I Became the Patron of Villains (Novel) - Chapter 154 - On the Way Back (1)

Chapter 154 – On the Way Back. (1)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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The day after Seol Gak attacked Colony.

Colony was in turmoil, to the point that it looked almost like a city that had just taken a direct hit from a bombardment.

Seol Lang had killed Seol Gak, and Rine had stopped Scorpirion, but the damage they left behind was still severe.

To begin with, the city wall was gone.

The buildings along the path Scorpirion took after breaking through the wall had collapsed into ruins, and the district around Seol Lang’s guild had likewise been devastated by Seol Gak.

On top of that, over half of the royal castle inside Colony’s inner fortress had also collapsed because of Scorpirion.

Naturally, the mood inside the castle was awful.

In the midst of that.

“…First, let me offer my thanks, Marquis Palladio. Once again, you have helped us.”

“It was nothing. And the greater share of the credit belongs to Seol Lang, not me.”

Alon was standing in audience with Karmakses III.

“Likewise, Rine Groph, I also owe you my thanks. Truly.”

“It’s all right. I only moved because Godfather was there.”

“…Godfather? You mean Marquis Palladio?”

“Yes.”

Karmakses’s gaze shifted back toward Alon.

“…Wasn’t Marquis Palladio with Seol Lang?”

“He would have been uncomfortable once that monstrosity started rampaging.”

Rine answered with a smile.

Karmakses said nothing.

He merely sighed deeply with the face of a man realizing, Ah, so she’s one of those too.

It was already the fourth sigh he had let out since meeting Alon.

After suppressing his breath for a while, he finally spoke again.

“Forgive me. As you know, the situation is extremely troublesome.”

“…I understand.”

Alon understood Karmakses III’s state of mind.

To the king of Colony, this disaster was nothing less than a calamity.

A calamity like a natural disaster, with no one obvious to hold responsible.

The financial damage the castle had suffered through this incident would be astronomical even before counting the full restoration cost.

There were technically ways to avoid some of the additional expenses beyond repairing the castle, but Alon already knew none of those would be good choices.

In other words, the man’s head must have been pounding.

Even if he revised the state budget he had set at the start of the year, he would still have to begin scrambling immediately to seal up the expenditures before the year ended.

Seeing a man crushed beneath that kind of responsibility, Alon offered a brief word of sympathy inwardly.

Not long after, he left the temporary audience chamber and headed toward the ruined center of the castle.

“Marquis.”

“What is it?”

“But is it really fine to collect the corpse like this?”

Evan asked as he followed behind.

Even though he had stood within the range of battle between Seol Gak and Seol Lang the day before, Evan had escaped without even a shallow cut.

When Alon stared at that completely intact figure, Evan looked puzzled.

“…? Why are you staring at me like that?”

“It’s just that I’m still surprised you don’t even have a scratch on you.”

“…Should I have been injured?”

“Not necessarily.”

Of course, Alon knew exactly why Evan was so perfectly fine.

He had apparently smashed a window and fled the instant he heard the first loud explosion from outside.

Once again Alon found himself privately impressed by Evan’s utter lack of hesitation.

Then, answering the question belatedly, he said,

“In another kingdom, perhaps not. But Colony has a custom in cases like this. The one who kills the monster inherits all claim over it. That is likely why it’s allowed.”

“So that’s how it works?”

“Probably.”

Alon did not know the exact details of the custom, but the game had mentioned it several times, so he was not speaking blindly.

In any case, having secured ownership of Scorpirion through Rine, Alon soon arrived where the carcass had been left.

“…Wow. I saw it before too, but it’s seriously absurdly big.”

“It is.”

What lay there was the enormous corpse of Scorpirion, filling most of the garden.

Its head was half-crushed.

“…Rine.”

“Yes, Godfather.”

“You said you dealt with it in one blow?”

“Hm. Not exactly one, Godfather. Its outer shell was tougher than I expected.”

She added that it seemed to have endured around three hits.

Alon looked back at Scorpirion.

He could not decide whether that meant this thing had endured impressively well, or that Rine had simply killed it absurdly well.

In truth, Alon had been genuinely shocked the previous night when he heard that Rine had killed Scorpirion.

This was not an easy monstrosity to kill.

It was smaller overall than Rikrakkamur, yes, but the poison released from Scorpirion’s pincers was acidic enough to melt any ordinary weapon.

And the dozens of poisoned stingers it launched from its tail were instant death the moment even one struck home.

The sheer act of firing that many stingers was lethal enough.

And even if someone survived the attack itself, brushing against the toxin was still dangerous.

In that sense, Scorpirion was a boss more troublesome than Rikrakkamur.

The reason Alon found himself thinking the beast had endured well rather than Rine having killed it overwhelmingly was something that happened the night before.

When Alon, still stunned, asked what exactly she had used to kill Scorpirion.

Rine had summoned Pluto without another word.

If the monstrosity really endured three strikes from that enormous fist, then perhaps the impressive one had been Scorpirion after all.

Imagining Pluto’s gigantic hand crashing down upon the earth, Alon spoke.

