I had no way of knowing what it felt like to see the corpse of one’s lover after ten thousand years.
All I could do was wait in silence.
As we stood there before the greenhouse, I heard the squad members whispering.
First came Magreta and Hanna’s explanation, since they knew the situation to some extent.
After hearing the two of them explain, Sergeant Woo and Tom were greatly shocked.
“Then that person is Mage Soph’s lover?”
“A corpse that died ten thousand years ago? No matter how I look at her, she seems alive.”
They whispered as quietly as they could, but my enhanced ears did not miss their conversation.
If I heard it, that meant Soph had heard it too.
I asked Soph.
“Should I give you a little more time?”
Since he had met his lover again after so long, he would need time.
But Soph seemed to have already gathered his emotions.
He answered me in a calm voice.
[No. What is there is only her illusion. I have seen her face, and that is enough.]
It did not look remotely enough, but I decided to accept his words.
Unfortunately, now was not the time to drown in sentiment.
There was much to do right away.
“Hanna! Check the greenhouse!”
After having Hanna inspect the seal, I looked around the interior of the hall.
The inside of the hall had hardly changed from what I had seen in the past.
Aside from the floor being dirtied by the monster we had brought down, the shelves and the magic circle on the ceiling were just as they had been.
It meant the seal cast by this star’s guardian was still intact.
However, the color of the magic circle was far fainter than it had been then.
As if it might go out at any moment.
While I examined the hall, Hanna approached the greenhouse under the protection of the other squad members.
Stopping before the greenhouse, she placed her hand on the glass and focused her mind.
From her hand outward, the shield covering the greenhouse glass rippled like waves.
Hanna had begun checking the seal.
Seeing her check the seal, I also inspected the shelves together with Soph.
The spear floated up above the shelf, and several magic circles formed around it.
[……Terrible. While the greenhouse was being protected by the power of the Sanctuary, the Demon King contaminated almost all of this terraforming facility. The Central Mountain Range being covered in gray snow, and there being nothing at all left in the western part of the continent, are both because this ruin was contaminated.]
“In the end, we just have to kill the Demon King, right?”
[The contaminated regions will have to be restored, but since the source of contamination will be gone, it should be possible.]
That much was enough.
If we could restore this ruin to its original state, we could eliminate the contamination more quickly, but that was too much to hope for.
This ruin would soon disappear.
On top of that, Soph told me something I had not expected.
[Fortunately, the ruin’s basic functions are still alive. The coordinate system is broken, so it is nothing more than a meaningless spatial movement device, but that does not matter to you, does it?]
“That’s good. We can make use of it.”
I had been worried because the situation had changed, but if there was a spatial movement device, a major concern was lifted.
[Surely you are not thinking of escaping with this spatial movement device?]
Soph asked in a worried voice.
[Escaping would be easy, but if you use spatial movement, the Demon King may be able to follow. No, if that happens, it would mean the operation failed, so perhaps it would not matter?]
At Soph’s question, I looked at Hanna, who had her hand on the greenhouse glass, and answered.
“It’s fine. The Demon King won’t follow.”
[Very well. If you are certain.]
It was something he could easily have argued against, but Soph followed my words.
Since when had Soph started accepting my opinions like this?
Before, he would at least grumble, but now Soph accepted my opinions without even doing that.
While I was talking with Soph, Hanna also finished checking the seal.
“Ah……”
With a grave expression, she withdrew her hand and immediately ran over to me.
“Oppa, there’s a problem. It’s……”
She had opened her mouth with a stiff face, but could not continue and looked toward the greenhouse with a troubled expression.
Her eyes were directed at Shamara inside the greenhouse.
But Hanna was not looking at Shamara.
[May I be the one to say what the problem is?]
Instead of Hanna, who could not continue, I spoke.
Not aloud, but by sending the words into her mind. Telepathy.
Since the floor was not soil, I could not use earth magic, but soil was not the only medium.
Stone and air were also sufficient mediums, and through them, I could transmit telepathic magic as well.
[The seal has weakened terribly, hasn’t it? To the point that the Demon King might break it himself and come out.]
At my words, Hanna’s eyes widened. She nodded at once.
Just as expected.
The seal had weakened more than I had thought.
The reason Hanna had been unable to say it was because she was worried the Demon King might be eavesdropping.
However, what I said was not the truth.
The seal had not weakened to the point that the Demon King might break it himself and come out.
In truth, the Demon King had already awakened, and he could break the seal and come out even now!
I knew that because, just moments ago, I had personally seen the scene of the Demon King being sealed.
I did not know the theoretical details, but I could understand the purpose and state of the magic circle.
That this magic circle had already reached its limit.
Furthermore, the fact that the monsters had been gathered was enough to tell me the Demon King was awake.
The Demon King was awake, and he was in a state where he could break the seal.
The reason he had not yet broken the seal and come out was that if he forcibly broke it, the Demon King himself could not avoid taking damage.
The seal was a power that gathered the strength of the star and had held back a monster like the Demon King for ten thousand years.
It had weakened, but the Demon King could not break that seal and emerge unscathed.
That was why the Demon King had borrowed outside power.
The monsters he had summoned, and Miara and the fossil monsters he had revived.
