Chapter 170 : Chapter 170
Chapter 170. The Capital Transfer (1)
It's not something to be proud of, but I'm quite confident in my acting.
Especially when it comes to acting sick, I think I can fool nine out of ten, no, all ten people.
Perhaps it's the result of diligent effort since childhood.
During elementary school, I was so eager to go home that I would often feign illness to leave early.
After entering middle school, having a dream, and dedicating myself to training, that became a thing of the past.
The reason I'm recalling something from over twenty years ago is because I'm in a similar situation now.
I'm acting sick.
“Cough! Cough!”
“Your Majesty, here is a handkerchief.”
“It's fine, it's… heok, fine.”
Waving my hand, I pushed the caregiver away.
I'll be honest.
This is harder than I thought.
The difference in difficulty stemmed from the severity of the Emperor's illness.
When I acted sick in elementary school, all I had to do was clutch my stomach and cry, or poke my eyes to make them red.
The problem was that the Emperor had been literally dying.
Even if his symptoms had miraculously improved, it was only natural for some after-effects to remain on a person's body.
“Cough! Gack!”
Dark red blood spurted from my mouth.
It wasn't as if coughing violently would produce blood that wasn't there, so this was a product of effort.
Well, should I call it effort, or self-harm?
Taking advantage of a break, I made my mana flow backward, tearing up my internal organs just enough not to die.
“Uuuk…”
“Y-Your Majesty!”
“…….”
To think that in my life, I would not only self-destruct with a spell using a doppelgänger, but also resort to self-torture.
I'm feeling a bit of a reality check, but the reason I'm going this far is because there are more eyes watching than I thought.
Most importantly, among them is the veteran knight of the Pegasus Knight Order, Edmund Berkeley.
“…….”
The knight with half-graying blond hair was watching me.
Berkeley, along with Yula Katran of the Imperial Secret Knight Order, was a royal guard known as one of the ‘Emperor's Two Swords’.
Although he looked upright, he was over a hundred years old.
As expected, he was a knight who had reached level 7.
His experience and insight, gained from long service as a royal guard of the imperial family, were sharper than an eagle's.
Even though I was coughing up blood, he might still find this situation suspicious….
“Still, it is a relief. You seem to have improved a lot in the past few days.”
“Heok, is that so…?”
“It must be thanks to Viscount Ash's faith. The bishop of the domain said that his earnest prayers must have moved Luark's heart.”
“…….”
“I believe in miracles. Please hold on a little longer, Your Majesty. You might even get up and walk tomorrow.”
Or not.
Could I have fooled him even without going this far?
Come to think of it, the atmosphere created by [Lord's Unyielding Mind] is almost impossible to imitate with other traits or abilities.
I've copied the appearance, and with a little effort, the accent is similar.
I seem to hear Kkumteuli's tut-tutting from my main body's subspace, but let's ignore that.
I also hear Starfish's sigh-like whimper, so that's a one-day sugar deduction.
‘N-no, master, that’s…?!’
‘Kiiiiing…!!’
Anyway, while the doppelgänger was putting on a fake illness show involving self-harm, my main body was examining the Emperor's legacy.
The lord's office in the castle.
Two sacred relics were on the table.
On the left was Tick-Tocky, who was seeing the light outside the subspace for the first time in a while.
On the right was the sacred relic of the ‘Pendulum that Swings Between Hope and Truth’.
‘Ding…dong?’
The one I named Ding-Dong.
Perhaps having heard the screams of its seniors in the subspace, it mumbled bashfully.
Come to think of it, this was already the sixth sacred relic.
The number of Outer Gods was fourteen.
The number of sacred relics was the same.
I had collected almost half of them by myself.
I remember that when I collected two and four, changes occurred in the power of the ‘Warrior’.
[Achievement unlocked! You have collected two or more sacred relics of the church.]
[[Warrior’s Insight] regains its original power.]
