Chapter 348: If One Questions the Sin of Overflowing Desires, Who Planted Them and How?
Chapter 348: If One Questions the Sin of Overflowing Desires, Who Planted Them and How?
After hearing the whole story.
I watched my disciples playing with the tentacles and, feeling a bit concerned about whether that was actually okay, I tossed out a question.
The Council replied that this was exactly why they were looking for friendly tentacles.
Since the terminals and the Main Body are separate entities, a friendly terminal would block the malicious desires being sent to the Main Body.
Just as a brief lament filled with a sliver of desire had once caused an absurd incident of Mental Contamination within The Council, it was impossible for humans to filter out every fleeting wish that crossed their minds.
To filter out those malicious desires, they explained, a friendly tentacle had to act as a buffer.
After hearing that explanation, one thought dominated my mind.
“…What a bizarre creature.”
I muttered this while looking at a tentacle that, having grown used to me, no longer hid even when I stared directly at it.
Whether it heard me or not, the tentacle twisted its body as if it couldn't understand my words. Since I was mostly talking to myself, I didn't feel the need to explain.
And so, I fell into silent thought, staring at the tentacle swaying before my eyes.
The Root and the branches are different entities.
And yet, they are essentially one body.
Even if they aren't physically connected, they belong to the same existence.
Despite that, the branches rebel against The Root.
In human terms, it’s like your own hand rebelling against your body…
No matter how I thought about it, it felt like some kind of trick was at play.
Of course, the Otherworld is vast, so I couldn't say such a creature didn't exist.
Wasn't the Gray Eater's Lava Tentacles and that giant lizard also separate entities?
Still, those two moved toward the same goal. There wasn't this phenomenon where they acted as separate individuals doing whatever they pleased…
Hmmmm.
I really don't know.
Since I’m someone who only has strength to offer anyway, I’ll have to cooperate with The Council or Macbeth to drag out the Main Body, so I’ll keep quiet for now.
Are there two things I should be worried about?
First, the possibility that these tentacle terminals are deceiving us.
And second, the one anomalous phenomenon that hasn't been revealed yet.
The former is in the realm of suspicion, so I'll leave it at that, but the latter is bound to explode somewhere…
I must stay on guard until the very end.
While I was reaffirming the thought I’d had when I first saw the tentacles, the violet Terminal Tentacle seemed to get bored of me just staring at it in silence. It wriggled and vanished somewhere.
In its place, someone else approached me.
“What are you doing, staring at Tant like that, sir?”
A beast that boasted of its own uselessness, providing zero help despite being my partner and a character who was supposed to lead the story with me.
The beast that symbolized incompetence. Un-ho spoke to me.
“…I was just thinking that this tentacle business is quite complicated.”
“Right? I just gave up on trying to understand it. Shouldn't we just beat up whatever pops out?”
Un-ho bragged about his own stupidity to me, even as I was trying to use my brain at least a little.
Someone once said that humans find comfort in looking at those less fortunate than themselves.
However, since the one less fortunate than me was Un-ho, it wasn't comforting at all. If anything, it was depressing to realize my intellect was only slightly better than his.
“…Why don't you at least pretend to use your head?”
“If I could do that, I would’ve done it a long time ago, sir.”
He had a point.
Having uttered such a carefree remark, Un-ho sat down beside me and began nibbling on a scone he’d brought from somewhere.
He looked perfectly at peace, even with the decisive battle against a Public Enemy looming.
He was completely different from me, whose forehead was developing wrinkles from trying to string thoughts together with a brain only slightly better than his.
A fool who looked like he’d gained weight, with a glossy coat and a face full of smiles.
Sigh.
A sigh escaped me involuntarily.
I wished my nerves were as thick as his.
The two things I was currently pondering were subjects that could never yield an answer.
There were simply not enough absolute clues to reach a conclusion.
No matter how smart someone is, they can't finish a jigsaw puzzle if pieces are missing.
That was the nature of those last two questions.
Therefore, any result I could reach by thinking about them would be nothing more than a delusion-adjacent inference and meaningless mental idling.
So, the best course of action was to keep those two things in my heart and live carefree until the situation unfolded.
Maintaining a clean mind and body for the battle to come.
By the way.
Seeing Un-ho eating something reminded me of one more thing.
“Un-ho.”
“Yes?”
“Didn't you say before that those tentacle bastards don't eat anything?”
“I did, sir.”
“But The Council kids and Macbeth say they eat desires?”
What’s with the discrepancy?
“Huh? Oh. Now that you mention it, you’re right. Hmm… That’s probably…”
Did he only realize the difference after I asked?
