NOVEL WEB Chapter 184
Chapter 184. Darkness
(……What… is this?)
And then, two days before the decisive battle.
After meeting that lovely princess and learning that the future had changed.
After seeing the Archbishop’s shock and agitation, feeling a sense of relief—finally able to sleep without being tormented by nightmares, that very night.
She had a terrible nightmare.
A nightmare that began with a hellish vision of Hermes dying—though she didn’t understand why.
(Why? Didn’t the future change?)
The prophetic dream came to her in the form of a lucid dream. Unable to look away, Nina was forced to think clearly and consciously about the inexplicable hell she was witnessing.
(What even is this…? There’s never been a prophecy like this before. I don’t get it. If I don’t know the cause, how can I deal with it—!?)
Confusion and the terror of being unable to do anything. These emotions combined, pushing her to the brink of chaos, and before her eyes—the scenery shifted.
(—Huh?)
Was this a sensation unique to those who could see prophetic dreams, or was it her own intuition?
Whatever it was, in that moment, Nina realized.
—The dream had changed.
This wasn’t like the prophetic dreams she’d had before. It was something else… a dream being shown to her by some kind of will.
And what appeared before her was—
(……No.)
Another hell.
The scenes of nightmares she had seen before. The worst possible outcomes she had desperately tried to avoid, the ones she thought she had escaped.
—Every possible vision of Hermes’ death. The worst possible futures, all flooding in at once.
(Stop it. Why?)
—She saw him lying helplessly, having shielded Katia and the others from the Archbishop’s divine punishment.
—She saw him being pierced by the spears of laughing church soldiers.
—She saw him being stabbed through the heart by his brother, Lucius.
(No. I don’t want to see this—!)
Even as she screamed, she couldn’t look away—it was a lucid dream. She couldn’t wake up.
Over and over, again and again. Each time, the variations changed meticulously… showing her every possible action she could take, and then forcing her to witness the worst outcome that would follow.
It was as if… it was condemning her own inadequacy. As if it was showing her that no matter what she did, the future couldn’t be changed.
She wanted to say that this couldn’t be real, that the future had changed, but the scenes before her were too vivid, too plausible.
And then, she realized.
This was—a future prophecy from the Archbishop’s perspective.
Broader than Nina’s, more detailed than Nina’s.
No matter what she did, it predicted and countered her actions, even using them at times. Relentlessly, madly, it pursued the goal of killing Hermes. It showed her the sheer willpower behind it.
Even if the future had changed slightly, it didn’t matter to him. The future he sought to create was still flawless, without a single shadow of doubt.
As if to tell her—there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t change this. She was powerless.
(Stop it. I already know that better than anyone…!)
And because Nina truly had been powerless, the scenes cut deep.
She was the only one who knew everything, the only one who could change things. And yet, she couldn’t do anything.
As someone who had gained the same prophetic power, she had tried to resist. But in the end, she hadn’t changed anything. It was that princess and Hermes who had made a difference.
She… had always been on the outside. And she would remain there forever.
The scenes before her were more than enough to drive that point home.
At the same time, they forced her to remember. Her true nature, her flaws.
She had tried to do something.
No—she had wanted to do something.
Even if she couldn’t do much, she had tried in her own way. She had tried not to get in the way of those who were working hard.
That’s why she had tried to resist the Archbishop, who was manipulating Lucius and trying to harm Hermes, using the power she had gained by chance.
And if she could do something here, she thought… maybe she could return to the person she used to be—the person who had once been able to move forward with determination.
But it was impossible.
Her half-hearted resistance was completely shut down. No matter how much she struggled, it meant nothing in front of that man. In fact, it only ended up causing trouble for the people she had wanted to save.
The crucial future remained unchanged. Night after night, she was tormented by despair.
It was truly—painful, so painful. She hated it, hated it so much.
Every night, she could feel her heart being chipped away. She hated being confronted with her own powerlessness, her own laziness.
And above all—
As this went on… she began to feel it again.
That version of herself from back then. The cold, heartless version of herself.
The one who would give up, who would abandon her brother, her friends, the person she loved. She knew that version of herself would eventually resurface… and that terrified her.
It hurt. She hated it. She didn’t want to try anymore.
She tried to suppress those feelings, desperately searching for something she could do—but even then, no resistance was allowed.
