Chapter 66

Chapter 66 : The Edge of Truth (8)

Was there something in Mist’s Domain worth Karon waiting patiently for an entire year?

[Fame Value: 28]

I abandoned any thought of relying on Fame, which was still rising sluggishly, and decided I really did need to earn a new Achievement.

For my own safety, I needed Designated Original Work Viewing as soon as possible.

Karon was not the kind of bastard who would shrug off something he had worked on for a whole year just because Retu had not invited him.

That bastard was meticulous in everything, and not only when dealing with Ariti. He would do even worse if it meant protecting his own position.

There was a possibility that Karon would visit this place first on the date indicated by the Time Quest’s D-Day.

Was it just my imagination that my route kept overlapping with Karon’s, both in the former Sky’s Domain and here?

I could not be sure whether I was flailing after being caught by the bait Sek had thrown into the past, or whether the system was leading me down that path.

Or perhaps now that my grade had risen to Supporting Role, opportunities to come into contact with the Original Work’s main characters had naturally increased.

Even so, I refused to be the kind of character who gets stabbed by a main character in passing and dies young.

“At this rate, am I going to end up dead at some point……?”

Imagining my bones and flesh being separated, then even my Frame being peeled off and torn apart, I shook my head.

“But Black Mist probably cannot be used easily. Lord Iwon could handle it freely because you are Lord Iwon, but that mist has a will of its own and evaluates the lord…… I do not know who the new lord is, but it will be difficult, no?”

Murel, who somehow understood my muttering, removed one of my worries. On top of that, I seemed to have found one of the reasons Karon was so desperately looking for me—or more precisely, my body.

「It was a shadow that stole vitality. Karon’s Frame was a power that did not fall behind the previous lord’s in the slightest. One granted power over life and death for all things that take form.」

If that Frame was not simply its unique form, but rather a portion of the power granted to the lord’s seat—

Did he need me to use the ability?

It also explained why the Black Mist had been reluctant to enter the Phantasm Domain I had spread. It had essentially been the previous lord’s Frame activating out of nowhere.

“Whether it is difficult to use or not is unrelated. I do not know how it was two hundred years ago, but the current Black Mist has a structure that can be installed.”

“You mean it can be carried? Eeyah…… the world has improved.”

“And because of that improved world, we have to fix this.”

“Eeyah…… this is exactly why someone proper like Lord Iwon should be sitting in the lord’s seat.”

Murel immediately changed the subject, picking up what he had just said, then asked what drink he should order next and openly entered avoidance mode.

“For me, something reasonably sweet with ice.”

“That order is not advisable. The word reasonably is an extremely personal standard. When made according to my standard, the old Lord Iwon told me his tongue felt like it was going to melt.”

“Make it according to my standard, please.”

We were sitting at an outdoor table in the square right in front of the clocktower, where the tower was clearly visible.

We probably looked like we were having ordinary small talk, so there was no better place to speak with Pizer.

It was a place where no one needed to pay much attention, and words scattered enough that they were hard to overhear.

Assuming Black Mist had definitely been used—

Had some bold person slipped all the way into Mist’s Domain and acted as a spy?

Or had someone been persuaded, like Pering?

If thinking over it would have produced an answer, I would have thought about it for days.

I accepted a cream-mixed drink studded with colorful cookies and decided never to ask Murel for this sort of favor again.

---

My efforts to obtain an Achievement—loitering around the clocktower and creating incidents with members of the Mist—ended in failure.

Was finding a new Achievement supposed to be this hard?

Murel and I had been searching inside the clocktower for traces of Black Mist, only going outside when necessary, but the members of the Mist we met during that time were mostly limited to the same few people, so there was not enough variety.

They had said they called in all the repairers who had been sent to various regions to fix the clocktower, but were fewer repairers participating than expected?

I could not exclude the possibility that everyone had only gathered in name and was hiding away somewhere else.

Just as I was wondering how best to raise an Achievement, and whether I really did need to get hit after all—

I heard someone’s presence from below the clocktower.

The sound of footsteps climbing the stairs had no strength, but Herton, who had climbed the clocktower constantly by now, reached the top without even losing his breath.

“You are finally here?”

“Did the decision take a long time?”

“No. There is still time.”

We still had three days left.

I offered Herton a suitable place to sit and gestured for Murel to come over.

What Herton brought would likely be something that required mechanical knowledge or a Creator’s intuition, so Murel would be better than me.

“I thought about it carefully. Everything you said was right. I was paying for my guilt over failing to follow my mentor’s will by letting everything go.”

While only clinging to the notebook. Herton jerked his chin toward the notebook in my hand and added those words.

He was no longer the man with greasy hair and hollow eyes from a few days ago.

At the very least, his will to solve the cause of the clocktower problem together with me had revived.

I adjusted my posture and asked Herton,

“I obtained information that the culprit behind the clocktower is Black Mist. Do you know someone named Pizer?”

“I know him as a repairer who was in charge of the clocktower together with my mentor.”

“I coaxed him gently, and he spilled everything on his own. He said something called Black Mist filled the entire clocktower and then disappeared.”

Herton’s expression twisted fiercely.

His mentor had not been at fault. That alone was enough.

Herton clenched his fists, forced a twisted smile, and slowly steadied his breathing.

“There was nothing about Black Mist in the log my mentor left behind.”

“I looked through everything too and could not find it. Have you ever seen it yourself? If you were watching the clocktower all this time, you might have noticed something strange.”

Your house is close too.

Herton stroked his chin and sank into thought.

Chewing over memories from nearly a year was difficult. The human brain erased unnecessary memories in only a few days.

