Chapter 396
Chapter 396
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 396
Chapter Title: The First Guide's Proposal
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In the blink of an eye, a sun rose amid the darkness.
The incantation manifested with such excessive speed that the process itself seemed skipped entirely. To those gathered here, the sun's emergence felt like nothing more than a phenomenon with no prelude whatsoever.
The rippling sun was enormous, and radiant.
Brighter than the combined glow of the circuits woven by the dozens of high mages assembled here. As the fiercely shining sun undulated, Lania lightly swung her arm. The sun slowly shifted, tracing the path drawn by human fingertips.
The sun plummeted.
The falling sun hurtled toward the barrier encircling Artia. It smashed headlong into the barrier formed of filthy sludge, the sun that symbolized purification and divinity.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ There are two primary methods to dismantle a barrier.
One involves analyzing the barrier's circuits, pinpointing weaknesses, and taking it apart—a method considered the orthodox approach. Tricky, but it allows for a clean resolution.
The second method is simple enough to describe in words.
Simply shatter the barrier outright with an overwhelming spell or physical attack. Easy to say, but practically impossible in reality.
A barrier is the pinnacle of defensive spells, layering hundreds of incantations, and it grows even tougher if you don't follow the proper sequence. What's more, if the caster is an archmage on top of that, crushing it by force demands power beyond common sense.
And.
"...Keep your distance."
Someone who met that condition was present right here.
"You'll get caught up in it."
The mages witnessed it. A being that had reached beyond common sense.
They had come to confront a calamity, only to behold an existence that had stepped into the realm of calamity itself. The mages retreated step by step, gradually putting distance between themselves and the barrier.
Whooooosh!
The sun belched out immense heat, beginning to melt the barrier. With a sizzling burn and the sludge encasing it boiling away into vapor.
"It's working!"
The mages cheered at the sight of the barrier starting to crumble... but to Lania herself, the pace wasn't all that satisfying.
"......"
Lania silently extended her finger toward the sky.
Then, with a flick.
The moment she swung her finger, a brief flash of light pulsed from her forearm, hidden beneath her robe. The liberation of a Stocked spell—soon, the incantation was complete.
The supreme spell, Judgement.
Krraaaang!
A sharp noise that tore at the eardrums.
A slanting blue bolt of lightning plummeted from the heavens, piercing through the sun and striking the barrier. Electric current raced along its surface for a moment, and the impaled sun flickered violently.
Kwaaaaaaaaang!
With a deafening roar, the sun exploded.
The compressed heat devoured the barrier, clashing with the lingering lightning on its surface to trigger a chain of large and small blasts.
Crackle...
As the barrier, no longer able to maintain its form, collapsed, she advanced into Artia's interior.
2.
"Come to think of it, Goddess."
The second day in the demon realm.
Belnoa, who had been snatching sleep in minute bursts while staying vigilant, brought up a topic to shake off her drowsiness.
"That shadow we ran into in the canyon—isn't it the same one I encountered in the capital four years ago?"
An alien form. An eerie laugh.
As she probed the memory and posed the question, the Goddess nodded lightly.
[That's right. It's the same being.]
"Didn't it get dispelled right there?"
Belnoa racked her brain and added,
"Pretty sure Rak stabbed it with some mysterious sword he had, and it vanished."
[It would be nice if that were the case, but I doubt it.]
The Goddess shook her head.
[Hundreds of years ago... back in the era of my second contractor, that shadow met its end too. It met its demise at the blade of that age's greatest swordsman.]
"Greatest swordsman?"
[Ganikalt van Galatric.]
Belnoa fell silent.
She had pieced together a rough outline of events from hundreds of years ago. The Goddess hadn't shared the full story, but even the fragments allowed her to sketch the picture.
'Probably referring to the Sword of Death.'
Belnoa had somewhat realized that the current calamity was the corrupted hero's party.
[A wondrous child. One who could have been a hero even if born in the primordial era. Even my first contractor was wary of that kid.]
Anyway, she murmured, continuing,
[The shadow was torn apart by the sword that child wielded. Not just its soul—its very existence.]
