Chapter 167
Chapter 167: Easy Pickings (7)
“Riferoze Astia! Stop!!”
The snow-white witch descending upon the Imperial Palace.
Riferoze had attacked District 1 of the capital.
Not only the Empire's Royal Guard, but even the Enforcement Bureau and the Imperial Magic Tower stepped forward to surround her.
“Those who stand in my way shall return to Father's embrace.”
She spoke those words and drew her greatsword.
She radiated a genuinely threatening presence, as if she meant to demolish the Imperial Palace.
Boom―.
A threat pressed down upon the solemn Imperial Palace.
Then the doors of the Continental Palace opened, and an elder with a long beard appeared.
“Must you really do this in the middle of wartime?”
It was the Master of the Imperial Magic Tower.
Riferoze lightly sent a few bursts of sword aura his way.
Clang- Clang! Clang-.
Golden sparks flew off the mana barrier surrounding the Magic Tower Master.
Riferoze's sword strikes were powerful.
Cracks formed in the Imperial Magic Tower Master's barrier.
“Riferoze……. You've grown even stronger?”
The Imperial Magic Tower Master stared at her in shock.
Riferoze then curved her eyes into a strange smile.
“Thanks to having a fine disciple.”
“You were quietly staying in that disciple's embrace, and now, a single day after your disciple entered the Labyrinth, you're pulling a stunt like this?”
The Magic Tower Master grew furious at Riferoze's outrage.
Riferoze then let out a laugh as if she found it absurd.
Hahahaha.
It was a laugh laced with vicious spite.
She said:
“Is it not precisely because the Imperial Palace keeps meddling with that disciple of mine that I behave this way?”
Riferoze had first attempted to request an audience with the Emperor.
However, she was refused.
That was why she had gone out of her way to come here in person-.
“How can you call it meddling when they are treating him with distinction?”
The Imperial Magic Tower Master could not understand Riferoze at all.
“Money, power, and honor alike. It is clear the Imperial Palace is treating your disciple with the utmost priority.”
“That is precisely the problem.”
Why is that a problem?
Not only the Imperial Magic Tower Master, but everyone surrounding the scene had a similar thought.
What could be the reason for objecting to being treated well?
“I am saying it is strange that the Emperor is showering him with gifts and giving him special treatment.”
“That is simply evidence of His Majesty's favor, how could it-.”
“Could it be that the Emperor has awakened to a taste for sodomy? That is the suspicion I hold.”
Silence fell at Riferoze's single remark.
She's asking openly about the nonsense everyone's been whispering about?
The Imperial Magic Tower Master was visibly flustered as well.
In truth, in the early days, there had been various suspicions surrounding Erik.
It was enough that some nobles even offered to introduce their sons to Erik.
“As his master, I find myself no small amount of worried, seeing a decrepit old Emperor repeatedly summon my young fifteen-year-old disciple, who is sublime and fine-featured.”
Riferoze stood tall and alone, reciting her suspicions aloud.
“Does it not seem strange to anyone but me, the image of the man who would be master of the continent bestowing all manner of wealth and power upon young Erik?”
Riferoze's words extended this far.
Then the Continental Palace shook.
Shwooooo―.
The power of moonlight threw the palace doors open of its own accord, and following the cascading moonlight, the Emperor's fury was unleashed.
“Riferoze, that's a bit rich coming from you, isn't it?”
It was Riferoze who had been raising a disciple with the intent to take him for herself.
And yet she dared to heap a strange insult upon him?
“To call me a sodomite, that is the sort of thing that would make my late Empress weep until she tore.”
The Emperor himself had come out of the great hall and shown his face outside the palace, visibly furious.
“Emperor. If you are not a sodomite, then tell me your reason for propping Erik up to this extent.”
At the same moment she spoke, a white flash of lightning was drawn.
Clang―!
A massive crack split open before the Imperial Palace.
Riferoze and the Emperor had exchanged a single sword strike.
However, not a single person witnessed the moment from the swing to the parry.
Only the afterimage lingering in the air gave any indication that something had occurred,
and the two of them simply stood in place.
Monstrously strong.
Of course, some among the powerful had perceived and grasped the actions of the two.
The result was a feeling of facing an enormous wall that could never be surmounted.
“Let us go inside and talk.”
The Emperor said as much and invited Riferoze into the great hall.
The Enforcement Bureau, the Imperial Magic Tower Master, and the Prime Minister alike.
It was a conversation conducted under strict control.
“Riferoze, you have truly grown stronger. To think one could still grow stronger after reaching that level.”
“Emperor, you remain unchanged. I shall make you like the Northern Archduke before long.”
The Emperor let out a hearty laugh at those words.
“Your words carry the same venom; the disciple takes after his master perfectly.”
It was because he was reminded of the Erik he had seen before.
Riferoze then dismissed the idle chatter and brought up the real matter.
“Just what are you trying to do with Erik, showing such excessive obsession?”
The Emperor looked up at the sky.
Then, as if recalling a distant memory, his eyes took on a deep, wistful look.
It almost seemed as though tears had gathered in those crimson eyes.
“It has been so long since I heard the voice of the Moon.”
