Chapter 181 : Secret Room (5)
Secret Room (5)
Louis was able to obtain various pieces of information inside that hidden room.
Not all the secrets had been revealed yet, but as his questions were gradually answered, he felt as if something was being cleared out of his chest.
Currently, Louis had brought all those books with him to the city of magitech, Zodiac.
It was to show the books to someone he hadn't met in a long time.
"How long has it been since you last visited? It's quite hard to see your face these days."
Ferus grinned as he saw Louis's face after such a long time.
"If you miss my face that much, should I give you a magitech device with my portrait stored in it?"
Or maybe I should just give him a drawing of my face.
To that, Ferus made a disinterested expression and replied,
"No need. If I keep something like that nearby, my eyes might rot."
"You slip in your jabs so smoothly, don't you?"
When Louis put on a disappointed face, Ferus chuckled.
"What's so funny?"
"It's just that it's been a while since I got to laugh like this. It feels great."
"Were you under a lot of stress recently?"
Ferus's face genuinely brightened as he looked at Louis.
He didn't seem like someone suffering from stress, but as the head of magitechnology for the Imperial Court, his work-related stress surely exceeded that of others, several times over.
"Of course I was, because of those guys!"
Suddenly wrinkling his face in annoyance, Ferus pointed toward a certain room.
From inside wafted the very familiar scent of some people.
Even though Louis already knew who was inside and what they were doing, he opened the door to check.
"Wahahahaha!"
"There's no paradise greater than this!"
Two white-haired old men were laughing uproariously in the messy room.
Marred with filth they themselves caused, what was originally assumed to be Ferus's master bedroom was now a den for two drunken elders, who had once been untouchable monsters in the Imperial Court.
"Oh? You're here!"
"It's really been a long time! How have you been?"
Andrew Weissman and Laika Bisted. The two of them greeted Louis with open arms.
"What's with your appearance?"
"Huh?"
"Are you talking to us?"
The only thing they were wearing were their underpants.
Louis wondered if these grown old men had finally succumbed to senility.
"We're perfectly fine, can't you see? Perfect!"
"Look at this! We're in perfect health!"
Clearly, the alcohol had gotten to them; they were out of their minds.
Louis frowned, as if he had just seen something he could never unsee.
"At the very least, could you please put on some clothes before talking?"
"Clothes? Since when was that a big deal?"
"Back in our day! We fought swarms of monsters, tearing our shirts like they were paper!"
For them, who had lived through harsh times, clothes were little more than a luxury.
They were laying out their classic old-timer logic, proudly baring their chests.
"When you were with the 7th Legion, did you never lose your clothes?"
"Why scold us when you did the same?"
It wasn't wrong, but that couldn't excuse their lack of shame.
Still, even with their chests bare, the two old men's bodies retained well-defined muscles.
It was as if a famed sculptor had carefully carved each muscle, testament to the hardships they had endured as warriors once called the Imperial Court's strongest.
These former heroes, however, were now nothing more than drunken old men.
"Hey, Ferus! What do you think?"
"Don't you remember how hard our lives were?"
They finally tried to recruit Ferus, their peer, believing that he would side with them.
"What do you think, Louis?"
Ferus placed a hand on Louis's shoulder.
"These guys are why I can't keep my sanity."
His stress didn't come from work.
It came from those two, who constantly disturbed his personal time.
"Why not just throw them out?"
They had been the heroes who saved the Imperial Court in the war.
They deserved as much honor and welfare as the Imperial Court could give... but causing trouble in someone else's home could never be acceptable.
Besides, they had plenty of other places to stay.
Surely they each had their own residences.
What's the harm in throwing them out?
"No... If I ever tried that..."
So, he had already tried? Ferus seemed about to demonstrate.
He approached the two, grabbed the backs of their necks, and tried to drag them out, saying "Get out, now."
In that instant—
"No! I don't want to!!"
"I'm living here now!"
The two, drunk, suddenly threw tantrums on the floor, refusing to go.
Seeing these once-legendary men acting like little children, Louis could only click his tongue.
"There's a friend here who's like a mom!"
"Mother! I'm so sorry! I'll be a good son, just please don't kick me out!"
Now they were even calling Ferus, their old war buddy, "Mom."
At this point, it went beyond drunkenness—Louis wondered if they'd become senile entirely.
"See, they don't even listen to a word I say anymore."
Utterly defeated, Ferus wore an expression of resignation.
Still, considering all that the two had been through, it was understandable that their minds had gone a bit off.
Laika had lost his own body to the Great Devil Duramon, and ended up fathering trashy descendants while possessed.
Just thinking of the guilt from such unwanted sins, he must have suffered terribly.
Andrew, in order to save his family, became a slave of the elves on his own accord.
But his family never truly reflected on their actions; eventually Andrew was forced to kill his own family members with his own hands.
'It's enough to break anyone's mind.'
Honestly, it wasn't strange that they'd end up like these drunken old men.
The fact they weren't complete wrecks yet was something to marvel at.
"Well then, let's leave these people and get to the main point."
Louis took a seat in Ferus's laboratory chair and began explaining about the books he'd brought.
When Ferus heard about the books found in the secret room beneath the Imperial Castle, he was amazed.
"Every single thing in here is jaw-dropping. If all this comes out, the entire continent is in for a shock."
"Well, at least, now we know how those blueprints ended up in the hands of the great devils."
Back then, the Emperor had sold them off at whim to gain some benefit.
No wonder no one had ever been able to track them down.
