Chapter 389 : Awakening (4)

“The First Prince killed his father and took the side of the divine-blood.”

"…What?"

At Karsem’s words, Alon went blank.

Karaan, the First Prince of Colony.

Because he knew about him, he couldn’t not know.

Up until now in this world, Carmaxes III had not died, but originally, he inevitably met his death. And then the one who became king after that was the First Prince, Karaan.

Alon recalled Karaan in Psychedelia.

In the game, his temperament was neither good nor bad.

To be a little more precise, he was closer to a tyrant than a king.

Even in the game, if something didn’t suit him, he crushed it with power.

And because of that, in the mid-to-late part, friction even arose with the player.

Even so, the reason Alon didn’t state Karaan’s temperament with certainty was—

Because unless he got entangled with some specific aspect, he wasn’t the kind of person who acted particularly sharp-edged.

'It was because of reputation… was it?'

A memory that had grown faint now.

As he tried to recall the situation where trouble had happened between game-Karaan and the player, he asked back as if to confirm.

“Is that… really true?"

“Yes. It is an undeniable fact.”

At the reply tinged with grief, Alon let out a low exclamation.

"May I ask you to explain the situation in detail?"

Alon asked politely.

Karsem let out a long sigh.

He fell silent for a while, as if debating what to say first, and then—

“It happened right after the Milky Way fell.”

In a calm voice, he laid out everything that had happened up to now.

After some time had passed.

“This is what happened.”

After hearing all of Karsem’s story, Alon let out a low hum.

"This is a bit—"

“This isn’t just the level of a shameless patricide…”

Penia and Evan’s expressions also turned grave.

Alon retraced what Karsem had conveyed.

"So right after the Milky Way fell… Karaan killed the king who returned after finishing everything?”

“Yes. As if that weren’t enough, he offered Father’s corpse as a sacrifice.”

Karsem bit down on his lip hard enough that a grinding sound seemed to come out.

Even while looking at that grief-stricken, Alon had no choice but to keep asking.

"So the one acting as king right now is Karaan’s puppet, wearing the king’s skin."

“That’s right.”

“……And the prince was locked in prison to be offered as the second sacrifice, and then............... escaped.”

“That’s right.”

"The guard must have been tight. Thankfully, you’re safe.”

“If Karaan had realized I’d reached the 4th Rank right before I was imprisoned, I probably wouldn’t have been able to escape.”

Alon nodded, absently fiddling with his own hair.

'Dead...............'

Carmaxes III had known Alon for a long time, but they weren’t that close.

Even so, it left a bitter taste in his mouth, and after a long silence, he spoke.

"I think I understand the situation in full, but is there a reason you’re hiding like this?"

“Right. If we just request cooperation from the Babaya, wouldn’t that solve it?”

Penia nodded as if agreeing with Alon’s question.

But Karsem shook his head.

“If I hadn’t known Karaan’s plan, the moment I escaped, I would have asked the Babaya for help.”

“A plan?”

Penia immediately shot back.

Karsem answered.

“The moment I inform the Babaya of this, that bastard will open a portal into the kingdom and summon the anomalous entities inside.”

"Open a portal?”

“Yes. Even though he can open a portal within the kingdom right now, he’s deliberately not doing it.”

“So, if I understood correctly— even though he could summon anomalous entities into the kingdom and smash it in one go without this war of attrition, he’s deliberately keeping this situation going?”

“Yes. But even I don’t really know the reason for that.”

Karsem lowered his head as if apologetic.

Penia frowned, unable to understand.

But Alon grasped Karaan’s intent, if only vaguely, without much difficulty.

'Because of faith.'

Fear, too, functioned as faith.

Alon knew that fact.

Because he already knew someone who had used it that way.

“If you ask for help, you’re destroyed immediately; if you don’t ask for help, you wither and wither and then you’re destroyed............. Either way is the worst.”

Evan murmured quietly at his side.

Hearing that voice, Alon sank into thought again.

At that moment, Karsem suddenly rose from his seat and—

Thud—

Dropped to his knees in front of Alon.

“Y-young master prince?”

Startled by the sudden action, Lime called out to him.

But Karsem fixed his gaze on Alon.

"Marquis, I know it’s a truly shameless request. But— could you… save Colony?"

Karsem bowed his head so deeply it looked like it might touch the ground.

Penia fell silent, and Lime’s eyes shook in confused turmoil.

As the heavy silence gradually pressed down on the room,

Alon—

"Alright."

Answered far too simply.

“......Pardon?”

A reply that even felt monotone.

As if he himself was startled by it, Karsem asked back with a bewildered expression.

"?"

"?"

"?"

And that wasn’t all.

Everyone, including Lime, stared at Alon with bewildered eyes.

"Why are you like this?"

"......"

"No…… I mean, I didn’t think you’d accept so easily—"

At Alon’s attitude, Karsem looked utterly taken aback, but—

Alon had already finished his thinking, in his own way.

“Is there any additional information I need to hear besides that?"

He asked like it was nothing.

“......Ah, yes. There are various things. But I think it will take some time to organize the information.”

“Do you also know roughly when the next battle will occur?”

“......Probably in three days.”

“Three days… Then let’s discuss again this evening.”

Leaving behind a note to meet again after a while, Alon left his seat.

In an instant.

In the room where quiet returned once again,

Lime, who had been staring blankly at the door Alon’s group—and Seolrang—had exited through,

"......Ah."

“Ah.”

Let out a low exclamation and then—

“I think I get why Seolrang would die for him.”

Muttered softly.

***

Right after she guided Alon and the others to their room.

"Master! I’m going out for a bit!"

"Got it."

“See you in a bit!”

In an instant, Seolrang slipped out beyond the fortress walls and headed to the cave in the west, and soon, without a word, she lifted up the essence of the Golden-Maned Tribe that lay deeper inside.

