Chapter 112 – Trap

Luna was silent for a while.

Rashid quietly waited.

She was neither an enemy nor an ally.

It would be good if she became an ally, but it was enough as long as she did not at least become an enemy.

“I don’t know. What I should do… Even so, the Professor is someone precious to me.”

Clenching her hands placed on both thighs, she showed tears from her tightly shut eyes.

The unshaken Rashid said coldly.

“The answer is already decided. You just aren’t admitting it.”

Luna looked at Rashid with teary eyes.

“Killing blindly isn’t the only answer, is it? Do you have to kill everyone, Inquisitor?”

“Then try to stop it.”

She showed an expression as if she had a lot to say.

Then, as if hardening her resolve,

she stood up abruptly from her seat.

“I will go and try to stop it. I must go and try to persuade the Professor.”

A meaningless act.

Kane would not listen to the words of a mere failure.

Since there was no reason to listen.

‘For the greater good, it would be necessary to be a little cruel.’

The secret of her creation.

If she found out about that, wouldn’t her attitude toward Kane also change from how it was now?

At the very least, the purity of his sponsorship might come to be strongly doubted.

“If you meet him again, ask Kane this.”

Luna’s gaze landed on him, and

Rashid helped her a little to approach the cruel truth.

“What am I? Why did you only take care of me like that? In truth, wasn’t that what you wanted to ask the most?”

She, who had no answer,

suddenly departed like a sulking person.

Rashid stared blankly at her departing figure, then soon summoned Karl.

Karl, who approached, bowed his head.

“Did you call?”

“There must be quite a few buildings under construction recently. Conduct a comprehensive investigation on all the various buildings rising in the Imperial Capital in particular. There is bound to be a suspicious building. It would be in a peculiar form, with a Magic Tower hidden underground.”

“I will deploy the clerics to look for it.”

“Dharma mages might be guarding it, so just find it for now. Absolutely do not interfere.”

Karl thought it strange.

“You mean we shouldn’t interfere?”

Karl asked, reminding him of the Magic Tower Professor’s plan.

“If it’s part of the plan, shouldn’t we stop it?”

“If we touch it from the very beginning, they will just build it elsewhere. Then we won’t know where they are building it. It is better to let them build it and touch it at the very end.”

“Understood.”

If they meddled for nothing and it was built elsewhere, there would be no greater setback than that.

In that case, it was rather better to let them build it in a place they knew.

Only then would it be easier to target.

‘Since he didn’t see much success with the gold transmutation, his funds won’t be that abundant either. The construction of the Magic Tower for the Grand Transmutation Circle must be tight in its own way.’

Magic Towers would be constructed secretly in quite a few places.

Since most of them would be constructed deep underground, it would be difficult to distinguish whether a normal building was rising or a Magic Tower was being erected just by looking at the outward appearance.

However, there was no need to pay attention to all of them.

‘Because the key is the Magic Tower to be built in the Imperial Capital.’

If only that one was blown away, the remaining Magic Towers would all be neutralized.

“Anyway, thank you for your trouble.”

“Yes.”

* * *

Late at night.

Rashid stood up from his seat to go home.

On his office desk, a map of the entire continent, including the whole Imperial Capital, was spread out.

The parts marked with an ‘X’ were locations where the probability of Kane building a Magic Tower was very high.

‘I feel this every time, but he is a truly amazing fellow. Doing this kind of crap just to revive a deceased lover.’

Building even a single Magic Tower was a major construction project that cost a significant amount of money.

He was erecting dozens of them.

It was something absolutely impossible with ordinary financial power.

‘In a way, making the gold transmutation successful must have also been part of the plan. Since quite a lot of funds would have been required to achieve the main plan.’

And perhaps.

Club Lazarus.

Wasn’t that also for her?

‘Who was it that said so? That the reason Kane created that club was to gather people who would be helpful to his plan.’

At the same time, this thought suddenly occurred to him.

In a world where the player failed,

did Kane actually manage to revive his deceased lover, Sophia Lazaro?

And in the intact form that he remembered?

‘I am curious. Whether he reached the truth and actually succeeded. If he succeeded, that would be amazing in its own way.’

