Chapter 362 : What Must Be Done (5)

That night, after Alon had spoken for over three long hours at the meeting.

“Whew—”

“Are you all right, my lord?”

“Yes.”

At Evan’s concern, Alon nodded.

Though his eyes were sunken with fatigue.

“Did you finish what you set out to do?”

“Well, more or less.”

“Hmm—well, no one in their right mind would dare ignore the Marquis when he speaks.”

“Is that so?”

The one who answered wasn’t Evan, but Basiliora, who slipped out from the ring.

[Hmph, those fools were just flailing around with no clue what to do. Of course they’d listen to you.]

“They seemed hesitant enough, though.”

[Humans are greedy by nature. They’ll do anything to avoid loss. It’s to be expected. That friend of yours—the queen—is the only one with half a brain. The rest are idiots.]

Basiliora clicked his tongue as he insulted the kings.

Alon agreed with his words, yet he still understood their position.

The world might be on the verge of destruction, but they were still kings—leaders of their nations.

It was only natural for them to consider the aftermath.

‘Though, if the world perishes, all of that will be meaningless.’

As Alon thought to himself, Evan spoke up.

“By the way, my lord, just out of curiosity—do you really need the kings’ help?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, most of the main forces in the Allied Kingdoms are the kind that come when you call, right?”

“The soldiers don’t, do they?”

“Do we really need soldiers?”

Evan added skeptically, “From what I saw earlier, it looked like any ordinary soldier would just be slaughtered in a single strike…”

Alon nodded.

He wasn’t wrong.

When it came to fighting the Sins, what mattered most was overwhelming individual power.

Ordinary soldiers were more likely to become a liability than an asset.

And yet, despite knowing that—

Alon had still attended the meeting to rally troops.

The reason was simple.

This time, the Sin they faced was Wrath.

“They’re necessary.”

“...Really?”

“Yes. Especially this time.”

Alon spoke as he recalled the nature of the Sin of Wrath.

“Oh, and have you spread the word?”

“You mean to the others? I’ve already informed the entire Information Guild. Just in case, I asked Magrina to contact Historia and Ryanga as well.”

At that report, Alon nodded and murmured quietly.

“Let’s hope they all gather in time.”

What he had tasked Evan with was summoning all the major forces.

To win against this Sin, they needed as much strength as possible.

Alon suddenly remembered the scene he’d seen in the conference hall earlier.

Ashtalon, reduced to a complete hellscape.

The devastation was horrific even in his eyes, yet there was one small relief.

‘If only it stays that way.’

From what Alon knew—

Once the Sin of Wrath was fully awakened, it would begin tearing through kingdoms, slaughtering humans, and piling their bodies into mountains.

And those mountains of corpses would, in turn, strengthen Wrath’s power.

In other words, the more corpses it amassed, the stronger it became.

That was why Alon felt a faint sense of relief knowing Wrath had stopped after destroying Ashtalon.

Even so, he couldn’t help but wonder why.

He knew the Sins didn’t always act the same way.

But unlike Sloth—

Wrath benefited the most from constant movement and destruction.

The mountains he built were his source of power.

When Alon first heard of Ashtalon’s fall, he had let out a hollow laugh.

If Wrath truly acted with that kind of absurd speed from here on out—

It would be nearly impossible for Alon to stop him.

Yet after destroying Ashtalon mere hours after manifesting—

Wrath had shown no further movement.

As if saying, “This is enough.”

Or perhaps believing that it really was.

That, to Alon, was utterly baffling.

The other Sins had acted differently from his expectations as well.

But Wrath was the hardest to comprehend of them all.

Unlike the others, whose silence could still be rationalized—

Wrath’s very nature was to move, to destroy, to burn the world to ashes once it was ready.

And yet, it was quiet.

Alon shook his head after a while.

For now, he couldn’t understand why Wrath behaved that way.

Nor could he understand why Eliban had become a Sin in the first place.

Alon thought of Eliban.

What still came to his mind was that bright, cheerful smile.

But the Eliban he’d seen through the magic orb...

Even after hearing the reports, Alon had inwardly refused to believe Eliban had turned into a Sin.

He told himself it might just be misinformation.

After all, it was Eliban.

But the moment he saw that image reflected in the orb—

He could no longer deny it.

No matter how hard he tried to refute it, the truth was clear.

Eliban really had become one of the Sins.

‘...Why?’

Alon hadn’t spent much time with him.

They’d met only a handful of times over the past few years.

Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling.

Was it because Eliban was the hero of Psychedelia?

No.

Was it because he was destined to become Alon’s greatest enemy?

No.

It was because Eliban had always been the embodiment of pure good.

Alon had believed that firmly.

Unlike anyone else—

He was a hero straight out of a painting, whether in the game or in this world.

‘If I hadn’t intervened in the beginning... would everything have unfolded just like the story?’

If so...

Then this Eliban now—

Was he ultimately something Alon himself had created?

“My lord?”

Evan’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

“What is it?”

