Chapter 544

After finishing his words, Rotholandus began to slowly fade away, as if he had achieved all his remaining purposes in this world. He left a warning, telling me to clean up the mess while running around, since they had failed and died of old age.

“Wait, wait a minute! Is that it? Aren’t you going to tell me the identities of those who misused the Holy Grail or its location?”

“How would I know… such things…?”

Rotholandus’s voice grew slower and fainter as he faded. Now that I thought about it, it made sense that a spirit who had been trapped in a tomb for hundreds of years wouldn’t know such details.

…But still, is this really all? Leaving behind a fragment of his soul just to tell his successor about the blessing of naked exposure and to suffer? This isn’t a joke, what is this?

“It’s not something you can do alone… find those who will share the burden of your duty… just as we did…”

After finishing his words, Rotholandus swayed and dissipated like smoke from a cigarette. Silence and stillness settled over the sarcophagus.

—

After that, no matter how much I knocked on the sarcophagus, there was no response, so I turned around and began to retrace my steps.

In my mind, I tried to piece together the story Rotholandus had told with what I already knew about this world, attempting to predict what I needed to do and what would happen next.

Let’s think about it. In the original story, the more casualties there were, the faster the enemies grew stronger. When human losses reached their limit, the King of Monsters, Valtir, would appear, leading to a game over.

And according to Rotholandus, the way the enemies grow stronger is by weakening the Heavenly Barrier, allowing them to receive dense blessings from their god like they used to.

So that means… whoever stole the Holy Grail—probably a demon lord?—anyway, they would need a lot of deaths to break the Heavenly Barrier, right?

If Valenstein joined Isabella’s side and plunged the Empire into civil war, it would make sense if it was to increase casualties.

…There are too many suspects.

The senile tree people want to use humanity as fertilizer, the beasts from the north want to use humans as food, and the Ka`har, who ruined Carolus’s plans, want to conquer the Empire.

Not just the other races, but those directly connected to evil gods, like demon lords, or those tied to ancient gods, like the forgotten cults, are also suspicious.

Especially the first apostle of the forgotten cult, the Soul Extractor Peirus. He was a boss who appeared late in the story, spouting nonsense about realizing the falsehoods and deceptions of this world.

According to Lacey, he was the leader of the Holy Kingdom about four hundred years ago… so stealing the Holy Grail from the depths of Alhebron wouldn’t have been too difficult for him.

As I walked through the tomb’s corridor, I continued to ponder, mixing reasoning and leaps of logic.

I can’t be sure, but let’s assume Peirus is the one who stole the Holy Grail. After stealing it from the Holy Kingdom, he organized the forgotten cult and started driving people to their deaths to break the Heavenly Barrier.

Then what’s his goal?

Peirus is an apostle of the ancient gods, but if the Heavenly Barrier is completely destroyed, it’s not the ancient gods who appear but the King of Monsters, Valtir… So is Valtir related to the ancient gods?

…Maybe. Considering the curse against the ancient god Alfodr engraved in the ancient temple where I obtained the rune of fire.

That place definitely seemed like where monsters and ancient humans fought, so if my guess is correct and Valtir was allied with Alfodr, it makes sense that they would curse Alfodr.

It would mean that the ancient god they worshipped was actually connected to the monsters that sought to destroy them.

“Phew…”

Let’s summarize. For some reason, the ancient god who wants to destroy humanity has made Peirus his apostle to break the Heavenly Barrier and summon Valtir to cleanse humanity…?

It’s just a guess based on circumstantial evidence, but it’s more plausible than I thought. Like a bull catching a mouse while backing up, I might have accidentally stumbled upon the truth.

…I’ll keep it in mind for now.

—

Even though I’ve heard an incredibly complex and serious story, when I think about it, what I need to do hasn’t changed.

Find the enemies threatening humanity and subjugate them before large-scale casualties occur. The only thing added is that I now need to find the Holy Grail.

From now on, whenever I defeat an enemy leader, I’ll have to interrogate them about the Holy Grail.

They won’t answer willingly, but if they react in any way, it means someone connected to them has the Holy Grail.

So now… I just need to worry about what to tell Lacey, who’s waiting for me outside the tomb.

As I walked through the dusty corridor, flicking my cigarette, Hersela, who had been silent for a while, spoke to me again.

[What a bizarre tomb it was. Meeting the spirit of an ancestor and receiving blessings and warnings. You’re quite the knight, something unimaginable on the Great Plains.]

‘Isn’t that because you guys killed everyone who could do such things? Though it seems like you didn’t do that seven hundred years ago.’

The Death of the Sky, was it? What kind of person was he? A powerhouse on par with Emperor Carolus, but as a Ka`har who had no interest in humanity’s salvation, it was only natural for him to interfere with the Heavenly Barrier plan.

The problem is, where did they get that information? Before ambushing Carolus, they had no contact with the Empire at all. Did they have a mole?

[That too is an incredibly strange story. So many warriors dabbled in sorcery back then, what on earth was happening in those days…]

Hersela was also curious about them, but unfortunately, Rotholandus didn’t know much about the Ka`har sorcerers of that time either.

He only mentioned a speculation that the Ka`har had annihilated the giants and earth dragons that stood between them and the Westerners.

‘Didn’t Or-han tell you anything? About your tribe’s past, old legends, things like that.’

Only the Ka`har would know their own history. I asked Hersela about their past.

However, Hersela just snorted and told me not to talk nonsense.

[Did it seem like Or-han and I were on such terms?]

…I guess not.

[All I know are a few legends I read in the archives as a child. Stories about the Heavenly Demon, the incarnation of martial destruction… or tales of fallen warriors ascending to the sky, becoming wolf spirits and running through the heavens with the Heavenly Wolf, hunting for eternity.]

The stories that spawned your dark history.

‘…About that Heavenly Demon, could he have been the “Death of the Sky”? The names and titles seem similar.’

[The Heavenly Demon would never rely on sorcery. The Heavenly Demon pursues only the pinnacle of martial arts, is bound by nothing, and subdues the entire world with his own power. Someone who depends on sorcery, carries out cowardly ambushes, and still loses is unworthy of the name Heavenly Demon.]

Her tone was decisively firm.

It reminded me of a lunatic who seriously claimed that the girl he had a crush on only drank dew and never used the bathroom.

Dew my foot, he should’ve seen her chugging bottles of alcohol straight down her throat.

—

I ignored Hersela’s fervent praise of the Heavenly Demon and continued walking in silence. Seeing that I wasn’t reacting, she eventually returned to the original topic.

So, about the warning Rotholandus gave us.

[The Holy Grail, the Heavenly Barrier… even the story about the dragon? Lately, I’ve noticed that bizarre events that others might never experience in their lifetimes seem to happen unusually frequently around us. The evil god that appeared in the city of Arvil, the Holy Mark bestowed upon you… Being with you makes me feel like all the common sense I’ve built up is being denied, it’s truly strange.]

Well… it’s probably because I’ve been trying to fix the twisted main story in my own way.

If I hadn’t come to the Empire, or if I had lived as an ordinary academy student after fleeing, I would have rarely encountered such events. Instead, Isabella, Ryu-rik, Belcus, and the like would have run rampant, causing massive casualties.

‘Well, isn’t it already bizarre that two people share one body? Isn’t it natural for strange beings to attract strange events?’

I shrugged and gave a casual answer.