Chapter 122
Chapter 122
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 122
Chapter Title: Kiran Wolf Blado
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“Kirran…?!”
Seeing Kasena blinking in disbelief, I took another look at the young man’s face.
Huh, this guy…
Wasn’t he the young wolf I’d seen at the executive meeting earlier? The one who said he’d spotted Kasena at the family council…
“Kirran, the real Kirran?”
“I’m just as shocked. The wild girl who spent the whole family council climbing the outer walls and ruining the adults’ meeting shows up now as such a refined lady.”
Kirran flashed Kasena a grin before turning to me with a gentle, warm smile.
“We didn’t even get to introduce ourselves earlier, Rain. I’m Kirran Wolf Blado.”
Blado. The Blado Marquess house.
One of the great magic houses dominating the north, a clan that wielded blood magic as their bloodline limit to amplify magical power.
There was one more intriguing detail: the middle name ‘Wolf.’
That wasn’t just any surname—it was an honorary title bestowed only on the top graduate of the northern magic university <Winterhold>.
“I actually greeted you back at the family council too, but you ignored me…”
“Oh, that… Sorry about that. I was, well, kind of going through puberty back then.”
“No, it’s fine. You were really young, so it’s understandable.”
I heard later that Kirran had first met five-year-old Kasena at the family council when they were around our age.
While the adults were in meetings, she’d been so rowdy that they’d put Kirran in charge of babysitting her…
That’s how they’d grown as close as blood siblings, but then Kasena injured her leg, and Kirran enlisted in the White Wolf Corps, so they lost touch.
“But… you believe us? The other executives didn’t trust me earlier.”
Instead of answering, Kirran pulled something from his bosom.
In the darkness, it cast an inscrutable black glow that illuminated the surroundings—the divine relic of the gods… a pair of black sheep horns.
As Kasena and I exchanged dumbfounded looks, Kirran smirked.
“With this, who could say you’re not from the Page house?”
“……!”
“But a matching pair with Kasena? Did you two get engaged while I wasn’t looking? Stealing the empire’s top beauty—impressive skills, Rain.”
An awkward silence fell for a moment.
Explaining the story behind it would take forever, but somehow I’d have to sum it up.
“If Chancellor Madelia acknowledges him as a son-in-law, he must be one hell of a mage, right?”
“No, it’s not like that! It was just… I felt bad for Rain, so I gave it to him! Yeah!”
Watching Kasena yell her denial of the engagement rumor, it was clear she still didn’t like me much.
Since she’d denied it for me, I didn’t need to chime in. This wasn’t the time for trivial topics anyway—there were more important things to discuss.
In my urgency mixed with relief, I pressed my face close to the iron bars and asked,
“But what did you just say? Alakish is alive?”
“Yeah, three survivors spotted Lord Alakish heading west in dragon form.”
A sigh of relief escaped me, and my strength drained from my body all at once. I slid down to my knees.
He’s alive…
Alakish is alive…
Why he’d gone west instead of the barrier was a mystery, but if he’d judged it best to protect Rabenfel from that monster, it wasn’t incomprehensible.
“Now it’s my turn to ask. No, honestly, I want to let you go right away given how urgent this is, but I need to confirm something first.”
“……?”
“What did you do to the Supreme Commander? I know you didn’t mean harm. But when you used your power, I heard a strange voice.”
“You heard it too, Kirran?”
“Of course. The other executives must have low mana sensitivity—they didn’t hear it…”
To avoid repeating my earlier mistake, I calmly explained the hypothesis I’d formed from my experience in Harvadoria.
Something was clearly scheming against the humans and beastkin… And what I’d exorcised earlier was a 5-star Possession Spirit.
Kirran listened intently without needing Kasena to chime in, then finally furrowed his brow.
“So my suspicions were right after all…”
“That means if we leave things as they are, we’ll play right into their plans. We have to open the barrier gate somehow.”
“If the beastkin are heading to the vanguard base like you said, the closest gate from there is…”
Kirran nodded toward the side, and another wolf came running up, unlocking the prison door with a key.
“It’s urgent, so let’s talk on the move. Alphonse, free their hands too.”
The plan was advancing so rapidly into unknown territory that I could only blink in surprise, but Kirran handed me the dragon egg basket and black sheep horns now that my hands were free.
“The fact that Lord Alakish entrusted you with this proves he trusts you. So I can trust you too.”
“……?”
“Truth is, I’d been thinking the same thing as you. You just confirmed it for me.”
“What do you mean, Kirran?”
“The current Supreme Commander was actually friendly toward beastkin before being elected. No—looking at barrier history, most Supreme Commanders were.”
“……!”
“But the moment they’re elected, they turn aggressively hostile… No one really questioned it. They just figured they’d learned the harsh reality.”
Most Supreme Commanders…?
My mind went ice-cold before he even finished.
“That’s it. The spirit exorcist did it—no doubt.”
