◈ Chapter 139. Arcana (1)[World Quest: Evil Dragon Hunter]
O hunter who has hunted the kin of the wicked dragon.
The legend of the mountain range is calling you.─Reach the summit of the Zero Mountains. (In Progress)
A being that must not be awakened.
A World Quest that began when I killed that thing.
I was the only one who knew of its existence. The players who contributed to killing it had received quests too, but they were nothing more than ordinary quests. In short, the “rank” of the quest was different.
And yet he called me an Evil Dragon Hunter!
How had Skal come to know my epithet?
I truly did not want to dwell on it. Yet my train of thought continued naturally. Let’s see, it was a World Quest that could affect the entire world of Arcana.‘It must have been a message.’Just like when the [World Tree’s Seed] quest appeared, a message had appeared to every player. Hidden class, Dragon Knight. A message related to the Evil Dragon Hunter must have appeared only to Skal.‘A blessing in disguise, I suppose.’Yes, considering that, let’s sincerely regard it as fortunate. Of course, it had become meaningless the moment Skal blabbered my name in front of the cameras.‘Three visits to the thatched cottage would not be enough for this, Skal.’Chewing over my lingering resentment, I moved my feet.
I headed for the portal.
As I said, I had no time.
However.
Murmur, murmur─The voices of the reporters chattering behind me made my steps halt.
“Didn’t he just reject Skal’s request?”
“Skal’s pride must be badly wounded by this, huh?”
“Didn’t he seem more than just rejecting him? He looked really angry.”
“Exactly! Like meeting Skal would be a waste of time……!”
The lobby of the Magic Tower.
A space open to anyone, as a portal existed there.
As the co-chief of the Magic Tower, I knew that fact better than anyone.
As someone who valued procedure as much as formality, wasn’t I Grandfell? It wasn’t as if this were my own living room, and I had no intention of criticizing people merely for having a conversation.
But today was different.
It grated on me severely.
I stopped walking and turned around.
I looked at the crowd.
I had not even opened my mouth yet.
“……
Hup!”
Silence immediately descended─and within that silence, I spoke.
It was not an order, but a proper request.
“Also, I would like you to keep quiet inside the Magic Tower for the time being.”
Absolute stability is essential for a patient....
Marcelo had collapsed.
A private room of the Healing School in the Magic Tower.
The adept mages, including Klee, could not let down their guard.
“What are we supposed to do, Klee?”
“First, let’s calm down. Everyone.”
“……
I expected it, but I didn’t think it would be this sudden.”
The curse of the Simuard family.
Even if one tried to keep it hushed up, words without feet traveled fast.
Moreover, the person under the curse had never intended to hide that fact in the first place.
Marcelo lay on the bed, breathing heavily.
Bellier watched over Marcelo at his side.
It was the first time since childhood that she had seen him with his eyes closed.
“……
You’re the same.”
The way you sleep.
And that foolishly honest personality of yours, too.
The senior mages, including Bellier, had received Marcelo’s will.
Its contents were as honest as he was. There was no story about his own life; it was a will that thought only of the Magic Tower.
“Damn it. I knew, but even for a curse, this is cruel.”
Bensch’s voice came from beyond the door of the private room.
A few senior mages had come to see Marcelo.
But a meeting was impossible.
Soon, Bellier’s gaze turned to the air.
More precisely, to the “mark of the curse” floating in the air.
From the moment Marcelo had collapsed until now.
The mark of the curse had been growing darker little by little.
As though it were absorbing Marcelo’s life.
Knock, knock─At the knock, Bellier answered.
“You may come in, Senior Matisse.”
When the door opened, Bensch’s face was briefly visible through the gap.
His eyes were full of desire to enter, but in the current situation, Bensch’s fussing would not be of much help.
“Waaaiiit……!!”
There was no need for Bellier to say anything.
A natural enemy relationship.
Thud─Matisse immediately and firmly shut the door.
Then he looked at the mark of the curse floating in the air.
“I can sense no mana from it.”
“That’s right. Its exterior isn’t structured like a magic circle either.”
“…….”
Silently.
Matisse looked at his ring.
As expected, its color had not changed.
An alien magic, black magic.
Even the structure of black magic circles was alien and varied.
Yet the mark of the curse was not even black magic.
She had wondered, just in case, on the off chance.
Bellier smiled bitterly.
“It is neither magic nor black magic. In the end, our prediction was correct.”
“How is Chief Marcelo’s condition?”
“As I told you. We are forcibly infusing him with life force.”
A state in which only the functions of his body were being maintained through healing magic.
Matisse’s brow twitched.
Maintaining healing magic of that level would require an enormous amount of mana.
Yet Bellier showed no signs of exhaustion.‘Are they maintaining the spell in shifts with the adept mages?’No, even the adept mages of the Healing School did not seem to have free access to this place.