[You can now explore the origin of skills acquired through [Warrior’s Insight].]
[Achievement unlocked! You have collected four or more sacred relics of the church.]
[[Warrior’s Binding] regains its original power.]
[Troops summoned with [Warrior’s Binding] can now grow as if they were real.]
The already cheat-like traits [Warrior's Insight] and [Warrior's Binding] had evolved even further.
What would happen if I collected eight?
I don't know.
However, Ding-Dong provides a slight hint.
Ding-Dong has two abilities.
The first is to visualize imminent ‘hope’.
It's an ability that only activates after falling into a crisis, so it's useless in normal times.
The key is the second one.
Once every hundred years, the power to see through and store a target's information.
That information includes not only abilities, status, and deeds, but also the type and number of sacred relics possessed.
So, it's a kind of camera.
What's interesting is that, perhaps for the sake of fairness, the information of the person who used this ability is also stored.
If it were a camera, would it be like saving a selfie mode every time a picture is taken?
‘Ding-dong?’
‘Master, he's asking what a selfie is.’
‘Just get to work. Have you met the magic stone production target?’
‘Th-that! If you suddenly tell me to double the production…!’
‘You can do it without sleeping, can't you?’
‘……!’
I sound like a wicked factory owner, but what can I do?
The Emperor is dead, and the situation is developing rapidly.
The magic stone factory's production needs to increase not just twofold, but more than tenfold.
In the first place, the existing production was calculated based on the working hours of a typical modern adult male, meaning a human who needs to sleep, eat, and rest.
‘If you meet the production target, I'll give you sugar again. Double.’
‘M-move it, now! Starfish, Eyeball, Crusty!’
‘Omnyomnyom!’
Back to the main point.
After receiving the sacred relic from the dying Emperor, I went through all the data stored in it.
I didn't understand it all at once.
Ding-Dong's ‘knowledge transfer’ was a bit different from reading a book or watching a video; it was a feeling of knowledge being directly embedded in my head.
The problem was that Ding-Dong's data spanned as far back as seven thousand years ago.
Half of the beings who had obtained this sacred relic during that vast period were related to races, nations, cultures, customs, abilities, and military systems that I didn't know.
It's not like I'm playing an archaeologist game.
If the Emperor hadn't provided a supplementary explanation while he was alive, it would have been difficult to understand.
Anyway, by compiling the prior knowledge the Emperor had given me and Ding-Dong's data, I was able to draw two conclusions.
‘In the past, there were quite a few who had collected multiple sacred relics.’
Four, seven, and even ten.
Especially, the further back in time I went, the more people there were who had collected sacred relics.
Was it because civilization, as it is now, hadn't spread throughout the entire continent and was only formed narrowly in certain areas?
In any case, the kings and chieftains who had seized the sacred relics were the figures who had commanded those eras.
Like those who left their names in history, most of them had disappeared or died.
What was unique was that they had all fallen in battles that staked the fate of their nations.
Since the sacred relic only recorded the moment of capture, the moment of death was not recorded, but according to the history the Emperor had researched, most of them had become the dust of the battlefield.
Just two.
There are exceptions.
‘The Emperor of the Lumer Legion. And… the Eastern Emperor.’
The Lumer Legion.
A civilization that had commanded the western continent four thousand years ago.
Their reign of conquest came to an end with the death of the emperor.
But that emperor was resurrected.
He must have regained his almost complete form by now.
He led his legion, destroyed Indika, and swept through the south.
What's strange is that he stopped his advance in the middle of crossing the great desert.
I plan to have the vampire duke look into this.
For reference, while I was traveling between the eastern wasteland and the imperial capital, the vampire duke was faithfully fulfilling his role as a watchtower in the south.
Through a series of coincidences, the vampire duke considered me to be the Lumer Emperor and thought of the current Lumer Legion as a band of traitors.
‘A master whose life has become a series of scams and deceptions… ah, it's nothing!’
‘……?’
There seems to be some static.