“Impressive. It wasn’t something easy to kill.”

He praised Rine again.

Rine smiled modestly.

“It’s only because it was power you gave me, Godfather. Embarrassingly enough, I still haven’t learned the proper way to use it. And I can only summon it around three times.”

“…You call that not knowing how to use it properly?”

“Yes. Right now I only know the summoning trigger phrase and the very basics.”

“…Then if you ever learn to use it properly, would you be able to summon the entire weapon itself?”

“Maybe?”

The explanation left Alon feeling a strange sense of envy.

…It was a little cool.

“Ahem.”

Collecting himself, Alon asked.

“…Are you certain I may take this corpse?”

“Do as you wish, Godfather. It isn’t useful to me at all.”

After offering a brief word of thanks to the readily consenting Rine, Alon stepped closer to the monstrosity.

[Kkyu?]

As soon as he got close enough to touch it, Kkamangi poked its head out, having escaped Seol Lang’s grasp.

Unlike when Seol Lang played with it, Kkamangi now stared at the corpse with bright, eager eyes full of expectation.

Then it glanced toward Alon.

This time it was different from before, when it absorbed a monstrosity without asking permission.

It tilted its head as though waiting for approval.

At that sight, Alon thought Kkamangi might gradually be getting smarter.

If Kkamangi absorbed the corpse, would it also absorb the cast-off relic of Pride inside it?

In truth, as long as a cast-off relic of the Sin did not fall into the hands of one of the Five Great Sins, Alon did not necessarily need to secure it personally.

In any case, he gave Kkamangi a small nod.

Suuuuuu.

Kkamangi leaped forward at once and began absorbing the monstrosity.

The corpse turned to dust and was sucked away in an instant.

“Huh?”

Evan, seeing it happen for the first time, stared in surprise, and even Rine looked intrigued.

A moment later, Kkamangi finished devouring the whole thing even faster than it had with Rikrakkamur.

Then, in high spirits, it let out a pleased little cry and climbed back onto Alon’s shoulder to rub its head against him.

The vessel wasn’t absorbed.

Left where Scorpirion’s corpse had been was a gray cuirass.

They had succeeded in obtaining the cast-off relic of Pride.

####

A few days after recovering the cast-off relic.

Once he confirmed that Seol Lang had recovered to a reasonable degree, Alon began preparing to leave Colony.

There was no reason to linger.

He had finished everything he needed here, and in any case he planned to visit Colony again two months later.

“I should’ve pretended to be hurt for longer.”

While Alon’s party made preparations to depart, Seol Lang grumbled with her tail drooping.

Alon responded calmly.

“I’m planning to come again in two months.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

The moment he nodded, her smile returned.

She stepped right in front of him.

“Master. Do that thing for me.”

Her eyes were full of open expectation.

Looking down at that childlike face, Alon now quite naturally pressed both of her ears gently with his hands.

Seol Lang hummed with clear satisfaction.

Ever since the Seol Gak incident, she had started asking for this instead of having her head patted, and Alon had simply indulged her.

The conversation they had a few days earlier crossed his mind.

“Seol Lang.”

“Hm? What is it, Master?”

“…Why do you keep asking me to cover your ears?”

“Hm. Because, you know, I can feel it.”

“…Feel what?”

“The feeling that just like I treasure you, Master treasures me too.”

“Is that so?”

“Yep.”

Treasure.

Treasured.

As Alon silently recalled that exchange, he suddenly felt something touch his own ears.

He came back to himself.

Seol Lang was straining upward with both hands, trying to cover Alon’s ears in return.

“What are you doing?”

“Hm. I wanted you to feel it too.”

“…That you’re treasuring me?”

“Yep. Can you feel it?”

At the mischievous smile on her face, Alon let out a small laugh.

“…What exactly are those two doing?”

The act only ended when Evan stared at them in disbelief and Rine appeared looking faintly sulky.

Then.

“Master. See you in two months.”

“Yes.”

With Seol Lang’s bright farewell, Alon left Colony.

####

The second office of House Palladio.

Or rather, the room that was in practice being used as Penia’s laboratory.

By default, it was an extremely noisy place.

Almost frighteningly so.

Wild screams rang through it every day.

The savage shrieks of a woman and the sorrowful cries, really wails, of a man.

That was why the servants of the house had given the second office a ridiculous nickname.

The Room of Certain Death.

And yet today.

It was strangely quiet.

There was not even the usual rattling or tightening sound from inside.

It was quiet enough to startle everyone.

Of course, Penia had received a visitor.

But that alone did not explain such silence.

Whether visitors came or not, Penia was usually the same.

Curious, the servants stole glances toward the Room of Certain Death from a distance.

Inside the room, instead of the usual Craisinne siblings, there were two women.

One of them was Penia.

The same Penia who usually beat Pellin whenever things stopped going well, and hurled profanity while omitting only the actual subject, Marquis Palladio.

Now.

She was only rolling her eyes wildly and looking anywhere but straight ahead.

And seated before her.

“Hello, Penia Craisinne.”

Was Yutia.