I Became the Patron of Villains (Novel) - Chapter 68 - Is It Really Fine to Do This.. (1)

Chapter 68 – Is It Really Fine to Do This…? (1)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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The absurdly tiny Frost Crystal Painted Halberd vanished on the spot before it even lasted three full seconds.

A level of self-nature manifestation with no real combat practicality.

My mana.

That alone was enough for Alon to feel his mana hall run empty and realize anew just what a ridiculous stunt his past self had pulled off when fighting the Outer God half a year earlier.

I should have been grateful simply for not dying.

Thinking that, Alon looked at the dragonkin who until just moments ago had been laughing at him.

Though it was still only a dark outline with white holes where the eyes and mouth should be, he could read its expression with perfect clarity.

Staring at the place where the magic had existed moments ago with its mouth hanging open in disbelief, it muttered.

“How? You clearly said you knew nothing at all about mind-image.”

The sight was that of someone whose common sense had just been shattered.

“Keep your promise.”

Alon reminded it of the most important thing.

The dragonkin’s face twisted.

* * *

It spent a short while shouting that Alon had lied, that the promise was void, and similar complaints.

But once Alon pointed out that a being of such standing was really going to refuse to honor words it had spoken itself, it groaned as though carrying all the worries of the world and finally forced the words out.

“Mas, ter.”

The sound of teeth grinding accompanied the words.

Of course, it felt as though there was far more murderous intent in them than the respect the word originally carried.

Still, satisfied by the pleasure of hearing it at all, Alon nodded inwardly.

Then the dragonkin asked.

“Do you really not know what a mind-image is?”

“I do not.”

“…It does not seem like you are lying.”

“What in the world is a mind-image that you react like this?”

At Alon’s question, full of genuine lack of understanding, the dragonkin seemed to ponder for a moment, then began explaining.

“As I told you before, magic was originally created in order to approach law. The same is true of phrases, seals, and sentences.”

“There is, however, one difference. If phrases and seals can be used through understanding their meaning and grasping them, sentences require more than that alone.”

It sat on the desk and went on.

“As I said before, sentences are the keys that let mages reach the laws they engraved into this world.”

“You told me that last time as well. But if, as you say, self-nature manifestation absolutely requires mind-image, then why did you teach me that sentence? If your explanation is right, then even if you taught me the sentence, I would not have been able to make use of it.”

At Alon’s doubtful question, the creature replied at once.

“That is both correct and incorrect. As I said before, a sentence is a key, but at the same time it is still a sentence used to interfere with law. In other words, it can be used as a key, but it can also be used to twist law itself.”

Alon nodded.

He himself had, in fact, already used Frost Crystal Painted Halberd in another form before applying self-nature manifestation to it.

And he now understood what law the sentence Renown of the Snowy Mountain twisted.

“So it has two uses.”

“Exactly. Fundamentally it is a key for the mage to approach the law he engraved, but it can also be used as law itself.”

The dragonkin continued.

“But as I have said many times, mind-image is required in order to use self-nature manifestation. And mind-image is, in the end, memory.”

“…Memory?”

At Alon’s slight tilt of the head, it mulled over the wording for a moment and then said.

“Yes. People say one inherits history or inherits knowledge, but the conclusion is memory. The memory from the moment mages first created those sentences in order to approach that law.”

“That is what I call mind-image, the thing absolutely required if a sentence is to be used as a key. That is why I said it made no sense.”

The dragonkin frowned and added in a slightly lower voice.

“Because in this world there are no mind-images left, nor any mages left who can pass them on to successors.”

“……”

There was a short silence.

Then the dragonkin’s sigh broke it.

“That is why I cannot understand it. Just how did you succeed at self-nature manifestation?”

It looked at Alon with a questioning face, but naturally there was nothing he could really tell it.

After all, Alon did not know how he himself had used self-nature manifestation either.

Or rather, strictly speaking, he knew the method.

He formed the seal, spoke the phrase, and spoke the sentence.

With that alone, Alon had succeeded in self-nature manifestation.

But that stood in contradiction to what the dragonkin had explained.

