At that same moment, outside the Hidden Cathedral.
A deep, resonant boom shook the Dungeon.
An impact so powerful it reached beyond the Dungeon's walls. Not a soul outside could have pinpointed it as the work of Ermes alone, but—
Even so, from that impact, one thing became certain to those on the outside. That was—
"They're fighting. Ermes and the others, against the Archbishops."
"…Yeah. Judging from that, it must be one hell of a battle in there."
The one speaking was Toa, the commander of the Harvest territory, along with the soldiers under his command. They had been called in from the north in response to a request, and were currently locked in combat with the Church soldiers guarding the Hidden Cathedral—keeping them pinned on the outside.
Their role had been, thus far, a success. The outward pressure meant the Church soldiers couldn't break away to reinforce the interior, and based on the shockwave just now, it seemed those inside had managed to engage the Archbishops.
Therefore, the only remaining concern for those outside was narrowed down to this one point.
"…Can they win?"
"We have no choice but to believe so."
Toa answered the soldier who had anxiously squeezed out the question.
"At the end of the day, given the current state of affairs in the country, a quick decisive battle is the only path to survival for our Third Princess's faction. The moment we chose to send them inside, every last fate was placed in their hands.
So we should believe in them. Besides—you don't actually think those people, Ermes and the others, could lose, do you?"
Faced with the counter-question, the soldier stared blankly for a moment—then shook his head with a wry smile. Indeed, put that way, there was nothing more to say.
"You're absolutely right, Commander Toa."
The one who spoke up next, joining the conversation, was a knight from the Northern Alliance. They had once fought each other head-on, but since the Johan affair had been settled, they now belonged to the same Third Princess's camp. They had built a relatively amicable relationship, and this time they had come over to chat warmly with Toa's group during their break.
"If I may add something in my capacity as a Northern Alliance knight—the forces that breached the interior include Lord Lucius as well. That man is someone for whom defeat is simply inconceivable, as far as we're concerned.
Well, it was your Ermes who shattered that illusion the last time… But this time, those two are fighting side by side as allies, storming in together. Speaking as someone who witnessed that battle—I almost feel sorry for the enemy."
"......Well, that's certainly true." "No argument there."
The final stages of the Northern Rebellion—Lucius and Ermes's battle. As someone who had witnessed a clash truly worthy of being called a summit showdown, there was nothing left to say in rebuttal once that was brought up.
Perhaps pleased by the Harvist territory's ranks regaining their confidence, the Northern Alliance soldier went on.
"Besides, they're not the only ones. The other mages of the Third Princess's faction are all formidable in their own right, and as for Her Highness the Second Princess—well, I really can't say for certain, but... On top of that, I hear the young lord of House Feibrald—that leading family among the neutral nobility—will be lending his cooperation this time as well. He's said to be a remarkable mage, so without a doubt..."
"—Wait."
But right then.
The one who called a halt was Toa.
Because in the course of everything that had just been said, a single phrase had slipped through that absolutely could not be ignored. That phrase was—
"The young lord... of House Feibrald?"
"Hm? Yes, I heard it from Lord Lucius himself—that he supposedly possesses truly exceptional magic power—"
"——
Who the hell is that?
"
Cutting off the Northern Alliance knight mid-sentence, Toa—
—spoke a truth that only someone who had spent years entangled in aristocratic society could know.
"The Feibrald family
doesn't have a son.
...Who exactly is that person?"
"——"
The soldiers froze for just a moment. But they quickly recovered.
"...M-Maybe it's a misunderstanding? The Feybrad family is one shrouded in mystery — it's possible their son simply hasn't shown himself publicly..."
"No, that possibility is slim. ...I am, after all, a minor noble with Bloodline Magic of my own, and moreover I oversee the northern region. Naturally, I monitor the movements of other nobles for self-defense purposes, regardless of their public or private dealings. Even with a family like the Feybrads, I've only met their head once, nearly twenty years ago. If anything, that made me investigate them all the more thoroughly.
This is my conclusion after all of that. ...The Feybrads have no son. At the very least, they have never produced anyone who could be openly declared an 'heir.'"
"So you're saying they concealed one?"
"If so, that would be treason against the royal family. ...I'll keep the details quiet, but the information I have now came from sources tied to the royal family. Bringing a hidden heir here to the Royal Capital when one hasn't even been reported to the Royal Palace — wouldn't that be a tremendous problem in itself?"
"..."
All at once.
A heavy, uneasy atmosphere settled over the scene, and the soldiers fell silent, unable to speak. Toa's expression hardened just as theirs had, and she pressed further.
"...What does the man claiming to be the Feybrad son look like?"
