There are many people in the Sanctuary, the altar of the Land of Extinction. Even if there is nothing that could be called a structure on the surface, a fairly diverse assortment of humanity has gathered in the depths of the endlessly stretching underground.
I watched their faces.
“There are many believers.”
The Sanctuary bustles like a village. Adults, the elderly, youths, children, women, men…… old and young, male and female alike, they continue the lives of themselves and their families beneath a land that has already perished.
“Yes.”
Quay asked in return.
“Do they look unhappy to you?”
I shook my head.
The children here run about full of life, their parents watch them fondly, and the elderly preach teachings born from their own wisdom. Smiles linger on all their faces.
It is a sight far removed from misfortune or brainwashing.
“Because they do not look that way at all, I cannot understand why you intend to kill them all.”
“I’m not killing them. I’ll preserve the souls of my believers. In my next world, they will be with me.”
Quay lightly waved his hand. Then space shifted.
Once again, the surface of the Land of Extinction.
In the dead land where demonic energy surged, Quay looked up at me with a smile.
“Then are we temporary allies?”
“……It is only cooperation born of necessity.”
Quay nodded and held out his hand.
“Fine. At this point, I’m curious too. Whether you truly are the being God arranged for my sake.”
“……..”
Without a word, I took Quay’s hand.
Quay asked.
“When will you start repairing the lighthouse?”
I looked back at the lighthouse and answered.
“Right now.”
…….
“Will this truly be all right?”
The Land of Extinction, where the morning sun was dawning.
One of the altar’s confidants asked Quay.
Quay laughed softly.
“What do you mean?”
“That man.”
The confidant pointed at the lighthouse. More precisely, he glared at Deculein beside the lighthouse.
“He seems suspicious, no matter how I look at it.”
He was inscribing a magic circle with woodsteel. He was also reconstructing the lighthouse.
His 「Psychokinesis」 had already dismantled part of the lighthouse in an instant.
The debris floated in the air for a while. Thanks to that, the lighthouse looked gaunt, as though rats had gnawed at it, or as though its teeth had fallen out.
“It seems to me he is deliberately trying to collapse the lighthouse.”
“Do not doubt him.”
Quay shook his head.
“I can see it with my eyes. The lighthouse is being reassembled properly.”
“Yes.”
The confidant did not harbor doubt. To them, Quay’s words were law, faith itself.
Quay smiled.
“……You should go and deliver the Revelation now.”
“Yes.”
The confidant left like that. Quay silently watched his retreating back, then turned back to Deculein.
Gooooooo……
The mana rising from him, the 「Psychokinesis」 that had been dismantling the lighthouse floor by floor, finally disassembled the entire lighthouse completely.
Creak— creeeeak—
It was quite a spectacle in its own way.
The process of the lighthouse’s bricks moving as they pleased under invisible magic, then being assembled again from the beginning.
“Quay.”
Just then, someone called Quay. Quay turned to look at him.
It was Crito.
“Why is the Professor here……?”
Crito, who had been about to ask that, soon saw the mass of stone over there and his eyes widened.
Quay said,
“We’ve formed a temporary cooperative relationship.”
“What?”
Crito’s shocked pupils stared at Quay.
“Deculein agreed only to help complete the lighthouse.”
“That……”
“Yes. Deculein betrayed Sophien.”
“…….”
To Crito, who had lost his words, lest he worry too greatly, and also so that he would not leave him.
Quay added just one sentence.
“For Sophien, he will betray Sophien.”
* * *
……A “Deliverer” is, literally, a being that “delivers.”
It can deliver “something” to “someone,” or it can deliver “someone” to “somewhere.”
In-game, it had been quite an annoying bastard.
Whenever you tried to do anything, it would suddenly banish you to a completely different field.
“This is…… the Sanctuary, ain’t it?”
Lia said.
The Sanctuary.
One could tell simply by taking one glance. At least, the Sanctuary was like that. It was the headquarters of the “Altar,” writhing beneath a land of death where not a single blade of grass or flower grew.
“Did you say the Sanctuary?”
Yulie said, covering her mouth with her sleeve. It was because the air was murky.
“Yes. The Altar’s headquarters.”
“!”