Unlike the explanation that inheriting a mind-image was absolutely necessary for self-nature manifestation, Alon had no memory of inheriting any mind-image at all.

And that was not all. There was a far greater gap between the creature’s common sense and Alon’s own.

First, Alon had used phrases, sentences, and seals to cast magic up to now, but most of them had been things he learned by speaking the phrases himself, acquiring the knowledge, and then making use of them.

In other words, he had grasped the meaning of the phrases by throwing himself into them directly, without prior understanding.

And yet the being before him had clearly said.

That phrases and sentences could only be used through understanding.

What it had said was effectively the same as saying the very way Alon had self-taught magic until now should have been impossible.

“…Before that, there is something I want to say.”

“What is it?”

Alon then explained his own question to it.

After listening to him for a good while, the creature only stared blankly.

“…Does that make any sense at all?”

It looked as though it genuinely could not understand.

“But that is how I have done it. Even now.”

At Alon’s answer, the dragonkin laughed in disbelief and was about to say something else, when.

Rumble.

“?”

The tower suddenly began shaking as though an earthquake had struck, and Alon looked puzzled.

“…It seems the time has come.”

“…Time?”

“It seems I am being released, since the time I can maintain manifestation is not very long.”

That explanation made Alon’s brows knit, but the creature smiled as though telling him not to worry.

“Do not worry too much. If you come back in about five days, we will be able to talk again. I will tell you then about what you are curious about. And.”

“If possible, find Sparrow’s Staff, receive phrases and sentences from the one inside, and try using magic with them. If you pour mana into it, conversation should be possible.”

“…Sparrow’s Staff? An ego weapon?”

“Not quite a weapon. More like a somewhat broken fool who embedded his own personality into one. Receive phrases and sentences from him.”

“…If what you say is right, then sentences are practically secret arts. Are you saying he will give them away so easily?”

“You need not worry about that. The one inside has been beating his chest in regret because he failed to pass on his legacy, so he will probably teach you gladly.”

“……”

“I look forward to it. If what you say is true, then with only phrases, sentences, and seals.”

The creature smiled once more.

“You may be able to use the magic of every mage. And.”

With the final words, Perhaps push them back as well, it vanished in an instant.

“……”

Now facing empty air, Alon remained silent.

* * *

After a little time had passed.

Riding in the carriage on the way back from the ruins, Alon was thinking.

In truth, he had not heard the secrets he had originally come to learn, but his attention had already drifted somewhat away from those secrets.

The secrets themselves were not such a risk from Alon’s perspective, since the colosseum meant he would have to stay in Colony for about two weeks anyway.

Instead, Alon kept turning over the words the dragonkin had spoken today.

If one does not understand the phrases, the sentences, and even self-nature manifestation, then magic cannot be used to begin with.

It was a thought he had already repeated to himself several times.

The dragonkin did not seem to be lying. So then how have I been using it?

But no matter how many times he considered it, there was no way a thing he did not know could suddenly produce an answer.

There does seem to be something there.

Carrying that faint sense of doubt, he shifted the topic in his head.

Sparrow’s Staff.

Fortunately, Alon knew where Sparrow’s Staff was.

It should be in Colony’s royal treasury.

He already knew that because he had entered the royal treasury several times through quests and walked out carrying items.

Of course, although he knew for certain that it was there, Alon had never once taken Sparrow’s Staff from the treasury before.

Among the items in the treasury, that one had the worst performance.

Its performance is a little disappointing if I am choosing it over the thing I originally intended to bring out.

But he had no intention of ignoring the dragonkin’s words either, so after pondering for a long time.

I suppose it cannot be helped. Once I get there, I should register as a colosseum fighter first.

He decided that this time he would enter the colosseum and bring out Sparrow’s Staff.

And so.

“Benefactor!”

“What is it?”

“Pat my head.”

“…Your head?”

“Yes!”

While patting the hair of Seollang, who pressed her head against him.

No, in truth, his hand was practically motionless, and she was simply moving her own head back and forth to enjoy being petted by herself.

He arrived in Colony with her.

And then.

“…Hm?”

