Chapter 373
Chapter 373
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 373
Chapter Title: The Saintess Natida
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Rak gazed at the person before him.
The Saintess, Natida.
Her light brown hair looked drained of color, her skin so pale it bordered on ghostly white. She had loosely draped over her shoulders a robe fit for the mages of the Mage Tower. There was nothing about her that evoked the image of a 'priestess'.
The robe hung sloppily as if she despised anything constricting, its collar unbuttoned and sleeves haphazardly rolled up, leaving it thoroughly wrinkled. It was enough to evoke not holiness, but a sort of decadent allure. The ash smudged on her lips from chewing relentlessly on her cigar was just icing on the cake.
"...?"
Her eyes, blinking and tilting her head, resembled those of a drunkard—hazy and sunken. But Rak saw the color within them.
Green irises.
The eyes said to symbolize the Saintess.
"Is there something on my face?"
Ah, there was cigar ash after all.
Muttering that, she wiped the corners of her mouth with her sleeve and flashed a toothy grin. After a brief silence, Rak grasped the hand she extended.
"Rak van Grace."
"Oh... ."
As if intrigued by the callused feel of Rak's palm—thickened from swinging his axe so fiercely—Natida twisted their clasped hands this way and that before letting out a short breath.
"The rumors are true."
"...Rumors?"
She smiled at Rak, who blinked in surprise.
"That you're handsome."
It was a disarmingly charming smile.
2.
The front lines, ruins of an ancient civilization.
Perched atop a crumbled spire, Lania let out a long sigh. Ash danced around her, but it wasn't her mana. It was the remnants of something burned.
What that something was went without saying.
Lania propped her chin and tossed an object upward, catching it repeatedly. A rounded skull. Not as smooth to the touch as Skeval's, but just the right size to occupy idle hands.
The skull of a high-ranking undead lich—a century-old commander of Skeval's Black Bone legion.
Tossing and catching the bumpy skull over and over, Lania eventually flicked her finger in exasperation. Flames erupted, incinerating the lich's lingering soul within. The lich's death cry was rather pleasing.
"Hmm."
Lania looked ahead.
After repeated expansions, the front she commanded had pushed deep into demon territory... and she'd successfully reached her target.
The ruins of an ancient civilization.
And the presumed research facility of the Apostate.
The Apostate had vanished over the past few years, but the magical beasts she'd created had not. Having lost all her beasts to Glahalle, the Apostate had begun producing new ones—creations utterly unlike her previous works.
Unstable, imperfect forms.
Magical beasts that seemed half-finished, oozing black sludge and collapsing after a set time—incomplete summons. Tracing their origin had pinpointed this suspected research facility.
"So this is the place...?"
Humming and stroking her chin, Lania peered down at her feet. An alchemist's workshop hidden between sheer cliffs. Black sludge flowed like a river through the cracked earth.
...Originally, she'd planned to explore it with Natida. It wasn't for nothing that she'd made the chain-smoking Saintess her adjutant. Natida had exceptional talent for analysis.
'But...'.
Her chain-smoking adjutant was off on dispatch to the north.
With her right hand away, Lania needed a new slave... no, a new adjutant. So she'd summoned someone eminently exploitable to her front.
'She should be arriving about now.'
Right on cue, a footstep sounded behind her—tap. Lania turned. A familiar figure approached, sighing heavily.
"I, I mean..."
A weary voice and listless gait.
"Haven't I always said? I'm human too. I can't just come running whenever you call... ."
Lania smirked at her grumbling Slave No. 1.
It had been ages since she'd heard that complaining voice.
"Long time no see, Dog Nose."
"Still with that nickname?"
Tracker Kalt.
A superhuman currently active on the battlefield after temporarily stepping down as head of the Royal Guard. Lania shrugged at the reunion with her old subordinate.
"Shall we get to work?"
"...Right away?"
"Yeah."
"...... ."
Of course.
Kalt sighed and trudged after Lania. Long years in a rigid hierarchy had taught him to accept his fate swiftly. He was no exception.
Just dig when told to dig—what choice did he have?
'I wanna quit.'
No one cared about his inner thoughts.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ "Senior, did you know?"
"Know what."
"It's been eight years already since I started serving under you. Eight years since you beat me like a dog in the rain."
"Did I beat you? When?"
"You know, that time I offered you my sympathy... ."
Smack!
"...... ."
"What."
"...Nothing."
A tear rolled down Kalt's cheek.
"Makes me wanna cry a little."
"Isn't that already happening?"
"It's just a figure of speech."
Eight years.
From his early twenties into his thirties, Kalt had slaved under one superior. Considering her social prestige, it might be an honor. But eight years of being used like a slave changed one's perspective considerably.
Kalt narrowed his eyes at Lania.
"Hey, Senior. Don't you have anyone else besides me?"
Why always me? he hinted, and Lania replied:
"I took on someone new recently. She was great at work, but not quick on her feet. Working her made me think of you."
I tried her out, but you're the best.
"No one else measures up."
Hard to find a slave like you.
Years under Lania had honed Kalt's ability to read between the lines. After much deliberation on whether to take it as praise or insult, he decided on praise.
"Thanks for the compliment."
"Yeah, so let's work."
