I Became the Patron of Villains (Novel) - Chapter 128 - Are You a Heretic (3)
Chapter 128 – Are You a Heretic? (3)
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Translated by Jinmu
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Late at night,
before Merkillan territory,
there appeared that thing in the black star-sea robe,
cutting through the blue moonlight.
Though weeks had already passed since the battle,
traces of that fierce clash still remained all across the territory.
Just as before,
it quietly looked toward the outer wall,
which no one was guarding,
then turned its gaze and began to walk at a calm pace.
Step.
Step.
A pace that was neither large nor small,
neither fast nor slow.
The first place it reached was the site where Basiliora and the artificial Outer Gods had fought.
The next was the place where Marquis Palladio had stood.
And the last place where it stopped
was where Duke Komalon had been.
“…”
The place where Duke Komalon, lying as he was with his eyes closed,
had turned to dust and vanished.
Staring at the ground there,
that thing showed several expressions unlike the smiling face it had worn until now.
At one moment,
it wore no expression at all.
Then it laughed softly.
Then it looked somewhat clouded,
before twisting its mouth into something grotesque.
And then,
“So, in the end, this was as far as the half magus went.”
It muttered something in a low voice that might have been a sigh or might not,
looked ahead,
and then turned toward the darkness.
“Well. I suppose that is fine too. A new person of interest has appeared. I can simply watch him this time as well.”
It turned away and stepped back into the dark.
“Whether he truly is interesting… or not.”
Its strange words scattered into the wind and vanished,
and after that,
nothing remained there.
####
On the road back to House Palladio,
after everything had ended,
Alon looked out at the winter scene beyond the carriage window with a relaxed expression.
…In truth,
the cleanup was not yet finished,
but that was not something he needed to concern himself with.
“Marquis.”
“What is it?”
“You have been sinking into thought quite a lot lately.”
Evan,
who had come into the carriage during camp,
asked that,
and Alon gave a small shrug in reply.
“I have many things to think about.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
Until now,
he had been focused on physical recovery,
and then had been called to Tern immediately after,
so only now did he have time to think about what he should do next.
Komalon. Those black things. The border. Magic… Among them, the first thing I need to do is investigate those things.
No,
more precisely,
he had to learn what Duke Komalon had meant when he said they would rise.
After collecting all the information he had,
Alon believed that the things Komalon referred to were likely the Five Great Sins.
“Hm.”
That made this an extremely important matter for Alon.
Up to now,
he had spent all sorts of effort trying to prevent the Five Great Sins from descending into this world.
…Not that he had struggled with life-and-death intensity exactly,
but he had still undeniably fed the children who were supposed to become the future sins,
raised them properly,
and guided them to grow as normal people,
all in order to prevent the awakening of the Five Great Sins.
Did I really raise them properly…?
A flicker of anxiety surfaced when he thought back over the sins he had met up to now,
but he soon calmed himself and continued his line of thought.
What mattered to him at the current point
was the fact that the Five Great Sins,
which he had assumed would not appear because he had raised them well,
might still descend after all.
Honestly, it still feels off.
He could not help a small doubt.
Would such a thing really happen?
The reason the Five Great Sins descended in the first place
was because the villains who served as their vessels had fallen into darkness.
According to the game information Alon originally knew,
most of the others, including Yutia,
had now grown normally rather than falling.
Which meant that, in truth,
the probability of the Five Great Sins appearing should have become practically nonexistent.
Even so,
Alon could not ignore Duke Komalon’s words.
He had already caught a slight glimpse of hidden fragments of this world,
and because of that,
he knew now that this place did not necessarily move according to game settings alone.
“…”
Alon recalled his conversation with Duke Komalon.
He still could not tell whether Komalon’s words,
spoken so calmly after that hollow laugh,
had been truth or lies.
But no matter how he thought about it,
the Komalon of that moment had not looked like a man speaking falsehoods.
His eyes.
Duke Komalon’s eyes had not been the eyes of a madman believing in his own delusions.
They had been the eyes of someone staring directly at a dark reality.
And so,
…South of the border, was it?
Alon brought those words to mind again.
South of the border.
Literally,
the boundary between the Allied Kingdoms,
which served as the stage of Psychedelia,
and the Empire,
which served as the stage of Calipsophobia.
Originally,
it was a place Alon had intended to visit eventually anyway.
