Chapter 198
When I tossed back the six-star Talent Jewel, the man called the Marshal stared at me in bewilderment.
(I had been planning to return it anyway.)
I think I saved the life of someone named Sumelia. If she had kept using 【Insane Blade】, she would have died. I don't know whether she had known that and continued using it, or whether she'd kept using it without realizing, but I couldn't just leave someone to die when I knew what would happen.
My only goal was to free the Lef people. That was all.
Compared to the dragon people's city, the Underground City seemed to have more Talents, but from what I could tell by looking at the other people, they didn't seem to have an abundance of them.
So I figured there probably wasn't anyone with a rare Talent like 【Orb Attachment/Detachment★★★★】.
If there was one, that was fine. I had planned to extract it eventually anyway.
But if there wasn't anyone, Sumelia hadn't had much longer to live.
(It would have been a problem if she died after I'd gone to the trouble of saving her life...)
If I hadn't returned the Talent Jewel, Sumelia might have dragged out her life, or—already just a few steps from becoming an empty shell—she might have been discarded as "unnecessary." Food was in short supply in this world, after all.
But with the Talent Jewel back, she would be useful.
They would keep her alive to verify the information I'd given them. And when deciding what to do with a six-star Talent Jewel from here on out, Sumelia, as a living witness, would be indispensable.
I don't need a Talent that vicious.
(Come to think of it, aren't Talents of six stars or higher all dangerous? Maybe the reason the First Knight Commander of the Kurvaan Holy Kingdom doesn't go to the front lines despite inheriting an outrageous Talent called 【Holy Sword★★★★★★】 for generations is that its side effects—or rather, the price of using it—are enormous.)
It had crossed my mind, but in any case, my goal had been accomplished.
Well, everything around me had been smashed into rubble, but that wasn't my fault.
I thought all I had to do was follow the Lef people and escape—when a subterranean woman who looked like some kind of evil overlord appeared and suddenly started yelling.
"I never expected anything from you in the first place! If there's something you can't do, report it already!!"
"I'm sorry—"
"Out of my way!!"
That was dangerous. The Marshal almost fell, but managed to catch himself. And he was holding the Talent Jewel... though he didn't seem to have noticed.
"You bastard... This is payback for doing whatever you please in my city. I'll kill you!!"
Wasn't Sumelia supposed to be their strongest card?
Even so, I stayed on guard.
"Come out, Mediator!! Your enemy is right here!!"
At that moment, darkness enveloped the surroundings—and my thoughts stopped for an instant.
The Mediator...
The being that had stood before the "First Altar" in the Holy Capital.
It had killed young Rui and taken control of his body.
It had ranted on about a covenant or something, then summoned Ouroboros and disappeared—
A being of the "Surface World," on par with dragons.
The world was pitch-black, but the magic lamps held by several people cast their light.
The agitated people looked like black shadows.
'...What business do you have, people of the Covenant?'
Above.
Up above, it stood in midair with its arms folded, as though standing on a platform.
Its body was clad in dark-purple metal armor, with black flames spouting from the gaps.
Its full-face helmet had holes only where the eyes should be, and red eyes peered out from them.
"Just as I said!! Your enemy is right there!!"
The woman who had summoned the Mediator was the only one who seemed to take the situation for granted. The people following her were thrown into a panic by the sudden turn of events.
Even I—my thoughts finally came back to me.
That's right.
This is the "hidden world"—the Mediator's home turf.
'You are the "Child of Calamity"...!?'
For the first time, the Mediator's voice betrayed agitation when it saw me.
"...I really hate being called that, so could you stop?"
Ever since I was born, having black hair and black eyes had caused me an incredible amount of trouble. My life had been in danger. My parents had nearly killed me by abandoning me, a duke had nearly cut me down at Six Mine, and I had even been hunted by the Ebenyu family, one of the Holy Kingdom's six great ducal families.
What did I ever do?
"So in this world, you come running whenever someone calls you? Unlike over there, you seem pretty talkative too."
It was clearly speaking much more normally than it had at the First Altar.
'...Covenant-bearer, you may summon me only when the Covenant has been violated.'
The Mediator glared at me as it spoke to the woman who looked like an evil overlord.
"That bastard wrecked my city! Even a six-star Talent user was no match for him—he must have cheated!"
'So there was no violation of the Covenant?'
When the Mediator raised a hand, the dome of darkness began to dissipate.
"Then what the hell are you good for!? You force your Covenant or whatever on us, and now you won't lift a finger!? If we die, that's a problem for you too, isn't it!?"
'It would not trouble me.'
"What!?"
'Whether you die or every living thing in this world goes extinct... that is the world's fate.'
Even as it spoke to the woman who looked like an evil overlord, the Mediator never took its eyes off me.
'But this one is the "Child of Calamity." It has nothing to do with the Covenant, but...'
Black flames burst from the Mediator's body.
Before I could even register it turning, it appeared right in front of me with incredible acceleration.
The fist it brought down moved as fast as a bolt of lightning from heaven.
I dodged backward and used 【Earth Magic】 to raise a wall of earth in front of me.
The Mediator's fist struck the ground—the earth caved in by about a meter, and a shock wave raced through the surroundings. The woman and her companions were blown away, my earthen wall crumbled to pieces, and I braced myself with both feet and held firm.
Whether I'd heard the explosion or not, a high-pitched ringing filled my ears, making it hard to hear anything around me.
'I have no connection to it, but you are worthy of elimination.'
Though my hearing was muffled, I heard it—the same deeply unpleasant words.
I'd been called a "calamity" over and over, and now it was going so far as to eliminate me outright.
This bastard had killed young Rui and the Knight Commander, ruined the young lady's Talent Jewel awarding ceremony, and, as a parting shot, the Ouroboros it summoned had gone on to flatten several houses.
I didn't know what happened after that, but there must have been injured people. Rebuilding the houses must have cost a fortune too.
You really don't care at all about all the trouble you've caused, do you?
Of course, even someone as mild-mannered as me has limits.
"...I don't normally use words like this, but I can't think of anything else to say."
I pointed my index finger at it.
"I'm going to beat you to a pulp."
I was seriously about to lose my temper.