buy as much time as he could, Uhomel spoke. “Ancient monster, why have you come here? After invading Riaze, you vanished without a trace…”
Before he could finish, another thorn erupted from Swallow’s body.
It moved faster than the eye could follow. Before Uhomel could react, the thorn pierced his head, and half of his face vanished in an instant.
With another thunderous boom, the castle shook once more.
Swallow frowned. “Damn, that’s noisy.”
The thorn that had torn through Uhomel’s face continued onward, piercing the wall behind him. The stone shrieked as it shattered. The vibrations shook the entire castle, sending everything hanging on the walls raining down.
Huge murals, decorative ornaments, a suit of plate mail in the corner—everything came crashing down, along with the chandelier that had been barely hanging from the ceiling.
The noise was deafening.
Only after confirming that most of Uhomel’s body had been blown apart did Swallow retract his thorns. Uhomel, who had been impaled against the wall, slumped to the ground and rolled limply across the floor, all strength gone.
“Mmh.” A satisfied smile spread across Swallow’s face as he muttered, “Now it’s nice and quiet.”
Excuse me, Boss, but the situation you just created was several times noisier, Patrick thought, letting out a soft sigh. Unable to bring himself to nag the one who had just saved him, he surveyed the absolute mess. Anyone looking in would think an earthquake had struck.
Yet amidst the chaos, an incredibly excited Melju grabbed Swallow’s sleeve. “As expected of Lord Swallow!” she said in a bright voice. “To collapse the ceiling and punch holes in the walls without bringing down the entire castle—such precision! This is clearly the work of someone who has destroyed a thing or two in their time!”
“That’s not a compliment, Lady Melju,” Patrick said.
“Ha. I’m flattered,” Swallow replied.
“I said it’s not a compliment, Boss.”
What kind of insane conversation is this? Patrick gave up on intervening and turned his gaze to the floor.
With Uhomel’s defeat, the black hands that had been clutching his ankles vanished back into their puddles. The puddles themselves quickly shrank, condensing into tiny black dots before disappearing entirely.
Patrick picked up his sword. “Anyway, you arrived at the perfect time. You saved me, Boss. Ah, that was truly dangerous just now.”
“Dangerous, my ass.” Swallow narrowed his eyes.
Patrick just brushed it off with a casual laugh. Whatever he had been planning, that laugh made it clear he hadn’t intended to just stand there and take a beating.
“The result is what matters, isn’t it? It ended well, so that’s all that counts. More importantly, I’m surprised to see you here, Lady Melju. What happened?”
“Mmh, well, I came to see Lord Swallow, of course… but I also came to deliver a message at Lady Bathory’s request!”
“A message from Lady Bathory?” This time, Swallow cut in.
“We received a decisive hint to identify the mastermind.”
“A hint? What kind of hint?”
“She said Erebos is the culprit.”
“I think that goes a bit beyond a ‘hint’,” Patrick muttered.
No wonder it felt like they had found out so easily. To think the answer had been handed to them on a silver platter… What on earth had he been wasting his time doing? The thought was so disheartening that he let out a deep sigh.
“Does that mean Lady Rene is guarding the dungeon all by herself right now?”
“Hmm? Yes. She wanted to come along, but she couldn’t leave the Primordial Core.”
Patrick could only imagine how Rene must have felt, having to yield this hard-won opportunity to Melju. The thought almost made tears well up in his dried-out eye sockets. Figuratively speaking, of course.
“…Let’s wrap this up quickly and head back. It’s about time we made our move anyway.”
Just then, the distant voices of humans reached them. Their time for idle chatter was over.
“Of course, we have to finish what we started first,” Swallow said, shifting his gaze.
“I’ve been curious about that too,” Patrick murmured, turning his head toward the same spot.
It was the one thing Swallow had been glancing at this whole time.
It was bothersome. To be honest, he was curious.
About the girl in the corner.
About the lord, who was huddled in the corner of the room, too terrified to even attempt an escape.
“Isn’t it strange?”
The lord tried to turn her head away, avoiding Swallow’s gaze. Yet she couldn’t ignore his footsteps, trembling with every heavy thud that drew closer.
It was a truth proven by countless precedents: humans went mad upon seeing Swallow.
