NOVEL NEXT Chapter 40
Orthes defeated Sikton and thoroughly searched the lair of the Bacchus Cult, arriving at one conclusion.
‘Nothing?’
There was no artifact that could be considered the source of the power that controlled mana instead of magic—the power that restrained Dimedes.
‘So, that means the source of the power controlling mana is not external but within Sikton…’
Neuro, feeling a sense of alienation from that mysterious power, felt the need to uncover its identity. Though he lacked concrete logic, his accumulated intuition was rather strong.
As a result.
“Director. Let’s hire a Magic Engine Train and move all the corpses here.”
“How will we transport them to the station?”
“With our hands?”
Neuro thought about the distance between the nearest station and this rocky plain. Even with his pace, it would take half a day.
To carry dozens of corpses plus one fainted little kid over that distance?
“Well, there’s no other choice….”
Neuro recalled a phrase he had never heard since becoming the Hunters Association president on this trip.
If I say it, I must do it.
In fact, he had moved by-products after hunts many times. This time, the number was somewhat high, but if it were a regular group hunt at the association level, this level of corpses would be expected.
It was a job he was somewhat accustomed to.
Transporting humans rather than beasts was new, though. Neuro began assembling a makeshift transport device using materials and drones he took out of his bag.
“Oh. Since I have to report, I might need to take some chimera from Dimedes too. Hahaha, it would be quicker if we move them together.”
…I must do it.
*
‘This place is…’
It was an unfamiliar ceiling. Kine looked around. It was all white.
It had a similar atmosphere to the hospital where she was once hospitalized to receive a prosthetic arm.
“Oh. You’re awake?”
The chilling voice she heard just before collapsing. Kine tried to get up and escape immediately.
Clunk!
She tried to turn around hurriedly, but her legs and abdomen were already tied to the bed with restraints.
“Don’t worry. This isn’t a hospital. We found internal bleeding caused by spirit poison, applied a hemostatic agent, and performed emergency surgery.”
Realizing she couldn’t escape, Kine glared at the narrow-eyed man.
“Alright! Nice to meet you. Let me introduce myself first. For now, just call me the Head of the Divine Investigation Office.”
Divine Investigation Office. Kine repeated the name in her mind. It was transparently Blasphemia-like, as it intended to track the cult—
“I must tell you in advance, Blasphemia does not use such names. They refer to all faith as ‘superstition.’ If we were indeed Blasphemia, we would have used a title like Special Superstition Investigation Unit.”
“…What?”
Kine opened her mouth for the first time after regaining her composure.
“Hahaha. You might be thinking this: ‘Sikton and Blasphemia made a pact. Sikton betrayed the cult, and Blasphemia took care of Sikton once it had outlived its usefulness.’ Am I right?”
Choosing silence to avoid giving any clues, Kine was nodded at without hesitation by the narrow-eyed man.
“That’s right. Then you might also be thinking…”
*
“What on earth is the Celestial Bacchus doing? Why couldn’t the god whom my family has fervently believed in save anyone from that disaster?”
Kine’s body trembled.
That feeling might indeed be a chilling one. After all, it must feel like someone can read the emotions she had not yet verbalized.
“I must remind you again, I have never used any mental magic to manipulate your brain or thoughts.”
It was closely related to the narrative of the original work, so it felt similar.
“You, Kine, were disappointed in Bacchus and wished for revenge against Blasphemia and the Ten Towers that led the cult to extinction. But then, oh dear. There’s something critically lacking.”
“Who are you?”
I chose not to answer. After all, everything would be revealed when it was time to sign the contract.
“A means of revenge. Since your Divine Power is insufficient, you likely considered choosing magic, right?”
It was probably right. Originally, Kine, a former believer of Bacchus, appeared as a mage in the original work.
Not just any mage, but the purifier of the Ten Towers.
In the first part, the Mage King aimed to recover past powers through contact with the Ten Commandments. In each episode where he targeted the Ten Commandments of the towers, he met a key supporter.
Most of those supporters joined the Mage King and became part of the protagonist’s party. While allies didn’t come together every time; sometimes they betrayed and died at the end of the episode. There were not just humans, but also AI involved.
Astraphe, who was captured by the slave trader Cretone, also appeared as one of these ‘supporters’ in the episode to join the party.
One supporter per Ten Commandment. The only exception to this rule was the final enemy of Part One.
The White Nameless, in other words, Carisia.
She was consistently the protagonist’s adversary from start to finish.
Kine could be described as falling somewhere between Astraphe and Carisia. If anything, she ends up joining as a companion of the Mage King, so she’s closer to Astraphe.
In the original, she was described as a ‘young mage with both hands being left hands’ and was secretly learning magic while hiding her dream of destroying the Ten Towers.
Kine’s trait was being a mage who hated mages. Once a believer of gods, she thought she had been abandoned by the gods. The specific god she had believed in throughout her life was not appropriately described, making it quite surprising that she was a believer of Bacchus.
