Chapter 9 – Misunderstanding (4)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Kallia, the eldest daughter of House Xenonia, had only just arrived at the estate and reached the count’s office.

Yet she found herself thinking once more of the same man she had already recalled several times.

Alon Palladio.

The one who had recently become heir after all the Palladio brothers died.

‘…Famous, he said.’

Kallia recalled the eyes with which he had looked at her.

Those eyes had been impossible to read.

They were indifferent to everything, as though he were staring into an abyss beyond the northern frontier.

Every time she thought of them, goosebumps rose along her arms.

Because through those eyes, Kallia had understood something.

He was the same kind as her.

If that had been the end of it, she would have dismissed him after he refused her offer.

If he refused the proposal, then they could not be allies.

And if they could not be allies, then sooner or later they would stand as enemies.

Yet her curiosity persisted.

Because of what he had said.

“Famous… is it.”

House Xenonia was famous.

Even though it did not formally participate in political struggles, the wealth and power the count’s house held were enough to overturn the kingdom’s balance at least once if applied properly.

But in the end, that prestige belonged to Count Xenonia himself.

It did not belong to Kallia.

Even so, Alon had said it.

Clearly.

Specifically to her.

He had done that even though he had only attended two balls and there were far more nobles who did not know her face well than nobles who did.

He had said she was famous.

Not her father.

Not House Xenonia.

Her.

…Of course, Alon had only said it while vaguely recalling the notoriety she would one day gain as a hidden power around the time the original story began.

But to Kallia, those words mattered very much.

“…How strange.”

Kallia turned her gaze toward the count seated in the office.

The count said nothing.

He simply continued processing documents as though she were not there at all.

Head lowered.

Silent.

Tap. Tap.

When she walked over to stand in front of him, the count naturally raised his eyes.

Red irises like hers looked up at Kallia.

He appeared full of life.

No matter who saw him, he looked perfectly normal.

Until.

Snap.

The moment Kallia snapped her fingers once.

The intelligence vanished from the count’s eyes.

His gaze, sharp just a moment before, turned cloudy and foolish.

His tightly closed lips parted.

Drool began to run out.

It was the face of a complete imbecile.

Looking at that thing, Kallia murmured,

“How did he know? No one should know.”

Ever since she had reduced her father to a fool, not a single person had discovered that secret.

Yet Alon had spoken as if he knew.

As if he already held her secret in his hand.

‘Or was he only testing me?’

She carried that suspicion with her as she left the office where she had played the same role for five years.

Then.

“L-Lady Kallia.”

“What is it?”

“There is a c-corpse in your room…!”

At the sudden report, she immediately headed there.

And then.

“Ha…”

She saw it.

The informer she had planted on Alon around two weeks earlier.

Dead in her room.

His neck had been twisted around twice.

His eyes were still open in miserable death.

“…Judging from the fact that the mark did not activate, it seems he did not leak the secret.”

That was the knight’s testimony.

So the informer had not spoken.

And yet someone had gone out of their way to carry the corpse into her room.

‘The informer said nothing, and yet they deliberately brought the body into my room…’

Thinking that through, Kallia felt her remaining doubt turn into complete certainty.

“Ha…”

And with a faint smile of self-mockery, she muttered,

“…To think he seized such a large weakness of mine the moment we met.”

* * *

In the deep night, the golems shone with vivid red light.

Looking at them, Evan frowned.

His eyes, sharpened by more than fifteen years of mercenary work since childhood, moved busily in search of a weakness while he also tried to hide his impatience.

He had confidence in his own skill.

Precisely because of that, he was even more wary of the unknown things in front of him.

He had seen enough times how much danger unknown enemies could contain.

And now, on top of that, he had someone he needed to protect.

From the point of view of someone facing an enemy of unknown nature, it was the worst possible situation.

There were well over twenty of them.

They were humanoid golems.

There was no chance each of them would be weak.

While Evan was still thinking about how to get them through this.

“I’ll do it.”

“…Pardon?”

At the sudden voice, Evan answered blankly and looked over.

Alon had already stepped out in front of him.

His face was as expressionless as it had been when they entered the labyrinth.

Evan found Alon strange all over again.

Honestly, he found him fascinating too.

He genuinely could not understand how his lord could keep that sort of face even in a situation like this.