"But..."
[And yet, it survived. I have no idea how.]
The Goddess let out a sigh.
[All I remember is that the shadow was cursed by the heavens. It lost its name... its very existence.]
The Nameless One, the First Madman.
[One who has lost their name and existence shouldn't be able to set foot on this land. They should simply vanish. With nothing left to define themselves. But that thing still lives on, meddling in the world. How?]
The Goddess posed the question to herself.
[If I had to guess.]
And answered it herself.
[It probably anchored the foundation of its existence somewhere the stars can't reach.]
"Somewhere the stars can't reach?"
[Exactly. Meaning it's unbound by providence. Therefore...]
The Goddess turned her head.
Her eyes fixed on one distant spot. Far away, deeper into the demon realm than their current location.
[It must have bound its existence to the being you call the Demon King—that false god.]
"Is that even... possible?"
The Goddess gave a wry smile at the question.
Of course it wasn't possible.
Impossible, naturally. But the Goddess knew it was an anomalous existence from the start. A being that had forged a god from a human body and human knowledge. A being that had shaken the laws engraved upon the world tens of thousands of years ago.
What do you call those who introduce variables into the world? The Goddess knew the name.
In the era tens of thousands of years ago, when she lived as a god, such entities were called that—and they drew the wariness of the gods. The moment their existence was detected, the gods would exert every effort to exterminate them.
Guides. Or, Pioneers.
They weren't selected as Guides and thereby granted the right to touch providence. They were selected as Guides because they sought to touch providence. Even the Goddess didn't fully understand their nature.
[I don't know the details myself.]
The Shadow Dragon Lord exhaled a long breath.
[I'm just speculating.]
At Belnoa's dubious glance, she let out a soft chuckle.
[Being a god doesn't make one omniscient or omnipotent. That's why all gods are imperfect. Therefore...]
That must be why the Guides appear.
She swallowed the rest inwardly.
Her first contractor would never permit her to speak of the Guides.
'What a foolish child.'
A child who became a Guide wishing for revolution.
Yet in the final moment, the child chose not revolution, but to uphold the laws. Wished to remain in this world not as a human, but as a god.
Thus, that child fears variables.
Fears the birth of another like itself.
Fears, with pathological intensity, anyone seeking to revolutionize the laws engraved by the being it cherished most.
[So, feeling awake now?]
"You knew I brought it up just to wake myself."
[I'm not omniscient, but I'm omnipotent when it comes to reading my contractor's heart.]
The Goddess smiled and rested her head on Belnoa's shoulder. Belnoa awkwardly scratched the back of her head and let out a short yawn.
"I'm hungry."
[Are you?]
"Two days of gnawing on nothing but this jerky's getting to me."
Belnoa opened her pouch and pulled out a piece of jerky.
Withered and twisted jerky. As she chewed the leather-tough texture and sighed, she couldn't help but miss the desserts she'd shared with Chloe.
She'd complained they were too sweet back then... but now, that sugary, fluffy mouthfeel kept lingering in her mind.
"......"
Belnoa shot a glance at the Goddess, whose head was leaning on her shoulder.
"Goddess."
[What is it?]
"Those desserts I offered you—am I never getting them back?"
A joking remark.
Yet the Goddess jolted upright.
Thoroughly suspicious behavior.
[Wh-what are you talking about?]
The startled Goddess pulled her head from Belnoa's shoulder and backed away. Her eyes wider than ever, she spoke in a voice more serious than any before.
[Absolutely not.]
"Huh?"
[Taking back what you've given is a grave sin. Never.]
Belnoa's eyes narrowed.
The robe draped over the Goddess's shoulders. An old offering from Belnoa herself, since the Goddess found it burdensome to go around exposing her bare skin.
Something stick-like, resembling a candy cane, was poking out from the robe's pocket. The pocket itself was bulging round for some reason.
"That robe pocket..."
[No.]
"......"
[......]
Their gazes met for a moment.
The Goddess made a pouty face and pulled out the candy she'd stashed away in the pocket. Candy she'd been saving to savor slowly.
