Chapter 76
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 76
Chapter Title: Alma Rondel
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Episode 76
“Th-th-this is insane! Even Graham died in a single blow! And he was a third-run player!”
The Great Wall of the Snowy Peaks was the northernmost edge of the imperial territory.
Beyond it began the eternal land of death, Harvadonia, where all signs of life ceased.
The Great Wall of the Snowy Peaks consisted of one headquarters and four branches, separating the civilized world from that ancient hell.
“What the hell is with that psycho who can wield four Supreme Holy Swords like it's nothing?! And why didn't the Elite Knight say a single word about a guy like that existing?!”
“He might not have known either.”
“What do you mean, he didn't know?! Sh-shit! We're all going to die! He abandoned us and ran!”
“You bastard, how dare you speak of Lord Pervias that way!”
“Lord? What fucking lord?! He won't even send reinforcements when we're about to be wiped out! And those ice summons he left behind are all dead too!”
But the Great Wall of the Snowy Peaks was built to hold back the Abyss north of the wall, not designed for a civil war south of it.
In other words, it was a siege, but not really. The Northern Army and the White Wolves could only climb atop the wall and make their last stand.
Even that wall had been breached during the Ashron Incident, leaving its weak points completely exposed to the Western Army.
“He ordered us to hold that bastard at the Great Wall of the Snowy Peaks! So shut up and follow! If his plan succeeds, all our wishes will come true—!”
A single red line was drawn across the necks of the Stigmatized who led the charge through that breach.
The northern cold was sharp and harsh.
The heads that shot up, spouting fresh blood, froze at the wound by the time their freefall ended, ceasing to bleed.
“Your Excellency, did you hear? We have a problem.”
A combat boot stomped on one of the instantly frozen heads, crushing it.
Beside that boot, blood flowed down the fuller of Aradamanthel's brilliantly glowing blade, letting off a white steam.
The world called the white-haired swordsman the strongest soldier of humanity, with a sense of awe.
“It seems the Elite Knight has already passed the wall and is heading for the Northern Control Center. I request permission to break from the front lines and pursue.”
[You cannot, Kaisen. Harvadonia is immensely vast, and its geography is brutally unforgiving. Going on your own is suicide. Wait until I can arrange and send the air force.]
[Your Excellency, please allow me to assist the FakeWarrior.]
Kaisen’s eyebrow twitched.
Ah…
Just hearing that voice, he felt the tension in his chest instantly melt away.
[Do you have a plan in mind, Johan?]
[Since he's a precious guest who came all the way to the North, we should at least let him ride the famous sleds before he goes back.]
Johan's plan was extraordinary.
It was to turn the slope leading to the Northern Control Center into a wall of ice and travel by sled.
His reasoning was that their altitude on the Great Wall of the Snowy Peaks was more than sufficient.
[Once we arrive, I will secure the area so Your Excellency can open a dimensional gate. I will take one regiment of the White Wolves.]
[Permission granted. Johan, I will send you to Kaisen's side. I will send one battalion of the Golden Children. Both of you, do not overexert yourselves.]
Soon, a golden radiance created an oval-shaped dimensional rift, and from beyond it emerged a man with a light blue ponytail.
The voices of the past…
All the memories of his childhood flashed through his mind, appearing and disappearing in an instant…
“You still have that habit of using an intellectual tone to propose insane tactics.”
“Spending over a decade by someone's side has made me this way. You don't seem to like it?”
“I was raised by that very someone. I've always missed these insane methods.”
The same smile he wore on the day they first met as children formed on Johan's lips.
Johan took out a snow crystal necklace, split in half, from his coat. Kaisen showed him the other half.
As if to say to one another that they were the same people who had made a promise and parted ways a year ago.
After fitting the two halves of the necklace together, Johan's smile slowly crumbled, and his words ended in a sob.
“Ah, to think that little kid has grown up so much… ah, really…”
He thought his tears had long since dried up, but Kaisen's eyes grew hot as well.
This was no ordinary reunion.
It wasn't as simple as meeting someone again after a year.
Johan was the one and only passage back to a world now lost, one that could never be reclaimed.
A world where Camilla would curse irritably and smack him on the head, where the polar bear Eltram would laugh heartily and pat his back, where Rifle Jin would spout his signature dirty jokes.
In that world, everyone was alive, and everyone was smiling, and, and, and, they were all together…
“I missed you, Wolf.”
With that greeting, he severed the scenery of his youth as if with a knife.
He had to move forward now.
As their brief reunion concluded, Kaduel, who had joined them, spoke.
[A barbaric, yet highly efficient method of travel. But what if it fails? Continuously creating an ice path in the direction I guide you through this blizzard will be no easy task.]
Kaisen answered.
“Don't worry. Wolf doesn't do failure.”
The Epilogue of the Prologue,
Here Lies the Fake Hero (2)
「We've already activated three emergency management protocols, but we're still unable to interfere with the target worldline. This has gotten troublesome.」
Second-Class Administrator, Jarenki, said.
Before him floated numerous phases, displaying various ruined worlds.
From a distant, high throne in the Abyss, an absolute voice was heard—a voice that made the starlight tremble and the cosmos fall silent.
「What happened to Sharlie?」
「We can't even get a signal. What should we do? The viewers' complaints are reaching a peak.」
The number of ‘Players’ who ‘played’ the destruction of a world had always been 666.
