NOVEL NEXT Episode 128
Episode 128
I was alone in the room with the mission paper. To escape, I had to lure people in like a water ghost. With just this one window, I had to entice people to enter a room with all the lights out…
‘Crazy.’
I’m already tired. Can’t I just use a binding spell outside the window and pull them in with psychokinesis?
‘Now that I think about it, it doesn’t say I can’t, right?’
Heh heh heh. I waited for someone to pass by nearby while planning an evil scheme.
The reason I didn’t make noise first was because I thought there needed to be a listener for the scary story to count.
In the first place, I had no desire to mutter ghost stories alone in an empty room, and if it turned out that it wouldn’t count by myself, I might have to repeat the same story twice. Ugh, horrible. Such a situation must be prevented in advance.
‘But Scheherazade, isn’t that…? The one who showed the true taste of story cliffhangers to that bastard tyrant who had the hobby of taking in a new wife every day and killing them…!’
Ah, right. I heard the folklore is a bit different ‘here’.
I just remembered now.
In this novel, Scheherazade was none other than… the embodiment of the ‘legendary challenger’.
* * *
In fact, during her life, Scheherazade didn’t even awaken a feeble ability.
However, she achieved the miracle of gaining a unique name with just a single ‘challenge’. It’s truly unbelievable for Cassice Demillang, who still doesn’t have an alias. But it was true. She was recorded as an exalted challenger by various organizations including the World Challenge Association as the first non-awakened person, and was also recorded with a sacred name in the Vatican.
The reason was that the ‘tyrant’ from folklore who killed a new wife every day was actually not human, but a named monster. Scheherazade appeared at a time when no one knew the fact that the ‘tyrant’ was a named being. The people thought the ‘tyrant’ was just a crazy human. A mass murderer and the worst of humanity, that was the evaluation of the tyrant.
And the suspicion of a civilian without any abilities overturned all of that. In order to end the era of oppression, she single-handedly blocked the way of the named being, and only with the power of the stories she told day by day, she drew the interest of the named being and recorded all their characteristics.
She provided humanity with the next moment of stalemate.
Also, with that information, she deduced how great the emotion of ‘interest’ was to the tyrant, and realized that only she could make the named being endure the daily emptiness, leaving a diary stating that she went out for the final challenge.
That is the last record left by Scheherazade during her lifetime.
Scheherazade had no abilities. So naturally, she could not kill the named monster. Instead, Scheherazade could become the only comfort and rest for the monster. Betrayal can only happen where there is trust. So Scheherazade became the most trustworthy person.
And she betrayed.
“How could you…!”
Scheherazade’s betrayal was a simple assassination attempt. Of course, her blade couldn’t even graze the named being’s skin. But that act itself was Scheherazade’s victory. The only comfort, rest, and trusted love of the named being tried to kill them. Even without that, could the race called ‘named beings’ who said they wanted to destroy humanity and then vanish continue to endure wearing a human facade? No! There’s no way. Scheherazade knew that her attempting to kill the tyrant was the only way to cleverly and cunningly expose the identity of the named being hidden in human society to the world.
“Now, this is the end of my life!”
With these last words, Scheherazade slit her throat and committed suicide in front of the bastard who had caught and killed all the women in the village. Her writings stated that she didn’t want to give even the last moments of her life to the monster.
On the other hand, the tyrant whose identity as a named being was exposed fought a defensive battle with the palace as the center, and was destroyed at the end of the desperate challenge by challengers who cooperated out of a sense of justice. However, a few strange points were that even though the tyrant was so enraged by Scheherazade’s betrayal, he tried to protect only Scheherazade’s palace until the end. To the point of willingly walking the path of destruction because he hated seeing the palace crumble.
Inside the palace, Scheherazade’s corpse was preserved in a very beautiful glass coffin.
…Perhaps, even though Scheherazade betrayed him, the tyrant could not kill her. That may be why Scheherazade chose death herself… I don’t know. Unless you lived in the same era, you can’t know. That’s how history is. But at least we can know what her life achieved.
