◈ Chapter 265. O Claudi
A quest window rose against the backdrop of the collapsed mansion.
─Train your weakened body. (Repeat)
─Enter Sisley, the land of the elves. (Success)
─Encounter the Primordial Evil rooted in Sisley. (Failed)
─Track the Primordial Evil. (In Progress)
●Eliminate the byproduct of the Primordial Evil. (Success)
Seeing “Success” appear on the final quest objective...
For now, would it be fair to say the [Fruit of Good and Evil] class quest had reached a stopping point? I didn’t know when it would be, but until a new quest objective appeared, I could breathe a little easier.
‘I expected as much.’
I hadn’t thought I’d be able to finish things here.
The scale had been far too large.
Above all, at my current level, even half a success was something to be grateful for. Of course, even that had only been possible thanks to Claudi’s “halo”...
Now that the hindrance was gone.
Only then did I properly gaze upon the Claudi mansion.
What concerned me most...
Was not the shame of me, Lee Hoyeol.
It was Granfell.
Claudi.
That gloomy past and background...
Provided an immeasurably vast amount of “suitable mana.”
Enough for me to be called an endlessly deep darkness.
Now that I had faced its source...
Suitable mana must be overflowing from my body.
“My lord...!”
It was only natural that a dark spirit would recognize it.
So it wasn’t strange for Diend to trail off.
If Matisse, the senior of black magic, had seen me like this...
‘He would have been terribly worried, wouldn’t he?’
It just didn’t show.
But I was not one to neglect the things I’d resolved to make use of.
The same went for black magic.
Following its procedures...
I had also been carefully reading through books related to black magic. Thanks to that, I also knew why Matisse occasionally looked at me with worried eyes.
He must have been worried.
About 『Blackening』, where the body was encroached upon by suitable mana.
‘What kind of side effect is named blackening, seriously?’
But at this moment, the name wasn’t what mattered.
What mattered was that I knew.
No, even if no one else knew, I had to.
Because that was the weight I, Lee Hoyeol, had to bear.
“There is no need to be shaken.”
Yes, because all of this was something I had brought upon myself...!
‘I resent my consistent taste.’
Truly, it was a dark history I could not help but bitterly regret.
But once I had resolved myself, hadn’t I said I wouldn’t look away?
If I meant to make use of it, I had no choice but to face it.
I continued speaking to Diend.
“I merely found myself lost in old memories for a moment.”
They were old memories, yes.
The problem was that they were dark history.
Still, that unwavering composure that never faltered was helping me again this time.
Thanks to it, I was able to gather up the surging suitable mana.
Diend’s trembling voice reached me.
“Please forgive me, my lord. Even though I, Diend Crisiad Eternal Darkness, have remained by your side, I failed to fathom that you possessed such a past.”
No, please, don’t even try to fathom it.
And if you’re going to ask forgiveness...
Could you maybe start by apologizing...
For proudly blurting out the full name I gave you...
Every single time...?
Of course, I did not express...
Those shabby feelings outwardly.
I merely spoke calmly.
“Do not dwell on what has passed.”
“...?”
“For the sake of those who have passed as well.”
“...!”
“We must look ahead and move forward.”
Was it because I had returned to the main house?
Truly meaningful words befitting an heir were pouring out smoothly.
But I agreed with those words too.
Because I really didn’t want to look back if I could help it...
It was at that moment.
“Awoooo!”
Tempest’s howl rang out.
Indeed, you’re as fast as the name I gave you.
Following Tempest, Hiel appeared in midair.
And Agentress emerged from the cluster of portal light.
Hiel bowed her head.
“Regretfully, I failed to complete your command, my lord.”
I had guessed as much.
The moment the Primordial Evil tucked its tail and fled...
The byproducts it had scattered across the continent must have vanished with it.
Of course, since the quest objective was a success, there was nothing bad about it.
“Wooo!”
Sniff, sniff—
Tempest wrinkled his nose, then soon let his tail droop. Seeing how his energy suddenly drained away, it seemed the Primordial Evil had disappeared without leaving even a scent behind.
‘Vicious, just like a demon.’
So you could hide that smell from the start, huh?
That was when I became certain.
The Primordial Evil.
It hadn’t planned to swallow Claudi’s territory in silence. Its plan had been to annihilate Claudi’s territory before my very eyes after I belatedly realized the truth and rushed over.
The reason?
Wasn’t it because it wanted to see me, Granfell, collapse?
Even if that wasn’t the case, deception was a demon’s daily bread anyway.
‘Of course.’
You probably never imagined I’d resolve it this easily either.
But I told you, didn’t I?
Claudi’s halo would be beyond imagination.
So much so that even I feared it.
“Did you finally grasp your place, even if belatedly?”
It was infuriating beyond measure.
But for now, I would be satisfied with having thwarted its plan for the first time.
I was trying hard to stabilize Granfell like that when...
Suddenly, Agentress’s voice reached me.
