◈ Episode 452. Darkness Falls (1)

The end of an unofficial spacetime duel.

“Oxidin. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“We’ll follow you right away. Claudi.”

“May you rest in peace.”

The Transcendents reveal their plan, the Transcendent Alliance.

The Four Houses have moved to track down Oxidin, who was said to have planned everything. Since they managed to cooperate obediently, they’ve lifted the curse on the social hall.

“Ew, run away.”

Like a child of his age.

Starting with the lightning child, who was struggling noisily.

All of the transcendents left as if running away from a spacetime social hall.

‘At least it’ll be quiet for a while.’

Well, it’s bound to happen.

Everyone witnessed it, didn’t they?

Uriah, the rotten shaman.

The sight of her being devoured by the suitable magic.

『High-level black magic, a Endless Nightmare』

It might break the mind, but it couldn’t directly damage the target.

But Uriah was a shaman.

She realized that the nightmare was black magic and tried to escape.

In the process.

‘Even if it’s bad luck.’

She faced the infinite darkness of Grandfell.

I watched Uriah vanish under the influence of suitable magic.

And I realized once again.

Grandfell is both merciful and unmerciful.

Anyone who crosses Grandfell’s threshold will be dealt with mercilessly.

In this case, the thresholds were particularly sensitive.

‘Suitable magic comes from the past and background.’

Uriah.

What she was trying to get a glimpse of was Grandfell’s brutal past and background. I suddenly wondered. Was it Grandfell’s suitable magic that devoured Uriah?

Or was it Grandfell?

“At this point, I can’t be sure.

But one thing was clear.

‘Am I the only one?’

I was the only one who could see into Grandfell’s past.

Lee Hoyeol was the only one who could see into his past.

Grandfell’s atrocities were at the same time a terrible dark history for me.

‘So I have to take responsibility.’

Isn’t that the pride of a grown man who has overcome difficult times?

The spacetime socialite.

All that was left was me and the Witch of the Southern Seas, Mary.

“She’s not showing it.

I’m sure she’s worried. This is because Mary must have acquired knowledge about black magic while staying at the Magic Tower, as to what suitable magic power exactly means.

But there is no need to worry.

I opened my mouth nonchalantly.

“I’ll be back on the next schedule.”

I can stick to a schedule, no matter what the winds blow. So, Mary, I encourage you to follow your heart.

“I’m…….”

Of course, I knew where Mary was going before I heard the end.

‘Oops.’

Then, while I’m stopping by, I guess I’ll have to ask for ‘this’ too.

*

“……!”

She opened her eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling.

-Even cats sleep less than you, apprentice.

It was a familiar nagging voice.

“Ugh.”

Jesse gripped her head and pushed herself up.

How long had she been lying there?

She felt like she was missing muscles in her arms and legs, her whole body.

-Didn’t you have no muscles in the first place?

“If you must speak.”

Jesse pouted her thin lips and looked around. No doubt. This is the private chamber of the Magic Tower Healing School. She forced herself to recall the last of her memories, and her mind flashed back to the Spacetime Duel.

“……That’s right. A duel?”

The cone hat twitched.

-You fell like that, yet you remember so well.

Archmage, the inherited class.

The vessel of the Archmage holds the knowledge of the Archmages before her, who have searched for truth for eons. Jesse’s vessel was grown in size to accommodate the vastness of the knowledge, and Jesse’s mind had grown extremely strong.

Thankfully, her memory was clear.

“Did we succeed? This is the weakness we came up with!”

Jesse’s words made the cone hat twitch.

-When we speak of us, the old men in the cone hat get worse, apprentice. It was not our knowledge that defeated that strange creature, but purely yours.

Urs, the Strange Creature.

-On second thought, he was ridiculous. Yet it survived the Meteor Strike unscathed. Even in Hellfire, it doesn’t seem to be scorched.

A weakness that could defeat the Woodmen, who could regenerate endlessly no matter what magic she cast. It was not knowledge from the past, but knowledge from the Magic Tower’s dissertation written in this era.

The cultivation of elixirs.

Elixirs that were described in research texts.

She had not forgotten the characteristics of Maslova.

She hadn’t simply forgotten it, she had applied it.

“So, the results!”

The cone hat shook itself as if shaking its head.

-I’m afraid I don’t know the outcome either, but at least you didn’t lose, apprentice. Apparently the originally scheduled rematch has been canceled.

