Chapter 237
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 237
Chapter Title: Unexpected Travels
It was just a handful of light, but it was undoubtedly Aul.
-Aul!
Aul's voice reached him telepathically.
It had recognized Loan in this very space and was speaking to him.
‘So this is where you go.’
Aul always disappeared somewhere, hiding its form, until it was summoned.
When called, it would appear with footprints in the air, though sometimes the number of footprints would increase, and it would arrive late.
Aul had explained that it was because it wandered somewhere between the physical world and the demon world, sometimes venturing a bit too far.
To find the ‘door’ that would lead it to the sound of its name being called.
Now, meeting Aul here, he vaguely understood what it had meant.
Loan responded telepathically as well.
-Aul, so this was the place you went to?
Aul answered in the affirmative to Loan's question, circling around him.
Whether in the spirit world or the physical world, it didn't matter. It seemed incredibly happy just to have met Loan.
As he watched, a question suddenly occurred to Loan.
-But if you're here, what happens when I call you from very far away? No matter how long it took, you always came by the time about six footprints appeared. Were you just following me in my direction from here?
-Aul!
-Distance doesn't matter? How is that possible?
Aul said that no matter how far away, it could hear its master's voice and recognize its master. And it could instantly move to its master's location.
The time it took varied slightly depending on the distance, but from here, it was possible.
-Right… you were very far away just a moment ago, too. And you came so quickly.
The place Aul was a moment ago was roughly near the hilly region on the outskirts of the Union.
When he thought about it, it was surprising that Aul had come from there to here in an instant, but it was also surprising that Loan himself could identify a location that far away.
‘Then do I have no limits either?’
Curious, Loan expanded his gaze—or more accurately, his consciousness—further out to see what he could see and reach.
It was possible.
Seeing, passing by, confirming, and gauging, he could instantly perceive places farther and farther away.
Simultaneously, a vast amount of information and meaning began to accumulate.
He couldn't ignore it even if he tried. He couldn't choose. Everything he glanced at as he passed was perceived.
Just as he was guessing that Ollen might be around here, based on the direction and location.
Finally, his perception surpassed the capacity of his thoughts. It was no longer controllable. And then.
-Huh?
Just as Aul had.
Loan's form began to stretch out dramatically, extending toward a single vanishing point.
The halos of light filling the surroundings spread out in all directions as if connected.
Whaaaaaa— He opened his mouth to make a sound, but only his mind echoed, without any vibration.
He couldn't stop it, so he could only wonder.
Where am I going?
How far will I go?
He looked back. He couldn't even guess how far he had traveled.
His form had become nothing more than a straight, extended line.
If so, was there a destination, and what would happen if he stopped upon arriving there?
‘Can I return to my original form?’
How was Aul able to return from a distant place and regain its physical form?
In other words, that meant Loan himself had to be able to do the same.
Was it a matter of reconstructing his form, or was it moving from another world back to the physical world, or was he being summoned or manifested by some entity?
If so, what was he now?
A soul? A mental product? Or simply an intangible being?
He couldn't know, but one thing was certain.
This form was also himself.
The fact that he could think and judge so rationally, even while his consciousness was overwhelmed and he was being pulled in at an extreme speed, meant one thing.
‘It's possible because it's me.’
Even if his form had changed, the special reason that made something exist as itself…
In Loan's case, it was his brilliance!
The essence hadn't changed.
Loan examined himself, stretched out like a line.
He wondered what on earth this state was, but on the other hand, he was clearly distinct from the other lines.
Its color was vivid and pure. Its texture was distinct, and its outline was neat, without any protrusions or indentations.
It was exceptionally beautiful, and its light had depth.
His exterior was no different from his interior.
The tangible had simply become intangible; even after turning into a mass of light and then into a long, drawn-out line, his essence and ego remained unchanged.
Then, was there something added to his essence, something different? Something unlike his usual self?
Could that have acted as a variable?
It was hard to describe it precisely, but it felt as if another layer of light had been superimposed on the halo of light he saw when he looked at his usual self.
‘Perhaps this is the storm of light that changed my vessel earlier.’
If his arrival in this world was the result of sympathizing and resonating with the ‘Passage of Souls,’ then he just needed to reverse the process.
As soon as the thought occurred to him, he put it into action.
He pushed away what enveloped him and expanded it again.
As if flipping a switch on a machine, he turned the texture of his mana, which he had arranged vertically, to horizontal.
A change occurred immediately.
The world began to crumple. The grandly stretching bands of light began to condense.
In that moment, Loan.
Realized there was a very familiar halo of light at the end of the vanishing point.
The moment he realized, he was sucked in.
Simultaneously, the halo of light that was Loan returned to its original form.
Along with the body of flesh, blood, and bone. The black suit, the twelve Shevilles, the proud symbol of a Runner, and the chest full of badges.
Everything that constituted Loan himself and established his identity was the same. However.
‘Where am I…’
His vision had returned, but everything before him was blurry.
It was because of the thick steam filling the area.
A faint fragrance was carried on the humid air.
Just as his heart began to pound for some reason, a silhouette visible through the steam recognized Loan.
With a voice full of surprise and bewilderment.
“Loan?”
Sienna asked.
“Senior?”
