NOVEL WEB Chapter 80
Amidst the chilling atmosphere, Ophelia swallowed hard.
“…No matter how much you’re a direct descendant of Eustetia… the Cartel—”
“Hey, damn it. Shut your mouth and answer my question. What will it be? Are you giving me information or not?”
Of course, I had already gathered intel on the Cartel.
If those bastards tried to mess with me, I had my own ways to deal with them too.
It was a bit annoying, but that didn’t matter.
Arisa, for my sake… No, I just didn’t want to hand over what Arisa left behind to someone else.
Even if it’s Eustetia.
That was mine.
“I’ll count to three. If you don’t answer within that, I don’t know what’ll happen to you.”
I raised three fingers.
“One.”
Ophelia bit her lips.
“Two.”
Then she squeezed her eyes shut and replied.
“…Let’s move to a quieter place first.”
“Alright.”
I folded the last finger down, pulled my hood tight, and glanced back at the bunch of punks who had awkwardly arranged themselves.
“When did I say you could get up?”
“Uh, uh!”
They all ducked their heads simultaneously.
“You all will pretend nothing happened today. Got it?”
““Y-yes, understood!!””
“If even a rumor gets out that I was here and I catch wind of it, even the mildest of countries would get angry.”
““We’ll keep that in mind!””
I nodded in satisfaction.
But my words didn’t stop there.
“And you punks, do you really want to talk big to folks like me? Huh?”
““S-sorry!!!””
“Is saying sorry enough? Huh? If saying sorry ends everything, why do we have guards and laws? Damn, just thinking about it pisses me off. Hey, you, come here.”
The punks all shut their mouths, hesitant. That was fine. I was only watching one guy.
“Look at that guy shutting his mouth and pretending he doesn’t know anything.”
Leaving behind Ophelia, who wore a look of disbelief, I stepped towards him.
“I said I don’t like repeating myself.”
Suddenly, Rosli jerked up from his sprawled position.
“Yes, yes!”
“Aren’t you managing your underlings properly?”
“S-sorry!”
He spoke so clearly that it seemed the potion’s effect was outstanding.
Of course, all his teeth were pulled in, with his lips sucked in, but his pronunciation was spot on.
“And you, you little brat. I asked you to bring my master, why did you bring this piece of junk?”
“Th-that… I-I didn’t know!”
“Is ‘not knowing’ an excuse?”
“…S-sorry.”
“Live kindly. Be good. Got it?”
“I’ll engrave it in my bones!”
“Good. Now, kid, wipe that mouth of yours. You got money for booze but not for toothpaste?”
“I’m so sorry!”
Rosli answered while yelling, and once more, a foul smell wafted from his mouth.
“Ugh, damn.”
I punched him in the jaw.
Crack– His eyes rolled back, and thud– he collapsed onto the floor.
I shook the blood off my hand and turned my head.
I could see Ophelia cursing under her breath, barely audible.
I smiled at her while saying.
“I educated him on your behalf. Aren’t you grateful?”
“…Thank you very much.”
“Yeah, so I’ll need some compensation.”
“…Huh?”
“What do you mean, ‘Huh’? I went out of my way to help this punk turn his life around. So I’m asking for compensation.”
Ophelia’s face crumpled like a newspaper.
“Don’t like it? Tough luck?”
I placed my foot on Rosli’s head.
Crack crack– The sound echoed through the bar like a watermelon cracking.
Hearing that, Ophelia gritted her teeth.
“…What do you want?”
“That’s for you to decide.”
“First… let’s move to a quieter place.”
“Fine.”
Thump! I kicked the already unconscious Rosli’s head and smiled brightly.
The initial intimidation was more than enough.
*
Not in the punk’s base but in Ophelia’s personal office, which was rather lavish.
Despite calling it an office, there was a massive bookshelf, piles of documents everywhere, and above all, dozens of communication crystals lined up here and there.
“Seems pretty official, huh?”
At my light comment, Ophelia frowned.
I said to her face.
“Given the state of your underlings, isn’t this surprising?”
“…It’s an act.”
“Until I started laying into them, those eyes were full of greed, though?”
“If it displeases you… I can get rid of them.”
“No need for that, just let’s stick to basic human decency. Let’s try to live like humans, okay?”
Although my words were casual, the meaning held weight.
Ophelia seemed to grasp the hidden meaning, nodding seriously.
“…I haven’t allied with the Demon Race.”
It seems my being Eustetia prompted that answer. Not a bad response.
But.
“How can I trust that?”
I couldn’t trust her.
And despite not being able to trust her, I came here for a simple reason: to cross-verify the information I knew with what these idiots had.
There’s something in the Empire’s underground.
The entity Pina spoke of, likely the Demon Race.
The Demon Race is underground in the Empire.
And whatever Arisa had prepared was also underground.
I could tell of the Demon Race’s existence because it was a spirit.
I understood information about my grave because of my status as Ronan in my past life. That’s how I could enter the Forbidden Library, know of the information left behind, and see illusions.
Did the Demon Race already know that information?
If so, where did they learn it from?
It could be coincidence.
But it might not be.
At the same time, the Information Guild also seems aware there’s something in the Empire’s underground.
I need to find out where that information originated.
That’s why I plan to cross-check first.
If anything seems off.
