Chapter 571: Vestiges of Memory (4)

It was a study initiated to establish a new testbed for the Black Consumer Project, but through it, I realized that what could be gained was not the preservation of records, but abandonment.

“……”

Even if spacetime were fixed, only my failed potential self would be discarded within it. If possibilities were closed off at the moment of fixation, it would be impossible to use it as an experiment for the project. No, it was more akin to a downgrade of the project itself.

The journal didn’t end there.

Lennok immediately turned to the next page.

March 17. Alkaid proposed preserving the results of this research in this zone instead of discarding them.

“Preservation…”

I don’t think that statement—that it might be useful someday—was wrong, but it probably wasn’t for the purpose of reactivating the project.

“……”

He observes the fate of the world with an incredibly macroscopic and inhumane perspective. Despite contributing more to the project than anyone else, he seems to harbor less hope for it. I once directly asked him about this.

Kaiser didn’t seem to be the type to cram many facts onto a single journal page, as there wasn’t much content written on each.

He frantically turned to the next page.

He said that if one repeats countless failures, they eventually forget the very sensation of success. Considering the numerous derivative plans he had successfully brought to fruition, it was an unfitting remark.

It seemed that the sense of ‘correctness’ constructed within him was incomparably vaster than anything we could conceive. Others didn’t seem to perceive it yet, but I understood that his answer resembled the despair found at the end of an infinitely ominous future.

Kaiser’s normally unyielding handwriting was slightly disheveled.

The project will fail. The world will sink into a sea of darkness. I had to accept that fact.

“……”

At this point, had Kaiser understood that the world’s end was utterly hopeless, and that even the Black Consumer Project had no chance?

The journal continued from that point, picking up on the next date.

March 18. I was a bit gloomy, but after a good night’s sleep, I felt better. The world might end when I’m long dead, so does it even matter?

“……”

Lennok was speechless at the abrupt shift to an irresponsible tone.

He even flipped through the pages for a moment, wondering if the journal had been torn out or swapped in the middle.

Those who couldn’t overcome the occasional despair abandoned their research and left. Perhaps they headed to the Central City, where it’s said to be the only place of peace on this continent.

The Central City, Ars Nova.

Lennok stopped turning the pages for a moment after seeing those words.

The truth of the project he had obtained during his decisive battle with Madrich Onnion.

The devastation that the failure of the Black Consumer Project had supposedly wrought upon the Central City.

The nobles of Ars Nova pretended not to know, but it was self-evident that Yorta’s Hundred Demons’ Night Parade and Machina’s Ascension Gate were, to some extent, consequences stemming from them. Creating failed beings of ascension and meddling with causality probably wasn’t enough for them.

“……”

It wasn’t because they seized the continent’s most fertile granary that they were called the ‘Central City.’ That adage, that a third of the continent belongs to the center. Perhaps even the end of this world—

The journal cut off there, and all remaining pages were blank.

The strange thing was that the last page was torn out, as if someone had ripped it away.

The world’s end. The secret of the Central City.

Had Kaiser left without recording that crucial clue in this journal?

The moment Lennok checked the blank space left in the journal and gently touched the page.

“It means one of the three endings left in this world existed in Ars Nova.”

A voice came from behind him.

As if explaining the blank spaces in Kaiser’s research journal.

“……”

Despite the voice approaching without a sound, Lennok wasn’t surprised.

He had known from the start that the person had no intention of attacking him.

Lennok slowly turned his gaze, seeing a young man in a tuxedo.

A slender build and a peculiar expression, smiling kindly. His beautiful, almost white, platinum blonde hair was striking.

Wearing a tall fedora, with a staff held in his gloved, pure white hand, he looked like a magician performing a show.

He looked at Lennok, slowly removed his hat with a languid hand, then bowed deeply with an exaggerated gesture.

“A pleasure to finally meet you, Van. I can greet you now, at last.”

“Who are you?”

“An unofficial external advisor under the City Government’s Central Council.”

The young man straightened up, smiling, and said.

“And the Herald who represents the will of the Elder Council.”

“……”

“I have many names, but you may simply call me Silford.”

An insider with ties to both the Central Council and the Elder Council.

Did ‘Herald’ mean a superhuman who acted as the city’s will?

And Lennok knew of one individual he had defeated who held a similar position.

“It seems Madrich Onnion’s successor has already been decided.”

“Precisely. You’re quite perceptive, aren’t you?”

The young man, Silford, winked, then grinned and nodded.

“Originally, you, who personally defeated Onnion, were considered the leading candidate, but with the outbreak of the Sealed Zone incident and your whereabouts becoming unknown, the opportunity fell to me.”

“……”

A light, cheerful demeanor. A tone and inflection that were almost comical.

But contrary to the opponent’s lighthearted appearance, Lennok perceived that the young man simultaneously possessed the incredible prowess of both a warrior and a sorcerer.