Yulie’s eyes widened. She quickly gripped the sword at her waist, and Lia, Leo, and Carlos hurriedly stopped her.
“It’s okay. It’s not a place where people kill each other the moment they meet. If anything, outside is dangerous. Inside isn’t bad.”
“……Is such a thing possible?”
“Yes. They may be a cult, but they’re still believers. Just make sure to cover your face properly.”
“Yes.”
The four of them pulled up the hoods of their robes.
Lia said,
“Anyway, I guess the Altar uses ‘Deliverers’ to kidnap people like this. Let’s walk for now?”
Yulie nodded with an uneasy expression.
“Leo, Carlos. You too.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
And so the four of them moved their feet for the time being.
As Lia had said, no immediately threatening situation occurred. The scenery of the Altar’s headquarters was rather peaceful. It was an ordinary place where people lived.
“Are these people truly…… the Altar that causes such chaos on the continent?”
“Yes. If it were a religion that only practiced tyranny, it would actually be easy to deal with. It’s because they’re like this that it’s harder and more incomprehensible.”
It was the reason the final boss was the final boss.
As one played through the game like this, there were times when the believers here felt kinder and more harmless than the people of the continent.
The most representative example was the persecution by the New Faith.
Perhaps even now, the New Faith was killing the Altar’s believers. Indiscriminately, while inflicting the most painful torture, more than simply cutting off their breath.
“Right, right. Can’t everyone just live happily together?”
“If everyone were as stupid as you, everyone would be able to live happily together.”
“What did you say?!”
Leo and Carlos, who were bickering with each other, were ignored for a moment.
“Ah…….”
Yulie nodded with a somewhat complicated heart, but for no reason, she found herself glancing at Lia.
Feeling that gaze, Lia chuckled.
“……Is it because I resemble her? A person named Yoo Ara?”
“Yes…… ngh.”
At that moment, a certain pain arose in Yulie’s temple.
It was a stinging, sharp sensation, as though she had been pricked with an awl.
“……What’s wrong?”
Lia asked worriedly. Yulie smiled bitterly and shook her head.
“It is nothing. Only, you truly do resemble her. Chairman Deculein’s former fiancée.”
“Did you know her well?”
“I saw her face only once.”
“Then that must have been quite a long time ago.”
Lia spoke as she trudged along.
She already knew this knight was Yulie. Of course, Yulie would not know that fact.
“Ah, yes…… In any case. That memory is quite vivid.”
Yulie examined Lia’s face again.
“You truly resemble her.”
“That goes for you too, Sir Knight. You resemble his former fiancée too. Haven’t you heard that a lot?”
And this time, it was Lia’s turn.
“……Pardon?”
To Yulie, who flinched, Lia showed a sly smile.
“There were two of them, weren’t there? Former fiancées. Among them, you really resemble a knight named Yulie.”
“…….”
“He liked her very much. Count Yukline did.”
“……Ahem. Is that so?”
Yulie cleared her throat.
It was not as if she wasn’t curious about her old relationship with Deculein. To say otherwise would be a lie.
“Yes. But in truth, Sir Yulie only suffered a great deal because of Deculein.”
Lia continued in a calm voice.
“She lost her dream, ruined her body, and in the end, gave up on herself.”
That was Yulie’s future. Deculein’s future was also like that.
Because Deculein and Yulie were beings opposed to each other.
It was what one might call “relationship programming.”
“By giving up on herself, you mean……?”
If, like the original Deculein, he drove Yulie to the very end, then by being killed by Yulie’s sword, he would turn Yulie into a murderer. He would reduce her into someone who could never “become a knight,” someone who killed a person not for a cause, but purely out of personal emotion.
“It’s the same even now.”
On the other hand, like the current Deculein, like the Deculein influenced by Kim Woojin’s personality, even if he treated Yulie only with love……
“Sir Yulie is already as good as dead, in truth.”
Yulie had ultimately given up on herself.
For Deculein’s sake, she killed the self she had been for ten years, and as Deculein wished, she was merely living on like this. Without even knowing of her own death.
“So……”
Lia turned to look at Yulie.
“For each other’s sake, it was right that Sir Yulie and Deculein grew distant as they are now.”
At those words, Yulie’s expression stiffened faintly, Lia let out a low sigh, and Leo and Carlos, before they knew it, had bickered to the point of nearly fighting……
It was then.