And she knew why.
Because… she understood. Even if only vaguely, she had the same power, and if she fought on the same stage, she couldn’t help but understand.
Namely—the Archbishop was also one of those who had that power.
It might be twisted. It might have reached a level that no one else could comprehend.
But without a doubt, that man’s goal of “creating a divine kingdom”—was Johann’s own wish, one worth risking everything for.
That was what gave him strength. What made his magic powerful. Only those who had reached that level could stand on that stage.
So, in other words, this northern rebellion had already become a battle on that level.
A battle to decide the fate of the world. A clash of noble wishes.
And in such a battlefield… there had never been any room for her to intervene.
Wishes like Hermes’, to purely master magic.
Wishes like Katia’s, to uphold her noble ideals to the very end.
Wishes like Sara’s, to pursue an impossible ideal.
She… didn’t have anything like that.
Someone like her… could never hope to change anything.
That was what she had been forced to realize, whether she wanted to or not.
The nightmare shifted.
“El, El! …Why, why…!”
A scene after Hermes’ death.
Katia, clutching his lifeless body, let out a heart-wrenching cry—and then turned to face her.
“Why… couldn’t you… do more…!”
She didn’t want to direct her anger at Nina, but she couldn’t help it. Her eyes, filled with suppressed rage, didn’t need words—they accused Nina of her negligence.
—It was etched into her.
“…Hermes.”
Sara, in contrast, was quiet.
But her eyes were filled with immeasurable despair, tears overflowing as she struggled to contain it… her expression frozen like that.
“…”
She stared straight at Nina. Her face even wore a faint smile, as if forgiving her… but it was the face of someone who had been irreparably broken.
—Her sins, the consequences of her arrogance, were etched into her.
“────”
Liliana didn’t say a word.
She simply stood there, her eyes empty. Her face showed that she had lost everything.
She did nothing… no, she no longer saw any meaning in doing anything. She didn’t even look at Nina, just stood there.
—She had met amazing people and mistakenly thought she could become like them. She had gotten carried away, grown close to them, and this was the end result of her foolishness.
“…Sister, it’s not your fault.”
Her brother Lucius, with a somber expression—one that showed he had realized he had been brainwashed—spoke to her.
“It’s my fault. I was manipulated by that man! Curse me…!”
He deeply regretted stabbing Hermes through the heart, feeling the greatest anguish of his life… but he didn’t blame Nina at all. He only wished to be punished.
(Stop it—!)
She felt nauseous.
None of them openly condemned her. But that only made it more real, carving away at her heart.
She couldn’t change anything, couldn’t become anything. …She had just gotten close to them, unable to resist, and ended up dragging them into an unavoidable tragedy.
—That was her original sin. The curse she had been born with.
“—See? I told you it was impossible.”
(—!)
And then, finally.
The finishing blow came from the voice of the person she least wanted to hear—her younger brother from her birth family.
“Big sis, you’re just that kind of person. You bring misfortune to everyone close to you.”
(No, stop. Don’t say anymore.)
She screamed in her heart, rejecting it with all her might, but the words didn’t stop.
Because the one speaking was herself. It was unmistakably her own awareness, simply using her brother’s voice to express it.
“You want to become someone amazing, to be with amazing people? Haha, that’s impossible. Just look—look at your magic.”
And then, her brother. With the same expression, the same tone as when he had once filled her with despair.
Mocking, pitying. Delivering the final blow, he said:
“—You twist the hearts of those you love. How can someone with such an ugly Bloodline Magic ever hope to become something great?”
(────Ah.)
The moment she heard that.
The thing she had feared most. She felt something inside her switch, irreversibly.
And then, she muttered.
(…Maybe it’s fine now.)
I hate this. I can’t do it anymore.
I don’t want to go through this, to suffer like this.
I don’t want to try anymore. I don’t want to aim for anything.
From the very beginning, I was different from people like them. If this is how it’s going to be… maybe it’s fine to let go.
She grew cold. Faded.
Her motivation, her energy. Everything disappeared, and the weakness she had been suppressing began to surface.
I hate this.
I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m tired.
I don’t feel like doing anything. Why do I have to suffer like this?
—I just want to be at peace.
“Then, let me grant you that.”
