The Identity of the Black Soul
Clatter. Clatter.
Over a hundred knights rode out of the city on horseback. Inside one of the carriages, Marquis Weiser sat with a rigidly set face, staring at the woman across from him.
“…….”
“……?”
She beamed.
Snow-white hair, long lashes, flawless skin. Any man would have fallen for her on the spot—yet the moment Marquis Weiser saw that smile, a full-body shudder ran through him.
“Is there… anything that troubles you, my lady?”
“Yes.”
“So… there is?”
“Yes.”
“……I see.”
“Yes.”
The conversation locked into place. Silence settled over them like a weight. The carriage had become a bed of thorns.
Marquis Weiser hastily turned his eyes to Serengeti, who sat beside him.
Is this woman truly Saintess Seia?
She is.
Serengeti gave a small nod. The marquis’s mouth went dry.
He had requested aid from Heir Randolph—yet the one who arrived was the woman sitting before him. The instant he learned her identity, he nearly had a fit.
……Saintess Seia!
Even among the holy maidens of the Goddess Sect, Seia stood as a figure of legend. And yet she had died during the Great Expedition. That was the official story.
If word spreads that Saintess Seia is alive, the Goddess Sect will erupt.
Instead of coming himself, Heir Randolph had sent Saintess Seia. What was his true intent?
The moment she stood before the King of Balan, her identity would be impossible to hide.
……If Saintess Seia is at the King of Balan’s side, King Friedrich will not dare act rashly.
King Friedrich, overlord of the Iron Kingdom, had already crossed the line. He was riding in person to deliver a declaration of war to the King of Balan. That arrogant bastard meant to force a choice: unconditional surrender, or death.
But if he saw Saintess Seia standing beside the King of Balan, he would think twice before committing any mad act. The Goddess Sect itself might intervene. Even the Iron Kingdom, rising as the hegemon of the East, could not afford to make an enemy of the Goddess Sect.
The problem was……
She beamed again.
“…….”
Looking at the pure-white smile on Saintess Seia’s face, Marquis Weiser felt another headache bloom.
Haa. I don’t know if I can handle this.
He might hold the rank of marquis, but in the end he was merely the lord of a frontier city. Saintess Seia, by contrast, was a name of “Hope” known to nearly every human on the continent. The moment news of her survival spread, the shockwaves would be beyond calculation.
And still Randolph had entrusted her to him.
The Heir places his trust in me.
Without trust, he never would have handed over a saintess.
Fine. All of that was fine, but……
“Saintess, do you by any chance know…… what he is doing right now?”
“Yes.”
The meaningless question, thrown out just to break the silence, drew an answer from Saintess Seia. She knew something even Serengeti did not?
Marquis Weiser pressed urgently.
“P-perhaps…… could you tell me what he is doing?”
“He said he was going to go have some fun.”
“……Pardon?”
“He said he was going to a party.”
“……??”
Excellent.
Golden Mask was satisfied. The festival was proceeding in grand style. Far more precious banquets than he had planned or expected had gathered in one place.
The Great Will of the Moon would surely be pleased as well.
Still, nothing seems more valuable than the souls of Heavenly Bliss and the Abyss.
The only slight regret was that not once had a banquet more precious than the soul of a giant who had lived in the Age of Myths appeared. In a way, that was only natural. Beings so vast they were called pillars that held up the world—vast not merely in size, but in the very grade of their souls. Beings that could be called demigods without the slightest exaggeration.
One purpose of this banquet is also to examine their past deeds.
Through the souls they had prepared, he could trace the movements of the patrons thus far.
Golden Fox, for instance, had tormented the Goddess Sect with vicious thoroughness. The souls of cardinals and saintesses were not things even they could obtain lightly. To breach that ironclad protection and succeed in the hunt meant they had carried out an operation on the scale of open war.
And recently, only one force had gone to war with the Goddess Sect.
So it was you who moved the Balrog Cult, Golden Fox.
The Balrog Cult! Dark holy knights who raised black spots across the land. He had wondered who pulled their strings—apparently it was Golden Fox. He had never expected her to strike the Goddess Sect head-on.
Golden Fox was also a master of the sword. Countless blades of the Empire had received her personal instruction; that said enough.
Golden Monkey…… you were chasing the traces of the Old Empire.
The soul presented under the name “Black Emperor” was connected to the Old Empire. Almost nothing was known of the Six Emperors who stood opposed to the Six Heroes. He must have learned of it while exploring the Old Empire’s remains.
Yet compared to the heroes of the Six, that “Black Emperor” soul was pitifully shabby. Even Laily alone—one of the Six who had surfaced in the Abyssal Labyrinth—had been far more formidable.
The most honest of them is still Golden Lion…… exactly as expected.
Golden Mask allowed himself an inward smile.
