Chapter 46
On the southwestern coast, atop a seaside cliff, there was an ancient ruin known as the Knights’ Ruins.
It was a place where rusted iron swords, long since decayed, were embedded here and there. According to legend, a tremendous battle had taken place there in the distant past.
Now, however, only the name remained, and no one visited it anymore.
If one traveled some distance along that same coastline, a small settlement would eventually appear, modest but still inhabited.
That place was the port village of Fenein.
As a great deal of time had passed and most of the residents had left for other lands, there were not many people left behind.
Even so, they sustained themselves through self-sufficiency. The people were simple and kind, and it was a quiet place where only the sound of waves echoed.
The abnormality began when a black swamp formed around the Knights’ Ruins.
It was the corrupted divinity spilled for the first time as the Night God decayed.
By sheer coincidence, a single drop had fallen there.
Because even the residents of Fenein never set foot near that place, it was initially left abandoned, unnoticed by anyone.
However, at some point, several monsters appeared there.
They were sahagins, with the heads of fish and bodies covered in slick scales.
For reasons unknown, inhabitants of the far-off open sea had come all the way to the coast.
And by chance, they discovered the black swamp, and by even greater chance, they became coated in its mud.
The sahagins’ appearances became grotesque and ferocious.
Having lost their reason and retaining only their destructive instincts, they wandered the surrounding area.
It did not take long before the monsters found the nearby port village.
Because they were covered in mud, they no longer looked like ordinary sahagins.
Dragging black ichor behind them, the creatures began destroying everything in Fenein.
The simple villagers who had been living peacefully in Fenein were unable to respond to anything.
In an instant, people were killed, and buildings were smashed apart by the monsters’ hands.
After destroying everything, the sahagins walked along the shore, and walked, until they eventually flowed back into the sea……
And the first person to discover that scene was a boy who had gone on a journey as far as a distant market and then returned to Fenein.
He witnessed a horrific scene that could never have been caused by the hands of ordinary humans such as pirates or bandits.
He found his father and younger sibling impaled on stakes……
That day, the boy lost everything to monsters.
His name was Ark Batchel.
Ark’s journey began at that very moment.
***
One of the things Aquila learned while chasing the corrupted fanatics was that they placed great importance on “Revelation.”
The ultimate reason the followers of the Night God acted was to carry out what was written in the Revelation.
They believed that the events recorded there were the order of this world, its destiny.
And from what Aquila discovered, the Revelation of the Night was nothing other than the flow of the main scenario.
The mandatory quests within the game.
The essential incidents required to make the protagonist grow and advance the story.
Those were the Revelations they had been screaming about so fervently.
The followers of the Night God were scattered across the continent for this very purpose, planning and causing incidents at the proper times so that the main scenario would proceed correctly.
They believed that once all of this ended, true salvation would arrive.
Aquila had personally experienced the main scenario, and in a previous cycle, he had even confirmed the Revelation himself.
However, there had never been a case where people ate mud and turned into monsters from the early stages, before Ark ever set out on his journey.
This was an entirely different matter from simply being coated in the mud of the black swamp.
At this point in time, the black swamp existed only in restricted areas where human feet never reached, which meant that the only ones who knew its locations were corrupted fanatics who possessed the Revelation.
Therefore, the only people who could deliberately scoop it up, place it in a bottle, and pass it on to others were also them.
That was why it was impossible for someone to coincidentally eat the mud of the black swamp.
“Washerd Forest, the nameless uninhabited island, Frost Forest—you still have not been able to enter those places.”
“Th, those places……!”
“Has the Revelation been accelerated? Or has the order been changed?”
As Aquila leaned in closer and whispered softly, Gilesha’s face gradually turned pale.
He was not probing to see what the man knew.
That reaction belonged to someone who already knew everything.
Moreover, the locations Aquila listed were precisely where black swamps currently existed.
And it had not even been a full year since the black swamps had appeared.
‘How, how on earth does he know……?’
Gilesha’s eyes widened as shock washed over him.
Matters related to the Revelation could only be heard by those who deeply worshiped the Night God Helitica in their hearts, those who had undergone the ritual of accepting even that god’s ugliness.
And they willingly participated in the contents of the Revelation so that everything would flow according to the natural order.
Gilesha was such a person, and so was Celsia.
But the person before him was an unbeliever, was he not?
Not only that, but he was someone who had defied the natural order and remained alive instead of dying according to the Revelation!
And yet, how could this man possibly know all of that?
Still crouching, Aquila leaned his head in closer and whispered even more quietly into Gilesha’s ear.
“Say that you will speak with me alone.”
After delivering the words in a commanding tone, Aquila erased his smile, deliberately let out a long sigh, and stood up.
“I cannot tell what he is muttering about. Has he been left locked up for too long?”
“Ah, um. Shall I bring you more water, Young Master?”
“There is enough water. All he needs to do is answer properly.”
Aquila tapped the floor lightly with the toe of his shoe.
“They say something similar to the monster Celsia became has appeared in Belmaburn. Do you know anything about that?”
“Do you think I would tell you if you ask so bluntly? Would that not be the same as revealing our movements?”
“How else am I supposed to get an answer without asking? It is not as if I can read other people’s minds.”
“……Well, that is not exactly wrong, is it?”
Ianpel, who could indeed read minds, paused for a brief moment before smiling faintly.
Aquila stared down at Gilesha’s crouched form once more and gestured with his eyes, urging him to speak quickly.
