LIGHTNOVELSTORY Chapter 162
– 0 –
“Freedom, ironically, is most comfortably enjoyed within certain constraints.”
However, if there exists a freedom with no constraints at all…
I took a deep breath.
– Hah…
Right now, I was holding precisely that.
Even with my eyes closed, I could see everything,
Even with my ears blocked, I could hear everything,
And finally, even in death, I could feel everything.
With a single gesture, the sky splits apart,
With the sound of footsteps, the stars scream,
With a glance, existence holds its breath.
“This is me…”
In the confined world of my heart.
But even if I go outside, I am still me.
– I must be careful.
A bitter smile lingered on my lips.
No one finds value in something that can easily be crushed.
This was the reason I locked my heart away.
To put it metaphorically.
I am the dark sea monster swimming deeply while considering the fish.
The seven-headed dragon harmoniously gliding among the birds.
Now, I have begun to fear myself.
In a way I never did before.
– That’s only natural.
A monster that can break down walls just by pressing against them should naturally fear the wall crumbling.
Not itself being a monster.
But what kind of influence it might have on the world beyond that wall.
Or, it might fall into an endless abyss.
– Don’t you think so? Arpina.
Thinking this, I laughed as I watched a spider darting around in my hand.
– 1 –
The moment Libertus’s enemy was bound to her.
In a banquet hall created in a secluded village unknown to others.
One of the rainbow-colored crystals, the green crystal, lost its light.
“What the? Why isn’t it breaking, just turning off?”
One of the group who discovered it spoke in confusion.
Originally, it was an item that would break when one of them died, but strangely, it merely lost its power.
There was only one possibility for such a thing.
“Arpina… They said she was caught in the Magical Realm but managed to escape.”
“She left without even saying hello to us?”
“That’s disappointing…”
It’s only natural that those who thought of her as a friend would feel let down.
Even though, for anyone else, the connection would seem absurd enough to ask, “Is your friendship even real?”
“That’s not it. This is…”
However, rebuffing that opinion, one of the six shadows gathered stepped forward.
As he carefully lifted the green crystal, a red light seeped from between his fingers.
– Ah…
A red song flowed from his fingertips and seeped into the crystal, but there was no response whatsoever.
As if it had fallen into the deep sea.
“I can’t hear her ‘greeting.’ She hasn’t withdrawn.”
“Eh? Then does that mean she’s dead?”
A thin, dry figure with its neck twisted oddly approached to look into the crystal.
And after a moment, he nodded in agreement.
“She’s caught! This!”
“No way. Is there really someone who can capture and imprison one of us? You all heard it too. That Abelerus failed to hold on to Arpina.”
“At the end, they definitely said she was in Kaisen.”
“The Grand Duke of the Magical Realm isn’t invading the interior, and there are no news about the Thirteen Stars, right?”
As the banquet hall grew noisy, the one who had wielded the red power remained fixated on the crystal.
In his eyes, flames of rage blazed.
“How dare… take my Arpina… away from us?”
They soon intended to set off toward the Magical Realm.
Though they usually acted independently, they couldn’t just stand by and watch their ‘friend’s’ misfortune.
Of course, had they gone together back then, many would have likely lost their lives.
That would have been quite regrettable.
Amidst this, they were preparing to bring Arpina back to host a party after hearing news of her escape.
But she had once again fallen into someone else’s grasp without a word or rumor.
“Hey. Are you mad?”
“Of course I’m mad!”
Crack!
Ah…
The table shattered into pieces from the red figure’s fingertips. It was a symphony of destruction created by powerful grip and magic.
Shards scattered in all directions, producing ominous sounds.
“I’ll go and find her.”
“By yourself?”
“She was in a weakened state. Poor Arpina. How much she must have suffered there…”
As the red figure buried their head and cried, a navy figure approached to comfort them with a pat on the shoulder.
“Don’t cry. I’ll go with you.”
“You? Why all of a sudden?”
Surprised by the navy figure’s words, the red figure looked at him.
A long smile hung on the navy figure’s lips.
“I also like Arpina. You like her too. It wouldn’t do for you to go alone and get hurt.”
“Then, since we’re going together, does that mean the others can go back now?”
“That seems so.”
Anyway, it was not the atmosphere for a party.
People began to leave one by one, and finally only the red figure and the navy figure remained.
Their eyes were still fixed on the green crystal.
Hoping it might ignite once more.
– 2 –
“She really caught her all by herself.”
Immediately after hunting Arpina, Serika struck a pose and said that.