Every patron gathered here hated the sinners, hated the goddesses. That was why they wore masks. Beings who had been called “Divine Illness,” who had seized control of their bodies—or forced them to seize control—and stolen their true selves. By donning masks and disguises, they had reclaimed the meaning of their existence.
But too much time had passed. The years thin hatred and rage. Golden Lion, it seemed, was the exception.
Examining the patrons’ souls one by one, Golden Mask finally halted his gaze on a single figure.
……Golden Goat.
Golden Goat himself. The patron of the twelfth Orthodox that should not exist—an utterly unpredictable man.
What is certain is that he is deeply connected to Crow King Ojuruk.
Hudson was the proxy of Labyrinth City and a subordinate of Ojuruk. When he had appeared at the auction together with Golden Goat, a deep connection was only natural. Or perhaps Golden Goat himself was Ojuruk; the Crow King, too, remained wrapped in veils.
But what happened at the first banquet will never happen again.
At the first banquet, entrusting the initial tasting to Golden Goat’s Orthodox had been a mistake. It might have been the unspoken rule, yet because of it no one had become the master of the “banquet.” Who could have guessed he would spit everything back out?
This time, no such fluke would be allowed.
He will have had no time to prepare, and whatever soul he did scrape together will be worthless.
At the first banquet Golden Goat had prepared no soul at all. The other patrons, however, had spent long years gathering souls for this very day. No matter what, he could never match them. Even if he had prepared something, he would never escape last place.
Nothing but a single black-stained soul.
Exactly as expected. The predictability was so perfect he had to fight down a hollow laugh.
The soul Golden Goat presented was only one: a black-stained soul. Not an ordinary soul. A soul whose color had turned black for one of two reasons—either it had fallen into corruption, or it carried a powerful curse. Either way, it was clearly a shabby offering.
Corruption itself is proof that its grade is nothing special. Beings of high grade rarely fall.
He had said “rarely,” but in truth it almost never happened. Why would a being who had perfected its own qualifications ever fall? The complete do not waver, and those who do not waver do not fall. Therefore that soul belonged to one who had never been completed.
The latter case was no better.
Or it means a soul completely swallowed by a powerful curse—so pitiful that the soul itself could be overrun by the curse.
Nothing to hope for there either. The soul Golden Goat had offered was, without question, worthless.
Every patron present thought the same. They had handled Orthodox, seen countless souls, seized them, and devoured them. Of course they all knew what a “black soul” signified.
Tsk tsk. Won’t even break ten thousand points.
At this rate he won’t even get a chance.
Is he looking down on the banquet?
They sneered openly. From the beginning they had disliked the twelfth patron, Golden Goat. Who welcomes a rival that suddenly barges in? All the more so when that rival had ruined the previous banquet. They had thought even a perfect score would be a stroke of luck.
……Or so they believed.
“What?”
“That’s a lie……!”
“……Wait. Isn’t one of the digits wrong?”
They stared wide-eyed, refusing the number that had appeared. They simply could not believe it.
Over six hundred thousand points……!
A score more than double Golden Mask’s own. That meant the value of this “black-stained soul” far surpassed even a giant who had lived through the Age of Myths.
……Impossible.
Golden Mask stared in silence at the floating score. He had not misread it. Yet he still could not understand.
The soul values determined by the Great Will of the Moon were absolute. Immutable. Therefore they could not be wrong.
……They should not be wrong.
And still, why did he so desperately want to deny it?
“Whose soul is it, then?”
Everyone wondered. They had no choice but to wonder about the identity of that black-stained soul.
Fwoooooosh!
At last the crimson light of the moon grew fiercer still. The red moonlight, so vivid it seemed ready to pierce the windows, bound every presented soul together and kindled them into flame.
Guooooooo—!
The enormous blaze soon shaped itself into a single form. That form then screamed and devoured every other soul.
No—that was not right.
Those are the screams of the souls themselves.
Every patron realized it at once. The one screaming was not the monster given form, but the souls being eaten by that monster. Before the overwhelming presence of the black-stained soul Golden Goat had offered, even they had no choice but to scream—even the demigod giant who had lived in the Age of Myths.
And the moment they saw it, every patron’s face hardened as one.
“……That shape of fire is…….”
“………It can’t be.”
It was a form every one of them knew. How could they not recognize that monster? Yet this was the first time they had seen it with their own eyes. First time or not, there was no doubt.
Golden Mask opened his mouth.
“How did you obtain that soul……!”
It was pure astonishment at possessing the unpossessable. How could Golden Goat hold the soul of that cursed being?
For that soul belonged to—
The hunting hounds of Ruin.
Among them, the monster of monsters that had gifted the greatest number of people with terror and helplessness!
Despair.
……It was the soul of Despair, one of the Four Calamities.