Chapter 129

Pursuit (1)

When I emerged from the dungeon, Leon and Lucas were discussing the suspects in the case.

I discreetly signaled Leon. He blinked once, then spoke to Lucas as though nothing had happened.

"... Understood. I'll be going, then."

"I will report to you as the investigation progresses."

Lucas drew a short breath before continuing.

"However, I will not provide a separate report on the crime scene."

As he said that, he looked in my direction.

... Had he known?

Apparently, he had pretended not to notice anyway.

Then again, even Luseria had nearly seen through Assimilation[C+]. It was still incomplete because I hadn't yet secured intact genetic material. Lucas had noticed, but knowingly turned a blind eye.

As expected, he wasn't inflexible. He was the same as in my previous life, the same Lucas I knew.

This made me all the more certain. There was no possibility that Lucas had betrayed the royal court and colluded with someone. Someone else had slipped past his watch and murdered Queen Marceline, and the chances that the killer was the Sovereign of Darkness were very, very high.

The moment we rounded the corner, Leon asked,

"Did you take a look?"

"As Commander Lucas said, it doesn't look as though she could have taken her own life."

"I see..."

"Who does Commander Lucas suspect?"

"He named Walter as the prime suspect."

Third Prince Walter, Queen Marceline's own son.

His motive for killing Marceline would be...

"He suspects Walter may have wanted to destroy evidence relating to the treason."

Murder to silence a witness. There was a motive: killing Queen Marceline to destroy all evidence of his own involvement in the treason. Even Leon's absurdly powerful Present Vision[L] couldn't extract anything from the dead.

"It seems I ought to speak to Walter."

Leon murmured the words, then turned his gaze toward me.

"Adrian, will you come with me?"

I shook my head. Walter wasn't the culprit. At least, he wasn't the one who had killed the Queen with his own hands.

But he could have been involved in the treason, or ordered the murder. In other words, an investigation was necessary. And with Leon's Present Vision[L], he wouldn't need me there.

"I'll investigate separately."

"Then I'll see you later."

We exchanged a brief glance and parted ways. Then I stopped short.

"Your Highness, don't dig too deeply. Just in case."

Marceline had been killed in the palace dungeon. Her killer might still be somewhere in the palace. If it was the Sovereign of Darkness, as I suspected, anyone pursuing the truth would not be left alone.

"You could put yourself in danger."

"... Understood. You be careful as well."

Perhaps sensing something himself, Leon gave a solemn nod.

* * *

After parting with Leon, I searched outside the palace. But I couldn't find a single clue. I organized my thoughts as I headed back inside.

Given the circumstances, the Sovereign of Darkness was very likely responsible for this incident. That meant I needed to reconsider what I knew about the Sovereign of Darkness. In other words, I needed to ask again: who was the Sovereign of Darkness?

Normally, that line of thought and deduction would have been impossible. Any information obtained by investigating who the Sovereign of Darkness was would be forgotten. Until now, I had been identifying who the Sovereign of Darkness was not, eliminating the possibilities one by one to uncover the truth.

But that was no longer the case.

Successor's Will[EX].

I could now contemplate and reason about who the Sovereign of Darkness was. That allowed me to organize the information as follows.

1. The Sovereign of Darkness is a tangible being that can be seen and touched.

2. The Sovereign of Darkness is an individual with a self, capable of independent thought and action.

3. The Sovereign of Darkness is the strongest Sovereign.

4. The Sovereign of Darkness is not the Emperor.

That covered what I already knew. And what I had learned through the Forgotten Social Gathering was—

5. The Sovereign of Darkness is a being that is created.

The Memorier, Legion Commander of Darkness. An informational life-form.

A legion commander receives a portion of a Sovereign's Authority. In other words, the Sovereign of Darkness couldn't be all that different from the Memorier. My guess was that, with the Authority of Oblivion, the Sovereign of Darkness could devour the original target's memories and soul more perfectly and more completely.

Following that line of reasoning, if the Sovereign of Darkness had killed Queen Marceline, the reason was simple. Information relating to the Sovereign. The fear that the identity of the person the Sovereign had devoured would come to light, exposing the Sovereign's existence.

That would mean Queen Marceline had possessed vital information about the Sovereign of Darkness. Queen Marceline and the Sovereign of Darkness. There was something between them that must not be revealed...

'But was that any reason to kill her?'

Couldn't it simply have been erased with the Authority of Oblivion? Yet Queen Marceline had been murdered. So if the Sovereign of Darkness was the killer, there were two possibilities.

Either the Sovereign had exhausted that Authority by holding the Forgotten Social Gathering, or there was something even the Authority of Oblivion couldn't erase.

After all, the Sovereign of Darkness wasn't a being that couldn't be observed. Merely a Being of Observational Uncertainty. There was every possibility that something existed which even the Authority of Oblivion couldn't erase.

'Hmm.'

Let's think this through a little further.

Queen Marceline had joined hands with Luseria. In other words, the Dark Merchant Company. Her aim was to bring Leon down. She wanted him out of the way so that she could put her own son on the throne.

Lucas had pursued that angle and named Third Prince Walter as a suspect in this case.

'... Wait.'

Something was strange.

