Chapter 12

Chapter 12 - To Change the Future (2)

 

“M-magic? How can this be!”

It was not long before I came to my senses.

We were standing in a place that resembled the central hall of a temple.

To be precise, our bodies had been moved all at once, before we even had time to notice anything unusual.

‘Teleportation magic.’

I see. So this was a level worthy of the name of a black mage’s hideout?

It was a more complete spell than I had heard, so I was somewhat surprised.

“Your Highness, are you unharmed?”

“Mm.”

“To move us so abruptly like this…… It may be more dangerous than we thought.”

“It is only a simple movement spell.”

As if to prove that my words were no lie, I strode forward.

It was not that I did not understand his concern, but I had already spread my perception widely.

There was nothing here that could threaten our safety, so there was no need to waste mental strength.

“Rather, moving too cautiously would do us no good.”

“That is true…….”

In any case.

Even amid all that, there was something that caught my eye.

Leaving the bewildered baron behind, I approached the statue in the center.

“…….”

A single crow, so lifelike that it was hard to believe it was made of stone.

Yet for some reason, the wings of the crow that seemed about to soar into the sky were covered in flames.

The pain and rage, the regret and sense of defeat in those jewel-like eyes.

Although the statue had faded because it had been made so long ago, the intent of the work had not been damaged.

“It seems to portray the Holy War to Subjugate the Black Mages.”

“I see.”

“Mm? Is something the matter?”

“It is nothing.”

Black magic was an “impurity” that should not exist on the continent.

Contrary to common sense, that was an unchanging truth, and their downfall was akin to a part of history itself.

It was a history of victory that everyone would have learned while growing up, and one that would surely continue to be passed down.

‘A holy war, is it…….’

Fifty years ago, the temples, led by the Divine Empire, had carried out an operation to exterminate the black mages.

Regardless of necessity, everything related to black magic had been burned to ashes.

The black mages had been killed without a single survivor, and even those who had barely managed to flee could no longer enjoy the luxury of seeing the sunlight again.

It was a complete annihilation, so thorough that not even traces of them would have remained if the hideouts of their remnants had not occasionally been discovered.

In that sense, this statue was a very valuable object.

The screams of the crows, who had no choice but to fall after even the simple act of flying through the sky had been oppressed.

And the flames of greed that destroyed false malice.

The phrase of “truth” written beneath it…….

“Oh? There is something like a box here!”

As I was lost in thought, the baron’s excited voice came from the other side of the statue.

I had no choice but to shake off my thoughts and move.

“It is here.”

Baron Vidor handed me a small box.

It was a beautiful black box made of some unknown metal.

The baron’s expression had grown even brighter.

“Might it contain an expensive artifact?”

“We will know once we open it.”

This, too, had been mentioned in the report before my regression, so I already had an idea of what the box was.

However, I did not want to dampen his expectations, so I did not act as though I knew.

“Ah! It could be dangerous, so I shall open it.”

“Do as you wish.”

I took one step back and gestured with my chin as though telling him to open it.

Once permission was given, the baron carefully tried to open the box.

The expectation on his face deepened even further.

But…….

“Hm?”

For some reason, the lid of the box did not budge.

It was the same even when he exerted enough strength to make his face twist.

“D-don’t tell me it is broken?”

After struggling with the box for quite some time, the baron began looking at me with a flustered expression.

Of course, there was nothing wrong with what he had done. The method of opening it was simply wrong.

Before the baron could make an even more pitiful expression, I added an explanation.

“It is a magical device. Trying to open it with force will be useless.”

“I see! To think Your Highness saw through even that!”

To begin with, there was no way an ordinary box would be found inside a black mage’s hideout…….

Thinking that, I slowly loosened my shoulders.

Then the baron looked at me with puzzled eyes.

“……Your Highness?”

“Stay still in that position.”

There were several ways to open a magically treated box.

One was to decipher the magic applied to the box and open it in the proper way.

Another was to forcibly dispel the box with stronger mana.

And the last was.

“To smash it apart with force.”

CRUNCH!

“Aaaagh!”

The sword I had drawn at some point cut down the box, and a fierce sword wind swept through the surroundings.

The baron fell while screaming as though he was about to die, but in truth, there was not a single scratch on his body.

It was because I had calculated the trajectory of my strike precisely.

