Chapter 186 - Greinif (2)

Varnos was a small principality in the southern continent, comprising just five domains. Though larger than the Principality of Luxible, its mostly mountainous terrain had kept any industry from developing. It scraped by on its various coal mines.

Varnos Kinoer, its seventh king, stared blankly ahead.

Before his eyes lay a scene of massacre.

Soldiers and knights alike lay strewn about, their limbs torn off. Beyond the shattered inner castle wall, he could see the capital's neighborhoods engulfed in flames.

The burning corpse of an old man. The corpse of a child who had fallen, bleeding. The corpse of a young man who had tried to resist, only to have half his upper body ripped away.

Bodies torn to shreds, as though monsters rather than humans had attacked them.

But Kinoer knew. The one responsible for this horror was not a monster—

"See? Wouldn't it have been better if you'd listened?"

—but a being possessed of intelligence.

Kinoer turned his trembling head to the side. Before he knew it, a man had approached to stand right before him.

A man with dark gray hair and gray eyes, looking utterly cheerful.

"..."

Kinoer involuntarily caught his breath. It wasn't because of the man's appearance, but his eyes.

Seemingly empty of everything, uniformly dark gray and without even pupils, they seemed to declare that he was no ordinary person.

No—the being before him truly wasn't human.

Though he plainly had a human form, this creature was not human.

"You wanted me to listen—to what you said?"

"Yes. You could've just left quietly, couldn't you? Then this wouldn't have happened to you."

"... You said you would kill everyone...!"

Kinoer snarled through clenched teeth.

He knew it, too. The man before him could snuff out his life with ease.

Even so, Kinoer refused to surrender his pride. However small his principality might be, he was its king.

No, strictly speaking, it wasn't pride.

It was merely the desperate struggle of someone who had lost everything. With nothing left to lose, having already plummeted over the cliff, he could still lash out.

His eyes burned with the intensity of a man who had transcended fear.

Yet even under that gaze, the man still let out a playful chuckle.

"But I said I'd spare you, didn't I?"

"Do you even hear what you're saying—!"

"Isn't it only natural to value your own life over other people's? Ah, no. Perhaps your case is different."

He grinned.

"Without being king, you'd have nothing at all."

"...!"

An outright insult.

Kinoer opened his eyes wide and tried to protest, but—

CRUNCH!

Unfortunately, he couldn't.

The instant he parted his lips, a bizarre monster bursting from the man's chest had already devoured his head.

CRUNCH! CHOMP! CRACK!

The sounds were sickening.

The monster devoured Kinoer's upper body in an instant. After calmly watching it, the man sat down on a piece of his ruined kingdom and looked out before him.

Then, with a twisted smile, he said,

"What a magnificent view."

"Now, shall we begin?"

He raised his index finger.

A black droplet slowly formed on his fingertip. Growing like a bead of blood, it eventually broke free and dropped to the ground.

WHOOSH!

Black energy began spreading in every direction.

Soon the kingdom's capital, filled with nothing but flames and corpses, darkened as though its light had been stolen. At the same time, things that had remained unseen until now began to appear.

Monsters, their entire bodies pitch-black.

They were holding a feast, chewing on the corpses.

Some danced as though delighted. Others focused solely on eating the bodies. Still others coveted the corpses their fellow monsters were eating.

Their feast continued.

And the man, one of Psychedelia's Four Great Factions and master of the hungry ghosts, twisted his lips into a smile and murmured,

"Now, then. What shall my next move be?"

####

About three weeks had passed since Alon left House Lartania's estate.

"Will we reach Nail in another week or so?"

"Hmm, yes, I believe so. From there, another three days or so should bring us into Greinif. Assuming the information you gave me is right, my lord."

"I see."

As Alon gave a brief nod—

["Kyuu!"]

"No."

["Kyuu..."]

He gently stopped Blackie, who had been sitting on his lap and was starting to burrow into his coat.

Blackie's ears drooped in disappointment—then disappeared altogether. Stroking the head of what had consequently become a strange creature rather than a cat, Alon took the object out of his coat.

"Blackie really seems to like that thing, doesn't he?"

"So it seems."

The reason Blackie had tried to burrow into his coat was an object Alon had obtained from a labyrinth he visited a week earlier on his journey south.

The Gem of Forgetting.

Glowing red like Yutia's eyes, it seemed to have no practical value whatsoever, but it was extremely important to Alon.

It had the power to reset the usage timer of Salvation of the Wanderer, the artifact that let him summon Basiliora.

'... Of course, if I went to that fellow who hasn't appeared yet, he'd let me use Salvation of the Wanderer as long as I paid the price.'

Though the Gem of Forgetting was single-use, it let him use Salvation of the Wanderer immediately, without any particular price to pay.

That was why Alon had gone out of his way to visit the labyrinth, as a precaution against the unexpected.

