Chapter 22

Chapter 022

Possessors.

Those who dwelled within another person’s body, made it their own, and displayed extraordinary abilities.

They first appeared one thousand years ago.

When the Golden Rule collapsed and Downfall swallowed the world, it was said that the first Possessor descended upon this land along with a single revelation.

─They are the messengers of God, and the agents of God. They are great figures who will set the broken providence right and restore the world.

After their first appearance, they left countless marks upon Ebla.

Magic, Martial Arts, Theology, and more. The knowledge they possessed saved humanity as it stood on the verge of destruction.

Because of the influence the Possessors had exerted, Ebla was able to rise again from Downfall.

[The person who first opened the dungeon gate and unlocked the first floor was also a Possessor.]

“The person who came one thousand years ago?”

[Yes. He is a famous person.]

Gregorio Morgan.

The world commonly called him “Saint Gregorio,” or so it seemed.

It was not a name I knew...... but I did know the character who dealt with the oldest timeline.

‘I think he was a Divinity-based character.’

Because he dealt with Ebla’s Genesis period, his start was different from other characters, so I remembered him.

Well, it was not as though I had been interested beyond that.

I probably would not have any chance to interact with him either. If it was one thousand years ago, he would already be dead, with not even his bone dust remaining.

[At first, they were praised as messengers of God, but now that is a thing of the past.]

“A thing of the past?”

“It means not every Possessor was good.”

Gordon affirmed Persica’s answer.

[As my lady said, Possessors were not unconditionally good. Among them were people who held wicked intentions and committed evil deeds. Each time that happened, Ebla suffered greatly, and many people were killed or injured.]

It was not incomprehensible.

Possessors were people who knew every detail of this world’s strategies.

If they harbored ill intent and tried to abuse that knowledge, they would have been able to do so as much as they pleased.

Beings who inevitably had no choice but to take over another person’s body.

And yet, they were not necessarily good, making them like ticking time bombs. People could not help but be wary of them.

[At present, if one discovers a Possessor, one is obligated to report them to the temple. If someone hides a Possessor, or knows but fails to report them, severe punishment is given.]

“Then what happens if they are reported?”

[The Enforcement Division is dispatched.]

The Enforcement Division.

It was the place where the Inquisitors of the Golden Order belonged.

[The Inquisitors take the Possessor into custody, determine the truth, and if they truly are a Possessor, they undergo strict reeducation.]

“......What if they cannot be reeducated?”

[They are killed.]

Without realizing it, I swallowed dryly.

If it was done by Inquisitors, “reeducation” was only a word. It was simply torture.

It meant they would torture them and change their way of thinking, and if that did not work, they would kill them to eliminate the source of trouble.

‘......Should I move lodgings?’

Now that I thought about it, was I not basically living in a tiger’s den?

If I had done even the slightest thing to arouse suspicion, I might have been dragged away in my sleep.

‘I should move even more carefully from now on.......’Unless I had enough fame to reveal it safely, or unless I was in a situation where I absolutely had no choice but to reveal it, it seemed better to hide my identity no matter what.

Once the Enforcement Division marked someone, things became more than a little troublesome.

Those fanatics were not joking. They were so persistent they would chase someone even to the end of the dungeon.

I could not even count how many times I had retried because of them.

“These are obvious stories. Is there a reason you are telling them again?”

Persica did not hide the fact that she was bored.

To Persica, who was openly yawning, Gordon’s utterly exasperated voice flew in.

[Please learn from Lord Isran. Is he not listening closely to those obvious stories?]

“.......”

That was only because I was hearing them for the first time.......

Persica sent me a sullen look. It was a gaze that seemed to ask, “Do you actually find this interesting?”

Avoiding her eyes slightly, I answered.

“......I doubt he is saying it for no reason.”

[Exactly as you said. The reason I am deliberately telling this tedious story again is because the farther down you go, the higher the chance that you will encounter traces of Possessors.]

The marks they had left behind.

Magic, facilities, and perhaps even the Possessors themselves.

He was saying that the greatest difficulty in the dungeon might not necessarily be the monsters.

“Do you think those people are alive?”

[Who can say? For example, those who reach the rank of Master have their bodies return to their youth. There are plenty of other ways to overcome one’s lifespan as well.]

There might still be living Possessors.

Those words stirred up a strange tension.

[That should be enough of the commonplace stories. Now I will tell you a story that is not well known.]

There was still more?

Once a sixth-floor adventurer began telling stories, the amount of information was like a mountain of rice heaped high.

[It is nothing grand, but very few people know it. I only learned it after taking the position of knight captain myself.]

“......Is it all right for me to hear something like that?”

Persica might be one thing, but I was just a commoner.

I was worried that hearing information I could not handle for no reason might get me into trouble.

[It is not exactly a secret. It is such an absurd story that even if Lord Isran went around talking about it, no one would believe him.]

