Chapter 48
Lanne & Grandia Academy: The Märchen.
In the original work, there were two major hostile factions.
One was the vampires of the New Kingdom, and the other was the servants of the evil god.
There was a certain oddity called Calamity, too, but···.
It was best to leave that one out of consideration.
Because it was never explicitly stated to belong to any particular faction.
Sometimes it was an extension of one of the two factions mentioned above, while other times it acted independently of both.
‘The New Kingdom. The cultists.’
The two were hostile factions, but their goals were different.
The New Kingdom’s goal was to start a war.
To treat inferior humans as livestock and rule over them.
Ultimately, they wanted to reign with the entire continent beneath their feet.
‘They don’t want the world to end. They just want to rule it.’
The cultists, on the other hand, were different.
What they wanted was the end of the world.
To borrow a passage from their Bible, <We shall make manifest the Most Exalted Night>.
Here, ‘the Most Exalted Night’ referred to the evil god they worshipped.
‘The cultists’ goal is to manifest their god.’
They wanted to bring the evil god down upon the continent.
In other words, they intended to destroy the world.
They were lunatics who believed they could be saved in the process.
They were bastards who could not—and should not—be understood through ordinary reasoning.
‘The only answer is to wipe them out completely.’
The ones I would be facing this time.
Come to think of it, this would be my first time directly clashing with the cultists.
I had encountered apostles many times before, but I had never actually faced the cultists themselves.
‘The apostle of the evil god, and the cultists.’
The two might seem like the same thing, but they were in fact completely different concepts.
I had written a post neatly organizing the subject back in my previous life.
I used to post miscellaneous information from time to time, too.
[Title: Distinguishing Apostles from Cultists]
[Author: I Play Games to Find Bugs]
Hello, this is I Play Games to Find Bugs.
Today, I found something interesting while reading through the Nugme setting guide, so I brought it here.
Here’s a little bit of trivia.
Cultists and apostles of the evil god.
The difference between the two, which seem similar but are actually different, is as follows.
According to the setting information released two days ago, they do not belong to the same category.
1.Cultists
-> They are exactly what you know them as: people who worship the evil god.
-> They are basically human.
2. Apostles of the evil god
-> They are said to be otherworldly life-forms blessed by the evil god.
-> They definitely aren’t human. They’re apparently closer to gods, if anything.
-> They are said to have a kind of symbiotic relationship with cultists.
3.Interaction between the two
-> First, the cultist bastards offer a sacrifice.
-> The apostle hears their call and appears.
-> The apostle grants a wish corresponding to the sacrifice.
Interesting.
Since their names both begin with ‘sa,’ I thought they would be members of the same family sharing one pot, but apparently they were closer to contractual partners.
Perhaps it’s like the relationship between demons and demon worshippers in other games.
The difference, however, is that apostles are generally said to have hazy reasoning.
Rather than thinking and acting for themselves, they simply act according to what they receive as a sacrifice.
That’s all.
If you found this helpful, please leave a like.
[So it’s an information post today?]
-> So where’s the insanely awesome bug?
-> I Play Games to Find Bugs) There isn’t one today.
-> Hey!!!!!! I’ve been waiting for that all day!!!!!!
[So where’s the bug?]
-> When are you going to find a bug, you bastard?
-> Don’t use the setting as an excuse to neglect your actual job.
-> I Play Games to Find Bugs) I uploaded one just four hours ago···
-> THAT’S NOT ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[You really have no sense. What kind of information post is this.]
-> I Play Games to Find Bugs) I figured you’d all say that, so I found one in advance.
-> I Play Games to Find Bugs) It’s a bug that tricks the system into mistaking the player for a member of the cultist faction, allowing the user to use items exclusive to cultists.
-> I Play Games to Find Bugs) I confirmed that this bug lets players make use of the [Interaction with Apostles] mentioned in the post above. I dropped a Red Knight on top of the vampires’ ranch, and they nearly died of happiness.
-> ????????
-> ????????
-> ?????
-> I Play Games to Find Bugs) Furube Yurayura.
-> Hey!!!!! You should have posted that first!!!