By Evan’s judgment, this was a serious crisis.

More than twenty humanoid golems stood before them.

Each one would almost certainly be difficult to handle.

And yet in that situation, Alon had calmly said he would deal with them himself.

“…”

To be honest, Evan did not think Alon could actually destroy the golems in front of them.

Of course, he knew Alon was not ordinary.

He also knew that Alon had talent for magic.

Without a teacher, the man had reached the second circle through self-study alone.

That was remarkable by any normal standard.

But unfortunately, remarkable by normal standards meant little in a situation like this.

It was true that he was a talented mage who had reached the second circle at a young age without formal instruction.

But with only the second circle, he would struggle to destroy even one of the golems standing ahead of them.

Rumble.

The moment that thought ended.

The golems that had been standing still as though studying their prey all began charging at Alon at once.

And then.

“I enact Constraint.”

Alon’s voice rang out like a sentence being pronounced.

* * *

As soon as Alon whispered the activation words, the world stopped.

His vision turned black and white.

The charging golems slowed until their movement felt like something captured by an ultra-high-speed camera.

And then.

[Fragment inheriting the great will of Niacula. Speak the two constraints you may enact.]

That grand, resonant voice shook the entire space and echoed inside his head.

A voice that sounded like a man.

Like a woman.

Like a child.

Like an old man.

Hearing it, Alon broke into a brief cold sweat.

‘It’s different from the game after all.’

The artifact he had obtained from the Labyrinth of Whispers, Constraint, was exactly what the name implied.

It imposed restrictions on the user and granted compensation appropriate to those restrictions.

In the game, when used, a window full of choices would appear.

A system display offering different constraints and rewards.

But this was reality.

So instead of a window, what appeared before him was a voice.

A voice that, merely by hearing it, made his mind reel and his heart pound as if it might burst.

A voice that produced a grotesque sense of dread.

Alon let out a slow breath.

Then, gripping down on his trembling heart, he spoke the constraints he had already chosen in advance.

“First.”

[Speak.]

“I will perform the hand seals of Babylonia in an absolute manner whenever using magic.”

[What do you seek in return?]

“The power to twist the laws of the world a little further.”

[Granted.]

“Second.”

[Speak.]

“I will perform the phrases of great Babylonia in a limited manner whenever using magic.”

[For what purpose do you enact that?]

“My desired result is the same.”

[…]

At Alon’s words, the voice fell silent for a moment.

Long enough for the golem’s foot, which had been moving impossibly slowly, to lift and come back down once.

For an instant, Alon wondered whether he had chosen something wrong.

But then.

[Accepted.]

As though his worry had been meaningless, the grand voice resounded through the sky in affirmation.

And with it came another message.

[Human who remembers the hand seals and mysteries of the forgotten great god. I offer thanks to you who inherit the will.]

“?”

Alon was bewildered.

Of course, outwardly he remained blank-faced.

But inwardly his eyes filled with confusion.

‘Inherit the will? What is that supposed to mean?’

Naturally, he had no clue.

He had chosen the Babylonia hand seals and phrases for a simple reason.

In the game, those two choices gave the highest boost to magical attack power.

And because he had picked those options so many times, he had memorized enough of Babylonia’s seals and phrases.

Of course, he was not some genius who had memorized every seal and phrase shown in the game.

Still, he did not find that especially burdensome.

After all, he knew where those seals and phrases were written down.

So Alon found himself confused by the words from the sky, but only briefly.

[I shall always be watching, inheritor of the will.]

And with those final words, the voice faded away.

The world moved again.

Mana gathered in Alon’s hand.

Then the first word emerged.

“Refraction.”

The spell-form twisted.

“Repulsion.”

The flow split.

“Azure Light.”

The blue radiance sharpened.

At the same time, Alon formed the hand seal.

“Diffracted Line.”

Snap.

The moment his fingers moved, the blue lightning fixed in the air.

The law behind it twisted.

The magic that should have collapsed shattered once, then realized itself anyway as though defying the world’s principles.

And in the next instant.

The golems were sliced apart.

Not one.

All of them.

The red glow in their eyes disappeared.

Stone bodies split open.

Fragments of broken artificial bodies crashed down in all directions.

Silence followed.

Evan stared at the devastation in front of him.

His mouth opened on its own.

“…What the hell.”

That was all he could say.