“Why are you here…?”
It had been a long time since they had parted ways.
Sienna, who had been resting in Ferrara, was so bewildered at the sight of Loan that she forgot she was bathing.
Loan, belatedly realizing he had been staring directly at his senior's naked body for quite a while, quickly turned his head and gasped—his painstakingly composed consciousness already shattered to pieces.
The visual shock had been that immense.
In that instant.
As if sucked into a single point of void, Loan's form vanished in a flash.
“Huh?”
While Sienna stood bewildered, wondering if she had seen a ghost.
Loan's body once again became a halo of light and began to stretch out dramatically.
He was being sucked somewhere again, but he wasn't yet aware of it.
He couldn't even begin to think about assessing the situation and returning.
-Aul!
It was no use, even though Aul, following Loan as a long line of light right beside him, called out to him earnestly.
His heart was that flustered, his mind that scattered. The image of Sienna flickered before his eyes.
He tried to shake his head.
It was impossible. He was just a straight beam of light.
‘How can I face my senior now?’
Fortunately.
Worrying meant that some of his reason had returned.
His mind cleared, and he began to perceive his surroundings again.
He realized that everything around him was pure white.
It wasn't because he was being sucked into a beam of light. It meant that the physical world, the other side of this place, was in such a state.
‘If it's a place this white…’
As Loan recalled a scene from his memory and returned the now-distorted texture to its original state.
He reached the vanishing point once more and regained his form.
Suddenly, he felt a chill. He was in the middle of a blizzard. A blizzard accompanied by a black fog thick with dark mana.
Wrapping himself in Convection, he turned toward a place from which he felt a somewhat nostalgic energy.
Before Loan could recognize who it was, Aul, who had appeared in the physical world with him, reacted first.
“Aul!”
It flew off quickly, overjoyed.
There was an old man with a shaggy head of hair.
Archbishop Fabian, who was holding back the dark mana with a brilliant radiance extending from his outstretched hands, was startled by the appearance of Loan and Aul.
“What in the world….”
The people around the archbishop were just as bewildered.
Loan's sudden appearance was one thing—
But the owl that flew over, squawking fussily, and landed on the archbishop's head, and its subsequent actions, were truly shocking.
The owl began to gather the archbishop's hair to make a nest.
However.
“Ha, haha!”
Archbishop Fabian let out a hearty laugh as if he didn't care about the circumstances, finding Aul cute and welcoming.
“Is that an owl you know?”
Just as a priest, unable to contain his curiosity, asked.
“They're coming.”
Commander Hans of the Union's Stability Division, who had more questions than anyone, spoke while glaring past Loan into the black blizzard.
Following the others' gazes, Loan turned his head back to the front and suddenly recalled the information he had seen in the carrier pigeon's message.
That a city near Shiong's administrative capital, Leoder, had been annihilated, and a large number of fallen monks had appeared.
The fallen monks appear with the night fog that holds dark mana.
Loan and Aul had just dropped into the middle of a battlefield where the Orthodox Church's knightly order, led by Archbishop Fabian, and the Union's Stability Division, led by Commander Hans, were confronting them.
Appearing one by one from the darkness.
Watching the horde of fallen monks, gurgling 'Ghel-ghel' as they swung their maces, Loan thought.
‘They said it was hard to approach because of the severe cold and blizzard, but thankfully, the two of them met.’
However, the battle situation didn't look very promising.
Archbishop Fabian was pushing back the darkness with [Radiance of Authority], but if darkness was mixed into that blizzard, the battle would not go smoothly.
Glancing back, he saw the archbishop emitting light with a pious expression, and Aul, already fast asleep on his nest-like hair.
‘I don't know how long the archbishop can hold out.’
He didn't have a precise grasp of the current situation, and he might suddenly disappear again, but.
He decided he should be of help for as long as he was here.
And so.
Watching the fallen monks closing the distance one by one, he extended his Convection into the swirling winds of the blizzard.
It seemed preposterous to think that a wind of mana created by a human could stop such a powerful vortex, but.
There was enough mana. The atmosphere was full of pure mana and dark mana.
To draw it in and make it his own power, his four circles were spinning violently.
‘It's possible.’
His Convection spread far and wide, searching for the beginning of the blizzard, that intense vortex.
Weaving his Convection into the currents of the wind, strand by strand, he changed its direction. As if in anger, the wind grew even fiercer.
The fallen monks raised their maces high above their heads and swayed as if dancing.
Loan did not waver.
The pillar of mana the Governor-General had opened for him held his center firm.
Encouraged by this, he extended more strands without stopping.
And finally—
He chased the blizzard to its source, reversed the flow, and shattered the vortex to pieces.
….
It was a strange thing.
The dark fog and the blizzard had vanished in an instant, as if it had all been a lie.
“What… what just happened?”
The knights of the Orthodox Church asked, as if to themselves.
Even the fallen monks, who lacked reason but retained some intelligence, were bewildered by the change.
They looked around frantically.
The surroundings glittered in the radiance cast by the archbishop.
The moment they belatedly realized that the glittering objects were icicles, held aloft by an unseen force.
Loan swept his finger downward.
And the sharp icicles began to rain down on the fallen priests like a bombardment.