Most collapsed into a coma the moment they laid eyes on him. Some even died, unable to withstand the sheer terror of his existence. During the Advent of the Black Disaster in Riaze and Hastin, most victims had died simply from exposure to his presence; very few were actually trampled or torn apart.
Of course, not everyone went mad. Those who had honed their bodies through martial arts or their minds through magic could barely withstand it, which was why the seasoned warriors of the subjugation squads didn’t drop dead on the spot.
In short, it came down to whether one’s ‘body’ or ‘mind’ could accept an alien existence like Swallow.
Yet the blonde lord before him was the very definition of weakness. By all accounts, she had lived a life entirely removed from swords and magic.
Swallow grabbed Lara’s shoulders and forced her to look him in the face. He pried her eyes open. As they met, his pupils turned pitch-black, and a chill so freezing radiated from him that her small body went rigid.
“Just as I thought. She’s perfectly fine.”
Even now, Lara did not go mad.
It had been the same earlier. When Swallow had pierced Uhomel, she must have caught a glimpse of his true form, yet she had remained sane.
“…I must live,” the girl muttered. She was out of her mind with fear, but it was distinctly different from losing consciousness.
Of course, it wasn’t the first time he had seen someone like her.
Swallow smirked.
There were those with ‘special constitutions’—mutations unique to humans, granting them exceptionally developed senses or talents. He retraced his memories. He had met quite a few such humans in his time. In fact, even those so-called ‘Heroes’ he had encountered had all possessed special constitutions. They wielded an overwhelming power and talent that could never be obtained through effort alone.
In this lord’s case, it was a warped, yet powerful, mental fortitude that kept her from going insane, leaving her merely terrified.
“There’s no benefit in letting her live, is there?” Patrick suggested quietly from behind. He was right. Outstanding humans had to be eliminated when the opportunity arose to prevent future trouble.
“I just thought of a pretty good idea,” Swallow said with a smirk.
Ignoring Patrick’s burning stare, which clearly asked, What on earth are you planning now?, he spoke to Lara.
“You said you wanted to live, right?”
Trembling violently, Lara forced herself to meet his gaze again.
Just as her pale pink lips parted to speak—
A dark aura surged from behind them.
“That Lich is still alive,” Melju’s voice followed.
Swallow let out a heavy sigh of genuine annoyance and scratched the back of his neck.
At the far end of the room, Uhomel, his body mostly destroyed, barely managed to stretch out his arms. It was a fatal wound that should have killed him instantly. In fact, he was dying, burning away the last, tiny remnant of his life force. It was a flicker so weak it would have snuffed out on its own.
`<You are already too late.>`
The voice echoed through the space, boring directly into their minds.
Swallow’s expression twisted beyond mere annoyance. Sensing his mood, Melju quickly cast a flame spell, and Uhomel’s remaining body was instantly engulfed in fire. The Lich’s rotting flesh crackled, the sound akin to a scream.
`<Finally—>`
But the Lich did not stop. Spreading his hands, he unleashed all of his remaining life force. Though small, the dense energy momentarily plunged the room into darkness. After a brief blackout, the space returned to normal just as his last handful of flesh turned to ash.
Burning away completely, Uhomel left his final words.
`<Finally, upon this land…>`
`<…my Lord has arrived.>`
The sky over Hastin turned crimson.
*
After finishing the mass in the catacombs, Rosalina immediately headed for the back alley.
The catacombs were located near the outskirts of the castle, making the walk a long one. Perhaps it was the eerie, low hoot of an owl, but the journey felt exceptionally long today.
Frightened, she quickened her pace.
I mustn’t be late.
No one in the back alley liked religion. Despite her suggestions, not a single person there believed in ‘Him.’
“Spend just a few winters here, and you’ll realize,” they would say. “It’s a completely pointless endeavor. Think about it. Why are we still living like this? If salvation were real, we would have been saved a long time ago.”
This unconditional distrust of religion was rampant in the back alley, and it was the main reason Rosalina had secretly attended mass with the shabbily dressed knight.
If she were caught, she would be nagged until her ears bled. She especially didn’t want to hear it from Toth, who was always looking for an excuse to torment people.
Soon, she left the outskirts and neared the back alley. Rosalina headed for a corner, intending to slip back in through the rear while everyone was asleep.