Chapter 54

Chapter 54 : Even Artisans Are Selective About Their Tools (5)

“I have been waiting.”

For me?

“I dislike cold places, but because it was My Lord’s command, I obeyed. I was able to overcome it all. I was not lonely. No, I was lonely. Wondering when My Lord’s shadow would come to find me― I endured the years, counting the days one by one. Ahh― at last……!”

I wondered whether I should run while staring at the bastard, who looked as though he might start tearing up if I left him alone a little longer.

Because I instinctively knew that the dense Red Mist spread around the bastard as he clasped both hands and trembled with emotion was a type I had never seen before.

Even without that, everything about him was dangerous, from his entrance to his expression, the way he spoke, and his excessive gaze.

The fact that he could freely wander inside the innermost barrier already told me all I needed to know.

If the system had been functioning properly, it might have kept throwing up danger warnings. It might have even made a fuss with special-character nonsense, saying I had approached an Abnormal Route.

I felt an irrational irritation toward the silent system and frowned around the eyes.

“My Lord? Why do you say nothing?”

The bastard quietly examined the change in my expression, then spoke with a look of such despair it was as though he had lost the world.

“Was I…… unworthy of your trust? If I failed to carry out my mission properly, then please rebuke me……!”

“Um…….”

That is not it. It is because you are scary.

“Yes! Give your command!”

Seeing the bastard’s eyes brimming with expectation, one person came to mind—who he had mistaken me for. The person I had been mistaken for again and again, enduring countless suspicions and tests, and whom the system also seemed to be pushing me toward as something like his successor.

I am not Sek.

―was not something I could say.

I could not bring myself to speak to a bastard longing so blindly for recognition.

I admit it.

I had no power to deal with this bastard.

If denial meant having my life sliced away, then surely I could tell a white lie.

“I have lost all my memor―.”

“―Please speak freely. I am so overcome with emotion that I feel I may stop breathing and collapse!”

What a strange bastard.

“……I have lost all my memories, so I do not understand this situation.”

“Pardon? You do not remember me?”

“Not just you. I simply lost every memor―.”

“―It does not matter. Please do not reject my loyalty. That alone is enough.”

If earlier he had looked ready to cry from emotion, now he looked like a puppy whining in fear of being abandoned.

I glanced at the necklace the bastard was still clutching, then looked back at him.

Was he thinking I was something like the Ruler of the Sky because I had been wearing the necklace…… no, that could not be it.

No matter how I looked at them, those Red Eyes suited the Underground more than the sky.

“May I ask who you think I am……?”

The bastard tilted his head, wondering why I would ask that, then seemed to understand and nodded.

“You are the one and only My Lord in all the world, Lord Sek, who leads the Underworld!”

I had held on to the slightest expectation, but of course it was that. Just how far had that tiresome bastard named Sek scattered his traces?

“Then who are you?”

“Ah! I am Murel, My Lord’s confidant, who also holds the position of Director of ‘Ruka,’ the secret agency directly under the Underworld First Command!”

Unknown titles came pouring out one after another.

Just as he had thoroughly mistaken me for Sek, this bastard seemed to be an Underfolk who had aided him at close range. Though for someone like that, he was still clinging to the ankle of the wrong person.

An Underfolk discovered in the middle of the curse placed upon Sky’s Domain, and the confidant of the Former Underworld Lord at that.

If Hwipone knew, he would start frothing at the mouth this instant.

Avoiding the bastard’s burdensome gaze, I looked around for no reason, searching for traces of Hwipone, who had vanished.

Come to think of it, this place was in far better condition than the area beyond the curtain.

The raging blizzard had calmed, and as for the cold, I only felt the ordinary chill of a normal winter.

It did not match Hwipone’s warning that this place itself was impossible to approach.

Had this bastard taken up residence after driving out the members of the sky, or had he settled here after they migrated?

Between the Stronghold Phantasmal Species in each direction and the fact that an Underfolk had planted himself firmly inside—

I was extremely curious about the story behind it.

While I rolled my eyes alone and made my judgment, the bastard named Murel still remained kneeling in the snow, maintaining the same posture as when he first appeared.

Misunderstanding was his freedom, and if it gave him joy, well.

“Have you seen the person who was with me?”

“Do you mean that bird bastard?”

“……? For now.”

“I sent that bastard far away. When My Lord commanded me to guard this place, did you not order me to let no one in? Ah, since you said you do not remember, you would not know why I am here either…… then you did not come to find me…….”

The more he spoke, the lower he dropped his head, as though he might burrow into the ground, so I had to calm Murel down.

In this unfamiliar place, he was at least someone I could talk to.

“The objective is not important. We met in the end.”

“Thaaat is right! Yes. I…… repeated gloomy thoughts again and again, thinking My Lord had abandoned me.”

What if he really did abandon you?

“Every day, I chewed it over, wondering and repeating and regretting and lamenting what I had done wrong to My Lord―.”

“―Um, first, how about standing up?”

Murel was practically burying his forehead in the snow as he muttered. It felt uncomfortable just watching him, so when I told him to stand, he looked overcome with emotion again and sprang to his feet.

Truly sprang. He shot up like a released spring, and with his grotesquely long limbs, he was also a head taller than me.

The sight of him standing with his shoulders slightly hunched and his arms hanging limp looked gloomy, contrary to his appearance, so I clicked my tongue.

