EP.183 Omen (2)
Where there is light, shadow follows.
The stronger the light, the darker the shadow it casts. It is a natural providence, an undoubted truth. However, there are beings who are not bound by the truth.
star.
People called it a star.
The stars are beautiful. It shines brightly. Because it was a being outside of providence, another name for the star was God.
『Isn’t it funny?』
There are people who laugh at that god.
『Above all else, it is a topic that forces you not to go against providence, but you yourself are actually outside of providence. The star you believe in is a contradictory being.』
Providence enforced by the stars.
A rule that must not be broken.
『Can an imperfect and contradictory being really be called God? I don’t think so.』
The woman who defied and trampled on it and was called an apostate smiled.
『Much more so.』
Old objects that were once human bow their heads towards her. The apostate walks, stepping on their heads. Wherever she walked, there it was.
『With things like this existing, can we really think of stars as pure beings?』
The apostate catches it.
The thing pulled out of the fog is a human being. Under the assumption that a being with black smoke pouring out of its eyes and mouth could be called a human, it was a human.
『He must have been a precious child to you.』
The apostate grabbed it by its hair and thrust it towards the man kneeling towards him. The man’s face distorted. A fire burned in his eyes.
『He must have been a child loved by the stars.』
Pasuk, Passuk.
『Unfortunately, the ending is always like this.』
The apostate smiled before the man’s eyes.
As if it’s lovely, as if it’s so lovely that it’s driving me crazy.
『If you saw it, you would understand.』
She tilted her head.
Tilting her head and leaning forward, she grabbed the man’s chin. She whispered, looking at her fire burning beyond her man’s eyes.
『Now that I understand, you probably also have the same thoughts as me. Shall we try to guess?』
Madness and insanity face each other.
A madman recognizes madmen like himself.
『Stars should not exist. They said they had to pull him out and throw him in the mud. That we must take away both beauty and brilliance from something infinitely beautiful and brilliant and reduce it to nothing more than meaninglessness.』
A sticky voice.
『You would think so.』
A woman who has lived in madness for hundreds of years smiles at the birth of a new madman. Faced with her compatriot, the woman burst into ecstatic laughter.
『Just like me.』
The man shouted at her whisper.
A man explodes with anger and vents his emotions. The apostate just laughs at that sight. She said with a smile on her face.
“okay. You look just like me, kid.』
A man cannot forget that one word.
I remember the language of curses that seeped into my ears.
Even now, a hundred years later.
“······.”
The madman, Kelhalm, opens his eyes.
If you look out the window, you can see the panoramic view of Aplia. Although it is small in scale, it is a landscape reminiscent of Artia, the academic city he managed in the past.
A place similar to the academic city of Artia.
A place where children blessed by stars gather.
And, a girl who resembles Celeste.
It all feels like a kind of revelation to Kelhalm. Kelhalm smoothed the back of his neck. You can hear the clanking, clanking sound of chains. Listening to the sound that only he can hear… Kelhalm can only wait.
The end is coming soon.
2.
『Just like Artia did in the past.』
『Shade will come here too.』
“You must not approach it.”
I pondered those three lines of sentence.
Kelhalm said nothing more. He had tried all kinds of things over the past few days, including asking questions, threatening him, and challenging him to a new duel, but Kelhalm had only remained silent.
“There’s nothing more I can say.”
Even if I want to talk, I can’t.
Because that was exactly the same attitude as Cardi. I didn’t think I could hear anything else.
‘You can do that for a day or two.’
After going on like this for three days, a strange rumor began to spread among the students.
-Look at that, the professor again…!
-You were grabbing me by the collar and shaking me, it looks like you were threatening me earlier…
-I think I also heard the word duel, so I guess I’m asking for a duel again…
···The rumors were full of incorrect information, but there was no time to worry about that right now. Anyway, I stopped doing that and started spending more time alone and thinking.
“Shade is coming.”
In Aplia, shade comes.
“And I shouldn’t approach it.”
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I smoothed my chin.
As far as I know, shade is the opposite of star. And, there was only one being that it pointed to.
‘Devil King.’
Now he has lost his right to be king and has become nothing more than a demon. Cardi described that existence as a shadow.
‘Shade comes to Aplia.’
In other words, it was said that the Demon King would appear in Aplia. However, if you interpret it that way, there were a few parts that were unclear.
“I guess you said the devil was coming, then.”
I wouldn’t have necessarily borrowed the word shade.
The shadow that Kelhalm was talking about had a strong feeling that it referred to a phenomenon rather than a certain entity.
‘You said you came to Artia too, right?’
I recalled information about Artia in my head. There weren’t many facts I knew. Because Kelhalm never spoke about his past.
Academic city, Artia.
A place that was reduced to ashes overnight by an apostate.
‘That’s why Kelhalm hates apostates.’
So does this mean that an apostate is coming to Aplia?
“That would be impossible.”
I frowned.
A few months ago, I defeated a traitor who had entered the Night City. In the process, it was said that apostates could no longer set foot in the royal capital.
‘It looks as if it is being chased away by something.’
She expressed it as her last chance.
I clearly saw the scales taking away a ray of light from her heart. It was a kind of constraint.
‘I expected it, but I was certain there.’
Disasters except Skebal.
So, those who were warriors in the past cannot set foot in the royal capital. It’s bound by some kind of restriction. So they were excluded from the list of suspects.
In the first place, all beings with names like these were excluded from the list of suspects.
“phenomenon.”