Is it because my body is comfortable?
Anyway, even if the Lumer Legion were to invade, I could deal with them.
Since their first appearance in World Scenario 2.0, the number of times I've conquered the continent with Lumer is in the double digits.
‘…The problem is this one.’
The Eastern Emperor.
Information about this one is lacking.
The Eastern Empire was a faction that appeared in 3.0.
But even if you choose the Eastern Empire, you can't play as the emperor.
The one ruling the empire now is a figure in the position of ‘Prime Minister’, said to have inherited the emperor's bloodline.
Because the emperor is sealed.
It's called a seal, but he's practically a cryogenically frozen human.
That's right.
He was the one who had collected twelve sacred relics long ago.
It means that he too is denying death by force, in a similar way to Lumer.
However, one thing is different: the emperor has a close relationship with the church.
In every playthrough, the church tries to break the emperor's seal.
They rarely succeed, but when they do, about one in ten times, the emperor immediately seizes full power and launches a massive invasion of other countries with the church.
When playing as the Eastern Empire, this was an event that had to be stopped.
Although I don't know the details, as soon as the emperor is resurrected, you lose the game.
“…….”
I need more information.
Information from this world.
As I sat at my office desk, deep in thought, something happened on the doppelgänger's side, which was playing the role of the emperor.
[Your Majesty, your voice has improved a lot. Thanks be to Luark's mercy. Please forgive my disloyalty in leaving Your Majesty's side.]
The ‘Apothecary’ had contacted me through the communication crystal sphere.
The Imperial Secret Knight Order had arrived at the imperial capital before I knew it.
[The situation in the capital, you ask? I'm sorry. It's more serious than I expected.]
“How serious is it?”
[The plague is much faster than expected. Despite blocking all the sewers and having all the church's priests pour out purification miracles, a sickly yellow aura is rising from between the paving stones of the streets and the floorboards of the buildings. In the outlying areas where quarantine and sanitation are difficult, more than a thousand deaths are occurring daily.]
I was wrong.
It seems there's no time to be leisurely.
Acting is something you do only when the situation and circumstances allow.
I rose from the sickbed.
There was no one in the room.
As it happened, the royal guard, Berkeley, had also briefly left his post to relieve himself.
A suitable excuse would be necessary.
[Deploying [Miracle: Purification].]
[Deploying [Miracle: Blessing].]
[Deploying [Miracle: Surging Strength].]
[Deploying [Miracle: Heavenly Melody].]
[Deploying [Miracle: Luark's Aegis]….]
[…….]
The miracles below level 3, integrated into [Luark's Mercy].
The miracles below level 5, included in [Luark's Grace].
And even some of the high-level miracles I had learned from the Bishop and Alina.
I poured all that divine power into it.
Crash-!
The windows shattered and the door flew off from the overflow of divine power.
The royal guard, Berkeley, rushed into the room, which looked as if it had been bombed.
Archduke Gabir and the caregivers, who had been working in a nearby room, also rushed in.
“Y-Your Majesty?!”
A panicked shout.
Eyes that couldn't comprehend the situation before them.
In the chaotic room, I looked at the half-broken mirror that had been thrown against the wall.
Blond hair, blue eyes.
A ruddy complexion and a firm, muscular body peeking from under the patient's robe.
A young, healthy, and unwavering iron-blooded monarch was there.
The image of the Emperor in his prime, which I had taken through Kkumteuli.
Borrowing that appearance and authority, I speak to the people gathered in the sickroom, their mouths agape.
“Luark has bestowed a miracle upon me.”
[Deploying [Lord's Unyielding Mind].]
Thump-
The divine power that had been swirling around the room subsided, emitting a low rumble.
“He revived my body and commanded me to take responsibility for the fate of the empire, which is like a candle in the wind.”
“…….”
“We will go to the imperial capital today, immediately. Everyone, prepare. That is all.”
It was time to clean up the ruined empire.