The Burden of Knowing the Future
To put the result of our duel simply: it was an utter defeat.
Even though I managed to manifest Blood Qi, hers sucked up my own bloody mist like a sponge, swelling into an even greater monstrosity. In a last-ditch effort, I circulated my internal qi, but it didn't change a thing. In the end, I was soundly beaten.
Well, it was the expected outcome anyway. Still, I hadn't walked away empty-handed, so it wasn't a total loss. Blood Qi, acquired by taking Ellen's blade directly with my own flesh—just imagining the possibilities proved it was a skill with boundless utility.
Ah, for the record, Ellen's reaction the moment I unleashed it had been priceless.
"You crazy bastard."
Short, crude, and straight to the point.
Her gaze had chilled into the kind of look reserved for witnessing an untouchable, borderline terrifying freak of nature. Not that I had any intention of denying it. Naturally, wondering if there were any more skills I could siphon off her, I attempted to activate it once more.
"Urgh—!"
A splitting headache tore through my skull, and the activation canceled itself on the spot. I hadn't figured out the exact requirements yet, but it seemed the ability had an internal cooldown.
"Crazy bastard. You'd better buy me a proper meal later."
"See you around~!"
"We'll be taking our leave then."
"A talented young lad is always welcome in our books~!"
Only after finishing a spar with each member of Party Knight was I finally able to gauge my own standing. At a generous estimate, low B-rank; conservatively, somewhere around mid C-rank. Watching them move, I realized pitting them against Yeong So-so would make for a pretty entertaining spectacle. I made a mental note to set up a match when the chance arose.
Time slipped by, and two days later.
"Ah—we've finally arrived at the place reeking of blood!"
Following the route the receptionist had detailed, a dungeon unlike Labyrinthos revealed itself before us. Since it hadn't appeared anywhere in the original game, this was going to be a completely blind playthrough with zero data.
Normally, a dungeon's name provided a hint regarding its nature. In the case of Labyrinthos, it drew from the myth of the subterranean maze, which explained why the Minotaur had been its boss. As for the dungeon standing before us now, its foundation was likely...
"Witches will show up. And rather troublesome ones at that."
Absolute one-trick ponies of monsters: insanely proficient in slinging high-tier magic, but laughably pathetic in hand-to-hand combat. Normally, modern people might think of witches as beings you could reason with, but in this world, the word 'witch' was strictly a designation for monsters rather than humans. Was it because of the witch hunts of the distant past? Apparently, they had held an official designation before that era, but whatever.
Equipped with our magical artifacts, we touched the dungeon's entrance. Enveloped in a brilliant wash of pure white light, we stepped into the depths.
CRACK—!
A savage kick shattered a massive section of the Round Table into kindling.
Gathered once again after their inaugural assembly, the knights of the Round Table filled the grand hall. Among them, Mordred of 'Betrayal' appeared considerably subdued after what had transpired, yet her volatile temper had not dulled in the slightest.
"U-Um... Senior... A-Are you feeling all right...?"
"Get the fuck out of my sight this instant, or I'll slaughter you."
"Hiiiek—!"
The petite knight shrank back in terror. Everyone else in the room had deliberately given Mordred a wide berth, but true to her title of 'Devotion', she had attempted to show kindness even to someone treated like a half-crazed outcast. Yet Mordred's mental state was at rock bottom.
The fact that she had wounded her own Lord with her very own hands had tormented her ceaselessly every waking second. Naturally, it was a shameful truth she could never confess to the other knights. Thus, the council commenced under the exact same premise as before: Not a single soul has secured His Lordship's person.
Merlin broke the silence with a single sentence.
"To cut straight to the chase, I have already secured 'His Lordship's' location."
CLACK—!
SHRRK—!
SNAP—!
The instant the words left her mouth, the dead-silent Round Table erupted into utter pandemonium. Swords, bows, shields, staves—weapons embodying their absolute convictions—snapped up simultaneously, leveling straight at Merlin.
A suffocating wall of bloodlust surged from twelve legendary figures. Their postures and radiating aura screamed a singular, unmistakable decree: Speak one more careless syllable, and your life ends where you stand.
Yet Merlin merely offered a playful crinkle of her eyes and lightly swung her staff.
Whoosh—!
The surrounded figure of Merlin dissolved into thin mist, and from several paces away, a fresh illusion materialized into flesh and bone.
Dammit. Even after decades, I still can't match that wretched magic.
Elena, bearer of the epithet 'Archmage of Illusions', gritted her teeth in silence. She had never desired such a title in the first place; it was merely the byproduct of refining similar magic solely to surpass Merlin. Yet even now, she couldn't comprehend so much as a fragment of that infuriating sorcery.
"As I have told you all along, none of you can ever kill me, you know? The only one permitted to end my life is 'His Lordship.' So please, refrain from lunging at me like dogs in heat."
"............"
Even as both 'Purity' and 'Devotion' leaked raw killing intent, Merlin carried on unperturbed.
"To get to the point. As you are well aware, I possess the humble talent to peer slightly into the 'future'... and had I simply handed over His Lordship's coordinates, it was blindingly obvious that a dreadful catastrophe would unfold. Therefore, as a special gesture, I have decided to host a little 'event' for you all."
