I Became the Patron of Villains (Novel) - Chapter 102 - Malaka Ruins (2)
Chapter 102 – Malaka Ruins (2)
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Translated by Jinmu
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Alon and Evan began making their way toward the Malaka Ruins together with Riyan’s party.
“Marquis… does it not feel like the deeper we go, the more humid it gets?”
“It does.”
Watching Evan frown as though he found the whole thing deeply unpleasant, Alon nodded as well.
‘I knew this place was humid to begin with, but I did not expect it to be this bad. This is dreadful.’
Keeping the unpleasant feeling hidden, Alon idly rubbed at his clothes.
The damp sensation against his fingertips.
‘…I need to finish what I came to do as quickly as possible and get out.’
Because he particularly hated dampness, the need to deal with things quickly became all the more pressing.
How long had they been walking like that?
“Let us rest for a while.”
At some point, they reached the midway point.
While resting, Alon talked with Riyan, and was able to hear why she and her group were heading for the Malaka Ruins.
“…Malaka is a magic ruin?”
A magic ruin.
The ruins discovered in Ronovelli came in many forms, treasure ruins, heirloom ruins, knowledge ruins, and much more.
Among them, magic ruins were treasures to mages because they contained magical items used in the age of the Forgotten Gods.
However.
‘…I do not think the game ever described it as that kind of ruin.’
When he had been playing Psychedelia, much as in Laxas, he had visited this place hundreds of times in order to obtain artifacts available only in the jungle.
He could still vividly remember the minigame.
“Nothing has been confirmed yet. It is only that there is a possibility. Explorers found, through the maps they made, that the structural form of the Malaka Ruins is very similar to certain magic ruins discovered recently.”
This was new information to him.
“I knew of the Malaka Ruins, but hearing that it might be a magic ruin is a little surprising.”
“Right? If it were not for Theon, I would probably have thought it was just an ordinary ruin as the camp reported. He was the one who discovered this.”
At her words, Alon looked over at Theon, who was resting some distance away.
“?”
Their eyes clearly met.
Yet Theon turned his head elsewhere as if he had not been looking at them at all.
Alon found that strange for a moment.
Then he asked.
“…Then does that mean some artifact from the forgotten age is sleeping within the Malaka Ruins?”
At that, Riyan tilted her head.
“Hm, I think that possibility is slim. When explorers and mages first found the Malaka Ruins, they said there was nothing there. Even if there is something, I think it will be no more than academic material.”
At Riyan’s explanation, Alon nodded.
Then, this time, she asked him.
“Then what sort of reason brings you to the ruins, Marquis?”
Alon considered whether he should tell her, then answered indirectly.
“I received a request from an acquaintance.”
“A request?”
“Yes. I was asked to stop by the Malaka Ruins and return.”
At that, Riyan wore a slightly odd expression.
Still, she seemed to realize that Alon had no intention of saying more, and she did not ask further.
Thankful for that consideration, Alon continued.
“But is it really all right for you to tell me such information so casually? I knew none of this.”
“Hm? Ah.”
Riyan nodded as if she understood what he meant.
“It is fine. Even if the Malaka Ruins do resemble a magic ruin, the chance that they truly are one is very low, and the chance of there being an artifact is practically nonexistent.”
Even if academic materials are discovered, they will be made public through the society anyway, so there is no real point in hiding it.
As soon as Riyan finished that added explanation.
“I see. Then the reason you came here is to confirm whether the Malaka Ruins are a magic ruin?”
“That is right. The Red Tower specializes in interpretation, and the Green Tower specializes in detection, so the two ended up working together.”
Alon was able to hear from Riyan how this magical exploration party had been formed.
“Then once this investigation is over, you will leave at once.”
“Mm, unless we decide to explore the new unexplored area in the north this time, probably.”
“…The unexplored northern area.”
Alon murmured the words without thinking.
Because he knew what sort of hellscape the northern unexplored region Riyan mentioned would become.
‘…In the future, it will almost certainly become the territory of one of the Four Great Forces, the Hundred Ghosts.’
One of the Four Great Forces, the Hundred Ghosts.
They were among the main culprits who, in the middle to late game of Psychedelia, when the Five Sins were running rampant and descending one by one, turned the already collapsing train of the allied kingdoms into a full-speed commuter express to ruin.
Whether it was those who belonged to the faction or the bosses themselves, every one of the Four Great Forces was the sort of difficulty that made one curse aloud.
Among them especially, the Hundred Ghosts’ boss, the King of Aberrations, was enough to raise his blood pressure even now.
“It may be best not to explore the unexplored northern region if possible.”
“? Why is that?”
“Someone I know told me it is somewhat dangerous.”
Just like the Outer Gods, these Four Great Forces, according to the setting, would not rampage unless the Five Sins awakened and descended.
It was with his own form of goodwill that Alon gave the warning.
“Let us depart again.”
Leaving behind a puzzled Riyan, he rose from his seat.
‘…I probably do not need to worry, right?’
Then he briefly thought of Deus and felt a slight unease before starting to walk again.
It was a damp morning filled with discomfort.
####
How much time had passed after that?
By the time the sky, which should have been lit by the sun, had grown too overcast to judge the hour from above, the group reached the Temple of Malaka.
“Let us go in immediately.”
The mages, who knew that the Malaka Ruins were not considered a danger zone, wasted no time.
Leaving the mercenaries and guide behind, they entered the interior at once.
“Are we going in as well?”
“Yes.”
Alon, who had been looking at the structure of the ruin, which resembled an ancient pyramid, also began walking together with Evan.