"Y-Yes. This comes from a report by Lord Lucius... He's a young man, around twenty years of age. Rare black hair, reddish eyes. His features are said to be extremely gentle, but there's an unfathomable air about him, or so I'm told."
"!"
...The same.
The exact same traits as the Feybrad head she had met nearly twenty years ago.
Toa shuddered at the information, which had just gained tremendous credibility all at once, but she pressed on.
"...What is the man's name?"
"Chrono. Chrono von Feybrad, apparently."
"!"
This time, an electric jolt ran straight down Toa's spine.
No — that's impossible. It's been nearly twenty years. There's no way — doubt and desperation raced through her mind all at once.
"......That is—"
Still, barely managing to hold on... there was at least this — information she needed to convey.
"—"
The head of the household's own
, name."
"—!" "Th...at — what do you mean?"
Of course.
It could be nothing more than a peculiar custom. As for the appearance, it could just be an uncanny resemblance to a stranger. She didn't even have the confidence to make such a definitive claim based on her own investigative abilities.
But... for some reason.
An inexplicable premonition — one that absolutely could not be ignored.
It raced through everyone present. The hidden sanctuary, which until now had seemed reassuringly normal, suddenly began to feel like a demonic pit where something catastrophic was unfolding.
...Come to think of it, that impact had been strange too. An impact from deep within the Dungeon reaching all the way out here — what on earth was going on?
Something. Something incomprehensibly vast.
Inside the sealed, modified Dungeon — could it be that something had already 'begun to happen'?
The group rapidly descended into suspicion and paranoia. But the battle didn't wait for them — all of them were quickly mobilized into combat against the church soldiers.
Even as the attention of everyone present remained fixed on the eerie hidden sanctuary... the battle outside raged on.
◆
...It was a terrible feeling.
Having witnessed the true nature of Archbishop Gregorio — a man in whom she had held genuine hope, believing him to be a person of conviction with whom reason might prevail.
Carrying within her a dark refusal unlike anything she had felt before. Following that impulse, she found herself able to wield with ease a spell that had always eluded her, commanding it freely to overwhelm everything in her path.
……It was a terrible feeling.
That such emotions had existed within her. That she had been able to cast magic using *these* emotions.
Above all—the fact that using magic had come with… an undeniable sweetness, a dark and rich delight, bound inseparably to this feeling, this desire.
Unbearably repulsive… and yet, undeniably pleasurable.
Ecstasy and exhaustion. Two contradictory emotions spiraling through her body until she felt sick. She didn't know what she was thinking anymore, didn't know what she was supposed to be feeling.
To Ermes, lost in a storm of emotion bordering on the intoxication of self-contradiction, a voice reached her.
"——Oh, Archbishop! What have you done, you demon!!"
……It only made the revulsion worse.
Without a shred of consideration for her state of mind, the soldiers under Gregorio's command shrieked on.
"This was our greatest chance to die fulfilling our mission!"
"Why do you resist?! Why won't you just die quietly alongside us!? I cannot understand from the bottom of my heart!!"
"See, I told you — they're not even the same kind of people as us! An irreconcilable existence — disgusting!"
Human. Voices.
This was the first time she had ever found them so grating to hear.
"Damn it… everyone, this demon is beyond normal. None of us can take on the being who defeated the Archbishop alone — but!"
"Yeah, that's right! Not a single one of us wants to go on living in shame as the sinful wretches we are! So!"
"Right — together,"
"all of us,"
"at that thing,"
"sacrifice charge!"
Let's Die
"...!"
"That's right! We need to delay that thing from reaching the surface for as long as we can!"
"Come, let's go! ...Oh, Star God, look down upon us! Even we, cursed as we are, will prove ourselves useful to you! Let that demon see our glorious deaths──"
"You're
so
annoying."
A single wave of his left hand.
He surrounded the clamoring soldiers all at once with a black barrier, then imagined the consciousness within and rejected it.
...Sure enough, he confirmed the sensation of having swept away the consciousness of everyone inside, just as expected. It seemed that knocking out those with weak resistance was the most convenient method. More importantly, there was no way he'd be so kind as to kill these people as they wished.
And so, he deepened his understanding of yet another application of this magic. He was drowning in the revolting sensation.
The archive fell silent for the moment, but—
Ermes looked at the place before him where Archbishop Gregorio had fallen — probably not over yet. ...With a gaze that confirmed the man was still alive.
Because he had seen it — that moment before he trapped him in the black barrier and triggered the deliberate overload.
Gregorio had barely managed to restart his Magical tool and cover himself with a barrier at maximum output. Ermes had aimed for a timing that should have made defense utterly impossible, but some roughness was unavoidable given it was his first time using the technique — and it had permitted that narrow last-second defense.
