Chapter 55

Retribution (2)

Inside the lord’s castle of the Aslan Ducal Territory, where the eldest son, Damian Aslan, resided, the surroundings were tightly encircled by heavily fortified guards.

Of course, with the overwhelming size of the duchy, there was never a shortage of able-bodied men, so it was always easy to draw from military resources. All the more so now, when everyone’s nerves were sharpened to a razor’s edge.

“The movements on the other side.”

By the other side, he meant his younger sister, who was still watching for an opening to cut off his breath.

When he raised such a question during the regular meeting, one of the retainers, who had been glancing around anxiously, quickly stepped forward and handed him a document.

As Damian Aslan swept his cold and merciless eyes down the paper, the retainer who had handed it over stumbled over his words to explain.

“A cowardly response. Very much like Liza.”

Considering Damian’s usual temperament, that was a natural reaction.

A competent commander, an outstanding warrior, and in inverse proportion to that, a terrifying degree of arrogance and dogmatism.

Unfortunately, he was the kind of tyrant whose ability could back up his behavior, making him all the more difficult to deal with.

“So, the plan for the attack?”

At those words, the retainers immediately began exchanging uneasy glances.

A declaration that he would, without the slightest hesitation, turn the family feud into a bloodbath—that much was one thing. But the matter staring them directly in the face was—

“…Young Lord, the Night of the Hunt is upon us. Are you certain? If our forces are divided, this territory itself will be at risk.”

“Even if the beasts come, they won’t make it as far as the inner keep.”

“But the civilians in the outer city—”

The retainer who had been about to speak fell silent at once.

The expression on Damian’s face made his intent all too clear.

—Do I need to care about something like that?

Even if civilians were attacked, not all of them would die.

To Damian, the lives of commoners simply did not carry any value beyond that.

Whether they lived or died, in peaceful times he could just repopulate the land again.

They were people to him no different from livestock—only numbers to be replenished.

But if he did not seize the ducal title now, there would never again be another chance.

“While Liza is cowering, this is the opportunity. We’ll wipe out her foundation in one strike.”

“…As you command.”

“Proceed without leaving a gap.”

And then—

As Damian and his retainers exchanged such words, someone suddenly flung open the office door and burst inside, gasping for breath.

It was a soldier, his entire body covered in dust and soot, as though he had just come straight from the center of a battlefield.

Damian frowned at the sight.

“…What is that state you’re in? What happened?”

“The territory is under attack!”

“…”

Everyone in the room froze, their expressions turning blank at once.

An attack? What attack?

In the very heart of the duchy?

“What in the world do you mean? An attack? Who on earth would dare such a thing?”

“Uh, that is…”

The soldier hesitated for a moment.

His expression made it clear how ridiculous and embarrassing he found the words he was about to say.

“…Two women and one man.”

“…”

“They’re just about to enter the inner keep, Young Lord.”

A dreadful silence swelled and spread thickly through the office.

“…So, you’re telling me.”

Damian blinked blankly, before finally forcing words out of his mouth.

“That the duchy is right now being crushed by only three people, and the inner keep is about to fall?”

“…”

Unfortunately.

The soldier’s silence was as good as a resounding confirmation.

“Stop, stop, stop! Move and you’ll be attaaaAAARGH—!”

The soldier who had been pointing his gun this way collapsed on the spot, struck on the forehead by a rock the size of a fist.

The result of Noel, who had been walking along casually, kicking up something off the roadside and tossing it lightly.

The soldier must have felt safe, being armed with a sword and standing at least a hundred meters away. But for the Empire’s greatest knight, even a simple stone was lethal within that range.

“Raise shields! No matter what, don’t let them into the inner kee—GRAAAAHH!”

The squad leader who had been rallying the men was suddenly hurled into the air along with his soldiers.

Katya, who had summoned divine flame on the spot, had unleashed a violent storm of fire that swept them all away, sending them tumbling and rolling into the distance.

