The Fruit of Myth (1)
An old mansion on the outskirts of the Pantheon.
“Well now, what in the world are you talking about, so out of the blue? Showing up so suddenly like this.”
Priest Jason shook his head with a glib air.
“I’m afraid saying that with such an expression isn’t very convincing.”
“Is that so?”
But seeing him say it with an emotionless face only felt bizarre.
At Heinrich’s calm remark, the corners of the puppet-stiff face rose unnaturally.
“If possible, I would have played dumb to the very end as well. But since you even know that name, what can I do? Though I have no idea where you heard it.”
“I confirmed it through records left behind by a certain kind person. You’re the one who took over the Pantheon’s work in place of the Scribe, aren’t you?”
“That person was terribly careless. It’s common sense that traces of an agent carrying out a secret operation must never be left behind in any form.”
The two exchanged quiet conversation as calmly as ever.
Yet the gusts of wind that slowly whipped up around them made it painfully clear that things between them were anything but peaceful.
‘Joker.’
At the center of that violently churning energy.
Heinrich, who had been quietly staring at his opponent with a sunken gaze, let out a small sigh.
The first time he confirmed that name was in the Doctor’s database, which he had taken as spoils.
‘Honestly, I should consider myself lucky to have found even that.’
Contrary to the confident way he spoke, the information he had obtained about “Joker” was actually not all that much.
Even confirming that name had been pure coincidence.
If Havis, the electronic spirit, had not discovered the word that had failed to be completely erased due to a single typo in the alphabet, he likely never would have learned it to the end.
‘There wasn’t anything definite about his identity either, so I had to trace his tracks backward from tiny clues.’
It would not be an exaggeration to say he had mobilized nearly all of his own capabilities and those of his subordinate forces for that purpose.
As a result of pushing so hard that even the Pantheon noticed.
Even after seeing the outline that had been revealed to some extent, he had found it so unbelievable that he had been forced to reconfirm it several times.
‘From the Tamaria dimension. A priest of the Lathus Order—Jason.’
Because it was difficult to believe that the person the results pointed to was someone who had already had ties with him on several occasions.
From the time Jason first flew to Korea to meet him, and even after they had come to the Pantheon together and mingled, Heinrich had not sensed the slightest suspicious sign. That made the shock all the greater.
“…Did you approach me on purpose? Starting from Korea?”
“Mm? Ah, it served multiple purposes. It was an opportunity to openly investigate Korea and stir things up without drawing suspicion. Wouldn’t it have been a waste to just let that pass?”
Besides, if Heinrich had made up his mind to visit the Pantheon, he would have accomplished it one way or another, so it would have been easier to monitor him by sticking right beside him from the very beginning.
Having finished speaking, Jason shook his head with a deep sigh.
“Though I certainly didn’t expect things to turn out like this. I knew I shouldn’t have entrusted the work to that idiot Walter. I delayed disposing of him because it seemed a waste after all the effort I’d put in and tried to recycle him instead, but now things have ended up like this.”
“He certainly did seem short-sighted. But that wasn’t entirely his fault, was it? If we’re discussing the cause, then ultimately it’s your fault for making him that way in the first place.”
“…Oh? You figured out that much?”
What he had confirmed from Walter before coming here.
It was a kind of suggestion.
It was not powerful enough to be called brainwashing or hypnosis, but a restriction so subtle had been placed on him that even the countless clergy of the Pantheon, as well as Walter himself, a master-class holy warrior, found it difficult to notice.
‘On top of that, he even used himself as bait to control the flow of the other party’s thoughts. No wonder something felt off back then too.’
The result had been Walter’s sudden outburst on the first day.
From beginning to end, the commotion at that time had all originated from Jason’s machinations.
Though in the end, the man had failed to achieve his goal.
“…Whew, fine. Jason… no, Joker. We can have a detailed discussion later at our leisure. Surrender quietly, and I won’t handle you roughly.”
“That is rather difficult for me to accept. I still have many things left to do, you see. It would be a little troublesome if I were taken away like this.”
“…I see.”
In any case, the fact that he had manipulated people at will for his own purposes did not change.
And there was no telling how many others had fallen for it like Walter.
Heinrich no longer felt any need to keep exchanging polite conversation.
Whoooong—!
No sooner had his words ended than a pair of golden eyes flashed, and a gale whirled around them.
