Chapter 147

Primordial Evolution (2)

The mana storm swallowed Adrian in an instant. The entire space around him warped as the swirling mana gave off erratic flashes of light, engulfing everything around it.

ROOOOAR!!

Light and darkness flashed, distorting space and time.

It was over.

... There was no withstanding it. That runaway energy. That torrent.

No one could withstand it.

But then...

CRACKLE!

A fierce spark flew. An invisible magical field twisted, momentarily disrupting the flow of mana.

The waves of mana spiraling through the air vanished. The energy distorting space and time began disappearing in turn.

... The mana had begun to collapse.

"What the...?!"

Brumbar's eyes widened. That was... impossible.

It simply could not happen. This was a runaway reaction of mana plasma compressed to high density. Its energy was far beyond anything that could be controlled.

"But how...?"

Brumbar stared into the eye of the storm. And saw it.

CRACK! CRACKLE!

RUMBLE!

The mana storm was slowly settling. Its runaway energy was disappearing.

And there, at its center, stood Adrian.

"He's... withstanding it?"

Impossible. How could he withstand that energy?

Even an ogre... could not do that. Hell, even a dragon could not.

"How in the world...?"

What was more, he was not merely withstanding it. Red light and blue lightning enveloped Adrian's body. The two different energies collided, violently repelling each other.

In the process, the mana was collapsing.

CRACKLE...! CRACKLE...!

The mana particles that collided with Adrian were forcibly broken down and annihilated. It was as though he was rejecting mana itself—

"Anti-mana!!" Brumbar shouted.

Anti-mana.

Both energy and matter, possessing waves opposite to those of mana. When it collided with mana, it emitted waves of the opposite phase, causing the mana to collapse.

Pair annihilation.

The phenomenon in which mana and anti-mana erased each other, vanishing together. As a result, the Arcanoheart's runaway energy disappeared.

... But that was not the end. The energy released by the annihilation reaction remained.

As mana and anti-mana annihilated each other, a mass defect occurred, and all of that lost mass was converted into energy. In other words, an immense burst of high energy was released.

Its scale was incomparable to mana nuclear fusion. A simple calculation put it at a thousand times greater.

Put plainly, it was a thousand times more powerful than the Arcanoheart's explosion. That meant an explosion of that staggering magnitude was imminent.

ROOOOOAR!!

Light erupted. Blue light that threatened to swallow everything—

'It's... disappearing?'

—It scattered. Dimmed.

Went out. Evaporated. Subsided.

... No. That was not it.

It would be more accurate to say it was being devoured.

"What in the world is that...?"

Brumbar's eyes filled with shock and bewilderment. Energy released by pair annihilation was absolutely not something that could be controlled.

Without the slightest exaggeration, it could blow an entire kingdom away.

"But how on earth...?"

The phenomenon unfolding before Brumbar was reconstructed within Brumbar's mind. Laws encompassing concepts, phenomena, and matter were envisioned in perfect detail. The structure of reality was rearranged and transformed to decipher the information.

That was—

"It's not pair annihilation...?"

Mana Predation.

That would be a more accurate description. The mana had not merely been canceled out. It had been devoured.

In other words, Adrian had devoured and absorbed the Arcanoheart's runaway energy.

"Aaaaaaaaagh!!"

Adrian screamed.

His body was collapsing. His skin peeled away, and his body evaporated like sand.

"BROTHER!!!"

KEEEEEEN!!

Frost blanketed the space in an instant. Inky lines of cold bloomed in every direction, winding around Adrian and beginning to halt his collapse.

Slowly, his condition stabilized.

And then—

"Hah...! Hah...!"

Adrian was still alive.

Brumbar was left speechless. What to say, or how to say it...

... There was simply no knowing.

Dazed, Adrian asked, "The Arcanoheart..."

Instead of answering, Brumbar moved. Shattered arms and legs refused to obey, but Brumbar forced them to move nonetheless and examined the Arcanoheart.

Its surface was riddled with cracks. Erratic tremors of mana emanated from within. When Brumbar touched it, the lingering heat burned the skin.

Ignoring the searing flesh, Brumbar examined its interior.

... Fortunately, the core was still intact and functioning.

"It will need repairs... but it can still work."

No sooner had Brumbar finished speaking than—

THUD.

Adrian collapsed like a dry leaf.

* * *

Caravana, the trading city.

It was the heart of a network through which trading companies from across the continent maintained a lively flow of exchanges, goods, and trade.

Today, however, more merchant caravans than usual were entering the city.

"You! Why are you only getting here now?! The agreed date was ages ago!"