“Laughably enough, it was recent. One day before you arrived.”

“Eeyah…… that timing is suspicious.”

Too suspicious.

Had Karon’s plan even included that timing?

If Black Mist had erupted one more time, even stronger, to break their will to repair the clocktower and wait for the commission to come to him—

“Either Karon’s minion infiltrated this place, or a member of the Mist was persuaded. It has to be one of the two.”

“If you mean Karon, is that not the new Underworld Lord? Why? What grudge would he have against Mist’s land to do such a thing?”

“Who knows? That is what we have to find out now.”

“Have you informed the Ruler? This is a grave issue.”

I stopped Herton, who looked ready to run to the ruler’s castle at once. Scratching the back of my neck, I explained almost as though making an excuse to Herton’s harsh face.

“It has not been long since the Nonaggression Pact was concluded. If you think about what effect this incident might have on that pact, the answer is obvious.”

“Only fools let themselves be struck one-sidedly just to avoid war.”

“We are not being struck…… because the clocktower will be repaired in the end. So I am saying, please do not create any troublesome situation until I return.”

If word reached Retu at the wrong time and she tried to demand an official explanation, things could go very wrong.

My location could be passed along to Karon as well.

If this was already a board moving according to Karon’s plan, then it was even more dangerous.

“At least endure it until the clock is repaired. After that, I will not interfere.”

---

Black Mist was different from the Power of Phantasm.

Rather, it disliked the Power of Phantasm, so I placed the shrunken Fluffnix on my palm and moved from place to place as if searching for a water vein.

It was to see whether Black Mist would react even a little.

Meanwhile, as expected of a Creator, Murel gathered phantasmal energy and made a mini clock model. Because the original clock was so enormous, even making it palm-sized required incredible reduction technique.

I spent my time glancing at the tiny gears of the unfinished clock and helping them find their positions.

“Is it not this side rather than that side?”

“No matter how much Lord Iwon tries to set a trap, this is correct.”

“I am telling you it is not. If you consider the number and positions of the gear teeth, it is not that one, but this one.”

“I have seen more of it than you.”

“I saw a lot too.”

About two or three times.

Murel looked bewildered at my shameless words, but in the end, he moved the gear according to what I said.

The gear slotted perfectly into place and showed an organic flow with the existing ones.

Murel raised his brows, said I had touched a Creator’s pride, and began burning with even more intensity in his eyes.

I cackled while quietly watching Murel fumble, then turned back to Fluffnix.

They had said Black Mist filled the entire clocktower and then disappeared. Perhaps because of that, the phantasmal energy inside the clocktower was especially thinner than outside.

In Mist’s land, where phantasmal energy was already thin, even less phantasmal energy might not matter whether it existed or not.

Even as Fluffnix’s burning head-feather fluttered and consumed the faint phantasmal energy that barely existed, the Black Mist did not reveal itself.

“Mm, you look a little better now.”

“Why are you peeking? Did you see something? What is wrong this time?”

“No? I am feeding our Fluffnix.”

I found one more gear Murel had inserted incorrectly and pretended not to notice this time. He was a Creator in his own way, so I should let him keep his pride.

“That creature looked exhausted all this time, but today it has at least some vitality.”

At that moment, I heard someone climbing the clocktower stairs.

“Shh.”

Since the number of people loitering around the clocktower had increased noticeably since yesterday, my nerves were on edge. So I deliberately approached the edge of the staircase and stuck my head out over the railing to check who it was.

“Herton?”

He strode up the stairs, then flung the person he had half-carried on his shoulder onto the floor.

Judging by appearance, build, and the shape of the horns rising from the head—

“A member of the forest?”

“That is right. He was my successor.”

“Your successor means…… ah, the person in charge of the Dock lamp?”

It was the repairer who had supposedly run away to Mist’s Domain after following his senior, a member of the Mist.

“He was loitering in front of the clocktower, so I brought him here.”

Had he been unable to appear openly because he lacked the courage to meet Herton all this time, only to be unable to let go of his attachment when he thought something might happen to the clocktower?

Humil rubbed his scraped knee with his palm, having been tossed to the ground, and protested his injustice.

“I was worried about my senior, not the clocktower!”

After confirming that he had bruises but no bleeding, Humil straightened his shoulders a little more and rolled his eyes.

“I was watching from afar because I thought Herton, who chased the clocktower all day long, might die at this rate.”

“So you were worried about Herton, not the clock?”

“Yes!”

“If you were his successor, you could have asked him directly. Yet I heard you have not appeared before him all this time. Herton did not even know you were in the Mist.”

“Herton, mad over the clock, had no interest in anything else! And…… if he found out the person in charge of the lamp abandoned everything and ran off, he is the sort of senior who would thunder at me, so when I actually came, I got scared…….”

Humil, who had straightened his shoulders and argued his own case because the atmosphere seemed as though it might be all right, trailed off while studying Herton’s expression as Herton crossed his arms and looked back at him.

Humil’s words did not seem like lies. As a member of the forest, he had probably picked up the rough idea that I was Underfolk and the various things I had done, and this situation itself seemed difficult for him.

It was not as though Underfolk ate people’s livers and gallbladders.

“Then I will ask. Herton went in and out of the clocktower every day, so while following him, did you ever see Black Mist?”

Humil, who had been moving back and forth between confidence and timidity while displaying his mental collapse in real time, finally looked delighted that he had something to say and opened his mouth.

“I saw that Black Mist too! It crept out from inside the clock at the top of the clocktower, and it even looked like a signal flare! As if it were telling us the time had come…….”

What time?

It was probably a sign that Karon’s day to commit fraud was not far off.