Had he always been like this, or did a person become like that after going mad from loneliness?

“My Lord, I would have no regrets even if I died—no, that is not true, but when I think of spending the rest of my life following My Lord everywhere without ever leaving your side, I am so deeply moved that I believe dying once would be all right. My Lord would resolve my lingering regrets, would you not?”

He seemed like he had simply been mad from the start.

Honestly, I wondered whether Sek had left him here because he was tired of dealing with this bastard’s fawning nonsense.

“Can you bring back the companion who was with me?”

“Why that bird bastard……?”

“For now, we are on friendly terms.”

“My Lord, I advised you again and again not to associate with bird bastards, yet you still refuse to listen and mingle with those gnats?”

The bastard’s sharp eyes shot up in displeasure.

Had he been trapped here since the days when war was being repeated over and over?

The raw hostility being conveyed was difficult to deal with.

“They will betray My Lord’s goodwill one day. I begged you not to come whining to me after being hurt somewhere you had no business being, and to stop giving them affection……. You remained unchanged.”

The gleam in Murel’s eyes looked as though he might search for the Hwipone he had flung away and tear him apart any moment, so I had to explain again and again.

That due to certain circumstances, I had lost my memories and nearly died, and the ones who saved me were the Surface Folk.

That they did not recognize me as Sek and, for now, were not hostile to me.

That I was resting quite peacefully while being looked after.

That I was with them for various reasons, so he should stop looking as though he was about to rip them apart. And so on.

“……Rather, the one dangerous to me in the current situation is the new Underworld Lord.”

“Would you please say that again?”

“The dangerous one is the new Underworld Lord―.”

“―Has he gone mad? A neeeew Underworld Lord? What bastard is that?”

Why do you keep interrupting and getting worked up after telling me to speak?

While I understood Murel’s way of thinking, I also felt so much lamentation that I swallowed my words. If he had my permission right now, he looked ready to rush out, seize Karon by the collar, and stage a rebellion against his superior.

Since there was also a visitor outside who I suspected to be Karon, I decided to handle my business quickly.

First, I gave up on making this bastard understand.

“Can you come with me and explain the details later?”

“Together…… are you serious?”

“Forget it if you do not want to.”

“Let us go. I am prepared to accompany My Lord anywhere, every step of the way.”

“First, bring my companion back.”

“Ggh…… understood.”

He grumbled something afterward, but I did not particularly want to know. It was obviously somewhere between nagging and pouting.

Soon, the Red Mist in the area tangled together and began to swirl violently.

It was like a Red Wave.

From far away, the wind screamed, and Murel’s hair shook as he sat calmly.

A strange feeling came over me.

That Murel, who wielded such powerful strength, would lower his head to me without hesitation.

At the end, the red energy soared into the sky, and when it plunged toward a specific coordinate, a half-frozen Hwipone appeared alone in front of me.

Hwipone’s eyes turned slowly, very slooowly, toward me.

It was as though he was cursing me with his eyes, saying, ‘Why are you fine?’

---

We moved after Murel, who walked while holding Hwipone by his frozen leg.

We crossed the pure white snowfield and faced a staircase that burrowed underground. It looked like a gate leading to hell, so I hesitated, but the patterns on the stairs were familiar, and I followed Murel downward.

Thick pillars bearing geometric patterns that supported the high ceiling, traces on the floor that suggested there had once been water there despite now being frozen, self-luminous ores and grotesque sculptures here and there, and sunlight that shone on them intermittently.

It was a familiar atmosphere.

An extension of the places I had nicknamed ruins all this time.

“Hum~ hum-hum-hum~”

Murel looked happy as he kept humming to himself.

I moved beside Hwipone and met the look in his eyes demanding an explanation.

‘I am telling you, I do not know either.’

Having suddenly ended up watching the moods on both sides, I cursed my harsh life and thought about the excuses I would have to give going forward.

If Murel had anything called tact, I hoped he would stop calling me My Lord or Sek.

“My Lord, we only need to go a little farther.”

Mm, so he has no tact.

Let us ignore the fact that Hwipone’s gaze grew even sharper.

Murel muttered to himself the entire way, spilling out information.

The most interesting part among it was that he had lived here alone for a full two hundred years.

Sky’s Domain had undergone its large-scale migration a little before that, so it would be fine to say Murel had been here since shortly afterward.

On top of that, Murel was a “Creator.”

The fierce snowstorms like barriers, the Stronghold Phantasmal Species guarding each direction, and the unfinished, grotesque Phantasmal Species were all games and defense mechanisms Murel had made.

He called them “toys,” but it would have been impossible to hold out alone across this vast land.

Because this was a cursed land isolated from the outside, only a limited number of Phantasmal Species existed here, and the current state was the result of his using them to the fullest.

He had placed plausible and powerful things outside, and since he himself was in the innermost area, he had put things that were Phantasmal Species in name only there.

That was why the Phantasmal Species here were unstable, and why most of their puzzle pieces were not intact.

Had Murel soothed his boredom for two hundred years by changing the abandoned Sky’s Domain to suit his own tastes?

“Hum-hum~ hum-hum-mm-mm~”

That was why I could not even guess how great the joy contained in that humming was.

That bastard Sek might actually have been selfish.