I Became the Patron of Villains (Novel) - Chapter 108 - The God Made by Offerings (3)
Chapter 108 – The God Made by Offerings (3)
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Translated by Jinmu
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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At Alon’s words, everyone’s mouths fell open.
Ashgul the Wise, whose wrinkled eyes were nearly covered over.
Swift Sirkal, who had until now been looking at him with open caution.
Even Evan, who had been curiously examining one of the huge monster masks standing in one corner of the tent.
And Reinhardt, who, like Evan, had been looking around without interest.
All of them stared blankly.
Because what had just come out of Alon’s mouth was something no one here could possibly understand.
Of them all, Reinhardt especially looked utterly unable to comprehend what he had heard.
‘What did he just say?’
Though he looked like a beggar at the moment, he had spent a long time moving in and out of the jungle camp while training in the forest, so he knew exactly what Alon had named.
Receiver Basiliora.
That enormous and savage being in the form of a giant serpent was the ruler of the eastern sector and at the same time the god to whom the Thunder Serpent tribe offered its faith.
The very reason most expeditions avoided fighting the Thunder Serpents was precisely because Basiliora stood behind them.
And yet Marquis Palladio had just said, in front of the tribe that served Basiliora as their god, that he intended to subdue it.
‘…Has he lost his mind?’
Reinhardt looked at Alon and sincerely thought that.
Of course, he knew Alon was not an ordinary man.
He could not help knowing it, given the rumors and the scenes he had witnessed personally.
Yet no matter that it was that marquis, trying to subdue Basiliora sounded less like boldness and more like boastfulness carried far past all reasonable limits.
‘That monster…?’
Reinhardt recalled the one time he had seen Basiliora.
The overwhelming sight of dozens of trees snapping like twigs with nothing more than the movement of its tail, and its immense body towering visibly above the trees.
It was a memory he could not forget despite seeing it only once.
So as he stood there wearing an expression of utter disbelief while looking beside Alon and seeing Deus calmly humming and nodding as if nothing were strange.
“…What did you just say?”
Ashgul the Wise spoke for the first time without the mild smile from before, and instead with a frown.
“Even if you are an honored guest, that is not a statement I can easily overlook.”
With those words came unmistakable hostility.
Alon, however, did not panic.
He had fully expected Ashgul’s reaction.
So Alon said what he had prepared beforehand.
“Then will you continue living like this?”
“…What are you talking about?”
“I am asking whether you intend to continue offering your tribespeople to your god.”
“How do you know about that…?”
Ashgul shut his mouth with a start.
It was almost the same as admitting it himself.
Alon paid that no heed and continued.
“Remember this, Ashgul. The god you serve will not stop demanding human sacrifices until the Thunder Serpent tribe is destroyed.”
“How can you be so certain of that?”
At Ashgul’s question, Alon answered without hesitation.
“It is not a matter of certainty. You know it yourself, do you not? That it will not stop.”
“…”
“If the Thunder Serpent tribe helps me, I will deal with it for you.”
Ashgul fell silent.
Alon said no more.
More precisely, there was no need to say more.
Here, all Alon needed to do was force the chieftain of the Thunder Serpents to acknowledge the truth he had deliberately been averting his eyes from.
And make him understand that there was an opportunity.
That was enough.
After a short silence passed.
“…Would you allow me a day to think on it first?”
“I will wait.”
With that promise of tomorrow, his first meeting with Ashgul came to an end.
As Alon left the tent together with the others.
“?”
He saw Swift Sirkal’s pupils trembling violently.
Then he stepped out of the temple.
####
Immediately after that.
“Marquis.”
“What is it?”
“…Do you truly intend to bring down that so-called god?”
The moment they returned to the lodgings that the Thunder Serpents had assigned them directly, Evan asked that at once.
Alon nodded.
“Yes.”
“…No, truly?”
“Yes. What about it?”
“…Honestly, I really never know what to make of you. Even so, is it really all right not to say anything more than that? Judging by their reaction, they do not seem very inclined to take it well.”
Alon answered calmly.
“They will most likely accept.”
“Why?”
“Because they no longer wish to continue the human sacrifices.”
