Chapter 973: The Archive of Darkness (1)

“It seems you’ve made your decision.”

“You’ve merely clarified the conditions. Don’t misunderstand.”

The top floor of the Cartel’s headquarters. Virgil’s office.

Lennok glanced back at Virgil, who stood back with a tense expression, then turned his gaze. On the chair behind the wide office desk sat a doll wearing a veil.

Each time the doll slowly shook its head, a familiar telepathic message flowed from behind the veil.

“No unnecessary talk. I’ll get straight to the point.”

“I’m listening.”

In exchange for a part of Anathema’s body, Lennok had requested Olivera’s direct accompaniment to the Outer Tribulation City. While there were several ways to reach the Outer Tribulation City, involving Olivera herself was ultimately the most efficient way to ensure the deal went through.

Even his act of subduing Anathema at the summit and raising objections to the initial deal wasn’t just to make the path to Kundara clearer.

From the moment she called Lennok back, he could guess what decision she had made.

“Naturally, just because you want to go to Kundara doesn’t mean I can take you there immediately.”

“I’d prefer not to hear you spoil things from the start.”

“Didn’t you say you’d listen quietly?” the doll declared, raising its head firmly as if refusing any retort.

“As I’ve said several times, the Outer Tribulation City is hidden beyond the veil surrounding the Central Front, making its location impossible to find by ordinary means.”

“……”

“The reason Kundara created the veil in the first place was that their safety was directly and practically linked to it.”

“I’ve heard about the veil and the Orbital Cycle many times, so I’m aware.” Lennok tilted his head and replied. “I also understand that preparations are needed to solve that problem. What are you trying to say?”

Lennok, who had been investigating Kundara for a long time, knew that considerable preparation was required to go to the Outer Tribulation City.

From the first time he heard about the Orbital Cycle from Claris Richellen, Aris Richellen’s master and a Long-lived Being, it was clear that he couldn’t enter Kundara without resolving that issue.

What Lennok wanted to know was whether Olivera had a method in mind for bending the Orbital Cycle. If she had simply decided to accompany him at this meeting, Lennok could find a way himself. However, if she had already thought of a solution for the Orbital Cycle, things might become a little easier.

“Before we discuss that, we should finalize the trade conditions you requested.” Olivera cut off Lennok’s words with a sharp voice. “Indeed, there’s a reasonable aspect to the adjustment of the deal you requested. At the time of the initial deal, Anathema’s death itself wasn’t discussed… and witnessing the death of that hypocrite was quite a satisfying experience.”

“……”

“Anathema’s remains. From them, I will take the right arm, liver, horn, and thigh tendons.”

A chilling voice quietly resonated through the office.

“In return, I will personally accompany you and fully cooperate until you arrive in Kundara…”

Suddenly, Olivera paused her words and slowly whispered. As if she needed a moment to prepare to say those words.

“…I swear upon my two eyes.”

“Anathema’s body parts. Should I take them out right here in the office?”

If she was making an oath not on any other item, but on her own mystic eyes, there was no need to argue further at this point.

At Lennok’s immediate reply, the doll tipped its head back with an irritated expression. “As I’ve repeatedly stated, you should be grateful that this contract is clearly a loss for me. Normally, such a deal would never—”

“Ah, it spilled.”

Thud!!

A gigantic, scale-covered arm fell directly from the sub-dimension Lennok had opened. A muscular arm, drenched in blue blood. Scales and goat hair were chaotically mixed on its skin.

“Wait, Van…!!”

Virgil, who had been quietly observing the conversation, cried out in alarm and caught Anathema’s falling arm.

Thump!!

Virgil stumbled, burdened by Anathema’s right arm, which was far larger than his own body. His eyes wavered for a moment as he looked at the blue blood dripping from the arm’s severed end.

Lennok chuckled, watching him.

“You can have the blood that spilled in the office, Virgil. Consider it a down payment.”

Vampires were demi-humans who craved blood from birth. It was not strange for Virgil, a central city noble, to feel a vampiric urge towards the blood of Anathema, who had fallen as an Apostle. If Madam had been there, she would have offered all sorts of deals to get a bottle of blood from Lennok.

But Virgil bit his lip even after hearing Lennok’s words, and struggled to raise his gaze.

“It’s precious blood that the Chairman obtained through a legitimate transaction. I cannot touch a single drop.”

“A perfect answer. Especially considering Olivera is still watching.” Lennok raised a hand towards the doll. “If you want, I could temporarily cover her eyes.”

“What nonsense are you spouting in front of me?”

At the doll’s chilling telepathic message, Lennok smiled and lowered his hand.

“I will directly designate where Anathema’s remains should be stored. Come alone to the coordinates I will now give you.”

“Then, should I retrieve this right arm?”

“…No. Keep it in the headquarters’ underground vault.” The doll deliberated for a moment, then slowly sent a telepathic message. “Virgil. Extract the remaining blood from Anathema’s arm and send it to the research institute. Once the analysis is complete, I will permit you to drink it.”