Moonlight drifted at the Emperor's touch, yet no voice came.
“Not only I, but my three children as well, are unable to hear the Moon's voice.”
The Emperor's meaning was clear.
Is he saying the end of the Empire draws near?
Riferoze, who knew of the pact between the Imperial family and the Moon, was quick to understand.
“Just how long has it been? I have experienced times when I could not hear Astia's voice.”
“When I killed off all the ancestors who had heard the Moon's voice and declared the conquest of the continent. It was from that point.”
“That means…….”
“Yes. From the moment I became Emperor, I have not heard the Moon's voice.”
The last of the Imperial bloodline connected to the pact with the Moon would likely be himself.
This was the Emperor's belief.
“And so I am simply searching for a powerful figure of symbolic significance for the world that follows.”
Riferoze understood the Emperor's true intent.
This was something that could not be denied.
And should not be denied.
An Empire without the Moon-.
In truth, the moonlight of the night sky was sending the distant moonlight to the Emperor, but there was no one present who could perceive it.
Shwooooo―.
Only the clear moonlight shone upon the Emperor.
***
The effect of the [Orb of Growth] was extraordinary.
“Can ya see it?”
It first manifested in the local Jang Du-sik.
Between his brilliant close-cropped hair, Jang Du-sik radiated a luminous glow.
It resembled the Divine Power Erik used.
He truly is transforming into something like a lump of Divine Power.
Erik looked at Jang Du-sik with a bewildered expression.
In practice, the current Jang Du-sik could rightly be described as a lump of Divine Power wearing the shell of a mage.
Though in the first place, even that magic was something he used as a sham…….
Aside from a handful of spells he reproduced through perfect memorization, wasn't everything else cast through the tattoos engraved on his body?
While sinking into that thought, Jackson started in surprise and shouted.
“Boss! The Defense Stat went up by a total of 100!”
2 Stat points are granted per level.
Taking that into account, it meant Stat growth equivalent to roughly 50 levels had occurred.
“People who've reached max level have no choice but to grow through things like this.”
Even when one reaches the limits of the [Status Window]'s power, a Possessor can still grow by tempering their own flesh.
And yet, hadn't an additional avenue of growth opened up?
It was quite a good thing.
Now only one thing remained.
“So Boss, what changed for you?”
Possessor and local.
The change in Erik, a being straddling both halves.
Shwooooooo―.
Erik radiated holy Divine Power.
In that sacred light, every believer lowered their heads in reverence.
It was a sacred and devout light of the kind one might only see at Ruelle's praise prayer gatherings.
“Fragment of Faith.”
“And what's that?”
“It's concrete evidence of how the three departed gods used Divine Power.”
At those words, Jang Du-sik blinked.
He had the look of someone wondering what that meant.
“To put it roughly, it means I got stronger.”
Aha!
Jang Du-sik grinned brightly.
“Well now, if ya get any stronger than that, won't ya end up giving Sister Rife a knock on the head one day?”
“Hmm-.”
Erik thought about it seriously.
From what he had felt while sparring with the Saintess, Riferoze was a genuine monster.
“With the Saintess of Lu-Solace, I feel there's an angle to kill her if I play it well, but giving the Master a knock on the head, I can't even begin to gauge.”
“Aren't those two about the same age? I heard their power's about the same too, so what's different?”
“It's not a matter of the size of the power, but of the manner in which the power is wielded.”
In growing stronger, Erik had realized something.
Divine Power is simply power.
It is merely power granted through faith.
If the Saintess of Lu-Solace wielded it as though punishing the world, then Riferoze…….
The Master has always striven to excise the rotting parts of the world.
She had honed and honed her power to make it as sharp and precise as possible.
So even if the Saintess's power was of similar magnitude, the results it produced were overwhelmingly different.
Erik gave this explanation.
And finally added a note, simplified so Jang Du-sik could understand.
“It's the difference between you casting magic through tattoos and smashing someone with a club, Du-sik.”
“Oh!!! I get it now.”
A club delivers as much force as the wielder's own strength.
Whereas tattoos only fire off the maximum power contained within the magic circle.
“So Boss, what did you get from that Fragment?”
“A teaching.”
What was realized through the Fragment of Faith was a teaching.
It was something left behind by the three gods.
“I feel as if a message the three gods left behind when they departed this world has been conveyed to me. Perhaps it's something like a final testament.”
Erik murmured that conjecture in a composed tone.
After that, he shared the specific contents of the teaching.
“How Lu-Solace governed the world.”
Before departing the world, the Sun God had governed it with strictness and discipline.
Thus he imposed prohibitions to limit unnecessary strife among humans, prevented the slacking of the powerful, and curbed the laziness of the weak.
“That prohibition, flowing and flowing, became the Punishment Soldiers.”
By the time the conversation had reached this point.
Shudder-.
A chilling sensation crept up Erik's spine.
The feeling I get right before Master knocks me on the head.
It was deeply ominous.
In other words, this was a sign that the Saintess had begun to regain her senses.
“Let's head up for now.”
With his tasks done, there was reason to move his feet with purpose.
If a chill had been felt from below, the aura of a jackpot drifted from above.
