Chapter 76. Huh? You Don’t Think So?
I walked through the quiet Hamelin Great Forest with slow steps.
‘Well, honestly…….’
Should I say I’m honored.
The Geumma-sa who invited me—of course, it hasn’t been confirmed yet that he’s actually a Geumma-sa.
But anyway, the bastard presumed to be a Geumma-sa was pretty kind.
Crunch.
A bug crushed by a small magic projectile.
“And he even guides the way with familiars like this.”
And that wasn’t all.
“He even clears the path for me.”
Even though a good amount of time had passed since I left Base Camp No. 2, nothing blocked my way.
Meaning, you couldn’t even find a monster.
I don’t know what he did, but it was obvious the Geumma-sa bastard had cleared the route.
Walking through such a peaceful Hamelin Great Forest, I don’t know how to put it.
“A breathtaking view.”
A great forest that still held untouched nature as it was.
If you ignored the monsters, it was peaceful to the point of being not just wondrous, but mystical.
A scene that made you reverent without trying.
How long had it been since I’d had such a leisurely moment?
Meanwhile—
‘Salvatium…… when I think about it, we go way back, all the way from my previous life.’
After the Hall of Trials incident,
there were a few times Friegen had made me recall it.
In my previous life, Friegen fleeing my pursuit.
That had always been a question.
He’d learned forbidden magic, sure, but he hadn’t had a realm high enough to evade my pursuit, nor had he been particularly skilled at running.
But.
‘An Artifact that constructs a Demon Realm.’
And then……
‘If you slot Salvatium into that, it fits.’
There had been someone helping Friegen escape.
Well, for whatever reason, he ended up caught by Deculan and met a miserable end, but.
Crunch.
I passed another familiar and fired a magic projectile to deal with it.
‘Come to think of it, did I get played once?’
By the circumstances, that was what it looked like.
Of course, this was only if my guess was right, but the facts didn’t matter.
No matter how much you think, it’s an incident that’s already gone.
There’s no way to find out.
As I dealt with my Mind Demon by killing Friegen, I’d shaken off even my emotions about the past.
‘Even if I got played, well…….’
I’m originally a broad-minded person, so I toss aside petty grudges from the past.
How much more so a potential grudge with uncertain facts.
Just.
‘They’re bastards I’ll have to run into someday.’
Salvatium, lurking in the shadows for countless years.
Their obsession goes beyond imagination, and what they do is carried out slowly over long stretches of time.
Meaning, they plan things without caring if it takes ten years, or decades.
So.
‘Shouldn’t I give them a little lesson?’
With each step I took,
I layered my presence over itself, stacking momentum.
Sss—
When I deliberately let my presence pour out, even if it wasn’t to the level of my senior, the mana in the air screamed.
He’s probably watching this through a familiar, too.
But this wasn’t some half-baked attempt at seizing the initiative.
It was my own kind of courtesy toward an insolent host who had sent such an obvious invitation.
‘Yeah, insolent as hell.’
A sewer rat that hides in the dark plotting dirty things, putting on an event like this.
How very “grand” it looks— mm, ahem.
It definitely wasn’t because I felt my guts twist at how it looked like some kind of fatal villain’s ceremony.
Also.
It definitely wasn’t because some nasty temper flared up over something from my previous life with uncertain facts.
And, on top of that.
It definitely wasn’t because I got pissed from him sending familiars over and over to annoy me.
It’s just…… yeah.
“The sky is really clear.”
Because the sky is clear…….
Tap, tap.
Raindrops falling from a mass of dark clouds.
“……That’s clear enough—”
Before I could finish, an absurd downpour came pouring from the sky.
Swaaaah—!
“Goddamn it.”
This great forest is already hard to secure visibility in because the underbrush is so thick.
Now the downpour filled the world, making it hard to see even an inch ahead.
Yeah. It’s just that.
‘The weather is good enough to be damnable.’
That’s why.