"By the way, my lord, didn't you explain last time that you'd use that to activate the artifact that lets you manifest what's-his-name again—ah, Basiliora?"

"That's right."

"But how does that gem work?"

Evan seemed suddenly curious, so Alon gave him a simple explanation.

"It probably accelerates time for the object it's used on."

"... Accelerates time?"

"Yes."

Alon nodded, searching through his old memories.

'It definitely did accelerate time. Ten years...and three months, I think.'

He even recalled the precise figures.

'Collecting a hundred of them would reset Constraint, if I remember correctly.'

The ring Alon had obtained at the very beginning to impose a Constraint came with a thousand-year cooldown—a detail that had made him wonder why they had bothered including it at all.

After all, no matter how long players dragged out Psychedelia, the in-game time never exceeded ten years.

In other words, a thousand-year cooldown was meaningless, since it could never be used again anyway.

But once word spread through the community that collecting Gems of Forgetting could reset Constraint, players finally understood why it had that seemingly useless detail and began searching for the gems.

That enthusiasm, however, soon fizzled out.

The drawback of hunting down pieces scattered across the entire continent like Dra**n Ball's orbs outweighed the benefit of resetting Constraint.

And there were overwhelmingly more of them to collect.

As a result, rather than something ordinary players did, it became attention-grabbing content for streamers and YouTubers. Alon himself had hardly ever farmed Gems of Forgetting.

Though he now had plenty of uses for them thanks to Basiliora, ordinarily he would use the gems to accelerate artifacts no more than five times throughout an entire playthrough of Psychedelia.

"Then wouldn't giving that to Blackie make him grow all at once?"

Evan's voice interrupted his thoughts.

"... Well, I'm not sure it works on living creatures, but if it does, that might happen."

["Kyuu!"]

At Alon's acknowledgment, Blackie gave a determined cry, his expression saying, 'I can do it!'

["Absolutely not! You're going to give away my chance to manifest again, however briefly, as a mere snack?! Not a chance!!!"]

Basiliora burst out in a frenzy at that cry and began squawking, but—

["W-wait! Aaaaargh! Stop! I said stop!!!"]

The instant Basiliora shouted, Blackie shot forward with uncanny timing and began pummeling him wildly with little kitty punches.

"Yes! That's it!"

Evan was positively thrilled to see Blackie teaching Basiliora a lesson. Apparently, Basiliora's suffering alone was enough to lift his spirits; he even threw both hands into the air.

Watching the three of them make a scene(?), Alon quietly slipped the Gem of Forgetting back into his coat.

'Maybe I should stock up on a few, at least until that fellow appears on the continent.'

####

A little over a week later, Alon had stopped in Nail a few days earlier to finish his final preparations, then continued south by carriage for another three days or so.

"I think we'll have to walk from here."

"It certainly looks that way."

They had reached a densely forested area.

"... Is this elven territory from here on?"

"Yes, it seems so. You can tell at a glance that the grass is a different color."

"... That's rather fascinating."

There was a distinct difference between the color of the grass where Alon stood and that within what appeared to be Greinif.

'It's dark here, but bright over there.'

Though clearly shaded by the forest, the plants shone a vivid turquoise, as if radiating vitality.

Regarding the sight with a look of wonder, Alon said,

"Then let's head inside."

"Yes, my lord."

As he started walking with Evan, Alon thought of Recon.

'His information has been more or less accurate so far...so it seems he wasn't lying. Does that mean we need to be careful not to get caught by the elves from here on?'

He calmly recalled Recon's warning.

'Elves are extremely hostile toward humans, so immediately make it clear that you have no intention of attacking and leave Greinif. That was it.'

Recon had repeatedly emphasized that elves were, as a rule, extremely hostile toward humans.

Remembering this, Alon ventured into the forest with a somewhat tense expression.

After about two hours of walking—

"Looks like we're nearly out."

The end of the seemingly endless forest came into view.

Seeing it, Alon and Evan headed out of the forest without hesitation.

Then—

"Oh!"

"...!"

The instant they emerged, Evan let out a startled exclamation, and Alon's eyes involuntarily widened as well.

A sight filled their field of vision.

What looked to be at least a hundred elves stood facing them—as though they had known in advance that Alon and Evan would arrive here.

'This is bad.'

Alon felt every hair on his body stand on end as countless thoughts raced through his mind.

'He definitely said this was a side path, didn't he?'

Had Recon deceived him? Was this pure coincidence? Or had Alon taken the wrong path?

But he soon forced those thoughts aside and tried to raise both hands. First, he needed to make it clear that they meant no harm.

"Wait—we haven't come to Greinif to fight—"

Just as Alon said this and tried to raise his hands, an elf who had been far away only moments before was suddenly at his side, firmly grasping his hand.

Then the elf bowed politely.

"Welcome. We've been waiting for you."

There was even a touch of joy on the elf's face, as though greeting a long-awaited guest.

"... Pardon?"

Alon could only gape in spite of himself.