Chapter 173 - The Sin of Greed (2)

Dozens of golden tubes burst from Rine’s eye, shooting in every direction as though tracing a complex circuit diagram. Unlike her earlier, emotion-driven attack, they moved far more steadily as they shot toward Emil in an instant.

CRUNCH!

But once again, Rine’s attack was blocked by a tree shedding black energy.

“Hmm... It’s no fun if all I do is defend, is it?”

The apostle of Greed flashed an unpleasant grin.

RRRUMBLE!

The black branches growing behind her began to swell explosively. Stems grew in an instant as though they would occupy the entire vast cavern, then tangled together behind Emil to form a grotesque tree.

It bore not a single leaf and radiated a deeply ominous energy.

Rine’s instincts warned her that this was dangerous. She hurriedly maneuvered her golden tubes to crush the tree, but—

“No, Rine. You can’t do that.”

The aggressive stems blocked every golden tube. At the same time—

CRRACK!

Fruit began to form on the previously bare tree.

Black fruit.

CRACK!

Dozens of fruits swelled in an instant, then vomited out all manner of monsters along with thick bodily fluids—monsters even Rine, with her Library, could not properly identify.

■■■■■■■!!!!

Rine hastily moved her golden tubes toward the creatures charging at her with bloodcurdling screams.

CRRUNCH!

With a sickening sound, the golden tubes pierced the monsters’ bodies. Barely moments after their birth, they shuddered and died.

Yet even though she was killing nearly ten at a time, their numbers kept growing, as though Rine’s attacks posed no threat whatsoever.

‘There must be some weakness—’

A kind of anxiety she had never felt before filled Rine’s mind. It was unfamiliar, this sensation of walking through fog even with her opponent right before her.

Rine had always planned her moves with victory as a given. The Library in her mind made that possible. It provided ways to respond even to unpredictable situations, and when no exact solution existed, it found an answer as close to perfect as possible and gave it to her.

In other words, Rine had never fought without an answer key.

But the power the apostle of Greed was using now was something even the vast Library in her mind could not comprehend at all. That unfamiliar situation could only make Rine more anxious.

...

... No.

No, that wasn’t it.

That wasn’t the only reason.

Emil’s appearance had made her anxious, but there was another, more fundamental reason. That was what was eating away at Rine’s mind.

“Confused, aren’t you? This isn’t in your Library.”

Emil curled her lips upward as though she could see right through her. Rine tried to compose her expression, but her brow twisted as the smiling Emil approached.

CRRRAACK!!

The golden tubes surged toward the apostle without hesitation, but they could not pierce the black branches protecting her. Reaching Rine with all too little effort, Emil, the apostle of Greed, leaned her grinning face right up to hers.

Her eyes were blue, just like Rine’s. But their whites had turned black, giving them an eerie air.

“So, shall I tell you?”

Her chilling eyes curved into crescents.

“No, I don’t even need to tell you. You just have to choose. You’re clever. You know perfectly well, don’t you? That your Library actually has far more hidden spaces.”

At that mocking voice, Rine had no trouble understanding what the apostle meant.

The Forbidden Domain.

A Pandora’s box that revealed every secret in the world the instant one entered, but drove its user insane as the price.

“Get lost.”

There was no need to think it over.

To be honest, Rine could not even guess what Emil’s precise objective was. All she knew about Emil in the first place was that she was connected to the black things.

But that was precisely why she had no reason to listen to anything she said.

“Hmm... Well, if that’s how you feel, it can’t be helped.”

Emil shrugged as though disappointed, then swept her gaze over Rine’s body.

“Then, shall we start small—with your arms?”

She smiled.

At that moment, Rine saw black branches beginning to form behind Emil, as if deliberately on display. She immediately swung her golden tubes to stop the growing branches, but it was not enough. She had already summoned almost as many tubes as she could.

As though she knew even that, Emil leisurely created more branches.

[“No, I don’t even need to tell you. You just have to choose. You’re clever. You know perfectly well, don’t you? That your Library actually has far more hidden spaces.”]

As helplessness closed in, Emil’s voice briefly brushed past Rine’s ears. That voice, so full of temptation.

‘The Forbidden Domain...’

A moment of indecision.

Rine’s mind raced. If she entered the Forbidden Domain now, could she kill that woman?

No—could she kill that woman before Godfather returned?

That was the most important question to her. More than anything else, it alone mattered.

And so, as she stared straight at the black branches shooting toward her and was about to make her choice—

Rine suddenly realized something strange. A cold chill had settled into her breathing, made uneven by tension.

At the same time—

“...!”

As Rine saw that the branches had frozen solid, a familiar back entered her field of vision. A man wearing a coat that scattered icy crystals in response to the manifested spell—

“... I’m a little late.”

The back of Marquis Pallatio.