If there’s even a hint they’ve allied with the Demon Race.
I’ll kill the woman in front of me without hesitation.
“Our Guild, Uranus, exists on the foundation of trust. If… you can’t trust us, it would be pointless for me to share any information.”
“That’s not for you to decide.”
I leaned back into the soft sofa, crossing my legs.
“Tell me. What’s down in the Empire’s underground?”
Glaring at me, Ophelia sighed and brought over some paperwork from the back.
“Uranus, or rather, I discovered an unknown path underground seven years ago.”
I took the document and lent my ears to Ophelia’s words.
“The reason we found the path is documented in writing; we received a request from an unidentified individual and found it while observing the river of the Empire.”
The river of the Empire, referred to as “Mirean.”
As I flipped through the document, I imbibed the scenery of Mirean.
…It was the street Arisa used to stroll.
“However, I couldn’t obtain any information on that requester. I could only assume they were a mage.”
“What, you guys don’t even dig into the background of your clients?”
“…Normally, that wouldn’t happen. We do our work for rewards excluding the Demon Race.”
I narrowed my eyes and scrutinized Ophelia.
“Have you accepted requests from Dark Mages or Mages?”
“While not from Mages, we have dealt with Dark Mages.”
In another time, I would have immediately blown someone’s head off for such a statement, but times have changed now.
Even though they’re not Mages, Dark Mages have become well-integrated into society… despite it being a pain.
“You’re pretty honest, huh?”
“It’s a job that survives on honesty.”
“So that’s why you sent a piece of junk to me?”
“…That—”
“Shut it, just continue your explanation.”
Cutting off Ophelia’s words, I shifted my attention back to the document in hand. I was getting tired. I wanted to finish this quickly and bury myself in bed.
“The requester had only one condition. To find a certain joint somewhere in the Empire’s underground. In return, the reward was enormous. Naturally, I had to investigate… so I dug into their profile.”
“And what did you find?”
“Nothing came up.”
Like.
“…As if someone had intentionally erased it…”
As per Ophelia’s words, the requester’s information was entirely empty as if deliberately deleted.
I had sketched a montage but even that was vague.
An abnormally obscured image.
Information that was intentionally deleted.
From these two points, one person came to mind.
Kaloso Behrhaigen.
Crack, my teeth ground together. A heat surged through my body, and an indescribable anger welled up within me.
“…Forget about the requester, just tell me about the request.”
“Yes. Following the details of that request, we found the entrance to the sewage system leading to the Mirean. And at the end of that sewage system, we discovered a hidden path not shown on the Empire’s map.”
As I looked at a photo of that hidden road stretching over five pages, it was the exact same road I had seen in illusions, where Arisa strolled.
“And at the end of that path, we faced a gigantic door.”
“A door?”
There hadn’t been any doors in the illusions.
Arisa had simply continued walking until she reached a massive chamber.
Then, did Arisa erect that door?
I flipped the pages.
The next page contained the photo of the gigantic door just as Ophelia had described.
The door adorned with cherry blossoms.
It was so huge that you could call it a wall.
“That door… We could never hope to open it with our power. Likewise, the requester who entrusted us with it couldn’t open it either.”
The documents ended on that door’s photo, and I tossed it onto the table, staring at Ophelia.
“So, what next?”
“I received a new request from the requester.”
Ophelia handed over a new document.
“It was a request to guard that door at all costs. The duration was a minimum of 10 years… but we failed.”
I received the document and skimmed through it with my eyes.
At the same time, my eyes widened.
“An unidentified Dark Mage… a Dark Mage who manipulates snakes, wiped out our guild’s combatants.”
“H…”
On the first page of the document was a drawing of a snake eating its own tail.
No, this wasn’t a snake.
It was a dragon.
A dragon eating its own tail, Ouroboros.
“…Labyrinth.”
Beneath the Empire, there are subordinates of the Labyrinth.
*
“Muyeong is on the move.”
In the Empire’s underground.
A man bowing his head at the feet of a woman sitting atop a hill made of corpses.
Robert’s heavy voice reverberated ominously.
“It looks like they’re trying to pinpoint this location.”
“Well, they won’t find it anyway. What’s next?”
“I’ve detected the presence of a spirit.”
“A spirit.”
“In addition, they are together with our next target, the ‘Star,’ during most of their activities.”
“Oh my.”
The woman, with an enchanting giggle, dipped her finger in the blood and licked it.
“Can you secure it?”
“Yes.”
“How much time?”
“Just give me five days.”
Snicker. The woman chuckled softly while licking her bloodied finger.
Then she tapped the armor of the corpse right beneath her.
“Five days. That’s reasonable.”
The armor bore the shield symbol of the Royal Knight Order.
“Raven… I’ll attract the gaze of Adelia Baros, so Robert, just focus on securing the spirit.”
“I will serve.”
The woman’s eyes shifted towards the massive door standing behind Robert.
She received commands from her master, the Labyrinth.
The content: to open the door adorned with cherry blossoms.
However, despite every effort, they couldn’t open that door. A year had already passed since then.
And they found out.
That door was sealed by the spirit’s magic. Therefore, if they had the spirit’s power, they could open it.
Now that they knew the method, they just had to follow through.
They needed to secure the spirit.
“Just what could be behind there?”
Five days. In five days, that accursed door would open.