ALL NOVEL Chapter 30
Q. What is the correct response from a regular employee when the boss invites them to a business trip?
1. Did I mishear?
2. It is an honor for my family.
3. You don’t need to bring out the knife meant for slaughtering cows just to catch a chicken.
4. Actually, I’ve been preparing to resign since yesterday.
…None of the proper answers came to mind.
Ding! My head felt like it was being bleached. Why, oh why?
If I were in a position like Carisia, able to command people with just a flick of my fingers, I would’ve been holed up in the back room doing nothing for life. A competent and hard-working boss surely has a knack for putting their subordinates in awkward positions.
“Aren’t you supposed to take the lead in the fortification project in Etna City?”
Dragging in Kaicle and Geryon to create a war play was one of the reasons. With the excuse of war among the Three Towers, redeveloping the entire city wouldn’t be strange.
Carisia wanted Etna City to have sufficient defenses, not in a war play like this but in a real fight against the White Light Tower.
“Everyone has their duties set at this point.”
“If an unexpected accident or emergency happens, we’ll definitely need the boss’s aid.”
“As long as the top manager isn’t absent, decision-making should proceed smoothly. I want to use this as an opportunity to assess our flexibility in responses.”
Carisia’s resolve was solid. I pressed my temples.
“If you wish, boss, there’s nothing I can do. I have marked our next business trip location here.”
I pointed to a spot on the map. Blasphemia had noted it as “One of the ruins of the vanished divine. No divine power response. Original purpose unknown,” but I knew its true nature.
“An unspecified ruin, huh? You used to love adventures.”
“Not at all. I prioritize safety above all. There’s just a reason I must go to that place. In fact, that location isn’t completely unspecified.”
*
Orthes spoke boldly, just as he always did in front of Carisia.
“That place is Phoibos Proopsios. It is now known as the ‘Brilliant Prophet’s’ temple.”
It was a name that lingered in Carisia’s memory. It had appeared in old tales long before the White Light Tower fed information to her.
The one who gazes down upon the earth from the highest heavens—a god of prophecy.
“That temple should still hold that god’s relic. Though not certain, it would likely have the ability to foresee and warn of impending dangers.”
Though he said it was uncertain, there was a deep conviction in his tone. At times like this, Carisia often felt that she didn’t fully understand Orthes.
Carisia recalled Blasphemia. The deep connection between Orthes and Blasphemia was also a strained relationship between Blasphemia and Carisia.
In other words, just as Orthes knew Blasphemia’s secrets, Carisia was aware of Blasphemia’s secrets too.
“They divided the followers of superstition into three tiers…”
Laity, priests, and the pope. This was the typical categorization of superstition followers.
However, theoretically, there were a few other ranks. The pope, who commanded the loyalty of all cult leaders.
Or those who were the descendants of gods, whom even the pope would not dare to treat lightly—demigods.
As far as Carisia knew, Orthes was a human who understood the gods and their relics better than anyone else in this world.
And Orthes’s “eye” was an incomprehensible product that even the wisdom of the White Light imbued into Carisia could not easily fathom.
If even the wisdom inherited from the Ten Commandments couldn’t grasp its essence, then the possibilities of what could be were limited.
The very fact of not knowing became a clue.
A few hypotheses surfaced in Carisia’s mind, then sank back down.
“Well, it’s not that important.”
What mattered more than what Orthes’s true identity was that he was right next to her now.
*
“Thank you, protagonist…!”
Naturally, the relic from Phoibos that I’d confidently pointed out was also featured in the original story.
I recognized it when I saw the ancient relic made from sandstone resembling Petra—an ancient ruin.
The revived protagonist had thought of an ancient artifact while worrying about the tracker who would be sent from the Ten Towers. “I remember pushing some temples down during my time as the Mage King,” so it was a relic he was on the lookout for.
Originally a divine-powered artifact, it was a narrative device to showcase the protagonist’s abilities by instantly modifying the relic that rejected the power of the mage who brought about the decline of the age of gods.
“The moment I started recovering some magic power, did the alarms or foresight magic just go off a couple of times…?”
If I were someone wishing the world to go “just like the original,” I wouldn’t dare touch such items.