-> Why find it and then not post it!!!!!
-> Post it right now!!!!!!!
[What the fuck was that above?]
-> The player can make a contract with an apostle?
-> I Play Games to Find Bugs) Matching the items is a bit of a pain, but it is possible. Of course, it won’t listen to orders like ‘attack the cultists.’ It seems able to distinguish those in the same faction.
-> ??? Wait, then doesn’t that work against the vampires too? Attack the New Kingdom with an apostle of the evil god?
-> You can drop an apostle tactical nuke on the New Kingdom?
-> Is Furube Yurayura really happening?
-> I Play Games to Find Bugs) I’ll post it soon.
-> Fuck, I knew I could trust him! He’s a god!
-> Bug-Finding Guy! Bug-Finding Guy! Bug-Finding Guy! Bug-Finding Guy! Bug-Finding Guy! Bug-Finding Guy! Bug-Finding Guy! Bug-Finding Guy! Bug-Finding Guy! Bug-Finding Guy! Bug-Finding Guy! Bug-Finding Guy! Bug-Finding Guy! Bug-Finding Guy! Bug-Finding Guy! Bug-Finding Guy! Bug-Finding Guy! Bug-Finding Guy!
“Ahem.”
Today’s prey was the cultists.
More precisely, it was the members of the branch that had been colluding with Professor Glinbert.
Glinbert had acted as a mole, but in the end, he had merely followed their orders.
‘Chiya (漆夜)··· that must have been part of their plan too.’
The cultists had given Glinbert the unidentified substance, arranged for him to be isolated in the students’ hunting grounds, and manifested the Red Knight at that location.
And it wasn’t limited to this incident.
The cultists were behind most of the incidents that would occur afterward as well.
‘The next one is the most immediate··· next month, I’ll have the White Knight crash the midterms.’
The White Knight.
An apostle of the evil god.
One of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, among the most representative of their kind.
Apostles on the same level as the Red Knight I dealt with last time.
The other two were the Black Knight and the Blue Knight, making up the quartet.
‘If the White Knight interrupts the exam, things will become troublesome.’
The apostle who led the plague.
I had to prevent the White Knight from manifesting.
In that case, I would make the first move before they could act.
‘I should overturn the entire branch, so they can’t interfere with the academy for a while.’
I thought.
‘I might as well take care of the White Knight while I’m at it.’
The best outcome would be to secure the White Knight’s [End] itself.
If I did that, the ultimate Furube Yurayura would become possible.
The cultists wouldn’t be able to interfere either.
I walked as though lost in thought, repeatedly checking the blue window.
Ding-!
[Chain Quest]
-Title: Let’s Make Absolutely Sure It’s Finished?
-Content: Wipe out the cultist branch that colluded with Professor Glinbert. Rescue the civilians captured as research material.
-Penalty for failure: None
-Reward: A clue about ■■■
[Time Limit: 6 hours 03 minutes 39 seconds]
This quest was simple.
Cause a commotion.
Secure the captured civilians.
Get my hands on the White Knight’s End.
(If possible.)
“Shall we go in soon?”
“Mm, let us.”
Carmilla and I had already arrived at our destination.
This was hardly the first time we had secretly slipped out of the academy.
I was starting to get the hang of it.
This time, the distance was especially great, so we had to use wall-clipping repeatedly.
We arrived at a remote mountain valley, where a secluded temple stood in the shadows.
A barrier had been spread around the area, but as long as wall-clipping was possible, nothing could stop us.
“Your Highness··· no, Sir Manur.”
“What is it, Commander Garurik?”
“There is a saying. The only good cultist is a dead cultist.”
“Should we bury them all in the ground? Leaving only those who were captured?”
“Precisely.”
We stood at the entrance to the temple.
A fishy smile curled across our lips.
“Let’s go.”
Two problem children, yet the strongest.
The heretic inquisitors Garurik & Manur were on the move.
***
We entered the temple, and exactly one hour later···.
Though it had been a short time, the inside had already become a complete mess.
It was a research institute disguised as an isolated temple.
