Chapter 23
After safely escorting Kim Yul through the Great Rift to the imperial capital.
Seraphin immediately headed into the Demon Realm once more to analyze the unprecedented anomaly again.
He gathered the party members as well, and on top of that contacted the commander to bring along the analysis team too.
And they all confirmed it.
The bizarre phenomenon of color returning inside the Demon Realm was not Seraphin's hallucination or an optical illusion, but the real thing.
“I can't feel the Demon Realm's usual oppressive pressure...”
“The flow of mana is stable too.”
“We'll need to analyze its composition precisely, but judging by the life force imbued in the soil, it definitely feels like something from the outside world.”
A miracle had occurred on the earth they had believed harbored nothing but death.
Seraphin hesitated for a moment.
He did not bother telling everyone Kim Yul's name, even though the boy seemed to be closely related to this miracle.
It was too early to jump to conclusions.
It could just be a simple coincidence.
He could trust the other party members, but not completely the people dispatched from headquarters.
Since exploration and colonization inside the Demon Realm were closely tied to the interests of countries around the world.
If Kim Yul's identity were ever compromised.
It would also weigh heavily on Seraphin's conscience...
“Seraphin, what's with that expression?”
“Nothing.”
Just thinking about Esthea, the wild dragon he'd run into by chance, suddenly made Seraphin feel a chill down his spine.
Even as a hero, there were beings you should never provoke.
And that was a dragon.
And...
Among dragons, the one said to have the worst personality was Esthea.
No matter how cute she made herself look, the more beautiful the flower, the sharper the thorns—and the deadlier the poison.
Recalling that memory, it would not be an exaggeration to say Kim Yul had already drawn not merely Esthea's casual interest, but her full attention.
“For now... let's search the surroundings and make sure exactly what has changed.”
Seraphin decided to keep quiet about Kim Yul.
* * *
“Ugh, every bone in my body hurts...”
Even after enduring Histoire's grumbling and pouting because he had come home from his ordeal without buying chocolate bread for her.
He sat down at his desk to sort out his thoughts.
Earlier, while returning to the capital with Seraphin.
He had heard a more detailed explanation of what a hero is.
And of what was happening inside the rift.
First off, the hero.
Just how incredible did it have to be for this body not even to get into the Hero Academy?
It was a terrifying place where they selected 100 people, only 1 became a hero, and the rest enlisted as officers in the army.
Even if you were lucky enough to pass.
I would have become a soldier with a weirdly middling score, around 47th place.
“Well. Isn't that a little too dismissive of the Hero Academy?”
“...You're the one underestimating me.”
Well, it didn't seem like a wrong thing to say.
In any case, even if you graduated top of the academy, you couldn't immediately become a hero either.
You also had to be recognized by the Sacred Sword that only heroes could wield, and since there were only a few of those swords in the world.
Unless the previous hero died or retired, you were effectively a slave, stuck on indefinite hero-duty standby and unable to do any other job.
“What an efficient way to manage manpower. When I come to rule the world someday, I'll put Kim Yul on indefinite standby.”
“Tin can. You still haven't developed a human heart, have you...”
“I am a perfectly flawless existence from birth. That is me.”
I gave Tin Can=Database a flick on the forehead.
And...
- Life in the Demon Realm is... honestly, I can't say it's good. As you can see, it's barren everywhere, there's no life to be found, and if you don't have a strong enough mind to back you up, going insane happens in an instant.
If Kim Yul, who was utterly useless, had actually been sucked into the rift, I'd probably have been rolling around with my SAN score at rock bottom, wailing alongside Gomst.
In fact, if there wasn't a single thing in it that was good for humans, and you asked why I was still battling the Demon Realm inside the rift, there were two reasons.
First.
If we didn't suppress it preemptively, monsters would periodically invade the world through the rift, just like in genre fiction.
We were pouring precious national defense resources and heroes into it to prevent that.
And second.
Apparently there are valuable resources that can only be found inside the Demon Realm.
Loot farming is serious business, so I decided to accept it.
Apart from that...
“Histoire. Do you believe God exists?”
“That refers to the machine god, Lord Deus Ex Machina. The end of the human age has come, so we must naturally revere—”
“Sigh.”
Asking the tin can was my mistake.
Anyway.
Earlier.
The mysterious man who spoke Greek, whom I met in the one and only patch of natural color inside the ash-gray Demon Realm.
After checking through various documents right after returning.
His identity was probably...
Apollo.
But.
Why?
Why had such a being suddenly appeared in the Demon Realm?
And why was it that only the area around where he stood inside the Demon Realm suddenly regained its color?
There was still no way to resolve those questions.
However.
I had a certain intuition.
Perhaps... it wasn't unrelated to the status window I possessed.
At present, the only completed work I'd ever written was a Greek and Roman mythology story, so maybe Apollo appeared because of that.
To prove that hypothesis...
“I'd better write more, and write better.”
“I agree with that too. If you combine all the circumstances, it can only be said that Kim Yul's special ability is affecting the Demon Realm too.”
“Seems like it.”
Well.
There was only one thing I could do.
Just as I am now.
Write with a sense of duty.
For now...
Let's neatly tie things up all the way to Caesar's end.