At the angry voice, a merchant scrambled down from his carriage and hurriedly bowed.

"Oh, dear...! I'm terribly sorry."

"What's the reason? Why are you so late?"

"Well... we were trapped by an ogre. There was nothing we could do."

"... Eh? An ogre?"

"The thing is—"

The merchant explained everything that had happened: the roads the ogre had laid to waste, and the utter pandemonium as the central trade routes were destroyed, torn down, and smashed apart.

"We considered taking the southern route around it, but it's been swarming with barbarians lately. We had no choice but to stay put."

"Good heavens...!"

It was hard to believe. Not only was it not yet time for ogres to awaken, they were not monsters one saw readily, either.

A person would be lucky—or unlucky—to see even one in an entire lifetime.

Yet the trading companies arriving in Caravana one after another all told the same story. It was not just one or two people. Several companies had experienced the same problem, so it could not be a lie.

"It was that bad...?"

"An ogre is an ogre, after all."

"... Hm? Wait a moment," someone muttered.

"Then how did you all get here?"

"Well, about that..."

The answer that followed shook Caravana to its foundations.

"The ogre... was slain?!"

Passersby came to a stop of their own accord. Conversations ceased in the middle of the market as everyone turned their attention to the exchange.

The ogre had been slain!

The rumor spread throughout Caravana in an instant.

Ordinarily, Caravana's citizens were rarely surprised. With so many cultures mingling, they frequently encountered the bizarre and extraordinary. And with news and rumors from every kingdom reaching them at all hours, most events earned little more than a shrug.

The distribution of monster meat. The collapse of Violess, the lawless city.

Those were about the only rumors that had shaken Caravana in recent times, but—

"Who did it?!"

"Never mind who—how?!"

The slaying of an ogre was a momentous event shocking enough to eclipse them all.

"I haven't heard of any kingdom mobilizing its army."

"Don't be ridiculous, man! What kingdom would be mad enough to send an army after an ogre?!"

"That could ruin the whole country!"

Ogres were natural disasters that crossed national borders. Even kingdoms did not attempt to slay them outright.

"Did a Master-class mercenary company step in?"

"I haven't heard anything of the sort."

There were so few Master-class mercenary companies on the continent that there was no way they would not have heard. More importantly—

"Even a Master-class mercenary company couldn't take down an ogre, could it?"

Perhaps a Mercenary King could manage it?

But no Mercenary King had appeared in hundreds of years.

"Then who?"

"No, how?"

The rumor and the questions surrounding it began spreading beyond Caravana, across the entire continent. It was not just the free cities. High-ranking nobles in every kingdom began taking a keen interest in the incident as well.

"If only we could recruit him..."

"And conversely, what if he becomes our enemy?"

An asymmetric force capable of upsetting the balance between nations.

"Find out who he is, no matter what!"

"Bring me information, even if you have to pay a fortune!"

Intelligence organizations across the nations moved in close coordination.

* * *

Battengart, capital of the Kingdom of Battenberg.

In a conference room of the palace at the city's center—

"So, an ogre has been slain..."

At First Prince Leon's words, the nobles assembled in the room stirred, raising their voices.

"Your Highness, we must discover this individual's identity!"

"Indeed! Someone capable of slaying an ogre single-handedly is not a matter we can simply overlook!"

They had good reason. An ogre was no mere monster. It was a natural disaster whose very presence could engulf an entire region.

Someone who had single-handedly slain such a disaster was effectively a nation-level asymmetric force.

"If we can bring this person into our kingdom's fold, he will be a tremendous asset."

"Conversely, if another nation approaches him first..."

"He will pose an immense threat to our kingdom."

In a rare show of unity, the nobles were all of one mind. Leon agreed with them, too.

"Intelligence officer, what does the investigation team think?"

"His identity remains unknown. They report that nothing was left behind... neither evidence nor witnesses."

"Give me more detail."

"The site is near the Verka Mountains in the central region. Only signs of battle remain. There are no other traces whatsoever, not even the ogre's carcass..."

The intelligence officer continued his report. There was little useful information in it. Nonetheless, Leon calmly closed his eyes and drew his inferences.

Intuition.

Sensory thought, also known as instinct or a gut feeling. It was a sense everyone possessed, a way of thinking everyone had experienced at least once in their lives.

An uneasy feeling that something was off. A change in heartbeat in a dangerous place. Breaking into a cold sweat from an anxiety with no apparent cause.

They seemed like trivial reactions, but in reality they were judgments made through intuitive thought: impressions felt immediately upon encountering an object or phenomenon, without needing proof.