Ah, if that was the case.

This time, even Persica seemed interested, and as she adjusted her posture, Gordon continued.

[The knowledge of the Possessors advanced Ebla by several stages, but there was one story all of them told with one voice. That they, too, had learned from someone.]

“They...... learned?”

[Yes. You understand why it is an absurd story now, do you not?]

Over the span of one thousand years, there had been only a few dozen Possessors.

Most of them would not even have had overlapping eras, yet they all said the same thing as if they had planned it in advance.

Naturally, its credibility could only be low.

[An unknown being called the “Great Master”.......]

He paused for a moment.

As though he were preparing for a difficult pronunciation.

[Sunan.]

He said it.

“That pronunciation sounds strange.”

[That is because it is a pronunciation that does not exist in the common tongue. Whether it is an ancient sage from long ago, or something that is not even that, no one has ever seen him. But since every Possessor has said the same thing over one thousand years, the fact that he was a real person is.......]

The story continued, but it did not enter my ears.

That sound just now had not carried the unique accent of this world’s language.

He had spoken my name with accurate pronunciation.

‘What on earth is going on?’

My mind grew complicated.

***

After that, we dug even deeper into Arachne’s Nest.

The number of creatures we hunted increased just as much, but as I gradually became used to battle, the burden I felt also decreased.

I was growing.

I could feel that clearly, but because my mind was elsewhere, it was difficult to simply rejoice.

‘Why did they mention me?’

Every night, I heard stories about the Possessors from Gordon.

In the process, I learned that they had consistently mentioned my existence.

Judging by the fact that it was not well known, it did not seem like they had spoken of it openly, but in any case, they had said it.

It meant they had either let it slip in passing without realizing it, or they had been in a situation where they had no choice but to say it.

‘Why did they do that?’

I did not know the reason or the purpose.

Why had they gone around preaching my existence to Ebla?

They had not even mentioned my character’s name. If they knew me, they should have known that my character was Ishara too.

─Sunan. I dedicate this to you, who will one day come here.

The phrase I had seen in the boss room kept coming to mind.

The feeling these things gave me was...... Yes.

There was a strong sense that they had been waiting for me.

‘Why?’

For the sake of clearing the game?

That was baseless speculation. If they had been possessed, that meant they were also veterans who had reached the final chapter, so people like that would not have needed my help.

Then what remained was something other than clearing it.

There was something that required my existence.

“I cannot figure it out.”

It would have been nice if there had been someone I could ask.

After suffering in thought for a long while, I eventually shook my head and brushed it away.

It was not the kind of problem where an answer would come out just because I worried about it alone.

‘Right now, let us focus on the problem before me.’

If I went downward, I would learn the answer someday.

What I had to do was simply survive until then.

[Hmm. My lady has improved quite a lot by now. As expected, there is nothing like real combat.]

“I am tired, so do not talk to me.......”

The number of times Persica was scolded had gradually decreased as well.

Even though she received such criticism, her skill was not poor. Rather, she belonged on the outstanding side.

She had simply lacked learning and experience.

Those things were now being filled in through this real combat.

Persica was improving by leaps and bounds. She was at the point where challenging the boss soon would not be a problem.

That was how hard she was working.

That was why I could tell.

‘This had already been planned before I came.’

The Pilgrimage Route and the boss expedition were not because of me.

I put aside the faint suspicion that it might have been because of Ishara’s request.

Persica had her own reasons too.

“Why are you trying to go downward?”

“That is sudden. Why are you suddenly curious about that?”

On the fifth day after we descended into the dungeon.

I asked her that in front of the campfire.

“With someone like you, you could grow as safely as you pleased. I do not understand why you would go this far.”

Persica had no reason to hurry.

Even if she took her time slowly, she would be able to descend to the Deep Floors easily enough.

The Persica I had seen in the game had been that way, and so was the talent I had seen in reality.

At my question, Persica answered with narrowed eyes.

“Do you know why Dominic took the Selection Grounds?”

I asked a question, and she answered with a question.

Well...... I knew that much.

I had heard the circumstances at the Selection Grounds.

“They said it was to find his dead son.”

“That is right. That man has his own reasons. I think mine is similar.”

“.......”

I stared at her quietly, then spoke.

“......You have a son too?”

“It means privacy, you stupid idiot!!”

Then just say that from the beginning. Why use such a strange comparison?

I tightly covered my ears, which were ringing.

I thought my eardrums were going to burst.

‘A personal reason, huh.......’

In the end, she was not that different from me.

The reason I was trying to go downward was, in the end, also an extremely personal one.

Thinking that made me realize anew that Persica was serious.

With someone of Ortanis’s standing, she could simply buy Mana Stones with money and gather them. That alone would be enough to increase her Mana.

Even so, she was here in the dungeon like this.

She did not want a spec that was merely for show, but real skill.