* * *
A month had passed since Kim Yul survived the Demon Realm.
During that time.
“Yul...! What on earth happened, what on earth? Are you safe? Nothing happened, right?”
“Ah, Saintess.”
Kim Yul, who was caught by Roseline, was dragged into the confessional and subjected to nearly two hours of preaching, along with...
“Now, this is a protective talisman, and this is an alarm talisman...”
He was given every possible measure imaginable to guarantee his safety.
That included her personal concern for Kim Yul.
“Cleopatra! Forbidden love! It'll naturally go all the way to marriage, right?”
That also included her admiration for the satisfying development she had longed for.
Hadn't it been said that the stronger the stimulation, the higher the threshold becomes?
In the past, Roseline would surely have shouted, 'How blasphemous!' every time she saw what looked like an affair.
But if she looked at it through colored lenses, assuming they would be married anyway, it was nothing more than a charming romance.
That's how people grow.
Of course, Kim Yul knew all too well that Caesar and Cleopatra would never get married.
“Hahaha...”
He just laughed and tried to get through the immediate crisis.
.
.
.
And then, today.
“There should definitely be much more to say...”
“Every story has an ending.”
Kim Yul handed Guilford a bundle of manuscripts containing the contents up to the completion of ‘The Fallen Aristocrat Is Good at Politics’.
Receiving the manuscript, Guilford ignored the rest and pulled out the manuscript of the final installment to start reading.
Of course, if he were a reader, that was something he would never do normally.
But Guilford had already become a devoted fan who had finished Kim Yul's entire ‘Olympus Tales’ series.
Would this time also be like Heracles...
Like the story of Troy...
He had to check whether tragedy had been inserted into the ending.
## ====== ##
Caesar entered the meeting hall.
As always whenever he faced the Senate, the chamber was so lofty and grand.
All the senators rose in unison to greet him, but.
Today, strangely enough.
“…….”
His old nemesis, who had been defeated by him at Pharsalus a few years ago and met a miserable end in Egypt.
He got the feeling that the gaze of Pompey's statue set in a corner of the chamber was looking straight at him.
He brushed off the bad feeling, trying to tell himself it was just his imagination.
As the dictator who had wielded unchallenged power for four years and five months.
As the lifelong dictator with no term limit.
Caesar sat in the seat of honor that had been arranged for him.
At that moment.
Several senators surrounded him as if by prior agreement.
Leading the group was Lucius Tillius Cimber.
“Lord Caesar. Please, show mercy and pardon my exiled brother.”
Even at that desperate cry, Caesar shook his head firmly.
Wasn't that matter already rejected by the Senate?
Why bring it up again now?
“Oh! Great Caesar!”
But as if driven to the point where he could no longer control his emotions, Cimber screamed and rushed at Caesar, seizing the hem of his toga.
No, more precisely.
He seized both of Caesar's arms.
“Are you trying to use violence?”
Caesar scolded him in a stern voice, but.
“Friends, what are you waiting for!”
Along with Cimber's cry.
The situation changed abruptly.
- A single man can never possess power forever!
- Are you going to live your whole life as his puppet, his toy?
- You used to curse Sulla—aren't you even worse than Sulla now?
The resolve built up until then flashed through the minds of all the senators who had plotted the assassination.
Of course, personal motives like lust for power and revenge were also heavily mixed in.
The whirlpool of desire finally began to surge.
“Die!”
Shouting loudly, Servilius Casca thrust the dagger straight toward Caesar's neck, but.
Whether because he was too tense or because Caesar dodged with exquisite timing.
the blade missed, grazing below the collarbone and leaving only a wound on his shoulder.
But.
“How dare you!”
Caesar's roar snapped every senator to attention.
Just like the cry he had shouted before crossing the Rubicon.
The die had already been cast.
“Death to the tyrant!”
With someone's shout.
Nearly sixty senators simultaneously rushed Caesar.
The first blade tore through his side.
The second blade dug into his back.
The third blade left a long gash on his thigh.
The seasoned lion who had roamed battlefields for decades instinctively bared his fangs and tried to resist every one of those attacks.
But he was alone, and the enemy was far too many.
With countless wounds on his body.
As Caesar retreated as defensively as possible, he suddenly felt a cold sensation touch his back.
Looking up through blurred vision.
There stood the statue of Pompey.
And when he lowered his head again.
The young man he had loved like a son and regarded as his successor.
Brutus stood there with a ghostly pale face.
In his hand, like the others, was a dagger stained with blood.
At the final moment.
The language that came from his mouth was not the language of Rome.
The language he and Brutus had used to discuss philosophy and literature together, talk about grand strategy, and debate how Rome could become greater still.
“You too, my son!”
The moment the Greek words flowed from his mouth.
Along with the twenty-two stab wounds before it, the twenty-third wound grazed his throat.
At last.
Caesar's blood soaked the base of Pompey's statue.
## ====== ##
A few more lines of description seemed to follow, but they were no longer important.
Guilford barely managed to restrain his trembling hands as he set the manuscript down on the desk.
He conveyed only the plain facts.
“At this rate, writer, your body will end up with twenty-three holes.”
Kim Yul's pupils trembled violently.