Chapter 173 – Sin of Greed (2)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Dozens of golden crowns burst from Rine’s eyes and flew in all directions as though drawing a complex circuit diagram.

Unlike the earlier attack, which had leaned too heavily on emotion, the crowns now moved far more steadily.

In an instant, they shot toward Emil.

Crunch.

But once again, Rine’s attack was blocked by the tree scattering black energy.

“Hm. It would be boring if I only kept defending, would it not?”

The apostle of Greed smiled with a sickening grin.

Kwarrrrr.

Behind her back, the black branches that had grown there began swelling explosively.

As though they meant to seize the entire vast underground cavern, the branches grew in an instant.

Then, after entangling behind Emil, they formed a grotesque tree.

A tree that bore no leaves at all.

A tree that scattered a profoundly ominous aura.

Rine’s instincts warned her.

This is dangerous.

She hurriedly tried to direct the golden crowns and crush the tree.

But.

“No, Rine. You cannot do that.”

The aggressive branches blocked every one of the crowns.

And together with that.

Kudududuk.

Fruit began to form on the tree that had been barren just moments before.

Black fruit.

Kudug.

Dozens of the fruits swelled to full size all at once.

Then they spewed out all kinds of monsters together with thick bodily fluid.

Creatures that even Rine, who possessed the Library, could not properly identify.

They let out horrifying shrieks and charged.

Rine frantically moved the golden crowns toward them.

Kwadududuk.

With a dreadful sound, the crowns pierced through the monsters’ entire bodies.

Born only moments before, they trembled and lost their lives at once.

And yet, even though she was killing nearly ten at a time, the monsters only kept increasing.

As though Rine’s attacks posed no threat whatsoever.

There has to be a weakness somewhere.

A kind of impatience Rine had never felt before surged into her head.

The sensation was alien.

Facing the enemy while feeling as though she were walking through fog.

Rine always built the field on the assumption of victory.

The Library in her mind made that possible.

Even in unpredictable situations, it had shown her ways to respond.

And even if there was no exact solution, it found an answer infinitely close to the correct one and showed it to Rine.

Which meant that until now, Rine had never once fought without an answer sheet.

But the power the apostle of Greed was using now was of a kind that even the vast Library in her head could not identify at all.

That was why the unfamiliarity of the situation made Rine all the more impatient.

…

No.

That was not all.

Emil’s appearance had certainly caused her tension.

But there was another, more fundamental reason.

And that reason was gnawing away at Rine’s mind.

“It is bewildering, is it not? It is not in the Library.”

As though she could see straight through Rine, Emil curled up the corners of her mouth.

Rine tried to smooth her expression.

But when Emil approached with that smiling face, Rine’s brow twisted anyway.

Kwagagagak.

The golden crowns rushed toward the apostle without hesitation.

But they could not pierce the black branches protecting her.

The apostle of Greed, Emil, reached Rine’s very front with absurd ease.

Then she brought her smiling face right before Rine’s eyes.

The same blue eyes as Rine’s.

And yet the whites of those eyes had been dyed black, giving them a horrifying air.

“Then shall I tell you?”

The cold corners of her eyes curved like crescents.

“No, there is no need for me to tell you. You only need to choose. A clever girl like you knows very well, does she not? That your Library contains many more hidden spaces.”

At that mocking voice, Rine understood immediately what the apostle meant.

The Forbidden Sector.

A Pandora’s box that would allow her to know every secret in the world the moment she entered it.

And in exchange, the reaction would drive the user mad.

“Get out.”

There was no need to hesitate.

To be honest, Rine could not even begin to guess what Emil’s true purpose was.

In the first place, the only thing she knew about Emil was that she was a being connected to the black things.

And because of that, there was no reason to listen to anything she had to say.

“Hmmm. Well, then it cannot be helped.”

As though disappointed, Emil shrugged.

Then she looked Rine up and down.

“Then let us begin lightly. With an arm.”

She smiled.

And in that instant, Rine saw it.

Behind Emil, black branches were beginning to grow out openly.

Rine tried without delay to swing the golden crowns and block the growing branches.

But it was not enough.

Rine had already summoned almost as many crowns as she could handle.

And as though she understood even that, Emil leisurely kept creating more branches.

You only need to choose. A clever girl like you knows very well, does she not? That your Library contains many more hidden spaces.

As helplessness pressed down upon her, Emil’s voice passed through Rine’s ears.

A voice full of temptation.

The Forbidden Sector.

For a moment, Rine wavered.

Her mind began to turn rapidly.

If I step into the Forbidden Sector even now, can I kill that woman?

No.

Can I kill that woman before Godfather comes out?

That was the most important question for her.

More important than anything else.

That alone.

Because of that, just as she stared directly at the black branches flying toward her and was about to make her choice.

Rine suddenly realized one strange fact.

A cold chill was settling onto the irregular breath torn apart by tension.

And at the same time.

“…!”

She saw the branches freeze.

And then a familiar back entered her view.

