Chapter 109
[YOU DIED]
[All stats will be recalibrated]
[You have exceeded the maximum penalty.]
[Current penalty (5): -75%]
[NoName(NoName)]
[World of Arseria – Priest Nightmare 10/10/10]
[Broadcast Time – 5:22:41]
[Viewer Count – 19407]
“Bring it to mind.”
“Remember.”
“Don’t forget.”
* * *
“Adela?”
“Mmm?”
The words that pierced her thoughts made Adela turn her head.
“Are you okay?”
“Ah... uh... yeah. I’m fine.”
“Your hand... it’s bleeding.”
NoName reminded her that she was gripping the blade, not the hilt.
Only then did Adela notice the sharp pain in her palm. Startled, she dropped the dagger.
“Do you want to rest for a bit if you’re tired?”
“No. We’re running out of time. We have to go straight to the Academy.”
“There’s still plenty of time before we receive a signal from headquarters. Besides, we’ll have to hide somewhere to shake off our pursuers anyway.”
Corpses were strewn in every direction.
Most of them were in a gruesome state at a glance because Adela had torn open their organs with her curved sword.
Thanks to the World of Arseria AI system’s automatic blurring function, Name’s broadcast had not been suspended, but even it could not conceal the cruel stench wafting from beyond the blur.
Following NoName’s suggestion, they passed through the northern forest and reached the narrow alleyways of the holy city.
“The sky is especially beautiful today.”
She said this while gazing at the jewels densely studded across the black silk spread between the tightly packed buildings.
Whenever Adela passed through the city’s back alleys, she had a habit of looking up at the sky as she walked.
Partly because the stench creeping up from the ground was unbearable, but more than anything, she simply couldn’t accept that she had been forced to hole up in a place like this.
What had begun as a small act of escapism had gradually become her hobby.
“Forest Keeper, Forest Keeper.”
“Why?”
“Do you know how to raise your self-esteem, nya?”
Because of the sudden question, Name mulled it over for quite some time.
“There’s an easy way and a difficult way.”
“What’s the easy way?”
“Live your life looking only at people who are worse off than you.”
Since she had nothing to be proud of, there was no reason for her self-esteem to fall either. It was a clear but disconcerting answer.
“Then what’s the difficult way?”
“Work hard to get further ahead than the people who are better than you.”
“I knew it.”
Dispirited by the correct answer to a foolish question, Adela tried to lie down, only to bonk her head on a protruding stone. She spoke irritably.
“Ow, why is there a rock here! Haa.... You know what? Those slave children we rescued from the supply warehouse earlier.”
“The ones we freed from Valum’s study?”
“Yeah. I almost ended up in exactly the same situation when I was little. My mother tried to sell me to a slave trader because she didn’t have any money.”
Name gave a small nod.
It was a case Name had seen countless times in a previous life.
Name had also realized that maternal love did not arise naturally, so it no longer shocked Name.
“I always looked at the slaves in the holy city and thought that at least I was better off than them. That I was better off than those people who had even their futures stolen from them... But what meaning did that have now?”
“None at all.”
“You’re right. In the end, either way, I was still stuck where I started.”
The sound of Adela scraping her dagger back and forth against the stone pavement ought to have made anyone grimace, but Name didn’t seem to care.
The words she had carved were ‘NoName’ and ‘Adela.’
“Is this how you write your name?”
“Yeah. You got it right this time.”
“What kind of airy nonsense is that, nya? Continental Common is a piece of cake! Anyway... there’s something I’ve decided starting today.”
NoName propped up her chin and gazed intently at Adela.
“I’m going to improve my skills without the Laurel’s help and make sure I get into the Academy.”
In a slightly embarrassed yet excited tone, Adela calmly explained her aspirations.
“Didn’t you say you only get one chance to challenge the Academy?”
“Oh, for someone with no connections like me, forging an identity is easy. Besides, don’t I look pretty young?”
Adela shrugged.
“Children who looked old when they were young sometimes grow up to look youthful.”
“What? What exactly did you mean by that, Forest Keeper!”
After bickering for a long while beneath the stars, NoName suddenly let out a deep sigh and spoke.
“There’s no guarantee that the Academy is necessarily a good place.”
“Have you ever attended the Academy, nya?”
“Yeah. Though I dropped out.”
“Why would you enter such a good place only to do that?”
NoName bit her lip and darted her eyes around.
“For the Academy to become someone’s heaven, it ultimately has to become someone else’s hell for the balance to work, right?”
“Hmm...”
“There could be bullies. The classes might not suit you. The professors might discriminate against you because of your background.”
“You may have a point. I’ll have to think it over again. Even so, attending the Academy has been my lifelong dream. Declaring it hell without even going there would make me seem like too much of a loser, wouldn’t it?”
“That was always your personality. Unlike me, I think you’ll adapt well even after you go there.”
“I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say something like that to me.”
Adela awkwardly scratched the back of her head.
[Move to the Academy’s North Gate and join ‘Abyss’.]
Along with a story progression message visible only to NoName, fireworks exploded in the sky.
“If something happens to Alpherion and Shisiela... what will you do?”