Having wrapped things up, Rashid left his office.

Karl was outside.

“You should go home too. I will walk.”

“Yes, see you tomorrow.”

Rashid left the Inquisition Bureau.

Then, he headed to his house, which was not very far away.

It was a day when the night air was exceptionally cold.

‘The feeling…’

Rashid, who had been walking for a while, suddenly stopped his footsteps.

The place where he stood was inside a secluded park located not far from the Inquisition Bureau.

“Why don’t you come out? It must have been hard waiting.”

At the same time as he finished speaking,

portals opened here and there, and dharma mages revealed themselves in large numbers.

The one leading them was a certain Dharma Officer.

“You’re quick-witted. Did you know we were here?”

Rashid could not help but smirk.

“You set up a formation so openly, how could I not know?”

Moreover, he was a person with an intuition close to that of a superhuman.

“Since we crossed over through a mark, you shouldn’t have been able to read our presence here?”

“Is that important?”

Indeed, it was not an important matter.

The important thing was to cut off his breath.

“Inquisitor. I’m sorry. You must go with us. I heard you have something called the Divine Primordial Matter and the Immortal Heart. The higher-ups want them.”

“What is there to be sorry about? Rather, I am the one who is sorry.”

When the Dharma Officer cast a look of doubt,

immediately after, countless hidden weapons flew in.

The flying hidden weapons assailed the dharma mages, and soon after, the hidden clerics came out and began to suppress the dharma mages.

As the flustered Dharma Officer looked around,

Rashid, who was opening the armory, said to him.

“Why are you so surprised? This is not just any place; it’s the heart of the Holy Order. Did you even come here knowing that?”

Even so,

the Dharma Officer also had no choice but to be flustered by such a development.

It would be one thing if they had known in advance and prepared for it,

but the clerics who entered combat with the dharma mages now looked as if they had been waiting to pounce.

“Did you prepare in advance, knowing this?”

“Do you know what it means to set a trap and wait?”

The Dharma Officer laughed.

It seemed they were outplayed.

“It seems you were waiting for us.”

“I knew you would come anyway. Let’s finish this quickly. Since I’m on my way home from work.”

The Dharma Officer donned his demonic raiment, and Rashid also equipped his mana armor.

Usually, Inquisitors and Dharma Officers were often regarded as equals.

However, that did not mean their combat power could be the same.

Since the combat power was different for each Inquisitor, and the same was true for the Dharma Officers.

Rashid, drawing out the power of his mana armor, watched the Dharma Officer who donned the demonic raiment and melted into the darkness.

‘Is the attribute he handles darkness? Then simple strikes won’t have much meaning.’

Immediately upon making the judgment, he infused mana into his sword.

And he swung his sword upward as if scattering the mana loaded in the blade.

Sword energy rushing through space was shot, and the Dharma Officer deployed a barrier to block it.

‘I no longer rely on mana stones.’

Rashid injected mana into the Blood Sword of the Founding to coat it in Sword Force.

Everything was an instant.

Without dragging it out, Rashid, who tore through time, fixed the tip of his sword toward the Dharma Officer.

Perceiving this, the Dharma Officer deployed a triple barrier as if to show off.

The first barrier was deployed, and at the moment the second barrier was about to be erected,

a flash-like dash pierced straight through the Dharma Officer.

Since it was something that occurred before the defensive barrier was even fully completed.

“I leave the cleanup to you.”

Rashid, who took off his mana armor in the armory, said to the clerics remaining on the spot.

“Yes, we will clean up here.”

Afterward, Rashid returned to his house and faced the caretaker who was still staying at home.

The caretaker was an old man with neat attire and neatly combed white hair.

“Are you still here?”

“Yes, I was waiting for you to return from work.”

Although it was a face he saw every day, Rashid did not know much about him.

At the moment he was about to pass by like that today as well,

Rashid suddenly asked him a question.

“By any chance, the person who hired you is not a woman, right?”

The answer to this was always the same.

“We do not know the employer.”

“Are you saying you don’t know even though you do?”

“No. We really do not know.”

