Chapter 18. Monster Hunt (4)
“Phew. You have crossed the line by quite a distance.”
Dyra’s words, accompanied by the brilliant white flames of his Aura, settled heavily over the basement.
Perhaps the sheer weight of that presence was too much to endure.
THUD-
Delilah collapsed unconscious.
“…….”
Shane did not blame her.
Dyra’s presence was simply that overwhelming.
Delilah had yet to mature fully, especially on the inside. An opponent like this was clearly beyond what she could withstand.
“To think you would dare call us cats. You must be rather capable. And it seems you already know who we are.”
“It was not difficult. There are not many who reek so strongly of half-finished garbage.”
“Hohoho. Half-finished garbage…… You are remarkably skilled at provoking people. I cannot even remember the last time someone dared say such a thing to my face.”
“What is there to fear from an old cat?”
“Then let us see how well you receive this old man’s sword. I sincerely hope you survive. It seems there are many things I need to hear from you.”
How long had it been since someone had enraged Dyra this thoroughly?
It was not merely Shane’s provocations.
Salier, whom they had spent years cultivating to bring the underground city under their influence, had died such an absurd death.
How much turmoil would his death cause throughout the underground city?
The Empire had left the underground city alone because it possessed a certain degree of influence over it.
And now one of the largest pieces of that influence had been brutally shattered.
With his anger already boiling over, Dyra drew upon the White Lion Aura at full strength from the very beginning.
The white flames pouring from his entire body soon flowed into the sword in his hand.
Then, at some point, all that power began compressing into a single point.
An appallingly refined mass of energy.
That one strike likely held enough power to obliterate the entire mansion in an instant.
And yet—
Shane remained perfectly calm before that terrifying force.
If anything, the eyes visible beyond his mask, illuminated by the white flames, were filled with greed.
“It may be Aura resembling the scraps left after something has burned away, but the destructive power contained within it…… Yes. I want it.”
“……?!”
The instant Shane spoke—
Dyra experienced an overwhelming sense of unease unlike anything he had felt in his entire life.
It was not the ordinary tension one felt when facing a powerful enemy.
For the first time in his life, his instincts were warning him that he must not swing his sword at all.
Was it because he could see no opening in his opponent?
No.
Dyra was no ordinary man.
He was a Third-Grade Master, a true superhuman.
He was more than skilled enough to distinguish the real from the false within an opponent’s slightest movement.
And yet his instincts were screaming at him not to swing his sword.
More precisely—
They were warning him not to unleash the White Lion Aura against the being standing before him.
But Dyra trusted the countless experiences he had accumulated throughout his life more than his instincts.
‘I do not know what kind of sorcery he is using…… but this is nothing more than a cheap trick.’
Yes.
It was merely sorcery.
Throughout his life as an Imperial Knight, Dyra had disposed of countless enemies who wielded absurd and incomprehensible forms of sorcery.
His instincts had warned him many times before.
Yet he had overcome every such crisis and crushed his enemies because he possessed the White Lion Aura and his sword.
At last, every trace of energy gathered within Dyra’s blade.
“……?!”
And the tremendous power capable of cleaving even part of a great mountain—
Vanished as fleetingly as pollen scattered by a gentle breeze.
Shock spread across Dyra’s face at the impossible sight.
Behind his mask, the corner of Shane’s mouth rose.
—
Since his regression, Shane had observed his inner self whenever time allowed.
Part of the reason was to remain vigilant against Corruption.
The other was to search for a way to make use of the power of Corruption that the Organization had wielded in his previous life.
After spending so much time examining himself, Shane had achieved several meaningful results.
One of them was understanding the principle behind Corruption.
The principle itself was surprisingly simple.
It involved granting an emotion its own ‘ego.’
‘In my case, it was essentially creating an embodiment of Envy inside my body.’
Once an emotion gained an ego of its own, it became capable of giving physical force to that emotion and influencing reality.
The power of emotion.
Shane named this ability ‘Origin.’
It was fundamentally different from the conventional method of wielding Mana.
Moreover, because it used emotion rather than Mana as its source of power, it possessed neither restrictions nor limits so long as the corresponding emotion continued to exist.
‘That was why humanity was helpless against it.’
After understanding the principle behind the power of Corruption, Shane began considering another problem.
If he wanted to bypass the process of Corruption and use the power of emotion directly, he needed to solve two issues.
The first was the absence of a conduit through which he could give emotion physical force and release it into the outside world.
The second was the question of whether the emotion used as the Origin could be controlled safely.
