Episode 83: Otherworld-Style Xianxia (2)
Like a joke brimming with dark magic sensibilities—that a legless skeleton horse travels a thousand li.
Despite the Academy and the royal palace trying to hush it up, the fact that a secret room devoted to evil god worship had been discovered within the Academy eventually leaked to the outside.
Because the incident had erupted so suddenly, it seemed it hadn't been easy to completely silence both the students and the officials.
"What do you mean, a place so vile was discovered in the Academy?"
"Just like in the [Genius Mage from the Slums] series, could it be that spies of the dark mages have infiltrated the Academy?"
"Shouldn't this be dealt with quickly, no matter what?
The Academy is where the talents who will lead our kingdom into the future attend; the students must not be tainted by such impure ideologies."
So the Academy and the royal palace quickly gave up on stemming the spread of rumors and devoted themselves to investigating the culprits and establishing countermeasures.
Since it had already happened, it was better to clean up the mess properly.
However, the more measures they took to clean things up, the more they came to realize one thing.
"I think we need some kind of fundamental solution for this?"
"Even if we catch the culprits of this incident, at this rate, other bastards will just appear anew elsewhere."
This wasn't about mending things one by one.
What was needed was a fundamental measure to prevent people susceptible to such seductions from appearing in the first place.
Through the investigations triggered by this incident, they had learned that there were far more people than expected falling for and being consumed by dark magic or evil god worship.
They had been wary of and prohibiting dark magic and evil god worship before as well, but their hands couldn't reach everywhere.
In those places beyond their reach, these groups were expanding their presence far more than expected.
And that influence must have grown until it reached even the interior of the Academy.
Having come this far, they reached the conclusion that this wasn't simply a matter of the Academy's reputation, but that a serious response was necessary.
Rather than responding to each incident as it came, they needed a brilliant strategy to fundamentally reduce those bastards' influence and power.
"But if such a thing existed, we wouldn't be struggling like this."
"We aren't some magic lamp with a spirit from an old tale; how could we just whip up a solution simply because we need one?"
"If that were possible, dark magic wouldn't even exist in this world by now, would it?"
Of course, such a brilliant strategy did not simply pop into existence just because it was needed.
The already-busy officials of the Academy and the royal palace, occupied with managing the aftermath, began racking their brains even more fiercely over the new task thrown at them in the midst of it all.
The sorrow of lowly ones being ground to dust like flour in a mill!
But fortunately, before too long, news arrived that would save them.
"Breaking news! Breaking news! Author Wei's new work has been released!"
"Hm? What's all the fuss about?
I understand the urge—I want to read Author Wei's new work too—but first, we need to properly handle our assigned duties..."
"It's not that I want to read it!
...Well, I do want to, but what's important is that the content of this new work is meant to help us with our work."
"What? Is that true?!"
"Yes! I heard it plans to thoroughly expose the true nature of the dark mages and completely shatter their image?
If it's beyond our ability, isn't Author Wei more than capable?"
"Hell yeah! I knew we could count on him!
Author Wei is our hero!"
In recent years, whenever a major incident occurred, there had always been an existence like a cheat code that played a crucial role and led to the best possible outcome.
That was precisely Author Wei's new work.
Upon hearing the news, the officials were certain that the headache-inducing matter was as good as resolved, and they let out cheers of joy.
Soon, their cheers became reality.
***
"Hah, the papers are still full of articles about the evil god worship room discovered at the Academy and the dark mages.
Well, I've only been writing similar articles myself lately, so I can't really talk..."
Thomas, a reporter affiliated with the Publishing Guild who had gained fame by exclusively covering the playthrough of the dating sim game [I'm a Priest, but I Want to Date!], sighed at the situation where, for months now, the newspapers had been filled with nothing but dark mage stories.
Someone might say, "Isn't it good that the news never stops?" and to some extent that was true, but.
"If articles with this kind of content are repeated too frequently in such a short time, I don't think they'll have a very positive effect."
The more often people saw it, the more likely they were to grow accustomed to it, which could conversely lower their vigilance.
The dangerous image of the dark mages could become diluted.
This was especially true since there were those who exaggerated or downplayed facts, or wrote rumors as truth, all to sell newspapers.
"Those bastards should be barred from ever being reporters, tsk."
Thomas cursed those third-rate scoundrels and clicked his tongue.
He did get called a hyena scrounging for scoops now and then, but he hadn't rotted to that degree.