A platinum radiance, vivid enough to dye the surroundings, mingled with the wind and spiraled around them.
‘I wasted time for no reason. I don’t know what other trick he might try, so I’ll subdue him first.’
Though he had been briefly delayed by the strangely cooperative attitude and the way Jason answered his questions obediently, his opponent was an atrocious criminal who had deceived and used everyone until now.
Interrogation could be done as much as necessary afterward.
For now, the priority was to block any variables that might arise for no reason.
“…Tsk. You’re more impatient than you look.”
Joker, frowning at that, clicked his tongue lightly.
Because the encounter had been so sudden, his prior preparations were insufficient, and he had wanted to buy time however he could, but it seemed this was the limit.
Joker slipped a hand into his clothes and tightly grasped something.
Of course, regardless of how his opponent reacted, Heinrich, whose combat switch had already been flipped, did not hesitate.
‘I’ll end this in one swift strike!’
Platinum suns blazed within both his hands.
Stepping forward with a powerful stomp, he instantly closed the distance to his opponent, and his fist shot out, carrying tremendous force.
Kwaaang!
The pressure from his punch, which could have blown away a small hill in one strike, swept across the front.
However, no matter what anyone said, his opponent was also a master-class paladin. There was no way he would immediately be crushed by a single punch, especially when Heinrich had not even drawn his sword.
It would hurt quite a lot, but that was practically everyday life for a paladin, so it shouldn’t matter much.
With that in mind, he swung his fist with all his might without holding back, but…
Wooooong—!
‘What is this?’
The situation began to flow in a direction he had not anticipated.
[“Mmm! To think I would end up using this already. Still, I cannot collapse like this, so it cannot be helped! Even so, I will make sure to erase you here!”]
An unknown current that had begun from all directions was gathering at a single point here.
Heinrich frowned and glared at the barrier trembling faintly where it met his fist.
Pajijik!
An unfamiliar divine power glowed dark violet and dripped down like lava.
Sparks burst out continuously along the boundary between his fist and the energy gushing from Joker’s body.
From that energy, which perfectly enveloped the person inside and absorbed the impact, flowed an extraordinary presence.
[“Behold! And tremble! For this is the true power of Lord Luceni, descended across dimensions!”]
At the same time, Joker, who had maintained a refined demeanor until just moments ago, burst into loud laughter and spread both arms toward the sky.
His attitude suggested Heinrich, who had been confronting him until just now, was no longer even in his eyes.
The incomplete power he had used to put out the fire at his feet had instantly rushed into his mind and eroded his reason.
Gogogogo—!
A dark violet mist expanded in scale as if running rampant and began spreading in every direction.
Within it, materialized energy swelled, writhing in an amorphous body.
Heinrich retreated and quickly analyzed the situation.
‘Luceni? Did he say Luceni?’
Luceni.
Wasn’t that the evil god who, together with Lathus, formed one of the two pillars of the basic faith of the Tamaria dimension?
He had heard their relationship was so terrible that fierce religious wars raged between them every day.
‘How absurd. A man who outwardly posed as a paladin of Lathus was secretly a follower of the evil god Luceni.’
Divine power was the price paid for faith offered.
Since faith was formed through absolute belief, it was only natural that the coexistence of two or more kinds of divine power was nearly impossible.
Perhaps it might be possible if the gods belonged to the same lineage, but Lathus and Luceni were beings that were practically complete opposites, weren’t they?
‘He must have some special ability that makes it possible. …Honestly, I could do it too if I put my mind to it.’
There was no such thing as one hundred percent impossible in the world now.
Wasn’t he himself, no one else, the decisive proof of that?
There was no law saying there couldn’t be another case similar to his own.
‘I’ll think later. First, I have to deal with that.’
Kurururung—!
The power of an Outer God, forcibly summoned by some method that ignored the dimensional barrier, had already swollen to its limit, swallowing the surrounding area and approaching him.
With agile movements, Heinrich dodged the tentacles of materialized energy reaching toward him and carefully scanned his surroundings with a sunken gaze.
Perhaps because the ritual was now in full swing, things that had been invisible just moments ago began entering his sight one by one.
‘Hah, they set up an altar here outright. And this formula is…’
Just how long had they been preparing for something like this to be possible?
This land where the Pantheon stood was the place on Earth most heavily imbued with mystery.
