Chapter 162 - Fire in the Cave (2)

“I would like to hear everyone else's opinion as well,” the Inquisitor said to our companions.

“Will you surrender to me? Or will you follow the Death King and oppose me? Aha! Either is fine by me.”

“... Isn't this a betrayal?”

The Black Dragon leader pressed a hand to her forehead. Was a headache throbbing there? She cast a long, sidelong glare at the psychopath she had known for years.

“We swore not to turn against one another. Once that night, and once when we cleared the twenty-seventh floor with the Death King. I thought making the same oath twice would give it more weight...”

“This time is fine! Whether I win or you win, the stage will be cleared. Either way, we win. We merely disagree on how to achieve that victory!”

“Sigh...”

“I will stand behind the Death King,” the Sword Star said.

“I entered the Tower because I was weary of a life spent pursuing nothing but quick results. I have no desire to come all this way only to return to my old ways. Master of the Pantheon, you have courteously invited me to surrender, but I must just as courteously decline.”

One by one, our companions moved, their footsteps falling steadily. Smiling, the Inquisitor watched where they went.

“Aha.”

Five people stood behind me.

“I see! I am hopelessly untrustworthy!”

No one stood behind the Inquisitor.

Only yesterday, some of them had agreed with him. The Count, for one. But now, after spending a day examining their respective races' circumstances, not a single person took his side.

“It isn't that you're untrustworthy,” the Paladin said. “We all know you're an excellent guild leader. And we also know you would make [the worst parent]. Children take after their parents. You want us to leave all the children in your care and go...? I'd feel safer leaving them with Viper.”

“Huh? Why drag me into this? I'm just standing here!”

“It's a compliment. You would make a better parent than the Inquisitor.”

“Hey, hey... What a magnificent compliment. You might as well tell me I'd make a better leader than Hitler.”

Six against one.

Despite being overwhelmingly outnumbered, the Inquisitor kept beaming.

“What do you plan to do now? Death King, the city I built is strong. The slaves have already forgotten their former wildness and submitted to Mountain Snailfolk rule!”

He looked confident.

“You seem to have witnessed the Earth Spiritfolk's secret gathering. But surely you heard no voices condemning or slandering the Mountain Snailfolk there! They would merely have performed their rites. That is how firmly established Mountain Snailfolk rule is!”

'As I thought.'

He had known about the goblins' gatherings and left them alone.

Like me, the Inquisitor could walk around invisible. After ruling this place for two hundred years, there was no way he hadn't noticed the secret gatherings.

[It doesn't matter. They pose no great threat anyway.]

That was probably the judgment that had led him to leave the secret gatherings alone.

“I'm sorry, but your races have lost hope. They merely mourn and commemorate the bygone past. My two hundred years made that possible. Death King! Do you have a way to bring those kneeling people to their feet?”

“...”

I quietly surveyed the underground world.

Dawn had come before I knew it.

A shaft of blue light streamed from the underground city's ceiling. Blinking their thick eyelids, goblins crawled out of their pits. In the ancient world, slaves were the last to fall asleep and the first to wake.

“I'm not the one who will bring them to their feet.”

I opened the [Civilization Shop].

The items on offer appeared.

+

[Oracle Message] - 20p

[Animal Possession] - 40p

[Appear in a Dream] - 100p

[Locate Prey] - 5p

[Locate a Brass-Tier Settlement] - 80p

[Tribal-Tier General (Random Draw)] - 100p

[Invent a Brass-Tier Technology (Random Draw)] - 1,000p

.

.

.

+

I pointed to one of the items.

“I'll merely provide a small spark, so the children can stand up themselves.”

A moment later, the Tower's voice addressed me.

[Purchasing 'Oracle Message'.]

[20 Race Points will be consumed!]

[You currently have 995 Race Points.]

I didn't stop there.

[Purchasing 'Oracle Message'.]

[20 Race Points will be consumed!]

[You currently have 975 Race Points.]

I poured in almost all the points I had.

[Purchasing 'Oracle Message'.]

[Purchasing 'Oracle Message'.]

[Purchasing 'Oracle Message'.]

I remembered the time I had been forced to endure entirely on my own. A regression spanning four thousand days. When I had tried to bear four thousand deaths alone, what helped me was none other than a voice.

The Tower's voice, saying, 'You have died.'

Every time I died, the Tower announced my death. Even when I regressed, the Tower knew I had done so.

Someone in this world was watching me. Remembering me.

When things were truly hard, that fact comforted me.

[Purchasing 'Oracle Message'.]

Now it was my turn to be someone's comfort.

[20 Race Points will be consumed!]

[You currently have 215 Race Points.]

I had purchased forty Oracle Messages.

The Inquisitor was still beaming. He presumably couldn't tell what items another person had purchased.

Meanwhile, I selected a total of forty recipients for the oracles: the goblin priest, pit chiefs responsible for the various pits, and sword slaves resting in the gladiators' quarters.

'... What should I tell them?'

I considered it.

'I don't want to tell them to rebel against the Mountain Snailfolk. Whether to rise against them or obey them is for the goblins themselves to decide. The gift I should give the children isn't the choice itself. It's help so they can choose something for themselves.'

The message could contain only a single sentence.

After careful thought, I chose my oracle from all the things I could say.

[The White Lion is by your side.]

A pause.

A mother washing her child's face with water flinched, her shoulders twitching.

[The White Lion is by your side.]

A pit chief who had just climbed out of a pit and picked up a stone axe startled.

[The White Lion is by your side.]

A gladiator in the cramped quarters jumped in surprise.

