Episode 574. It’s getting blurry (4)

Magic Tower.

Looking through the Magic Tool, [Old Eagle’s Monocle], I can see a thousand miles.

Bensch’s golden hair flutters in the wind.

“No matter how you look at it, it’s the same as then, Vangrit.”

Seeing the black magic enveloping the Seongseon Middle School.

Bensch said that.

I didn’t have to ask what was the same.

“Do you think Chief Lee is suffering from runaway……?”

Bensch and Vangrit.

The two had met on Jeju Island, where Paimon had appeared.

They were facing Grandfell.

His cold gaze was clearly different from his usual behavior.

Bensch couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he spoke calmly.

“There is no human being in the world who does not suffer.”

“Well, since you say so, Senior Vangrit, I must confess, I once thought so myself. If there’s a man in the world who doesn’t suffer, I wonder if it’s not you, Senior.”

He was chatty as always.

Vangrit turned and looked.

The corners of Bensch’s mouth turned up with effort as he spoke.

“Why, it’s inevitable, isn’t it? From the moment he set foot in the Magic Tower, Chief Lee, he hasn’t paused for a single moment to look back, solving without hesitation the problems that mere mortals like us wouldn’t dare to tackle.”

A genius among geniuses.

“Because to me, it seemed as if he already knew the answer.”

Statements that would make even the most senior members of the Magic Tower held their tongues.

So this was neither humility nor sternness.

Vangrit laughed bitterly at Bensch.

“If that’s the case, I don’t think I’m qualified to speak, after all, I’m not the first senior mage to go missing during a regular conference, and not only that, I was tricked by the elders into becoming a demon worshipper…….”

Even with the benefit of hindsight.

They were all incidents that they couldn’t easily think of a solution to.

But you were different.

You.

Chief Lee.

Bensch shrugged his shoulders and continued.

“You handled all of those incidents as if they were no big deal, never once bending over, always standing upright. Sometimes I wondered if you were somehow beyond time and space.”

“……Heh.”

I see you’re making your usual nonsensical jokes.

You must have gotten your emotions under control.

As Vangrit had expected, Bensch was looking at the situation rationally.

“Which is why I’m both puzzled and concerned, Vangrit. What could possibly be driving Chief Lee to such extremes?”

“I don’t know.”

“With even Barbatos dead, what is keeping Chief Lee from letting go. Could it be because of those insignificant demons? I, a mere mortal, cannot fathom it, Vangrit.”

No, if you dispose of it.

Exploration of the Anomaly.

Vangrit had not neglected to learn about the world of adventurers.

So he had some idea of the role the school played.

Vangrit opened his mouth cautiously.

“ … Perhaps middle school is a place that means a great deal to Chief Lee. If Barbatos found out about it, and chose that place to provoke him in the first place.”

Certainly a demon could do that.

It was a story with high potential.

Bensch nodded.

“Then perhaps Barbatos knew he was going to meet a miserable end, and he invited Chief Lee to join him. Perhaps this has all been Barbatos’ plan all along.”

“ ……! ”

Bensch added added to Vangrit, who was making a fuss.

“But even his plans are coming to an end, Vangrit. All of the world will be watching to see what our chief will do with those lumps of flesh.”

Vangrit replied impatiently.

“Uh, whatever he decides to do with them, I don’t think anyone can question Chief Lee choice, right? Senior Bensch knows that, right? That unlike possession, there is no solution to corruption!”

Bensch nodded.

“I know, and that’s why I’m furious.”

“….Yes?”

“Because no matter what choice he makes, Chief Lee will have no choice but to suffer again.”

That’s right, Barbatos.

He’d thrown a question with no right answer and damned him to hell.

Bensch clenched his fists.

His pupils seemed to burn like fire.

“If it weren’t for my injuries, I would have burned the corrupted humans first, so that Chief Lee wouldn’t have to suffer. So that no one would ever speak bullshit to him, Vangrit.”

Vangrit didn’t bother to reply, but he didn’t feel much differently.

Is it thanks to the silence that has come?

He began to hear the chatter around him.

Conversations coming from the lobby of the Magic Tower.

“Crazy, I never thought I’d hunt the Twelve like this.”

“Barbatos, you’re not going to get anywhere, are you?”

“What’s going to happen to those citizens?”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but it’s a necessary sacrifice.”

“True, but compared to Jeju Island, it’s a small price to pay…….“

This was not what I wanted to hear.

Sigh.

Vangrit shook his head and squinted a little more.

‘Chief Lee, in his runaway state…….’

He reacted in such a way that he could have harmed himself and Bensch. It was a state similar to ‘Blackening’, that’s what Chief Lee said.

‘Yes, it may be a sacrifice we have to make.’

So it was too much to hope that the corrupted humans would survive. Vangrit bit his lip hard. From now on, he would have to steel his resolve.

‘There will be more shaking for Chief Lee in the future.’

But you must not waver, Vangrit.

It was at this moment that he steeled himself against his growing weakness.

Suddenly, a voice called out.

“What?”

I cried out in disbelief.