He was superficially similar to the mad Clown, who concealed his Hierarchy, yet entirely different.

His friendly words and courteous demeanor were merely a mask for absolute self-control.

What lay hidden beneath was likely the nature of a slaughterer, accustomed to blood and battle.

“I told you the information not written in Kaiser’s journal to express my gratitude for that very fact.”

Silford smiled and adjusted his hat.

“Because the third ending, rumored to exist in Ars Nova, was something even Kaiser at that time only vaguely suspected.”

“……”

“Kaiser recorded his conjectures in the journal multiple times, and the Elder Council has faithfully retrieved those remnants all this time.”

He pointed to the journal in Lennok’s hand with his pure white gloved hand and spoke.

“And that is one of the duties that those who hold the position of Herald must fulfill.”

“A duty to fulfill…”

After hearing that much, Lennok realized who his opponent was and why he had been chosen as Onnion’s successor at this point.

“As expected, you were also involved with the Black Consumer Project.”

The young man before him was also a formidable powerhouse with an incredible history, having participated in the Black Consumer Project decades ago, and was one of the individuals involved in that incident.

That’s why, immediately after Onnion’s death, he was able to take on the position of Herald for the Elder Council and engage in external activities.

“Hmm, rather than ‘involved’…”

Silford, fiddling with the brim of his hat with an awkward smile, said.

“Those who resided in Vulcan at that time inevitably became entangled with Kaiser in some way. Either cooperating with him or opposing him… I was closer to the former.”

“So you cooperated with the project, but weren’t involved?”

“It was because Kaiser, that friend, had a will too immense to ignore. To toy with the world’s survival, placing it on the scales of success and failure—isn’t that truly foolish?”

Silford chuckled amusedly, slowly tapping his staff.

“As I mentioned earlier, I’m here today to retrieve Kaiser’s research journal, but…”

Sliink!!

A faint glimpse of a sharp blade emerged from within the staff’s handle.

While Lennok’s gaze deepened at the sight, Silford casually retracted the blade and spoke.

“Very, very specially!! I’ll let this pass as if I didn’t see it today.”

“……”

“Huh? Your reaction isn’t as good as I expected? I’m doing my part for you, who handed over this position.”

“Acting as Onnion’s successor, representing the Elder Council’s will? I’m not interested.”

Lennok replied indifferently.

“If I were tied down by them like that, I wouldn’t be able to move as freely as I do now. I don’t want such constraints or shackles.”

It wasn’t that the opportunity to observe them closely as a member of the City Government’s Central Council or the Elder Council wasn’t valuable.

However, if he were to ally with them under his Van identity, he would have to give up a considerable amount of the freedom and authority he had gained in the shadows.

As long as he operated under their supervision, it would become difficult to maintain multiple identities as he did now.

Lennok knew this, which was why he felt no regret about that position.

At this point, with his identities divided, it wasn’t Van who needed to climb the ranks of the Central Council.

Given that the researcher Evan, who had immediately caught the attention of the higher-ups through the announcement of his anti-gravity technology, already had an opportunity on that side, there was no need to cling to Silford’s position.

“I see… Hmm, I thought you would like it if I boldly forfeited my first assigned mission.”

As Silford grumbled, his shoulders slumped in disappointment, Lennok let out a small laugh.

“I don’t know why you’re pretending to be generous. You’ve already surmised the journal’s contents, and you probably think there’s no real value in securing it, don’t you?

“……”

“You seem to have finished your calculations the moment you spoke to me. It would be stranger if you thought I wouldn’t notice.”

Lennok had no intention of blindly accepting favors from someone he had never met before.

“You must have already noticed that the exposure phenomenon in the Sealed Zone has ended, and all you need to do is report it to your superiors. You only came to find me to ascertain what happened here in advance.”

Lennok’s eyes gleamed coldly as he gazed at the smiling Silford.

“That’s because you want to confirm how much more I’ve learned about Kaiser.”

“…Huhu, your words are quite uninhibited. And you’re as remarkably astute as I’ve heard.”

Silford let out a light sigh, slowly peeled off one glove, and grinned.

“But if you act so honestly, you’re bound to be disliked by the foolish at times.”

The moment the young man caressed the air with his bare, ungloved hand, a platinum-colored halo of light burst forth from his fingertips, coiling around Lennok.

Crackle!!

The platinum light absorbed the mana flowing around Lennok, as if gathering the very power existing within spacetime.

But Lennok ignored the unknown magical power binding his body and stared into the young man’s eyes.

“I’ve encountered similar mana only once before.”

In Olivera Ron Maize’s laboratory, the Mystic Eye of the Outer Sea White that she had offered as a price.

The mana that flowed from that artifact, said to be the eye of the Central City commander, was flowing identically from Silford’s fingertips.

