Lighthouse.
An edifice designed by Quay and expanded through Deculein’s magic.
Looking up at that structure, which observed the firmament and the cosmos from an awe-inspiring height, Lia found herself sinking into no small amount of sentiment.
“We really made it all the way here in the end.”
The final main quest.
That thing, which must never be completed, was already finished and now waited only for the last hour.
If this were a game, she would have given up already.
“……Is everyone watching?”
Lia murmured.
Right now, the magic lens implanted in her cornea was observing the lighthouse. This lens was connected to the Floating Island and would relay every image and piece of information to them.
—I can see it.
“Can you interpret it?”
—It is possible. Given time, we can dismantle and analyze the entirety of the lighthouse.
The Floating Island. That great island of magic had broken its unwritten rule of never interfering in the petty affairs of the continent and was now cooperating with the Empire.
All the magical knowledge, technology, and minds of the Floating Island were devoted to this matter. They were trying to stop the lighthouse, and to thwart Deculein and the Altar.
In other words, Deculein had even brought that lofty Floating Island into the war.
Because he had killed every one of the Floating Island’s executioners.
—Deculein’s reasonless arrogance and conceit will be thoroughly judged. The Floating Island will eliminate the great evil that gnaws at the world.
Judgment of a great evil.
“Lia. They’re selling chicken skewers underground.”
At those words, Lia turned her eyes back to Deculein.
Dressed in a black robe, he stood with the high priests of the Altar.
No, he stood “above their heads.”
“Lia? Chicken skewers—”
“You and Carlos go eat.”
“Okay!”
Leo and Carlos trudged down underground, and just then, the worship service toward the lighthouse came to an end.
The faithful of the Altar, who had been worshiping the lighthouse, began to turn away one by one—some toward the Sanctuary, some back to the Empire or the Kingdom.
“Are you watching closely?”
A voice approached Lia at some point.
It was Deculein.
“……Watching what?”
“The lighthouse.”
Lia nodded silently, and Deculein gave a faint chuckle.
“It will all be tied up soon.”
Tied up.
The final quest of this game.
“……I guess so.”
Lia continued, her words like a sigh.
“At the end of it, you’ll be the worst villain, won’t you?”
The worst villain.
Deculein’s brow twitched slightly, then he struck the pavement with his staff. At that moment, Lia’s magic lens crackled—! and vibrated.
Lia clutched at her eyelid.
“Ugh!”
“……The Floating Island is foolish as well. Did they think something like that would escape my notice?”
Saying that, Deculein turned to look at Lia.
“However, Lia.”
His voice sank low.
“What conversation did we have in the past?”
Like that, he asked about the past.
About the past between Yoo Ara and Deculein, which Lia did not know.
“…….”
The corners of Lia’s eyes lifted slightly.
She glanced sideways at Deculein, then, meeting his gaze fixed directly on her, pointlessly shifted her eyes back toward the lighthouse.
Was he testing her?
Or……
“Pathetic.”
Lia said.
The words she had once said to him, who had tried to shoulder everything alone.
Advice she had given to that man who, even unto death, would not share his burden, who had felt sorry in advance and tried to sink by himself.
Please, just as you try to share happiness with me.
Share even your sorrow with me.
Running away without doing that is not cool. It is only pathetic.
“I said you were pathetic. Because you kept your insides, your heart, all to yourself.”
Deculein showed no expression whatsoever.
Well, of course.
Because he was different from Kim Woojin.
Because he was not Kim Woojin.
Even if he was the worst villain, he was absolutely not a pathetic person.
……And yet.
“I see.”
Deculein nodded. Rather, as if he understood, he even formed a smile like a crescent moon.
To Yoo Ara, that smile was mysterious. Beautiful, like a mirage in the desert.
Only for a very brief moment.
“Three weeks, Lia.”
Deculein cut off Lia’s sentiment.
“Once three weeks pass—”
Crackle—
Again, static surged across Lia’s retina, and the Floating Island’s magic lens recovered its function.
“The continent will meet its end.”
* * *
Rohalak’s desert. In that place where the only specialties were roasted Rohal scorpion, Rohal scorpion carapace, Rohal scorpion venom, and fine sand, Rohalak Warden Primienne was frowning.
