Chapter 150 - Assault (1)

Alon stared blankly. He closed and opened his eyes twice, wondering whether he was imagining things, but the man before him still wore a hearty smile and gazed at him with admiration.

"... You are Prince Karsem, correct?"

"Hm? Oh, yes. Hahaha! I have changed a little."

As Karsem scratched his head awkwardly, Alon barely managed to keep his jaw from dropping. Seollang seemed largely uninterested, but Evan, who had been unsure of the man's identity, could no longer contain his surprise and gaped openly.

People could change, certainly, but this was far too drastic.

Alon compared the awkwardly smiling Karsem before him with the Karsem of half a year ago. What had he been like back then? Frankly, nothing more or less than a walking pig. His clothes had bulged as though about to burst, and his face had constantly been filled with irritation and inferiority.

And that wasn't all. He had been so arrogant that calling him a troublemaker hardly sufficed. A wastrel was more like it.

But what about Karsem now?

The fat that had threatened to turn his double chin into a triple chin? Nowhere to be seen. No, it had simply vanished.

Those eyes steeped in irritation and inferiority? They were utterly clear. So clear, in fact, that he even looked kindhearted. And, for reasons Alon couldn't fathom, he seemed to have grown considerably taller as well.

"... You've changed a great deal."

"Indeed. And it's all thanks to you, Big Brother—no, my lord!"

"Is... that so."

"Yes...!"

Alon's mind still wasn't working properly. No matter how he looked at the man, he couldn't quite take in the transformation.

'... Isn't this the sort of scene you'd only see in a web novel?'

Unbidden, the web novels he had once enjoyed came to mind.

The premise went something like this: an ordinary protagonist possessed the body of a grossly overweight royal or noble wastrel. Then he worked hard to lose weight, became handsome, and received applause from the servants.

Honestly, Alon had never quite understood it. No matter how much weight someone lost, surely traces of their original face and build would remain.

Now, however, he personally understood how those enthusiastically applauding fictional servants had felt.

'... This really does warrant it.'

Just as that thought crossed his mind, Karsem spoke.

"Please, have a seat. Father will be here shortly."

"Thank you."

At Karsem's invitation, Alon's party settled naturally into their seats, and Karmakses III arrived shortly afterward. Finally collecting himself, Alon began enjoying the banquet.

Still, it was a little uncomfortable.

"You've already reached the first tier? That's impressive."

"Not at all. It's entirely thanks to your guidance, my lord."

"Is... that so?"

"Yes!"

... The reason was that Karsem kept singing Alon's praises throughout the banquet.

"... He talks about you all the time, Marquis."

"I see."

"Without you, my lord, I'd probably still be living a wretched life... That's why I'm always grateful!"

And he did it quite a lot.

"Not at all. I hardly did anything. You achieved this yourself, Your Highness. There's no need to give me the credit."

"No! As I said, without you, I'd still be that same sorry excuse for a person!"

Excessively so.

Under Karsem's fervent, unwavering gaze, Alon felt the hands he had hidden beneath the table curl up of their own accord.

... Karsem really did seem to mean every word.

####

The day after the banquet, at which Alon had quite literally been the only one cringing.

"My lord."

"What is it?"

"I asked around, and people's opinion of Karsem really does seem to have changed considerably."

"That much?"

"Yes. I hadn't realized it, but people think more highly of him than of the first prince."

Intrigued by Evan's report despite his impassive expression, Alon asked, "Really? That much?"

"Yes. Apparently, it's even made the atmosphere inside the palace a little strange."

"... I take it Karmakses isn't doing anything to keep it in check?"

"From what I hear, even the king is keeping silent."

Even the king was keeping silent?

Only then did Alon let out a quiet "Ah."

'So that's why Karan looked at me that way.'

He recalled Karan's gaze during their earlier encounter, and how baffled he had been by that unfriendly look despite it being their first meeting.

If the atmosphere within the kingdom really had grown tense, it made sense. Karmakses III's failure to rein in the situation at the palace was tantamount to tacitly allowing a struggle for the throne.

'... From a king's perspective, it's not an incomprehensible decision.'

The first prince, Karan, had been better than the second prince, but that didn't mean he had the makings of a good king. He had merely been better by comparison.

With the second prince now consistently proving himself superior to the first, it was only natural for the king to waver. Karmakses III was a father, but he also bore the responsibilities of a king, and he thought as a king rather than as a father.

'... What's curious is how a power struggle is even possible now between the first prince, whose succession was settled long ago, and the second prince, who's only recently started gaining recognition... Well, I don't need to concern myself with all that.'

At any rate, putting everything together gave him a general understanding of the recent events.

'... Karan thinks Karsem changed because of me.'

From Alon's perspective, of course, that was a little bewildering. He had never done anything particularly special for Karsem.

"My lord, what are you planning to do now?" Evan asked just then.