"There's even more incredible stuff in here. The origin story of the Chaos Dragon, the true nature of the royal family's supernatural power, and the fact the old Emperor was trash—I never expected that."
Just from perusing a bit, Ferus quickly grasped all the book's content.
He was a living legend in the magitechnology world—speed-reading was nothing to him.
"But I wonder—did the old Emperor intend to hand over the blueprints right from the start?"
"What do you mean?"
"That Emperor made a deal. Thanks to that, the continent changed the way it did. I'm sure when he traded with the great devils, they must have demanded something."
In other words, the Emperor didn't just decide on his own to hand over the plans.
"So the Emperor's mindset was, 'I'll hand over anything, just give me power!'?"
"Exactly. The great devils probably asked for the blueprints as part of that deal."
From what they could tell, the Emperor wasn't a particularly shrewd person, so that was a believable theory.
If that was true, then the motives of the great devils were also becoming clear.
"Then why did the devils want the blueprints?"
"They must have found them interesting. After all, these are blueprints for the weapon that slew the Chaos Dragon."
Indeed, even the great devils seemed wary of the Chaos Dragon.
Just look at Palmon, the great devil Louis defeated—not only did he recognize the Chaos Dragon, he panicked at the mere sight of it.
"So then, what's the relationship between them and the Chaos Dragon?"
"I've been wondering that myself."
"But maybe the answer is simple—at minimum, it looks like they weren't on good terms."
"Aren't all the great devils like that with each other too?"
"I don't know for sure, but here's what I think."
Ferus pointed a finger at Louis as he spoke.
"The great devils fear the Chaos Dragon's power. That's why they wanted the blueprints for the artifact, to find a way to counter it."
"Why would they be afraid?"
"For example... maybe they fought each other before."
If they had fought and measured each other's strength, that would make sense.
The victor would dominate, the loser would be fearful.
That much made the Chaos Dragon's power clear.
"So the Chaos Dragon beat all the great devils?"
"Yes. Even with several great devils joining forces, they couldn't handle the Chaos Dragon."
If even devils capable of destroying the world couldn't prevail, no wonder the Chaos Dragon was regarded as the true final boss.
"And that great devil, Palmon, whom you defeated a few years ago—how was it, facing him?"
"Hmm... now that I think about it..."
The more he thought about it, the stranger Louis felt.
Despite all the monstrous rumors, Palmon was actually quite weak.
"He seemed a bit weak for a great devil, at least compared to the rumors..."
"Right. Despite all the talk, he fell anticlimactically to you, and you didn't even know how to properly use your powers yet."
At the time, Louis didn't even know how to breathe fire.
He'd had to beat Palmon in a brawl, unable to use the proper strength.
"Of course, there must be a reason for his weakness. For example, maybe he'd been injured in a fight with someone."
"Would great devils really get wounded from fighting someone?"
They were transcendent beings in this world.
Who could actually injure them...?
"Wait."
It wasn't impossible.
Someone immediately came to Louis's mind.
"Yes. The Chaos Dragon."
The great devils had joined forces to fight the Chaos Dragon.
For that one time, they'd set aside their differences and united, and yet they still couldn't defeat it.
As a result, they were left with wounds that would last a lifetime, weakening their powers.
"So you could say the Chaos Dragon weakened the strength of the great devils that much."
"Then was the Chaos Dragon a good being?"
"Hmm... I'm not sure about that, but whether good or evil, the fact remains that the Chaos Dragon sapped their strength."
Great devils could conjure up a demon realm with just a gesture.
The reason they couldn't rampage freely anymore was likely thanks to the Chaos Dragon.
"Moreover, according to the book, the Chaos Dragon was once found in the form of a small lizard. Why do you think that was?"
"It was originally a giant dragon—why would it devolve into a lizard?"
"That answer's simple, too."
There's a common legend that large creatures, when they lose their strength, become smaller beings.
Louis had often read about that in stories as a child.
"The Chaos Dragon lost its strength after fighting with the great devils."
And that's why it was discovered as a small lizard—a hatchling.
Of course, all this was just a hypothesis and not a confirmed answer.
"Then why not just ask if it's true."
And so Louis spoke.
"To that demonkin hiding over there."
The moment he did, something ghostlike leapt out from the wall Louis was looking at.
It moved so fast that Ferus couldn't catch it, but Louis could see it clearly.
A man with sharp ears and black skin.
He looked roughly human, but with a devil's tail and wings—he was demonkin.
Louis saw the demonkin's sharp claws aiming for Ferus's eyes.
But there was no need for him to get involved.
He also saw the two old men stop the demonkin's attack.
"Who are you?"
"Why break into someone else's house uninvited?"
Andrew grabbed the demonkin's claws, Laika grabbed its arm, stopping the demonkin's attack and protecting Ferus.
"Perfect! This is our home!"
"Did you pay the rent here?"
But they were still drunk.
While the two were staggering, the demonkin drew a hidden dagger and slashed it.
Could they even take on an opponent in their drunken state?
Crunch!—
The old men's hands moved in a flash.
At the same time, the demonkin's neck and waist twisted 360 degrees like a carousel.
Laika twisted the waist, Andrew the neck.
Louis was the only one who saw their movements; even after all their strength was drained, they could still perform at such a level, and Louis was in awe, even more so given they were drunk.
"Did we do well?"
"Right? We did well, didn't we!"
Perfect!—
They hadn't done well at all.
They'd accidentally killed the guy they were supposed to interrogate.