“Chairman, I…”

“Helping your subordinate with self-improvement is also a virtue of a superior.” Lennok interrupted Virgil and nodded with a smile. “I’ll move immediately.”

“……”

Instead of replying to Lennok’s words, Olivera severed her consciousness with a cold sneer. Lennok turned, leaving the doll slumped in the office chair.

“Could you tell me later what effects drinking Anathema’s blood has? I know a few vampires myself.”

“……”

“If it can be used as a bargaining tool with vampires, it might be useful in its own way.”

“You… never mind. It’s strange for me to be giving advice about your dealings with the Chairman now.” Virgil looked bewildered, about to say something, then sighed. “Just be careful of one thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Chairman never agrees to anything she doesn’t want.” Virgil’s eyes glittered strangely as he looked at Lennok. “Perhaps your request wasn’t such a loss or an unpleasant request for her to begin with.”

“……”

“I don’t know why you want to go to the Outer Tribulation City, but perhaps the Chairman also has a personal objective in Kundara.”

“That’s a very… interesting answer.” Lennok, a cigarette in his mouth, turned to Virgil. “That might be quite important information for Olivera, so why are you telling me?”

“I simply hope that the Chairman and you maintain a good relationship.” Virgil instructed the secretarial office to transport Anathema’s arm and sighed softly. He murmured, watching the secretaries, their faces pale, place the right arm into a sack etched with runic script.

“Whether they like it or not, for the time being, the Cartel will move in the same direction as the Magic Tower. I just hope the two of you don’t clash in the process.”

“……”

“Even if the Chairman doesn’t say it directly, knowing these facts in advance will at least prevent a major conflict, won’t it?”

“Such admirable loyalty it brings tears to my eyes,” Lennok said with a laugh. “Alright. But that will be up to Olivera herself, not me. I haven’t met many spellcasters as proud as she is.”

“That’s something I can’t control. I can only do my best from my position…” Virgil said with a wry smile. “The Chairman already has too many enemies, you know. Nothing would be strange about what happens in the Outer Tribulation City.”

“It seems Olivera Ron Maize having many enemies is largely her own responsibility.” Lennok exhaled smoke and turned to leave.

“I’ll judge that as the situation demands.”

“Hmm, I suppose that’s only right, but…” Virgil gave a wry smile. “When was it ever not that way?”

“……”

The mega-city of Vulcan. Undeveloped area outside District 50.

The cool northern highland region, where arid mountains towered. It was long past midnight, so only pitch-black darkness enveloped the surroundings.

Thick tires spun violently, scattering dust.

A gleaming monster bike sped across the highlands in the darkness, then twisted sideways and came to a halt.

Screech!!

Lennok stopped the bike, sat on its frame, and spoke with a cigarette in his mouth. “I believe this area is beyond Vulcan’s administrative district.”

“……”

“You’re not planning to leave Vulcan immediately, are you? We haven’t even solved the veil problem yet.”

“The Sea of Understanding is particularly visible from this highland.” Olivera, standing on a hill with her ornate robe fluttering, replied without turning her head. “Conquering the Sea of Understanding, including the Pilenom Autonomous Region, was once one of Vulcan’s long-cherished projects.”

“I know things went awry due to the intervention of Heavenly Sight. I’ve seen her too.”

Lennok exhaled a puff of smoke and replied.

“I thought that matter was concluded after the Eyes of Blue was established.”

“No. I’m talking about what happened before that.” Olivera slowly turned her back and murmured. “It was one of the scenarios Kaiser had designed, and the very origin of the project.”

“……What did you say?”

“Obtaining the floating island clusters of the Autonomous Region and investigating the secrets slumbering beneath the Sea of Understanding…” Olivera’s indifferent telepathic message quietly resonated from behind her veil. “It was one of the several conclusions reached in the process of unearthing all the world’s failures.”

“……”

The Pilenom Autonomous Region, where the main branch of the Eyes of Blue was located, and the floating island clusters existing above the Sea of Understanding. He knew that the sea, where updrafts blew, held a particularly unique position and status.

Did she mean that a secret, equivalent to the project’s failure, existed beneath the Sea of Understanding? While Lennok remained silent at Olivera’s unexpected words, she casually walked past him and descended the hill.

“Well, it’s a meaningless story for now. You don’t need to pay much attention to it.”

“…Did you call me all the way here just to tell me that meaningless story?”

“Obtaining Anathema’s karma holds great significance,” Olivera said, then looked down at the distant cliff behind the rocky hill.

Whoosh!!

A cliff so deep that even using Lennok’s magical perception, he couldn’t see its end or the scenery on the other side. Beneath the sheer cliff, a chilling, almost murderous, sharp wind blew incessantly.

Was it his imagination that the sound of the wind, splitting as it hit the cliff, sounded like the screams of living humans?

“Even if it’s a temporary loophole, if you can bypass The Prohibition, you can accomplish more than you think.”

“……”

“Anathema’s horn.”

When Lennok threw Anathema’s right horn from his sub-dimension, Olivera grabbed it with one hand.

Crack!!