Un-ho took his mouth off the scone and fell into a daze, thinking.
I thought it would take a long time, but Un-ho gave me an answer surprisingly quickly.
“Maybe it’s because I see the flow of power, while the others see cause and effect?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, eating something implies consuming it, like this scone, right?”
To illustrate his point, Un-ho held up the scone, which had its surface nibbled away.
He looked at the scone held before his eyes and, seemingly unable to resist, took another bite and chewed. He quickly returned to his explanation, though.
“But unlike emotions or memories, desires don't disappear; only a tiny part of them is absorbed. Probably so little that even I wouldn't notice. So, in my judgment, since no massive transfer of power is occurring, I concluded they aren't eating.”
Wait.
Now that I think about it, he’s right.
If a tentacle eats something, there should be a loss of that content.
That’s only natural.
And yet, I remember my desires perfectly.
Even if a part was eaten or lost, it was so intact that I didn't notice.
What the hell is this?
I tried to solve a mystery, but only more mysteries are piling up.
And it’s all because of the words of Un-ho, whom I considered a total blockhead.
“Aaaaagh!”
It seemed my brain’s idling was far from over.
* * *
Time passed.
Even though Macbeth acted separately from The Council, the members still seemed to consider him one of their own. They cooperated with him without much friction as they moved forward with the plan.
Macbeth declared that our tentacle was one he had personally captured, hiding information about us, and regularly took the Terminal Tentacle to The Council.
“Bad. People. Cold. Eyeballs. Unpleasant. It’s okay.”
The tentacle would tremble every time it returned after saying that, but it didn't seem to have suffered any particular injuries, as it would regain its energy after about ten minutes.
I didn't know if The Council members were avoiding rough handling because Macbeth had claimed the tentacle as his property, or if they were being cautious based on experience.
Regardless, Macbeth’s promise to Baek Si-hyun and Han A-bin that he would never treat the tentacle harshly was being kept without issue.
At the end of every day, Macbeth would inform us of the desires they had planted and the progress of the plan.
To be honest, I didn't understand any of it, so I just let it go in one ear and out the other.
Eight days passed.
Finally, the day of the decisive battle designated by The Council arrived.
The time was noon.
A corner of the Geneva Branch.
A location quietly arranged by The Council.
To prepare for any contingency, they had cast a barrier to divert public attention.
The members of The Council gathered, pushing in the final desires.
A desire to make The Root of the Public Enemy appear in this place.
the end of a long-running game of wits.
Since it was a volatile game of chess where we presented moves and The Enemy chose among them, it was a match that involved both losses and sacrifices.
But The Council had no choice but to choose this method.
A move to draw out The Enemy King, who didn't even exist on the chessboard.
Macbeth was also participating in the plan as a member of The Council.
“Will Tant be okay?”
“If there were a problem, it would have happened already. Worry about yourself first. Don't get hurt because you’re too busy worrying about a tentacle.”
I quietly shifted my body while cautioning Baek Si-hyun, who was uttering such airheaded nonsense even though we were about to fight a Public Enemy.
To avoid being noticed by the mages at the site, we had received Macbeth’s perception-dampening magic.
The three of us were lying on the ground in ghillie suits, blankly watching the plan unfold.
“My body is itchy. Can I scratch it just a little?”
“Just endure it, Si-hyun.”
Once the talk about the tentacle ended, Baek Si-hyun started squirming.
It seemed she simply couldn't stand this stakeout.
Well, given her personality, she was never one to stay still.
Still, it would only be for a moment, so I wished she’d follow A-bin’s example.
With that thought, I looked toward my other disciple.
Han A-bin was staring blankly with her mouth open, looking half-dead.
Something was wriggling, so she wasn't actually dead.
It seemed she couldn't handle the "comfort" provided by the Ghillie Suit.
The scratchy coziness of the bare earth created by nature.
The fresh, damp humidity of nature provided by the grass and soil on her back.
The dignified heat trapped inside to block out all the aforementioned natural elements.
In short, it was damp, scratchy, hot, and heavy.
The reason we were doing this despite the perception-dampening magic was simple.
If you rely solely on magic for camouflage, you’re exposed the moment the magic is dispelled.
But with this kind of analog camouflage, even if the magic is canceled, people tend to pass it off as their imagination.
Especially since mages tend to be the indoor Type S, this kind of thing works well on them.
Anyway, Han A-bin seemed to be losing her mind bit by bit.
But since we were already lying in ambush nearby, we couldn't exactly take off the ghillie suits.
I just prayed the plan would end quickly.
And then.
Five hours passed.