Due to her outstanding talent, it was ironic that she belonged to a Ten Tower she aimed to destroy, but since the Ten Towers were the places that taught the most varied and powerful magic, she suppressed her anger and honed her skills.
When the Mage King arrived, she played a decisive role in his contact with the Ten Commandments of Darkness.
When she first saw the Mage King, she thought, ‘You’re just another evil mage, but I will cooperate with you for the sake of the destruction of the even more vile Ten Towers.’ In the end, she became the Mage King’s ally and embarked on a journey with him.
In my future plans with Carisia…No. In my plans, the best case scenario would be during the clash between the protagonist, appearing in 2077, and the Ten Towers, to destroy only the Ten Commandments of White Light and vanish.
So, the balance between the protagonist and the Ten Towers must be maintained. The protagonist’s pace was too fast in the original. Even before Carisia could take serious action, the protagonist was already reaching for the Ten Commandments of White Light.
If we could reduce the number of people who were originally meant to assist the protagonist even a little, the pace would slow down.
*
Kine felt her body tremble.
Desperately, she repeated to herself that the emotion she was feeling now was ‘anger,’ but she knew better than anyone that it wasn’t.
This was fear.
The words of the narrow-eyed man were all her thoughts.
Yet they were not yet materialized, they were still bubbling thoughts of betrayal against Sikton and resentment against Bacchus.
That narrow-eyed man understood her feelings faster than Kine did.
Kine began to wonder if her current thoughts were indeed ‘her own’ invention.
Perhaps that man had planted such thoughts in her.
What was truly terrifying was the emotion that began to rise, indifferent to all of that, the desire for revenge against the Ten Towers.
Even if that human sought to utilize her emotions of anger and resentment as some kind of tool, as long as she could take revenge on the Ten Towers, she felt willing to accept it.
While standing beside the adults of the Bacchus Cult, if she hadn’t learned how to observe her emotions over their shoulders…
“Let me correct a few facts for you.”
Ignoring Kine’s fear, the man continued to speak. For some reason, she couldn’t take her eyes off those unwholesomely shining narrow eyes.
“First, we don’t yet know who is behind Sikton. It probably isn’t Blasphemia. A few days ago, I checked the Blasphemia database, and they were not paying much attention to you.”
“…”
Kine, silent, garnered a deeper smile from the man.
“Of course. We are not either. We went over to explore a missing employee.”
“Employee? You mean a company?”
“Yes, Kine. We suspect there is a third force connected with Sikton.”
The narrow-eyed man mumbled something like, ‘I mean not we but rather I’ that didn’t quite reach her ears. Only the question of ‘why’ filled her mind.
Why had he materialized her anger and resentment, only to inform her that it wasn’t so?
Why had he revealed the truth instead of burying it in darkness?
“Let’s return to the topic of magic, Kine. We are willing to offer our full support if you wish to learn magic.”
“Uh… why?”
“Of course, it’s because you have talent. You would need to learn how to conceal your Divine Power or abandon your faith, but you have the talent. It is talent enough to catch the attention of even the Ten Towers.”
Snap. Orthes snapped his fingers.
An image projected onto the white walls of the room. It showed people encased in capsules. They were all people Kine knew.
“You have innate talent in the realm of darkness, especially in necromancy. You might even be able to bring back the souls of those people currently in a state of brain death.”
That struck deep into Kine’s heart, where resentment and anger were like seeds, and blooming there was the desire for vengeance.
Yet, as she examined the soil where those seeds took root, it was sorrow.
A sorrow deeply rooted in wanting to see the lost people again. A more primal emotion than mere anger.
*
‘Kine realized that there was such sorrow within her, only after fighting the Tower of Darkness.’
But it shouldn’t be like that. She must clear up any misunderstandings before her misguided anger turns toward Hydra Corporation. If she harbored any vengeful feelings against our company and met the protagonist, it would spell disaster.
I hope our corporate scholarship students overflow with pride and self-esteem towards Hydra Corporation.
Full of love for the company, I want them to shout, “When I grow up, I want to join Hydra Corporation!” while being scolded by Carisia…
No. I hope a capable successor will be born who will assist Carisia.
I reached out my hand to Kine.
*
“Complete resurrection is nearly impossible.”
“But don’t you want to see them once more?”
“Don’t you want to say a final goodbye?”
Kine shed tears. And she realized why the narrow-eyed man had evoked her desire for revenge, then scattered it.
It was to put a leash on her.
The name of that leash was Hope. The hope that she could comfort her sorrow by meeting them again.
“…to meet everyone again…”
She looked at the outstretched hand. Grabbing that hand meant selling her future to him. Yet, she couldn’t refrain from doing so.
She couldn’t possibly ignore the sorrow filled within her.
“Don’t you want power?”
Kine grasped Orthes’s hand.
She accepted the leash.