NoName asked Adela, who had finished preparing to join them. Adela looked displeased, as if asking why she would say something so ominous.
“Of course I’ll go save them!”
“Even if you fail the mission?”
“Yeah.”
* * *
When they reached the Academy’s main building, Adela couldn’t shake the sense of déjà vu rising in a corner of her mind.
There was a saying that cat beastkin had such good instincts that they could sometimes avoid bad things that would happen in the near future, but right now, it felt as though alarm bells were clanging even louder than that.
That unease soon became reality when a blood-soaked Shisiela came limping toward them.
“Shisiela! What happened to you?”
“Tsk... That old geezer was completely right after all. Unfortunately, only half right...”
“Wait. Don’t pull it out.”
The Forest Keeper sharply caught Shisiela’s hand as she tried to pull the arrow from her thigh.
“If you pull it out now, you’ll bleed even more.”
“It’s not like I can fight like this, is it?”
“Fight? In this condition? What on earth are you thinking!”
Adela stamped her feet.
“Now I think I understand why they sent only the two of you on such a dangerous mission. All our mercenaries betrayed us. Everyone in District 15 of Abyss has sided with the Academy!”
“Then what about Alpherion?”
“He’s surrounded by a squad of guards and the people involved.”
“You’re really going? No, you can’t! Absolutely not!”
“The Laurel is here. I have to go help Alpherion again. Forest Keeper, don’t abandon Adela. Please, I mean it.”
Despite Adela’s attempts to stop her, the bear beastkin coldly shoved her away.
Since Name had been asked to stop Adela somehow, Name had no choice but to resort to drastic measures.
Thwack-!
With the edge of her hand held stiff, Name struck the back of Adela’s neck hard and knocked her unconscious.
“Take her.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere. I’ll secure Alpherion’s safety.”
“Do you have any idea how ridiculous what you’re saying—”
“I’ll come back alive this time.”
After equipping the Laurel of Life, Name vanished as soon as she finished speaking.
Adela’s head grew hot as she realized she was standing at a crossroads.
No. There hadn’t been any choice to begin with.
NoName had deliberately knocked Shisiela unconscious because she was worried Adela would come along.
It meant that if Adela wanted to save her, she had to leave immediately.
[Bring it to mind.]
“What the hell do you want me to call to mind!”
Adela felt phantom pain, as if the laurel crown were squeezing her head.
[Remember.]
“What do you want me to remember!”
[Don’t forget.]
Adela ran with all her strength.
Leaving the city ablaze behind her and ignoring the drunken revelers darting around in every direction while screaming, she fled with a companion who weighed nearly twice as much as she did on her back.
Her thighs felt as if they were about to burst. Her heart was pounding like mad.
The soles of her feet must already have been completely worn raw.
Having reached her physical limit, Adela’s body gradually slowed down.
“Haa... haa... Damn it, seriously...!”
Before long, she stopped walking and turned her head to look behind her for the first time.
The Academy’s main building and its lofty clock tower were no longer visible.
Because she had run while looking straight ahead, she realized she had drifted into a completely unfamiliar place without even thinking about her direction.
‘Since we’re north, is this District 18? It could be District 20.’
All the districts beyond District 16 in the capital looked identical, so it was difficult to determine her location from the buildings alone.
Shisiela’s bleeding had stopped, but she had lost so much blood that she was still unconscious. Adela wondered if she should consider it a blessing that she was still breathing.
Adela leaned against a stone wall, intending to rest for a moment.
The cold chill of the night crept up her back with a shiver.
Drip-
A single raindrop fell onto the bridge of her nose.
When she extended her palm, a downpour came rushing down and soaked her sleeve.
“As if things weren’t bad enough, now it’s raining...”
The brilliant starlight gradually disappeared. She couldn’t see them, but surely dark clouds had hidden them from view.
As if to confirm her prediction, lightning flashed, briefly illuminating the world that had been plunged into darkness.
“Huh...?”
Adela’s eyes widened as she looked at the stone wall across from her.
Clutching the dagger hidden in her bosom, she slowly approached the stone wall one step at a time.
“That can’t be...”
Rumble crack-!
The thunder that shook the earth made the fur all over her body stand on end.
She desperately wanted to run away, but she had to confirm it.
And when the next bolt of lightning took its turn,
“This is impossible...”
[NoNae-hit] [Adela]
[NoNaeim] [Adela]
[NoName] [Adela]
[NoName] [Adela]
[NoName] [Adela]
Names carved in intaglio stood in a line.
Rumble crack-!
“Haa...!”
Adela’s head was filled with confusion.
On a desperate hunch, she fitted her dagger into the gaps between the letters, and its width and depth matched perfectly. They had clearly been carved with her own sword.
“I’ve never even been here...”
Who on earth could have done this?
It was impossible unless a doppelgänger existed somewhere in the world.
Yet the letters illuminated by the successive bolts of lightning were unmistakably written in the same handwriting as what she had carved into the ground while speaking with NoName.
Adela borrowed the Laurel’s power and activated a spell the Forest Keeper had taught her.
[Cast: Light]
At the very bottom of the stone wall, she discovered a shallow, faintly engraved message that she hadn’t noticed earlier.
[Go back]