“Strange.”
The warden’s table was covered with all sorts of newspapers. All of them contained news about Deculein.
“Strange.”
Warden Primienne had gathered affairs of the continent from this desert cut off from it and investigated them in her own way.
“……Strange.”
That was her only impression.
Strange.
Truly strange.
“Why?”
Primienne knew Deculein. He would not hate the Red Casket this much, at least not as much as the media claimed, and certainly not as much as the berserk course of action Deculein was showing now.
If anything, at each perfect moment when the fact that Primienne was a Red Casket might have been exposed, it was Deculein who had helped her let it pass.
“…….”
The Deculein portrayed by the media did not merely hate the Red Casket; he was an extreme purist and classist. One only had to look at the book he had written and published this time to know that.
[The Future of the Empire].
A work that presented the path the Empire should take. To the pro-Deculein faction, it was met with fervent support; to everyone else, it was a controversial work that inspired concern and fear.
“The future of the Empire is rule by philosopher-kings, grounded in strict class hierarchy and pure-blood ideology…… is it.”
In truth, Primienne did not feel much sense of belonging to the Red Casket. She was from northern Phaeirden and had grown up just as cold, hungry, and harshly as the people there. She had merely hidden the fact that she was a Red Casket because she did not want to die and because she liked the prosperous life of the Imperial Capital.
“The pieces do not fit.”
But no matter how she thought about it, Deculein’s current course of action was strange.
Primienne thought and thought again, but……
—What is?
From a crystal orb in one corner of the office, someone’s voice flowed out. No, rather than a voice, it was a noise closer to a mechanical sound.
It was Elesol, Grand Elder of the Red Casket.
“Deculein. His actions do not follow logic. I do not consider him a complete enemy.”
—Would a complete enemy slaughter the Red Caskets of Rohalak like that?
“Slaughter? Are you perhaps referring to the canvas? I do not think that looks so bad.”
—…….
Deculein’s painting prison.
Many things were said about it.
Inside this painting prison lies hell. There is nothing inside—meaning one must pass hundreds of years within perfect nothingness…….
There were many such claims, but it was a hundred times better than a gas chamber.
“If one enters this, there is a possibility they are alive. Until it is opened, we do not know whether they are alive or dead. But in a gas chamber, you die the moment you enter.”
—Are you serious?
“Yes. More importantly, Elesol. What happened with the lighthouse?”
—The Floating Island has decided to intervene.
The intervention of the Floating Island.
A startling statement that the Floating Island itself would directly intervene.
—The time remaining is twenty days.
Twenty days.
A little over three weeks, far too short a time to speak of the continent’s destruction.
“……I will have to go myself.”
—Is that place prepared?
Here in Rohalak, there were Red Caskets. Karixel, of course, and the bloodline of the old Grand Elder.
“It is sufficient.”
—The decisive battle will be in the Land of Destruction. And at the lighthouse. Once that is dealt with, the years we have been oppressed will finally be consigned to the past. We will be able to receive compensation befitting them. We will be able to reclaim our land.
“…….”
For an instant, a thought flashed through Primienne’s mind.
The years they had been oppressed. Compensation befitting them. The lost land of their homeland.
Those three phrases threw off sparks.
“……Elesol.”
Strictly speaking, it was only a hypothesis, but it was plausible enough.
No, if that hypothesis was correct, then it could explain both Deculein’s current actions and the way Deculein had shown himself to her in the past.
“Where are you right now?”
Primienne’s voice trembled, unlike herself.
—What is the matter?
At Elesol’s question, Primienne spoke simply.
“Just in case, I would like to say it face-to-face.”
—…….
Elesol gave no answer.
Then again, with the state of affairs these days, Elesol did not intend to take even a single step out of the desert’s underground.
—Is it important?
“…….”
Primienne hesitated.
It did not take long.
“Elesol. Deculein had an opportunity.”
—……What opportunity?
Primienne knew.
In the not-so-distant past, Deculein had had an opportunity to exterminate the Red Casket.
That he had been able to receive information from a Red Casket agent and kill the entire clan.
