Chapter 26
High Priest Theodore was nodding off at his desk after being worn down by a long string of grueling duties.
Thanks to the divine power he always kept wrapped around his body, he normally could hardly feel the cold, but he suddenly opened his eyes when a chill seemed to constrict his body.
The three candles on the desk had gone out without him noticing, and in the darkened office, the only source of light was the goddess Aurea.
Aurea leaned against the window, gazing blankly at the sky as a gentle radiance poured from her entire body. Countless lights appeared and vanished in her eyes.
The sight of her merely gazing at the night sky looked unbearably sorrowful to Theodore.
[Theodore, today is the day it begins.]
“…Is that so.”
Theodore recalled what the goddess had told him before.
She had said that once the final chapter of the Prophecy was opened, the gears of the world that had stopped turning would begin to move once more.
[Help me stand.]
The goddess’s body, which had grown endlessly weak after the death of her younger twin brother, the Demon King, trembled pitifully.
Theodore approached Aurea and supported her with his sturdy arm.
“You’ll be all right. You’re our leader.”
Theodore whispered softly to his master.
That night, the goddess and Theodore were not the only ones to feel the jet-black chill. Laurent and Ludimine were also struggling to withstand the sudden cold that swept over them.
“The World Tree is crying.”
At the entrance to the World Tree, Laurent gazed at the violently shaking tree.
Despite it being early summer, white breath rose from their mouths, while the enormous shield at his feet and his sturdy armor radiated light of their own to drive back the encroaching cold.
“It’ll be all right.”
Ludimine, who was always impeccably composed, was trembling violently from head to toe.
Countless vines spread out beneath her feet and firmly held the endlessly swaying guardian tree in place.
***
‘Damn it.’
Failure! Failure! Failure!
Noe, a mid-ranking executive in the continent’s foremost assassin guild and the man known as the ruler of the exiles, was consumed by pitch-black fear and bewilderment.
As a dagger flew viciously toward his right wrist, Noe rolled to the side.
The assassination had failed, and Blanc’s tent had long since collapsed. It was a situation in which he should have escaped already, yet he was still being pursued.
It was all because of the orb that woman ahead had thrown. No matter how far he ran, he could not escape the subspace, and Noe had become trapped inside it.
‘What in the world is that crazy woman?’
Anger flared in Noe’s black eyes as he stared at the woman standing tall before him.
Everything had gone smoothly when he entered the tent.
There had been no barrier, beer mugs had been rolling around inside, and the prince had been lying on the bed, dead drunk and fast asleep.
Noe had lunged at the prince without a moment’s hesitation.
Barely five seconds had passed between his entry and his attack. It was a flawless surprise attack.
There was no way he could have failed.
Yet what met his clawed hand was not the prince’s delicate neck, but a short dagger that appeared to be less than thirty centimeters long.
“Why are you so surprised?”
Her pink eyes, resembling primroses, curved into long crescents.
That was when it began. As a seasoned assassin, Noe realized after a single clash that the woman was far stronger than he was.
There was no such thing as a blind spot in the woman’s attacks.
No matter where or how she swung her blade, every strike carried enough force to cleave him in two.
Of the countless attacks raining down on him, Noe could barely block even those aimed at his vital points.
The attacks he failed to block tore through his black cloak, patterned with three snakes, sending blood and chunks of flesh flying in all directions.
“Tired already?”
As Noe retreated a long way, the woman twirled her dagger.
‘No wonder it had seemed so easy.’
Noe, who rarely opened his mouth during a mission, spat out a curse.
“As if I’ll lose like this.”
Since there was no way to defeat the woman with a sword, Noe cast a spell.
It was a rule never to use magic during an assassination mission, since doing so inevitably left traces, but he had no other choice now.
The moment he began casting, the woman watching from a distance kicked off the ground and sprang forward.
Noe’s blazing eyes were instantly fixed on the woman.
The distance between them was now barely a meter.
At this range, there was no way he could miss.
Five shards of ice flew toward the woman with a rushing sound.
“What’s this now?”
The woman leaned her body back slightly, then swung her dagger and shattered the ice shards as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
As he watched the ice shatter into countless pieces, one corner of Noe’s bloodstained mouth curled upward.
The shards flying in every direction abruptly changed course and shot back toward the woman.
The woman’s eyes widened, as though she had not anticipated this.
‘Checkmate.’
KABOOM!
With a deafening roar, a hazy cloud of icy mist burst forth.
The icy mist billowed upward as though it would freeze the entire subspace, then slowly began to descend.
As the icy mist fell like a waterfall, the woman stood in its midst, covered in ice.
The woman had frozen in the exact pose she had held while swinging her dagger, caught in the chill that froze everything.
Noe dropped to one knee and smiled victoriously.
Behind the woman, the prince stared at him with a dazed expression.
The prince seemed unable to believe what he was seeing, repeatedly muttering, “This is a lie.”
The obstacle was gone.
Noe flexed the claw on his right hand and charged toward the prince.
