mtlumby2d Chapter 179 : Chapter 179
Chapter 179 : Chapter 179
179
"This is a terribly, terribly, terribly vicious curse~?"
Berlith smiled brightly.
"And vicious curses draw their strength from life force!"
"Life force......"
"Hoo hoo hoot. Do you want to hear? It will be a very, very frightening story."
Ordinarily, I would have shaken my head at such theatrics.
But so long as this curse was being aimed at me and the Academy, I had to know.
When I nodded, Instructor Berlith's eyes narrowed into slits.
"The Empire waged a whoooole lot of wars of conquest? And they brought back countless slaves!"
"I know."
"But the Empire has no slavery system? Have you ever seen a slave in the Imperial Capital~?"
I had not.
The Empire had absorbed and annexed countless vassal states, placing them under colonial rule, but it did not discriminate against the people it ruled.
Rather, it pursued aggressive assimilation policies, making them voluntarily pledge loyalty to the Empire through indoctrination.
The Imperial Royal Academy had played exactly that role.
'No matter how hard you flail, you cannot hope to match the pyramid of knowledge the Empire has built.'
That was the Imperial Royal Academy's pride, and it was an effective strategy in practice.
Students who entered the Imperial Royal Academy bearing resentment toward the Empire would be overwhelmed by the Empire's systems and scale, and despair.
Then, they would voluntarily pledge themselves as a part of the Empire.
It was the same with their armed forces, led by the Lionheart Knights.
No matter how exceptional you were, you were ultimately beneath the knights who had invaded you.
The Empire bestowed its knowledge freely and educated.
Even if there were grievances against the Empire in the moment, the second and third generations would accept Imperial culture and be naturally assimilated.
Then where did the people who had been kidnapped or captured in that process end up?
"To the Empire's Underground Magic Tower~!"
"The Underground Magic Tower — do you mean the underground of the Magic Tower?"
"No no~ A bit different! A tower rises toward the heavens, right~? But the Underground Magic Tower burrows down toward the ends of the earth! That is what the Underground Magic Tower is."
"And there......"
"Yes! They bring slaves and develop all sorts of curse magic~!"
I felt my breath catch.
"Curse magic~ It grows stronger the more sacrifices it has? And black magic, in particular, cannot help but be that way~"
I recalled the characteristics of black magic she had described to me.
Black magic referred to magic that could not be explained by the laws and order of this world.
Power that did not imitate natural order — light, fire, ice, wind, and the like.
"Look at this."
Berlith held out a single dagger.
The dagger the assassins had brought.
"Hya!"
With an oddly lackluster shout, Berlith swung the dagger down.
But the effect was tremendous.
The tree standing before us warped without any forewarning, then turned to ash and crumbled into liquid.
How to put it — I was watching with my own eyes, yet I could not understand whether what I was seeing was real.
Ash...... "melting" into liquid?
"Fascinating, right~? It turned a solid into a liquid just like that~! And decomposed the internal elements instantly as well~"
"How, how is something like this......"
"That unexplainable absurdity is precisely what a curse is!"
A force outside the natural order.
"Curses like this~ grow more powerful the more sublime they are."
"Sublime?"
It was a word one might encounter in philosophy.
"Exactly that one~"
Berlith narrowed her eyes once more.
In philosophy, the Sublime referred to the moment one encountered a vision that so far transcended human will and consciousness that it led to the realization of the existence of the divine.
Things like the massive canyons and waterfalls shaped by nature.
The vastness of standing alone beneath a night sky beneath an endless horizon.
The overwhelming force generated by a great earthquake, and the like.
"And one more thing. The moment a human abandons their most fundamental instinct — the will to live. That, too, we call sublime."
"......Sacrifice."
"Yes. Hoo hoo. A mother who charges at a monster to protect her child. A father who throws himself over his child to shield him from a carriage about to run him over. An eldest son who willingly steps in front of the conscription officers to save his brother's life. A knight who holds noble resolve for the sake of his king......"
Bile rose in my throat.
"You are saying they deliberately engineer such moments?"
"Hoo hoo hoo. Which is precisely why the Underground Magic Tower cannot surface."
They were demons in all but name.
No — even if I were told that demons had emerged from there, I would have believed it.
"The place where demons were summoned — is that not there?"
"Well, the possibility is not zero~ They are people obsessed with experimentation."
What consoled me somewhat was that I sensed a peculiar hostility from Teacher Berlith when she referred to them.
"......Do you hate them?"
"Oh my. I am someone who gave up one of her arms precisely because I hate demons invading our world~ Must I still prove myself?"
"That is a relief."
I took a deep breath.
The night air filled my lungs and cleared my head a little.
"Five daggers of that sort."
"Of course, these daggers cannot just be mass-produced~ Your opponents must have prepared quite thoroughly for this. After all, their target was none other than the King-God-General-Ultra-Special Instructor Cassian~!"
Whether they could be easily made or not was beside the point.
I looked again at the dagger in Teacher Berlith's hand.
Even now, the dagger exuded an eerie aura.
It carried a grudge that could not be resolved with just one or two swings of my blade.
Each time the aura surged, the wailing of countless souls — souls that must have been used in forging the dagger — echoed in my ears like an auditory hallucination.