“Who knows.”
……However.
Primienne’s faith in Deculein was not because of “merely” that incident.
“An opportunity to kill one Red Casket child.”
Primienne took a diary from her drawer.
This, confiscated from a certain child imprisoned in Rohalak, was simply one ordinary possession.
An object that had caught Primienne’s eye just before it was burned in the incinerator.
No one had read it, and in fact, there was nothing special about it.
But on one day in the diary, there was this passage.
[Today, I met the general of the Imperial Guard who they say is the scariest. He had medals hanging all over his chest.
It was strange. At first, I thought I had seen wrong.
I thought I would be caught, that I would be dragged straight to the camp, but he left without saying anything. He only told me to be careful.
So I really thought I had seen wrong. But later, I saw his face again in the newspaper.
It was real.
That name was……]
……Deculein.
Primienne closed the diary and said,
“……He did not even kill a child of the Red Casket.”
* * *
……The upper levels of the Floating Island, Mejiseion.
In that place where all the world’s advanced magic and the records of great mages were gathered and stored, the entire leadership of the Floating Island had assembled and was devoting itself to research.
“This lighthouse is a medium. The Altar appears to be trying to draw in a comet from the outer world through this lighthouse, and Deculein’s formulae are amplifying its performance.”
Including the Addict Astal, the Ether-rank mages who had obtained the privilege of residing on the Floating Island were thoroughly grasping even the objectives of the Altar and Deculein.
“However, whatever the Altar is attempting to do, our purpose is simple.”
The purpose of the Floating Island.
“The Floating Island does not involve itself in the secular world.”
It does not involve itself in the secular world.
Therefore, the motive moving them now was nothing more than “personal resentment.”
In other words, Deculein.
“We will annihilate Deculein.”
The Addict Astal spoke.
And as they listened to his words, the mages of the Floating Island concentrated on developing formulae for the sole purpose of annihilating Deculein.
“I will say it once more. We will annihilate Deculein.”
The Addict Astal spoke again.
“We will annihilate Deculein.”
He said it yet again.
“We will annihilate Deculein.”
Again, and again, he said it.
Only then did the mages realize there was something strange in the repetition, and one by one, they lifted their heads to look at Astal.
“We will annihilate Deculein, we will annihilate Deculein, we will.”
Astal was repeating.
“We will— we will— we will——”
We will.
Astal repeated only those words, stretching out like a tape that had come completely unwound, until,
“We will—————”
Like that, he froze while his voice continued.
No, time stopped.
…….
Silence settled over the upper levels of Mejiseion.
Piercing that stillness, a voice flowed in from somewhere.
—I’ll correct what was just said.
Click— clack—
High heels clicked, accompanied by a clear tone that scattered through the air.
From some shadow within Mejiseion, the pale, wavering figure of someone emerged.
“……Yes. It’s me, Epherene.”
Epherene.
She looked around at them and said,
“Annihilating Deculein is not allowed.”
As if mocking them, with a face that resembled a teacher from long ago——
“No, you can’t. Not as long as I’m here.”
——she lightly waved her hand.
At that moment, Mejiseion’s time stopped.
Everyone on the upper level stiffened, mouths open.
“……Hmph.”
Click, clack.
Epherene walked as if sneering and sat in one of the chairs there.
Suddenly, she turned her head and looked at a certain record on the wall of Mejiseion.
[Lokralen — Kaidezite]
The Floating Island’s records concerning Lokralen and Kaidezite.
Looking at them, Epherene recalled the distant past.
“Soon…… I’ll be able to see you again.”
To be honest, she still did not know what had happened that day.
But she had an intuition that the day would soon arrive.
“Until then, I’ll do my best too, Professor.”
Epherene murmured softly and looked around.
Creeeak—
The sound of something creaking.
“……Oh-ho.”
As expected, they were not easy opponents. There were no small number of mages resisting her magic.
But, well.
“That’s even better.”
Epherene, who had endured an immeasurable amount of time and risen by leaps and bounds, had confidence enough.
“Come at me, all of you. I’ll face you properly.”
Because now, she believed in herself more than anyone else…….