He had been sharpening his dagger, and dropped his whetstone.

[The White Lion is by your side.]

This person you worship as a god is powerless.

I have no power to overturn the earth, no miracle to shake the heavens.

At most, all I can do is give voice to a few words.

[The White Lion is by your side.]

That was the first oracle I delivered.

“...”

The old goblin lying on the cave floor stirred. Using a half-burned piece of firewood as a staff, the priest rose.

CRACK

The staff broke beneath his weight, but by then he was already on his feet.

“Gorrr...”

The old man struggled through the labyrinth of underground caves. The farther he went, the faster his steps became. Using his hands as well as his feet, the old goblin climbed up from the depths, ever upward.

“The White Lion has spoken to us...”

The priest gripped a rock with a hand ahead of him and braced a foot behind him against the cave floor. Red aura flowed from his aged flesh. The flame-like aura carried his voice, resonating through the cave.

“The White Lion has spoken to us!”

It echoed.

“The White Lion has spoken to us!”

The goblins' underground caves branched into dozens of passages. The priest's howl, laden with the aura he released, echoed along those dozens of routes. Into shafts closed long ago after their rock salt ran dry. Into the salt mine where the dawn shift had begun.

“Has spoken... to us...”

“The White Lion has spoken to us!”

At last, the echoing voice reached the mine entrance. The goblins' pits were there. Goblins drinking water from jars in the dawn pricked up their ears.

“The White Lion... to us...”

Then the old man collapsed, his strength spent.

He had wrung out his life, pouring forth every last drop of aura.

“Has spoken...”

The old priest lay on the ground, having kept no strength in reserve to rise again. His cry had not yet faded. Listening to his own voice return to him as an echo, the priest closed his eyes.

“Kerk.”

“Kekerkerrk...?”

The goblins stirred. They poked their heads out of their pits, all looking toward the mine entrance. Echoes still streamed from its dark mouth.

“Kerrk.”

One pit chief set down her child and stood.

She was one of the forty who had received my oracle.

“The White Lion has spoken to us!”

The pit chief shouted before the old man's last echo faded. She was not alone. Dozens of Earth Spiritfolk who had received the oracle lifted their heads one after another.

“At last, the White Lion has returned!”

“I heard it! Kerrk, I heard it too!”

“He said he is by our side!”

That was all. The children who had received the oracle shouted urgently, as though they had to tell their kin at once. That alone was enough to fluster the Mountain Snailfolk overseers.

“What is this, Raim? They're suddenly all...”

“Quiet! All of you, be quiet!”

“Any Mold that raises its voice from now on will be disciplined with the whip!”

The snails crawled out of their watchtowers and swung their tentacles.

CRACK!

Several goblins cowered at the sound of the whip. Some Earth Spiritfolk still refused to stop shouting, but the Mountain Snailfolk beat the instigators without exception.

“...”

The Inquisitor stroked his chin with a thoughtful hum.

“I see. Did you activate Oracle Messages? Simple yet effective. But Death King, your points must be limited. You cannot deliver oracles to even a few thousand people, let alone ten thousand! A disturbance of this scale can be handled by the Mountain Snailfolk alone—”

I didn't wait for him to finish.

I immediately purchased the next item.

[Purchasing 'Locate Prey'.]

[5 Race Points will be consumed!]

[You currently have 210 Race Points.]

It was an item I had purchased once before.

I quickly used it.

'Please locate the nearest lion to this place.'

A map formed in my mind.

The location was the colosseum. Animal cages stood right beside the arena, with no fewer than five lions behind bars. A lion was placidly gnawing on a cow bone.

'Okay.'

I purchased my third and final item from the shop.

'I'll purchase Animal Possession.'

The Tower responded.

[Purchasing 'Animal Possession'.]

[40 Race Points will be consumed!]

[You currently have 170 Race Points.]

Before the Inquisitor could finish speaking, I possessed a lion in the colosseum. My vision warped in a sudden rush. My mind went dark, as though a circuit breaker had tripped.

But only for a moment.

The next instant, I occupied the lion's body.

“Grrr...”

Unlike the one on the previous stage, this lion did not have white fur. Its mane was an ordinary brown, too.

But that didn't matter.

“Grrr. Grr.”

Whatever color its fur, a lion's voice was still a lion's voice.

I drew up aura throughout my body. Aura bearing a red fragrance surged in my heart.

THUMP!

I captured the full beat of my heart and unleashed it through my voice.

“Grrrr!”

The beasts caged across from me started violently.

“Grrrrrr!”

My cry leaped past the iron bars and escaped the animal cages. It rang through the square where the colosseum stood. It spread into the streets opening onto the square, along the wallways traveled by the Mountain Snailfolk, up to the underground city's ceiling, and finally into the pits the goblins had dug.

'I am here.'

Though I couldn't see them through the lion's eyes, I knew.

Right now, the goblins were surely listening to my cry.

They were hearing my voice.

“Grrr...”

I paused to catch my breath.

“Guru!”

Then I unleashed a lion's roar.

The name of the place that had become the Earth Spiritfolk's homeland. The name I had given it. The first name and written word we had shared, and the cry that had at last become a faith—I roared it out.

“Guru!”

The answer was not long in coming.

“Guru...”

A shout came from the far side of the Great Cavern. It was infinitely quieter than my aura-laden voice. But my ears did not miss the goblins' cry.

“Guru!”

And they, too, did not miss mine.

[A rebellion breaks out in Slimepolis!]

[The Earth Spiritfolk rise up against the Mountain Snailfolk!]