74 – The Golden Mage and the Winter King – (1)

As if swimming in the terrible darkness, I peeked into Fried’s memory.

Naturally, the memory of that day 20 years ago came to mind vividly.

I thought I could see the dark night sky for the first time, but I heard a clicking sound. And then, suddenly, someone grabbed me. Young Fried is helplessly dragged away without even screaming.

They are caught in a dark cellar and thrown onto the cold stone floor. Pain to the point of twisting my back rips through my whole body.

In front of her eyes, her father, Raham Iscobal, is leading the ceremony with her emaciated body.

In a fit of madness, Raham cuts off his own wrists without hesitation, splatters the blood, grabs Cleta by the neck, and drags her into the middle of the room. Her small body was already full of scars. But there was no resistance. Cleta quietly surrendered herself to Raham’s touch, as if accepting her fate.

There was only one thing that could be felt from Raham’s blank expression: desperation. Because the only reason he lived was to summon a demon from another world and reunite with his bereaved wife.

The ceremony begins, and the captured children lose their lives one by one.

Some have their throats cut, others are parched alive, and others have their limbs twisted in bizarre shapes.

Horrible slaughter. Using this as a trigger, a roar is heard and a gap with the outside world is opened. In the gap, only the empty universe is visible.

As thick demonic energy leaks out between them, screams come out from here and there, and the room instantly turns into an abyss.

At that moment, Freed, who came to his senses, felt a strong urge. In the midst of a torrent of emotions, the most intense self-assertion is the two letters anger.

I walked out as if possessed and reached out my hand to the gap leading to the outer world. As life force is sucked out, the vision is stained black.

And the huge being saw itself.

Freed followed the whispers that flowed through the cracks. Ceremonial dagger held in hand. Taking a big step forward, I break the shackles on my body and run.

The most impressive scene in my hazy memory was the sight of Fried driving a knife into Raham’s chest with his arms wide open.

The moment I saw that, I understood the whole story of the day.

*

“Gagging!”

He coughed heavily and opened his eyes.

The fresh air rushed into my lungs and made my stomach ache. My joints creaked and the pain ran through me. Eyes not accustomed to the light screamed.

I closed my eyes again and took a deep breath to calm myself down.

“Are you awake?”

Before I knew it, Yuriard was looking down with his arms folded at my bedside.

When he turned his sights, the hospital room in the imperial palace, where he had been taken care of several times, came into view. Apparently, someone moved me to the capital while I was down.

asked Uriard. His voice was hoarse as he hadn’t opened his mouth for a long time.

“……How many days have passed?”

“Ha! How many days? I’m sorry. It’s been a few weeks. It stretched for as much as two weeks. Do you know how many priests robbed their holy power to save your life?”

“crazy.”

You’ve been in bed for two weeks.

I looked around and saw that a stench was flowing from all over my body. It was natural that I couldn’t wash it.

“Turn it off.”

I strained my upper body, but failed to get myself up. After lying down for a long time, it seemed that his body was weak.

Well, since it was swallowed whole by the devil, it must be so. On the contrary, I wondered how he survived.

As if my doubts were reflected on my face, Uriad snorted and explained.

“It was devastating. There was no corpse. It seemed that the whole body would change at any moment as it was engulfed by demonic energy. I wanted to get this far, but you managed to survive. He’s a guy with a long lifeline.”

“That’s really cool. Thank you for the good words.”

“Please send thanks to His Majesty, not to me.”

Uriad nodded. There was a silver sword standing tall in the scabbard.

It was Ernst.

“If the sword containing the power of the imperial family had not purified the demonic spirit, I would have died.”

“…”

Ernst. Even in the actual game, damage bonuses were added when cutting alien artifacts. Literally, it was treated like a decisive battle weapon of the Great Church of the Empire. Is there anything different in this world?

While staring blankly at Ernst, Uriard cleared his throat. Then he lay down on the bed and put his hands on it.

“So, what did you see there?”

“…”

I pondered for a while.

However, Uriad had taken Fried away, and he was also a person who was well aware of the events that occurred that day. Moreover, if the memory of Fried I saw in my dream was true, then Uriad would also know the circumstances to some extent.

I opened my mouth slowly.

“I saw Cleta.”

“……Cleta?”

“To be precise, I saw Cleta in the form of a demon. Huge and hideous. I followed the apostle’s orders.”

“… um.”

Uriad got off the bed and put a hand on his forehead.

After a while, he opened his mouth with a distorted expression.

“I see. The ritual that day didn’t completely fail.”

Seeing his reaction, I searched for memories.

As seen in the dream, Fried was sacrificed along with Cleta that day. But he survived alone and emerged from the ashes on his own feet. With a black dagger in one hand, a burning sky in front of my eyes. The stout knight looked down at himself with surprised eyes.