The shade expressed by Kelhalm is a phenomenon.
It is not an entity with a clear name, but a phenomenon that can only be called a shadow. What exactly is that phenomenon? No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t come up with an answer.
‘What on earth is it that I shouldn’t approach?’
I couldn’t figure it out.
“Ummmm…”
I stopped drooling and shook my head. In the end, I didn’t think I would come up with an answer even if I thought about it.
『Just like Artia did in the past.』
In the end, I can only hope that there is a hint in those words.
‘Kalt must have organized it well.’
Ever since Kelhalm revealed the purpose of his visit to Aplia, Kalt had been collecting whatever information he could about Kelhalm. He was thinking of borrowing some of the material.
-Kalt.
The letters were engraved on the newly exchanged letter with Kalt.
Before long, Kalt responded.
-Yes, senior.
-Could you please take a look at the material I compiled about Kelhalm? There is something that concerns me.
-I will prepare it. Would you mind if I saw you in an hour or so at the same place you always see me?
-uh. Let’s do that.
-I also had something to ask my senior, so it went well. See you in about an hour.
Want to ask something?
I tilted my head.
“You’ll find out when you get there.”
3.
“Ah, are you here? Seniors?”
Kalt waved his hand after checking Rania’s appearance between the trees. She plopped down and sat down on her stump across from her kalt.
“Whoa…”
And then suddenly he lets out a sigh.
When I looked at it up close, the expression didn’t look very good. He seemed to be thinking a lot.
‘Are you still confused about the duel?’
Because you are a person with strong pride.
With that in mind, Kalt spoke first.
“I have summarized what you said. “I stole all the classified documents about Kelhalm, so I probably didn’t miss anything.”
“thanks. So, what do you want to ask?”
Rania asked back as she received the documents.
Kalt hesitated for a moment and then opened his mouth.
“Well, that’s it…”
“What. “Speak quickly.”
“I have a question to ask about magic tools. “Senior, is it possible for magic tools to evaporate overnight?”
“···evaporation?”
“Yes, evaporation.”
Kalt nodded.
“A few days ago, my subordinate picked up a magic tool from an underground waterway, but I don’t know what its purpose is. So, in order to ask my senior, I put it in the hem of this coat for a while and went out to do some surveillance work.”
Kalt flapped the hem of his coat.
It was a coat with an expansion spell.
“Well, it disappeared in a moment.”
“···Disappeared?”
“yes. No trace. I thought there was something wrong with the extended spell engraved on the coat, but that wasn’t the case either. “Everything else is fine.”
Rania smoothed her chin.
Kalt sighed and continued. In fact, it was very embarrassing even for Kalt.
“I also brought the actual item and tried to ask about the magic tool, but the missing magic tool could not be found.”
“…There will be no cases where magic tools evaporate. So what did that magic tool look like?”
“Oh, that’s it.”
Kalt drew a circle in the air with his finger.
“Don’t you know of something like this, a round crystal ball like this? “It’s just this big.”
“There must be one or two crystal balls. Don’t you know that the most basic form of magic tool is a crystal ball? “I wonder exactly what it looks like.”
“It was black. Very pitch black. And the empty thing inside seems like a magic tool trying to contain something…”
“···Pitch black?”
Rania’s eyes narrowed.
“Yes, black. “At this size…”
“wait for a sec.”
She interrupted Kalt. In a slightly serious voice, Rania pointed to Kalt’s coat.
“Take it off and give it to me.”
“You mean the coat?”
“uh. hurry.”
Kalt took off his coat and handed it to Rania.
Rania held the hem of the coat, the part with the expansion circuit engraved on it, to her chest. This is the moment when Kalt is about to ask, “What are you doing in response to this unknown behavior?”
Pajik!
Sparks flew between the hem of the coat and Rania’s chest. Afterwards, a burning sound was heard.
“What the f*ck…”
Rania pressed her chest and lowered her head. Blood flowed from the corner of her mouth. Kalt’s eyes opened wide.
“Sun, senior, are you okay?”
“Let go.”
Rania spat out blood as she pushed away Kalt’s hand, which was embarrassed. Dark red blood fell into the grass. She muttered, wiping the blood from the corner of her mouth with her palm.
“Is this what it meant to not approach?”
In her hand was a black crystal ball.
It was the same one that Kalt had seen before. However, unlike then, the crystal ball was shining brightly.
‘It looks like it’s activated.’
It seemed as if it was ‘reacting’ with something around it and being ‘pulled’ to it. Rania placed the crystal ball on her floor and pressed her palm to her chest.
“Huh, huh…”
The breathing was uneven.
After struggling to catch her breath, she slowly opened her mouth.
“listen carefully. I guess things are a little messed up. right now···.”
That’s the point where I’ve said that.
“Cow,” the crystal ball vibrated. At the same time, Rania’s pupils shook violently. She fell to the floor, holding her chest.
“Whoa, whoa!”
“Seniors!”
She vomits blood.
Kalt hurriedly stretched out his hand toward the magic tool. This is the moment when Kalt pulls out his dagger to smash it.
“If you break that, you’re screwed. “Don’t break it…”
Rania said in a hoarse voice.
“Wait just a little bit, just a little while…”
The voice did not continue until the end.
The sound of speech, which had become quieter, finally stopped.
“Senior, senior!”
Kalt grabbed Rania’s shoulders and shook her.
Rania showed no sign of opening her eyes.
A word from the author (author review)
A little late, sorry!