####

In short, Alon had returned before finishing his conversation with Kailas. The reason was that Kailas had told him what was happening outside.

[“I don’t know how you summoned me here, but this seems to be both your inner world and a place where one can sense the situation outside to some extent. And it seems you have a rather unwelcome guest out there.”]

Hurriedly ending the conversation and returning to reality, Alon spotted a woman wearing a bizarre smile. And he realized—

‘An apostle.’

The being before him was an apostle of the Five Great Sins.

“What a princely entrance.”

Emil commanded monsters so hideous they defied description, already packed densely throughout the vast cavern. Seeing her body bob as though in delight, Alon calmly assessed the situation and turned around.

“...!”

Rine stood there, visibly terrified. He had never seen her like this before.

Alon was briefly taken aback, but he could readily guess the reason.

‘Is this like what happened with Seollang?’

Of course, Alon had no way of knowing what had happened between Rine and the apostle before him. But his previous encounter with an apostle gave him at least a rough understanding of what was going on.

‘I’ll finish this quickly.’

Having made his decision, Alon looked around.

Not even charitably could the situation be called good. The vast underground cavern was already filled with monsters—on the ceiling, the floor, the walls, and the pillars. Everywhere Alon could see.

Moreover, every golden tube Rine had somehow continued to wield despite her panic was already caught by the apostle’s stems. In other words, he could hardly expect Rine’s help at present.

“Shall we see what our prince can do?”

At that mocking voice, the monsters immediately charged, ravenous to devour Alon.

■■■■■■■!!!

A neckless monster flew through the air. A monster resembling a hungry ghost leaped from a pillar. Another rushed at him trailing its innards, as though a god had left its creation unfinished, and reached Alon in an instant.

But just as the monsters were about to touch Alon’s hand—

“Expansion.”

SNAP!

Everything stopped.

The monster flying through the air. The hungry ghost baring its sharp teeth. The creature charging with its innards dragging behind it.

Everything came to a halt.

“!”

The apostle frowned as though disconcerted by the sudden turn, but only briefly.

“I’d more or less guessed from the information that you were a Magus, but that’s an interesting method.”

Her expression relaxed again.

Realizing that this “halt” was caused by expanding mana, the apostle attempted to produce a stem with an unruffled expression—

“... Huh?”

—but could not.

Confusion spread across her face.

“...!?”

Then it slowly twisted, filling with unmistakable alarm.

“Whew...”

Watching her, Alon let out a deep sigh and began unfolding his spell.

In fact, the apostle’s choice had not been wrong. Expanding mana created a virtual volume that pressed down on the monsters and restricted their movement, but that was all. Anyone capable of exerting physical force or mana beyond a certain threshold could readily escape its influence.

Yes—if the mana Alon had scattered were the “usual” kind.

“What is this—”

Ordinarily, mana’s structure was easily destroyed unless some additional property was imparted to it. That was precisely why Alon had been able to hold the previous apostle in place for less than a second during their battle.

Mana broke easily under even a slight physical force.

But if he added one more seal, making the molecular structure of the mana itself denser—

‘The mana can no longer be easily broken by ordinary physical force or mana.’

Especially by anyone within the range of the mana the caster had spread.

This was the first linked hand-seal sequence Alon had reliably succeeded in producing by combining two seals. It was the fruit of his research and training to compensate for a Magus’s weakness: the time needed to form seals and recite phrases.

From there, Alon had “accidentally” taken another step forward. Through the painstakingly detailed journal Penia had written after misunderstanding his intentions, he had learned that six or more seals could resonate appropriately with one another, producing a synergistic effect.

Of course, forming six seals was effectively impossible for a human. Humans had only two hands.

But Alon had finally solved that problem.

If he lacked the hands to form the seals, all he had to do was make them.

CRRACK!

Ice began forming behind Alon’s back. The crystallized ice split in an instant, extending in six directions, and as it took the shape of hands and fingers—

CLACK-CLACK-CLACK!

It formed seals.

The first ice seal firmly fixed the structure of the expanded mana. The second aligned its altered molecular structure. The third stabilized the aligned mana.

Then the fourth ice seal twisted and contorted the stabilized mana’s molecular structure, amplifying it. The fifth created a switch within the spread mana.

What this completed was a vast prison and a spell, capable of transforming into any element and manifesting.

“!”

As the apostle’s eyes filled with shock, what emerged from the final ice seal Alon had created was a “tiny snowflake.”

A snowflake so tiny and delicate that the instant it landed on a finger, it would melt into a little water. It slid down the fingers of the final ice seal, falling limply.

And then—

Ice Hand Seals.

Sixfold Binding.

The moment that tiny snowflake touched the mana Alon had spread—

Snow Blossom.

The monsters became snowflakes and fluttered through the air.

Gracefully.

... And beautifully.