[....Are you planning to do it again?]

"Yeah."

The Black Dragon’s voice came the moment she lifted the essence.

[I don’t really recommend it, but.]

“Still, I’m going to.”

[Is it to protect him?]

“Yeah.”

At the answer without a hint of hesitation, the Black Dragon fell silent for a moment.

[...............Is there any reason you have to protect him?]

"What……?"

[Even if you can’t protect him, you can be more than enough of a source of strength for him. No matter how I think about it, I don’t think you need to be anxious. And besides, haven’t you already gotten strong enough?]

The Black Dragon was right.

Seolrang had already become far stronger than before.

She had passed the essence’s trials over and over, and now, the only thing left for her was the final trial.

But—

“Still not enough.”

[......Not enough?]

“Yeah. With how I am now, I can’t beat the ‘divine-blood’— that’s what you said, didn’t you?”

[From the start, it is almost impossible for a life born in this world to defeat the divine-blood.]

“Even so, I have to.”

[Why?]

This time, Seolrang fell silent.

And then she remembered.

Yutia. Rine. ...... ...Those who were even stronger than her. The people by Alon’s side.

Clench—

Seolrang didn’t answer.

Instead, she only squeezed the Golden-Maned Tribe’s essence tight.

Wooooong~!

The moment she poured mana into it, she felt her consciousness being sucked into the essence, and Seolrang steeled her will.

As she had said, after several rounds of growth, she had become far stronger than before.

And as far as she knew, if she went through the essence’s final stage—

She would become far stronger than she was now.

Because she had caught a glimpse of the ability she could obtain when she finished the last stage within the trial.

As she recalled it, Seolrang realized she was already inside the essence.

The scenery she had been seeing had changed before she knew it.

The first thing she saw was the blue night sky. The next was a crescent moon. And the last was— The grassland she had seen so many times.

"Hoo—"

Letting out a sigh, Seolrang gathered her resolve again and scattered her mana.

Dozens, Hundreds, Thousands of trials—

Seolrang, who had endured them all, knew that something would soon happen within this quiet grassland.

There were times this grassland had become a suffocating battlefield. There were times this entire place had turned into the gaping mouth of a gigantic monster.

So Seolrang tensed up, and then—

"....?"

Suddenly, she felt something was off.

No matter what, something should have happened by now.

But there was no change at all.

So while she was only briefly puzzled—

Seolrang belatedly noticed the grassland had, in fact, been changing little by little.

"A temple?"

On the grassland where there had been nothing just moments ago, a temple had appeared. Keeping her guard up, Seolrang entered the temple, and then, there—

[You’ve come, girl.]

"You are—"

She came face-to-face with a beastman.

***

Several hours later.

As Alon was moving to meet Karsem again, Penia spoke to him.

"Marquis."

“Yes?”

“It's just. Earlier, why were you like that?”

“What are you talking about?”

"Karsem’s request. Why did you accept right away?"

“......What?”

“I mean, couldn’t you have gotten this and that in return for granting the request? Like, for example, this.”

When Penia curled her fingers into a round pinch, Alon stared at her wordlessly for a moment before answering.

“Because it’s something I have to do anyway."

“Hm—”

With a face that looked like she was seriously thinking, 'Is he kind, or is he just a sucker,' Penia soon broke into a playful smile.

"Marquis."

“Yes?”

“I’ve been hit with a financial crisis lately. Could you help me out?”

"Uh—That’s a bit............."

Penia made a sound like she was disappointed.

But despite Penia’s reaction, Alon didn’t care and went down the underground stairs.

Penia went, Ehew~ and sighed.

Evan, who had been watching her quietly, said,

“You don’t get it.”

“Pardon?”

“If you’re going to ask the Marquis for something, you should’ve acted a little more pitiful. And besides, you already know from watching him for a long time that the Marquis doesn’t think about profit.”

Evan added with a tsk-tsk of his tongue.

But Penia shot back with a ‘Hah?’ kind of expression.

“What kind of bullshit is that?”

“I’m telling you a tip, is all.”

“You seriously think I did that because I actually wanted money from the Marquis?”

“Was it not?”

“It wasn’t, okay?”

Penia scolded him like, what are you even saying, and continued.

“And besides, we can gain plenty just by helping Colony anyway.”

“Why?”

“If that shameless patricide dies, Karsem will take the throne, and Karsem isn’t the type to ignore the debt the Marquis has built up.”

"......"

“On top of that, if fighting breaks out in the kingdom, there’ll definitely be people who start believing in the Marquis, so it’s absolutely not a bad thing for the Marquis.”

At her words, Evan wore a bewildered expression.

“Why did you ask something like that when you already had all that figured out?”

“You’re asking that like it’s a real question? Marquis didn’t look like he was in a good mood, so I teased him at least.”

At Penia’s sincere answer, Evan blankly stared for a moment, then with a slightly mischievous smile—

“Well, well, your love for the Marquis is just overflowing, huh? It’ll still be tough, though. He’s got some seriously strong ones on both sides.”

Even as he teased her, he prepared to run.

Because experience told him that whenever he pulled this kind of joke, Penia got angry easily.

But—

"?"

He had expected something like idiot this, moron that to come flying at him, but only silence drifted between them.

Evan tilted his head.

Because Penia, who would normally explode, was quiet.

But only for a moment.

“Shut up.”

Penia soon glared at Evan, then walked right past him—who was a few steps ahead—and went down underground.

Evan, having been hit with a profanity he hadn’t expected.

Even so, he didn’t move.

Because he had seen Penia’s face clearly with his own two eyes.

She wore her usual sullen expression, but—her face held a color different from usual.

With his mouth hanging open in a daze, Evan spat out just that one line.

"For real?"