I Became the Patron of Villains (Novel) - Chapter 121 - Half (3)
Chapter 121 – Half (3)
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Translated by Jinmu
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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“…An Outer God in the Kingdom of Ashtalon?”
“Yes. And not only in Ashtalon. They say Outer Gods have also appeared in Laxas and Caliburn.”
Alon furrowed his brow.
“…Several Outer Gods appeared all at once?”
“Yes.”
“…And not in human form either, but fully manifested Outer Gods?”
“That is what the reports say.”
That should not be possible.
Something was wrong.
In Psychedelia, he had never once seen several Outer Gods descend at the same time.
Of course, it was possible that he had simply never encountered such a case and that it had always been possible from the start.
Even so,
this phenomenon was clearly strange.
The descent of an Outer God occurred through living beings of this world, including humans.
And until a descended Outer God fully manifested,
it was forced to follow the limitations of the body it had descended into.
Yet now several Outer Gods had appeared all at once.
There were only two possibilities.
Either an enormous number of Outer Gods had remained hidden until now and suddenly appeared,
or else-
…artificial Outer Gods.
Like the artificial Outer God he had seen in the Holy Kingdom,
something that had never appeared even once in Psychedelia.
Alon considered those two possibilities,
then, the moment he heard additional information from Evan,
he had no choice but to lean toward one side.
“…You are saying that every Outer God that appeared spoke Duke Komalon’s name?”
“Yes. They all call Duke Komalon the Seeker and show fanatical devotion toward him.”
At that,
Alon became certain.
They were not the Outer Gods he originally knew.
They were manufactured ones.
Duke Komalon had created artificial Outer Gods.
And more than that,
he had even created Abyssal Cores.
“…We leave at once.”
“For the Kingdom of Ashtalon…?”
“Yes.”
“Ugh. They say it is extremely dangerous there right now, but… we are still going?”
“We are.”
“I will prepare things, then.”
Even while grumbling a little,
Evan immediately ran off to make preparations.
Watching him go,
Alon thought to himself.
I never heard the name Duke Komalon in Psychedelia.
But at this point,
that no longer mattered.
What mattered was the fact that Duke Komalon was the chief culprit behind the creation of Abyssal Cores,
something never properly explained even in the original Psychedelia.
And beyond that,
he might even be the Outer God who had hidden his identity until now and lived in silence,
the Forgotten One.
“Hoo.”
Letting out a deep sigh,
Alon rose from his seat.
There was no time to waste.
“Everything is ready, Marquis.”
“Then we go.”
He immediately began moving toward the Kingdom of Ashtalon.
####
After that,
over the course of about five days,
Alon learned three more pieces of information.
The first was that Outer Gods had suddenly erupted in various places and that Duke Komalon had slaughtered most of the nobles present at the ball.
The second was that he had not stopped at the nobles who attended the ball,
but had also wiped out the civilians, soldiers, and knights in his own territory.
And the third was that Duke Komalon had already ruined nearby territories one after another,
bringing the number of devastated territories to four.
One question rose in Alon’s mind.
…Why did he slaughter all of the surrounding territories?
The fact that he had massacred them was not itself strange.
Outer Gods, by nature,
recognized humanity as an enemy from the moment they descended into a living body.
However,
for Outer Gods, great slaughter was only something that occurred secondarily in the process of achieving their goal.
Slaughter itself was never their primary objective.
The same should have applied now.
At first glance,
Duke Komalon, who was presumed to be acting as an Outer God,
was not behaving all that differently from the way they had behaved up to now.
And yet the reason doubt arose
was precisely because of Duke Komalon’s massacre itself.
“…Hm.”
Alon lowered his gaze to the map.
On the map of Ashtalon that Evan had obtained,
the four territories Duke Komalon had passed through were marked out.
“Evan.”
“Yes.”
“You said the territories that have been massacred were not places that had any special dispute with Duke Komalon?”
“Yes. If anything, I heard they were on good terms. To begin with, Duke Komalon himself was not known as someone with a particularly problematic personality in high society.”
