Chapter 588

‘What a mess. I can’t believe he was still in the capital…!’

Peirus furrowed his brow.

The only fairy in the capital, Ferneythia. He had thought she had either returned to Alvheim or been eliminated while spying, so he hadn’t paid much attention. But he never expected her to be wandering around in such a grotesque state.

If it were that fairy, she would recognize him instantly.

Three hundred years might be a distant past for humans, but for fairies, it was just like their childhood. How could a guardian of Alvheim not recognize a figure who once shook the entire Holy Kingdom?

For Peirus, who had only been wary of the clergy, this was an unexpected situation.

Feeling a cold sweat trickle down his cheek, Peirus clenched his teeth, unable to move.

‘If I fight a fairy guardian in the middle of the capital…’

All the forces of the capital would swarm in.

The outcome was obvious. In his current state, having expended considerable energy subduing Nidhogg, even going all out might not be enough to kill them all and escape.

“Why are you glaring like that? Don’t wanna fight?”

However, Ferneythia, showing no intention to fight, simply raised her arms and smiled.

—-

“…You don’t want to fight?”

“Yeah… If we fight here, it’ll cause a huge scene… I can’t afford to draw too much attention either… So, let’s just pretend we didn’t see each other, okay?”

For Ferne, it was a natural decision. She had approached him out of drunken curiosity, but as she watched Peirus gradually gathering his strength, she became certain that this was not an enemy she could handle alone.

‘This is troublesome… When did he get this strong?’

His presence was incomparable to what she remembered from three hundred years ago. Back then, Peirus was just a high-level magician, but now he seemed more dangerous than all the magicians in the capital combined.

In the end, Ferne gave up on fighting. To face him, she would have to go all out… and even then, the odds weren’t in her favor. Moreover, if such a battle broke out in the middle of the capital, the collateral damage would be immense.

Even if she somehow managed to defeat him by any means necessary, the fact that she had summoned a high-level spirit in the heart of the capital would surely reach Alvheim.

The moment the news arrived, the elders would be convinced that she had been captured and betrayed them, and they would mercilessly strip her of her blessings.

‘…That would be a problem. Not yet.’

Even if it was a blessing she planned to discard eventually, she had to maintain her power until she could witness the World Tree burning to ashes. Only then could she enjoy the spectacle from the best seat.

No matter how she looked at it, fighting would only bring losses.

Unless there was a compelling reason to risk her life and cause massive casualties to kill him, Ferne saw no reason to go that far.

She wasn’t a human cleric, and she knew nothing about the Heavenly Barrier. To Ferne, Peirus was just a legendary serial killer she happened to bump into.

If she could kill him, it wouldn’t be bad, but if she couldn’t, it was wiser to pretend she hadn’t seen him.

“……Alright. Let’s pretend we didn’t see each other.”

After a moment of silence, Peirus nodded and slowly retreated. For him, there was no reason to refuse the offer.

‘Even if the fairies find out I’m alive… It’s better than the Empire and the Holy Kingdom knowing.’

He was convinced Ferne was a spy from Alvheim. Otherwise, there was no logical reason for a guardian-level fairy to be stationed in the heart of the capital. In fact, the Alvheim elders’ intention was to use Ferne as a spy, so his assumption wasn’t entirely wrong.

It’s just that no one expected Ferne to abandon her entire kin after just fifteen years.

Peirus couldn’t have anticipated that a fairy existed who was just waiting for the day the World Tree would burn. It was only natural for him to mistake Ferne for a spy loyal to Alvheim.

So, he couldn’t imagine that the fairy before him would reveal his survival to the humans and help them.

‘At least it’s fortunate. It was a fairy, not a human, who spotted me.’

‘He really backed off. I got lucky.’

The two powerhouses sighed in relief, grateful for their good fortune.

Peirus, without lowering his guard, retreated towards the city walls, while Ferne watched him from the rooftop until he used a strange spell to naturally scale the wall.

Thus, a situation that could have swept through a quarter of the capital’s citizens was averted by mutual agreement.

=============

“…So you just let him go?”

“Yeah…? I mean, I was really surprised. How could a human live for three hundred years?”

