Chapter 76
The sprawling grounds of Arien Academy held countless storehouses. Over nearly five hundred years of history, countless people had built them to meet countless needs.
Some twisted about like anthills, while others concealed hidden rooms whose complex layouts belied their outward appearance. Even staff who had worked there for years couldn't map them all.
Among them, as time passed,
there were places people had forgotten.
This was where Arti and the others were searching for clues.
Beyond the dormitory's food stores.
Silver waves rippled through the dark labyrinth.
“May the Sun shine its light...!”
Aria reached out.
In her outstretched hand, she held a holy relic bound with knots of old cloth. At first glance, it looked like an ordinary scrap of fabric, but silver threads ran through it like veins.
Whoosh—!
As she swung it,
silver energy flowed out like a wave.
A ripple encircled Aria's body.
That wave-like energy spread around her. The circular silver ripple expanded, illuminating the pitch-black basement.
Flash!
As if a giant brush had splashed silver paint across the air,
it left traces dozens of meters wide,
as it swept through every corner of the vast underground space.
At last,
The silver energy faded like mist in the wind.
Only a tiny fraction of it settled in one place.
Flash!
Among the countless holes and passageways,
there was a crude staircase descending underground. A faint silver glow lingered only there, shimmering like evidence left at a crime scene: the footprints of those who had brought some kind of energy into this place.
It was a spell that tracked the lingering traces of energy from the Dark Realm.
“!”
Aria pointed toward it.
“That way.”
“!”
Arti and Mave, along with Priest Adrian and Edel, a third-year in the Divine Studies Department, looked in that direction. The silver glow made it easy to spot. They followed Aria as she led the way.
Thud.
Thud.
Several sets of footsteps echoed in the darkness.
As they slowly made their way forward,
Arti and Mave nodded and said,
“As expected, it's reassuring to have Aria around when we need divine spells.”
“Yeah. If it were just me and this country bumpkin, we'd be dead weight.”
“I've learned some prayer spells now, so I can imitate them to a degree... But I still can't use them as skillfully as Aria.”
“It'd be pretty unfair if someone who's only been learning for a few months were better than a Saint who's served the Sun God her whole life.”
“I beat you with only a few months of swordsmanship training, even though you've practiced your whole life.”
“…?!”
Mave flinched. Then she clenched a fist and said,
“Kgh...! That wasn't your raw talent, country bumpkin! It was all thanks to Lady Lydia's brutal training, using the Holy Sword's regenerative power! And after that, I started beating you again!”
That lovestruck look she hadn't shown in a while.
Arti chuckled and said,
“Heh-heh. Guess that hit a nerve. If you were really so confident, you wouldn't have said a thing.”
“Shut up! Once this is over, you...!”
At that moment,
Aria put a finger to her lips.
“Shh. Both of you, be quiet. We need to concentrate.”
…
…
Arti and Mave fell silent.
Then Aria swung her arm again.
“May the Sun shine its light!”
This time, she didn't stop after one. She swung her arm again and again, releasing silver ripples without pause.
Like waves surging without end,
layer upon layer of silver energy lit up the vast basement.
Flash!
Flash!
Flash!
If Lydia had seen the scene, she would have said, ‘It's like she's switched on a biological radar.’ The silver energy swept a radius of dozens of meters with such precision, searching for evidence.
Arti and Mave, who still knew little about divine spells, could only marvel at Aria's overwhelming abilities as always. But Adrian and Edel, following behind them, stared wide-eyed, speechless.
…
…
This was not an ordinary level of divine power.
…
…
They were unaccustomed to this situation.
More precisely,
they were unaccustomed to the scale of this spell.
‘Normally, this spell can barely light up a single small room. You have to use it only on places where strong traces of the Dark Realm remain...’
Besides, a tracking spell borrowed the power of the Angel of Dawn. Unlike a pure Sun God spell, it consumed an enormous amount of divine power.
‘...An ordinary priest would be exhausted after using it only three times and would need to rest. But the Saint has already cast it dozens of times—and over passages so vast that she's covering all of them.’
Even for a Saint,
this
was
cheating.
Thanks to her, their crude method of blindly searching the entire academy grounds—a method they normally wouldn't even dream of trying—was working. In only a few days, they'd found traces of Dark Realm power.
Even now, the silver ripples shone without restraint.
Flash!
Flash!
Flash!
“This way!”
“Yes, Aria!”
As he followed the Hero's party,
Priest Adrian's sunken eyes wavered slightly.
…
‘Is this really a power granted to humans...?’
His reason, steadfast after a lifetime of serving the Sun God, was faltering. The Saint's divine power was simply beyond belief.
‘Even though she's grown, this is beyond anything I imagined...’
To put it another way,
it was like finding a single needle buried in a pit of sand several kilometers wide—using a magnet hundreds of meters long brought in from somewhere else.