I stopped my steps and turned to her.
I wanted to walk faster, but her feelings were weighing on me.
On the surface, her demeanor was playful, but I could clearly see her disappointment and disheartenment.
I knew well the reason for it.
The guilt of ‘not being able to help.’
“I didn’t catch her by myself, Serika.”
“Uh?”
“Thanks to you coming, I could relax and turn the fight into a hunt.”
“Uh…”
Her help undoubtedly held meaning.
Because of the power she brought, I was confident that even if this strategy failed, I could safely extract the other children, and I could ‘act’ with peace of mind.
If I hadn’t been able to immerse myself in the act completely, Arpina would have felt suspicious and been on guard.
“Well, right? You should be grateful!”
Serika, who had been momentarily blank, burst into a confident smile. Seeing that, I felt a smile unconsciously rise to my lips.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful, Lady.”
Passing by her, the noble mercenaries approached and cautiously offered me a handshake.
“As I told Serika, it was enough help. Thank you for coming.”
“If anything troublesome arises again, you don’t have to go through the lady to call me!”
“If it’s Lady Libertus, we’ll do it for free… no, half price!”
“Hey!”
As I watched Serika and the demon clan tussling, this time Myrr came closer.
I almost sighed and felt annoyed, but managed to hold it in.
‘She’ was still alright. And she would be alright in the future, even if it would be a bit painfully longer.
Myrr was, after all, in the position of a guest and a precious patron who had also lent me help in this matter.
“The sealing is complete, Lady.”
“You’ve worked hard. Thank you for your help.”
“Not at all. Isn’t it the master’s right to help their disciple?”
While I was submerged in my inner self, Myrr took on the role of separating Arpina’s body and soul, weakening the spirit’s power.
Sonia, Lan, and other relevant talents all helped her stabilize my condition.
As long as I was completely immersed in the world of consciousness while receiving external assistance, it was only natural to subdue Arpina.
However, I could maintain a sense of calm within that deep unconsciousness and eventually come out thanks in large part to them.
“Thanks to you, I was able to take a good look at myself.”
As a result, I succeeded in objectively observing the state of my heart, and I was able to secure Arpina, which was the purpose of this endeavor.
“What did you see in there?”
“Well…”
I recalled the sight of what was inside me once more.
The bizarre and transcendent form was still unclear in meaning to me.
“I can’t even fully grasp myself, and now I have to understand another ‘me.'”
It felt as if tasks were overlapping.
But it wasn’t frustrating.
It was just interesting.
“Regardless, one thing is certain.”
In there, the awakening I experienced was bound, but that bondage felt entirely meaningless.
“It was more like ‘restraint’ than constriction, something like self-imposed moderation…”
Even with that constraint, I could do anything within it.
The entire space of my heart became my eyes, ears, and mouth.
If that constraint were to be lifted, I could somehow achieve something even greater.
At the same time.
“I also felt that it would be irreversible.”
The sense of omnipotence I experienced back then was so intense that the current me felt immensely powerless.
As I said, without assistance, escaping from there would have been impossible, and its aftereffects would have been significant as well.
“Experiencing success in introspection is a common symptom.”
“Were you the same?”
“Yes, of course.”
Myrr reassured me that this wasn’t anything special and I would soon overcome it.
But my thoughts were a bit different.
“That’s not something to overcome. It’s something to accept.”
It was an ungrounded intuition, yet I felt no doubt about it.
“I had no inner obstacles.”
The distortions I thought were my obstacles were, in reality, nothing here.
The mind exists in any form.
And there were no societal norms to tailor myself to, nor standards to distinguish normal from abnormal here.
“Now I am a demon clan.”
The gigantic monster within my heart is my nation, but I was already sufficiently restraining it to the point of not showing it.
That was enough for now.
“Let’s think about it later.”
I lightly shook my head and shook off those thoughts. It was time to focus on the problems at hand.
“By the way. How is Arpina’s body?”
At my question, Myrr gently bowed her head and answered in her still soft voice.
Even though she must have continuously been by my side while I was deep in my consciousness, her voice bore no trace of fatigue.
“If the soul is gone, she will die soon, so I temporarily placed a spirit in her to maintain her life. Now she will follow the commands of you and me, even if merely as a puppet.”
“Oh, so that can be done.”
As I nodded in amazement, Myrr replied with an attractive smile.
“When a supporting spirit is present, it will do its best to draw energy.”
“Is there any problem? Does the spirit want to inhabit a living body…?”