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Draw conclusions based on a series of clues.

“Cleta resents me.”

“Hmm? Why do you think so?”

“……I stopped the ceremony. I disobeyed my father. And that probably wasn’t what Cleta wanted.”

Raham’s madness to sacrifice his daughter Cleta to summon his widowed wife, Chloris, led to the approach of the Church.

If you use the power of foreign media, you can reunite with your wife. At the appeasement of the church, Raham puts everything down and becomes an apostle.

And his daughter, Cleta, was a very obedient and faithful tool who would give her life for her father.

The reason is probably because I was taught that way from a young age.

Cleta was caught in the madman’s world before she learned the natural emotions of a human being. Through the fragments of my memories, I could see how out of touch she was as a human being who had grown up like that.

In this way, even the element of consciousness called Cleta was prepared. This plan proceeded smoothly, leading to a connection with another dimension. The end began when an alien demon stepped out into this world.

However, it was his son, Fried Iscobal, who stopped the arrogant apostle Raham and the disaster he called, not the guardian knights dispatched by the imperial family.

It was Freed who cut off the connection with the other world by driving the ceremonial dagger deep into Raham’s chest. He cut off his resentful father, ending the nightmare of the day.

The reason why Fried was not executed for treason, and the reason why he was selected as a Guardian Knight, must have originated from this.

This is the whole story of Iscobal’s tragedy.

The question here is that the demon who should have returned to the original dimension is still alive.

that’s probably

“It means that the nearest element, Cleta, was used as a host.”

Saying that, Uriad nodded as if he understood.

Also, the story was fast.

“If what you say is true, the Church will threaten His Majesty’s safety with Cleta at the forefront.”

“That’s right.”

The church will drive even harder with a demon named Cleta on its back. In fact, from the 4th act onwards, the methods of the church become bolder and more sinister. Maybe it wasn’t Cleta’s influence.

Uriad sighed continuously.

The days ahead were bleak.

“Okay. Let’s devise a countermeasure. It’s been like this until now, but it’s going to be a thorny road in the future.”

Eventually, after arranging the story, Uriad took out a dagger from his bosom and threw it away.

A dagger with a pattern of rising half moons. It was a family treasured sword given as a gift by Millia. And it was also the weapon that Fried stabbed his father at the time.

“This…….”

“Milia picked it up for me. She managed to take care of it even during the chaos. Say thank you later. Of course, the same goes for Sir Eina. No matter how worried you are, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a restless Eina-sensei.”

Eina looks flustered. I can’t even imagine I would also like to see it once.

With those words, Uriad turned his back.

“Whoa.”

In the hospital room where I was left alone, I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling, thinking.

“It’s a promise.”

To get Cleta back, Freed had to kill Lyncia Ayrn. And it was an irresistible contract made by a great will.

I didn’t tell Yuriard about the oath. Although the situation was urgent, it is true that Fried signed a contract with a foreign press. From the point of view of the Empire, it was tantamount to treason.

No matter how much you protect the border, this is an incurable sin. If you don’t get burned, you’ll be lucky.

“Ahhh. I’m going crazy.”

my head hurts.

When I heard the story of an irresistible oath, I had a hunch that it wouldn’t be serious, but I didn’t expect it to be to this extent.

Arwen was right. In the end, Fried was destined to kill Lyncia.

Whenever the memory of that day and the story of Cleta came up, Fried’s consciousness reacted more out of fear than longing or sadness.

Giving up and running away would be one way, but even that was impossible.

The reason was simple.

I relived my experience in Raising Empress.

“The final boss of Act 8.”

What was your name? Was it the incarnation of the abyss?

Chapter of the final final battle. It was a boss that revealed its appearance with the background seen in the battle with Atral behind.

And the appearance of the incarnation of the abyss was similar to the level of copying and pasting Lyncia Eyren.

The count was so bad that most Raising Empress players would repeat dozens of tries on that boss.

I can’t even count how many times I hit the keyboard.

“…”

At the time, I thought the foreign media had copied Lyncia’s appearance for some reason, but now I have no choice but to change my mind.

The final boss of Act 8, the incarnation of the abyss.

That was Cleta.

to sum up.

“The final boss is my sister…?”

In other words, if Cleta was left unattended, she would grow steadily and emerge as the greatest threat to the empire.

What if I said I didn’t know and ran away? Let alone Lynthia, only the fate of the world itself being destroyed would remain.

When I reached that point, I muttered blankly.

“……It sucks.”

Seriously, it sucks.

belt ring.

[Act 3 – Working Conference]

＞ D – 9

Fortunately, the story is still in the early and middle stages.

Given a little time, I had to find a countermeasure. Because otherwise it would have been ruined.

But how?

I wondered, but I shook my head.

What do you do?

as you have done so far.

“Do anything.”

That was all.