Snap—!
With a flick of her slender fingers, an antique compass materialized before each of the twelve knights. To an untrained eye, they appeared perfectly ordinary. Yet every knight of the Round Table recognized what they were at a glance: a signpost, an arrow tuned to track down the master of Avalon.
Merlin curled her lips into a mocking smirk.
"As you have likely deduced, this compass points toward His Lordship."
"Wait a moment."
The thirteenth knight—who had remained utterly silent until now, the only one among them who had never basked in His Lordship's personal favor, and practically the sole individual who understood the structural rot currently paralyzing Avalon—spoke up.
The figure bearing the epithet of 'Truth' raised a sharp inquiry.
"To begin with, even without the guildmaster, our personnel and systems are functioning flawlessly. Why on earth must we go to such ridiculous lengths just to hunt him down?"
It was the absolute textbook voice of reason. In any standard guild, if the leader went missing, appointing a vice guildmaster or delegating authority to capable executives was the obvious course of action. However, the beings raised by Seo Juhan were diseased with an overwhelming codependency. They were like young children who had lost their mother in a crowded street.
It was a perfectly valid question, yet the murderous aura choking the hall abruptly shifted its crosshairs entirely toward 'Truth'.
Elena, answering as the representative of 'Clash', stepped forward.
"To us, the Boss is our 'parent,' our 'family,' our truest 'friend,' and our absolute 'master.' You never received His Lordship's grace, so perhaps your tiny mind can't comprehend that. Yes, that's understandable."
A suffocating haze of purple mana began to boil around Elena's frame. The moment that terrifying energy reached its zenith, her voice turned glacial.
"Yet you dare sit in a seat created by the Boss and let such filth spill from your mouth?"
"Your sentence is death."
Elena has activated Reality Manipulation (SSS).
The moment the violet magic enveloped 'Truth', the fabric of local space violently twisted.
CRUNCH—!
SKRRRKT—!
CRACK—!
Without having the chance to utter even a dying scream, 'Truth'—or rather, the entity that had once been 'Truth'—was erased from the world down to the very concept of their existence.
"Aha, looks like this 'Truth' wasn't worthy of the seat either~!"
"Seriously~! That's why I told you we should keep the seat vacant until Master comes back! It's such a pain mopping up blood all the time..."
'Wrath' and 'Pride' chimed in with cheerful, innocent voices, stomping their boots over the faded scorch marks where the corpse had been.
Paying no heed whatsoever to the execution that had just transpired, Merlin seamlessly picked up her train of thought.
"First, my sincere gratitude to 'Clash' for saving me the trouble of dirtying my hands... To elaborate on the rules, I have enchanted these compasses to self-destruct in precisely one week."
Merlin casually twirled a compass around her index finger, pacing around the shattered Round Table with obvious amusement.
"Ah, by the way, the needle will only react once you are within a hundred-meter radius of him..."
Unable to contain herself, she burst into a melodic, mocking laugh.
"Pwahaha—! So, please do your best searching every corner of the world, won't you?"
BOOOM—!!
CRASH—!!
The instant Merlin finished her sentence, nine knights blasted through the grand hall by their own respective means, scattering across the empire in search of a single man. Left behind amidst the wreckage were only Merlin, Elena, and Mordred.
"Oh dear~? You two... ah, you've already met him, haven't you?"
"Fucking half-blood... How in the hell did you find that out?"
"...I will kill you."
Just as a thoroughly unhinged Mordred gripped the hilt of her colossal broadsword, Merlin raised both hands in mock surrender.
"Whoa, whoa~ I have a separate errand to entrust to the two of you, so why not hear me out first?"
Reaching into her robes, she produced a single sheet of paper.
And upon that sheet...
".........!!"
Recorded upon the surface was a gruesome scene of Seo Juhan, butchered beyond recognition. It was a photograph far too vivid, far too precise to be dismissed as a mere sketch.
Before the two could lose their minds and tear the fortress apart, Merlin dropped her bombshell.
"The Commercial City of Zavnock. Most likely, His Lordship will be murdered in that city. Well, knowing him, he'll probably find some absurd way to crawl out alive... but wouldn't it be far better if you went and saved him just in case?"
"............"
"What are you standing around for? You don't need me to feed you with a silver spoon, do you?"
Their stunned, bewildered gazes snapped toward Merlin. Yet having heard a prophecy they could never possibly ignore, they turned on their heels, desperate to calm the tempest threatening to tear their sanity apart.
"Haaah..."
Left entirely alone once more, Merlin slipped her hand back into her robes and pulled out the remaining bundle of photographs—the ones she had deliberately hidden from view.
Captured upon those surfaces were different iterations of the 'future,' each depicting him dead in a horrifying array of gruesome fates.
Indeed. Sending those two was nothing more than an emergency countermeasure to avert the single worst branch among them.
Merlin exhaled a heavy sigh. To rewrite the 'imagined' future that had already begun its inexorable descent into reality...
Snap—!
She vanished into thin air, leaving not a trace behind.