“Yeah, I was thinking the same.”
“So what are you planning now? Why release us all of a sudden?”
“I’m sending you west.”
“West?”
As we followed him out of the prison, two wolves on watch nodded to Kirran.
The three prison guards were unconscious in the corner, bound mouth and body with ropes.
The barrier bathed in twilight glowed golden, casting an eerie light over the world—and a strange unease welled up in me.
‘Twilight already…?’
How much time had passed? Probably just half a day. It couldn’t have been more. It shouldn’t have been.
As that thought crossed my mind, Kirran cast a fog veil with magic and led us past the guards to a stone archway on the opposite side.
It led to an underground passage. The lead wolf grabbed a lantern from the outer wall and opened a massive oak door.
“It’s an underground route to the west. You can reach the West Gate. It’s interrupted midway by the silver shell, so you’ll have to surface once.”
The passage was so wide it hardly felt underground, and the regularly hung lanterns made it bright.
At the basement entrance waited five more wolves, along with ten ponies suited for tight spaces.
Still unable to grasp the situation, I could only stare at Kirran as he entered last, firmly shut the door, and barred it.
“No need to be surprised. Even among the white wolves, there are those who think like you. More wolves have been helped by beastkin than you’d think.”
Muttering that, Kirran mounted a pony with a sad smile.
“I’m one of them.”
Kasena, who’d climbed into her saddle with my help, took interest in his demeanor.
“What happened?”
“It was when I was nineteen. On my first patrol, I got caught in a fierce blizzard and separated from the main unit.”
“And? What happened then?”
“A beastkin warrior helped me back to the barrier. A polar bear beastkin—kind, strong, and fun guy.”
As I stepped into the stirrup and mounted my pony while listening to Kasena and Kirran’s conversation, I froze and looked up.
Polar bear?
A polar bear beastkin?
Suddenly, I recalled the one-eyed polar bear Opus, venting his rage about how the wolf his son had helped had killed him.
“But the senior wolf who opened the gate for me suddenly stabbed the beastkin in the throat. Said he’d tricked me to get inside the barrier. When I called him out, he told me to be grateful instead.”
Kasena and I exchanged blank looks, then turned that gaze to Kirran. He shook his head, signaling us to stay silent.
“This could be atonement for that day… Or in the long run, a way to uphold the wolves’ honor. If we let unknown bastards play us, what’ll history say?”
“……!”
“Let’s head to the West Gate. It’s lightly guarded—only 150 troops and three executives. Close to the vanguard base. Bring the beastkin there. We’ll open the gate for you.”
* * *
The white young lord Shar’kas stepped barefoot through the snowfield, gazing indifferently at the unfamiliar structure.
Hmm, so this is the <Frostwall>…
The Creator God’s minions dare build such a pathetic thing on the king’s territory.
‘According to the extracted memories, the keys to breaking the seal fled beyond this wall…’
Even the Awakened Queen of Time pursued those brats… And Karenden intervened there.
For the new Millennial Kingdom, I must capture those human whelps and peer into their souls.
‘But this blocks the path.’
The moment he touched the ice wall of the <Frostwall>,
A faint glimmer flickered from the outer wall, then converged into a fierce flash and exploded—Shar’kas’s eyes widened.
His left arm was suddenly severed, incinerated to ash in the light’s center, scattering meaninglessly into the air.
‘What…?’
In that instant, if his spider threads hadn’t sliced off his left shoulder, the light might have spread like deadly venom through his body.
As Shar’kas checked his condition, his brow unusually furrowed.
‘Ultra-rapid regeneration isn’t happening.’
Chilling spider threads erupted from the stump of his left arm.
They swiftly wove new flesh up to the elbow, but struggled beyond that.
Ultra-rapid regeneration—the eternal authority granted by the Abyss Lord to abyss transcendents. A power this strongly resistant to it…
‘Karenden’s power? No, Tersia? Annoying either way.’
He felt no attachment to the arm.
He’d had to remake it after a fatal wound from the Asura avatar anyway. It’d regrow fully in a week.
‘You insolent fools, thinking to contain the king’s power with mere such a wall?’
Hmph, pointless… Building this wall proves they’re out of strength now. Or they’ve left this world.
I’ll tear it down soon—after reforming the king’s army. Recruits abound in this land.
The wench swinging that pathetic holy sword was named Enuel, was it? The descendants of those who invaded the king’s land following her.
“To Rabenfel.”
As Shar’kas turned, the massive transcendent body waiting like a mountain behind him bent its legs for the boy to mount comfortably.
If anyone saw it from afar, they’d surely mistake it for a red dragon.
Its scales, once fiercely ablaze like flames, now oozed with slimy spiderwebs and reeked, while its nobly gleaming golden eyes had darkened to a murky blue, exuding eerie malice.
Yes, before being devoured by the abyss, this was called Alakish.