novelraw Chapter 187
Chapter 187
I nodded and said,
“Adwin, you’re still in the Underworld, right?”
Adwin replied,
[Yes. But shouldn’t I be heading back soon? Xenia’s arm is about to fall off.]
[I’m fine.]
[Huh? You can talk now, noona?]
[Try repeating this damn motion for half a day. Let’s see if you still feel fine.]
[Y-you sound really stressed.]
She really did seem that way.
I would better wrap this up and send Adwin back quickly. I said,
“Then Idria can hear my voice too, can’t she?”
As if waiting for the cue, Idria’s voice answered,
[Indeed.]
“We are hiding right now inside your shadows.”
[That sorcery is as fascinating as ever. It’s a shame Sabach couldn’t take it.]
“Should we just turn back then?”
Idria chuckled.
[I’m kidding. Get me out of here.]
“You said you can’t break the chains with your own power, right? That’s why I’m planning to go out and cut them myself.”
[If it’s you, it should be possible. Is there anything you need me to do?]
“We could move to the entrance through the shadows like before… but I can’t leave Adwin in the Underworld too long. So, use your spatial power to teleport us instead.”
[Do you trust me that much? What if I open the portal above a sea of lava or in the middle of the ocean?]
“Sorry, but even if we were dropped in any hellish place, everyone in this group could survive just fine. The only thing you would lose is my trust, and that wouldn’t do you any good.”
[Heh. Understood.]
Good. Time to finish this.
I turned to Offense.
“Release the sorcery.”
“Are you sure Aktion isn’t around?”
“Adwin is watching through Idria’s vision, and Mime A is scouting from above. No one nearby. It’s clear.”
“All right. I will release it now.”
Swish.
In the next instant, we rose up from the shadows.
The first thing we saw were Idria and her fingers.
Last time, we had been viewing through Idria’s eyes, so I hadn’t been able to tell what kind of shape she was actually in.
But now I could see clearly.
“What happened to you?”
Idria’s entire body was torn and cracked apart.
Black blood oozed from her skin, pooling thickly on the ground, so much that an ordinary human would have already died from blood loss.
She replied indifferently,
“I got bored waiting, so I did a bit of exercise.”
“That’s not true, Mother.”
“Be quiet.”
“You have been struggling nonstop to free us, haven’t you…”
“I said, be quiet.”
I could roughly piece it together.
Her chains were slightly different from the others’.
The ones binding her fingers were still metallic in form, translucent, but recognizable as chains.
Idria’s, however, were thicker, heavier, and worst of all, lined entirely with sharp barbs.
“So those chains punish you whenever you try to use your power or authority, don’t they?”
“Phew. Yes.”
“You could have just waited quietly for us. Why struggle so hard? Some of those wounds look recent.”
“I had to consider the possibility that you might fail. I had to make sure these children could escape somehow.”
I clicked my tongue lightly and drew my sword.
Pirensha asked,
“Can you cut it?”
“We will see soon enough.”
“P-please. Even if I don’t make it, at least my mother and the others…”
“Quiet. I need to focus.”
“Y-yes.”
Hoo…
I took a steady breath.
Then, fixing my stance, I swung down at the chains binding the four of them in one stroke.
—Ridiculously Intense Slash!
The chain links snapped one after another with crisp metallic cracks.
I sheathed my sword again.
Clang.
They all fell from midair, landing heavily on the floor.
Idria tried to steady herself, but her wounds were too deep, she staggered.
“Mother!”
“Mom!”
“I’m fine. Let’s get out of here quickly.”
Crackle.
She used her power to open a spatial rift.
Then she said to me,
“Come on. You said yourself, you would survive lava or ocean, right?”
“I did say that, but… don’t tell me you actually linked it to one of those places.”
“I’m joking. This power can’t take us straight outside the special room anyway. The inside and outside are entirely separate worlds.”
“So it only connects to the entrance?”