“...May I ask one thing?”
No, what are you curious about this time?!
Every time Agentress has a question, my heart drops.
But as expected, I couldn’t let it show, so I nodded.
Then the question followed immediately.
“Is this truly the Arcana Continent I know?”
I tried to grasp the questioner’s intent.
First, should I consider the personality of the one asking?
It was Agentress, an elf who resided in Sisley. As he himself had said, the Arcana Continent must have been a trivial place that couldn’t even compare to Sisley.
So he must have been surprised.
“To think there was land like this on the Arcana Continent...”
By Claudi’s territory.
I have said it again and again.
The me of those days...
Had attached the modifier “great” to it.
Just as I had attached every good thing I could to Granfell.
It meant that to the territory of the great family, Claudi...
I had attached every good thing that came to mind.
It began with shallow knowledge.
『The sun did not set on Claudi’s territory.』
The land where the sun never sets.
Starting from a setting modeled after the British Empire...
It meant I had attached everything that sounded remotely impressive.
If such a land had been realized...
[You have entered the Hidden Piece, “Claudi Territory.”]
It would not be lacking even if it were called a Hidden Piece.
Agentress looked around and continued to marvel without end.
Eventually, he even muttered to himself.
“At this rate, how is it any different from Sisley?”
That was the highest praise that could come from an elf’s mouth.
The human heart is truly sly.
I should have been embarrassed, but somehow, a part of me felt proud.
[The “Authority” function has been activated in Claudi Territory.]
Claudi Territory, realized and recognized as a Hidden Piece.
Then naturally, ownership of that Claudi Territory...
Would belong to me, to Granfell, as Claudi’s survivor and heir.
‘There’s no need to consider affinity or influence.’
At the same time, however, immense authority comes with responsibility.
Noblesse oblige, or whatever it was called.
That thing I always had on my lips.
I looked at the collapsed mansion.
It was a ruin in every sense of the word.
Nothing remained but the site itself.
And yet, just looking at it made my chest swell, forcing me to imagine its majesty in its intact days. But I knew. I knew “who” had caused Claudi to fall so miserably.
Yes.
It might have been because of me.
The Lee Hoyeol of the past might have been the root cause.
『He had been the heir of a great family, but that family fell to a demon.
Granfell Claudi Arpheus Romeo, hereafter Granfell, the sole survivor of the family, walked the path of a demon hunter to take revenge on that demon.』
If I hadn’t written such a setting.
Perhaps the Claudi family would never have ended up like this.
That was why I had desperately tried to turn away from Claudi.
‘I can’t be certain.’
Truly.
If, because of me...
Claudi had come to exist on the Arcana Continent...
I wouldn’t have been able to raise my face before Granfell.
Even so, included in my resolve to acknowledge it...
Was that very determination.
It meant I would take responsibility for the past like an adult.
Even if my legs cramped from struggling.
Even if I ended up sinking.
It meant I would make Claudi great once more.
‘...Phew.’
Of course, when I recalled that setting, I couldn’t help but sigh.
Compared to its radiant past...
There was nothing left of the current Claudi.
But don’t worry, Granfell.
Thanks to someone, I’m frighteningly good at struggling.
Thud—
I placed my hand on a pile of stones strewn across the ruins.
No matter how many long years had passed.
No matter how terribly it had collapsed at the hands of some cruel demon.
It didn’t matter.
Because I had something that could overturn even that.
Reversal magic.
Kwadududuk—
Mana rippled.
It wrapped around the pile of stones.
From the rubble, it reversed back into its original form.
A statue.
It truly was an architectural piece befitting Granfell’s noble tastes. That aside, a stone statue at a mansion. Looking at that scene, one memory came to mind.
[Count Ascurra’s Territory]
You know, that Rift that appeared in Russia.
‘Back then, I really had nothing but my mouth.’
That was a time when I truly had nothing to my name.
Yet not only had I poured criticism on a moving stone statue I wouldn’t even have been able to defeat without reversal magic, but I had even spat venom at Ascurra to his face, saying it was substandard.
Back then, I had wondered what was wrong with this damn mouth of mine.
Now that I looked at it, I understood...
Yes, Granfell’s aesthetic eye hadn’t become lofty for no reason. If you looked at statues like this every day, of course your standards and your pride would soar sky-high!
Kududuk—
One, two, three...
There were four statues in total raised by reversal magic.
Each of their appearances was unusual.
As if advertising to all who looked, I am no ordinary lump of stone.
From the way one had drawn its sword to the way another knelt, they were solemn beyond measure.
Agentress’s reaction would convey it better than any description.
From the lofty perspective of an elf...
Agentress, who would not be moved by most things, trailed off.
“It is truly astonishing...”
I was astonished too.
Was I astonished by the quality of the statues?
No. Granfell’s aesthetic eye was hardly ordinary.
Even if I felt satisfied, I was not one to easily let out admiration.
Besides, this was Claudi’s territory—in simple terms, my front yard.