…And if the Five Great Sins truly descend, it is a place I would have to go no matter what.
He recalled the wasteland players had called the Badlands,
and repeated Duke Komalon’s words to himself.
…The truth lies south of the border.
Thinking that almost like a sigh,
he made his decision.
Once my body recovers, I need to move.
Because anything related to the Five Great Sins was critically important.
And besides,
he had also developed some curiosity about Duke Komalon himself.
Then, first I recover. And by the time I go to the border, two years will have nearly passed. At that point I can go to Colony and ask about the formula Komalon mentioned.
With his thoughts organized,
“Marquis.”
“What?”
“Would you like a sweet potato?”
“Yes.”
As Alon ate the sweet potato Evan passed over in the now-familiar way,
he saw white snowflakes falling beyond the carriage window.
“Oh. Snow.”
“It is.”
He chewed the sweet potato while watching the first snowfall.
…Perhaps because it was snowing,
the sweet potato tasted even better than usual.
And after time passed,
roughly two weeks later,
Alon arrived at House Palladio.
The following day,
while receiving a simple report from Evan on the state of the territory,
Alon’s eyes widened.
“…You are saying all of this was sent from Merkillan territory?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“Yes. All of it.”
There stood more than five wagons of treasure,
which he had failed to notice properly when he arrived at the estate the previous day.
Alon wore a blank expression,
then stepped forward and opened one of the wagons himself.
At once,
gold and treasure spilled out.
Watching the coins spread across the white snow and dye it gold,
Evan,
standing beside him,
let out a sound of amazement.
Alon was the same.
His expression did not show it clearly,
but internally he was deeply shocked.
This is… a bit much, is it not?
It was not as though Alon had never received rewards like this before.
He had received gifts from Karmakses III in Colony,
and similar compensation in the Holy Kingdom of Rosaria.
But those had mostly been treasures or valuables,
not this many gold coins at once.
How much is this? No, more importantly, why this much?
Alon stood there thinking with his mouth slightly open,
unable to understand.
Of course,
it was true that he was the hero who had saved Merkillan territory.
And it was also true that without him,
Merkillan would have disappeared.
But even so,
this still seemed excessive.
…Filian really is the type to repay debts thoroughly.
He decided to accept the gold with gratitude.
The law of the world was that more money was always better,
and refusing a gift freely offered was hardly a virtue.
Well, Merkillan is wealthy to begin with.
Knowing that,
Alon decided he could accept it without feeling burdened.
“Marquis.”
“What is it?”
“If it is not too rude, may I have just one gold coin?”
“You have special permission.”
After gifting one gold coin to Evan,
Alon hummed inwardly and stared at the wagons of treasure for quite some time.
His stomach was hungry,
his fingers and toes still tingled from mana intoxication,
and yet somehow,
he now felt almost healthy.
A smile almost rose on its own.
That was what happened on Alon’s first day back at the estate.
####
Around that time,
inside the office of Merkillan territory,
“I wonder if the gift has arrived properly.”
“Yes. It should have arrived safely by now.”
“That is good.”
When Filian nodded,
his secretary Kulan opened his mouth.
“But young master- no, Duke. Will this truly be all right?”
“What do you mean?”
“The gift. With the territory still needing restoration, can we really afford to send that much money…?”
The secretary’s worried murmur was reasonable,
but Filian shook his head firmly.
“If Marquis Palladio had not stopped Duke Komalon, Merkillan territory would have been destroyed entirely. In that case, you and I would not even be standing here speaking now.”
“…That is true.”
“And debts must be repaid clearly. Even after losing that much money, we still have enough left to settle this situation, do we not?”
“That is also true, but there may still be unforeseen circumstances.”
“Kulan.”
“Yes.”
“One does not calculate when repaying a debt of gratitude. If it can be repaid now, then it is repaid now. Father would have done the same.”
His tone was absolute.
After a long silence,
Kulan lowered his head.
“I spoke out of turn.”
With that apology,
he left to attend to other work.
After sending him out,
Filian let out a sigh and leaned back into his chair.
“This is hard.”
Unlike the stern face he had shown earlier,
there was now a relaxed look on him.
Truthfully,
what he had shown Kulan had all been acting.
I do not want to do this.
To be honest,
Filian wanted to stop this act as soon as possible.