In reality, it was a cultist stronghold that researched demonic energy.
They abducted people, then carried out all manner of human experimentation and massacres.
“Whew···.”
This should have been a place where the screams and sobs of countless people once echoed.
A place where the lives unjustly ended there had not even been mourned.
The nauseating scent peculiar to blood and chemicals rose through the air.
Demonic energy rippled throughout the research institute.
But if there was one thing different about the scene from usual···.
“Gaaaaaah!”
“S-save me··· urk!”
“Fuck, the headquarters! Contact headquarters! Send reinforcements···!”
“The c-communications won’t connect! Gaaah!”
Today, the screams were coming from the opposite side.
They were coming from inside the laboratories beyond the cages holding the test subjects, not from the cages themselves.
Screams.
Fear.
Panic.
Those things permeated the research institute.
Corpses that had been slaughtered while trying to flee from something.
The dark-red robes symbolizing the cult had been dyed an even deeper red.
“It’s an attack!! An unidentified intruder has entered the facility···!”
“Fuck!! How the hell did they get in?!”
"Everyone, grab the research data!!"
"Gaaaaah!!"
It was noisy.
“They broke through the barrier outside the temple? How···!”
"We’re all fucked!! Lab Two has already been wiped out!!"
“Someone’s coming from the other side! Damn it, they’re both wearing masks!”
They were thrown into panic.
And so, they created another pile of corpses.
“Ignition. Thorns.”
Shraaak-!
Following the softly muttered spell, the cultist split into dozens of pieces.
“Kek, kek, kek, gurgle···.”
Thud-.
When I pulled the scythe back out, its contents spilled onto the floor.
I was calmly walking down the blood-soaked hallway.
A balloon sword in one hand, and a scythe in the other.
“Whew, this is tiring.”
I quietly steadied my breathing.
The hallway I had walked through was drenched in the cultists’ blood.
It was a fairly gruesome sight, but I didn’t particularly feel sorry for them.
‘Well··· they’re no different from the vampires of the New Kingdom I encountered last time.’
If the vampires of the New Kingdom treated humans as livestock, the cultists treated them as laboratory rats.
I could see traces of it everywhere.
Human eyeballs floating in test tubes.
Documents recording all manner of unethical experiments.
Test subjects inside steel cages who could no longer be called human.
The more carefully I observed my surroundings as I walked, the less hesitation I felt.
‘Come to think of it, Alice was also from one of the cultists’ laboratories···.’
Project Alice-02.
The name that had originally been attached to the girl.
They were bastards who could never be forgiven.
“Fuck! Die, you monstrous bastard···!”
“Oh my, you chose to face me instead of running away.”
“What are yooou!! Intruder, identify yourself!”
“Nugme.”
(Meaning the player of Lanne & Grandia Academy: The Märchen.)
Cultists lunged at me from blind spots.
I lightly stepped and blinked.
Immediately afterward, I appeared behind them and cut their throats.
Slash-!
“Ignition. Hammer.”
Kwaaang-!
The body stopped moving only after being completely crushed.
Perhaps because they had been corrupted by demonic energy, none of them died from simply having their throats cut.
‘At least they’re just desk jockeys who spend their days working in a laboratory···.’
They weren’t particularly strong.
Unlike Professor Glinbert, they were at a level I could handle on my own.
Of course, there were a few tough ones, but I dealt with them through ambushes using bugs.
There was no reason to fight trash head-on.
-Guruk, guruk···.
Even with only its head left, its lips were muttering.
Perhaps it had somehow managed to finish chanting, because a pitch-black spear shot toward me.
Whooosh-!
“Absolute Balloon Sword.”
Click-.
Of course, that was out of the question.
The pocket watch’s button was pressed, and the world slowed down.
Immediately afterward, the balloon sword moved like lightning and performed a parry.
Pop-.
The spear thrust veered off along a strange trajectory.
I slammed the scythe into it.
“Yo mama.”
(It means “your mom.”)
And so, the cultists were dealt with.
I was the only one left in the empty hallway.
“······Is this side finished?”
It seemed about time to join up with Carmilla.