There's something above that can overcome the Saintess.
***
Erik had brought the Saintess to a standstill.
“So you're saying the Saintess is basically just listening to Boss's words and waiting, and that's all it amounts to?”
Yet the method was deeply strange.
It wasn't as if he had wielded enormous Divine Power, nor had he done anything using a Holy Object.
The secret was-.
“A three-inch tongue.”
Meaning he had restrained the Saintess with words.
“When I shoved the dead younger brother from the Ray Solace Demon Realm and the belongings of the departed three gods in her face, she just broke down and froze on her own.”
Erik had gradually raised the intensity of his words.
It wasn't a method he preferred by nature, but he recalled the time Kim Su-ho had been banned from chat, and scratched at the Saintess in a similar manner.
She's an enemy either way, and there was no one watching.
Standing on ceremony in the Labyrinth was a surefire way to get the back of your head caved in.
And resolving it by force seemed precarious and would clearly eat up a great deal of time.
“The Saintess has a fragile mental state.”
At Erik's words, Jang Du-sik let out a hearty laugh.
“Well now, when would someone who's spent hundreds of years being worshipped have ever had the sharp end of your tongue turned on them, Brother?”
Jang Du-sik knew well that Erik had a rather biting way of speaking.
Jackson did too.
He used to make the slum thugs cry wearing Marco's face.
For those who knew the two well, it was only natural-.
Just how did he manage to be cutting with words?
From the eyes of the Possessor believers, it simply did not add up.
Erik is the one who commands and directs.
He is even the powerhouse who leads and settles everything by force.
A being that even someone like that can't resolve by force?
Park Chang-ho gulped.
As a fellow holder of [Sixth Sense], he too felt that something chilling was approaching from below.
“N-Nishida, just when are you going to find it!”
The place Erik's party had now arrived at was the Labyrinth's Floor 22.
It was a forest filled with enormous vines, home to monsters.
A land where pterosaurs flew through the skies and enormous monsters resembling dinosaurs lined the ground.
“Huff-. Huff! I mean, the map got bigger so it's hard to find it all at once!!!”
Nishida was sweating profusely, hacking through the vines for quite some time.
“Not yet?”
Erik approached.
“I-I'm looking as hard as I can, and I think I've almost found it!”
“You're lying-.”
Erik frowned.
He did not, however, resort to any kind of punishment.
“I can sense something good that way.”
Because [Sixth Sense] had shone its light.
The performance feels somewhat different from what I heard from Park Chang-ho.
Erik had the feeling that his [Sixth Sense] was a far superior version to Park Chang-ho's.
It was not merely feeling good or ominous omens.
Where something good might come from.
It was a power capable of predicting even this.
I am truly drawing closer to a god.
Honestly, Erik had felt a greater sense of omnipotence when he obtained [Sixth Sense] than when he had obtained [Fragment of Faith].
The power to distinguish truth from falsehood and like from dislike, and to read good omens from ill.
It was a feeling of surpassing humanity by an immeasurable margin.
By contrast, power was ambiguous.
Wasn't it already a world where humans wielded mythical strength?
While he was thinking such thoughts-.
“F-Found it!!!”
Nishida Ryo cried out with great joy.
At the location he had found stood a massive stone gate engraved with the number 22.
“There must be a reason for burying something like this in the Labyrinth floor-.”
In the game, it had been called the Hidden Piece of the Paired Floors.
And it was a Hidden Piece whose very existence ordinary users had been unaware of.
Floors 11, 22, 33, 44.
It was a stone gate that appeared on floors where the same number repeated twice.
Floor 11 has already been cleared out by the Adventurers…….
Originally, it was something that only appeared once per season.
The same held true in reality.
“Nishida, you do know the locations all the way up to Floor 44, right?”
“Y-Yes!!!”
Erik nodded.
From beyond the stone gate, an enormously auspicious sign was felt.
Perhaps winning first place in the American Powerball would feel something like this?
It was an auspicious sign that was vast.
However, an even greater chill crept in alongside it.
Grrrrrrrrnd-.
Erik swiftly opened the stone gate.
As the massive stone gate swung open, what was revealed was a deep and long corridor.
Adorned in gold throughout.
The walls were covered with mythical murals.
“Everyone, head up.”
“Will ya really be alright on yer own? Just lookin' at it, that place seems like a sealed-off space.”
“Du-sik, if you don't want to burn to death, head up. Go up the Labyrinth until you find the Black Mage Group.”
Even at Jang Du-sik's concern, Erik remained firm.
His resolve to turn one enemy against another had yet to change.
The Saintess, once she regained her senses alone, was a powerhouse capable of holding an entire front line on at least one side.
“Shouldn't the Saintess get a taste of those who have descended as Floor Masters?”
Erik sent his party upward.
He himself walked in quiet solitude toward the Hidden Piece of Floor 22, the long underground corridor.
Erik strolled through the lengthy passageway.
What lay at its end was.
Kiiiiing―.
Emitting a strange radiance.
[Mark of Valor]
A legendary and mythical being, the first to have cleared the Labyrinth in a human body.
The trace of an unknown powerhouse.