“Huh?!”
Yulie pointed somewhere.
“What is it?”
Lia asked back, following her finger. There stood a certain giant of a man in robes.
“Wow, his body’s huge.”
Lia muttered as though it was nothing much, but Yulie was different.
A build that large and shoulders as broad as the ocean were not common. That body, more threatening than anyone else’s even without armor, was practically a family tradition.
“It is Zeit.”
Zeit von Brugang Freyden.
The head of Freyden, and Yulie’s elder brother, was here.
“…….”
At that moment, Lia’s face hardened as well. At the appearance of Zeit, the strongest man on this continent, Carlos and Leo also stopped scuffling.
“Yes. Let’s tail him for now. To find out why he came here.”
“It is likely because of Freyden.”
Yulie answered Lia’s words. Clenching her teeth tightly, Yulie looked at Zeit’s broad back with eyes that, for some reason, held pity.
“……Freyden is freezing over. He came here in search of a solution.”
“…….”
That made sense. Lia nodded too.
Zeit was a man who thought only of his family. With his house on the verge of collapse, he was not the sort of person to concern himself with whether it was a religion or whatever else.
“But what’s he planning to do coming here alone?”
“I think I know.”
At Lia’s question, Yulie drew her sword. Then she cloaked her body in mana.
Zeit was Yulie’s elder brother, blood who had been with her for dozens of years.
Therefore……
“——Suuuuuuup.”
The sound of Zeit drawing in a breath.
Yulie took one step forward, but it was already too late.
“Listen——!”
A massive roar that shook the Altar from its underground to the surface in its entirety.
Too violent to be called a human shout; rather, it was the bellow of a beast.
“You fragments of a damned religion——!”
Wow. Wow, wow.
Carlos and Leo burst into admiration at that fierce figure, but Yulie pressed her lips together.
“Since the ice age of Freyden you dared to foretell has come to pass!”
Zeit was alone here now.
Even if he was Zeit, alone……
“The King of Winter, Zeit, has come here in person——!”
Kwaaaaaang────!
He struck the road with the underside of his sword. The greatsword, as large as an average adult man, carved cracks into the road. It caused a massive tremor.
“Let the priests of the arrogant Altar come to me at once and report a solution.”
A murderous tone, lowered deep. At his voice filled with hostility, all eyes in the Altar focused on him.
“My patience will not last long……”
Zeit stopped speaking, frost-like mana settling over his entire body, and the ground beneath his feet caved in.
That very moment was Yulie’s time to step in.
“Please stop.”
At Yulie’s words, at that voice, Zeit’s broad shoulders twitched faintly.
Just as Yulie had recognized Zeit at a glance, Zeit had also recognized Yulie by her voice alone.
“…….”
Thud.
Turning around with one heavy step, he looked at Yulie, yet said nothing.
Before Yulie could call him first—
My lord.
Before that.
Before her.
“Is that Zeit?”
A certain cold timbre seeped into the Altar’s Sanctuary. It settled as though slicing through the air, delivering a heavy threat.
The four of them looked up there almost instinctively.
Zeit muttered as though chewing the words.
“……Are you the leader?”
To Yulie, he was a nameless man, but Lia knew at once.
The final boss, Quay.
He nodded.
“Yes.”
Then the gazes of the two men met, and Zeit heated the mana throughout his body as though he would charge at any moment. Aura and sword energy surged up like flames.
“……?”
However, in this hair-trigger situation.
For some reason, Lia’s senses moved elsewhere. They pointed to someone among the crowd of the Altar.
“That……”
He wore a black robe, and his face could not even be seen, but for some reason, Lia felt she knew.
No, she could tell.
Deculein.
Why was the Chairman, who should have been at the Magic Tower—no, the Imperial Palace—here……?
“You came without warning and caused quite the commotion. If you had told us before coming, we would have welcomed you.”
Quay smiled brightly. Zeit gave a small laugh, then lifted the ground itself and hurled the entire slab at Quay.
As for how Quay responded after that…… honestly, Lia didn’t know.
Because she didn’t see it.
“……No. Just why?”
Her eyes were fixed on only one place—no, one person.
On Deculein, standing in the middle of the Altar.