novelraw Chapter 27 : Chapter 27
Chapter 27 : Chapter 27
Chapter 27. Bruno (1)
It had already been a week since we left Akaba, the northernmost fortress city of the Durani Empire.
Rude had to walk listlessly.
‘Hah. To think I’d be returning empty-handed without any gains. What should I tell Frank?’
He could use the Magic Crystal Ball to contact Frank right away, but Rude had deliberately turned off the communication function.
It was because he didn't have the confidence to face Frank.
On the other hand, Noemi was as calm as ever.
Rude looked after her, asking if she was okay.
“We’ll have to push through the desert for a while, are you okay?”
Noemi nodded with a gentle smile.
“I’m fine. Master, you shouldn’t overdo it either.”
I couldn't tell who was the adult and who was the child.
Of course, Noemi was now 15 years old.
Although legally an adult, who would think she was 15 just by looking at her appearance?
Noemi's words continued.
“I’m sorry for not being able to tell you about Iris.”
“What for. It’s understandable.”
“But don’t worry. Iris will eventually return home.”
“If you say so, I guess so. Anyway, we came here easily riding a dragon, but the way back is the problem. Tsk.”
The dragon had long since returned to the Elburz Mountains.
Only after passing through this seemingly endless desert would the city known as the northern gateway appear.
He planned to rent a hot-air balloon or a carriage there to return to Rarc Village.
In truth, if the two of them hadn't been wizards, this would have been a challenge they couldn't have dared to attempt.
They would never have thought of crossing this hellish desert without constantly enveloping their bodies in mana and creating water balls to replenish their fluids.
‘If I were alone, I wouldn't have dared to cross this place. I’m glad Noemi is by my side.’
As I walked with such thoughts, something unusual caught my eye.
“Huh? What’s that?”
It was an unexpected pile of stones in the middle of the desert.
“Could it be?”
Rude unknowingly dashed towards the pile of stones like an arrow.
Soon, an entrance leading underground appeared along with a giant stone tower.
“To think there would be ancient ruins in a place like this!”
Rude jumped around like a child, shouting loudly.
Ancient ruins were a precious heritage of humanity.
Even just discovering them, without clearing the inside, could bring great fame.
They were so rare that only a single-digit number of them had been discovered so far.
Rude took out a notebook from his pocket and began to record the approximate direction and distance.
“It's a place you reach after walking for about a week north from Akaba, and with Akaba at my back, a small oasis is visible to the east. Okay. This should be enough for the records.”
While Rude was making a fuss, Noemi, who had approached him from behind, casually tossed out a question.
“Aren’t you going to go inside, Master?”
“Hmm?”
“If it’s a ruin that has never been discovered before, there might be incredible treasure hidden inside, don’t you think? Even if not treasure, there might be ancient magic.”
“That’s true, but.”
Despite Noemi’s suggestion.
Rude couldn’t rashly step into the ruins.
As she said, the inside of ancient ruins was like a gold mine, but it was also a place where one had to be prepared for death.
‘Only one percent of those who entered ancient ruins have returned alive. It’s the same as crawling into the mouth of a crocodile.’
Moreover, the internal structure of each ruin was different; some places had vast open spaces that made you wonder if you were really inside a ruin, while others were so narrow that just standing there was suffocating.
‘The kind of ruins I hate the most are those narrow spaces. Ugh. Just thinking about it makes me break out in a cold sweat.’
Did she notice these thoughts of mine?
Noemi smiled brightly and said that such a thing wouldn't happen.
“Actually, I already saw in my Future Foresight that we would discover this place.”
“W-what did you say?”
She really had a talent for flustering people.
“The inside is very spacious and pleasant, and there are almost no monsters, so it won’t be a great danger. Instead.”
“Instead?”
“There’s an incredible ancient grimoire hidden there, so it would be a loss not to go in.”
An incredible ancient grimoire!
As a sage, it would have been stranger if Rude wasn't tempted.
But who would have known?
That this was a blatant lie from Noemi to deceive him.
In truth, anyone would have been fooled.
Who would think that a girl with such an innocent face could utter lies?
Even after being fooled once, Rude was once again completely taken in by Noemi.
***
Meanwhile, at that time in Rarc Village.
I was lost in thought with a heavy expression.
‘Primus. He’s a guy who only appeared briefly in the intro and never once in the original game, right?’
Anonymous had explained the creation myth to me at length and emphasized the danger of Primus several times.
“You must have heard about this being called Primus. He is far too dangerous. Even I am no match for him.”
“Aren't you exaggerating too much?”
“I’m not in the mood for jokes. Even if I went at him with all my might, it would probably be nothing more than a warm-up for him.”
She shivered, saying she had fought him directly thousands of years ago.
This was the first time I had seen Anonymous like this.
Was this something like, what I thought was the final boss was actually just a mid-boss?
“Truly, a past I don’t even want to think about. I couldn’t even breathe from a single kick of his.”
“……How did you end up fighting?”
“Our ways of thinking were different.”
“How so?”
Anonymous explained with a bitter smile.
“He said he was tired of the conflict between humans and the Demon Tribe and proposed to remake this world.”
“What?”
“He said that both humans and the Demon Tribe were creations of the goddess, and that the goddess just enjoyed watching them fight from above, so we should create a new world.”
“A new world?”
“He said he would kill the goddess and become the one and only god himself. Crazy. Is that something to say to the parent who created you? I said no, and he said the time was not yet right and sealed himself away. Saying that in the distant future, when the time comes, he would change the world with his followers.”