After considerable thought, Shane found possible solutions to both.
For the conduit, the Dark Spirit proved an excellent substitute because of its inherent ability to devour the emotions of others and strengthen itself through them.
The remnants of the Rotten Tree Spirit Shane had annihilated.
And the ‘source of mana’ he had obtained from the Academy.
The spirit created through those two materials had been born solely through Shane and solely for Shane.
That made it an ideal tool through which his emotions could be projected into the outside world.
However—
‘The second problem—the emotion to be placed inside the Origin—was not something I could decide so quickly.’
The power of Envy.
Unlike the emotions possessed by the other Legion Commanders, Shane’s ‘Envy’ had wielded unparalleled power.
But its stability was equally poor.
Had it not grown so envious even of Shane’s own consciousness, the rightful owner of his body, that it suppressed him until the very moment of his death?
‘If I use Envy recklessly, there is a chance the spirit itself could be swallowed. That would be disastrous.’
Moreover, now that Shane had erased all the envy he once felt toward Klein, he had no desire to revive that emotion deliberately.
‘Then I have no choice but to use another emotion…….’
Various emotions rose and sank within Shane.
How much time passed like that?
After countless thoughts and deliberations, one emotion finally emerged.
An emotion infinitely close to Envy—
Yet violent enough to compensate for Shane’s current lack of strength.
‘Greed.’
—
“Wh-What……?”
“Hmm. As expected.”
Dyra’s eyes trembled as though an earthquake had struck them after witnessing something that should have been impossible.
The instant he attempted to swing his sword, the scenery around him had transformed completely.
What was this?
“Teeth……?”
He was still inside the same basement.
And yet the basement was no longer a basement.
The ordinary brick walls were now filled with rows of sharp teeth and writhing tongues.
The floor had become a lightless darkness that clung to his ankles like a swamp.
Dyra stood dumbfounded by the grotesque, revolting sight.
Then Shane’s calm voice reached his ears.
“It is not entirely satisfactory, but asking for anything more at my current level would be excessive greed.”
Shane raised one hand as though deliberately displaying it.
“H-How?!”
Above Shane’s raised palm burned the pure-white Aura that Dyra had spent his entire life refining.
And it shone more brilliantly than any Aura Dyra had ever seen!
“Impossible…….”
Shane stared at the Aura for a moment.
Then he clenched his fist, suppressing the power, and turned his gaze back toward Dyra.
Dyra looked as though the entire world had betrayed him.
Shane gave him a faint smile.
“You may be half-finished garbage, but at least you had something worth taking.”
“What……?”
Before Dyra could recover from those incomprehensible words, a gigantic mouth opened within the darkness covering the floor.
Sensing danger, Dyra immediately tried to summon his Aura.
“N-No! Why is my Aura……?”
The White Lion Aura did not move in the slightest.
The Aura that had always obeyed his will had betrayed him now?
Before Dyra even had time to despair—
The enormous mouth swallowed his entire body whole.
—
“Ugh?!”
When had she lost consciousness?
Delilah’s eyes flew open as though she were having a seizure, and she instinctively looked around.
The familiar pattern on the ceiling.
The strangely soft bed.
There was no mistaking it.
She was back in her dormitory room.
“Was it…… a dream?”
“Of course not.”
“Eek!!”
At the voice, Delilah jolted again and practically launched herself out of bed as she frantically looked around.
A figure emerged from the darkness beyond the window.
“Y-You!”
“Are you awake now?”
“So it…… wasn’t a dream.”
A shadow fell across Delilah’s face as she stared at Shane, the masked man standing amid the wavering darkness.
“Are you truly naive enough to think something like that was a dream? Or do you merely wish it had been one? Either way, you would be better off not running from reality.”
“Ugh…….”
Delilah groaned as his words struck directly at the heart of the matter.
He was right.
She had wanted it to be a dream.
At the very least, she had not wanted to see such a dark side of humanity.
It was an instinctive defense mechanism.
“W-Wait. How did you escape from there? There was definitely…….”
“A mongrel cat came down.”
“R-Right! That was the Judgment Knight Order, wasn’t it? An Imperial Knight Order!”
“That is correct.”
“How did you escape from…… him?? From that ridiculous monster…….”
“There was no need to escape.”
“Pardon?”
“If I were incapable of dealing with a mongrel like that, I would never have gone to rescue you in the first place.”
“……What in the world.”
What exactly was the being before her?
Delilah was becoming increasingly confused.
The Judgment Knight Order.