“I suspected as much, but still.”
Evan clicked his tongue in anger.
“Yes.”
“Even so, I do not think they will accept your words so easily. To be honest, it is a crude culture, but if a place has had human sacrifice embedded in it as though it were natural, then would they even know it is wrong?”
What Evan said was not entirely wrong.
To the people here as well, human sacrifice was something outrageous.
But that line of thought was only possible if one possessed ordinary moral standards.
In a tribe like this, which shunned outside contact to the extreme, it was also true to say that those moral standards could not easily be formed.
However, there was one thing Evan was mistaken about.
“The Thunder Serpent tribe was not originally a tribe that offered human sacrifice. They are only being forced to do so now.”
“Forced…?”
Alon did not know every detail about them.
But there were two things he knew clearly.
The first was that the Thunder Serpent tribe had not originally been a people who made human sacrifices.
And the second was that the one forcing those sacrifices upon them was the very being that guarded them, Receiver Basiliora.
“…No, then they have no reason to reject your proposal, do they?”
Evan looked bewildered.
“You really do keep asking what should be obvious.”
However, it was not Alon who answered.
It was Reinhardt.
“Naturally they are afraid of what happens if you fail. Is the picture not obvious? If those tribespeople really are being forced into human sacrifice, then the reason is clearly that they do not want to be slaughtered.”
“That is true enough, but could they not simply run to someplace Basiliora is not?”
“Naturally, there must be some reason they cannot flee, or they would never endure such humiliation.”
At Reinhardt’s words, Alon found himself looking at him anew.
Because despite that bandit-like face, he had inferred the current situation exactly.
“That is correct. The Thunder Serpent tribe cannot leave this place. More precisely, it would be accurate to say they are imprisoned. Basiliora is watching them so that they cannot leave.”
“Oh.”
Evan even let out a small exclamation.
When even Deus turned his gaze toward him, Reinhardt, who had momentarily looked rather pleased with himself, soon frowned as if something was wrong.
“Wait. Why do all of you look so surprised?”
“Uh…”
“Because you think faster than you look like you should?”
“Ah, that is… right… ahem…”
At Deus’s words, Evan nodded vigorously in agreement and then abruptly began coughing as he noticed Reinhardt’s stare.
Reinhardt narrowed his eyes like hatchets.
Evan hurriedly changed the subject.
“Uh, but then, why does that thing keep the Thunder Serpent tribe from leaving for another region?”
At the somewhat rushed question, Alon thought.
‘Because of faith.’
Basiliora received the faith of the Thunder Serpent tribe and was well aware that it strengthened itself further.
In other words, to Basiliora, the Thunder Serpent tribe was an invaluable source of faith.
The problem was that Basiliora, having grown obsessed with faith, realized that fear and human sacrifice could draw even more faith than actually protecting the tribe.
‘And the chieftain knows that very well too.’
Alon recalled the bitter truth of those human sacrifices that Swift Sirkal had once, in the game, spoken of after hearing it from the previous chieftain.
“As for the reason, I do not know it in detail either.”
Still, he had no intention of explaining it all one by one, since the story would take far too long, so he answered vaguely.
“In any case, let us wait.”
With those words, he sat down.
About three hours later.
“Can you really, truly bring down Basiliora?”
Contrary to Alon’s expectation that it would take a day or two at least for them to hold a tribal council and reach a decision, Swift Sirkal came to them in only three hours.
Seeing her, he soon understood why the result had come so quickly.
“My younger sister is this cycle’s sacrifice.”
“So that is why the meeting ended so quickly.”
“Yes. If we move from now, we can still save my sister.”
“It could not have been easy to persuade the others.”
“The chieftain and I agreed to bear all responsibility.”
“…”
For a moment Alon wondered whether she alone could truly bear the risk if they failed.
Then he nodded.
Certainly, given the nature of Receiver Basiliora, the Thunder Serpent tribe itself was indispensable, so the lives of the chieftain and Sirkal alone might indeed be enough to smooth matters over.
But for Alon, that was not especially worth considering.
Because, to begin with, he was not operating under the assumption of failure.
Therefore.
“Then I will tell you what must be done from this point onward.”
