Kwaaaaa──!
Zeit overturned a tectonic plate and hurled it at Quay, and Quay merely stared at it. By that power, whether magic or authority, the tectonic plate was broken down to the level of particles.
Yet Zeit’s battle had not even reached its opening stage.
Wooooooo……
He kindled blue mana over his body. The currents froze cold, and the veins throughout his body blazed white.
Crrrrrrrack——
Frost congealed in midair, and the road surface crumbled like a thin sheet of ice.
The talent that had made Zeit the strongest on the continent was simple.
Physical ability on par with a “giant.”
To put it metaphorically, an elephant running at supersonic speed……
“Patriarch.”
……Just before that elephant shot upward like a bullet, a woman approached him.
Zeit’s face stiffened as he looked back at her.
“…….”
Julie.
Zeit did not bother to call her name. Julie, too, said nothing. With her face alone, she restrained Zeit.
“Why are you…….”
Here.
Zeit, about to say that, suddenly looked at the group behind her. Lia. Leo. Carlos. The three children had arrived late as well.
“If you fight here, civilians will be harmed.”
It was Lia who spoke. Zeit asked back without thinking.
“……Civilians?”
“Yes.”
This time Julie answered. She indicated the surroundings with her eyes.
“There are many civilians here who know nothing.”
“…….”
Civilians who knew nothing.
Was she speaking of the Altar’s believers, who were staring at him in terror?
Zeit quietly swept his gaze over them. There were children, old people, women, and men.
“Knight. Then I’ll leave this place to you. I think I have to go.”
At that moment, Lia spoke for some reason in a hurry.
Leaving Julie behind, the girl led Leo and Carlos and ran off somewhere.
“Yes? Where are you going?”
Julie asked toward the three of them, but they seemed to be in such a rush that there was no answer.
“Uh…….”
Tap-tap-tap-tap—!
As Julie watched them run away, Zeit showed her a faint smile.
“Julie. Follow them.”
Zeit said. Julie hesitated for a moment.
It was a brief hesitation.
She shook her head.
“No. How could I leave my family, my house, alone?”
“…….”
At Julie’s words, Zeit scratched the back of his neck.
“I do have companions as well. Did you think even I would come alone?”
“……Pardon?”
Julie’s eyes went round. Zeit grinned and placed a hand on her head.
“Let us talk later.”
Quickly growing solemn again, Zeit looked back up at Quay. The god of the Altar, still gazing down at them.
He asked expressionlessly.
“Will you follow?”
“If you mean to prepare a separate stage, gladly.”
At that, Quay nodded and turned around.
It meant for him to follow.
As Zeit walked that way, he stopped Julie from trying to join him.
“Julie. Go to your companions.”
“Pardon?”
“Think about it. If you come to me, do you believe you will be of any help?”
“…….”
Julie was struck speechless for a moment.
Zeit continued.
“But to those children, you will be of help. So go before they get any farther. Leave this place to me, and hurry.”
Step, step—
Just then, Zeit’s companions appeared. They were faces the current Julie did not know, but their level and aura were unmistakable.
One could tell they were powerful just by meeting their faces.
“These people are…….”
“Al Los, and Jackal and Carla.”
* * *
……The circumstances that had brought Zeit to the Altar were as follows.
First, he had marched into the Ashes with the knights. Since he had cooperated with Josephine, the operation proceeded with lightning speed.
There, Josephine had ferreted out Al Los, Zeit had subdued her, and they had interrogated her together.
About the current location of a mage called “Verbaldi.”
Al Los did not bother resisting. Since he was not someone it would work on, she answered obediently.
“Verbaldi” was in the Deadlands, at the Altar.
Zeit believed those words.
And so, he went straight to the Altar.
“……There was no need to cause such a commotion.”
However, there was insurance.
Not only Al Los, but her companions Carla and Jackal had come along as well.
It was a half-forced joining.
“Patriarch Zeit. What do you plan to do now?”
Al Los asked Zeit.
Right now, they were walking through the heart of the Altar.
In other words, through the very center of enemy territory, through that darkness that might be a trap or might be hell, they were walking together with their enemies.