“Exactly. Hurry.”
With that, she leapt into the portal.
The others followed suit.
I turned to my companions.
“I get that it feels risky, but it’s fine. Let’s go.”
Everyone nodded.
Neril said,
“If you think it’s safe, then it must be. Honestly, as a mage, I’m curious about the principle behind that spatial authority too.”
And so, we jumped in.
When we emerged again, the red door of the special room was right before us.
Idria was panting heavily.
“Huff… huff…”
“You look like you just sprinted a marathon.”
“My body is in terrible shape. It’s incredibly hard to use my power inside this place.”
“I see. Then let’s get out of here fast.”
I quickly grabbed the door handle.
And pushed hard.
“…?”
But the door didn’t budge.
Offense frowned.
“What are you doing?”
“It won’t open.”
“…!”
Lisel started pacing nervously.
“M-maybe it pulls instead of pushes?”
“Do you think I would forget something that simple? It pulls from the outside and pushes from the inside.”
Still, just in case, I tried pulling it gently.
But it stayed shut.
At that instant, I knew.
“It’s locked.”
“Correct.”
A voice came from behind us.
We all turned sharply.
Crack, crack.
A shadowy figure rolled his neck as he walked toward us.
“I’m the one who locked it.”
It was a face I knew well.
Adin Press.
An old man, his face thick with greed.
But the man before us wasn’t Adin.
Batore had devoured Adin’s body and the one who had devoured Batore’s mind was…
“Aktion Oscar.”
A former member of Impelium’s party.
Aktion looked straight at me and said,
“I honestly didn’t think you would actually show up. You got some guts, huh?”
“…”
“I mean, I kind of get it. You’re trying to use Idria to boost your own fame.”
His tone was utterly relaxed from start to finish.
But the composure Aktion showed was different from the kind Kaeld used to display.
Kaeld’s calm in the past came from the so-called ‘Hero’s path.
And as long as he followed that, he believed he could become a hero.
‘But this guy is different.’
[Different how.]
‘He is not calm because he has proof or reason. He just knows.’
The absolute truth that Mide Mohan and his companions will die here today.
And I had the instinctive feeling that the statement might actually be true.
Even though no battle had yet begun, my vision was already going dark.
[Hey. Get a grip. That’s not like you.]
‘…Yeah. You’re right.’
I have never once given up whether as a mercenary or as a hero.
I spoke.
“I’m not asking to stall for time, but I am curious. You used to be part of Impelium’s party, right?”
“I was, once.”
“And Impelium killed you, right?”
“Right. That was the only way Velosian could kill him.”
“Why did you do that? Adin did it because he wanted to be a god, that much is clear, but you never struck me as the type to fall for such a petty desire.”
Aktion smiled faintly.
“Complimenting me won’t save you.”
“Don’t joke.”
“Why I betrayed Impelium, huh… That question is a bit off.”
“What?”
“I joined his party with betrayal in mind from the very beginning.”
A chill ran down my spine.
While I was chewing over his words, Neril asked,
“Did Impelium borrow money from you or something?”
“Pfft. As if. Honestly, I respect that guy’s character.”
“Then why?”
“He was trying to save humanity.”
“…?”
“That’s what I couldn’t stand. Humans aren’t worth saving.”
What kind of absurd philosophy was that?
It reminded me of the kind of embarrassing nonsense Adwin sometimes spouted.
Maybe Serein thought the same thing, because she spoke dryly.
“We have a guy like you in our party too. Difference is, he only says that as a joke, while you actually mean it.”
“There is another difference.”
“…?”
“That friend of yours probably hasn’t really experienced humanity’s ugliness and pettiness. I have… thoroughly, over and over again.”
Impelium once told me, when I congratulated him on his marriage, that I was about ten thousand years too late.
If Aktion had been one of his party members, that meant he was at least ten thousand years old too.
