Chapter 295
Chapter 295: Why Did You Blow Up the Council Again
Upon hearing Heni's words, both Cocotte and Heim Horn were startled.
Cocotte even patted the cloud beneath her and drifted over to Viktor's side of her own accord, beginning to dissuade him:
"This is just a tool used to assess incoming members—you're already a Council Member, there's absolutely no need to be tested."
Heim Horn heard Cocotte's explanation and nodded in emphatic agreement.
Was this some kind of joke?
Letting Viktor—the man whose insides, if you cracked him open, would be pitch black all the way to his intestines—take this test?
They could perfectly well imagine how that would end.
Faced with the pair's reaction, Heni felt a little puzzled.
In her heart, Viktor was simply the best person in the entire world.
Otherwise, how could the Professor possibly have become a Mage Council Member?
And upon hearing Heni's words, Viktor gave a nod and spoke up:
"Sure."
The moment his answer left his mouth, both Heim Horn and Cocotte went rigid.
Heni, meanwhile, looked at Viktor with eyes full of anticipation.
Before long, Viktor walked up before the scale, his gaze settling on the golden balance as it shimmered with light.
At that moment, the 2 watching him—Cocotte and the other—chose to shut their eyes.
As though afraid to witness a reality they had no wish to see.
As though, so long as their eyes were closed, they could simply ignore whatever happened next.
Viktor said nothing. He knew full well what the 2 of them were worried about.
As Viktor drew closer, the scale began to react.
Its entire golden form grew increasingly restless, as though sensing something, swaying and tilting toward both sides.
The nearer he came, the more frequently it swung.
His Magic Power was simply far too abundant—the mere proximity of Viktor to the scale was enough for the scale to be affected by it.
At last, he reached out one hand and placed it on the opposite pan.
A black feather, conjured from Magic Power, condensed upon it—and then pressed down on one end of the scale.
Yet the thing everyone had imagined—the other end of the scale being pushed all the way down—did not come to pass.
When the feather settled on the other side, it caused the scale to tilt gradually.
Only when it reached a state of absolute equilibrium with the dagger on the opposite end did it finally come to rest.
That's right—absolute equilibrium.
Heim Horn witnessed this and blinked in surprise despite himself.
Both ends were at almost exactly the same level—neither higher nor lower.
This meant that Viktor's moral standing was precisely what the scale had shown.
Neither high nor low.
Cocotte's eyes went wide, and her expression was that of someone completely unwilling to accept what she was seeing.
What on earth—!
How could this be—!?
Viktor—who squeezed every last drop of work out of her at the slightest provocation, who drove her to labor ceaselessly, who would not rest until he had wrung her completely dry, not sparing even the very last drop.
Viktor—whose heart was blacker than coal.
His moral standing had actually reached the average—!?
It was simply something that both of them found impossible to accept.
And yet the equilibrium of this scale was truly something exquisite.
Neither high nor low.
As a rule, very few people ever produced a result like this—one could even say it was virtually unheard of.
Because any person with thought and feeling would inevitably find their moral standing tilted ever so slightly to one side.
This was unavoidable.
Either a person's heart leaned toward goodness and justice, or it leaned toward the other end—toward evil.
But Viktor's result like this—perfectly balanced.
Neither good nor evil.
Acting entirely as he pleased.
Perhaps in a moment of good humor he would do great deeds of kindness, saving countless lives.
But the instant he turned to do evil—even if it meant killing, burning, annihilating an entire nation—
Viktor would not so much as blink.
A person like this was a kind of equilibrium, and at the same time, a kind of extreme.
A soul that played in the world as though it were a game.
Heni, too, had seen what the scale had shown.
But she was not surprised.
Heni gazed at Viktor's back—his Coat drifting in the air—and her heart remained full of reverence and affection.
A gentle current of water swept past the corners of her eyes; a rushing waterfall crashed endlessly down from a great height and poured into her heart.
To be honest, she had simply been curious.
She had been curious about what kind of result Professor Viktor would receive from the scale.
She was not surprised by this outcome.
In fact, no matter what judgment the scale passed on Professor Viktor, it had no bearing on her.
Heni only knew—without Viktor, there would be no her as she was now.
She knew.
It was Professor Viktor who had given her this redemption.
Viktor was the best person in the world to her.
The more she thought this way, the more the stirring feeling in her heart became impossible to contain.
When that unbearable surge of emotion finally erupted, it took shape behind Heni—a 3rd phantom fox tail, hazy and entrancing, forming at her back.
"Professor……"
Her eyes gradually cleared. She glanced around, found that no one had noticed, and only then reined in the feelings of a moment ago.
At this point, Viktor's hand still had not withdrawn from the scale.
By rights, once an assessment was complete, the person being assessed could lower their hand.
But Viktor had not.
He continued to observe and study the golden scale, his gaze fixed on the base of the shimmering golden balance.
A line of text lit up before Viktor's eyes.
【The Goddess of Justice's Scale (Replica)】
【Effect: Assesses the standard of good and evil in others; the criteria for judging morality will be determined in conjunction with the actions of the world's beings at large and the individual's own conduct.】
Just a single simple line of text, conveying nothing more than its simple function.
At that moment, Weija suddenly spoke up from his shoulder:
"Are you really planning to use this thing as a substitute?"
Viktor understood perfectly well what Weija was asking about.
"Let's try it first."
"We don't have time to consider other options right now."
Weija flapped her wings and assumed an expression of helpless resignation.
"Fine—what a mad idea."
"Hopefully, when the time comes, that obsessive Goddess won't come looking for trouble with you over defiling her property."
Viktor paid her no mind whatsoever.