“Not at all. She is close to me.”
“Good. I’m glad.”
The living body of a high-ranking adventurer from whom only the soul had been extracted was a precious material in itself.
But the true treasure was the knowledge contained within her head, regarding countless abilities and how to utilize them.
‘Although it’s not organized, and she has experience only with a very small portion…’
Clatter!
The knowledge that had not been absorbed was so vast that I would likely need to spend some time transferring the information from her head to books.
Simple tasks could be handled by Skeleton Mages, and I only needed to organize the rest… but even organizing that would be quite labor-intensive.
“This isn’t even one-tenth of it.”
“There’s a lot, indeed. But to not utilize even half of it…”
As I muttered while looking at the stack of parchment on the desk, Myrr replied with a disheartened expression.
It was not something that could be completed in a short time.
Looking back once more, not killing or absorbing her but capturing her soul was truly the right decision.
It would have been impossible for me to digest all this varied knowledge at once.
– Let me out…!! Hiiik… Hiiik…!
Her soul, sealed within a corner of my soul, did not contain any of this vast knowledge.
To be precise, she only retained knowledge about her inherent abilities regarding dreams and the soul, while the rest was only a tiny fraction.
It was because she had absorbed too many abilities.
‘And yet she pursued ‘perfection’.’
What she pursued at some point seemed to be the pleasure of living in the illusion of having become perfect, but regardless, the initial motivation had undoubtedly been that.
‘Even if it was a sense of perfection perceived through a clumsy value system…’
From what I could see, the reason she developed such a value system was ultimately due to her mother.
[She is the pride of our family!]
[Dirty bitch…!!]
The memories treated as an object of boasting and pride on the outside, and rejection and disgust on the inside.
Continuously mentioning the bloodline’s ‘imperfections’ while maintaining verbal abuse and harassment.
That duality of truth and lies had instilled an obsession in her childhood memory.
An obsession to overcome her own imperfections, a clumsy ‘perfection.’
‘Perfection cannot be obtained in that manner.’
The contradictions instilled by her mother led to the rise of the family, but ultimately resulted in all members of that family being annihilated by Arpina’s own hands.
It was a foreseen tragedy.
“Quite a human-like ending.”
“Do you think so?”
“Isn’t it? Desiring more than what one deserves, only to die crushed by that desire, or ultimately owning it until it bursts.”
It is a likeness often seen even on Earth.
Whether it’s Arpina or her mother.
Or my father, or my sister.
“For a while, focus on perfectly sealing her. So she doesn’t die without a soul.”
Myrr bowed her head once again politely.
In her eyes, facing me, there was an expert’s demeanor of calmness.
“Understood. I will prepare it to ensure she can be preserved for at least about a year.”
“I trust you.”
I replied shortly.
I didn’t think it would take that long to reach Arpina’s level, but even if it did, her body must remain intact until all her knowledge is extracted.
Perhaps that knowledge could be converted into the ‘characteristics’ of my soldiers or people.
With a plop. Plop.
As I passed the two of them, I finally arrived at the place I truly wanted to reach.
“Master.”
Evangeline, severely wounded all over, greeted me.
“Eve.”
Her body was in tatters.
The marks left by Arpina’s powerful force were vivid all over.
Flesh seemed stuck as if it had melted, with muscle torn out in places.
One of her arms dangled limply as if broken, with one of her eyes completely scorched.
The most horrifying thing was the green flames still sticking to all her wounds.
Clinging like oil or tar, they completely blocked her injuries from regenerating.
The power of plunder that Arpina possessed was still gradually gnawing at her flesh.
And yet…
“Indeed… Master has won.”
She smiled.
Squeeze.
I bit my lip to prevent my expression from contorting.
Otherwise, one of us might burst out.
Tears, or a scream of rage.
“… What you should have done at that moment wasn’t that charge, Eve.”
That voice was raw, devoid of the blessings of ‘nobility.’
Now it was an expression of my feelings that was an intention to say that it’s okay for me to collapse a bit, as much as she, they were precious to me.
But I didn’t want that.
I wanted to be someone they could lean on, just as I leaned on them.
“Why did you do that?”
Even so, I couldn’t help but let my voice tremble slightly.
According to the tactics I had given, she should have retreated appropriately while minimizing the lure at least once.
That was her true strength.
If her intent had succeeded, Arpina would surely have been bound for a while by her calm and restrained movements.
But she did not.
The moment a gap appeared, she immediately charged at Arpina, sacrificing her own body to complete the mission.