If she had reached her mana limit, she should have reached it long ago……. Matisse’s worried gaze soon turned to Bellier’s attire, different from usual.
Wait, now that he looked, was that not priestly clothing rather than a robe?
Noticing his gaze, Bellier smoothed her sleeve.
“Chief Lee Hoyeol gave it to me, saying it would be of help.”
“……
Chief Lee did?”
“Judging by the pattern, it is a magic tool of the Goddess Church. No, in the Church, they would call it not a magic tool but a sacred relic, wouldn’t they? Whatever the name, it is thanks to the effect of the sacred relic.”
The sacred relic Chief Lee Hoyeol had given her.
Thanks to it, she could remain by Marcelo’s side.
Matisse swallowed a low groan.‘He was meticulous in a place I never expected.’Hoyeol had saved Muon, the holy land of the Goddess Church.
Even if Hoyeol possessed a sacred relic of the Goddess Church, it would not be strange. If the Goddess Church had any pride, they would have repaid him in some way.
The moment that thought ended, Bellier opened her mouth.
“In the end, all we can do is wait. For Chief Lee Hoyeol’s return.”
“…….”
Only Marcelo’s breathing could be heard.
A gloomy atmosphere was not good.
Bellier spoke to change the mood.
“Ah, right. How is the atmosphere in the Magic Tower, among the seniors?”
“They are concerned about the chiefs’ absence.”
“They would not know, after all. The reason Chief Lee headed to Arcana…….”
What Chief Lee Hoyeol had revealed was merely his plan to enter the Arcana Continent.
He had not revealed his purpose.
Now that Marcelo had collapsed, Hoyeol had headed to the Arcana Continent.
It was no different from a sudden threat arising to the safety of both chiefs.
However.
-“I will not be absent for long. So I would like you to refrain for a few days from requests related to me, including applications to leave the tower. I ask for your understanding.”
-“Because the Simuard family is there.”
-“Even so, trust me.”
Bellier, Matisse.
At least those two seniors had faith.
That was why she could force herself to speak.
“A few days of occasional worry should be all right.”
However, the change came far earlier than they had expected.
“……?”……
Because the mark of the curse was writhing unlike before.
“!”
Until now, it had merely grown gradually clearer, but now it repeatedly became vivid, then dimmed.
That frivolous glow felt as if it were trembling in fear.
Flustered, Bellier looked out the window.
“……
The sun hasn’t even set yet?”
Chief Lee Hoyeol.
It had not even been half a day since he had left the Magic Tower.
And yet had he already not only set foot on the Arcana Continent,
but also found a clue to undoing the terminal curse?*[Crossroads Bathed in Sunset][Appropriate Level: Lv.380][Collapse Progress: 0.6%]
I entered the rift that had formed closest to the Magic Tower.
The reason was simple.
I wasn’t confident.‘……
Will I have any mana left to manifest a portal after returning to reality?’I wasn’t confident that I could make it back to the Magic Tower.
My destination was not the rift, but the Arcana Continent.
The method of returning to reality?
I knew only one.[Last Adventurer]
Activating its effect.
Which meant I had to die once on the Arcana Continent to activate the effect.
But would I, Grandfell, be able to quietly close my eyes? On the Arcana Continent, swarming with demons?
I could say with certainty.
Not only would I exhaust my mana,
I would hunt demons until my body was in tatters.‘That is why I chose the closest rift possible.’If worst came to worst, I would have to call a taxi and return to the Magic Tower.
Swaaa─Soon, the scenery of the rift revealed itself within the sunset.
But today, I had no leisure to admire it with such ease.
I immediately opened my inventory.[Map That Communes with All Things][Grade: Epic][Restriction: None][Effect: You can learn the location of something that someone secretly hid, something someone lost, or something hidden somewhere. Also, only once, you can teleport to the location of something.
However, upon activating the teleportation effect, all effects are immediately lost.][Description: A magic tool with infinite possibilities depending on how it is used.]
A trophy from the Demon King.
Before immediately activating its effect, I recalled once again.
The setting of Arcana that I had forgotten.
Back when Arcana was nothing more than a game, time in Arcana flowed four times faster than in reality.
A day in reality was four days in Arcana. The fact that the setting remained valid even after the Cataclysm had been verified through Frost.‘It depends on how you think about it.’Thanks to that, one could think there was more leeway than expected.
Or one could think time was still tight.
Of course, that was my inner thought.
“Even the flow of time poses no problem to me.”……
Yes, that’s my mouth. My loose tongue.
There was no hesitation.
As if manifesting a portal, I pictured the coordinates in my mind.
-“The Simuard family. Location: eastern Imperial Capital, near Lake Nania.”
Goooo─Light burst forth from the [Map That Communes with All Things].
The Demon King’s aura had been purified through an exorcism ritual.