A man wearing a coat that scattered cold crystalline frost in tune with the magic he had manifested.

“…I am a little late.”

The back of Marquis Palladio.

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In the end, Alon emerged before finishing all of his conversation with Kailus.

The reason was simple.

Kailus had informed him of the situation outside.

I do not know by what means you summoned me here, but this place seems to be both your mind-image and a place where one can feel the outside situation to some degree. And it does not seem that a very good guest has arrived outside.

So Alon hurriedly cut the conversation short and revealed himself in reality.

Then he saw a woman wearing a strange smile.

And at once he realized it.

An apostle.

That the being before him was an apostle of one of the Five Great Sins.

“That is quite the princely entrance.”

Emil already had the great cavern filled so densely with monsters too horrible to properly describe that it seemed packed solid.

She rocked slightly as though she were delighted.

Calmly taking stock of the situation, Alon turned his head behind him.

“…!”

There stood Rine.

Looking frightened enough that anyone could see it.

It was a sight Alon had never once seen before.

For an instant, he was startled.

But it was not difficult to infer the cause.

A case like Seol Lang’s.

Of course, Alon did not know what had happened between Rine and the apostle before him.

But because he had already met apostles before, he could roughly grasp how the situation was likely unfolding.

Deal with it quickly.

He made his decision and looked around.

The situation was bad enough that there was no point sugarcoating it.

The immense underground hall was already packed with monsters.

The ceiling.

The floor.

The walls.

The pillars.

Every place Alon’s eyes reached held monsters.

And even worse, the golden crowns Rine had been desperately swinging around even in her panic had already all been caught by the apostle’s tree branches.

In other words, as things stood, Alon could not expect help from Rine.

“Let me see what our prince can do.”

Taking that mocking line as its signal, the monsters rushed greedily toward Alon to devour him at once.

A headless creature flew through the air.

An ogre-like beast leapt from a pillar.

A malformed creature, dragging its entrails like a half-finished work of some god, came charging directly toward him.

But.

Just before the monsters could touch him.

“Expansion.”

Everything stopped.

The monster flying through the air.

The ogre baring sharp teeth.

The creation dragging its entrails as it ran.

Everything stopped.

“!”

The apostle too frowned, startled by the abrupt situation.

But only for a moment.

“I had guessed from the information that you were a magus, but that is an interesting method.”

Her expression loosened again.

Having realized that the stillness came from expanded mana, the apostle calmly tried to draw out the branches.

Then.

“…Huh?”

She could not.

Confusion spread over her face.

Then her expression slowly twisted further, and clear alarm appeared there.

“Hoo.”

Watching that, Alon let out a large breath and began deploying magic.

In truth, the apostle’s choice was not wrong.

Expanded mana created a virtual volume that weighed down monsters and limited their movement.

But that was all.

Anyone who could use enough physical force or mana beyond a certain threshold could escape its influence without difficulty.

Yes.

If what Alon had scattered were ordinary mana.

“What is this…”

Basically, mana structure was easily destroyed unless some additional property was given to it.

That was exactly why, in the previous battle against an apostle, Alon had only been able to restrain that one for less than a second.

Because mana could be broken so easily even by minor physical force.

But if one additional seal were layered over it and the molecular structure of the mana itself were densely packed.

Then mana would no longer remain in a state that could be broken easily by ordinary physical force or ordinary mana.

Especially for those caught within the range of the caster’s deployed mana.

This was the first linked hand-seal combination Alon had ever successfully stabilized.

The result of all the research and training he had pursued to compensate for the weakness of magi, who required time to form seals and then bind sentences.

And at that point, Alon had accidentally taken one step further.

Because through the harsh journal Penia had written after misunderstanding his intent, he learned that six or more seals could create synergy and resonate with one another properly.

Naturally, for a human to form six seals was practically impossible.

Humans had only two hands.

But Alon had solved even that blind spot.

If there are no hands to form the seals.

Then I only need to make those hands.

Crack.

Ice began forming behind Alon.

The crystallized ice split into six branches in an instant.

And soon, as it took the shapes of hands and fingers.

Tutududuk.

It formed seals.

The first ice seal hardened and fixed the structure of the expanded mana.

The second ice seal fused the transformed molecular structure.

The third ice seal stabilized the fused mana.

And then.

The fourth ice seal twisted and distorted the stabilized molecular structure of mana, producing amplification.

The fifth ice seal created a switch within the spread-out mana.

And what was completed thereby.

Was a vast prison and spell that could manifest in any attribute.

“!”

The apostle’s eyes filled with shock.

And from the last ice seal Alon produced, what emerged was.

A small snowflake.

Fragile and delicate.

A tiny snowflake that would melt into a handful of water the moment it fell onto a fingertip.

It slipped weakly from the fingers of the final ice seal and drifted downward.

Hand-Ice Seals.

Sixfold Binding.

And the moment that tiny snowflake touched the mana Alon had spread out.

Snow Bloom.

The monsters became snowflakes.

And scattered.

Gracefully.

And beautifully.