What was absurd was that, even using Holy Flame like that, she had not incinerated her enemies at all—managing instead to push them back without leaving a single casualty.

One could only wonder what level of supernatural control was required to pull off something like that…

“Emergency! Emeeeergeeency—!”

Ding, ding, ding—the bells tolled. Desperate screams and shouts echoed in every direction.

And in the midst of it all, three people were walking along unhurriedly.

Noel, Katya, and Aiden.

“Oh. The powder magazine blew up.”

Katya murmured flatly, as the flames she had conjured spread outward in all directions.

The storm of fire that had shoved the soldiers aside had left no casualties. Yet by nature alone, her supernatural ability was inherently incompatible with things like explosives.

…In truth, considering Katya’s personality, it was highly likely she had done it deliberately.

The explosion was enormous, rivaling the hellfire bombs I had seen before. My ears rang from the shockwave.

Men and women were running around in madness. Fires rose here and there. Some were frozen in terror, screaming where they sat, unable even to stand.

Pandemonium. A vision of hell.

No matter how one tried to describe it, chaos was the only fitting word.

And then—

“Let’s call that one about twenty points. Looked like quite a few of them got swept up in it.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. Generous count, that’s ten at best.”

“…Did you get the title Lionhearted by bluffing? Even if I count that as ten, I’ve still got five points more than you.”

“…We haven’t even entered the inner keep yet. The real thing starts from there.”

Over a scene filled with desperation, screams, and chaos, their conversation drifted along in leisurely tones.

Anyone watching might have believed they were rival athletes scoring each other’s performances in a sports match, given how calm they sounded.

‘Hmm.’

Well.

At least this was still within the bounds of reason.

No one had actually died.

“…”

…But somehow, it felt like my brain was slowly breaking down.

Aiden thought bitterly to himself.

‘Even Senior said something about this being strange…’

He was aware that his own emotions were gradually drifting farther from ordinary human sensitivity. Mayer had pointed it out once before too.

He was growing duller toward pain and fear, bolder in planning against his enemies, his reasoning colder and harder.

It wasn’t as if his emotions were dead, nor did he feel like he was going insane. But how to put it—

The pace at which his mind was changing from that of a “normal person” to a “man accustomed to crisis” was far too fast.

In terms of time, it hadn’t even been that long since he got entangled with Noel. But compared to his small-minded, ordinary self from before, he already felt markedly different.

If he had to guess the reason, there was only one.

‘…I’ll have to ask the priestess when I see her.’

The likelihood was extremely high that it came from the Outsider bound to him.

Within an environment influenced by such a being, there was no other explanation for why his nature would be shifting so quickly.

Still, at least for now, it was useful.

After all, the mere fact that three people were currently storming a duchy was insanity by normal standards.

“…By the way, Dame Noel.”

“Yes?”

“For someone who asked me at the start why we were doing this, you seem to be quite into it yourself.”

“…”

Surprisingly, Noel—who had clearly been flustered at the beginning—was now showing signs of actually enjoying herself.

And truthfully, Aiden could understand why.

“The troop deployments are far too thin,” Noel said, narrowing her eyes.

“At this rate, it only looks like they never had the slightest intention of protecting the townsfolk in the first place.”

That much was true.

The attitude that the beast raids hardly mattered seemed to show through in every aspect of the defenses.

“As for teaching someone like that a lesson—well, that’s something I could enjoy as much as I like.”

“…”

…Well.

All of a sudden, I realized something—

Even someone as exemplary as Noel could become this merciless when faced with a person shirking responsibility.

“—But Mr. Aiden, what exactly have you been doing all this time?”

Perhaps because of that.

Even in the middle of all this chaos, with screams bursting out everywhere, Noel still had the leisure to glance over at Aiden and pose such a question.

Between the pure white qi radiating from her and the divine flame pouring endlessly from Katya, there was also a clearly visible halo of light lingering around Aiden’s body.