“I-I am unharmed?”

“Stop making a fuss and get up.”

Calling it a fuss when I had been the one to cause it in the first place…….

The baron rose with eyes full of resentment.

Even so, the way he examined his body for any injuries was quite an amusing reaction.

“Your body is fine, so check the contents.”

“Pardon? Ah, understood.”

The baron began looking around for the box that had flown off somewhere.

Soon, he found the remains of the box, split apart behind him, and wore an absurd expression.

……No. Could that thing, which was bleeding, truly be called the remains of a box?

“That is…….”

“A mimic.”

An artificial monster that disguised itself as a treasure chest, the symbol of desire, and devoured adventurers.

It was even a masterpiece wrapped in magic by black mages to make it look like a real treasure chest.

It had probably been a trap meant to kill the priests who would discover the hideout.

The baron’s expression collapsed.

“How could this be…… To think I almost gave such a thing to Your Highness…….”

“Fate rarely flows the way one wishes.”

What he had thought was treasure was, in truth, a monster aiming for his life.

For the baron, who had surely never experienced anything like this before, it must have been an utterly disappointing situation.

Whether he felt that way or not, I gave a faint laugh and moved on.

“We are entering the interior.”

“……Understood.”

I thought he might need comfort, but at least not now.

Recovering the strength I had possessed in the past had to come first.

CREEEAK. CLACK!

A small room connected to the massive central hall.

The interior beyond the rusted iron door, which opened with a spine-chilling sound, was not particularly different.

“……A storage room?”

“Or a place used for a similar purpose.”

The inside of the room was filled with empty boxes and cabinets.

The furniture, arranged according to a fixed standard, made it possible to guess the room’s purpose.

Soon, after opening and checking the cabinets here and there, the baron clicked his tongue in disappointment.

“But they truly did not leave behind even a single miscellaneous artifact.”

“It seems they even considered the possibility of being tracked through the things they left behind.”

“I-I see.”

The baron smacked his lips.

“Should I call them thorough……? I had some expectations because this was a hideout, but it is somewhat disappointing.”

“It does not seem that way.”

“Pardon?”

I ignored the baron’s words and continued moving.

Naturally, regardless of what the baron thought, I had no interest in miscellaneous objects.

Only this thing, which had been tugging at my perception since the central hall, mattered.

“I found it.”

It was a small box, no different from any other, left there as though it were nothing significant.

And inside it was the skull of a skeleton that had completely corroded away.

The baron asked with an incredulous expression.

“Ugh…… Is this not merely an ordinary black magic implement?”

It was an object that looked, and in fact was, nothing more than junk commonly discovered in a hideout.

A representative medium of black magic.

That was why I understood his bewildered reaction.

However, its form was not what mattered.

Above all, this was an extraordinary object, one capable of raising even corpses through its mere existence.

“Baron Vidor. This is an order.”

“Pardon? Please give your command, Your Highness.”

“I will now begin a purification ritual. You are to go outside and wait.”

Purification?

At the word that did not fit the situation, the baron asked back with a blank expression.

“What do you mean by purification, all of a sudden?”

“The concentration of black mana is more severe than I expected. If we leave it as it is, something terrible will surely happen.”

“Gasp! Is that so?”

Startled by those words, Baron Vidor looked around.

I nodded slightly and continued speaking.

“Though I came here to investigate, if I were to ignore such dreadful mana even when it stands before my eyes, could I call myself an example for the citizens?”

“I-if that is the case…….”

In truth, I had added the word purification because it was a convenient excuse to use, but…….

“Surely it is not dangerous, is it?”

I did not want to waste time like this, so I dismissed his concern briefly and nodded.

“There is no need to worry.”

“……I shall obey your command.”

It must have seemed absurd, but whose safety was at stake for him to refuse the order?

Unfortunately, however, my order was not yet finished.

“Also, if I do not come out after thirty minutes have passed, you must return to the royal palace without fail.”

“Pardon? Are you telling me to return to the royal palace first?”

“Yes. And of course, I will absolutely not permit you to enter this room.”

“Urgh.”

“If you understand, then leave now.”

Thus, the baron walked out of the storage room with a face full of worry and doubt.

It was only afterward that I examined the skull closely.

‘So an ordinary person cannot sense this energy.’