“Perfect weather for beating the shit out of someone.”
Seriously, it was because the weather was goddamn awful.
Not because I’m petty.
“Don’t you think so too?”
I placed a bug flailing helplessly in the downpour on my hand and met its eyes.
“Huh? You don’t?”
If you don’t, fine.
Crunch.
Whether it agreed or not didn’t really matter.
Because enough violence always earns unconditional support.
A huge knot-hole in the center of a giant tree in the great forest.
In a space where even the torrential rain couldn’t reach, laughter leaked out.
“Heh, hehehe. This…… honestly. That bastard’s not in his right mind.”
Belloc, eyes closed, laughed like he was amused.
The scene and voice delivered through the familiar.
- The sky is really clear.
It’s been ages since the sky filled with dark clouds, and he’s calmly running his mouth about the weather.
And that’s not all.
As if he’d come out for a leisurely stroll, the way he slouched along, pushing through the brush.
The delinquency oozing from even the smallest gesture made it seem like this wasn’t the great forest, but some back alley in the Black and White Zone.
What was even more ridiculous was what he said right before the link to the familiar was cut.
- Perfect weather for beating the shit out of someone. Don’t you think so too? Huh? You don’t?
Like victory was a foregone conclusion.
The bastard talking so calmly.
And yet the terrifying presence rippling around him was truly impressive.
‘As expected…… he’s the kind of guy you can really enjoy hunting.’
That was why Belloc was delighted.
Someone of the same kind as himself.
The moment he saw him, he sensed that the masked mage was not prey, but a hunter.
But contrary to first impressions, how many bastards had only brought disappointment?
That former war mage—the one rumored not to know fear—
- S-spare me. Spare me. I have a young granddaughter. If I’m gone, that child……
Had he learned fear as years passed?
Facing death, even knowing it wouldn’t happen, he begged for his life.
It was a miserable sight, but it wasn’t the face Belloc wanted.
It made him feel skeptical about collecting, even.
And was that all?
- Y-you…… do you know whose disciple I am? My master is……
The one rumored to be a proud mage was no better than trash, pride or not.
Maybe the rumor had been inflated—his magic was pathetic too, and once a trap was set, he didn’t even try to do anything and just ran.
Worthless prey.
But what about that one?
Belloc licked his lips like a snake.
‘So far…… he’s exactly what I hoped.’
If expectations are big, disappointment is big too, so Belloc had been worried.
But this time, his eyes were accurate.
And this wasn’t an ordinary hunt.
‘Hunter and hunter.’
A brilliant game where the one who chases and the one who chases both aim for each other’s throat.
A simple hunt that gives you the one-dimensional pleasure of cornering fleeing prey and tasting superiority—
this was on a different level.
It was an exchange between fellow-kind who could understand each other.
“From here on…… you better not disappoint me. If you do, it’s going to be a very painful time.”
He guaranteed it—he wouldn’t find peace even in death.
Until he died, Belloc would grant him every kind of despair and pain a living being could experience, and after he died, he’d take him to Solion so he could taste despair even after death.
Well, aside from those worries—
‘Let’s see…… it’s about time to finish, isn’t it?’
With the hunt of a lifetime before him, Belloc didn’t neglect the preparations.
He cut off communication with the familiar and rose to check the state of readiness.
That was when a black mage surged up from the shadow.
“O Precursor. All grand spells are complete.”
“And the survivors?”
“As arranged, thirteen including myself remain.”
“Hm, smooth. Understood. Then go first to the appointed place and wait.”
“I receive your command.”
With that, the black mage seeped back into the shadow.
Belloc flicked his eyes over that, then looked out beyond the knot-hole at the great forest, turned hazy by the sudden downpour.
“Yeah.”
A low voice.
“Like you said, it’s really good weather.”
His mood wasn’t something that swayed over mere weather.
But the great forest, darkened by pitch-black storm clouds even in broad daylight, felt rather gloomy.