Because Quay had personally requested a conversation.
“Even the time to devise some operation is a waste. Even if I must burn the entire Altar to the ground, I will resolve Phaeirden’s Ice Age.”
Zeit said.
Phaeirden’s situation was indeed that desperate, but even so, it was reckless.
“Hmm……”
Al Los glanced behind her.
Jackal and Carla were there.
“Carla. Are you all right?”
“Yeah. The gas mask is good, so I think I’m fine.”
Carla. Having replaced her heart with Deculein’s magic core, she could no longer use high-level magic, but she was still alive.
And Jackal, as her bodyguard, was keeping his nerves sharp in every direction.
“This is the place.”
Just then, the Altar priest leading the way stopped. It was a huge underground door.
Creeeeak——
When the priest opened the door, a vast interior was revealed. Inside, there were canvases everywhere, and the scent of oil paint filled the air.
“An atelier?”
Zeit asked.
“……Yes. An atelier. I’m practicing creating something.”
The answer came from the far side.
Quay.
The being who called himself a god was looking at them from the middle of the atelier.
“Zeit. I know why you came to find me.”
Quay said. Zeit glared at him and hardened his expression.
“But that wasn’t my doing. It’s a problem with the land.”
“……A problem with the land?”
Zeit asked back. Quay nodded and opened his palm.
Above it, a round planet was projected like a hologram.
It was the “continent.”
“Yes. As you can see, the Deadlands are growing wider and wider. The imperial officials who survey the land each year must know that fact.”
The continent contained in Quay’s grasp. On the round planet, there was a portion that had discolored black, like a spot.
The Deadlands.
“In other words, the land is dying. As time passes, these Deadlands will continue to expand.”
Quay advanced the continent’s time.
Then, the size of the spot slowly widened. Zeit’s face, watching it, soon contorted.
Because among the continent being covered by the Deadlands was “Phaeirden.”
“You think the Deadlands are ‘land where life cannot live,’ but no. You are wrong. It is land that has lost its strength and died.”
Land where life cannot live.
Or land that has lost its strength and died.
At first glance, they seemed similar, but they were very different.
“Then, what is the cause of the land losing its strength?”
Quay clenched his hand shut. The continent in his hand vanished in an instant.
“It is because of you humans’ indiscriminate use of mana. As you abuse nature’s mana as magic, as you waste it on things like knights’ protective aura, exhaust mana is emitted.”
This, too, is proof of original sin…… Quay murmured lowly and gestured around the library.
“If you find it hard to believe, research it yourselves. There should be plenty of data and evidence on the continent as well. I recommend the Imperial Palace library. They already knew everything, yet they concealed the truth.”
“……So, in the end, you mean to say that Phaeirden’s Ice Age is not your doing.”
Zeit asked only that.
Quay nodded.
“Yes. It is a product of nature. Nature’s repayment, too. You Phaeirden were simply unlucky enough to receive that sin first.”
Crunch— crunch—
Zeit stretched. The joints in his neck and hands cracked menacingly, and mana bloomed keenly.
“Then, that will be all. You will be trapped for a while.”
Quay lightly waved his hand.
Whoosh—
A movement as if shooing away a fly, nothing more than a casual sweep.
The authority that arose in that instant wrapped around Zeit and his party, and “transferred” them somewhere.
“…….”
The atelier fell silent.
Quay strode forward and slowly looked at the paintings hanging on the wall.
One, two, three, four……
“Here it is.”
Among them, the eighteenth canvas.
It had originally been a landscape painting of empty railroad tracks, but people who had not been there before had been added inside it.
Zeit, Al Los, Carla, Jackal. The four uninvited guests, captured within the oil-painted scenery with exceedingly vivid faces, glared out beyond the frame.
“……I won’t indulge your childishness anymore.”
With a sneer full of hostility, Quay moved his feet.
There were many people inside the many paintings of this atelier.
After all, the purpose of this atelier was a “human prison.” A prison capable of confining not only Zeit, the strongest in the human world, but even a “giant” without difficulty.
“……?”
At that moment.
Suddenly, Quay saw a certain painting that caught his eye.
“This is……”
A painting that had not been there before.