[Just one bite... one little bite...]
"...Go ahead and eat it."
3.
Lania had entered Artia's interior.
A city filled with piles of crumbled ash.
The city, reduced to ruins a century ago, was thick with soot. The ash beneath her feet was surely not just from shattered buildings, but from humans burned to cinders as well.
Crunch.
Stepping through the ash, Lania moved forward.
Toward the spot where mana surged most intensely. After walking some distance, she arrived at what appeared to be a plaza. Traces of battle lingered there at length—marks from ages past mingled with fresh ones.
"......"
Lania lifted her head.
In the direction of her gaze sat Kelrhalhm, head drooped low. Propped against the wall, it lived... but was dying. An injury that would claim its life soon without intervention.
"As expected, you chose this one."
At the resounding voice, Lania shifted her gaze.
Someone was perched atop the rubble of a collapsed building.
"Well, this was the rational choice, wasn't it? Rather than waste effort on some novice without battlefield experience whose location you don't even know, this side's far more efficient. Right?"
A being cloaked in rippling shadows.
"I was getting bored to death waiting. If you'd been even a little later, I might've just blown everything away... you made it just in the nick of time."
Yet as the shadows slid away, what emerged was a human form. A voice laced with amusement echoed out.
"Long time no see, Ashen Mage."
The First Madman, the Nameless One.
Platinum hair on a youth propping his chin, wearing a grin. A young man with short platinum locks. Lania narrowed her eyes and spoke.
"Is that your true form?"
"True form? No chance. I'm not that friend Skeval. I don't have a true form. This is just one of the bodies I've hopped through over the past few centuries."
Couldn't remember which generation of king anymore, but probably the childhood of one of them. He muttered as much and shrugged.
"Not my true form, but... well, I do have an original flesh somewhere. You know about it, don't you? Right at Arcadia's heart."
The foundation of the shadows.
A place beyond providence, impervious to any attempt at erasure.
"......"
Lania furrowed her brow, her hands crackling as she flexed them. At her stance, poised to charge at any moment, the madman chuckled.
"No need to be so guarded, Ashen Mage. If I'd called you out here intending to fight from the start..."
The madman thrust out his arm.
The tip of his finger pointed straight at Kelrhalhm.
"I wouldn't have bothered keeping that one alive. Did consider finishing it off, but... it's a fellow called madman like me, so I figured it'd be a shame."
The madman shrugged.
"From the outset, my goal was just to make you choose who to discard. The chosen one has to survive for the discarded to feel true misery, right? So I spared it."
Lania's face twisted.
"You done talking?"
"No? This is just the beginning."
The madman spread his arms wide.
"I called out my junior to offer some advice."
...Junior?
What nonsense was this? As Lania narrowed her eyes, the madman replied as if it were obvious.
"I'm the senior, and you're the junior. As a mage..."
And, he added,
"And as a Guide too."
"...What?"
"You must've suspected. That I'm a Guide just like you. That's why you made a god yourself."
The madman laughed.
"How much do you know about Guides, Ashen Mage?"
Shadows dripped from his broadly split grin.
"That lizard never admitted it to the end, but I'm a Guide. A Guide who succeeded in shattering providence unchanged for tens of thousands of years. And that..."
Cackling, the madman pointed at Lania.
"Isn't that exactly what you want, ashen one?"
"......"
Lania stayed silent, and the madman prattled on.
"I saw what you're scheming. Brewing something fascinating beyond the lizard's sight. And, by sheer coincidence..."
The madman snapped his fingers with a click.
The massive mana waves pulsing through Artia converged to a single point. And rising behind the madman was a colossal circuit. One inscribed in ancient script.
"That's something I already tried."
A circuit vast enough to touch the heavens.
Not fully completed due to the high mages' interference, but roughly formed. It rotated slowly with a creaking tick, like a clock's second hand, and the madman pointed at it with a grin.
"Don't you need my knowledge, junior?"
The First Madman—and Guide who had lived for centuries—extended a hand toward the current Guide.
"I request a deal."