And the downpour, as if washing the world clean—what of it.
The perfect prey. A memorable environment to harvest it in, you could say.
“You’re going to like what I prepared……. No, heh heh. You’ll have no choice but to like it.”
The black mages who answered his call and came to the Hamelin Great Forest totaled seventy.
The idiots among them fell behind and died while breaking through the great forest.
In the end, a little over sixty completed the summons.
Over sixty black mages.
A number that would make an empire or kingdom—or even a prestigious house—raise a punitive force in horror if they found out.
Each individual was insignificant, but when that many gathered, they could commit fairly dreadful things.
But.
Belloc ground them all into a single grand spell.
Using a special grand spell, he left only thirteen out of more than sixty black mages.
No—actually, it wasn’t only black mages who were sacrificed to the grand spell. Victima’s mercenaries from Base Camp No. 2—those too were sacrifices to awaken the grand spell sealed inside the crystal orb.
And so the forbidden magic built by the grand spell was called—
Thirteen Sins (罪惡)
A kind of curse.
‘This is going to be…… incredible.’
Anticipation crept up, little by little.
It was a grand spell that required dozens of black mages as sacrifices, so even for him, it was his first time unleashing it.
Its power was a natural curiosity, not as a Geumma-sa, but as a mage.
No—more than that, what he was curious about was……
[…….]
Communication with the familiar. The prey reflected within it.
How that prey—who didn’t have even a speck of crisis awareness—would react.
‘You…… must be a truly great mage.’
He didn’t know if that was actually the case.
But in his head, Belloc defined the prey as a “great mage.”
It was already alluring enough prey, but when you add the seasoning “great,” the flavor deepens.
And thinking back to his first impression, it wasn’t even an excessive label.
Think about it.
- In my own way……
That extremely languid voice, spoken with the swamp’s ruler right in front of him.
- ……It was fun.
And what followed was, truly……
- Now, let’s end it. Since it was fun thanks to you, I’ll show you something fun.
It was shocking beyond belief.
Shiver.
Belloc trembled once as he recalled it.
‘It was a scene too good to waste on a mere familiar.’
Anyway.
‘Thirteen Sins’ was a special gift prepared for that monstrous mage.
And on top of that—
Flash.
Belloc pulled out a black orb from his chest.
A black orb that reflected light on its own even with no light around.
Within it lurked ominous, pitch-black darkness.
And in the rippling fog, it almost seemed like human faces screaming in pain flickered into view.
‘Solion’s toy is ready too.’
Belloc himself would step in only after all these arrangements had shredded the prey to pieces.
If someone saw it, they might call it cowardly, but Belloc didn’t have even a speck of such self-awareness.
This was a hunt, after all.
Anyway, time passed like that.
[Is this the last one? I’ll see you soon.]
[Kwa-deuk.]
The prey crushed the last familiar.
[O Precursor, the prey you marked has arrived.]
Even the report came in—from the nearby black mage carrying ‘Thirteen Sins.’
“Open your mind.”
[Yes.]
Soon, the black mage’s vision was shared inside his head.
In that view, the prey came into sight—standing with arms crossed, relaxed.
He definitely must have sensed the presence of the black mages.
Yet he stood there as if to say, come if you want.
“Begin.”
With that, Belloc stepped out into the rain-lashed Hamelin Great Forest.
Even if the view was shared, the link would soon be cut.
More than anything—
he wanted to capture with his own eyes the miserable spectacle of the prey collapsing.
The answer came at once.
[I receive your command.]
Right after—
[Swaaaah……!]
In the shared vision.
In the middle of the rain-lashed Hamelin Great Forest.
Beneath the prey standing calm and unhurried, a purple glow shimmered.
[Woooong—]
A light holding ominousness.
This is not Thirteen Sins.
It’s only a trap the black mages prepared for the prey in their own way.
‘It won’t be much use, though…….’
Even this couldn’t help but be entertaining to watch.
And so.
The battle curtain rose.