“Hm…”
The four territories Duke Komalon attacked looked close on the map,
but in truth each one was separate.
In other words,
he had not simply swept away territories that happened to lie on the route toward some other destination.
He had intended from the beginning to erase those territories themselves.
That was what made it strange.
The Outer Gods regarded humanity as enemies,
but they did not move with human slaughter as their central purpose.
That was only a secondary matter to them.
They had a more fundamental objective.
And yet Duke Komalon was moving as if the extermination of humanity itself were his objective,
sweeping away surrounding territories wherever he found them.
And on top of that,
“…There is considerable damage outside Ashtalon as well?”
“Yes. Ashtalon is the worst, but in other countries too, one or two territories at a time have been swept away with alarming ease.”
Even the artificial Outer Gods that he seemed to have created
did not appear to be acting toward any objective.
They were simply killing humans.
“Hmmm.”
Alon looked back down at the map with a strange expression.
He briefly searched through old memories,
then shook his head.
…Duke Komalon really never appeared in the game.
What appeared instead
was the Abyssal being he created.
And even that lacked detail,
so players had cursed it as a setting suddenly shoved in for level balance.
There was nothing beyond that.
“…It seems we will cross the border into the Kingdom of Ashtalon soon.”
“Is that so?”
“If the reports are right, then the next place Duke Komalon is likely to reach should be Lumiere territory. Shall we head there?”
“We should.”
“But Marquis.”
“What is it?”
“Is it really all right to go charging in like this? I know you intend to stop Duke Komalon, but… we still have not properly grasped the enemy’s strength.”
…Well, you did that last time too, Evan added.
Alon thought quietly.
Evan was right.
Unlike the enemies so far, whose information he had been able to grasp through the game,
Duke Komalon was an unknown enemy about whom he properly knew nothing.
Even so,
Alon soon nodded.
“It is fine.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. I have already finished all preparations. And I also have a method of gauging his strength in my own way.”
As he said that,
Alon lightly touched the Necklace of the Eye-Devourer hanging around his neck,
recalling the other setting attached to that artifact.
“…Well, all right then.”
Evan nodded as if he understood,
and Alon lifted his gaze to the sky.
Unlike the grim rumors reaching his ears,
the sky was perfectly clear.
As if the events taking place on this land meant nothing at all.
####
Exactly one day and half a day later,
Alon arrived at Lumilla,
the territory ruled by Count Lumiere.
And there,
“■■■■■■■■■■■■-!!!!”
“What the hell-”
accompanied by Evan’s low curse,
he saw it.
On top of the territory’s walls,
letting out grotesque screams as it smashed the territory apart,
there was an Outer God-
No,
an artificial Outer God.
Its gigantic body had the form of a spider,
with hundreds of enormous arms tangled together.
When he lowered his eyes,
he saw the territory below burning.
From within that dense blaze,
countless screams could be heard.
And that was not all.
From the mouth of the spider-shaped Outer God,
corpses that had, until just moments before, been human,
were dropping to the ground.
Beneath it,
countless soldiers and knights were fighting desperately.
Alon’s vision filled with the sight of people struggling for their lives.
Knights, crushed under gigantic arms,
still fought frantically to cut through those arms.
They gave their bodies over to the countless grotesque limbs stretching outward,
lost their lives,
and in doing so opened a path for their comrades.
And among the knights dying in that fashion,
one at last reached the Outer God.
Crunch.
He cut off one of the Outer God’s legs.
“■■■■■■■■-!”
And then,
spewing red blood in every direction and letting out a monstrous shriek,
the creature’s leg crashed down with a heavy sound,
crushing several houses as it fell.
Joy rose in the knight’s eyes.
But then,
that joy began to be stained with despair.
From the gigantic leg he had cut,
hands had begun growing.
A hand grew.
Then another hand from that hand.
And another.
And another.
And another-
countless hands grew,
regenerating like living muscle.
And so,
the Outer God regenerated its leg.
The attack that more than fifteen knights had created by sacrificing their bodies and lives
was rendered meaningless with absurd ease.