As she broke off the tip of the horn, it turned into finely ground powder in her hand. A grip so powerful it was hard to believe she did it with bare hands. Olivera scattered the horn powder down the cliff.

A delicate, reverent gesture, as if scattering ashes down a cliff. But the moment Olivera withdrew her hand and stepped back from the edge of the cliff.

Rumble, rumble, rumble…!!

With an intense vibration, the wind blowing from beneath the cliff began to cease. The canyon became instantly silent, as if the wind itself had been an artificial phenomenon.

Olivera looked at it and gestured to Lennok.

“Let’s go down.”

Whoosh!!

Without waiting for a reply, she took a step forward and plummeted down the cliff.

Lennok sighed and immediately jumped down the cliff as well.

Whoosh!!

Even though the wind had stopped, his clothes fluttered because of the cliff’s immense depth. Lennok looked at the bottomless void below the cliff, then suddenly looked at the cliff wall and gave a wry smile.

Countless bones and skulls, presumed to be human remains, were now densely hung all around the cliff face.

The undeveloped area of the mega-city of Vulcan.

No one would expect such a grim scene to be hidden deep within this secluded highland, where there was no sign of human presence.

As Lennok thought so and channeled his magic, coiling it around his body, the darkness overflowing beneath his feet enveloped both Lennok and Olivera, opening wide.

Flash!!

In an instant, the two found themselves in the middle of a colossal, endless cavern.

“……”

Black burning lamps illuminated the dark corridor, and a carpet made of processed black beast fur covered the floor. The furniture, made of ebony wood, and even the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, seemed to be crafted from obsidian.

A strange, illusory sensation, as if the surrounding scenery was distorted and stained pitch black.

“A dungeon,” Lennok said with interest, identifying the nature of the space. “Did they build a workshop and add barriers and spellcraft to turn it into a monster’s lair to repel intruders?”

Long ago, when Lennok first started working as a freelancer in Vulcan, he had heard rumors of a similar monster’s lair hidden near the undeveloped area, but this was practically the first time he had seen one firsthand. A secret place, not completely separated from the city, yet by no means close to its living areas.

“After the civil war, there were rats who hid to escape the city government’s interference. It wasn’t uncommon.”

“Sounds like there are more dungeons like this in the undeveloped areas.”

“There are probably a few more, not just in the northern highlands, but also near lakes, deserts, and swamps. I wasn’t interested enough to find their exact locations, but…” A faint sneer seemed to be mixed in her indifferent telepathic message. “This city’s districts are annoyingly vast. You should know better than I do.”

“……”

Olivera responded thus and walked unhesitatingly deeper into the cavern. As they went further into the cavern, the wall decorations increased, and several岔路 appeared.

The dark corridors seemed to shimmer, embracing shadows, as if to confuse intruders.

Lennok, observing the dungeon from behind Olivera, spoke. “They don’t seem to welcome us. But conversely, I don’t see any traps or guardian spirits either.”

“With me and you together, what dungeon master would dare send their soldiers here?” Olivera snorted, unimpressed by Lennok’s words. “It’s impossible unless they’re fools who deliberately court disaster. There’s no need to ask such a question.”

“Who was it that made such a big deal about taking a loss in this transaction?”

“……”

It was a rare and precious sight to see Olivera speechless. But before her will-thought turned chilling, Lennok calmly changed the subject.

“I’d like to see what kind of defensive measures these dungeons use. If we just smash the dungeon, won’t they crawl out on their own?”

“…Enough. There’s no need to go that far.” Olivera paused, taken aback by Lennok’s casual reply, and shook her head. “The master of this dungeon owes us something. If we push them appropriately, they’ll grant our request out of frustration.”

“Us?”

Olivera, fine, but did the master of this dungeon owe Lennok something too? As Lennok tilted his head, confused by her incomprehensible words, Olivera let out a cold laugh.

“From the moment they allowed us in here themselves, the outcome was already decided.”

Shhhhrk…!!

She walked without deliberating on which path to take at the crossroads. With that alone, the darkness and illusion lifted, revealing the surrounding scenery, and as the space around them opened up, a colossal cradle appeared.

A magnificent obsidian coffin, glowing luminously. Around the coffin, shriveled branches were tightly connected, consistently supplying something to the coffin, like an IV drip.

A gigantic infant, as if using that coffin as its cradle, sat leaning inside the crystal coffin, glaring at them.

“…Ah. I see.”

Lennok remembered the infant’s appearance and gave a bitter smile, shaking his head. A superhuman, presumed to be an 8-level black wizard, in the form of a giant infant. Tillian, the black wizard he had previously encountered at the summit, was indeed the master of this dungeon.

“Long time no see, Shandorey Tillian.”

Olivera walked forward with a low telepathic message and slowly raised her head. “I will peruse the Nox Biblio. You have the key to the archive, so open the door.”

“……What?”

“Has your hearing become dull, even with your body so regressed?” Olivera’s telepathic message turned chilling. “I said, bring me the access rights to that space, the archive that contains all information on the heretical arts, those not of this world.”