Chapter 222 - Through the Cracks (1)

Warm sunlight shone through the lush leaves.

The forest today was so quiet and clear that it was hard to believe it was the site of yesterday's fierce battle.

In the quiet forest where only the chirping of birds could be heard, even the corpses that had run wild were now in a deep sleep from which they would never rise again, as if they had finally found peace.

"You're awake?"

However, eternal sleep was something that only applied to the dead.

Unlike them, who would lie there forever, Vlad, having just opened his eyes, slowly turned his head upon hearing the young girl's voice by his ear.

"...."

"They said that mister didn't die. That's a relief, right?"

As if the price of embracing the World Tree was not a small one, unbearable, fierce pain was still rising throughout Vlad's entire body.

Because of that, he was in the middle of being unable to utter a proper word, but the young Divine Maiden merely chattered on endlessly, as if she already knew everything Vlad wanted to say.

"But they said he was badly injured and might not be able to use one of his arms."

"Ugh."

Vlad had consumed all his energy, even the strength to speak, in yesterday's fierce battle.

However, perhaps finding the Divine Maiden in front of him completely awkward, he forced his body up and began to straighten his back.

"... If it's only that much, then it's a relief."

Bright sunlight was shining down over the head of the Divine Maiden, who had the window behind her.

Her platinum blonde hair shining entirely white was an unbearable brightness for Vlad, who had only just opened his eyes, but he could nevertheless recognize the small sketchbook the Divine Maiden was holding.

"What is that? A revelation?"

"No."

The Divine Maiden used to give revelations through her drawings, but today she just smiled gently, as if that wasn't the case.

"You don't need things like revelations anymore, Vlad."

The words the Divine Maiden had just spoken carried an inexplicable, peculiar resonance.

Having his attention briefly drawn to her words, Vlad could soon see a piece of pristine white drawing paper placed on his hand.

"It said thank you. For drawing a wonderful picture in its place."

"... Did it?"

It was a piece of drawing paper torn out roughly from the sketchbook she was holding.

It was a piece of paper that could easily look insincere, but a small smile began to form on Vlad's face as he looked at the drawing on it.

"But you still can't draw."

"Huh?"

Just like always, it was an entirely crooked, jagged drawing.

On that drawing, which looked as though a child had drawn it, was depicted a young one smiling brightly despite being a tree, and his own figure standing next to it holding a sword.

* * *

Deep within the city of the elves.

Unlike the outside where the sun shone well, a pitiful voice cried out in the elven prison, which was completely dark.

"Oh God! Please!"

The urgent voice flowed from the Count of Vitskaya, who was hanging upside down.

Being completely covered in blood, it seemed he had been subjected to severe torture, yet the lack of any fatal wounds made it seem like a highly skilled expert had conducted the interrogation.

"Bishop Pierre! My faith in God has never wavered! Even now, if you tell me to recite a prayer, I could recite it without getting a single letter wrong... Gaaaah!"

SSSSSS.

The Count protested his innocence with an earnest voice, but the priest standing in front of him seemed to have no intention of listening to his confession.

Holding a hot iron instead of a Bible, Bishop Pierre calmly peeled off the remaining skin and simply asked the Count.

"Since when have you been colluding with them?"

"Ugh! Gaaaaah!"

"Five years ago? Or has it been longer than that?"

At the horrifying screams echoing in the prison, even the elves standing outside the bars were turning their heads, as if they couldn't bear to watch.

However, the faithful Pierre, who followed God's will, silently went about his work to find the truth even amidst this hellish scene.

"You had better not try any nonsense in front of me. You were already an impure element being watched by the Vatican."

"Heuugh!"

At Pierre's words that he had been watching him for a long time, the Count's face grew increasingly pale.

Bishop Pierre. The exorcist priest and inquisitor that the Vatican boasted of.

In front of him, who had killed dozens of wicked beings and personally burned hundreds of unbelievers, the Count of Vitskaya was nothing more than an insignificant existence.

"... Colluding, it wasn't exactly colluding."

"The elves here say that in the first place, the drug called Absilon wasn't something that would induce suicide."

Pierre set down the hot iron he was holding and picked up a small pair of tongs as he asked.

It was a pair of tongs that seemed incapable of harming anyone, but the Count was actually far more terrified of the small tongs with an unknown purpose than he was of the hot iron.

"Though it is so addictive that quitting is all but impossible."

"...."

The elven drug, Absilon, that had caused an uproar in the capital, Brigantes.

The number of court nobles who committed suicide after encountering that drug was in the dozens alone, so it must have been an item that could not be distributed without harboring an uncommonly wicked heart.

"Where did it start? The point when a pitch-black poison was added to the vengeance held by the elves?"

However, even the very elves who created this Absilon said it wasn't a drug made to kill anyone.

They said that while they may have intended to slowly sicken the Empire, they had never hoped for such extreme results.

Because the elves knew all too well that if they had truly done that, Aushrina would have been endangered by the Empire.

"The way I see it, this whole mess seems to have started in your territory."

Someone had added poison to the Empire.

Putting up the elves as a shield in front of them.

Through the Count's trembling eyes, Pierre could be certain that there were entities out there deliberately borrowing others' names to incite hatred between them.

"Was it the Dragonblood Duke's doing after all?"

Endlessly drawing lines and dividing each other.

There were those laughing amidst the deep valleys of conflict created in that manner.

Toward them, who were coiled at every surface where the worlds met, the faithful servant of God finally began to thrust a small torch.

"I-I'll talk! So please!"