It was a name practically regarded as sacred within the Empire.
During the Great War, they had defended the Empire through countless crises and were praised as the Emperor’s right hand.
And the strength of each individual member existed on an entirely different level from that of an ordinary knight.
The clearest example was their Aura.
Their Aura was said to contain something beyond ordinary Mana.
Even among two Third-Grade Masters, an ordinary Third-Grade knight could not even begin to compare with a knight of the Judgment Knight Order.
The difference in strength was that vast.
And he had killed one of them?
“Whether you believe me or not does not matter. You will find out soon enough.”
“……?”
Realizing there was little point in questioning him further, Delilah changed the subject.
“Then what happened to the people in that mansion?”
“They no longer exist in this world.”
“Ah…….”
Something seemed to trouble Delilah.
“What is it?”
“That child…… died too, didn’t he?”
“……Interesting. You know what he has done, yet you still worry about him?”
“I would not exactly call it worry…….”
He had been a child.
Of course, Delilah knew perfectly well what had happened inside that mansion.
And she knew what the child she had taught had done.
She felt no sympathy for Count Salier’s son.
It was simply the fact that a child had died.
And that he had been a child she personally knew.
That alone left a fundamental bitterness behind.
In truth, Count Salier’s son had been the first person Shane killed after infiltrating the mansion.
By killing the boy and retrieving his soul, Shane had been able to break Wernard’s mind.
“……You really are the same in many ways. Just like back then.”
“Pardon?”
“It is nothing.”
Before Shane’s regression, Delilah had retained the desire to trust others even after suffering countless betrayals.
And that trust had not been limited to humans.
She had also wanted to believe in members of other races.
Shane had not entirely disliked that vulnerable side of her.
In this life, Delilah needed to fight on humanity’s side rather than become humanity’s enemy.
“May I ask you one more thing?”
“What?”
“Why did you save me even though it meant taking such a risk?”
“Because you are worth that much.”
“Worth……?”
“You will understand someday. You still do not know what your talent truly is.”
“…….”
Talent.
Delilah wondered what sort of talent she could possibly possess.
But she chose not to ask.
The man before her did not seem likely to answer anyway.
And if it was her own talent, perhaps she needed to discover it herself.
“I will come to see you again someday. Until then, conduct yourself carefully.”
“Again? Wait, but……”
“What?”
“This might sound pathetic…… but what am I supposed to do now……?”
“…….”
Shane immediately understood what Delilah meant.
She seemed composed for the moment, but she had only just been kidnapped.
Worse, she had experienced the horrific emotions lingering inside that basement as though they were her own.
Her feelings had not yet become hatred toward humanity.
But distrust had undoubtedly been carved into her bones.
Delilah was still alone.
She was still nothing more than a vulnerable girl with no one to rely on.
“If you cannot trust others, then search.”
“Pardon?”
“For someone you can judge with your own eyes and decide is worthy of your trust.”
“……!”
Delilah’s eyes widened.
Perhaps the words themselves were commonplace.
But they were the same words she had once heard from the person most precious to her.
She had never imagined that she would hear them again in circumstances so similar to that time.
Delilah could do nothing but nod.
—
“As all of you already know, the Grade Examination will take place four months from now.”
At the words of Levi Benjamin, Head Professor of the Department of Command, the cadets’ eyes immediately lit up.
The Grade Examination.
It was an assessment for the Grade ranking system established primarily by the Empire.
One could apply for the examination after reaching the age of twenty, or beginning in the fifth year at the Academy.
Naturally, it was one of the most important examinations for every cadet.
After all, one’s Grade directly determined one’s standing in society.
“Unlike the Grade Examination administered outside the Academy, the Academy’s examination is influenced by your departmental scores. Of course, you will still have to take separate tests suited to your individual aptitudes.”
Scores from the Department of Command were weighted especially highly during the Grade Examination.
That meant even if a cadet made mistakes on the written portion of the examination itself, an exceptionally high evaluation score could still be enough to secure a passing result.
There was a reason the Department of Command was known as the department reserved for the Academy’s elite.
“So you all understand how important it is to recruit companions who will fight alongside you from now on, especially for your Dungeon Ability Evaluation scores, correct?”
“Yes!”
“We understand!”
Once cadets entered the Department of Command, they were formally granted the authority to enter dungeons with considerable freedom.
In other words, they could form their own Exploration Parties and venture into dungeons themselves.
The cadets, their hearts swelling with anticipation, answered in unison.
Amid them, Shane alone began making calculations.