Naturally, its level of defense was also formidable, so doing something by using the power accumulated here was almost impossible.
The clergy who served gods would never tolerate anyone using the remnants left behind by a god for private purposes.
‘Since when?’
Yet now, in this old mansion located on the outskirts of the Pantheon, that very thing was becoming reality.
Extracting the mystery accumulated in the territory as though drilling oil from beneath the ground, processing it into a form that could be used at any time, and then putting it back in place.
At a glance, nothing about it seemed particularly abnormal, but it contained the danger of becoming a massive powder keg at any time according to someone’s will.
‘They said it’s been about twenty years since the Pantheon settled in this forest and built a city here.’
Heinrich’s eyes narrowed gradually as he quickly swept his gaze around.
The old mansion, which looked older than the Pantheon’s history, and the formulae that seemed to have assimilated with nature long ago.
What that meant was only one thing.
‘Before the Pantheon had even fully settled here… this plan was already underway. While knowing that they would establish themselves at this location.’
There was no way such preparations could have been made in secret from the Pantheon.
If the plan had been carried out later, they would certainly have noticed something was wrong in some way.
But if the formulae had already been assimilated with this land from long ago, the story changed.
‘Like a pathogen that has passed through its incubation period and slowly eats away at the body without showing signs. It held the future in its grasp, accumulating the mystery pooled in the ley lines and growing.’
The blood, sacrifices, and conflicts that arose in the process would have served as good fertilizer.
The reason they had moved Pandemonium, a group of evil god followers, to constantly provoke the Pantheon must have been because of all this as well.
‘In any case, I can’t just leave that alone.’
Though it was only a fragment of a god’s shadow temporarily manifested on this land by a miracle, there was still nothing good about an existence called a god being projected onto Earth.
Especially if its fundamental nature was that of an evil god, there was no telling what more trouble it might cause.
‘I’ll go all out from the start.’
Behind Heinrich, who had soared high into the sky, three pairs of enormous wings of light unfolded.
In his hand, a single beautiful and graceful holy sword was already held firmly.
“Prioritize evacuating the elderly and children!”
“Move, move! We have to help establish the barrier, even if only a little!”
“Damn it! Those evil god-worshiping bastards! To pull something like this in the middle of the Pantheon just because they’ve been cornered. I swear I’ll wipe them out to the last!”
The sounds of clergy busily moving about on the ground reached him.
The shadow of the Outer God, already swollen, had swallowed most of the forest on the outskirts of the Pantheon.
Because of that, those slow to evacuate had been swept up in it, but even so, at present, one could only say it was fortunate that the damage had stopped at that much.
‘At least this place was built in the middle of a forest…’
If it had been an ordinary city, an enormous massacre would have occurred by now.
Those who had not reached a certain realm would suffer fatal consequences not only from direct contact with that being, but even from touching the dark violet mist surrounding it.
“Stop that thing from expanding any further, no matter what!”
“Ugh, divine power isn’t working well!”
“The difference in energy density is too great. For now, everyone is clinging on at once and holding out, but if we don’t resolve this problem quickly, the moment some of them become exhausted…”
“We’ve requested support from the Guardian for now, so…”
The clergy below were also desperately trying to do something, but with no solution in sight, they could only stamp their feet in frustration.
Then, at some point.
Some among them looked up at the sky and raised their voices.
“Huh! Th-there, up in the sky! Isn’t that an angel?”
“Hey! This isn’t the time for jokes like… It really is…?”
“Wait. An angel? Could it be…!”
Regardless of what was being shouted on the ground, Heinrich simply repeated quiet breaths with the holy sword in hand.
That was a portion of a miracle manifested by Joker through the mystery accumulated in this land.
Though it was still incomplete, it was nonetheless an existence that projected the shadow of a god reigning over an entire world.
‘Wait, now that I think about it, something like that isn’t all that special, is it?’
The enemies he had faced until now had by no means been inferior to that thing.
A Demon King, an imprisoned god, and even a destroyer who had annihilated countless dimensions.
Compared to them, adding one more god’s shadow was, well…
Wasn’t it not that big of a deal?
Heinrich let out a faint laugh.
Wondering since when he had become so bold.
“Now, then. Shall we go?”
Immediately after.
His body, enveloped in a platinum dawn, became a single colossal sword and plunged down toward the earth.