In that moment. A voice responded to her weakness.
At the same time, she felt something bad break through the weakened walls of her heart—and begin to flow in.
◆
“Bloodline Magic—[Arka Abyss].”
And at the same time.
As Nina was tormented by the nightmare—Archbishop Johann stood by her bedside.
With perfect timing, he activated his Bloodline Magic.
Bloodline Magic, [Arka Abyss].
Its effect was brainwashing. The activation condition was that a certain amount of his magic-infused mana had to erode the target.
And its limitation—excessive changes to thoughts or personality were impossible.
That’s right. This magic, as Hermes and the others had guessed, was nothing more than a standard thought-altering magic. Resistance was relatively easy, and overall, it could even be considered a weak Bloodline Magic.
But—let me tell you one thing.
Brainwashing is possible even without magic.
Johann’s organization, the Church, existed to spread its teachings—so it had plenty of knowledge about those methods. As the second-in-command, Johann had a far deeper understanding of such things than most.
There were many physical brainwashing techniques, but they all shared two common steps.
One—utterly exhaust the target’s mind.
Two—implant the words they want to hear.
Through such forceful methods… he had made many people hear the “words of God.”
And then, one day, he realized.
—What if he combined this with his own magic?
The effect was devastating.
Normal brainwashing became far easier to achieve.
And if he used both methods without cutting corners—he could achieve a level of thought alteration that was impossible with magic alone, even against targets who would normally resist.
This was Archbishop Johann’s trump card, the one that stood alongside his future prophecy. It was what had elevated him to his current position.
—And so, this time.
Nina, who had become an irregular by gaining the same prophetic ability as him. She was an insignificant girl, but one who could stand on the same stage. Even with the constraints of the Geass, she was not someone to be taken lightly.
To eliminate that concern—he had been working on a plan to brainwash her, running parallel to his other schemes.
Since she also had a thought-altering magic, he had taken his time. First, he limited the interference prohibition of the Geass they had agreed upon to direct actions only, creating a loophole for his brainwashing to slip through while she was off-guard, assuming her magic followed the usual rules.
On top of that, he had the entire Northern Alliance treat her coldly, isolating her with no allies, and subjected her to the worst possible futures every night, slowly but surely wearing down her mind.
Of course, according to the prophecies, he could have achieved his goals without doing this… but given who she was, it was better to be cautious. Johann knew well that such preparations had saved him many times before.
And this time, it paid off.
The unexpected appearance of Liliana, an irregular he had never anticipated, had disrupted his prophecy. The plan to have Lucius kill Hermes had fallen apart, and in the latest prophecy—he had seen the unprecedented hell of being unable to stop Hermes’ charge during the decisive battle, no matter how hard he tried.
That’s why his caution now proved vital.
He unleashed the preparations he had been steadily making, brainwashing Nina. Now, the Geass was meaningless. He could simply have her agree to nullify it.
And then—he would have Nina kill Hermes.
That was the new future plan. A perfect move to ensure Hermes’ death, one that Nina, with her prophetic ability, wouldn’t detect, and one that exploited her weakness.
And so, this time.
As the final push to break Nina’s already exhausted mind, he activated a magical tool he had prepared—one that would “show the target a nightmare once.”
Its effect was limited to a single use, but that was enough. It had perfectly shattered Nina’s spirit—and now, he could feel his magic eroding her mind.
All that was left was for the magic—the thoughts he had infused into it—to rewrite Nina’s mind as he desired. His victory was now certain.
Nina was Hermes’ natural enemy. If she ambushed him one-on-one, even he would be powerless.
…And, Johann thought with a faint smile.
He didn’t believe in goodwill. He believed that malice was what moved the world, and whenever he saw something as ambiguous as goodwill connecting people, he couldn’t rest until it was utterly destroyed.
That’s why, this time, he would destroy those who had created such a thing in Harvest territory.
He would have Hermes, the central figure of that group, be killed by Nina—the one who had believed in them until the very end.
Ah, that would—be a truly delightful show.
Imagining that moment, his smile deepened as he turned to attend to the countless other preparations for the decisive battle. Behind him—
The Bloodline Magic Johann had unleashed trampled over Nina’s weakened mind, allowing no resistance—
—And finally, it reached the deepest, warmest part of her heart.