For that long time, Baek Si-hyun didn't stop showing signs of attention deficit for even a second.
Han A-bin was letting out strange breaths as if her soul were leaking out.
Even I, who had done this kind of infiltration several times, was about to lose my mind from dealing with Baek Si-hyun when—
“…It’s here.”
I felt a massive flow of power.
The flow of power that comes with an entity of a different caliber.
‘I’m tired of doing this over and over, so I wish the Public Enemy would just show up with all its strength.’
They probably made a wish similar to that.
In reality, they might have included some clauses slightly disadvantageous to our side to pass the tentacle’s selection process, but The Core wouldn't have changed much.
And it seemed that expectation wasn't wrong.
A giant tentacle began to reveal itself, tearing through space in midair.
Cr-crack. Craaaaack.
A colony of tentacles crawled out, rending space and moving its sticky body.
As if to prove that it and the terminals were of the same body, its skin was a violet base with oily colors. Its form consisted of several tentacles, each larger than a human body, clustered together into a spherical mass, with tentacle legs stretching out one by one.
It looked like a bundle of earthworms—a truly revolting sight.
However, to me, it was a very familiar shape.
“…It’s been a while since I’ve seen a standard form.”
Come to think of it, the old tentacles almost all looked like that.
The ones I’d seen recently all looked weird for tentacles.
The emotion-eating one was just a single thick trunk, the Gray Eater wasn't even a tentacle, and I even doubted if that Hole Tentacle guy was actually a tentacle.
In the midst of all that, seeing such a normal, standard one made me feel a sense of nostalgia rather than disgust.
Of course, my two disciples didn't seem to agree with my opinion.
“Ugh…”
“It’s disgusting, Master!”
They gave perfectly normal reactions.
Regardless of that.
Phase 1 of the plan was a success.
I did wonder if that giant tentacle might also be just a massive terminal rather than The Root.
But seeing The Adversary warning in my head blaring like crazy, I figured it was safe to consider it the Main Body.
So, my enemy had appeared.
But I remained quietly pressed against the ground, continuing my performance as a patch of grass.
And neither Baek Si-hyun nor Han A-bin questioned my behavior.
This, too, was something already discussed with Macbeth.
First, The Council moves.
And we wait, making sure not to be discovered by The Council members unless something special happens.
If I stepped out immediately, there was no telling what The Council members might do.
So, I would only be deployed if The Council’s plan went awry.
However, it didn't look like I’d need to step in just yet.
After all.
“…It’s weak.”
It certainly possessed massive power, but it was far from being a Public Enemy or my true adversary.
At best, it was between low and mid A-Rank.
Hadn't Macbeth said when he first met us that even Han A-bin could probably take it?
Perhaps it really had been at that level eight days ago.
What stood before us now was the result of it feasting on power for eight days and being reinforced through desires.
And even after all that reinforcement, it was only around mid A-Rank.
Against an enemy like that, The Council kids should be able to handle it themselves, even if a whole truckload of them showed up.
Still, I watched without letting down my guard.
A Public Enemy is a Public Enemy. You never know what might happen.
As I watched.
The moment the tentacle dragged its body down into the mortal realm.
Countless spells erupted in light.
There were too many to list each kind individually.
A massive barrage of magic that looked like a single flash of light slammed into the tentacle.
The total amount of Otherworldly Power making up all those spells was several times greater than the tentacle’s own, to the point where it seemed like overkill.
But then, a voice was heard.
【 That magic is too inefficient. Magic should be artistic. 】
It was a voice similar to Otherworld Erosion, yet different.
As those words blanketed the space.
Every single spell was weakened to a visible degree.
What the…
For a moment, everyone faltered at the incomprehensible phenomenon.
But the mages of The Council were also veteran Heroes.
They immediately began chanting their next spells, trying to continue the battle.
【 I hope that guy’s magic glitches and he ends up in the hospital. 】
The voice was heard again.
Creeeeak.
An ominous sound, like metal twisting, echoed through the air.
The sound of Magic Circles cracking.
The magic thus distorted manifested in various ways.
For someone, their magic exploded in their hands.
Someone else fired their magic in a completely wrong direction.
For another, a totally unexpected spell manifested, sweeping through the surroundings.
That was why I kicked off the ground.
Feeling the environment around me change in an instant.
I immediately swung The Hammer in my hand, parrying a fireball that was hurtling toward a mage.
As I saved the mages and The Council members' eyes turned toward me, the intruder.
I spoke with an air of arrogance.
“You guys can't do this on your own, can you? I’m here to help, you bastards.”
Let’s verify exactly what this phenomenon is, starting now.