Alon began explaining to the resolute Swift Sirkal what she needed to do.
####
Jenira.
The younger sister of Swift Sirkal, the strongest warrior of the Thunder Serpent tribe.
She had just turned sixteen, and when this year passed she had been meant to receive her title alongside the other tribespeople in the coming coming-of-age ceremony.
Instead, she was now standing alone atop the vast roof of the great temple, looking at the drizzling rain.
As she watched the gray clouds slowly darken with the coming night, she suddenly lowered her gaze to her own hand.
There was an apple there.
It was the last meal given to her by the elder sister she loved more than anything, and the apple Sirkal, who had never once cried in front of her before, had pressed into her hands while shedding tears.
Jenira stared blankly at the red apple, which had lost its color beneath the same gray sky.
Her sister had given it to her so that she would eat it.
But Jenira did not eat it.
No.
She could not.
It was certainly an apple she loved.
She was terribly hungry.
Even so, she could not bring herself to eat it.
Because the moment she ate it, she felt she would truly be alone.
Because the moment she ate it, it would feel as though the end had finally arrived.
She knew it was foolish.
Jenira was not so naive that she did not understand that.
She knew perfectly well that whether she kept holding it or not, she would not remain together with the sister who had always protected her.
She knew the approaching end would not stop.
Run away.
Such an urge suddenly flashed through her head with violent force.
But she did not act on it.
Because she also knew that the moment she ran, the next sacrifice would no longer be her, but her sister.
And so, as she blankly watched the gray sky slowly darken into night.
“!”
Rumble.
At some point, she saw it.
Something truly huge gliding toward her.
The great god she had worshiped.
The god she had never wanted to face.
…Death had come before her.
The serpent, no, Receiver Basiliora, appeared by crushing broken trees under its mere movement.
It lightly coiled itself around the great altar and then looked at her.
The enormous reptilian pupils, each larger than she was, fixed on Jenira.
And the moment they did.
“Ah…”
She fell into terror.
Her body trembled uncontrollably.
At the same time, the apple Sirkal had given her slipped from her hand and fell into the rain.
Within her mind, the desire to live burst into wild flame.
‘I want to live I want to live I want to live I want to live I want to live I want to live I want to live I want to live I want to live’
The thoughts flooded her madly.
Yet even then she still knew.
No matter how much she cried out, begged, or screamed for help, there was no one here who would save her.
Her death was already fixed.
So.
The only thing Jenira could do was cry soundlessly.
And just as the Receiver, leisurely savoring Jenira’s terror, opened a mouth large enough to swallow an entire house in order to swallow her.
“Extreme Cold.”
A voice suddenly rang out.
Crack.
Everything atop the altar froze.
The floor.
The rainwater pooled on the floor.
The apple she had dropped.
Even the falling rain from the sky.
Everything froze.
And.
From the far end of the altar.
Step. Step.
A man with an indifferent expression walked out beneath the drizzling rain.
Gray-white mana wrapped one of his arms.
And beside him floated a rectangular mass of iron about half the size of the man himself.
As he climbed the steps, he murmured something softly.
A voice too quiet for Jenira to hear.
Yet the next instant.
Kwagagagagak.
The iron rectangle twisted in a grotesque fashion and became the shape of a giant spear.
Instinctively sensing danger, Basiliora, the Receiver, tried to close the mouth it had opened.
But the mouth would not close.
Within the gray world inside that enormous maw, brightly shining violet threads were tangled wildly together, forcing the god’s jaws open by sheer power.
The instant it realized that, the body of the god coiled around the altar began to convulse.
Rumble.
The altar shook like an earthquake from a single twist of its body.
Yet even in such a situation, the man stepped up the rest of the stairs as if it were nothing, passed Jenira, and stood before the god.
Then once again, with another small murmur, he stood in front of the serpent with its jaws forced open and spread his index and middle fingers like a gun.
“Pierce.”
He spoke the final incantation.
Kwang.
A giant bolt of lightning came crashing down.
And Jenira.
Stared blankly at the god as it fell from the sky with the roof of its mouth pierced through by that enormous iron spear.
Stared blankly at the human who had cast down such a god.