“I just wanted to run an experiment.”

“An… experiment?”

Noel tilted her head, but to Aiden himself, this was a matter of utmost seriousness.

‘Lately, I’ve felt like my growth has stalled.’

Thanks to getting smashed night after night by Mayer in his dreams, his “combat skills” had been improving far faster than he’d expected. But apart from that, it was true that the growth of the skills he wielded with those combat abilities had been stagnant.

He did possess that mysterious skill, Remnant of the Warden of the Realm, but it felt like one he could only unlock after the end of Act II.

In that regard—

Aiden’s most outstanding advantage wasn’t just that he could copy skills instantly by winning someone’s favor. There was also this:

—Skill Info

■ Omnipotence \[ Stage 1 ]

You can combine two or more supernatural powers to create an effect stronger than either on its own.

▶ Currently discovered combination

〓 Guardian’s Flame (Heart of Pure White ↔ The First Vow)

Mixing supernatural powers together was far more conditional than one might expect.

—This was it.

A unique ability no one else could use, something even the strict Mayer acknowledged as Aiden’s personal power.

So now he was trying to experiment by combining other abilities, but—

‘…It’s not working as well as I hoped.’

Qi and Holy Flame—he had managed to combine those somehow by trial and error. But Mana Arts refused to mix with them at all.

No matter whether he tried to push qi or Holy Flame into the halo, it wouldn’t budge.

“Is there some obstacle?”

This time, Katya tilted her head as she posed the question to him.

In the distance, someone who had been aiming a shot at her screamed in agony, their upper body seared by the sudden divine flame erupting around her, before collapsing and writhing on the ground.

What was even more astonishing was not that the man had injured anyone severely, but that he had controlled it so precisely that it only singed their clothes.

Noel often displayed near-supernatural finesse when it came to handling supernatural powers, but Katya occasionally showed an even greater delicacy than that.

After all, the Combat Form she had mastered wasn’t about wielding weapons in battle—it was about fine control of Holy Flame itself.

In that case…

If she was this adept at manipulating supernatural forces, maybe she could actually help.

“…No. It was something I’d managed before, but when I changed the conditions slightly, it stopped working.”

“Really? How did you do it before?”

“Pardon?”

“I mean, what was the situation when it worked? How did you succeed back then? If you recreate something similar, shouldn’t it work again?”

…Huh.

Aiden blinked at Katya.

It was obvious when you thought about it, but he hadn’t approached it from that angle before.

‘Back then, if I recall…’

It was in the middle of an urgent battle. He had messed up the ritual of communion with the god meant to strengthen his supernatural power, and the ability had become tainted.

If he was to recreate the situation now, the ability he would need to taint was…

—Skill Info

◆ Mana Arts: The Savior’s Vow

※ Unique – only this character possesses this skill!

First Geas: Protect the World.

Second Geas: Protect the Subjects of the Empire – Protect the powerless.

He narrowed his eyes and glared at the window hovering before him.

The first geas was impossible to taint right now. At the very least, none of what was happening here was on a scale that threatened the entire world.

That meant his attention had to be on the second geas.

Of course, there was no way he would actually consider beating up the powerless in order to taint it. He would never cheapen the will of the Warden of the Realm, who had entrusted him with that oath, by doing something so disgraceful.

So he had to find a different way to corrupt it…

“…”

Protect the powerless.

Protect the powerless…

“Hm…”

Aiden stroked his chin and looked toward the inner keep, where the Aslan heir, Damian, would be.

Think about it.

From here, he could make the progression of Act II far easier.

From here, he could thrash that wastrel who didn’t even think of protecting the civilians under his rule.

As a bonus, he could also raise Duke Aslan’s favorability toward him.

And he could even taint the geas of his Mana Arts in the process.

‘…That bastard inside is perfect, isn’t he?’

Yes.

Without a doubt.