“More importantly, how do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“The dodging.”

Did she mean narrowly dodging things?

Well, that was just identifying the monster’s pattern and reach, measuring the distance, and dodging with the minimum movement.

“Ugh...... Do you think I am asking because I do not know that?”

“Then why?”

Gordon answered that question.

[My lady is talking about the psychological aspect.]

“Psychological?”

[Yes. Usually, people cannot do that even if they know it. Their bodies freeze because of fear.]

“Ah.”

My way of evading allowed me to quickly follow up with an attack after dodging, and it consumed less stamina, but it also made the chance of being hit that much higher.

So she meant that even if people knew it, they could not do it because they inevitably became psychologically intimidated.

Because fear made their bodies freeze.

[It is not something a beginner can do. That is the time when people are most afraid, after all.]

“When I look at you, it feels like I am looking at some emotionless machine.”

[Indeed, your expression hardly changes either. Your voice also has little rise and fall.]

“Right, right! I knew I was not the only one who felt that way.”

“Hmm.......”

It was not that I was not scared. If anything, I was extremely scared.

However, for a long time, I had lived while suppressing my reactions and expressions according to my emotions as much as possible.

Even the smallest change caused my seizures, so restraint and suppression had become ingrained in me like a habit.

So I was not exactly an emotionless machine.

I felt emotions, but they simply did not lead to physical reactions or expressions.

Even when I was afraid, my body did not freeze, so I could move as I intended.

Of course, I did not know how to explain this, so I answered as simply as possible.

“It just works.”

An Ishara-style answer.

I did it, and it worked.

“......Fine, good for you.”

Persica grumbling was a bonus.

***

A full two weeks passed.

Arachne’s Nest was also almost at its end.

On top of that, we had gathered plenty of Mana Stones in proportion to our hardship.

“With this much, we should be able to meet the second-floor cutoff, right?”

“Probably.”

It seemed Persica intended to absorb all of them.

I was thinking it over a little.

Absorption had the best cost efficiency, but there were other things weighing on my mind too.

‘I need to start increasing my skills soon.’

There was a limit to enduring with only Parrying.

Flash Lightning Thunder Sword was useful, but it was a Magic Power-type skill, so as a Mysticism user, I could not benefit from its additional effects.

In the end, it meant I had to learn another technique, but this was something of a gamble.

‘It would be nice if I could obtain a secret manual.’

Because Mysticism was so minor, finding a master was almost impossible.

The next best option was a secret manual...... but that was not easy either.

‘How much was Introduction to Victory Studies again......?’

I recalled the core secret manual I had to obtain first.

I did not know whether there would be a place selling it, and even if there was, it was certain to be quite expensive.

There was a high chance that what I had earned so far would not be enough.

“Hmm.......”

For a moment, I looked back at the Arachne corpses we had killed.

‘Byproducts...... It would be nice if we could take them.’

Monster byproducts could earn a large amount of Rune if one could take them, but that was not an easy thing.

How long would it take to struggle upward while carrying all that?

They might rot while being carried, and if that happened, their value would drop, and they might even draw the attention of monsters.

‘More than anything, we cannot ride the Lift Platform while carrying corpses.’

I asked, and they said it was not allowed.

An accident could happen, and they took up a lot of space too.

It would be a different story if something like a Core came out...... but that was truly like plucking a star from the sky.

Only Named-class monsters dropped them, and even then, the chance was extremely slim.

“Making money is really hard.”

I needed to hurry and make money so I could buy a Subspace Bag or something.

I wondered whether the immature girl beside me knew the sorrow of commoners like this.

“......For now, let us think after we go back.”

We had entered the deepest part of Arachne’s Nest.

Well, even so, the number of individuals was only 1.5 times greater than in other places.

It would be a different story if the Field Boss appeared, but that thing would not appear unless a specific condition was met─

“Wait.”

A bad feeling suddenly came over me, and I looked around.

‘The number of spiders...... Why are there so few?’

There were far fewer than I had expected.

On top of that, the ones that should have rushed at us with their eyes rolled back were merely staying on guard.

As if they were waiting for something.

“......No way.”

I thought back over the features of Arachne’s Nest.

The condition for the Field Boss to appear was that the nest destruction rate exceeded 50 percent.

Of course, I had no memory of us breaking it.

Since I had used this strategy several times, I had been careful from the beginning.

And yet, if this was happening anyway.......

‘Gordon, you bastard.’

I had wondered where this man had gone and what he had been doing, but he had been smashing the nest to pieces?

No wonder so many spiders had been coming out.

“Uh...... Hey, that thing.......”

“It is probably what you are thinking.”

The ground trembled and cracked with a crunch.

What emerged from within was a spider so enormous that it could not even be compared to an Arachne.

“We are screwed.”

Aragos.

The Field Boss of the Demonic Region had appeared.