With that in mind, I said,
“I suppose if you have watched humans for ten thousand years…”
“Ten thousand? Who told you that?”
“…!”
“Ah, Impelium, I assume. So you are still in contact with him.”
“What do you mean? It’s not ten thousand?”
“No. I have watched humans for more than five times that.”
I couldn’t make sense of what he was saying.
‘Damn it. If only I could read his secrets directly, I wouldn’t need this stupid back-and-forth.’
[Then why are you talking with him? You really were stalling for time?]
‘No. I was digging for weaknesses. A direct fight isn’t an option.’
[You haven’t even fought yet…]
‘I don’t need to. I can feel it and it’s hopeless.’
Was even Velosian’s true self this powerful?
Then Aktion said,
“No more questions? I was willing to hear a few last words, but if not, you can all die now.”
“Batore.”
Idria spoke up.
Aktion tilted his head.
“There is someone here by that name?”
“I don’t know when this impurity called Aktion fused with you, but when you were with me, you were Batore. My child.”
“That was just an act.”
“Shut up. I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Heh.”
“Batore. Don’t let yourself be consumed by food poisoning from a rotten meal like that. Drive Aktion’s will out with your own power.”
There was a deep, desperate sincerity in Idria’s voice.
But it didn’t reach him.
Aktion, looking bored, said,
“Listen, little liar. I have been doing this for an eternity or, to be precise, for about fifty thousand years.”
“Doing what?”
“Borrowing other people’s bodies. How do you think Kaeld managed to drive out Bion’s mind and take over his body?”
That was something I hadn’t expected to hear.
Lisel gasped.
“Wait… you mean that ability was yours?”
“Exactly. The Eye of Omniscience that Adin passed to Bion came from Impelium in the first place. That brat acted like he was handing down something of his own, but he was just a medium. The only thing Adin truly passed on to Kaeld was his rotten personality. The Eye of Omniscience, the body-seizing ability, all of it was originally Impelium’s, or mine.”
Now it made sense.
When I had heard Kaeld had expelled Trail from his body, I had been puzzled.
I had assumed Adin had helped him behind the scenes, but it turned out to be Aktion’s ability all along.
“I have hopped from body to body for fifty thousand years. This time, Batore’s ability to devour corpses, just made the process easier.”
“…”
“I have no weaknesses.”
“Shut up.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if you just went back and let yourself be chained again? When Velosian wakes up, he will be hungry, and I will feed him you.”
Grit.
Idria clenched her teeth.
But I… felt exhilaration.
It took everything I had not to tremble from it.
Only Trail noticed my state and asked,
[What’s with you? You look happy.]
‘I think I just caught a tiny thread.’
[Huh? What kind of…]
‘When he said, I have no weaknesses.’
The first moment I saw Aktion, I checked above his head.
And to my surprise, there was a blood script.
– Has sinned against Mide and others (unmeasurable).
…
I was stunned.
Why the hell was my name there?
‘And at the very top, no less.’
[Huh?]
‘Aktion has committed a sin against me… whom he has never even met..’
[…What does that…]
‘Doesn’t matter right now.’
Right when I realized that blood-script existed, I zoomed in on it.
As expected from the “unmeasurable” tag, the numbers were astronomical.
I was almost despairing, wondering how to find any clue among them, but when Aktion said, “I have no weaknesses.”
And at that moment…
New names appeared among the tiny, glittering letters.
Neril Slane.
Xenia Seide.
Adwin Ayn…
Our party members’ names.
I quickly explained what I saw, then concluded,
‘You get it, right? The moment he said “I have no weaknesses,” he sinned against us in real time. That statement itself was a lie and therefore, a sin.’
[So he did lie?]
‘Exactly. Which means…’
He has a weakness after all.
TL: Hmm… would lying be considered a sin? Maybe it worked in this situation because he lied to a Hero whose fame rivals that of a god. Or maybe his existence is just so high that even something as ordinary as lying is considered as a sin. IDK.