Thomas had a sense of mission and pride in his profession as a reporter, and he was responsible enough to worry about the influence his articles exerted.
"Sigh, don't people know they'll be in big trouble if they blindly believe in dark mages and evil gods?
Even if they're seduced by sweet words, there's no way they'll actually be granted the power they truly desire."
In the end, all Thomas could do was sigh with worry and lament.
It wasn't that he couldn't understand the hearts of people in desperate straits.
But even so, it was still difficult to defend them walking with their own two feet into a clearly visible trap.
Thanks to the dark mages appearing as villains in Author Wei's [Genius Mage from the Slums] series, it was somewhat fortunate that such incidents had decreased considerably in recent days.
'Of course, there are also stupid bastards who are drawn in because dark magic looks cool instead.'
Thomas had completely given up on trying to understand people like that.
If they were determined to ruin their own lives, he couldn't exactly follow them around with a packed sandwich trying to stop them.
'Let those stupid bastards who can't tell front from back ruin their own lives.
No, they might harm others too, so if I find them, I should report them to the knight orders.'
His sincere hope was that they wouldn't get caught up in that strange image and cause harm to others.
Anyway.
He had been writing nothing but articles about dark mages and evil god worship lately, but for this one, he planned to cover a different topic for the first time in a while.
"Because Author Wei's new work came out today."
It was news hot enough to push aside the burning topic of dark mages, and he planned to read Author Wei's new work and write an article about it.
A person who wrote words with hundreds, thousands of times more influence than himself, a reporter.
And a great figure who was changing the world in a far greater, more varied, and more positive direction.
Because it was a new work written by such an Author Wei, his expectations welled up that he could breathe change into the stagnant newspapers these days with a refreshing article for the first time in a while.
"Hehe. Just how entertaining will this work be."
Of course, since Thomas was also a fan of Author Wei, his interest and anticipation for the new work itself were overflowing as well.
"Now then, what will this new work be about?"
Humming in a cheerful voice, Thomas opened Author Wei's new work, [Receiver of the Frontier], and began quickly grasping what it was about.
He needed to accurately understand and summarize the content in order to write an article.
To roughly summarize the background of the new work [Receiver of the Frontier] that he grasped this way, it could be said to be the story of a protagonist who was a Receiver training to become a god.
"A human becoming a god.
Come to think of it, it wasn't entirely impossible, was it?"
According to what he had learned at the church, which he had started attending out of interest after reading [Mythological Tales in Manga], periodically published by the church.
In the distant Mythic Age or ancient times, there were heroes who received the gods' commands and fought alongside them.
He had heard that among such heroes, those who achieved even greater feats had records of being promoted to godhood after death.
Of course, their numbers were few, and they were concepts like lesser gods or subordinate gods, but.
The point was that they did exist.
"In [Receiver of the Frontier], that legend seems to be classified into more systematic stages.
Ha, my heart is pounding so hard it feels like it'll burst from excitement."
The setting of starting from the body of a mere mortal and gradually transcending the limits of species and lifespan to reach godhood possessed a power to make one's heart race that matched its vast scale and its power scaling that transcended mortality.
Was it not so?
The process of a grand feat challenging the realm of transcendent beings called gods, who surpass humanity.
If one wasn't overwhelmed and thrilled by such a majestic and transcendent story, one wouldn't be human.
At the overwhelming scale of development, the likes of which he had never seen before, Thomas turned the pages as if entranced.
"Let's see. It divides into the Benevolent God faction and the Evil God faction?"
Soon, the central conflict that appeared to be the core of the novel began to reveal itself.
The Benevolent God faction sought to become benevolent gods by training diligently and accumulating merit and achievements like the protagonist.
And the Evil God faction sought to become gods through cruel and terrible heretical methods.
And the representative of the Evil God faction was none other than the hottest topic these days: the dark mages.
"Ugh, dark mages appear here too."
It was a name he had seen to his heart's content until very recently, so for an instant Thomas felt a bit tired of it, but.
"Oho? If it's this kind of content, that's a different story!
I can properly ruin the image of these damned dark mages!"
Seeing the continuing contents, he immediately changed his expression, looking distinctly pleased and refreshed.
And for good reason.
So much so that the dark mages' image would be dumped into a cesspool in one fell swoop.
Their ugly true natures, their pathetic and sewer-like states, were being thoroughly exposed.