I couldn't close my mouth.
It was a story I had never heard while playing PP.
‘Was there such a hidden setting?’
Perhaps it was a story added in a DLC I hadn't gotten around to playing.
Since there were three daughters to raise, the final boss would have naturally become stronger.
But that wasn't the end of the shock.
Suddenly, Adel burst in, panting, and said this.
“F-Father, it’s dangerous! You must flee this place immediately!”
She handed me a scrap of paper.
The paper was so small I could barely read the letters, but it contained the following.
That was an hour ago.
***
Looking at the clock, it was already close to midnight.
Soon, Bruno would storm this place to capture me.
I left Adel with instructions to guard the area around the mansion and went down to the treasury.
“I’m sure it’s in here somewhere.”
In the game, you could just click on the treasury entrance, and a list of its contents would pop up, from which you could pick the item you wanted, but this was reality.
I frantically rummaged through the items again and again.
Fortunately, the item I was looking for quickly caught my eye.
Not only did its appearance match what I had seen in the game, but it was also emitting a bluish aura in the darkness.
“Lucky! With just this, it should be fine.”
What is this, you ask?
This is a very, very special item among magic tools.
It was an item given out for free to all users after the 1.3 patch, a magic tool that could create a fake version of a person one thought of.
A device for making dummies, I guess?
Of course, it wasn't perfect, and the dummy would disappear an hour after being created.
“Thankfully, there are exactly two. I can make Noemi with one, and Iris with the other.”
This was practically a gift from the developers during the original version.
At that time, since you could only raise one daughter, it was true that users felt something was lacking.
But with this magic tool, although temporary, you could summon multiple daughters at once, making you feel like you suddenly had a large family.
“If you take a picture like this, you can create an atmosphere as if the various daughters you enjoyed in each game were all in one place.”
However, since only two magic tools were given, you could take a picture with a total of three daughters, which makes me think that the number of daughters increasing to three in the DLC might have been a foreshadowing for this.
I chuckled and thought about Bruno.
The pretext he would use to capture me was obvious.
‘He must have used the fact that Iris and Noemi are not at home right now to incite public opinion and then threatened the king.’
Other than that, I hadn't done anything to be on the kingdom's bad side.
I quickly thought of Noemi and Iris and touched the magic tools.
Then, Noemi and Iris appeared before my eyes with a pop.
“Ooh. So this is Iris.”
This was the second time I had seen Iris.
The first time was only through a monitor before coming to this world, so this was the first time seeing her in person.
Of course, the Iris in front of me wasn't the real Iris, but she was so exquisitely made that I didn't feel she was fake at all.
Red hair and eyes. A sharp, cat-like expression. Unlike Adel or Noemi, she had short bobbed hair.
However, no matter how much I spoke to her, she only smiled nonchalantly and didn't open her mouth to speak.
“Tsk. This is just like the game. Her appearance is the same, but it seems the conversation function isn't implemented.”
It was a shame, but what could I do?
For now, I was just grateful for this much.
I was about to go up with the dummies of Iris and Noemi, but I glanced around the treasury one more time.
‘That probably isn't here, right? If only I had that, I could handle things much more easily. Tsk.’
Surprisingly, there was a magic potion that could remove the curse on Frank.
As a veteran player of PP, I had accidentally discovered it during one of my numerous playthroughs, but unfortunately, the probability of it being here would converge to zero.
It was described as a grimoire for taming dragons, so even the users who found it didn't think it was the potion to break Frank's curse, but I happened to have ingested it myself and was well aware of its effect.
‘It should be buried somewhere in an ancient ruin in the desert. No. First, let's put out the urgent fire, and I'll think about that later.’
First, I needed to deal with that punk Bruno.
***
A little before Frank found the magic tools in the treasury.
Bruno was able to read the carrier pigeon's note a little later than expected.
Normally, it should have arrived about an hour ago.
Furthermore, the note was crumpled as if someone had already read it once, but that wasn't a major issue.
Frank was now like a rat in a trap.
“Huhu. The chance to get revenge on Frank has finally come.”
He burned the note in the candlelight in one go and gave orders to his subordinates.
“It's hunting time. Go and bring Frank before me at once!”
“Yes, my Lord Count!”
It had been two days since Bruno arrived near Rarc Village with the knights under the king's secret order.
He had been waiting for Alvarez's signal and was finally able to take action.
Alvarez had used the word ‘raid’ in the note, but this was no raid.
“Indeed. It's a formal procedure approved by the King.”
The reason he planned to move at night was the concern that Frank might flee if he found out in advance.
From this area, you just had to cross the mountains to reach the Demon Territory.
No matter how much power Frank had lost, since he was a man with a lot of experience visiting the Demon Territory, the possibility of him somehow surviving couldn't be ruled out.
Thus, Bruno, leading the kingdom's knights, arrived at Frank's mansion and shouted brazenly as if he were the master of this mansion.
“Sinner Frank, listen! I am Count Bruno, who has come under the order of His Majesty the King! If you surrender right now, you will not be treated harshly!”
Ugh. He had no idea how much he had wanted to say those words.
Wasn't that why he, a Count and the Finance Minister, had bothered to come all this way in person?
But what was this?
Before long, the lights inside the mansion turned on, and Frank came out with his daughters.
‘What? Not daughter, but daughters?’
According to Alvarez's report, only Adel should have been here.
But next to Frank stood not only Adel but also Iris and Noemi, side by side.
And as if they were a very harmonious family, Noemi was on Frank's left.
On his right, Iris was holding Frank's hand affectionately.