“Dialogue? You mean in a place like this?”
At Victor’s suggestion that we talk for a moment, I frowned and gestured around us.
The area was still teeming with students.
It was noisy from all the voices conversing, but only to an ordinary degree.
Not so much that it would be impossible to eavesdrop on someone else’s conversation.
“I don’t think the conversation you and I need to have, Professor, is light enough to be held in a place like this….”
“I’m not so sure. It doesn’t look that way to me.”
Snap.
As soon as he finished speaking, Professor Victor flicked his fingers.
At the same time, a heavy energy began to encroach upon our surroundings.
‘What is this?’
It wasn’t pure mana.
But it also couldn’t be considered a separate power like Crimson Blood.
An energy that felt as though mana had been compressed dozens of times over.
The moment it covered the area, only silence remained.
When I glanced to the side, I saw a student still conversing.
Her lips were still moving exactly as they usually did.
As if only Professor Victor and I had slipped out of this world.
No way.
“…Did you use Will?”
“You’re rather quick on the uptake.”
Seeing Professor Victor answer unexpectedly readily, I let out a hollow laugh.
Will—the power to twist the laws themselves, permitted only to those who had reached Hero-class or higher, a power no ordinary person could ever obtain in their lifetime.
To use that just to create a situation where we could talk for a short while.
“Why do you want to speak with me badly enough to go this far?”
“You’re a strange one. Weren’t you the one who came looking for me first?”
“I did, after seeing you during the practical mana class. But I never expected you to come find me like this.”
“I move when I wish to. The method is of no consequence.”
Thud.
Professor Victor sat down casually on a nearby bench and looked at me.
I met the blue blaze of his eyes head-on and waited for him to speak.
For a brief while, our gazes crossed in silence.
Then Professor Victor twisted his mouth as if mocking me and spoke first.
“So, how did it feel to be a Descendant of Blood while going around openly helping people? Without even properly hiding your power, no less.”
“At the very least, I wasn’t discovered by anyone who mustn’t discover me. And even if I was discovered, I dealt with it immediately.”
“Well…. That may just be what you think.”
“…Was there something I don’t know about?”
“I don’t make a hobby of telling people what they couldn’t figure out for themselves.”
His voice, cold and chilled, seeped into my ears.
Realizing he had no intention of telling me, I had no choice but to give up on getting an answer.
‘I’ll have to look into it separately later.’
“More importantly, you still haven’t answered my question. How did it feel to help people while being a Descendant of Blood?”
“I only did what I ought to do. Even if I weren’t a Descendant of Blood, I would have acted the same way.”
“Khk. Yes. I suppose the time when you can think that way is when you’re happy.”
His eyes as he looked at me with a sneer held, for some reason, a faint trace of pity.
As if he were looking at a child who knew nothing, in the midst of something dreadful.
“What exactly is a Descendant of Blood that makes you look at me that way?”
“I’ll say it again. I don’t make a hobby of telling people what they couldn’t figure out for themselves.”
“…….”
“And this isn’t a problem that ends once you know. You can never understand it until you experience it yourself.”
“What does that…?”
“The point is, as a Descendant of Blood, you are still incomplete. Young, immature, lacking. Enough that I could take your life at any moment.”
“…I won’t go down so easily.”
“Do you think you can manage that?”
Professor Victor vanished from my sight in an instant, and before I knew it, he had placed a hand on my shoulder from behind.
I hurriedly turned around, but in that time, he had long since returned to his original seat.
“It doesn’t look that way to me.”
I answered his words with silence and assumed my stance again.
But Professor Victor clicked his tongue softly, as if he had no intention of moving anymore, and looked at me.
“As expected, you’re far too weak.”
Drip.
Just looking at Professor Victor sitting there quietly was enough to make cold sweat run down my back.
‘I can’t see a single weakness.’
So this is Hero-class?
How much stronger would I have to become to reach that height?
The realm was so far beyond me that even looking up at it felt impossible, enough to make me dizzy, and yet, at the same time, excitement surged within me.
‘Someday, I might be able to become even stronger than that.’
Professor Victor’s very existence was proof of it.
Watching me, Professor Victor snorted, then shook his head as if he had no choice.
“Still, since you’re a Descendant of Blood, I suppose a very small amount of help would be acceptable.”
“Are you saying you’ll spar with me?”
“No. I’m saying I’ll tell you a place you should go.”
Professor Victor took a sheet of paper from his coat and set it down on the bench as if tossing it there.
“What is that?”