From these, five Elite Players were additionally selected, and the Absolute Gods competed fiercely to make them their servants.
The elite who won the battle royale received divinity from their respective Absolute God and became gods themselves, while their factions were elevated to retainers.
They were following the same path as [The Forgotten Kings], who had contracted with the Absolute God of the Abyss and emerged victorious, and the retainers who served them.
Never before had so many problems arisen…
‘Is this the second time?’
It started with the insects known as [The Ones Who Came], who occupied the Abyss's mother star, Valadon, and sealed all its retainers. And now, in this world again…
「We can no longer afford to observe him as an interesting variable. Kaisen… if we leave that created beast alone, the play will only be further ruined.」
「He even cut down Neigalas and Senior Sharlyuan… Right now, he's a figure too dangerous to classify. But as a price for wielding such power in a human body, he has less than a week to live. How about we wait for him to die of natural causes?」
「The Absolute of Ikillas, unlike Ryuiniyen, is a very bothersome and ill-mannered being. Imagine the chaos he'll cause if we let his apostle die.」
「That's… but even so, who could we possibly send?」
「Do you know when a fake loses its light?」
「…?」
「When it stands next to the real thing.」
「The real thing… you don't mean?」
In the darkness, it felt as though an unseen yet terrifyingly massive mouth was splitting into a grin.
「Yes, Ryukael.」
「Eldia Mu (04)… Are you sure? Aren't we creating an even greater risk in our attempt to eliminate a dangerous element?」
「She has already followed my orders faithfully for two thousand years under the name Lilkiur. She answered my summons immediately.」
The Supreme Holy Swords wielded by the FakeWarriors are all imitations of the True Holy Swords crafted for the Eldia Knights.
The special powers of those holy swords and the swordsmanship used to wield them were all nothing more than degraded versions of the ancient Eldia's…
No matter how strong he was, if the very foundation of his swordsmanship was completely seen through, defeat in the world of the sword was inevitable.
「What do you think, Ryukael? Your opponent is said to be the strongest fake to have ever existed.」
A heroic woman appeared in the window that expanded before Jarenki, her hair stained with the dark blue of the Abyss.
This was the symbol of a servant of the Abyss…
Who could believe that this was the same Ryukael who once stood at the vanguard countless times during the war of the gods, her violet hair flowing?
[Are you kidding me? He's just a fake who couldn't even pass the aptitude test for a True Holy Sword and has to rely on a worthless imitation.]
「I have high hopes. Ah, and just pretend to try to save the apostle of Ikillas, but let him die. It'll be more fun that way.」
[I'll handle my business. You just keep your end of the promise.]
「What promise was that? Hah, just kidding. You mean the promise to resurrect all your comrades? Fufufu, don't worry. When all this is over, I will most certainly do so.」
* * *
[Target coordinates… rapidly… approaching…]
An otherworldly blizzard that split into hundreds of streams, swirling and eating away at their very marrow.
The sleds racing through it were enveloped in a world of white, unable to see one another.
The only landmark they could rely on was the wavelength of the Thunderous Fragrance Soul Resonance Formation, garbled with static from the otherworldly interference.
[To coordinates… 16 blik…]
As the number decreased, the blizzard grew even stronger. A chilling white noise rang out tautly.
Alma Rondel, unlike other control centers, was a Class 1 facility, its location and design classified.
The reason given was that it was the only control center capable of repairing and modifying Starlink's circuits.
[3 blik, recommend inertia control.]
The sleds entered a field of magical gravel.
[This is Johan Wolf Frost. Everyone, brace for impact.]
After a moment of rattling from the friction of hundreds of pebbles, the sleds lost their inertia and began to stop, one by one.
[Lady Thunderous Fragrance, we have arrived at the coordinates.]
[Cur…rent… situation…?]
[I've exhausted all my binding magic and am now a useless mage, but we somehow managed to arrive just in the nick of time.]
As Kaisen drove a wedge stone into the ground, a pillar of light shot into the sky, weakening the blizzard and clearing the static from the Thunderous Fragrance Soul Resonance Formation.
[Excellent. But unless the blizzard of Ikillas is completely dispelled, my power cannot reach. My own shortcomings have given you a difficult task. Kaisen, are you alright?]
“I'm fine. Tarsiyo, what about you?”
“I'm fine, too.”
As the blizzard, the pure white, receded over the horizon, light and shadow returned, revealing the silhouette of a black mountain.
“Archmage, unidentified facility ahead!”
There, on the surface of that very mountain, stood the control center, built in a form that should have been impossible for thousands of years.
Everyone stared, trembling in a daze.
If the day ever came when humans could carve reliefs into nature itself, into a mountain, would they be able to build something like this?
“Could that be…?”
[That is Alma Rondel.]
“So that's the ruin said to have brought down two suns and two moons… I thought the ruins left by [The Ones Who Came] were invincible.”
The vast, artistic entrance to Alma Rondel was covered in a deathly blue, otherworldly cold that writhed like tentacles.
[Strange. Alma Rondel was designed with a Level 7 cold wave protection system and should be operating normally in a cold wave of this magnitude, but its internal security systems are not functioning at all.]
Kaduel felt an uneasy premonition, one that he could not explain or rationalize.
That premonition was correct.
For it would soon be proven true by the worst possible reunion with an old comrade-in-arms.