Chapter 72
Chapter 72
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: uly
Chapter: 72
Chapter Title: Demon Extermination (??), Arrival (1)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The storm grew fiercer. The second-year students heading toward the shrine of the storm god pulled their robes tighter, each showing signs of discomfort.
Rick, who had been leading the way, asked Peter, their escort.
"Are we really going like this? The weather doesn't seem good today..."
"Yes, we have to stick to the schedule so all students can experience the nightmare before the training ends."
At those words, another student, Ralph, burst into complaint.
"But it's dangerous! Liv, you think so too, right?"
"Me? I..."
Rumble——!!
The massive thunderclap halted the group's steps for a moment. Peter checked the weather gauge in his hand and spoke with a grim expression.
"Let's go to the shrine first and assess the situation. If the gate is unstable, I'll contact the Tower Master via communication orb."
"Yes..."
And so the four climbed the steep hill in silence for a while. At the cliff's edge sat a small altar. Before it yawned a black hole. Clouds and mist swirled around it like dust and ice fragments drawn to a planet, whipping up winds too fierce to withstand.
The unpleasant blackness reminiscent of the abyss made Liv shudder involuntarily. Peter had the students wait in front of the shrine.
"Don't look down—it's dangerous if you slip. And don't touch the gate recklessly. Ah, why is this thing dead now..."
The altitude was high enough that a single misstep could send them tumbling below. While Peter tapped at his communication orb, the other students turned their eyes to the view of Bartudis unfolding down the hill.
Beyond the open gray plains stretched an endless expanse where torrential rain poured down—a spectacle in itself.
"How many tiers of magic would it take to conjure something like this?"
"Who knows. Around 7th tier, maybe?"
"That high?"
"They say Terra Ernisten's [Grand Canal] was 10th tier, and it rained like this for three days across the entire continent. For just the Bartudis region, at least 7th tier."
"Hmm, I see..."
"Liv, what do you think?"
Leaving Rick and Ralph to debate magic over a natural phenomenon, Liv kept staring beyond the gate.
Looking closely, she could see a landscape inside the black hole. The familiar, nostalgic sight of Greenwood Forest from her childhood.
"Ah, finally...! Tower Master. Can I send the students in now?"
A eerie green glow tinged with purple from the past. Within that mysterious light, Liv glimpsed the face of someone she could no longer meet.
'Ah... Father?'
The moment she unwittingly stepped forward, an unknown force yanked her body in.
Thud.
"Tower Master?"
"Liv?"
By the time her two friends and Peter looked up, all that remained where Liv had stood was the bag she'd brought.
"Do you get it now?"
It came back to him.
A blood-red sky like dripping crimson. In the darkness, he dug furiously into the earth.
Not fearing discovery by other demons, he tore through the wild hills.
Without time to wipe the blood and sweat drenching his body. Digging pit after pit.
"Cough...! So that's what happened..."
Blood trickled from his mouth. Driven by a mage's instinct, he'd kept wrapping mana around his heart, but the man's bare hand that had shattered his collarbone could end Dominic's life at any moment.
"I was... digging holes, wasn't I..."
"..."
"Not to find my master, but to bury... cough! the bodies... keh heh."
"That's your instinct."
He brushed away the black hair stinging his eyes in the rain, looking as if he already knew everything. Before Dominic could ask how he'd figured out something even he hadn't known, the man spoke first.
"Dominic. I don't think you created this demon statue yourself. You must have altered its appearance with illusion magic, but you got it from someone else."
"...Why do you say that?"
"Iron Dog's memo said they were found in Edenberry from the start."
Edenberry. After the war ended, Dominic had never once gone to the northern seas ruled by Roshiar.
His fading consciousness, limbs trembling in midair. As he spat out a clot of blood, the man said,
"Time's running out, so think hard. Who did you get them from?"
Who? Who had given him all these demon tokens? Who had told him that with these, his master might come back to life?
The brilliant mage tried to recall, but couldn't pinpoint anyone. He'd met too many people.
Too many to suspect one as a demon lackey—
"Ah."
Then, a dying gasp escaped. Maybe...
"I don't know. Can't pinpoint it."
"What? Hey, think seriously. I can't find it alone again."
"There was one... no. The one who brought up the statue to me..."
"There were a shit-ton? End times."
"No, not that..."
"It wasn't one appearance." As he said it, the man's face hardened rapidly.
"Fuck."
And he muttered lowly.
"Should've known she didn't burn."
"Who the hell...?"
"There's one. The bitch who kept this damn magic running on me. Just couldn't confirm her body."
Thought she burned up in the fire. With those words, the hand embedded in his chest slid out, and Dominic's body pitched forward.
Falling into a puddle of cold rainwater, Dominic knew his life hung by a thread.
"Good work."
"..."
"Any last words?"
Last words. The ones he'd wanted to hear but never did, leaving him with regrets.
Now it was his turn.
"Master..."
Mingling tears with the blood and rain, he recalled his master's words.
—We must always beware illusions, Dominic.
—Don't get caught in vain dreams. The mind is a lantern lighting your path, but get too close and you'll burn.
"Forgive your... unworthy disciple..."
Louis pulled a wet cigarette from his pocket as he looked down at Dominic's lifeless body.
"It'll be warm there."