The eyes that had been wide with shock slowly settled, and bloodshot pupils turned toward Aquila.
It was a gaze Aquila had seen countless times before.
He could see clearly what kind of conflict was unfolding within Gilesha.
Of course he would hesitate.
Aquila was no ordinary unbeliever; he was their target.
Gilesha had to decide whether to remain silent in accordance with his oath to the Night, or to try speaking even once with Aquila, who carried the Revelation on his lips.
However, that internal conflict did not last as long as one might have expected.
Gilesha must have realized that the information Aquila possessed was far from ordinary.
“……Haah! Very well. Fine, then. I will answer that question.”
“Really?”
Ianpel brightened in surprise, but Gilesha added a condition.
“Only with Aquila Reschenhardt. Alone.”
“What?”
Shen’s face turned icy cold.
Though the man was restrained now, he was the one who had tried to kill Aquila.
At the suggestion that such a person would speak alone with his young master, the attendant could not contain his rising fury and stepped forward.
“Know your place as a criminal! How dare you ask to speak alone with the Young Master…….”
“Fine.”
“……Young Master?!”
Shen turned back with a horrified expression.
“It is far too dangerous, Young Master!”
“He has a fractured heart. Even if his restraints were removed, he would be weaker than an ordinary person. There is no danger.”
But Shen was not the only one to object.
“No matter how you look at it, is our little Young Master not far too fearless? Who knows what scheme he has in mind, yet you agree so readily?”
Cahena added the remark in her characteristically cheerful tone as she approached, but her expression was stiff.
“Madam…… Celsia also had no power, yet did she not become such a monster?”
“That can only happen if one eats that strange black mud.”
“How can you be so sure? The black power this man wielded was no ordinary thing. Even if Lord Heinen is suppressing it now, who knows what other power he might have…….”
“There is none.”
Aquila cut off Cahena’s words as he met her dark brown eyes.
They were eyes filled with certainty.
Faced with that gaze, Cahena hesitated for a moment.
“You said you searched his entire body and found nothing. You did it yourself. Do you not trust your own judgment?”
“But having him alone with our little Young Master—no matter how you look at it, does that not seem like he has ulterior motives?”
The one with ulterior motives was not Gilesha, but Aquila himself, so he simply gave a short laugh.
“The one you should be worried about is not me. You should be worried that, once we are left alone, I might kill him instead.”
Aquila glanced at Gilesha.
He was still lying there, crouched, staring intently at Aquila alone.
“Then just kill him! It would be better to kill him!”
An agitated Shen suddenly drew a dagger from his clothes.
His movements were so fast that it was impossible to tell when he had taken it out.
He must have been hiding it all along, but perhaps because he had already revealed it once while fighting the monster, he no longer hesitated to draw it.
Heinen rushed over and grabbed Shen’s wrist, forcing it down.
“Not yet.”
“I have heard that far too many times, Lord Heinen!”
“No. Not yet.”
“Where did you even pull that thing out from…….”
Yujelia looked around with confused eyes.
While she was in the midst of slightly revising her assessment of Shen, Gilesha, who was watching the situation spiral out of control, shouted out.
“Yes, yes! Go ahead and kill me quickly! Among unbelievers, I especially have no desire to associate with a solar bunch like you, so this works out perfectly! Either remove yourselves from my sight at once or kill me as I am! I welcome it!”
Having quenched his thirst somewhat after drinking water, Gilesha’s mouth moved quickly.
He rattled on with great enthusiasm.
“Since I have been captured, and my throat is wet, I was thinking of offering a bit of special service to repay the favor, but if you refuse! Haah, the solar faction truly is slow in the head.”
“What did you say?! Insulting the temple is……!”
Yujelia flared up and tried to step forward, only to be grabbed by Chelsey and pulled back.
Ianpel, wearing a faint smile, asked while still keeping his distance.
“You tried so persistently to kill the third bloodline of Reschenhardt. Would it not be strange to think you had ulterior motives?”
“Oh my, oh my! Everyone keeps saying I have ulterior motives…… but that is not something you should be saying to me! Are you not the one with ulterior motives? I know, you see. Yes, I know very well.”
Fidgeting slightly, Gilesha suddenly lifted his head and threw his dull yellow gaze at Ianpel.
Unlike the torrent of words he spewed, that gaze was cold.
“You will not see it. You will not read it. Perhaps you could with other fools, but I am protected. Even though I am in this disgraceful state!”
“Are you saying that right now……?”
Ianpel’s face twisted instantly.
Gilesha’s words were precisely targeting Ianpel’s skill, which was not known to the outside world.
They were words sufficient to shake a saint.
If Gilesha had gone this far and Aquila gained nothing from it, Aquila’s pride would not allow it.
He quickly stepped in between them.
“Give me exactly fifteen minutes. Nothing will happen. If you are truly worried, draw a mark of oath on his tongue. And Shen, I will borrow this.”
Aquila took one of the daggers from Shen’s hand.
Heinen’s gaze followed him, but only after Aquila promised several more times that he would not kill the man did Heinen finally withdraw his stare.
In addition to the fractured heart, a mark of oath that prevented him from attacking others was drawn upon Gilesha’s tongue.
“This is excessive. Truly excessive, yes…….”
Gilesha grumbled, but he did not resist.
Shen, Cahena, and Yujelia continued their timid objections for a while longer, but Aquila ultimately made them step back.
The time given was fifteen minutes.
And so, at last, Aquila was left alone with Gilesha inside the carriage.