Chapter 350: The Tin Knight and the Kingdom of the Underground (15)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 350: The Tin Knight and the Kingdom of the Underground (15)
“Taking a child as a prize of war… You’re not entirely wrong.”
Sophia’s words could have easily been taken as an insult.
Yet, upon hearing them, the King of the Underground did not fly into a rage.
Instead, his eyes glinted with interest as he asked, “But even so, how is that to your disadvantage?”
“Is this a matter to be weighed in terms of profit and loss?”
“In my view, it is.”
The King of the Underground raised a hand and stroked his chin.
“The holy power emanating from the current god is harmful to all intelligent life other than humans. This is because that fellow Oz altered its very nature. It might be different for Geisel’s descendants, who have already mixed their blood with humans and become like the locals, but for someone like you, who possesses the body of a vampire, it is nothing short of poison. In other words, if the god of the heavens becomes the god of the underground, you will no longer have to suffer injury or pain.”
For Sophia, a vampire, to wield holy power was akin to lighting a blazing fire inside a lamp made of ice.
The ice lamp would inevitably melt from the flame, and the flame, in turn, would be diminished by the cold radiating from the ice, making it impossible to project its full heat outside the lamp.
Thus, the process of using holy power was always accompanied by pain and injury for Sophia, and the power itself was a pale shadow of what it had been when she was human.
If ‘God’ were to fall into the hands of the underground, the nature of holy power would naturally be reconfigured to favor its people. For Sophia, this was a boon that would allow her to grow stronger while avoiding pain and injury.
In that sense, the King of the Underground’s point was logically sound.
“Such things are trivial matters. At the very least, they are not reason enough for me to help or support you.”
It was a sound argument, but it was not enough to make Sophia side with the underground.
Without a shred of hesitation, she flatly rejected the King of the Underground.
“It seems you are displeased that we would use God. But why do you value ‘God’ so highly?”
The king seemed genuinely perplexed.
“In the first place, all the faith in God known on the surface was spread by the heavens for their own convenience. God is good, God is absolute. Only then could they justify their rule, serving God from the closest of proximities. You have seen the ugliness of the heavens, and you know the reality that God does not save those who have lived righteously, but is merely used as a tool. This god is not absolute, nor does it help you. Why do you offer faith and favor to such an imperfect being?”
“Quite the opposite. I can show favor precisely because God is not absolute.”
“What do you mean?”
“If God were absolute, it would mean He is aware of all the absurdities in the world and possesses the power to change them, yet chooses not to.”
Sophia answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“But if God is not an absolute being, then He is simply someone with slightly more power than others. There is no reason to hate Him. Especially if that someone is a child.”
“……”
The King of the Underground blinked, as if savoring the meaning of Sophia’s words.
If a god tolerates absurdity despite having absolute power, such a being is not worthy of respect.
If a god does not tolerate absurdity but lacks the power to change it, then that being is no longer absolute.
To put it another way:
As long as I judge the world to be absurd, an absolute and righteous god cannot exist.
Hearing her so casually place her own judgment above that of a god, an exhale—whether of admiration or sheer astonishment, it was hard to say—escaped the king’s lips.
“Religion existed even before I created a god, but if the fundamentalists of those faiths had seen you, they would have undoubtedly dragged you to the execution block in an instant.”
Sophia Hubris replied nonchalantly.
“I’ve been through it once. It was more bearable than you might think.”
It was a response that left him utterly speechless.
*
The people of the surface boarded the massive ship Franka had created, one by one.
To avoid being thrown off during the journey, most of the people went below deck, leaving only the Tin Knight’s party, the witches, and their familiars.
“Alright, let’s go.”
At Dorothea’s command, the great golden ship plunged through the gate.
Vwoooooom!
Beyond the gate lay a truly bizarre space.
A dizzying, venomous light bled from all directions like chaotically mixed paints, and their sense of direction was so warped it was impossible to tell which way was forward.
Dorothea raised her left hand, producing the birdcage.
As she tapped it with her finger, the mana flowing from the cage resonated with the Witch of the East’s mana far beyond, creating a path of black mana between them.
Amidst the chaotic scenery, Franka steered the ship along that path.