As he turned to leave, a frantic voice emanated from the communication orb in Dominic's ash-covered bosom.
—Big trouble, Tower Master! One student fell into Baldur's Nightmare...!
—We can't confirm inside! Warnings of anomalies keep coming from the observatory!
WEEEE-OOOOO——!!
WEEEE-OOOOO——!!
WEEEE-OOOOO——!!
I thought it was finally over, but then a siren blared louder than anything before.
Pulling the communication orb from my robe, I heard the name of the student who had fallen into the gate.
Second-year, Liv Lavre de Greenwood.
"Crazy..."
Thinking about it, even dealing with this guy wouldn't change the situation. The magic turning illusion into reality that I'd prepared was already active, wasn't it?
I hurriedly ran toward the hill jutting at the horizon's end, as mentioned in the orb.
As I pushed through the pouring rain and drew near, a mage who looked like he was from Peckda Magic Tower spotted me and shouted.
"Who are you? Where's the Tower Master!?"
"Fucked up big time and dipped."
"Pardon?"
"Can't stop that thing?"
I pointed to the black hole sucking in surrounding mists like filming a nebula's birth. At this rate, who knew what would pop out from inside.
"Out of control. And Baldur's Nightmare wasn't something you could stop in the first place!"
Well. I thought differently.
The reason I'd shattered nightmares with brute force until now was because [Magic End] couldn't destroy the phenomenon manifesting as Baldur's Nightmare itself.
On the other hand, this one before me was the aggregate of nightmares drifting across all of Bartudis. Touch it wrong, and it might shatter easily.
But with Liv's dropped bag catching my eye right at the gate's front, I couldn't recklessly use my unique magic.
If the nightmare vanished entirely, what would happen to her?
"Can't pull the person out?"
"Too risky—we'd get sucked in too. No one's tried except the Tower Master..."
"Haa..."
In the end, only one way.
"Hey."
I tossed my communication orb to the mage, who still seemed clueless.
"Evacuate everyone from the magic tower."
"Pardon?"
"Don't know what'll come out of there. Get as far as possible."
"What about you?"
Obviously.
"Gonna go get her."
When she came to, she was walking through a forest. But the barren trees with only branches left, and the crimson sky like lava poured over it, were nothing like the childhood home she remembered.
"Urk...!"
A repulsive smell rode the hot wind with ash. Experiencing something like corpse stench(?) for the first time, she collapsed and dry-heaved.
Only scant stomach acid came up. It didn't match what her friends had described at all. Too vivid for an illusion.
Steadying herself against a charred tree with one hand, someone spoke to her.
"Huh, a survivor."
Seeing the boy descend to the ground, crushing blackened fallen leaves, Liv reflexively drew her wand.
Elongated nails unthinkable on a human, half his face discolored black like a burn scar.
And a small horn sprouting from the left side of his head.
Humanity's enemy.
"Demon...!"
"Harsh. Still calling us that when we're sacrificing for humanity. You're from the Holy Kingdom, right?"
"Us...?"
"Follow me for now. Dangerous here."
Not knowing what was happening, Liv followed the boy through the forest. Pits full of monster corpses she'd never seen dotted everywhere.
Beasts, humans, demons. She'd met only one living being, yet in mere dozens of minutes, she'd encountered countless dead.
It's just a dream, just an illusion—she repeated to herself. But ominous words like 'phantom killer' kept surfacing in her mind.
What if I can't go back? Wait, where's the exit anyway?
Is this really an illusion? It's too real, no one said...
Snap.
At the sound of a branch breaking, she whipped her head up and bumped into the boy, who had halted just before rounding a winding mountain corner.
"What...?"
"Gotta check here. Where you from?"
"Pharenchia Academy..."
Stab!
Eh?
Liv looked down at the boy's elongated nail piercing her chest. He yanked it out immediately and wiped the blood from his fingers.
"Hm, Pharenchia. Relatively safe land, but some come from there too. Say hi to the Eastern folks later if you meet."
"Cough...! What... just...?"
"Simple check. Suspicious outfit, but not a doppelganger... decent fighter maybe."
He extended a normal human hand—not the one that had stabbed below her heart.
The blood spurting from the small hole soon stopped. Still holding the magic-infused hand out, the boy offered a handshake.
"Name's Kundra. Second organ of the Penheim Kingdom's royal direct unit in the Ravière 108 Alliance, scout battalion 'Skirmisher'."
"Skirmisher...?"
"Yeah. Half-human half-demon, demon traitor. Heard of us?"
Only then did Liv realize where she was. Clutching Kundra's hand around the corner, an unbelievable sight unfolded before her.
"Forgot to ask your name. Understandable. Most here die soon anyway, so we skip introductions."
"This place... no way..."
"Yep."
A towering mountain piercing the clouds, endless ranges flanking both sides.
Atop it, countless flags—most broken and burned, yet some still fluttering.
Watchtowers everywhere, beacon fires belching black smoke. Familiars and signal lines drifting in the sky.
Knight order horses grazing on the remaining green grass. Mercenaries repairing walls without armor. Mages surveying the recently burned area they'd passed.
"Welcome to humanity's final defensive line!"
Baldur's Nightmare had brought her to the heart of the Great War—the Ravière Mountains.