“I know. That was the right thing to do.”
Her judgment was accurate.
She had perfectly fulfilled my strategy.
The deciding blow of this plan was dragging Arpina into the realm of my soul, and until then, Arpina had not suspected anything, thanks to Eve’s ‘unexpected’ reckless behavior.
In the end, her judgment even robbed my own, forcing her to choose to retrieve instead of merely allowing ‘sufficient harm’ to occur.
“If I hadn’t charged in at that point, she would surely have become suspicious…”
She had prevented her from choosing Plan B or C.
Ultimately, again.
She had protected me.
“There are no monsters who can remain calm in front of a Dungeon Lord’s crisis. Conversely, there are also not many Dungeon Lords who can remain calm in front of an ‘Ace’ crisis…”
Her voice was clear and calm as always.
But to my eyes, she was subtly straining her neck.
Enduring extreme pain.
“Hah…”
If you’re in pain, just say so…
Seeing that she didn’t want my concern, my anger gradually began to dissipate.
A flicker –
A fire resembling the color of my pupils flared up on my palm.
“Please help.”
– Yes!
『Characteristic – … Barrier Keeper, … Expertise: Soul Magic, …』
The flame of my unique soul magic, drawn up from my own soul.
Kiiing –
The flame elegantly danced up, soon transforming into a complex magic circle.
Similar to Arpina’s methods. In fact, the essence wasn’t fundamentally different.
It was just that I manifested it with my power; fundamentally, it was her magic.
– Kieeek -!!
The green flames consuming Eve’s body let out a sound that was hard to believe was from a flame before fleeing.
“That feels… refreshing.”
“Just stay still.”
Swish…
As that ‘living flame’ disappeared, Evangeline’s body regained its regenerative power.
I infused mana into Evangeline’s body to accelerate her recovery and regeneration.
– Kiyahh!!
“You’re noisy.”
I already knew why the green fire was screaming like that.
Arpina. Because her power originated from an external source.
“[Your ability to manipulate humans originates from the other world.]”
When it came to external powers, it was certainly a statement from Dantalion, who had the deepest understanding on this continent.
The question of how humans could handle external forces so ‘stably’ concluded with the explanation that she was inherently such a talent.
Arpina was a rare candidate for external magic.
And there were still six more like her on this continent.
“Kimaris… and Mosaic.”
The former was the cause of my confrontation with Arpina.
The latter was the name of the organization she belonged to.
Considering the Marquis Kimaris, who belonged beneath the secret Grand Duke, it was no surprise to simply verify what I had already anticipated.
What I was concerned about was the latter.
“Are you troubled?”
“Somewhat.”
“I’ll convey that to Talhan…”
“What does a hurt child say? Just rest more.”
“Yes? I can move now… No, I will rest.”
As I looked earnestly at her, watching Evangeline pull the blanket up to her neck, I recalled that organization.
They were more accurately not even a collective.
Unlike the Underworld Trading Company Midas, which developed from a simple gathering into a huge influence with organization,
They were truly a club in its barest sense.
‘A club of murderers, perhaps.’
My eyes naturally narrowed.
To simply define the nature of that group: ‘A gathering of those who revel in murder endowed with external power.’
They were all possessed of lunacy regarding the aesthetic or purpose achieved through murder.
At the same time, while they might not be rulers, they possessed strength that could reach that level in no time, or at least possessed high-tier powers.
In a nutshell.
‘They are the villains of this continent.’
Though they rarely gathered and engaged only in personal activities, they were also legendary murderers who held strong empathy and attachment towards one another.
In other words.
They probably sensed Arpina’s ambition no matter what.
Because a magical device used to ensure mutual life or death could be found in her memories.
‘For now, I have no idea who subdued Arpina, but…’
Regardless, they would come looking for me someday.
And I…
‘When will that be?’
… I was already aware of their existence.
Flicker -!
From my fingertips, green and purple flames surged simultaneously.
The green flame transformed into a spider and flew up, then promptly perched on the web weaved by the purple flame.
Kiiing! A silent scream.
The web dissolved the spider, making it part of itself, turning into a flower.
“Indeed, the power is remarkable.”
Arpina was undeserving.
Others likely were too.
And I wanted that mysterious power they possessed, without exception.
At the same time.
‘Desire for vengeance multiplied tenfold.’
I wished to return the pain Arpina gave to my Eve back to Arpina’s terrible ‘friends.’
Just as I had Arpina in my grasp, for a long, long time.