Every monster attacking the Sanctuary was the outside power he had gathered, and one more thing was added to that.
A human who would undo the seal. A new guardian.
In truth, I could not be certain of this, but the Demon King might have been waiting for Hanna.
[That seems like speculation.]
[Unless the Demon King says so himself, there’s no way to know the truth.]
The Prophet Lord might have seen the future and told the Demon King, but that monster was dead, so the truth could not be known.
I could not tell Hanna this story.
“In any case, since we’ve come this far, we’ll proceed according to plan. Everyone, protect Hanna and check the surroundings. I have to start planting things in the ground now.”
At my words, the squad members surrounded Hanna and moved away from the greenhouse, and I also stepped back quite a distance before taking the items out of the box.
Five large, unmarked conical pillars.
They were hydrogen bombs brought from Earth.
I set the timers on the hydrogen bombs and linked them to an electronic switch.
I had made it so that when I pressed the detonator switch nearby, they would explode after a certain amount of time.
This way, I had to be near the bombs when pressing the switch, but there was no helping it.
I could not leave hydrogen bombs unattended beside the Demon King.
After finishing the setup, I stamped my foot.
Thump.
A magic circle formed on the floor.
The stone of the floor surged up and was pushed aside.
The nuclear warheads began to sink slowly.
Controlling the stones was not easy, but even so, it did not take long to bury the nuclear warheads.
After the hydrogen bombs disappeared and the stones returned to their original state, I spoke to Hanna and the squad members.
“The bombs have been installed, so now it’s time to withdraw.”
At my words, the squad members let out sighs of relief.
It seemed everyone had been worried we might really end up fighting the Demon King.
“Fortunately, we’ve become able to use the ruin’s spatial movement device. Originally, we were going to escape the Sanctuary on foot, but since there is a spatial movement device, we’ll change the method of escape.”
At my words, the other squad members brightened, but Hanna asked me with a worried expression.
“Then, the seal……”
I shook my head at Hanna’s words.
“We’ll talk about that in a moment.”
I glanced toward the greenhouse.
Seeing my gaze, Hanna gave a small nod.
“Now, everyone stand around the shelf.”
At my words, the squad members gathered around the shelf.
Once they had gathered, I placed my hand on the shelf.
According to Soph, I had to operate this equipment.
I put my hand on the shelf and flowed energy into it.
Then, as Soph had done, I summoned the system.
A hologram rose above the shelf.
A hologram with the coordinate section completely empty appeared before my eyes.
Just as Soph had said, the coordinate system was broken.
A coordinate system that had clearly been deliberately destroyed.
It seemed that before the believers of the Sanctuary died, they had broken it so the Demon King could not use it.
A spatial movement device with a broken coordinate system.
As Soph said, to anyone else, it would have been utterly useless.
But I was different.
The coordinate system was broken, but I could find and create paths that did not exist.
With my hand still on the shelf, I pictured a new path.
Beneath the mountain range, to where the dispatched squad members had headed, the path leading to the Magic Tower.
Wooooong.
As I pictured the path, a portal formed before the squad members.
[Good heavens. Now you have created a portal without even coordinates.]
[Changing paths during spatial movement, moving paths while taking other people along, and designating a path from the departure point like now aren’t different things.]
After learning that Soph’s memories were of the past, I had realized something about spatial movement as well.
Just as time and space were not different, all paths were not different. The place of departure, the destination, the countless paths—all were the same place.
[You are saying those are the same? I truly have no words. When it comes to spatial movement, you are an archmage.]
I shook my head at Soph’s joke and spoke to the squad members.
“I connected it to the place the other squad members went. Now, go in.”
At my words, the squad members looked at me.
When I tilted my head at their strange behavior, the squad members spoke with stiff faces.
“We’ll go on ahead.”
“You have to come right after us.”
As they entered the portal, Sergeant Woo and Tom left behind those strange words.
“You have to come quickly. I hate waiting for long.”
With unexpected words, Magreta also entered the portal.
This time, it was Hanna’s turn.
Hanna, looking as if she were about to cry, opened her mouth.
“I don’t think I should go.”
“Is your light saying that?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know which is right. The black light spreading from the greenhouse covered the world. You and the portal are the only things still shining at all, but you’re not going to come with us.”
My companions all knew what I was going to do.
I had to remain here and turn on the bomb switch.
And I had to do it at the very moment the Demon King broke the seal and came out.
In the end, the moment the Demon King could no longer endure and broke the seal would be when the Demon King failed to achieve his goal.
The moment the guardian who was supposed to undo the seal disappeared.
“You have to go.”
With those words, I pushed Hanna into the portal.
Hanna stared at me with startled eyes as she was sucked into the portal.
The instant Hanna entered the portal, I withdrew my hand from the spatial movement device.
Pak!
In an instant, the portal vanished.
Kiiiiieeeek!
A monstrous scream resounded throughout the entire hall.
It was the voice I had heard just moments ago—no, ten thousand years ago.
The Demon King’s voice.
Crack!
The magic circle on the ceiling flickered, and the greenhouse began to split apart.
Pulverized plants and trees scattered through the air, and dust rose from Shamara’s fingertips.
The Demon King (1)