Thus, intuition was less an absence of thought than a thought process so fast that it escaped conscious notice.

And Leon could control this intuitive thinking perfectly.

Experience, knowledge, analysis, and reasoning. Every circuit of thought took the form of images, unfolding as visualizations within his mind.

'There are no signs of magic being used...'

The only traces were destruction caused by physical impact. Then was it a Master-level martial artist?

But Masters always left traces. A sword left the path of its slash. A spear left the path of its thrust.

Yet there were none. To be precise, very few.

All that could be seen was raw strength. Unrestrained killing and destruction.

In other words, it was not a Master-level martial artist, either.

Judging by accounts from the surrounding area, the battle had lasted quite some time. Yet the damage was limited. Above all, there were no casualties.

An ogre was a natural disaster. The damage incurred in slaying one was staggering. The surrounding area should inevitably have been caught up in the fight.

Yet the damage was extremely limited, with no casualties.

Taking that into account, this was someone accustomed to controlling a situation. But consciously controlling the situation while fighting an ogre?

... That was exceptionally difficult. So it probably had not been conscious behavior, but something closer to habit.

That meant a veteran among veterans, someone who had fought countless battles and carried out countless operations.

How many people like that existed on this continent? And among them, how many were neither mages nor Masters?

Yet still possessed the overwhelming physical prowess needed to face an ogre?

Taking all of that into account...

'It's Adrian.'

Leon arrived at his conclusion immediately.

Honestly, the man was extraordinary. To put it bluntly, without what Leon had experienced at the palace, he could never have deduced it.

How could it make any sense for someone who was neither a mage nor a Master to possess the overwhelming physical prowess needed to fight an ogre?

Fortunately(?), his experience at the palace had taught him how strong Adrian was, but—

'To think he would slay an ogre.'

... Honestly, he had not known it was to this extent. Even his intuition had failed to grasp it at all.

And so, Leon could not fathom the man named Adrian.

Really, with an achievement of this magnitude, could he not show off a little? Let people know what he had done?

Every noble Leon had encountered sought to inflate their accomplishments by any means possible, demanding rewards and honors. They were always busy serving their own interests, sometimes even stealing credit for others' achievements.

But Adrian was different. Far from exaggerating his accomplishments, he did not even reveal them.

Stealing someone else's credit? Like hell he would. He shared his own instead.

Had he not even refused the countship and given it to Seraphia? Because of that, Leon had been unable to propose to her.

It also meant that most people did not even know who had truly earned the credit for resolving the incident in the Kingdom of Battenberg.

Adrian did not seek to become a hero himself.

One who carried out missions that went unrecorded. One who hid in the moonlight and walked beneath the stars... Was that how he had put it?

Adrian simply did what needed doing behind the heroes.

"Your Highness, we must make haste as well."

"I hear the Kingdom of Levent has already dispatched agents to track down his identity."

"Information brokers throughout the continent are already on the move. We must not fall behind."

Other kingdoms, along with the nobles, were desperate to uncover his identity. It was no exaggeration to say that the entire continent's attention was focused on him.

Given the gravity of the matter, it was only a question of time before Adrian's identity came to light, no matter how hard he tried to conceal it, but—

'Shall I earn a few points with my future brother-in-law?'

... To Leon, this was an excellent opportunity to earn aleph-null points.

* * *

Heavy tension hung over the secret meeting place. The Devotees of the Fallen Souls, their black hoods pulled low, had all fallen silent.

And with good reason, given the news the Acata had just brought.

"What... did you just say?"

"The ogre has been slain?"

In other words, all their plans had gone awry.

Their plan to awaken an ogre, completely upend order in the kingdoms, and shatter the balance of power. Their plan to use that to easily seize and control several kingdoms.

Their plan to exploit the chaos to abduct high-ranking figures in the kingdoms and make assassinations easier. Their plan to create evacuees and refugees wherever the ogre appeared. Their plan to use that to collapse the market economy.

Their plan to take advantage of the breakdown to secretly trade in illegal weapons, slaves, and forbidden magical goods.

All of it, the groundwork for restarting the collapsed Obscura and ultimately creating a new lawless city—

"The ogre has been slain?!"

—had gone completely awry. Because the ogre, the linchpin of their plans, had been slain.

"That's utterly preposterous!!"

Everyone stared wide-eyed in disbelief.

"Who in the world did it?!"

"Never mind who—how?!"

"Did a kingdom mobilize its army?"

"We received no such intelligence."

"Then someone slew the ogre single-handedly?"

"Given the current circumstances..." The Acata continued in a voice that dwindled to a murmur. "We have no choice but to conclude as much..."