“Well, uh... did something unpleasant happen?”

“What makes you say that?”

“It’s just... you were frowning really hard.”

Without realizing it, Alon reached up and touched his face.

Indeed, even he could feel that his expression had changed.

“Was I?”

“Yes, it was a face I’d never seen before either…”

Evan’s voice carried a trace of worry.

Alon let out a sigh and pressed his aching temples.

He needed to stop thinking.

He rose from his seat.

“Where are you going, my lord?”

Evan asked, his face marked with exhaustion.

He’d driven the carriage nearly sleepless just to make it to the meeting on time.

After checking Evan’s condition, Alon began to walk alone.

“I’m going to see Heinkel. Get some rest.”

He was going to discuss the plan he had set in motion.

***

The Guardian Weapon of the Illanef Empire — the Sin (罪惡)

Once again, Rine entered the Forbidden Section of the Eternal Library.

She frowned, unable to make sense of what she was reading.

Up until now, she had gathered her knowledge about the Sins from forbidden tomes.

There were still countless mysteries left unsolved, but she had nevertheless learned much.

However, the content written in the book she had just discovered—just two short lines—completely contradicted everything she’d learned from the Eternal Library.

“The one who gave birth to the Sins was the Sleeper.”

Rine knew almost nothing about the Sleeper.

All she knew was that he had once been a True Mage.

She didn’t even know how long that being had existed.

And yet, even with so little information—

The statement that “the Sleeper created the Sins” was enough to throw all her prior knowledge into question.

‘Could there be falsehoods within the Eternal Library?’

She shook her head immediately.

Everything recorded in the Eternal Library was truth.

Falsehood could not exist here by definition.

Which meant that both pieces of knowledge Rine possessed were true.

She sat there for a while, lost in confusion.

When she finally calmed her mind, she began reading again.

Then—

“...Ah.”

A quiet exhale escaped her lips, as though she had finally understood.

The book she held wasn’t long, yet it contained enough to dispel her doubts.

To summarize—

“The Illanef Empire created the Sins, but never used them.”

That was the answer.

The Illanef Empire had indeed created the Sins, but they were never deployed.

Instead, the creations eventually fell into the hands of the Sleeper, who awakened them.

Having resolved the contradiction, Rine kept reading.

There wasn’t much left, but she pressed on carefully, absorbing every word.

She learned more—this time, about the strength of the Sins.

As expected of the empire that had forged Pluto, a weapon Rine herself could barely control—

When a Sin fully merged with its ideal vessel, becoming a complete manifestation, its power was beyond her imagination.

For a moment, she wondered if Pluto could handle such an entity.

But she quickly shook her head.

She could barely control Pluto herself.

She had never even seen a perfect manifestation of a Sin.

So she couldn’t possibly gauge its strength.

Still, she suspected—

That even Pluto would fail to stop it.

After all, the Illanef Empire had been destroyed by the Sins.

'Pluto failed to stop the Sin…'

Rine muttered unconsciously.

She still knew little about Pluto.

She could summon it, yes—but she didn’t yet understand how to wield it.

Her knowledge was scattered like fragments, impossible to assemble completely.

Yet, even as she made that grim assumption, she found it difficult to accept.

She could sense the immense power Pluto held.

‘Of course, that’s assuming the Empire had mastered it completely…’

Still, if the Sins truly achieved perfect unison as the text described—perhaps even Pluto would have struggled.

“Hm…?”

As she pondered this, Rine suddenly felt a strange sense of wrongness.

Like an itch at the back of her mind—something she should have noticed but hadn’t.

An uncomfortable prick, like a tiny thorn in her throat.

No matter how hard she tried to recall it, the thought wouldn’t come.

So she shrugged it off and kept reading.

Finally, she reached the end of the book.

Yet there wasn’t much more to gain.

Oddly enough, though the book claimed to describe the origin of the Sins, it never explained why they were created.

All she could infer was one peculiar statement:

'The Sins were created for delay.'

That was all.

Other than that, the only notable line lay at the very end of the text:

'The Sins were never used until the fall of the Illanef Empire.'

As she reviewed that final statement, confusion filled Rine’s mind again.

That faint feeling of déjà vu from before grew stronger—unpleasantly so.

And when she stared blankly at the sentence, turning it over in her mind—

“...!”

She suddenly realized what that feeling was.

Her mind clicked into place.

‘The Sins were never used until the Empire’s end… Then that means—’

The Illanef Empire wasn’t destroyed by the Sins.

Rine’s eyes widened.

Her expression was now filled with even deeper confusion.

She understood more now—yet one new, troubling question had emerged.

From what she knew, the Illanef Empire had indeed been destroyed by an enemy.

That was the truth recorded in the Library.

But she had never thought much about it before.

She had always assumed that “enemy” referred to the Sins.

However, if the Sins had never been used before the Empire’s fall—

Then who, exactly, destroyed the Illanef Empire that had created both Pluto and the Sins?

Rine fell silent, lost in thought.