The only thing to worry about was the item’s effect.
Amid the pouring light, a message appeared.[You have entered the Arcana Continent, which is heading toward destruction.]...
The image of Arcana I had seen in all sorts of advertisements came to mind.
There was no need to mention the Zero Mountains again, which always appeared without fail.
What appeared as often as the Zero Mountains was Arcana’s night scenery.
Dozens of stars embroidered the night sky.
Stars larger than the moon in reality filled Arcana’s night sky. Yes, I, who had opened my eyes on the Arcana Continent. What I witnessed after the message was Arcana’s night sky.
Blink─A massive pupil embedded in the sky.
A gaze looking down as if monitoring the Arcana Continent.
I realized it.
No, as a demon hunter, I instinctively felt it.[Skill, ‘Natural Enemy,’ activates.]
That was right.
What embroidered Arcana’s night sky in place of stars were the eyes of demons.
I uttered my impression.
“You severely ruin the aesthetics.”
The malice surging across the Arcana Continent.
The pride in my chest reacted more fiercely than ever.
Because Grandfell could not tolerate even breathing the same air as demons. Truly, it might have been that I would have unleashed magic at the eyes in the night sky at any moment.
However, there was a procedure as important as pride.
There was a reason I had entered the Arcana Continent.
I checked the quest window.[Quest: The Simuard Family’s Request]
The magical family, Simuard.
They wish to uncover the root of the terminal curse
that has been placed upon them.─Visit the Simuard mansion. (Success)─Face the Countess of Simuard. (In Progress)
To uncover the terminal curse entangling the Simuard family.
And so, I moved my heavy feet.
As expected of a magical family counted among the greatest on the continent.
The size of the mansion was too vast to take in at a glance.
Most of all, its exterior was intact.‘At a time when even Frost, the greatest city in the north, has fallen.’[Natural Enemy] grew sharper and broader with each passing day.
My senses as a demon hunter could feel it.
A demon existed inside the Simuard mansion.
It was not difficult to identify its true nature.
As specified in the quest objective, there was a high probability that the demon was the Countess of Simuard. I recalled the information about Lady Simuard that I had heard through Bellier.
“Matriarch, Yula Simuard. In truth, she was no different from the head of House Simuard.”
The Countess Simuard had acted as the head of the family in place of the short-lived Simuards. As Bellier recalled her memories of the woman, she had pressed a hand to her temple.
“I’m sorry. I can’t remember anything about her. Strangely enough, Marcelo’s appearance from the very same day, at the very same time, remains vivid in my memory. And yet only the afterimage of Countess Simuard seems to have been carved out…….”
It might sound obnoxious, but the mages of the Magic Tower are clever.
After all, most of them had been called the pride of their families, the embodiment of talent, and other embarrassing things even when they were mere apprentice mages.
Bellier was a senior mage incomparable to such apprentices. When she said something was “vivid in her memory,” she meant it was truly as vivid as if she had just seen it.
‘There was definitely a smell.’
So.
I had half guessed it there.
That it might be a demon’s status ailment.
And at this moment, standing before the mansion, I was certain.
The demon that had swallowed House Simuard.
With the curse of a terminal fate.
Was wearing the mask of the countess.
I’m feeling it all over again.
Demons truly are fearless, aren’t they?
To think they would touch a magical family.
Then again, there had been a demon that tried to stab a demigod, an elder mage, in the back.
It strikes me anew just how demon-like that is.
Step, step—
Suddenly, a presence could be felt beyond the darkness.
A man dressed in a tuxedo.
Holding a mana lamp in his hand, he addressed me.
“It has been some time since we last had a guest. I do not know what brings you here, but.”
Creak—
He opened the door and received me politely.
“I am the head butler of House Simuard, Seo Hatip. Our House Simuard is open to everyone. Would you care to rest before you go?”
Yes, putting an ignorant human in front like this is demon-like as well. In any case, as expected of the butler of a count’s household, his manners were impeccable. So much so that one could hardly refuse.
“Thank you.”
I followed the head butler, Seo, into House Simuard.
Some might ask if I had lost my mind.
Even to me, it did seem insane.
But this, too, was my heavy pride.
If I had followed my heart, I would have blown away the entire mansion where a demon lived and breathed. But this was Marcelo’s family home, House Simuard. It was out of consideration for Marcelo, who must be battling the curse with his life on the line.
“You have committed no sin.”
And at the same time, noblesse oblige.
It included consideration for the retainers serving House Simuard as well.
Besides.
“Pardon me, but what did you just say?”
I did not answer and looked up at the sky.
The night sky did not contain only the demon’s eyes.
My “arrangement” had also been waiting in the clouds for some time now.
[Flying Mechanical Castle, Iron Castle: Awaiting orders]
Therefore.
I proudly headed toward the Simuard mansion.
Into the demon’s maw.