It was not something he could press him about.

He only wore a bitter smile.

* * *

The university board chairman’s office.

Kane came to receive news that was not welcome at all.

“They were all defeated?”

“Yes, it seems that even the Dharma Officer who went with them was defeated. Since it is the heart of the Holy Order after all, there are parts where it is somewhat difficult for us to exert our power.”

The Dharma Officer informed him of the realistic limits.

“The number of stationed clerics alone is in the thousands. Unless we bring the entire Dharma Mage Division, it seems somewhat difficult to target that Inquisitor in such a manner.”

It would be simple to send Zodiac, but

even that had become uncomfortable due to the previous incident with the Face Changer.

Because he would surely scold him, asking if he was relying on him again.

That said, he did not really feel like stepping forward himself either.

Because he was not as strong as Zodiac, nor did he have the confidence to fight in the heart of the Holy Order.

‘A truly bothersome fellow. He is really annoying, without me even realizing it.’

Divine Primordial Matter.

Although it was unconditionally necessary for the plan, in the first place, his plan itself was to perform an equivalent exchange of all the people in the world into the Divine Primordial Matter.

Thus, if only the plan succeeded, there was no need to obsess over the Divine Primordial Matter he possessed.

Since he would be able to obtain enough Divine Primordial Matter when the time came.

And processing that Divine Primordial Matter to open the Gate of Truth was the ultimate goal.

“We will monitor him for now.”

“Forget it. As for the Divine Primordial Matter that fellow has, we can just give up on it.”

“Then what about the Immortal Heart?”

“That is none of my concern.”

The Dharma Officer narrowed his eyes slightly.

Because Kane’s comment just now was highly annoying.

“Do not worry. If the plan succeeds, we can print out as many things like the Immortal Heart as we want with the Divine Primordial Matter.”

Had there been no following words,

the Dharma Officer would have taken issue with his attitude and reported it to the superiors.

“Constructing the Grand Transmutation Circle is the most important. For now, give up on that Inquisitor and focus on erecting the Magic Towers. Whatever the case, the most important thing is that the Grand Transmutation Circle is constructed.”

The Dharma Officer bowed to him.

“Then I will give up on the Inquisitor and redeploy the manpower to the Magic Towers.”

“Please do so.”

The Dharma Officer departed.

Rising from his seat, Kane stood in front of the glass wall.

It was the very spot where Zodiac stood whenever he was bored.

‘Zodiac…’

At first, he thought he was useful, but

recently, they had been experiencing friction, consciously or unconsciously.

Even so, the reason they meshed without much trouble was that what they each wanted was firm, and their core interests did not overlap much.

‘Your plan can also be discussed only after my plan is completed first.’

Tiririri~

When the call tone rang, Kane checked it.

“Luna, you say?”

“Yes, what should we do?”

Luna.

His failure.

That girl came to see him.

“Tell her that I have no reason to meet her.”

It was when he said that and was looking down at the panoramic view of the Imperial Capital through the glass wall again.

“Professor.”

At the unexpected call,

a subtle stiffness spread around his eyes.

“Luna… how did you get here?”

Where Kane turned to look, she stood there like a lie.

She looked at the desk frame standing upright on his desk, unlike before.

“What you are doing right now… can’t you not do it? For me, the Professor…”

“Luna. You are talking nonsense. A correction article must have been published, but that is just rubbish written by several people conspiring to frame me. Humanity equivalent exchange, indeed.”

Kane, clicking his tongue, shook his head and tried to confuse her, but

she already knew his true nature.

“I already knew. That people are used in the gold transmutation you succeeded in.”

Kane’s expression hardened.

“You already knew?”

“Did you think I wouldn’t know? I pretended not to know because it was you, Professor. Because… because the Professor sponsored me.”

Luna recalled the words Rashid had said.

“Professor. What am I? Why have you sponsored me until now?”

Kane wore a bitter smile.

To think she knew all of that.

“Luna.”

Kane looked at her, who was wearing glasses.

As time went by, as she matured, she was resembling her.

But she was not her.

She was another something, not her.

“You are the most complete failure I have made.”