Chapter 29
The sounds of crumbling continued faintly—kururuk, kurururu-—echoing through the space.
Before I realized it, the fall had stopped, and a protective barrier was draped over a pile of rocks.
Everything was blocked by stone; it was pitch dark.
But after a moment, from somewhere, mysterious specks of light began to float, glowing a soft blue. A faint sense of pure magic could be felt.
“…Hah.”
It was barely enough to make out the area immediately in front of me, but it was sufficient.
Finally letting out a sigh, I glanced down at Ethan Behemoth, who was unconscious and leaning against my shoulder, without pushing him away.
‘…I could do it.’
If I had been asked to choose between that knight and Ethan Behemoth, the answer would have been obvious. Naturally.
To save more people, to end more disasters…
I would have been able to choose without hesitation the one who could help Baron Crowell the most.
Yet he had babbled about some lofty purpose…
“…Hah.”
And yet, he was the one doing even more.
The sight of him throwing himself desperately to save even one person made my heart churn.
Ethan Behemoth had always been like this.
It was because he was like this that things couldn’t go well…
Then.
“…?”
Before I could dwell further on my mixed feelings about Ethan, a strange, thick sensation began to invade my mind.
“This is…”
It was extremely unpleasant, familiar, and bizarre all at once.
No, I think I knew what it was.
‘This is…’
Since joining the reconnaissance team and entering the canyon, I had been on edge the entire time.
I had thought that a curse capable of turning back time entirely and making life repeat hundreds of times would, at the very least, leave a faint trace of suspicious magical flow.
But no matter how far I walked, even until now, no trace of such a curse had been felt in this canyon.
And that meant:
The path toward the curse was being concealed by a barrier so strong that, at my current level, I could not detect it.
So the reason I had been able to reach the cave that day in the past was…
‘Because the Gigantic Arachne had destroyed the canyon entirely.’
And then the barrier had been broken.
Now, with the canyon collapsed again, something strange was finally starting to be felt.
I had been so focused on survival that I had neglected my original purpose of tracing the curse, but somehow I had reached it anyway.
Moreover, by luck, the direction from which this uneasy energy radiated was quite close.
It was the same direction from which the mysterious specks of light had flowed.
Finally, it seemed like everything was back on course.
Overwhelmed by my lack of magic, I shrank the size of the barrier and hoisted the unconscious Ethan on my back. I must have crawled through the narrow underground passage for quite some time.
“Ugh…cha.”
Pushing away the last strange, hollow rock, I emerged through a gap in the rubble and saw a chamber.
Ethan Behemoth was absurdly heavy.
Thanks to that, all my distracting thoughts vanished.
I lowered him to the ground and looked at his face. Even with his eyes closed and his pale face slack, he was ridiculously beautiful.
I could no longer deny it. He had been handsome even as a child.
I wondered what path this experience would set Ethan Behemoth on. That was something I could not know.
I placed him in a corner and, pressing myself against the floor, struggled to catch my breath.
“Huff…hah. Hoo…”
I felt the traces of shattered magic sparkling brilliantly all around.
“Hah…haha…”
This was the place. No doubt about it.
My heartbeat throbbed as if it might leap out of my chest at any moment.
It was different from the unpleasant feelings I had from the trauma inside the cave earlier.
Memories overlapped.
The pain that felt like my whole body was being crushed.
My heart pounding violently, gasping as I looked ahead.
It was almost exactly as I had experienced the moment I reached this place in the past.
As if this chamber had been waiting for me.
Reaching out to touch the faintly visible wall, I found a magical lamp affixed to a bracket, glowing with infused magic.
Although it would shine brightly with magical input, I didn’t have the strength to infuse it at my current state.
“Where…am I exactly…”
Looking around, I spotted a bluish stone on the ground that glowed like phosphorescence.
‘Found it.’
In areas full of magic, magic stones always grow.
I bent down and picked it up, sliding it into the core of the lamp. Blue light flickered from the tip, illuminating the surroundings.
“Done.”
Shaking off the dust clinging to me, I held the lamp high and circled around.
“…Wow.”
Finally, the surroundings came clearly into view.
The enormous hemispherical barrier encircling the chamber had broken, faintly glowing blue and revealing its presence.
The scattered magic dust seemed to be its residue.
Unlike the gloomy death aura of the chamber, the barrier was composed of astonishingly pure, advanced magic.
“…It won’t be long before it completely disappears.”
I murmured softly as I rubbed the scattering magic dust between my fingers.
Once covered with magic of this purity, it would be extremely difficult to approach this chamber again.
That was why I had been unable to reach it after the regression.
The thought that this opportunity might never come again sent chills down my spine.
Shining the lamp on the walls for proper exploration, I saw arch-shaped grooves on each facing wall.
Inside them stood massive statues, about three times my height.
Each statue was a towering humanoid draped in long, tattered hoods, with ancient script inscribed beneath.
‘This is…’
Ancient script. I wouldn’t have expected it here, even though it’s rarely used in old spellbooks.
I could read it now, but in the past, I wouldn’t have been able to recognize it as language at all.
…This chamber was older than I had imagined.
Holding the lamp closer, I read the intricately carved, engraved letters.
“When I call, O first apostle, come forth to receive the supreme summons. Awaken fear and terror in the world, and rule with an indomitable grand army… so that the path for their return may be found.”
A passage cursing the world chilled me from my fingertips upward.
The format resembled scripture, and even reciting it felt uncomfortable.
…Who was “they”?
Holding the lamp to illuminate the face of the statue, I froze in shock and instinctively bit my wrist, making the lamp shake violently.
The shadows cast by the flickering light danced across the statue.
Eight spider-like eyes carved within the hood stared back at me.
Though it assumed a human shape, it was undoubtedly a monster.
Quickly checking the other statues, I saw the same thing.
Within the hoods, monsters contorted their bodies to mimic humans.
“Come forth to receive the supreme summons.”
“With a grand army…”
Could these be the gigantic monsters mentioned? Or was I jumping to conclusions?
I moved quickly, exhausted, and the walls facing each other drew closer.
Finally, where it had seemed like a vanishing point, the walls actually met.
…There stood an altar.
Raising the lamp, I illuminated it.
On the ancient stone altar, which seemed fit to demand a pure lamb, a figure perched, revealed by the lamp’s light.
He was looking at me.
“Lord Edith.”
…It was Rimos Therion.
“…Therion.”
Squinting against the bluish light, he raised a hand to shield his eyes and smiled.
It was still a fragile smile.
“Y-yeah, it’s dazzling…”
I quietly murmured his name again.
Rimos. Therion.
The true culprit who had turned my insides upside down.
No one remembered him properly.
A pretender to a divine mage.
A manipulator of monsters.
Now I was certain.
Slowly, I lowered the lamp.
His upper body was swallowed by darkness again.
“Thank you.”
His voice came from somewhere within the vast darkness, not from where his upper body should have been.
As if the entire darkness was him.