Alon answered at once.

"I've finished my business in Coloni, so I intend to take care of everything else before heading home."

"Everything else? Oh, the abomination you mentioned before?"

"Yes."

"Am I waiting here again?"

"You are... You look pleased."

"Oh, surely not."

Evan's face plainly said, Oh yeah! Lucky me! No hardship this time!

Alon found it oddly infuriating. For a moment, he wondered whether he should simply take Evan along after all, but then he sighed softly and dismissed the thought.

In truth, this trip wasn't to finish off the desert abomination. It was only a visit to make preparations.

Alon thought of the desert abomination, Scorpirion.

'I'd like to take care of it while I'm here.'

Unfortunately, that wish would be difficult to fulfill. For one thing, he didn't currently know Scorpirion's location. Unlike Rikrakhamur, whose whereabouts had been clearly identified, all he knew was that Scorpirion was somewhere in this vast desert. There weren't even any particular landmarks to guide him.

Even in the game, locating Scorpirion took time. Only after clearing the temple that showed the way and completing roughly three months of preparatory work could a player go hunt it.

Of course, one could skip the temple and scour the vast desert for Scorpirion's lair instead. But why hadn't everyone done that?

Because finding its cave was like finding a needle in the desert.

There were also the "scorpion soldiers" that guarded the abomination's cave. They were the second reason Alon intended to do only the preparatory work for now.

Scorpion soldiers sounded simple enough, but when playing a mage, they were even more troublesome opponents than Scorpirion itself. There were hundreds of these sand-made soldiers. They revived endlessly after death, and in terms of in-game levels, every single one was equivalent to an Expert.

Worse, all their weapons were coated in poison. Allowing even one attack to land would deal a critical blow.

There was, however, a strategy for dealing with those troublesome soldiers: complete the preparations at the temple, obtain its guide, and head to the cave. Then they would all crumble into sand and disappear.

"I plan to leave tomorrow," Alon decided.

"I'll be waiting here, then!"

"..."

Looking at Evan, who was once again oddly irritating, Alon thought:

... Should he just take him along?

####

Meanwhile, somewhere in the vast desert, in Scorpirion's cave—though the place was far too enormous to call a cave—the scorpion soldiers, which should only have awakened when an intruder appeared, were awake.

Yet they did not move. No, more precisely, they could not.

The hundreds of soldiers that had awakened to stop the new intruder were all...

CRACK! CRACKLE!

...skewered on black lightning, their bodies merely shuddering, unable either to live or to die.

A silver-gray-haired wolfkin slowly glided between them, his steps utterly ordinary and utterly unhurried.

As he leisurely walked through the hundreds of scorpion soldiers and reached the center of the cave...

S H H H!

...more soldiers began awakening beneath the cave floor.

And that wasn't all.

■■■■■■■!!!

A force twice the size of the one at the cave entrance emerged from the sand in an instant, surrounding the man. Soon, the monstrous cry of Scorpirion, which had been sleeping within the cave, began to echo.

Yet there was no sense of danger on the intruder's face.

"Oh?"

Instead, the man exclaimed as though amused.

CRACKLE!

Black lightning wrapped around his body.

The next instant...

ZIP!

...he vanished.

When the man appeared again, there were no scorpion soldiers around him anymore. What stood before him instead was...

■■■■■■■───

...an abomination.

Scorpirion, a scorpion that had lived for nearly a thousand years, harboring a discarded remnant of the Five Great Sins within its body.

Despite the sight of the scorpion drooling as it stared at him, the man smiled cheerfully.

"Well, good. When I came up to the surface, I was disappointed to find the seed hadn't sprouted as well as I'd expected—"

He lightly set a finger on its head.

"You can help with that."

The instant black lightning flowed from his hand...

■■■■■■■■■■!!!!

... Scorpirion thrashed like mad. Soon, the brown abomination began gradually changing color, becoming an inky black like the abyss.

Watching the sight, the man—

"Now, shall we go welcome Him?"

No, the apostle of Pride turned his gaze toward Coloni.

"And see my little sister while we're at it."

A deep smile spread across his face.

####

The following day, Alon began getting ready to set out for the preparatory work as planned, feeling somewhat at ease. There would be fighting, but Seollang and Rine had agreed to help him.

'... Rine said she'd stop by the royal palace briefly. Let's leave when she gets back.'

And so he chatted at leisure with Seollang, who was cradling a limp Blackie.

KABOOOOOOM!!!!

Until an immense noise suddenly erupted.

The thunderous crash came from far away, yet rang clearly in everyone's ears. Alon immediately rose without thinking and looked out the window, unable to hide his shock at the sight before him.

"... Scorpirion?"

An enormous abomination was breaking down Coloni's walls and forcing its way inside.

Then...

"... Big... Brother?"

Alon heard Seollang's voice murmuring beside him in disbelief.