The first and last challenge set up by the ‘storyteller who weaved the stars’ created the first stepping stone to bring down the named monster ‘tyrant’.
…According to rough estimates, the number of humans directly killed by
Scheherazade ended the era of slaughter.
She was truly a challenger.
* * *
‘If I had a legend like this, I would have long become the clan head. Without struggling as a nobody.’
Of course, Scheherazade herself is a legend. But Cassice Demillang was also freaking awesome in this novel. Ah, before I possessed this body, I should have created a legend that crushes it!
I was grumbling absurd things to myself when I suddenly spotted a person. That senior who got held back and became my classmate. In conclusion, the person who caused the big commotion with the test paper duel was bouncing around with a group of three people.
‘Is there anything more to think about?’
I immediately decided to become a kidnapper. Haha, why am I laughing? I took out leather ropes from a subspace, controlled them with blood magic to grab their ankles, turned them upside down, and teleported them. The rippling door like black fog showed the skill of going out and back into the room, but the way in was easy. Of course, the kidnapped people tried to resist, but it didn’t work at all. Obviously. No matter what they did, so what. I’m Cassice Demillang.
“Fxxk! What the… gasp.”
“…Eek! Hic! Urp!”
“Ugh….”
The 1st year students from Class D, C, and B, who initially tried to get angry, trembled and turned pale upon seeing me. Especially the guy who blurted out a curse seemed to be contemplating banging his head even now. I wasn’t angry, but I thought it would be good to let them fully experience fear to make them obey my commands well. But then the held-back senior who was caught together said,
“Ah, it was the young clan head. You startled me. What did you call me for? I’ll cooperate!”
“….”
Ugh. Missed the chance to lose my temper. I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth when he says he’ll cooperate.
I smiled lukewarmly and glared at the senior for a moment, then gestured with my eyes toward the mission paper. And as the rest began to read the mission paper, I had this thought. ‘There was no such mission when I read this novel.’ That thought.
A long time passed after that, but perhaps because the abandoned houses were clustered in a secluded alley? Even after thirty minutes of receiving the mission, we still hadn’t gathered ten people. The number of people for the horror stories, including me, remained at five.
At this point, the held-back senior actively asked if he should go first. I readily nodded. I was curious whether it had to be ten people gathered to count or if it was okay to talk when a decent number had gathered.
But then someone suddenly said,
“Oh! Over there! Someone’s there!”
What? Someone passing by was spotted? Is it time for kidnapping?! I quickly pushed away the student at the window seat and stuck my face out. I did that to check the target for kidnapping. But it was as if God was giving me courage to clear this measly mission in one go, as two groups appeared at once. Hae Yuna and Lee Hyang, Shinmyohan, and on the opposite side, Capone and Diedrich, and Ryuseong carrying Logan… what?
What, what did I see? Me? What are you doing there…?
This won’t do. I decided to swiftly mass kidnap them while they couldn’t see this way. The blood magic I emitted grabbed Hae Yuna’s ankle and Lee Hyang’s wrist. Unfortunately, I couldn’t catch Shinmyohan. The Wargod cut my wicked magic with his sword. Sigh. Scary. On the other side, Capone, Diedrich, and Logan were caught. The Ryuseong I actually wanted couldn’t be caught. He showed an extremely unfeeling attitude, casually tossing Logan aside when the sudden magic appeared.
Wow. Does that guy just need to not directly kill? The moment I was admiring that, the students kidnapped into the room couldn’t meet my eyes and complained to the other students. Even Lee Hyang, the descendant of a prestigious family, seemed to find it difficult to talk back to Demillang. Hae Yuna had no fear, Logan’s mouth was gagged so it was invalid, and Capone and Diedrich were completely watching my mood. Right then, when only Lee Hyang was making a fuss.
“Ah. It’s all ruined. This is the worst. I don’t know stuff like ghost stories. Why did you bring me…”
…It was right then that smoke began to rise from the middle of the abandoned house…
Very suspicious…