Chapter 45 – What Happened? (1)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Five days later.

The story that Kalman and Maliam, both Baba Yaga, had targeted Seollang’s life spread through all of Colony in an instant.

With the testimony of Riyan Agulers, daughter of the Red Tower Master, and the mercenaries who had survived the ambush, it spread like wildfire.

The public was enraged by the fact that Baba Yaga had cowardly joined forces to eliminate another Baba Yaga. They dragged down the statues of Kalman and Maliam that had been set up in eastern Colony with ropes and smashed them apart.

Likewise, the guilds that had belonged to the factions of those two Baba Yaga also split apart at once, and within only a few days the traces of Maliam and Kalman disappeared from Colony.

Instead, the one who filled the void left by Maliam and Kalman was Seollang.

Though she had been attacked in a cowardly ambush by Maliam and Kalman, she had returned after killing them instead, and now she was receiving tremendous support from the public.

As the testimony of the Red Tower Master’s daughter and the mercenaries was steadily confirmed as truth, Seollang’s support kept soaring higher still.

To the point that she had surpassed even the Baba Yaga who had been around the longest after Kalman, and was being given the title of first Baba Yaga by the entire public.

On top of that, Count Palladio, who was known to have played a major role in helping Seollang kill the two Baba Yaga, was also receiving tremendous attention.

And at present, that man was.

“….”

Back once again in the forgotten City of the Gods, Kahara, checking something at the eastern edge that he had not been able to come to last time.

The writing on the eastern stone slab, just as that thing had told him.

“Hmm.”

After standing blankly there for what could be called either a long time or a short one and reading every line written on the slab, Alon suddenly thought of one question.

Come to think of it, how am I even reading this?

Language.

Even though the words written on the slab were not the common tongue of the continent and consisted of terms he had never seen before, they were naturally decipherable.

As if he had always been able to read those sentences from the start.

Making a strange expression for a moment, Alon decided he would stop by the central tower and ask about that point before leaving.

Then he turned and started walking while recalling once more what he had read on the slab.

Outer Gods and gods.

The unknown thing had recommended the eastern stone slab, saying it would at least let him see the rough shape of what was going on, and the slab had indeed contained stories related to Outer Gods and gods.

What was slightly strange, however, was that there were several points that differed from the information he had obtained while playing Psychedelia.

Why are Outer Gods and gods written as complete opposites?

In Psychedelia, Outer Gods and gods were divided clearly.

An Outer God was, quite literally, a god that had not originally existed on this continent, a god born from people’s faith or from another world.

A god, meanwhile, referred to those who had existed from the beginning, when there had originally been nothing on the continent at all.

As far as Alon knew, the beings called gods rather than Outer Gods in Psychedelia were the Five Great Sins, while the Wondrous Calamity he had met in the north not long ago was called an Outer God.

But on this slab, the exact opposite was written. What he knew as Outer Gods were described as gods, and the Five Great Sins were described as Outer Gods.

Of course, the names of the Five Great Sins and the Outer Gods were not directly written on the slab.

The names of the gods in the slab were interpreted metaphorically, such as the one who values honor, the one who seeks forgotten death, or the one who gazed too deeply into the mystery of magic.

But Alon, who had played Psychedelia over and over again, knew exactly who all those metaphors pointed to.

He also knew that metaphors like the many-handed one and the one steeped in greed and envy pointed to the Five Great Sins.

“Hm.”

Alon thought for a while, then decided to neatly fold that information away in one corner of his mind.

Aside from the fact that Outer Gods were written as gods and gods as Outer Gods, none of what he had already known clashed with the information he could read from the slab.

In the first place, what Psychedelia mainly described was the future, not the past.

It would be nice if I could ask about this too.

Organizing the contents of the slab in his head, Alon walked toward the central tower.

* * *

In the end, Alon could not meet that thing again.

The door that had clearly existed in the tower’s center the first time he came to the city had vanished as if it had never been there.

He considered breaking through and climbing up, but it did not feel like that would let him meet it either, so in the end he came back outside.

“Benefactor.”

The moment he stepped out, he saw Seollang greeting him more brightly than anyone else.

She had looked bored when he was gone, but the moment he came out she broke into a bright smile.

Riding the carriage with her, Alon soon heard.

“Will you marry me?”

“….”

It was already the nineteenth proposal Seollang had launched at him in just about five days, and Alon made a dizzy expression.

By now, Seollang had both hands braced on his knees, and Alon looked back at her.

Unlike before, the distance between them had grown closer with each passing day.

Of course, it was closer to say that Seollang alone had been closing that distance while Alon stayed still.

“Hm?”

Seollang perked her ears and tilted her head slightly.

Alon watched the tail swaying behind her face and let out a shallow sigh.

At first, emotionally, it had felt more like a cute daughter saying something like, I want to marry daddy, which had even made him oddly proud.

Now it was becoming troublesome.

“…I told you before. I think of you as family.”

It was his nineteenth answer.

“But we’re not actually family.”

And that was the exact same nineteenth protest in return.

“So if we get married, every problem is solved.”

“What problem?”

“We become real family.”

Seeing Seollang’s face full of I am a genius, Alon found himself thinking that this conversation now resembled the looping dialogue of a game.

“…Do you understand exactly what marriage means?”

Trying to push the talk a little further than the same conclusion it had ended at nineteen times already, Alon asked the question.

“Of course I do. I’m confident I can make Benefactor happy.”