"......This needs to be dealt with."
I had tried to avoid leaving the Academy whenever possible.
But I could not leave beings like these unchecked.
With this operation failed, they would bring a stronger curse next time.
Or they might cast curses on others instead of me and threaten me through them.
If I were in a similar position, I would curse random students, or their parents, or their hometowns to shake my target's will.
"Wow, truly the Demon of Military Strategy...... I bet not even the Empire would think that far."
"Do not be absurd. They are the type to use such vile weapons."
I had to move not only for the students but for the people being tormented even at this moment.
"Where is this Underground Magic Tower?"
"Hmm, but I do not think you need to go there in person, Teacher Cassian~"
"Sending students would be too dangerous. I am the only one who can cut magic......"
"No no~"
Teacher Berlith smiled brightly.
It was perhaps the most energetic expression she had worn all day.
"He he he. There are people in the world who hate those men even more than you do? And those people — they are your allies!"
"......?"
***
"......A curse placed on Teacher."
Yuria stared at the Goldline Scroll, now reduced to ashes.
The transmission had ended, but she could not easily leave the spot.
"The Empire."
What Yuria had learned after living through one lifetime was that the world was not beautiful.
Even in the desperate moment just before humanity's extinction, people pursued only their own gain.
Or, in the name of "for the sake of humanity," they stratified and exploited their fellow humans.
"A curse."
The Empire's Underground Magic Tower, in particular, was precisely such a place.
Those whose minds had broken from the demon invasion.
Orphans who had lost their parents.
People with severe disabilities who could not fight.
The elderly, waiting only for death.
Those with terminal illnesses.
The Underground Magic Tower rounded up all such people and turned them into weapons.
And now they had pushed that horrific instrument toward whom?
"Teacher."
Yuria's hands, clasped together in prayer, trembled.
From deep within her, rage she could hardly contain welled up.
Throughout the prayer, her teeth ground together, and droplets of blood trickled out.
She had only just begun finding peace of mind here.
Soon — soon, when Sacer emerged, under that pretext she could sweep away the corrupted higher-ups of the Holy Kingdom, inherit the position of Saintess, and go see Teacher.
Teacher's body was still not yet complete.
Eight lines were connected.
And the lines in Teacher's body that had been blocked or severed numbered nine.
With only the Sacer Fantasy — which allowed free control of sacred power — Teacher's body could finally be complete.
Once that happened, all those filth-drenched, foul, treacherous, sin-soaked, heresy-stained, mud-crawling-through-chaos, scum-of-humanity-devouring, stench-emitting, damned demons trapped in eternal sin —
She could sweep them all away at once.
"Hoo."
Yuria took a deep breath and drove away her dark impulses.
Then she slowly rose and headed for the Saintess's prayer chamber.
There resided her godmother and Saintess — Ganemia.
"Yuria?"
"Word has come from Akarind Academy. They have traced the location of the Underground Magic Tower."
"The Underground Magic Tower?"
"Teacher was attacked, and in the process they captured five Red Moon operatives alive. A necromancer traced the Red Moon's tools back, and a 6th-circle alchemist verified the result."
Ganemia only blinked at Yuria's sudden, storm-like briefing.
That was how shocking the report was.
"The Underground Magic Tower? If a 6th-circle alchemist verified it, then the location must be genuine...... And Teacher Cassian caught them? How...... No, if it is that man, it stands to reason he could."
The search for the Underground Magic Tower had been a long-cherished goal of the Holy Kingdom.
They could not leave alone an organization that violated heaven's principles and trampled on human dignity.
But because the Empire's intelligence units had been shielding it, the search had faced constant obstacles.
And now, to learn the location of their base.
"I had intended to focus on consolidating our internal affairs for the time being."
There was no way she could let this opportunity slip.
"Understood. Let us depart at once."
It was time for holy war.
At Ganemia's declaration, Yuria replied.
"By the will of God."
And then, quietly.
"By the will of Teacher Cassian......"
She added her own private faith.
***
"......I think we can make use of this."
"Yes~?"
"The Phantom Steed, which should have appeared within the Traivan Royal Family, appeared in Belmain Royal Castle instead."
Demons were born to devour concepts of the human world.
"If we tell Yuria the location of the Underground Magic Tower, the Holy Kingdom will respond immediately."
This was the place that had dispatched five Inquisitors just to keep a mere necromancer like Teacher Berlith in check.
To put it generously, they were faithful to their religion — to put it harshly, they were fanatics.
The Holy Kingdom would mobilize its entire might and would not shy away from war with the Empire.
"And in that place, vast amounts of Holy Power will converge."
Then naturally, the demon that should have appeared in the Holy Kingdom would appear there instead.
Entity name: Sacer.
The worst and most terrifying demon that had laid the Holy Kingdom to waste.
"I will hunt it down."
"Whoa~"
Teacher Berlith blinked at me.
"Will that be possible? The Holy Kingdom will certainly mount an all-out effort, but mixed with curses, it is going to be very chaotic."
"It cannot be done with our strength alone."
But as it happened, there was someone who said he wanted to meet me.
The Emperor of the Empire.
I was going to need to borrow his power.