“It has been some time.”
There was no reason to be newly surprised by statues in the front yard.
So the reason for my astonishment...
Was a little different from Agentress’s.
‘You’re really something else, Hoyeol...’
How did you think to attach such an outrageous setting even to mere statues...? It would have been enough to call them ornate statues. But 『The Four Families of Arcana, Symbols of Loyalty』?
There’s a limit to gilding your own face.
I can’t raise my head from shame.
Truly!
*
『The Four Families』
Four families that decide the rise and fall of the Arcana Continent.
There are not many who know their true nature.
That is only natural.
For the master of the Arcana Continent was the Empire, and the master of the Empire was the emperor.
But that is wrong.
Because the reason the current Empire, the first emperor, was able to unify the Arcana Continent was that the Four Families permitted it. The proof was now clearly revealed in this place.
『The Spacetime Social Hall』
A banquet was taking place on its upper floor.
Countless delicacies were laid upon the round table.
Foods with rare flavors and effects, obtainable only in the Spacetime Social Hall. The amount of gold invested in the banquet spoke of what sort of beings they were.
Gulp—
Top-grade wine, worthy of being called drops of the gods, filled his throat to overflowing and ran down the corners of his mouth.
Yet there was no sign he found it wasteful. As if it would be fine for even more to spill, he spoke with the wine still held in his mouth.
“Isn’t it strange? Claudi, of all things.”
The banquet’s main course...
Was not any rare delicacy.
It was Claudi, the ghost of the past.
“Day in and day out, she shuts herself away on the lower floors and smokes those dreadful cigarettes, so it’s no wonder her head’s gone bad. Well, how could it not? She has experienced countless terrible omens, after all.”
The Witch of the Southern Sea.
The transcendent who had delivered the news that Claudi had returned.
The family heads continued the banquet, using Claudi and the witch as fodder for their drinking talk.
News from the Arcana Continent, too, could not be left out.
“Still, it seems it wasn’t complete nonsense after all.”
“Is that so?”
“As you know, there’s a legend going around, isn’t there? Something about a Black Dark Dragon.”
The Black Dark Dragon.
Even hearing it again, it was a sobriquet suited to Claudi
perfectly.
But that was all.
As the witch had said.
Even if Claudi had returned, just as the legend claimed.
“Hasn’t far too much time passed?”
That was right.
Even if Claudi had survived.
The Claudi family no longer existed.
“Our predecessors may have feared and revered the Claudi clan, but we do not, do we? What do we, as we are now, have to fear from some phantom of the past?”
Clink—the family heads conversed as they struck their glasses together.
In the end, though they did not say it so harshly as spitting on their own family graves.
Their predecessors had been overly cautious.
“Isn’t it truly a sorrowful thing? To possess the power to seize the continent and shake it, yet never be able to spread your wings. Who in the world would recognize such worthless humility?”
“Exactly! How easy must we have looked for demon-like scum to covet the territories of the Four Families?”
“It is grievous indeed.”
It went without saying, but the territories of the Four Families had not fallen.
Not to the True Name Demon, nor even to the Demon King’s offensive. The walls of the Four Families had not trembled in the slightest.
Someone might ask.
If they were so great,
why had they failed to show any presence worth mentioning until now?
The heat of intoxication rose.
At last, their true feelings spilled out.
It was all because of their predecessors—the cowards.
“All because they feared a single Claudi, we ended up like this.”
But the cowards were dead, and the days when Claudi was praised as a great family belonged to the past. Even if a survivor of Claudi had returned to the continent, to the heads of the Four Families, the news of that return was rather something to welcome.
“Perhaps the chance to prove it has finally come.”
That we are greater than Claudi. That the Four Families are greater.
Was their opponent not the fallen Claudi?
Proving it would be easier than drinking wine. ‘The problem is……’ They were the ones before their eyes.
Glances crossed.
Amid the clinking glasses, a subtle war of nerves passed back and forth. ‘Maxima’s golden elite soldiers are a nuisance.’ ‘To think those twins are still serving Yugrik.’ ‘If not for those barbarians, Cansel would be in my hands by now……!’ ‘Perhaps it is time we needed pieces to use and discard appropriately, allies to be exploited.’ Within that war of nerves, Claudi was nowhere to be found....
I looked at the completely inverted stone statues.
The reason I had called Askyura’s living, moving stone statue pathetic soon revealed itself. Yes, the statues in our house did more than move—they even talked……!
Rumble!
Toward me.
The four stone statues bowed their heads in unison.
If you asked why, of all things, it had to be the Four Families.
The answer was simple.
Their voices, brimming with loyalty, answered in its place.
“The Four Heavenly Kings pay their respects to their master, Claudi.”
Hoyeol, did you truly think the Four Heavenly Kings (四天王)
were cool……?
And as if that were not enough, a master reigning above the Four Heavenly Kings.
Really, what a dreadful taste you have……!