The moment he entered Colony, he felt that the atmosphere was terribly unsettled.

No, after confirming that there were barely any people moving through Colony at all, he wore a puzzled expression, though only for a moment.

Riding toward the guild in the carriage, Alon soon noticed from a distance that an enormous crowd had gathered all across Colony’s central street, and immediately stopped the carriage.

There was no way the carriage could pass through the central street like that.

On top of that.

“Lady Seollang, it seems we will have to wait until the crowd has fully passed.”

A beastkin who must have gone to check the road returned at once and reported the situation. She looked toward Alon.

After thinking briefly, Alon said.

“…Then let us wait and take a look as well.”

And with those words, he got down from the carriage.

The bustling scene naturally stirred Alon’s curiosity too.

A massive crowd lined both sides of the central road, as if all of Colony’s population had gathered.

By the time Alon had stepped down and pushed through the crowd, noticing the carriage approaching from far away.

“Stop there.”

A mercenary blocked his path.

The surly-looking mercenary gave Alon a shove with the hand holding his sword and spoke.

“No one may approach Lord Milanon.”

It was an overt warning.

Only then did Alon realize that although the crowd was thick everywhere, this area alone had been left open because of the line of mercenaries. Then he looked inside the cordon at the man standing there.

Likely a noble affiliated with Colony, decorated all over his body and plainly possessing the sort of face that screamed bad character.

Whether he had heard the mercenary’s words or not, the noble glanced over Alon, snorted, and turned his gaze away.

“……”

Just as Alon was laughing inwardly at the sight of a man who, for someone born a noble, seemed determined to feel privilege over something utterly pointless.

Crack.

The mercenary who had been standing sternly in Alon’s way vanished and crashed into a food shop.

It all happened in an instant.

All the gathered eyes turned at once, and the mercenaries who had been forming the cordon started to move before they even fully grasped the situation.

At that moment.

Crackle.

The mercenaries moving toward Alon were flung into the air in flashy arcs and smashed into the surrounding buildings.

“S-Seollang!?”

The noble who had been smirking a moment ago, Milanon, recoiled in shock at Seollang’s sudden appearance.

But.

He was soon screaming with his head gripped in Seollang’s hand.

And then.

“He laughed at Benefactor. What should I do with him?”

Seeing her turn back to him with a bright smile again, unlike the face she wore while looking at Milanon, Alon lost his words.

Because before he could stop her, Seollang was already gripping a noble’s head hard enough that it looked like she might crush it for no reason other than that he had laughed.

“Should I kill him?”

It was admittedly satisfying in its own way.

But it felt a little excessive.

At least in a street this crowded with people.

“……”

As Alon was wondering what to do, he turned his gaze at the sense of murmuring around him.

And in the next instant realized that the white carriage which had been crossing the crowded street had stopped right in front of him.

And at the same time, he understood where it had come from.

The Holy Kingdom.

Just as that thought came to him after spotting the holy knights, the carriage door opened and someone began to step out.

A girl in black sacred robes marked here and there with red embroidery.

“…Hm?”

He tilted his head because her face felt strangely familiar.

But only for a moment.

“C-Cardinal!”

Hearing the noble with his head caught in Seollang’s grip cry out to the girl, Alon instinctively felt that the situation was about to become more complicated.

If one ignored what had happened before, then anyone looking at this scene would think Alon and Seollang were tormenting an innocent noble.

Seeing Milanon act pitiful as though trying to take advantage of that very image, Alon briefly wondered whether he should clear up the misunderstanding.

But contrary to his expectations, the girl who stepped down from the carriage did not move toward Milanon, whose head was being held.

No, without giving the noble so much as a single glance, she walked in a straight line toward Alon.

“Eh.”

Only then did Seollang cry out as though something terrible had happened and wag her tail wildly, while the girl passed her and came to stand before Alon, taking his left hand in both of hers.

And then.

“It has truly been a long time.”

The moment the smiling girl’s eyes opened, revealing red irises, Alon realized it.

That the girl before him was.

“Teacher.”

Yutia Bloodia.

And in the street, where the murmuring had died and only shock and silence remained, she smiled wordlessly.