More specifically, a painting Quay had not painted.
“A portrait of Deculein.”
A canvas bearing a half-length portrait of Deculein.
The moment he saw it, a certain person came to Quay’s mind.
“……Epherene. You came and went.”
* * *
Meanwhile, Lia was pursuing Deculein.
Leo and Carlos were with her as well. Deculein walked through the crowds of the Altar toward somewhere. From the underground of the Altar up one level, and up, and up……
“There’s a dining hall over there, Lia.”
Leo muttered.
“Follow me.”
Lia dragged him by force.
The current situation was serious. There was not even time to look elsewhere. Even if he was hungry, he had to endure it.
Because Deculein was in the Deadlands.
“……Where is that professor going?”
Had they tailed him for about fifteen minutes like that?
Carlos spoke.
“Good question.”
Lia, too, bit her lip slightly.
Deculein had already opened the door leading outside the Sanctuary.
In other words, he had gone from underground to the surface.
“……Do we have to go up too? We don’t have gas masks.”
Carlos asked. Lia shook her head.
“No. There’s no need.”
If Carlos were exposed to the dense demonic miasma of the Deadlands without a gas mask, it would be the worst.
Moreover, once they left this Sanctuary, concealment and cover would become impossible. Because there truly was nothing at all.
Thus, Lia made use of her talent.
One of the many variations of “Elementalization.”
Applying Elementalization to the optic nerves, eliminating the limits of sight.
“X-ray vision.”
“……Can you see? Lia?”
“Lia? What do you see?”
The little ones kept asking this and that, but Lia paid them no mind and focused.
She could see Deculein.
Deculein was looking at the lighthouse.
……The lighthouse.
Lia knew what that lighthouse was.
The object that would lead to the very worst ending.
The structure that would contribute most decisively to the continent’s destruction and rebirth.
“……Why?”
Therefore, Lia could only ask this.
“Why…… are you trying to repair the lighthouse?”
For Deculein was trying to repair the lighthouse with his knowledge and ability.
……At the same time, in the Imperial Palace garden.
Sophien was learning magic from the selected mages.
No, she had already learned it long ago.
“These fellows lack stamina, don’t they?”
The mages were exhausted and asleep. Luina and Ihelm had been knocked out by Sophien’s learning speed and her nearly infinite stamina and mana.
They had collapsed on the floor and fainted, so one could tell how tired they were without needing it put into words.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
However, one person, Sylvia, was still alive. Watching Sophien with a face that looked sleepy beyond belief, she nevertheless seemed to have better stamina than the other mages, which was admirable.
“Good. You should sleep now too.”
Sophien said.
At once, Sylvia made her own bed and lay down on it.
Zzzzz……
Watching her fall asleep, Sophien rose.
Just then, Ahan, who had been watching for her chance, approached.
“Your Majesty.”
“……Did you find him?”
Sophien asked first. Ahan answered with a somewhat troubled face.
“Yes. Grand Prince Creto is……”
“In the Sanctuary?”
“Yes. We do not yet know whether he is a hostage……”
Creto was at the Altar’s headquarters.
Sophien already knew what that fact meant.
If he was a hostage, it was a provocation she could not tolerate, and if he was not a hostage but a collaborator, it would be an enormous political blow as a member of the imperial family……
……Whooooosh—
At that moment, as Sophien pondered with limited information, a wind swept in. A cold current, as if to cool her head.
At the same time, a sheet of paper fluttered down and settled at her feet.
Sophien looked at it without thinking.
“……?”
Without realizing it, she tilted her head.
“A conversion formula?”
It was Deculein’s conversion formula.
Why had Deculein’s conversion formula suddenly appeared here?
“This is……”
As Sophien looked over the front and back of the paper, a certain thought suddenly flashed through her mind.
“……Ah.”
That was right.
“I had forgotten.”
She gave a small smile.
Indeed, there was one more selected mage.
For that mage, too, had certainly submitted the correct answer to Deculein’s selection problem.
“……The Fall of the Moon.”
In other words, Epherene Luna.
Thinking of her, Sophien murmured quietly.
“……Do you want something from me?”