“The rematch was canceled?”

-Yes, something must have happened to the creature.

“……Hmm.”

I wonder, and hope.

Because I didn’t know the outcome, I felt somewhat uneasy.

Okay, let’s check it out.

Jesse was about to reach for her phone in the subspace.

Suddenly, a voice came from the other side of the private room door.

“Klee, can you take care of the patient for a minute?”

……Klee?

Wait, Klee?

Cleodia, the author of The Cultivation of Elixirs?

“Sure.”

Klee approaches with a soft voice. It was Klee, not Jesse, who was surprised by the unexpected meeting. When Klee saw Jesse raising her upper body, she jumped up and down.

“Uh, when did you wake up? I’m not sure if you’re still stable……!”

In addition to truth, the quest for anomaly is not neglected.

It was a Magic Tower that faithfully followed the trends of the new era.

The news of the spacetime duel had reached the tower.

Klee laid Jesse down and spoke.

“You must be Jesse Heinness. I’ve watched you in action, and you are truly remarkable! It seems like only yesterday that you were an apprentice mage, and now you’ve reached a level of skill that even the most senior mages admire.”

Klee hastily replied.

“No, I’m still a long way from that!”

“Humble yourself.”

“Really, it’s more than that, it’s a huge help!”

“……Yes? Me?”

Could it be that she mistakenly thought I had taken care of her injuries? Such a misunderstanding would make me feel sorry for the fellow healing mage who had been taking care of Jesse until now.

But it wasn’t a misunderstanding.

“No, it’s not like that, Adept Mage Cleodia’s book, The Cultivation of Elixirs, really helped me in the duel, I swear!”

“Yes, yes, yes?!”

Klee was genuinely surprised.

The Cultivation of Elixirs.

I wonder who’s going to open it.

A boring book with a boring title.

Would Miss Jibril have said such a thing?

-“There are times when Chief Lee’s name is too powerful, Miss Klee. Look, it’s a brand new book, right? Of course, all recently published magic books have been reviewed by Chief Lee, but this is too harsh. Somewhere, somewhere more visible…….”

The value of research is not measured by attention.

As Senior Bellier said.

Although Klee wasn’t hurt.

On the contrary, Jibril was furious that her research had been buried.

So, she’d read about the cultivation of such an elixir.

“Did you really, really read my book?”

Klee asks with a twinkle in her eye.

“Yes! Page 1,324 to be exact…….”

“And it’s definitely about Maslova, isn’t it?”

“That’s right, about Maslova’s aphids!”

The cone hat looked cynically at the two arguing mages.

Mage.

A race that can’t stay close to each other because of their innate nature.

-Yes. Try to get along now.

The relationship will probably fall apart sooner or later.

-I’m not saying this because I don’t have friends.

Nor am I envious.

It was the moment when cone hat added to his disciple to avoid any misunderstanding.

Klee hurried off somewhere and brought back a sealed letter.

“Acha, Miss Jesse, she asked me to give it to you when you wake up.”

“To me? Which one?”

The Twilight Mage clan and the Witch of the Southern Sea, perhaps.

Could it be Ms. Mary?

Jesse thought as she took the letter.

“Mary-nim delivered this to me…….”

Of course, it’s Mary.

“Surely, she said it was from Chief Lee.”

……jiig.

Jesse’s words trailed off.

She broke the letter’s wax seal.

She read Hoyeol’s handwriting on the letter.

Slowly, an exclamation point appeared in Jesse’s pupils.

──────

Congratulations on your entry into the spacetime social hall.

──────

A line of text that began with an emotionless congratulation.

──────

But if you ask me, Jesse Heinness, if you have truly attained the rank of full Transcendent. I would say no. For if I could, I would have voted against your entry into the Spacetime Social Hall.

──────

When Jesse read the above paragraph, the cone hat was angry instead.

Even if he was the chief.

He’s really killing other disciples’ spirit.

“…….”

However, it was as if I had not skimped on even a single page of the book.

Jesse didn’t even skim through Hoyeol’s letter.

──────

However, I have watched you and Urs duel in spacetime. It is safe to say that your manifestation has already reached the level of a Transcendent, and I, too, vote in favor of your stance on the Spacetime Social Hall.

──────

Of course, the standards are very strict.