“Where you need to go.”
With those words, Professor Victor vanished from before my eyes.
At the same time, the students’ voices began to reach me again.
Before another student could sit down, I hurried over to the bench where Professor Victor had been sitting.
‘This is a map. The North?’
On the pure white map, a red mark and a message left by Professor Victor were inscribed.
‘Go. Then you will realize more than you do now.’
What exactly am I supposed to realize?
Suppressing the words that had risen to my throat, I tucked the map into my coat.
When I turned my head, I saw Senior Rena, Cecilia, and Theodora beckoning to me.
Mulling over the contents of the map from moments ago, I moved toward my friends.
‘I’ll have to go as soon as possible.’
Otherwise, for some reason, I felt I would regret it.
**
The northern part of the continent, a mountain range blanketed in eternal snow.
Upon a natural altitude that denied the steps of man, a group of people was moving.
Aside from the one person at the very front, all of them looked eerily similar.
Robes of dark red cloth, as if dyed in blood.
Grotesque tattoos engraved on their hands and feet.
And masks made from animal bones, covering their faces.
It was a snowy mountain where even thick furs would be hard-pressed to endure, yet they slowly moved forward without showing the slightest sign of cold.
Looking back at them, the man at the very front, Ramsey, clicked his tongue inwardly.
‘Wow. I heard before the mission too, but these people really are something else.’
Though he himself was wearing only a single priestly robe of the War Church, that was merely for show.
All kinds of body-temperature-preserving magic tools were hidden inside his clothes.
However, none of those behind him had prepared anything of the sort.
‘Should I say, as expected of cultists? They’re difficult for an ordinary person to understand.’
Well, it wasn’t his concern.
Ramsey paid them no further mind and resumed walking forward.
His mission was to lead them to their destination.
Whatever they experienced in the process was none of his business.
‘More importantly, the problem is the destination. According to what Lord Joshua told me, it should be around here by now. Hm?’
As he walked, Ramsey suddenly stopped and looked ahead.
Not far away was an object that, at a glance, looked like a rock covered in snow.
But the angular shape faintly revealed beneath the snow proved that it was an artificial structure.
“It seems we’ve arrived.”
At Ramsey’s words, the cultists following behind him all stopped at once.
At the same time, Ramsey ignited holy flames across his entire body.
The snow of the mountain range touched by the pure white fire slowly melted away.
Before long, the structure that had looked like a rock gradually came into view.
The first thing revealed was a pillar.
With the building in the center between them, two massive pillars stood as though guarding it.
As if something had once been written there, the surfaces of the pillars bore traces of engravings, but now they looked only like bizarre patterns.
What came into view next was a small temple.
The temple placed between the two pillars looked utterly removed from any of the Six Great Gods’ churches.
Yet its appearance did not evoke revulsion.
Rather, it simply possessed a beauty different from that of the Six Great Gods’ churches.
“Wow, impressive.”
After letting out a low whistle while looking at the temple, Ramsey finally peered inside.
The place where an altar should have been.
But there was no altar for a god there.
Only a fissure, as if someone had torn it open.
Inside that fissure, monsters were moving, but none of them came outside.
No, rather—
‘Prayer?’
Why are monsters praying?
A question arose in his mind for an instant, but he soon decided to forget it.
The fact that monsters were inside a separate space meant there was a dungeon here, and at the same time, it was proof that Ramsey had arrived at the correct destination.
“Now, from here on, it is your turn to step forward yourselves.”
“You have done well, heretic.”
No sooner had Ramsey finished speaking than a small-framed cultist swiftly stepped forward.
Holding two daggers in his hands, he was approaching the monster-infested dungeon as if it were nothing.
Toward his back, Ramsey clapped as if impressed and said,
“Wow, you’re the leader of the group, yet you’re going in yourself? What a splendid attitude.”
“You heretics and we are different. Thus, what is natural to us is not natural to you.”
“Hmm. Then what about our promise?”
“I believe I already gave my answer.”
With one step left before the dungeon entrance, the man turned his head and said,
“We keep our promises. Unlike you.”
Before Ramsey could say anything, the man launched himself into the dungeon entrance.
The group of cultists followed after him.
Watching them, Ramsey gave a small bow and said,
“As expected, so reliable. Indeed, the ancient gods… no, no. That isn’t right. Such decisiveness is worthy of the Blood Demon Hall.”
Smiling as if he found this more amusing than usual, Ramsey slowly left the place behind.
He had no intention of interfering with their banquet.