It was a truly horrifying mana, dreadful enough to feel as though it were pressing down on the inside of the hideout.

Just as another person could not sense the mana of an archmage, the negative-dimensional mana hidden within this skull seemed to be such a case.

‘Interesting.’

This was no ordinary matter.

To begin with, was this not a trivial object that could exist anywhere?

There was no way it would be common for such a mere skull to evolve into a kind of artifact capable of raising even dead bodies.

That was the reason this place was special.

A hideout built beneath a cemetery rich in negative-dimensional mana.

They must have felt the need to gather power, even while taking the risk of being easily discovered.

Then just how much mana had they amassed so desperately?

‘Enough that they abandoned it and fled because they could not carelessly take it with them.’

This object not only held the souls of the black mages who had died, but had also accumulated an amount of mana on an entirely different level.

On top of that, after being abandoned, it must have been exposed for a long time to the remnants of emotions produced by the cemetery.

The investigators before my regression had concluded that this had been enough for it to grow into an artifact with a sort of ego over several decades.

‘And negative emotions are the driving force of growth.’

Because I had knowledge of the future, I could have obtained a safer and more reliable artifact.

Even so, this was the reason I had chosen the black mages’ hideout.

“I will absorb it.”

Before my regression, the Divine Empire had retrieved this object under the pretext of purification.

Because of that, I did not know what benefit I would gain from absorbing it, nor did I know what risks would come with it.

Perhaps I would be devoured by the resentment of the black mages and lose my reason.

But my instincts were shouting at me.

They were telling me that an opportunity like this would never come again.

“And I will never fail.”

I would succeed, no matter what.

That could be called the entirety of the confidence I had possessed when I was known as the Sword King.

While savoring the negative emotions I felt from the skull, I slowly began circulating the energy inside my body.

“……!”

At that moment, every negative emotion a human being could possess surged up like a vortex and swallowed my entire body.

Rage and regret. Beyond them, even the desire that yearned for life.

In my mind, the vision of the black mages watching their comrades being killed appeared, and a moment later, the life of a defeated person dying of starvation eroded my consciousness.

Soon, pain that felt as though my entire body was being crushed came upon me, and before I knew it, my body was writhing on the floor.

“Hup!”

A human being could not even properly accept his own death.

Then what of the miserable emotions left behind by dozens, even hundreds of humans?

And what if they were felt vividly, as though they had truly been my own experiences?

It was impossible to think of it as pain felt over only a short time.

No, could experiencing another person’s life truly be called a short time?

It even felt as though I had already lost myself.

A bloody struggle for control.

The negative forces coveting my body eroded my mind, trying to force their way through even the smallest opening.

Whether because of the pain or because of the emotions, I could not think of anything.

Why I was in such a place, and why I longed for strength.

Now that I could not even feel the flow of time, this was no longer a level that could be endured through willpower alone.

Even so…….

“……Do not make me laugh.”

Bitter blood seeped from between my clenched teeth.

Why had I called upon the god I had never believed in, even as I was dying?

For what reason had I keenly realized my own shortcomings and brought George into my service?

I would never lose.

I could never fall until I killed every enemy who had made me and my people suffer.

RUMBLE!

The negative energies that had been running wild on their own gathered into one, and the air trembled.

It was the complete opposite of the proud momentum they had shown at first, when they had eroded my mind.

It was more like a final struggle.

The proof was that they were no longer manipulating the memories of others, but instead began persistently digging into my own weaknesses.

“Ha, haha!”

Laughter escaped me at the scenes flashing past like a revolving lantern.

The memories of those days when I had moved helplessly, without any goal.

Every day I had fought a lonely battle in a kingdom filled with spies.

And…….

-Duke. I am so terribly afraid.

The past me, who had only spoken weak words before my enemy.

-I want to forget everything and go far away.

The past me, who had tried to flee while forgetting even his own mistakes.

Although I had pretended to forget, I had never tried to forget for even a moment.

How could I forget?

No matter how much I denied it, all of those things were elements that had made up “me.”

All of them were things that had happened because of my foolish self.

The moment I thought that.

“I will gladly take the King’s seat. Though I will not bother saying farewell to a fool.”

I was inside a nightmare.

“……Asus.”

And I came face-to-face with Asus, who was stabbing me in the heart.