At that moment, a distinct trace of black gradually appeared in Weija's solitary eye.
It crept along Viktor's arm and climbed up the golden scale.
The golden scale, as though covered in black ink, began turning pitch-black from the base upward.
Yet that darkness was not still—within the depths of that blackness, it was as though countless tentacles were growing, along with grotesquely shifting forms twisting rapidly within.
It was as though all manner of evil was seeping outward from within that blackness, transforming into a thousand grotesque eyes that spun and churned at high speed in the dark.
Heim Horn and Cocotte stared at the scale as it turned completely pitch-black—suddenly dumbfounded, their eyes going wide, as though frozen solid by ice.
What was happening?
Why had the scale suddenly gone black—!?
Could the scale truly have been affected by Viktor's morality—!?
Gradually, the golden scale was utterly consumed by black—its entire form turning the pitch-black color of ink.
Viktor's arm gave a jolt. He gripped the base of the scale and lifted it up in one motion.
In that instant, Heim Horn's eyes went wide, and he cried out.
"Viktor! What are you doing—!?"
The scale—someone had picked it up—!?
It had to be understood—the Goddess of Justice's Scale required the recognition of the scale itself before anyone could take it away.
Even a replica required the scale's acknowledgment.
Yet Viktor, like a common thug, had seized the helpless scale by brute force.
And at that very moment.
The interior of the entire scale's space gave a faint shudder.
Heim Horn suddenly went blank.
He remembered now.
Once the scale left this place, the entire space would begin to collapse.
And now.
The space was going to start collapsing.
The next instant, the spacious room began to shake violently as the scale was taken away—even the air itself was thrown into mad trembling.
Faced with the collapse of this space, they could not even use Magic to patch it.
"Quickly—everyone out of here!"
With Heim Horn's loud warning—
The space began to fracture slowly, like a mirror shattering.
The surrounding space cracked open one void fissure after another, and a turbid, foul aura surged in.
High above, the sky began to twist and warp—like a mass of curtaining fabric wrenched and wrung together, folding and bulging.
The entire world began to fall apart.
***
Beep, beep, beep……
The Dwarf—whose beard could practically drag along the ground—was piloting his prized magical mount.
Passing through the hazy and phantasmal, he arrived at the 7th Layer of Endymion.
The Shattered Sky.
The aircraft beneath him was driven by Magic Power as fuel; its steel frame gleamed with a cold light, and its wings bore 2 sets of turbines mounted side by side.
A trail of white streaked across the entire sky, cutting past those 3 shattered human heads.
Then it landed steadily at the entrance to the Mage Council.
He clambered out of the aircraft with some difficulty and steadied himself atop the clouds.
Then, with a gesture of his palm, the aircraft began to transform—and ultimately contracted into a small, compact Rubik's Cube.
The Dwarf tucked that small Rubik's Cube into his wide dungarees and only then looked around in all directions.
He could not help feeling a wave of puzzlement.
Strange—where had everyone gone?
Hadn't they agreed to meet at the Council today?
Had he arrived late?
After all, it had taken him nearly 2 full days to fly to the Council aboard his latest invention.
But suddenly—before the Dwarf had a moment to finish working it out—from the entire base of Endymion, there came an explosive crack of terrifying force.
BOOM!
The explosion tore through the clouds and blasted straight up toward the Shattered Sky above.
Ryan snapped his head up.
He gazed from a distance at the white radiance surging skyward.
"Tsk—absolutely perfect!"
This was simply a perfect explosion.
The violent white light was blinding enough that Ryan could only pull down his goggles and continue observing the ferocious blast.
Through the dazzling white light, he seemed to make out an enormous mushroom cloud detonating and rising within the space.
The space shattered entirely; the chaotic void created several fissures around the perimeter of Endymion.
But under the turbulent surge of Magic Power, they were rapidly sealed shut again.
"Impressive force—should be comparable to a high-range 4th-Tier Magic."
As for where exactly this explosion had originated from, Ryan hadn't paid much attention.
Perhaps some Council Mage had invented some curious new thing—who could say.
As long as the Magic Archive didn't get blown up, everything else was fair game.
The explosion had been watched to completion. Ryan had just turned around, intending to search for where the others had gone.
When a tall figure was standing directly behind him.
Ryan tilted his head back, and saw a man dressed in a Coat.
Perched atop the man's body stood a pitch-black Crow, whose solitary eye gazed down at him with a depth that seemed bottomless.
"Vi……Viktor?"
Ryan recognized the person before him in an instant—it was really rather impossible to miss that signature Coat and Crow of his.
Even though this was his first time meeting Viktor face-to-face in real life.
He had just been about to ask Viktor where the others had gone.
But Viktor spoke up first, one step ahead of him.
"You must be Council Member Ryan Kent."
Ryan heard this, and his short yet stocky frame straightened right up, his expression equally respectful.
"That's correct."
"Then I believe you must be Council Member Viktor Clavena."
No wonder the explosion of a moment ago had carried such a strangely familiar feeling—turns out Viktor had been practicing his Magic.
Seeing Viktor use that explosive Magic up close for the first time left Ryan profoundly shaken.
At that moment, his gaze fell involuntarily to what Viktor held in his hand—and he suddenly felt a wave of puzzlement.
Why was Viktor holding a black scale in his hand?
It was just that this scale looked somewhat familiar.
Aside from the color, it seemed remarkably similar to the scale in the Magic Archive.
Could it be a replica?
Just as he was contemplating this, Viktor pointed at the scale, looked at him, and spoke with characteristic directness:
"Council Member Kent."
"This scale—is the staff material I've brought you."