'Why did he only name Walter as a suspect?'

Queen Marceline had two children, after all. Walter was the third prince and her second child. There was also the second prince, Marceline's eldest.

The second prince. The second prince...

But who was the second prince?

Now that I thought about it...

'I've never once seen him.'

I had encountered Third Prince Walter as soon as I arrived at the palace. But I had never run into the second prince. Not once during the social gathering, either. The nobles hadn't even mentioned him.

All I knew was that the second prince existed. I couldn't remember his name. I searched my memories, trying to recall it. And yet... nothing came to me.

At that very moment, someone murmured as he passed me.

"You've been up to something interesting."

I glimpsed his profile out of the corner of my eye. It was a familiar face. What was his name again? I thought... I thought—

'I thought...?'

His name wouldn't come to me. As though it had been erased from my memory.

I stopped walking. Slowly, I turned my head and used Predatory Instincts[S]—and finally understood.

... It wasn't Queen Marceline. She had been nothing more than a puppet.

The one who had hidden in the darkness and pulled the kingdom's strings—

The one who had manipulated its politics and tried to bring every power broker under his control—

The one who had divided the kingdom, invited imperial intervention, and ultimately brought about its collapse—

==<Character Information>==

Name: Blake Battenberg

Classification: Kingdom Animalia, Class Mammalia, Family Hominidae, Human

Sex: Male

Age: 19

Traits: ?? ??[?], ???[?]

Second Prince Blake Battenberg.

He was—

"That's far enough."

* * *

Adrian froze like a broken machine. His wandering, unfocused eyes were sinking into emptiness.

After confirming this, Blake turned and resumed walking. One step, two. And just as he took his third—

"Says who?"

Adrian's voice rang out.

This time, Blake stopped dead. Slowly, he turned to find Adrian staring at him. His red eyes looked as though they had been soaked in blood. And they were unmistakably focused. Adrian was fully aware of Blake's existence.

* * *

◆Successor's Will[EX] resists the Authority of Oblivion!!

◆1,562 Sanity has accumulated.

The messages flashed before my eyes. My mind, plummeting into emptiness, was yanked back up.

Before me, Blake slowly turned to face me. A flawless face and features. Ash-gray hair that seemed to seep into view like mist. Black eyes that had merged with the darkness, as though they had swallowed the light.

"How—"

Before Blake could even finish his question—

Killing intent without the slightest hesitation pierced through me.

'Danger!'

I immediately hurled myself aside.

CRACKLE!

At the same instant, spikes of ash erupted from the floor, covering the spot where I had stood a moment before.

I whipped my gaze around. Blake immediately swept his hands through the air, drawing out mist.

RUMBLE!

Misty magical power surged from Blake's body. He raised both hands after sweeping them outward. A sense of wrongness seeped into the entire space.

... This wasn't an opponent I could afford to hesitate against.

◆Activating transcendent skill, Berserk[?].

Berserk[?] consumes all Sanity. But there had been the fight with the Memorier. Since it had perfectly copied my abilities, fighting it had essentially meant fighting myself.

That battle had taught me something. I could stack activations of Berserk[?] and apply multiple super-combination skills simultaneously.

And during the Forgotten Social Gathering, I had verified how much Sanity each rank of Berserk[?] required. So if I could deliberately control how much Sanity it consumed—

◆Current Sanity: 4,586.

◆Consuming 334 Sanity.

◆Berserk[?] is applied at rank [B].

As expected, my control was still lacking. I had consumed far more than the 100 Sanity needed for Berserk[B-]. Even so, I had managed to control the amount consumed.

◆Activating super-combination skill, Accelerated Heartbeat[E]!

THUMP!!

A violent beat jolted my entire body. Blood flow increased explosively, and my muscles and nerves became exquisitely sensitive. And I wasn't finished yet.

◆Current Sanity: 4,252.

◆Consuming 1,023 Sanity.

◆Berserk[?] is applied at rank [B+].

◆Activating super-combination skill, Draconification[E]!

Intense power boiled up inside me. My bones and muscles twisted as if screaming, my blood seethed with an alien pulse, and my five senses expanded.

And I just barely had enough: the 3,200 Sanity needed for Berserk[A].

◆Current Sanity: 3,229.

◆Consuming 3,229 Sanity.

◆Berserk[?] is applied at rank [A].

◆Activating transcendent skill, Hyper Regeneration[A]!

CRRACK!

Bone split apart, and a large protrusion erupted below my elbow. It was honed to a razor edge.

A Bone Blade.

The Memorier had used Nutrient Creation[A-] to reinforce its Bone Blade's cutting edge with a new material. Unfortunately, I couldn't do that. My Sanity had been completely depleted.

But that didn't matter. Using the basic skill Nutrient Synthesis[B], I coated the Bone Blade's cutting edge with keratin.

Now the Bone Blade could benefit from Monomolecular Blade[S]. An absurdly powerful effect that severed bonds at the molecular level, completely ignoring 100% of durability and defense to deal direct damage.

On top of that, Draconification[E] converted [1%] of mitigated damage into [Energy (Kcal)]. That meant I could replenish calories during combat.

"I don't know if your little brother told you—"

ROOOOAR!!

"But I don't go easy on princes."