The reason he kept maintaining it,
however,
was his younger brother,
Merkillan Gilan.
At first,
Filian had intended to hand the duke’s position over to his brother immediately.
Because quite apart from his terrible social ability,
he possessed enough self-awareness to understand that he was not suited to lead a territory.
That was why he had wanted to give the position to his younger brother right away.
But,
Until the territory stabilizes, it needs a center.
After hearing that from Gilan,
Filian had decided that until the territory stabilized,
he would continue acting as successor and ruler.
No matter how lacking in social awareness he was,
he still understood that a territory attacked directly by artificial Outer Gods was not in a good state,
even if its finances alone might still be manageable.
If, after the territory has been fully stabilized, you still wish to hand me the duke’s seat, brother, then I will succeed you then.
Recalling Gilan’s words,
Filian looked out the window.
And then,
a thought occurred to him.
Ah. I want to learn magic.
In truth,
he had never had much interest in magic before.
Why?
Simply because he had not cared for magic as a discipline,
and because he had been so obsessed with the sword that nothing else entered his eyes.
But lately,
Filian had become extremely interested in magic.
The reason was Marquis Palladio.
He closed his eyes.
The moment he did,
he saw Marquis Palladio summoning the god that had slain the artificial Outer Gods.
He saw the marquis blocking the meteor shower from the sky.
And finally,
he saw that brilliant line,
formed at the marquis’s fingertips.
“Wow…”
Thinking back on that moment,
Filian let out another sigh of admiration.
It was already the twenty-third one he had uttered that day.
Lately,
he spent his days replaying the marquis’s magic in his head and admiring it.
He thought about it almost the entire day,
and he never grew tired of it.
More than not growing tired,
when Filian thought of Marquis Palladio,
he now felt as though he were returning to the childlike heart he had when he first picked up a sword.
That was how deeply he had come to admire the marquis.
No,
not merely admire him.
Filian had even reached the point of looking up first-circle magic books.
Because he wanted to try learning magic.
He wanted,
in that way,
to become like Marquis Palladio.
Of course,
Filian was not truly a child.
He knew that if he completed his growth as a Swordmaster,
he too could become as strong as the marquis.
He had the talent for it.
But that was not what Filian wanted.
He did not merely want to become stronger.
He simply wanted to become like the marquis.
Like the marquis who had used magic in that ash-gray world.
Naturally,
Filian also understood that it would not be easy.
The marquis’s magical skill had clearly stood on a completely different track from that of any mage Filian had known.
And above all,
the two eyes hanging behind the marquis gave the unmistakable impression that he was an extraordinarily powerful mage.
Even so,
Filian still wanted to become a great mage.
Even though he could fully imagine how difficult that road would be,
and even though he knew he might never reach that point at all.
That was why,
despite already being a Swordmaster,
he had recently begun learning magic.
“…It would be nice if I also had talent for magic.”
He murmured that wish,
when suddenly,
“Ah.”
one thought came to him.
…Should I build a statue?
It was a thought that had simply flashed into his mind.
A thought born from how deeply he had come to admire Marquis Palladio.
And then,
“…That might not be a bad idea.”
After all,
Marquis Palladio really had saved Merkillan territory and allowed it to continue existing.
Filian slowly nodded.
Then,
after his mind leapt to a conclusion that was neither especially rational nor especially logical,
Well, before I hand the position over to my brother, this much should be all right…
he stood as if he had made up his mind.
Exactly one month later,
a statue of Marquis Palladio using magic was erected in the central square of Merkillan territory.
Before long,
that story also reached Alon’s ears,
while he was still suffering through mana intoxication.
“…My statue?”
“Yes.”
“…Why would they build a statue of me in Merkillan territory…?”
“That, I do not know either…?”
Alon could only fall silent.
Most nobles who heard the news were similarly bewildered.
Even if the marquis had saved the territory,
building a statue still seemed somewhat excessive.
Of course,
that was only by the standards of most nobles.
“…A statue?”
“Yes.”
“…Hm.”
One of Caliburn’s First Swords,
Deus Macalian,
murmured sincerely,
“…I am jealous.”
“Pardon…?”
“Perhaps I should build one as well…”
At that,
his subordinate commander could only lose his words once more,
seeing Deus become strange again the moment Marquis Palladio entered the conversation.