As he entered the humid ruin, its stones thick with moss from having held moisture for so long, Alon suddenly recalled what Critenia Siyan had said.
‘…You will understand the reason there.’
To be honest, Alon still had no idea with what intention Siyan had sent him here.
No matter how much he thought about it, he could not guess even a small reason.
‘What is it?’
Just as he was pondering deeply.
“Oh. It is a bit cooler inside.”
At Evan’s observation, Alon finally looked at the interior landscape of the ruin itself.
“…”
There was truly, literally, nothing here.
All he could see were moss-covered stones.
At the center of the ruin there was a broad stone floor large enough to hold a hundred people with ease.
But aside from that, it was nothing more than a vast empty space.
It was a place so barren it hardly even looked like a ruin.
‘…What am I supposed to learn here?’
In this place, which differed from the outside only in being somewhat cooler, Alon once more recalled Siyan’s words.
Then he looked around the utterly empty ruin.
And as his gaze slowly drifted upward.
“?”
He saw letters there.
Something that looked almost like a drawing.
Yet in Alon’s mind, it was unmistakably recognized as words, and he could understand it as naturally as if he had always known it.
He had experienced something similar before when he looked at the stone tablet in the ruin of the dragonkin.
Finding it strange, Alon read the text.
‘The egg of the Shadow Dragon.’
Even though it had clearly been worn down by the passage of time, he could still read the letters with perfect clarity.
“…Fixation?”
He read aloud the phrase written beneath it, which appeared to be a key expression.
Boom.
From far away came a tremendous sound, as though something had slammed shut.
And.
Splurt.
He heard the thick sound of flesh tearing.
####
‘As I thought, even if the shape is similar, the chance of this truly being a magic ruin seems extremely low.’
Until only a moment ago, Riyan had been looking at the empty ruin with exactly that thought.
Then, at the sudden sound of flesh tearing, she turned her head.
“!?”
There, one of the Green Tower mages who had entered with her only moments before had already collapsed with his head burst open.
Crunch. Crunch.
Bzzzz.
And grotesquely huge insects were feeding on the mage’s corpse.
“Urk.”
“Wh-what is that!?”
“Are you insane…?”
The instant one of the mages saw the scene, he could not contain his revulsion and vomited.
Others screamed.
But soon, every one of them began preparing magic toward the grotesque insects that were slowly revealing themselves throughout the ruin.
‘Why are jungle mutants here?!’
Riyan also could not understand the situation at all.
But quite apart from that, she tried to prepare a spell.
Then she realized something horrifying.
‘Why is my magic not…?’
Her magic was not taking shape.
As the insects continued gathering, Riyan tried to cast even more urgently, but her spells still refused to form.
‘My mana is scattering?’
The moment she sent mana outside her body for arrangement, it slipped beyond her control and dispersed into the air.
“Haa…”
At the same time, she heard someone sigh.
The eyes of the mages, Riyan included, all turned there.
“You nearly took ten years off my life.”
There stood Theon among the insects.
“Theon…?”
Riyan called his name as if she could not understand what she was seeing.
Then Theon smiled brightly in front of the corpse of the Green Tower mage.
“You look like you cannot understand it.”
Riyan’s face hardened at the unmistakable mockery on his expression.
“…Do you even know what you are doing?”
“Ah, are you trying to lecture me? Regrettably, spare me. I have heard enough lectures already to grow scabs in my ears. And do not worry, I know very well what I am trying to do. If anything, you are the one who does not know.”
“What?”
At Riyan’s question, Theon chuckled.
“If you knew what I am about to do, there is no way you would still be wearing such a calm expression.”
Then he pulled a dark ink-colored staff from his robes and gave it a casual swing.
At the same moment, one of the mosquito-like insects that had been feeding on the mage’s corpse thrust its sharp proboscis into the dead mage’s chest and pulled out his heart.
A heart ripped free in a spray of blood.
Theon snatched it from the insect’s proboscis and threw it into the center of the arena.
Immediately, the beating heart began staining the vast arena in blood.
At that sight, Riyan tried once more to use magic.
“Ah, it would be best not to bother. Once the trial has begun, no one can use magic in this ruin.”
“A trial?”
“That is right. A trial of qualification, to determine who will take possession of the magic ruin here.”
Theon shrugged calmly.
“Let me say this first. I have no personal grudge against any of you. The reason I dragged you here was simply because I needed the hearts of at least ten mages. According to him, if they are not the hearts of mages, they have no meaning at all.”
After adding those last words, Theon began talking rapidly, as if his earlier silence had all been a lie.
“Still, honestly, I almost panicked at the end. Marquis Palladio coming along was fine, since he is a mage, but having that monster-like sword of Caliburn come too was rather burdensome.”
“…”
“I was wondering how I would endure until Marquis Palladio left. But instead, you let me conduct the trial on the very first day. I really cannot be grateful enough.”
Theon openly mocked Alon for a moment.
Then.
“Well then, let us say our goodbyes here. I will make good use of your hearts.”
When he swung his ink-colored staff, the mutant insects spread their wings and began to rise.
‘Is this the end?’
Riyan pushed out mana again and again to try to cast a spell, but it scattered so lightly and uselessly that despair flooded her face.
Then.
Crackle.
At that sharp sound, Riyan’s gaze snapped in one direction.
And.
“!”
In front of Alon’s outstretched hand, with his index and middle fingers pressed together, she saw a spell shining clearly.
The mages who had fallen into despair stared at that light as if entranced.
“!?”
Theon’s smiling expression changed from amusement to doubt, and from doubt to shock.
Then Alon, who had already grasped the only answer that would let him use magic in this place, recited the phrase.
“Fixation.”