Bishop Pierre, who exacted wrath instead of the holy word of God for the sake of the righteous path he believed in.

However, the true nature of the poisonous insects heard through the Count's forced-open mouth was far uglier than Pierre had expected.

* * *

Angry voices were leaking out along the damp corridor.

They were bizarre voices that gave him goosebumps just listening to them, but Joseph, who was hiding and secretly eavesdropping through the crack in the door, merely perked up his ears and focused his attention.

"We need to scatter again, even now. We've already shown too much."

"We finally gathered like this, and you want us to scatter again? If we do that, who knows if it will take hundreds of years!"

Beyond the door where Joseph stood, dozens of dark mages were currently exchanging heated words with veins popping on their necks.

If the silent dark mages were included, there were probably hundreds of them in total, but the fact that not a single sound of breathing could be heard was still setting Joseph's nerves on edge.

"If not now, there won't be another chance in the future! Because the Empire has never been in such chaos in its history as it is now!"

Now that Lamashtu had temporarily stepped back due to the wound she received from Vlad, the dark mages she had gathered were slowly beginning to bare their fangs.

Although they belonged to the same world, the dreams they dreamed were all different, and they began to raise their voices and shout at each other, as if this was their only chance to achieve their respective goals.

"I'm saying that now is the time for us to step forward and rule the Empire! It would truly be the birth of a magnificent magical empire!"

"I have no interest in such trivial matters. I am merely curious about the magic of world creation that she desires."

"Let's strike the Vatican and the Northern Orthodox Church bastards first! Do you have any idea how many of our comrades have fallen to them?"

Some for unfulfilled ambition, some for undiscovered truth, and others for bone-deep vengeance.

Joseph could tell that every word they spat out contained a pitch-black poison that would stain the world black.

However, because they stood at such an extreme, their words, which no one listened to, had so far failed to reach anyone and merely faded away emptily.

"... It is a fact that now is the right time for us to achieve something."

That is, until a woman named Lamashtu brought them together as one.

At that moment, Joseph could notice a familiar voice coming from inside the room.

Lamashtu's confidant, the nameless headless knight.

As the one who had guided Joseph deep into the corridor opened his mouth, the dark mages who had been so heated just a moment ago began to fall silent.

"The fact that Lady Lamashtu's great work must be achieved first for that to happen is something we all agreed upon."

What great work was Lamashtu trying to achieve first?

What kind of tricks had these people been playing all this time to accomplish that?

Joseph's ear began to press tightly against the doorway to hear the headless knight's voice as he was about to explain it.

"Even though the Dragonblood Duke betrayed us, we have another dragon fragment."

The army of Radu that surrounded the city of Moshiam had certainly displayed a suspicious appearance.

He didn't know about now, but perhaps until then, the Dragonblood Duke and Lamashtu had been in cahoots, and he had seemingly lured her in using the item known as the dragon fragment.

"Along with that, we have now gathered plenty of the young potentials of children as well as the essences of spirits. All we need now are the roots of the World Tree."

The most perfect fragment in the world and the young potential that could become anything.

And even the roots of the World Tree that could soar to the very ends of the sky.

"Once we gather just that, Lady Lamashtu will become the master of the world she creates herself."

Through those things, Lamashtu wanted to become a god.

Even if just for the sake of the fragile children that the current world was merely turning a blind eye to.

Perhaps no children would suffer in the world she dreamed of, but the method she chose to achieve that was nothing more than the worst kind of blasphemy that no one had ever been able to imagine.

"....!"

Having finally realized Lamashtu's true objective, Joseph let out a stifled scream.

At her grandiose plan that surpassed a mortal's imagination, Joseph ended up unwittingly letting out a single breath welling up from deep within his chest.

CREEAK!

And in this space where no one breathed, the breath Joseph exhaled was far too alien a thing.

Noticing that breath, the headless knight began to push back his chair with a sharp scraping sound.

"Who is it?"

The sound of the headless one's footsteps walking heavily from inside the room was drawing closer.

However, having no proper place to flee, Joseph couldn't hide his panicked expression and was at a loss for where to run.

"It must be you, after all. Joseph of Bayezid."

Through the slowly opening door, the blue ghost-fire conjured by the headless knight was undulating.

As his gaze, endlessly cold because it harbored death, swept over him, Joseph felt as though his heart had stopped.

"...."

However, the headless knight did not approach Joseph any further.

He merely stared above Joseph's head, frozen stiff like a sheet of ice.

"Have you returned?"

"I have."

Joseph was greatly startled for a moment by the voice coming from above his head.

"I sent him on an errand, but it seems he's lost his way."

Although Joseph wasn't a knight, he was someone with a naturally sensitive sense of qi.

But now, standing behind him was a man who had somehow entirely lost his color.

The man, who had been standing there since who knows when, opened his mouth while looking at the blue ghost-fire standing in front of him.

"I'll be taking this one with me."

"... Understood. Lord Frausen."

"Ah, and also."

Frausen, having turned Joseph's stiffened shoulders, spoke as he took him away with a natural gesture.

"The dragon's heart is not yours yet, is it?"

Pointing a raised finger at his own heart.

"If you want to claim rightful ownership of this, you will have to kill Sarnus first, as promised."

You get death, and I get the fragment.

Because that was the pact we made in the forest that day.

With those words, the man who had returned from death and the man heading toward death began walking down the dark corridor.

It was likely a corridor they couldn't escape no matter how much they walked, but nevertheless, they merely continued to endlessly walk forward.