“?!”
Yet the moment he passed beside the frozen woman, he was flung backward as though he had collided with an invisible wall.
“Guh.”
The tremendous impact to his abdomen sent another thin stream of blood trickling from Noe’s mouth.
When he raised his head, he saw that the woman covered in ice had one foot raised.
Crack, crack.
The ice binding the woman’s entire body was collapsing with sharp cracking sounds.
“Interesting?”
A strange glint appeared in the woman’s eyes as she looked down at Noe.
It had been his trump card, a move that had never once failed.
It was magic powerful enough that he would not have lost even against that vaunted Fulcare.
Yet the woman had shattered it in an instant.
As he stared at her blankly in disbelief, the strength suddenly drained from his entire body.
The terror of sinking into an endless swamp and the despair of prey filled the empty space where his strength had been.
Noe had felt this sensation once before.
‘The Imperial Palace…?’
The assassin’s expression twisted.
He had been fooled by her hair color, but now that he looked closely, those eyes were identical.
“Stay back, Prince.”
The woman first checked on the prince’s safety, then turned her gaze back to glare at him.
“And you—do you know how many times I’ve fought the head of the Empire’s Ministry of Magic?”
What did that have to do with anything? Noe wanted to snap back, but fear would not allow him to speak.
“About five times, and I won every one of them. You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this, right? It’s simple.”
The woman raised one hand and vigorously brushed the pieces of ice from her hair.
“Whether as an assassin or as a mage, you can never defeat me.”
The woman tilted her head at an angle and smiled.
Watching that terrible smile, Noe forced himself to move and cast a defensive spell.
It would not be very effective against that woman, but if he could somehow buy time, he still had a chance.
There was no question that she was an existence he could never hope to approach, but she was alone.
A single person could never stop a river swollen by a flood. By now, the magical beasts should be busy devouring people. If the magical beasts, strengthened to their utmost, came with Giselle to help him, he still had a chance.
Yet Noe’s last shred of hope was shattered by the woman’s next words.
“A defensive spell? Are you waiting for magical beasts, by any chance? But what a shame. The magical beasts aren’t coming.”
“…What do you mean?”
Noe bit down on his lip.
Few could surpass Giselle in controlling magical beasts. The eggs had spread farther than planned, and had reached perfect maturity.
“They’re probably all dead.”
“Don’t make me laugh. Who could possibly handle hundreds of magical beasts?”
“Why assume there’s no one who can? Aren’t you underestimating the head of the Empire’s Ministry of Magic?”
Noe had not been particularly worried about Fulcare.
He was an excellent mage, but he was still only a mage. Even that vaunted archmage inevitably had a casting gap between one spell and the next.
The magical beasts constantly rushing in had been his greatest weapon for exploiting that casting gap.
“Fulcare may do stupid things from time to time, but he isn’t actually stupid. They probably died before they were even born.”
“….”
Having weathered every kind of hardship, Noe felt as though he understood even without hearing anything more.
It had been a trap.
The holy water being sprinkled, the food being shared, and the beer being given to them—it had all been a trap.
No—it was a failure born solely of his arrogance: he had been so certain that no one could have noticed the eggs.
Noe clicked his tongue.
With Giselle and the magical beasts defeated, outside help was unlikely.
There was only one answer.
Either he died here, or he somehow killed that woman.
Noe had the strange feeling that he already knew what his future held.
Seeing the man’s expression turn resolute, Vieta adjusted her grip on her dagger.
“…What’s your name?”
The man lowered his head, and despair saturated his voice.
“Why do you ask?”
“Can’t you tell a man about to die that much?”
Was he trying to say that it would be an honor to die by Vieta’s hand before he died?
But Vieta had no intention of telling him her name or her identity.
Her identity must not be revealed. That was the condition of the pact.
“I’ll pass. And I probably won’t die.”
Fulcare had said it would be best to capture him.
“Though it’ll hurt enough to kill you.”
Countless red threads scattered around Vieta as she smiled sweetly.
***
A beam of light flew straight toward her.
Giselle hurriedly somersaulted through the air, but the end of her long cloak was sliced away.
After landing gracefully on the ground, Giselle threw off the hood pulled tightly around her.
When her pointed ears were revealed, one of Fulcare’s eyebrows twitched.
“Why, are you surprised because I’m an elf?”
“No. I had already suspected that an elf was involved.”
That information was nothing new to him.
While investigating the elf disappearances, he had already learned that high elves like Iseria could control magical beasts. What mattered to him was not who controlled the magical beasts, but who was behind it all.
“Move aside. For the sake of foolish Iseria, I’ll make an exception and let you live.”
Black vines flowed out from beneath Giselle’s feet.
“It must be too late anyway. Do you really want to see things get ugly?”
“Arrogant bastard.”
Nine black vines wrapped around him like a cage.
Fulcare unfastened the button at his throat. His mana had been heavily depleted from removing the eggs, but stopping an elf should still be possible.
The knight had to protect the queen.