Lania slid down the cliff like water.
Kalt sighed briefly and leaped after her to the base.
"This the Apostate's workshop?"
"Yep. See that black water flowing? All from the workshop. Only that bitch uses sludge like that."
Landing with a thud, Lania pointed at the sludge trickling through the ditch. Kalt pinched his nose and grimaced.
"The stench is overpowering."
His keen sense of smell made it worse.
The nose-stinging reek made him glare at the sludge—human-melting filth infused with lingering thoughts, a mark of apostasy.
Following the stream, they reached the workshop entrance.
A structure like a temple. Gazing at the massive door engraved with Delorim Church symbols, Kalt muttered, "Smells like heresy," while Lania stayed silent.
"I'll open it."
"Not me?"
"You'll just smash it again. Who knows what's inside? I'll cut it clean—stand back."
Lania shrugged and stepped back. Kalt drew his sword from his waist.
Shing.
The silver blade emerged briefly before he swung lightly. The tip sliced smoothly into the stone door, tracing a line. Without resistance, he carved out a section.
Whoosh.
Not a speck of dust flew as the blade exited. Swordsmanship worthy of the term miracle.
"Ooh, you've improved a lot."
"It's been a while since I became a superhuman."
Kalt, beaming proudly, kicked the carved stone. It toppled with a boom, opening a hole big enough for two or three people.
Stench wafted from within.
Frowning, Kalt and Lania entered the Apostate's workshop. The interior was eerily quiet.
"Looks like she cleared out knowing we'd come."
"Figured as much. That psycho bitch always dodges me specifically."
Lania scanned around and clicked her tongue.
"Just when I think I've caught her trail and rush over, she's gone. Only her discarded sludge left behind."
"Can't blame her."
"What?"
"If you were chasing me with those crazy eyes, I'd run too. Now you've even got Starlight."
The tale of ancient lich Skeval screaming upon first facing Lania wielding Starlight was famous among the knights.
"What can you do about the Apostate."
She'd bolt to avoid getting dragged by the hair and beaten.
Muttering that, Kalt gripped his sword hilt and proceeded, senses on high alert, gathering intel from his surroundings.
The workshop, glimpsed from the cliff above, was massive.
Rivaling a temple in scale, it surely hid many spots—what you saw wasn't all. Kalt tapped the floor lightly with his blade tip, emitting sword aura at intervals to probe the terrain.
"Good call bringing you."
Lania nodded, smiling smugly. Moments later, Kalt narrowed his eyes.
"...Senior."
He pointed his sword at a wall.
A wall shrouded in deep darkness.
"Mind lighting it up? Something's off with that wall. Feels like something's hanging on it."
Lania snapped her fingers.
Dozens of light orbs floated up, illuminating everything. The revealed scene made Lania furrow her brow.
"...What a shitshow."
The wall hidden by shadow.
Bodies hung in rows. Skinned humans. Humans stripped of bones. Human, human, human corpses. Beneath the dangling bodies sat models made of human bones.
4-meter models.
Fashioned from human bones, they stood bipedally in beast form. Like blueprints. Prototypes tested before crafting real magical beasts.
'Looks familiar...'.
Lania's expression hardened as she stared.
"What is this...? A wolf? Lycanthrope? Nah, doesn't quite feel like it... ."
Kalt muttered at the model.
Even royal researchers or beast scholars would react the same. It depicted a magical beast that no longer existed. But Lania couldn't.
She knew.
What this model mimicked.
She who'd glimpsed the first Hero's long journey knew exactly what it was. Lania's gaze wavered. To her, this was a clear variable.
「Dropped the sun that illuminates curses. Purified the lake consumed by curses. Burned the cursed land. But facing that thing wasn't easy.」
Cardi had once said.
「Cunning. Intelligent. Possessed reason, and it learned. Sought to understand humans, attempted dialogue, envied and loved them.」
The trickiest foe.
「A beast and a human.」
「In the end, a magical beast that ascended to superhuman.」
A being born a beast, become human.
「King of Magical Beasts.」
「The one that burned the World Tree and tore my kin apart. The one that now forms half of Ganikalt's body.」
King of Magical Beasts.
A model perfectly matching the form from her memories and Cardi's drawings stood before her. As Lania stepped closer to inspect—
Thud.
The workshop shook.
The ceiling trembled, dust rising, followed by scraping sounds—creak, grind. Kalt braced himself; Lania silently looked up.
Rumble.
The ceiling flipped with vibrations. Something dangled from it. Claws embedded, hanging beasts.
Not one beast.
Dozens stared down at Lania from the ceiling. Plop, plop—sludge rained from their bodies like precipitation. One split its maw wide and bellowed.
"————————!"
Dozens howled in sequence.
The air quivered; the workshop vibrated.
Boom!
With roars, they kicked off the ceiling, charging at Lania and Kalt. Gazing at the raining beasts, Lania let out a hollow laugh.
Armless beasts.
Half-split-headed beasts.
Beasts with bodies half-melted away.
Myriad broken, defective failures. Failures for what? The answer was simple—they all bore forms akin to the King of Magical Beasts.
"Crazy bitch."
Lania ground her teeth.
Mana swirled around her.