We still had to free the civilians and capture the director of this research institute.
I corrected the grip on my balloon sword with a light touch.
“Whew··· there’s no time to rest.”
I let out a sigh and was about to leave the hallway when···.
A sudden flash of light washed my vision white.
Whooosh-!
“······?!”
I thought it might be an ambush, but I sensed no presence.
Besides, the light was coming from my hand, not somewhere else.
More precisely, it was coming from the balloon sword.
From my soft, squishy Balloon Sword.
As I stood there with a question mark over my head, the status window soon appeared before my eyes and explained the situation.
Ding-!
[You have cleared a hidden quest!]
-Title: I’ll Stake Everything on This Sword!
-Content: Successfully parry 300 times with a single weapon.
[You have fulfilled the condition through incredible persistence!]
-As a reward, a special option will be granted to the weapon.
“Huh.”
What.
What is it.
What the hell is happening all of a sudden.
Whooosh-!
Even as I wondered what was happening, light continued to leak from my Absolute Balloon Sword. It began to envelop the blade in gold. It seemed to have been imbued with a special power. “No way···.” The Balloon Sword’s option had changed. [The Absolute Balloon Sword is evolving!] “Evolving?” I slowly inspected the sword. The soft, squishy blade was becoming hard. It was no longer a balloon sword. It was changing into a real sword. “What the hell is this···.” When the light faded, what I held in my hand was a golden sword. The sword’s name had changed, too. [Absolute Balloon Sword EX] -Option: Can perfectly parry all attacks. -Restriction: If the parry fails, it disappears immediately. “This is insane.” Absolute defense. In exchange, a weapon that allowed not even a single mistake. This was···. “It’s real?” I muttered while holding the sword. “The Absolute Balloon Sword really became real.” Then someone applauded from beyond the spear. “Congratulations, Heretic Inquisitor.” “······Who are you?” A girl wearing a white mask walked out of the darkness. “I am the director of this research institute.” “The director?” The girl nodded. “I possess the White Knight’s End that you wanted.” “······.” “If you want to trade for it, I’ll make you an offer.” I slowly raised the golden sword. “No thanks.” “That’s an unexpected answer.” “I can just take it.” “You certainly are a problem child.” The girl smiled. “But I’m prepared as well.” Dozens of magic circles rose behind her. “If you want the White Knight’s End, defeat me.” I lightly swung the sword. A golden arc cleaved through the air. “Fine.” Today’s prey was not yet exhausted. “Then let’s test the performance of the real Absolute Balloon Sword.”
The light continued to leak out even as I wondered what was happening. It began to envelop the blade in gold. It seemed to have been imbued with a special power. “No way···.” The Balloon Sword’s option had changed. [The Absolute Balloon Sword is evolving!] “Evolving?” I slowly inspected the sword. The soft, squishy blade was becoming hard. It was no longer a balloon sword. It was changing into a real sword. “What the hell is this···.” When the light faded, what I held in my hand was a golden sword. The sword’s name had changed, too. [Absolute Balloon Sword EX] -Option: Can perfectly parry all attacks. -Restriction: If the parry fails, it disappears immediately. “This is insane.” Absolute defense. In exchange, a weapon that allowed not even a single mistake. This was···. “It’s real?” I muttered while holding the sword. “The Absolute Balloon Sword really became real.” Then someone applauded from beyond the spear. “Congratulations, Heretic Inquisitor.” “······Who are you?” A girl wearing a white mask walked out of the darkness. “I am the director of this research institute.” “The director?” The girl nodded. “I possess the White Knight’s End that you wanted.” “······.” “If you want to trade for it, I’ll make you an offer.” I slowly raised the golden sword. “No thanks.” “That’s an unexpected answer.” “I can just take it.” “You certainly are a problem child.” The girl smiled. “But I’m prepared as well.” Dozens of magic circles rose behind her. “If you want the White Knight’s End, defeat me.” I lightly swung the sword. A golden arc cleaved through the air. “Fine.” Today’s prey was not yet exhausted. “Then let’s test the performance of the real Absolute Balloon Sword.”