──────

P.S. I would still advise you to stay away from the social circles.

──────

And, as usual from you, Chief Lee.

“Stay away from social circles, I’ll take your advice!”

Jesse folded the letter and tucked it away in her subspace. She pulled out her smartphone. She had a rough idea of the whereabouts of the duel with Urs from Hoyeol’s letter.

‘But I want to see it with my own eyes.’

To see how far I’ve come.

But Jesse couldn’t see her battle.

From the first screen, an unbelievable article came to mind.

[Shining Guild Executive, ‘Dmitry Malcolm’ dies]

Jesse’s eyes drained of life.

“……Dmitry?”

*

After the emergency update.

Evil Eyes have risen from the Collapse Rift. The most significant change is the status abnormality [Corruption] that Evil Eye invokes. A thick middle finger points at the Evil Eye in the night sky.

“Fuck you.”

It’s just plain fucked up.

“Fucking assholes.”

Corruption.

Unlike Fear, there was little information available about Corruption. It’s a new status abnormality that even the AAU doesn’t know about. Even as the players hunted the unleashed monsters, they couldn’t shake the nagging feeling.

“Senior Dmitry, you really don’t know anything?”

Shining.

Executive, Dmitry, had returned to reality from the Arcana continent. He couldn’t turn a blind eye to his country in ruins, but his guildmates were getting impatient.

Bam.

Dmitry kicked at the rubble.

“Don’t tell me you don’t know, in the first place, where is the player who is close to Lee Hoyeol? It’s not like I’m a weirdo, and the Holy War Alliance isn’t much different from me, right?”

This is the arrogant Lee Hoyeol.

The Great Alliance, of course.

Not even the most prominent Arcanians would have such a close relationship with Lee Hoyeol. Heck, no one even knows where he is or what he’s doing right now.

“Really?”

Anger boils over at his persistence.

‘If I keep going like this, I’ll fall behind even Camilla.’

Even excluding Lox.

Why did he or Camilla come back to reality?

It was simple.

This was because Camilla was burning up a motivation that had rarely been seen before.

-“I’m going after Jesse.”

She must have had a psychological transformation when she helped Jesse after she fainted during the spacetime duel. Although Dmitry willingly gave up the opportunity to Camilla, he couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable inside.

“……Shit.”

He was barely keeping it together.

“Why are you guys doing this to me?”

Now the clueless juniors were scratching their heads.

Why are you asking about Lee Hoyeol?

Isn’t it weird to think that they got along in the first place?

It was a long time ago now.

”Thinking about that article, I still can’t……!”

Lee Hoyeol’s article about Shinhwa Guild Master Baek Yi Seol’s courtship was still fresh in his mind, as was the atrocity of the station’s bastards who published his failed proposal right next to it.

‘I thought I was going to be so embarrassed.’

Dmitry calmed down.

“Whoa, that’s it. What do you guys know?”

Let’s just clean up and get back to work.

Dmitry ignored the guild members’ complaints.

He hunted the monsters that had been released from the Collapse Rift.

It was then.

His eyes flashed.

[Demons appear].

“!”

……Demons?

More important than that was the appearance message.

An appearance message meant that it was an obvious powerful force.

“Everyone on guard!”

Dmitry immediately took a combat stance.

But it was strange.

No matter how hard he craned his neck, he couldn’t see the demon.

A voice from behind him.

“Then Dmitry, was there anything strange?”

“Strange? What kind of bullshit…….”

“No, I mean Lee Hoyeol.”

……Is that still the sound?

A demon has appeared, and you can’t get away from talking about Lee Hoyeol.

What kind of asshole still hasn’t gotten over it.

As an executive of The Shining, I need to be harshly reprimanded.

That was the moment Dmitry turned around.

“……!”

Dmitry recognized it now.

Status Abnormality, [Corruption].

A new status effect.

It wasn’t a possession.

It was literally a perfect ‘corruption’.

“You, you!”

Dmitry stuttered.

The guildmate he faced was no longer in human form.

They would never be human again.

It had changed into an ugly shape.

It was an unfathomable demon.

“You were asking me earlier if I knew anything about Lee Hoyeol, you.”

Swoosh.

A flying attack.

Blood splattered before Dmitry’s eyes.

A new message flashed.

[The Half-Blood Demon, the Demon of Curiosity, craves the answer.]

“……!”