But my goal was to change the shattered future of the original, living quietly and indulging myself. I felt no shame in embezzling the protagonist’s tools.
No, wait.
Thinking about it, it was originally that guy’s fault that Carisia died, leading to the world’s destruction.
“Cancellation for thanks!”
*
Emails were sent to the directors of Hydra Corporation. It was a link for a video conference. The contents were simple.
Carisia would accompany Orthes on his business trip.
Arabella could see Orthes’s expression subtly twisting from the other side of the screen.
Whether the joy of accompanying Carisia or the guilt of having caused trouble for the boss due to my lack of ability, she couldn’t quite read that far.
“If that human’s temper is as I think, it could very well be both.”
“Divine…”
After a video conference that felt more like an announcement due to its brevity, Arabella considered the goals pursued by Hydra Corporation.
“If Orthes really were Blasphemia’s Secret Inspector…”
If the foundation of the intelligence that found Kaicle’s concealed location, hidden for decades, came from Blasphemia’s abilities, many questions could be resolved.
Blasphemia must have known the whereabouts of Kaicle, the heretic of the Ten Towers, but had deemed it unnecessary to eliminate him since the completion of the Artificial Ten Commandments was impossible.
But for some reason, Orthes became aware that Kaicle had a real chance of completing the Artificial Ten Commandments and based his information on that to find his hideout.
There were likely such connections.
At the same time, new questions arose.
“If we assume, as Kaicle said, that ascension is the process of becoming a god, did the Ten Towers already know that ascension could be challenged through divine power?”
If that were the case, why have they consistently referred to the cults as superstition followers and oppressed them? Was there a reason they could not tolerate other forms of ascension?
In a tangle of questions, one question emerged.
“What exactly is that guy Orthes doing…?”
If it weren’t for that email from the Secret Inspector, I wouldn’t have to be racking my brain this much.
Arabella glared at the screen that had gone dark for no particular reason.
*
One of the reasons I accepted Carisia’s company somewhat willingly was that I judged this task wouldn’t be too difficult.
It was an artifact that the protagonist obtained in the early stages of the original. If the difficulty of acquisition were high, they would have visited after growing a bit more.
Blasphemia’s report confirmed my suspicions.
It was evaluated as just an ordinary ruin, with no investigatory value. This ruin could only be certified with a special method, as the protagonist did, and without that, it was just an old pile of stones.
Blasphemia seemed to be unaware of such information and probably believed there was no need to investigate what this place originally was, assuming it was just a bit of stone.
“It must be that they wrote the report in a hurry because it was cold.”
Damn. The Phoibos temple or whatever it was, was located on top of a snowy mountain.
Even if it’s said that the extra-dimensional magic often affects the natural environment, it was still chilly on a not-so-tall mountain?
Those Blasphemia folks surely thought, “Ah, it’s cold, let’s just do the investigation here and head back.”
This was no ordinary cold. It felt like an overwhelming malevolence of a transcendent being burrowing through human flesh.
A magical freeze, perhaps.
“Is it cold?”
“More than I expected. Strange. The shining divinity of Phoibos is akin to the sun, not a god of snow or winter.”
It seemed that to Carisia, this cold felt “slightly chilly.” Maybe it’s because she had a lot of magic power.
For those without magic, it was particularly colder. It was clear that some eccentric fellow cast some bizarre magic.
“Fortunately, the mountain itself isn’t too high. Look, there’s the ruin visible ahead.”
In the distance, stone pillars engraved with ancient myths began to come into view.
*
To Carisia’s eyes, the ruin that Orthes had mentioned started to come into focus.
An architectural structure carved out of a cliff at the peak of the mountain. A gray door of granite was sculpted across the entire cliff. The shadow cast inside the door seemed to hold the ancient mystique.
Its appearance was majestic enough to impress Carisia, who was used to the skyscrapers of this era. But as she approached, the wounds inflicted by snow and rain became apparent.
Once finely carved parts of the myth were now frayed and faded, difficult to discern, and the previously smooth floor had uneven spots all over.
It was evident that it had worn down over time, enduring the elements. Looking again, the darkness within the ruins felt less mysterious and more desolate.
Taking a step into the long-abandoned darkness, Orthes moved forward.