“……Hey, isn’t there something different about that one?”

The background is not Seongseon Middle School.

There was a single Evil Eye shining down on Seongseon Middle School. Yes, that’s right. Unlike the other Evil Eyes, the 《Objective Eye》 emits a brilliant light and only shines down on Hoyeol.

*

I wonder when it started.

When he started acting so unreasonably.

It was probably after that day.

“Ho-yeol, can’t we go to your house to play? Why, now you’re saying we can’t? Is it because you have a red ticket on your house? What, are you paying attention to that and playing with us? I didn’t see it that way……. Were you pretending to feel superior?”

Choi Changwoo.

Now that I think about it, ……. Choi Changwoo was just a pitiful guy. Because he was a guy who couldn’t hang out with his friends normally, unless it was a lie or an altercation.

‘You were particularly terrible back then.’

As I grew older and came into contact with more people, I realized. In the end, Choi Changwoo was just one of many human figures.

In that sense, it wasn’t Choi Changwoo who left me with a scar.

“Hoyeol, this is the result of that pitiful sympathy.”

To put it bluntly.

‘Hyunmin, it’s probably closer to you.”

At that time, I just wanted to be friendly with everyone. When I saw Hyunmin, who was always alone, I just wanted to take care of him.

‘To be honest, I was even a little proud of myself.’

Maybe that’s why I was looking forward to it. Even if my situation was different from before, even if Choi Changwoo had said something to me, I thought that Hyunmin would understand me at least as much as you.

-“Look, Hyunmin said he doesn’t want to talk to you either, right?”

Yeah.

That experience probably had an effect or two.

Grandfell, and you, too.

There is give and take in everything.

Because I secretly harbor such feelings.

Grandfell, I don’t know why you say things like that.

Actually, is that all there is?

The fact that we still have such a stiff relationship with the players of the Great Alliance, including Nam Taemin, who I wouldn’t be surprised if someone would accept as a friend rather than a colleague, and with the Arcanians, including Harkon and Marcelo, may all be due to the bad influence I had back then.

In that sense, I apologize from the bottom of my heart, Grandfell.

‘I feel like I’ve only been blaming you all this time.’

Status Abnormality, the effects of [Blackening].

I suppose it’s because of what’s inside me.

A part of me I didn’t even know I had.

I can look at it in more detail.

Thanks to that, I realize.

‘In the end, it was all because of me.’

Grandfell

I’m beginning to feel ashamed of myself for calling you a tired personality. I’m starting to feel embarrassed that I criticized you for having a tired personality.

I laughed bitterly.

‘ …..I really want to hide in a rat hole.’

When I look inside myself, I realize.

If I were alone.

I realize that I couldn’t have gotten through any of the trials.

In that sense, it would have been you, Grandfell, not me, who would have been complaining, right?

‘I would have been nothing but a shackle to you.’

Maybe I was just a nagging evil spirit, nagging you to stop worrying about your tea bag green tea, but you don’t have to worry anymore, Grandfell.

I told you, right?

My specialty is understanding topics.

From now on.

‘From now on, you can do whatever you want, Grandfell.’

Whether you drink tea bag green tea all the time, or grow green leaves in Elegant Flower Gardens, I will no longer have the right to tell you what to do, Grandfell, because I’ve come to realize how insignificant I, Lee Hoyeol, am.

‘It was impossible. To me and to you.’

I know that, but please do me one last favor, Grandfell.

I, Lee Hoyeol, do not have the power to reverse the corruption of the people.

But maybe you can, right?

‘So I’m begging you.’

If it’s possible.

Forever and ever.

Because I can wait in this Infinitely Deep Darkness.

Grandfell stared at the lump of flesh.

Something that was neither human nor demon.

To Grandfell, it was nothing more and nothing less.

If he wanted to kill it.

Just with that gaze.

No, he could have killed it without even looking at it.

But Grandfell didn’t.

Because Grandfell could see a use for this lump of flesh.

Grandfell shifted his gaze to the sky.

Power, Objective Eye.

The power he had gained by slaying Barbatos.

Grandfell looked at himself in the Objective Eye.

Yes, it was fading from within.

Because it was the only way to bring back the ‘light’.

The effects of the Objective Eye pulsed through his body.

To me

…..

The power of the Ten Thrones, itself.

I don’t resist it in the slightest.

Rather, it feels like it has regained its true master.

It exerts its power with pleasure.

To the light that is firmly mistaken for something else.

It illuminates an objective truth that cannot be denied.

It was then.

My vision flickered.

[Status Abnormality, ‘Blackening’ is lifted].

It was then.

“Hoyeol.”

The lump of flesh began to ooze liquid and open its mouth.

With a slurred voice.

It began to speak with difficulty.

“Please understand.”

It was then.

The voice that echoed in Light’s head began to fade.

《Someone dies》

It was then.

“Yourself.”

‘A ray of Light’ came to realize that he was a ‘Light’.

[You had acquired the title, ‘Light’].

It was the only light.

”……”

As always, it started to shine on someone.

“!”

[Class Quest: To the One Who Will Not Yield to Malice].