“….”

But at that answer, Alon realized that even if he continued the conversation, it would only circle around the same content again.

“Seollang, marriage is important, so think about it a little more seriously.”

“I am serious.”

“…Try being a little more serious.”

After saying that, he fell silent.

In the first place, at this point in time, he did not have the slightest intention of marrying anyone.

And on top of that, even if he had not literally raised her himself, Seollang still felt to him more like an affectionate daughter.

Give it a few years and she’ll stop saying things like this soon enough.

Some time passed after that, and by the time Seollang’s cheeks, which had puffed up in mild sulking after having her request refused again and again, had returned to normal.

They arrived in Colony, and Alon immediately began preparing to leave.

If possible, he would have liked to depart later, but because crossing the desert was involved, it was far safer to move together with merchant caravans that left on fixed cycles.

So.

“Then let’s meet again next time.”

“Okay. But next time you definitely have to answer me properly.”

“…All right.”

Leaving behind a worthless promise, Alon departed from Colony.

* * *

Seollang watched Alon leave with the merchant caravan for a long time, and only when the carriage disappeared from view did she return to the guild.

“….”

The guild from which the blood kin who had betrayed her, including Ralga, had disappeared still looked the same.

The blood kin she had gathered were furious at Ralga’s betrayal, and among them were many who sincerely worried for the shocked Seollang.

The organization, which in her eyes had been gradually becoming more ideal all along, looked exactly as it always had.

Ordinarily, she should have been fairly satisfied with that.

Ordinarily.

“Hoo.”

Seollang let out a shallow sigh.

The smile that had always hung at the edge of her mouth was gone, replaced by a blank face.

Because this incident had made her realize one thing.

No matter how much effort she put in, she would never be able to recover the happiness she had felt when she was young.

“I hate it.”

Seollang’s murmur, stripped of all interest, quietly filled the empty room.

It sounded ordinary enough, but the voice was in fact somewhat dark.

The realization that the happiness she had always believed she would feel again if she made a family had been only a mirage filled her with a sense of loss.

Because she had truly believed that if she gathered her clan and simply returned to how things once were, she would be happy again.

And yet, even in the middle of that sense of loss, the reason the corners of her mouth were already slowly curving upward was one person.

Alon.

At this moment, Seollang recalled him.

The image of Alon, who had trusted Seollang and prepared his magic without moving even a single step, despite the fact that Kalman’s attack could have taken his life in an instant.

The image of Alon, who had thrown his life on the line to save her without hesitation at the very moment Ralga launched his surprise attack.

The image of the Great Moon who had, without saying any words at all, shown through his actions the ideal form of family Seollang had imagined.

Swish. Swish.

Seollang’s tail wagged pleasantly.

In the roughly one week she had spent with the Great Moon, she had seen the road toward the happiness she sought, the road she had failed to see in the blood kin she had gathered over two years.

Of course, he was not family.

But that did not matter at all.

If he was not family yet, then all she had to do was make him family.

“I want to marry him.”

Seollang murmured the words she had already said over and over once more, smiling happily.

The thought of the happiness she would regain if the Great Moon became her family made her heart pound.

Unfortunately, Seollang also understood that she could not achieve that right away.

For now, she still had the task of forming a personal guard that would protect the Great Moon and move for his sake.

“….”

In truth, Seollang had not originally thought deeply about that task.

She had assumed that as she gathered more and more blood kin, the task the Great Moon had given her would resolve itself.

But not now.

Now, to her, the Great Moon was no longer merely a benefactor, but someone she could not do without.

So.

I have to create it.

Seollang quietly resolved.

A personal guard that can protect Benefactor from threats in any situation.

Her golden eyes shone brightly.

* * *

On the night Alon left Colony.

“Come to think of it, did you check?”

“You mean the ones included in Seollang’s guild? I checked them all, and aside from Ralga and the ones dealt with this time, I was told none of them showed any particularly suspicious movement.”

Listening to Evan’s report, Alon nodded.

In truth, after returning from the ruins, Alon had ordered the information guild to investigate whether anyone inside the guild Seollang ran was plotting suspicious things the way Ralga had.

The reason was obvious. It would be a problem if Seollang was hurt like that again.

It’d be bad if another issue cropped up.

One time might have been fine, but he was not confident things would still be fine if something like this happened again, so Alon intended to deal in advance with anything that might provoke her if possible.

“Then that’s good.”

“Since you gave them the money as well, I told them to keep briefing us continuously if they think of any possible situation.”

“Good work.”

After answering Evan, Alon finally leaned against the carriage and let out a breath, feeling as though his work in Colony had at last mostly been wrapped up.

It might have felt like the work was over, but unfortunately not all of his work was actually done.

Deal with one more Outer God and come back, right.

On top of that, the new knowledge he had gained this time continued floating through his mind.

The reversal of gods and Outer Gods. The rank that that unidentified thing kept talking about.

And above all.

Natural order.

Alon recalled one fragment of the hidden truth of this world, something he had never once heard or seen even when playing Psychedelia.

Maybe it’s about time I go there.

As he continued thinking of the destination he should originally have visited much earlier, the place where countless phrases were written.

“I.”

At the regular Blue Moon meeting where everyone including Colony’s entire branch had to attend, the peaceful atmosphere that had continued until now was gone.

“I’m going to marry the Great Moon.”

“What…?”

“….”

“….”

“….”

In its place, a storm was raging.

A rather fierce storm.