It wasn't a method humans used.
Theory,
logic,
prediction,
all of it was useless.
This was nothing less than the power of a ‘divine emissary.’
Adrian wasn't the only one to feel that way.
Edel, the third-year who had accompanied Adrian to assist him, looked at him in bewilderment. Then she spoke in a slightly trembling voice.
“Priest Adrian, the spell the Saint is using... That's the one, right?”
“Yes. It's the ‘Gaze of Dawn,’ which tracks the power of the Dark Realm lingering on the surface.”
“B-but can that power really be used this often? And over such a wide area, with such force? We came along in case the Saint became exhausted. In this situation...”
…
The silver ripples flashed like thunder.
Flash!
Flash!
Flash!
“This time, it's to the right!”
“As expected of Aria!”
“Somehow, I feel like we're exploring a dungeon.”
Arti and the others moved with ease, but at a pace as fast as a run. It was the mobility they'd practiced countless times in dungeons, following Lydia's guidance.
…
Adrian watched the group moving ahead and shook his head. Then he spoke in a quiet voice.
“No. They are the special ones. More precisely, ‘the Saint of this generation,’ Aria, is special.”
“Th-this is like...”
“That's right. It's like the power of a Saint from long ago. Not a Saint who merely delivered prophecies, but one who truly wielded the Sun God's power and stood forth as God's emissary to protect the weak...”
He murmured very softly.
“The Saint of Twilight.”
…
Edel made the sign of the cross and said,
“May the Sun God watch over us...”
…
Adrian looked ahead again.
…
‘A Saint who wields the Holy Sword, protects the Hero, finds her own path, and has awakened even the powers spoken of in the distant past...’
Even if she had begun to believe in herself,
only three months had passed since the Hero's Exam.
Her growth was far too fast.
It wasn't simply that she learned quickly.
It was as though...
‘As though she were remembering something she'd forgotten...’
Just as he had that thought,
Aria, who was ahead of them, called out.
“It's up ahead!”
“!”
The group looked ahead.
A heavily rusted iron door was firmly shut. Silver energy billowed through the gaps like boiling water spilling over the edge of a pot.
Adrian murmured,
“It seems this is where the incident began.”
“!”
Arti and Mave wordlessly stepped to the front.
Behind them, Aria held up the silver relic and recited a spell. The silver threads in the sacred cloth in her hand shuddered, pouring out divine power.
“O Sun, grant them strong bodies and unwavering faith...!”
Flash!
Once again,
the spell came without any delay.
At the same time,
Arti and Mave kicked the locked door.
“Hah!”
“Yah—!”
Crash—!
With an explosive boom,
the thick iron door shattered to pieces.
The darkness that had filled the vast underground space slowly receded under the light spells cast by Edel and Adrian. And the room revealed by the golden light...
Arti murmured hollowly,
“It's... empty...”
…
Rubble covered in dust.
The only thing in the middle of that empty place was a vacant chair.
And all around it were traces of discarded odds and ends. Anyone could see that someone had been held here.
But it was empty now.
After all that effort to find this place,
Arti sighed.
“Were we too late?”
…
Leaving the dispirited group behind, Aria walked forward with a steady click of her heels. Then she recited the spell of dawn one last time.
“O Sun.”
Flash—!
She picked up the final trace.
A small letter.
Silver energy flickered over it.
“...May it light our path.”
Then she showed the letter to the others.
On the letter,
was the emblem of the Gallian royal family.
The whole group was stunned.
“W-what...?!”
“This can't be...”
“Was it really the Kingdom of Gallia...?”
Aria said,
“We should tell Lydia about this.”
“!”
*
Beneath the shadows of a back alley,
Morgan fiddled with a white branch-shaped staff in the corner.
…
‘This thing is so effective, it's easy to get spoiled by it.’
Even a genius mage
could grow sloppy by relying too much on equipment.
“…Hmph.”
Thinking that, Morgan glanced to the side.
Lydia was watching the four foreigners sprawled out beside her.
They all lay there with vacant expressions.
It was the price they'd paid for having their perceptions warped by Morgan's illusion magic for a long time—or what had felt like a long time to them, though it had only been a moment in reality. After spilling all their information, they'd be too exhausted to move for a while.
Lydia thought,
…
‘In the game, illusion magic that only froze someone for a few turns became a spell that could stretch their perception severalfold and interrogate them once it became reality... Terrifying.’
That wasn't the only difference from the game.
The information the foreigners had brought was different from the original story, too.
…
To be precise,
the scale had grown far too large compared to the original.
Lydia sorted through the information they'd given her.
“Who would have thought the Kingdom and the Republic were working together in this mess? If their interests align, are they even willing to start a fake war?”
Morgan turned her head and added one more piece of information.
“The demon worshippers lent a hand, too.”
…
Lydia nodded.
Then she summed up the situation.
“What a mess.”