Watching Ferne tilt her head innocently, a headache so intense it felt like my head was spinning washed over me.

After defeating the Knight of Ruins and returning to the capital, the news Ferne brought was shocking.

In response to my routine inquiry about whether anything had happened, I never expected the name Peirus to come up.

“Why did you let him go…?”

I held my forehead and sighed deeply, staring at the ceiling. It was so absurd that my vision seemed to spin.

The first apostle of the forgotten gods’ order, the culprit behind the collapse of the Heavenly Barrier.

The fact that he had appeared in the capital was shocking enough, but to just let him go… It was more baffling than accidentally washing a pair of pants with five winning lottery tickets.

“Huh…? Should I have caught him? But if I did, we’d all be dead, right?”

“Should you have caught him? What kind of obvious question is that…?”

Ah, right. She doesn’t know.

I bit back my irritation and closed my mouth. Thinking about it, Ferne wouldn’t know the importance of Peirus. It was classified information, after all, so I hadn’t told her.

So… from her perspective, he wasn’t an enemy worth risking massive casualties to capture. Just driving Peirus away as he entered the capital was enough for her.

“Sigh… So, you don’t know why he came to the capital?”

“Hmm… No idea? He left right after.”

…This girl is useless. Should I just throw her away?

—-

In the end, it fell to me to speculate on Peirus’s motives.

I informed Lacey that Ferne had spotted Peirus, and together we sought out Leopold to discuss the matter. If the high priest of the forgotten order had personally come here, it couldn’t be anything trivial.

“I can’t believe he’s really alive…! And to dare set foot here. As Elpinel’s saintess, this is an unparalleled insult.”

Lacey gnashed her teeth in anger, while Leopold sighed deeply at how easily the capital’s defenses had been breached.

It wasn’t the guards’ fault. Unless they had known Peirus was coming and prepared accordingly, there was no way ordinary checks could have caught him.

Afterward, the two announced Peirus’s survival to the entire capital. At Ferne’s request, the witness’s identity was replaced with someone else.

“Peirus. Peirus… You mean that Peirus? The soul extractor Peirus?”

“…He’s still alive? Is that even possible? It’s been three hundred years.”

Nobles and priests, hearing that a figure who belonged in history books was still alive, naturally expressed shock and disbelief.

Even though it was a joint announcement by the Emperor and the Archbishop, it was too unbelievable to accept at face value.

Lacey swore on Elpinel’s name that it was true, but that alone wasn’t enough to fully convince the skeptics. Even those who believed Lacey wouldn’t lie thought she might be mistaken.

Of course, neither Lacey nor Leopold were the type to waste time trying to convince the unconvinced.

Instead, they issued a bounty for Peirus across the Empire and informed the Holy Kingdom to seek their cooperation.

We hadn’t heard their reaction yet, but it was likely just as shocked.

Simultaneously, we mobilized numerous personnel to thoroughly search the capital for any traces Peirus might have left. To uncover his motives.

Fortunately, there were no casualties. There were no signs of magical tampering in the cathedral or the imperial palace.

“If he didn’t come for assassination or sabotage… then only one possibility comes to mind.”

“The underground waterway?”

Leopold nodded.

“Exactly. Whether the information leaked or he knew from the start… he must be after the dragon’s remains buried there.”

That was the only possibility left. It’s not like someone of Peirus’s caliber would visit the capital for sightseeing.

“We’ll need to intensify the search of the underground waterways…”

Leopold’s expression darkened further. Mine probably did too.

A soul extractor and a dragon’s corpse. Just the thought of that combination was ominous.

—-

From that day on, Leopold ordered Floheta to temporarily halt airship development and mobilize all personnel from the Mage Tower to search the underground waterways. Lacey also mobilized all available paladins and priests.

And what did I do?

At first, I tried to help with the search. To prepare for the possibility that Peirus had set something up underground. The Rune of Collapse would also be a great help in searching underground.

But I couldn’t. Because of a letter that flew into my mansion.

‘Of all times…’

I looked down at the letter on my desk and let out a smoke-filled sigh. The familiar seal on the envelope bore the sender’s name in bold letters.

/Ludwig Wilhelm von Landenburg/

The east was calling me.