“And with the name Silford… did you really think I wouldn’t know who that name refers to?”

The fallen Ascendant who had projected his own body into an Outer God through the Well of the Codex.

Kebaek Aurel Silford.

Lennok had never forgotten that name for a single moment.

The two facts originating from the young man pointed to only one conclusion.

“A noble of the Central City. And from a very high status, at that.”

Lennok asked.

“And wasn’t it possible for you to tell me information about Ars Nova precisely because you originated from that city?”

“……”

For a moment, all expression vanished from Silford’s face.

The instant Lennok finished speaking, the radiance binding his body vanished as if it were a lie.

Swaak!!

The young man, who had been slightly bowing his head and touching the brim of his hat, slowly put his glove back on with a languid motion.

“Uhuhu… This is why I can’t dine with quick-witted friends for long, you know?”

Silford, who had regained his composure as if by magic, grinned at Lennok and shook his head.

“Let’s stop here for today. I’m not the only one designated as Onnion’s successor, and we’ll have plenty of opportunities to meet again in the future.”

Silford said that and turned to leave, but then, as if remembering something, added a remark.

“But you should be careful too, Van.”

“What do you mean?”

“I said that everyone at that time either cooperated with Kaiser or opposed him, didn’t I?”

The young man said, winking.

“Those who opposed Kaiser are still alive, residing within the Council and the Elder Council.”

“……”

“Those who dislike the truth are everywhere. Today, you came very close to that secret, and you undoubtedly grasped a fragment of the truth…”

The moment he subtly adjusted his tuxedo, Silford’s body slowly faded from where he stood.

As he dissolved into the air, the young man smiled.

“Someone will be very displeased with that fact.”

Shhhwwwiish!!

As if disappearing behind an invisible curtain of space, the young man’s body dissipated and vanished from the spot.

The Herald, designated as Onnion’s successor, was an enigmatic and cunning figure whose true intentions were impossible to discern.

The mere fact that a powerful individual of his caliber was only now appearing on the front lines was proof that he had been away from Vulcan for a considerable time before returning.

Lennok’s eyes grew cold.

‘A noble from the Central City bearing the same family name as Kebaek…’

Lennok, who had personally dismantled the geas of the fallen Ascendant, knew that Kebaek’s relatives had also been sacrificed in Ars Nova to create him.

In that process, those bearing the same Silford surname must have also been consumed as sacrifices for Kebaek’s challenge to ascension.

Despite this, was it merely a coincidence that a being calling himself Silford still survived and wandered the continent?

However, Lennok set aside such thoughts for a moment and reopened the journal he had closed.

There was no other reason for stopping his examination of the journal the moment he became aware of Silford’s presence.

It was because he had a hunch that Kaiser’s research journal contained not only the secret of the Central City but something else hidden within it.

If the last page of a research journal untouched for decades was torn, wouldn’t the culprit be none other than Kaiser himself, who wrote the journal?

Kaiser had, in fact, taken separate measures to ensure that only those who knew his secrets could view the journal’s last page.

‘The method itself wouldn’t have changed. Considering the traces left behind, it’s probably…’

He gathered Kaiser’s blood, which he had used to track the control room, and carefully applied it to the journal’s torn last page.

Crackle…!!

As if the forcefully torn journal page was regenerating by reversing time, its fibers slowly reformed and reattached to the end of the journal.

The last page of the journal was not filled with Kaiser’s writing, but with a drawing.

An intricate blueprint depicting the shape of a massive room.

Below the blueprint, a series of indecipherable numbers were scrawled.

[135,472,522,654. 324,715,284,163.]

“Is it a code?”

[Given the numerical notation, it doesn’t seem overly complex.]

Davi, perking her ears from within his coat, saw the numbers and immediately deduced the answer.

[The fields that use numbers of this magnitude are limited. Among them, if the two numbers have the same number of digits, they are likely planet-scale reference coordinates, using a hundred-million unit coordinate system.]

Davi projected a holographic map before Lennok, quickly beginning her tracking based on the hypothesis.

[If we set March 15, 17, 18, and 21 as the estimated journal entry dates, and calculate coordinates centered on Vulcan, there are four candidate locations converted by date. And among them, the region presumed to be the most significant analytical result is…]

“…The Machine City, Machina.”

Lennok’s eyes deepened as he confirmed the location marked with a red dot on the map.

Unlike the other three candidate locations, the coordinates for March 21 precisely pointed to the name of a city.

“I see. The reason he left his journal in a region where the research had already concluded was…”

Kaiser hadn’t simply abandoned this zone after his spacetime fixation research failed.

The secret of the Central City, Ars Nova, which he had come to realize through Alkaid at the point his research failed.

An extension of the Black Consumer Project.

Kaiser had hidden a clue and a destination on the last page, to prove the conjectures he had left in the journal.