However, this vicious space would not let them proceed so easily.
All sorts of flotsam that had become lost in the rifts of space—giant rocks, collapsed ruins, uprooted trees—blocked their path.
Franka was a capable alchemist, but not a skilled helmsman. It was impossible for her to evade every obstacle.
Besides, this space was both physical and conceptual. Straying from the path Dorothea had created carried the great risk of being flung off into some unknown place.
Therefore, the party resorted to a simple solution.
CRASH! BOOM! CRUNCH!
Positioned at the very front of the ship, on the figurehead, Algind unleashed a torrent of spells from her fingertips, literally pulverizing every obstacle in their way.
She would heat a massive boulder until it was scorching hot, then shatter it with a sudden blast of cold. She mixed sand into her wind magic to maximize its abrasive power.
Algind's magic was supremely destructive, yet brutally efficient. With every spell, she demonstrated why Wizards were considered the most combat-specialized of the four great schools.
Creek, creeeak!
The various objects in the mysterious space groaned.
It was an extremely unstable dimension where even the laws of physics were whimsical. The air would sometimes ignite like fire, exert dozens of times the normal pressure, and even distort the flow of time.
Yet, not a single passenger on the ship was harmed.
The enchantments Gale had placed on each individual and the ship itself perfectly nullified all the damage.
They continued on like this for some time.
A colossal wall made of emerald appeared before them.
No, it was less a wall and more a mountain.
The sheer thickness of the emerald they had to break through looked to be easily a hundred times the length of the ship.
There was no way to circumvent it; looking left, right, up, or down, the emerald barrier stretched on without end.
The part of the barrier corresponding to the ‘path’ to the Witch of the East was open like a tunnel, but it was far too narrow for the ship to pass through.
Just as Algind was about to request mana support from Dorothea, and the Tin Knight and Adel drew their swords to shatter the wall and widen the path, it happened.
CRUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE!
With a deafening roar, something began approaching them from the other side of the tunnel.
What finally emerged was a massive serpent made of shadow and mist.
The aura and presence it exuded were truly terrifying, but the black serpent didn't attack. It merely glanced at them as it slithered past.
As the serpent passed, it ground away the inside of the emerald mountain. The tunnel, once barely wide enough for a single person, was now large enough for the ship to pass through.
The emerald tried to regenerate and close the hole, just as it had in the City of Scales, but a powerful surge of mana and curses flowing from the other side melted the emerald, preventing the tunnel from shrinking.
Seeing this, Franka muttered, looking sickened.
“…The one who smashed through that with their own body is one thing, but the one forcibly holding it open is just as much of a monster.”
Gale nodded in admiration.
“I agree. I think I understand why my master said she was even more frightening than herself.”
Even to the disciples of the Witches of the West and North, the Witch of the East seemed to be a cut above.
However, Algind’s face, though doll-like and expressionless, held a strangely bitter look.
It wasn't jealousy.
It was closer to worry or concern.
“…Even for her, this seems like too much of a strain.”
Algind had not missed the considerable number of wounds on the black serpent’s body as it passed them.
If her eyes didn't deceive her, those were injuries sustained from forcing its way through the emerald wall.
The black serpent, the prime minister of the underground, was more adept at traversing the realms between the surface and the underground than anyone else.
It was possible he had expended some energy fighting the Witch of the East, but even so, for a being of his stature to be so wounded merely from ‘traveling’ was telling. It was impossible that forcibly punching a hole through the barrier between the surface and the underground, and then maintaining it, could be an easy task.
Moreover, this kind of spatial interference was far from a Necromancer’s specialty, which meant the expenditure of power had to be immense.
Suddenly, an ominous hypothesis surfaced in Algind’s mind.
But voicing it would change nothing.
Like it or not, if the Witch of the East didn't maintain the path, it was impossible for them to return to the surface.
All she could do was dismiss the thought as a baseless fear and navigate the emerald tunnel as quickly as possible.
Onward, onward, they pressed on.
────
For a fleeting moment, the black energy holding back the emerald walls of the tunnel wavered.
It was such a subtle change that most didn't notice it, but Dorothea, who wielded the same necromancy, caught it.
“…Master?”