The surviving soldiers stared blankly at the Outer God.
The Outer God’s gaze looked down at the knight.
“A-ahhhhhhhh-!”
The knight let out a scream of terror.
Watching the spider-shaped artificial Outer God twist up its great mouth as if amused by that scream,
Alon naturally formed a seal with his hand.
…It is almost a waste to call that thing an Outer God. No, an artificial Outer God.
To Alon,
Outer Gods were enemies,
but they still clearly belonged to the category of gods.
It made no difference whether they had manifested fully or not.
But the thing before him now
was not even worthy of being called an artificial Outer God.
It was no more than an ugly monster imitating divinity.
“Hoo.”
Calming himself naturally,
Alon extended one hand.
Strictly speaking,
magic was not the best option right now.
If he could subdue that thing in a single blow, that would be ideal,
but with regeneration on that level,
unless he first found its weak point with the Necklace of the Eye-Devourer and struck that,
he would not be able to finish it at once.
Even so,
he had no desire to stand and simply watch such a cruel massacre.
So while he was constructing a plan amid the dozens of thoughts passing through his head,
and was just about to recite an incantation-
“Master!”
“?”
At the far too familiar voice,
he unconsciously turned his head.
“…Seollang?”
“Wow. It really is you, Master!”
Seollang was there.
Looking delighted to have met Alon,
she wagged her tail and immediately approached him.
“Master, why are you here?”
Her face was filled with a bright smile.
And in that same moment,
Alon realized something.
Behind Seollang,
the monster that had only just been lifting one of its legs to crush a knight
had turned its great eye this way.
Did she call out a little too loudly?
He only had time for that uneasy thought.
“■■… ?”
Letting out an incomprehensible, grotesque sound,
the monster turned its enormous body.
Yet,
“Master, why are you here? Ah, Evan is here too?”
Even though the Outer God was climbing over the wall behind her and slowly approaching,
Seollang paid it no mind at all
and kept looking only at Alon, her tail swaying.
“I am curious myself, but it seems we need to deal with that first.”
“Hm? That thing?”
Only then did Seollang turn her head.
There,
she saw the monster,
which had turned its body this way as if reacting to her voice while it destroyed the territory.
“Hm. It is ugly.”
After giving the monster a look that clearly said she disliked it,
Seollang spoke.
“Master, wait just a little, all right? You seem uncomfortable, so I will get rid of that and come back.”
Leaving those words behind,
she started forward.
“Wait- Seollang.”
Alon tried to stop her.
Of course,
he knew well that she was strong.
But even so,
the opponent was an Outer God.
Even if it was artificially made and therefore far weaker than a true Outer God,
it still undeniably wore divinity.
Yet Seollang,
already three steps ahead of Alon,
had fixed her gaze on the Outer God.
And then,
golden lightning began pouring from her entire body.
Crackling lightning devoured the darkness and spread in every direction.
A crater formed in the earth,
and Seollang’s hair, which had hung to her waist,
momentarily spiked upward in places in time with the golden lightning.
Then,
“Wolf Spear Wolf Spear-”
A whisper so small that even Alon could not properly hear it escaped her lips.
And the next instant,
Seollang vanished from in front of Alon and Evan’s eyes.
Before Alon could even wonder where she had moved,
they saw it.
Thunder Kick.
With a thunderous explosion,
the absurdly massive body of the artificial Outer God that had been destroying the territory
was launched helplessly into the air.
At the same time,
a brilliant bolt of lightning rose from beneath that giant body.
When the knights and soldiers who had been drowning in despair turned their eyes to that brilliant lightning,
it pierced straight through the Outer God’s torso and shot up into the night sky.
At the sight,
everyone stood there with mouths hanging open.
Alon and Evan were no exception.
And after a moment,
“…Can that really be done?”
Evan asked blankly.
Instead of answering,
Alon only stared dazedly at Seollang,
who had soared high into the air and was now waving both hands vigorously toward him.
…Why is she that strong?
A forest of question marks rose above Alon’s head.