As a result, while Ermes' compressed, overloaded flame strike had pierced through those defenses, its power had been significantly diminished.
That was why Archbishop Gregorio still retained his form. And if Ermes' reading of the situation was correct—
"—Ha. Hahahahahahaha!"
Just as Ermes thought the man was about to regain consciousness—
Just as expected, Gregorio opened his eyes — then, to everyone's surprise, erupted into a booming laugh.
He braces himself on instinct — but there's no sign of the man getting up. Though he's still conscious, he remains firmly incapacitated.
Whether it's an archbishop's stubbornness or plain madness, Gregorio lets out a full round of laughter while slumped on the ground, then screams toward the heavens.
"Oh, Star God, I am truly sorry! Despite being granted the honorable position of archbishop, my own weakness and incompetence have allowed me to fall behind against such a demon! ...And yet, and yet!"
At that point, he spins his head around and fixes Ermes with eyes opened wide to their absolute limit.
"...Don't you demons go getting ahead of yourselves just because you managed to defeat me!
I am, after all, merely a compassionate archbishop — one who falls a step behind the others when it comes to heresy hunting! You'd better regret having devoted so much of your forces to someone like me!"
Rational words, too coherent to be called madness. Ermes figures he hasn't lost his judgment and is screaming deliberately — besides, there's information in there worth hearing — so he lets the man carry on.
"The other archbishops won't go down so easily! Especially—"
Gregorio then slowly turns his gaze around... toward Chrono, who has been silently watching the situation from the sidelines.
"Chrono von Feibrad! The subordinates you sent must be in a truly miserable state by now!"
"..."
Chrono narrows his eyes ever so slightly, but Gregorio presses on regardless.
"I know this about you — the neutral nobles you command may be numerous... but they lack any outstanding mages, and their independent combat capability is woefully insufficient!"
"..."
"You were probably planning to make up for that with sheer numbers, but I'm afraid your opponents were far too much for that. The one handling those subordinates of yours is Archbishop Varen — the 'Strongest of All Archbishops'!"
"!"
Ermes's eyes widen slightly.
One of the remaining archbishops has just been revealed to share the same epithet as Gregorio — and it carried a deeply ominous ring to it.
"His ability in heresy hunting and combat is the greatest among us archbishops, and a one-versus-many situation like the one you orchestrated is exactly the kind of fight he's most accustomed to.
Your subordinates, who have nothing but numbers to rely on, will be crushed in an instant! And then it'll be your turn — come at me right now and I'll smash you all to pieces—"
Splat.
As if cutting off his words.
From the entrance of the archive, a wet, sloppy sound echoed. Yes, it was exactly—
a blood-soaked
human
being tossed aside
or so it seemed.
"!"
Upon hearing it, Archbishop Gregorio's eyes lit up with elation.
Convinced that, speak of the devil, Archbishop Varen had come rushing to his aid, he turned his gaze toward the sound—
—and froze.
"…Aaah, aaah, shut up, shut up. Archbishop Gregorio, you weren't the screaming type, were you? Did you not expect to get taken out, so you lost it and went nuts?"
Hearing that voice.
Archbishop Gregorio's eyes went wide beyond their limits—
—and even more so, Ermes was the one who was shocked.
Because.
That voice was far, far too familiar.
And… it was the voice of a man who absolutely could not possibly be here.
"I've been watching for a while now. Loved the sermon, Gregorio. You really seem to trust those other archbishops, don't you? The bonds of the organization — my, how beautiful."
Unfazed by the stunned reactions of everyone present, the man grinned with a mocking smirk.
"So, for someone like you who loves your buddies so much — let me ask you something. That 'strongest archbishop,' Lord Valen, you were just screaming about —"
He pointed at the ground beneath his feet, and declared:
"— Is that the lump of meat lying over there?"
"..........No... way..."
He was referring to the man in ecclesiastical robes that the man had just moments ago hurled to the ground at his feet.
Archbishop Gregorio's reaction was, above all else, a resounding confirmation.
"Well, yeah — for an archbishop, he was pretty strong. His Bloodline Magic was nothing to scoff at. ...But his fighting style was absolute garbage. He was the type who only knew how to beat up people weaker than himself. You could practically taste that arrogance in the way he carried himself.
...Actually, I don't exactly get pumped up from smashing a guy like this. Think about it — if I'm going to destroy something,
I'd rather destroy
something
beautiful.
For example..."
And then, the man finally turned his gaze toward them.
Though their encounters had been few, the impression his features left was searingly vivid. He twisted his face into a wild, fearless grin.
With something almost like fondness, he offered a greeting of reunion.
"Someone like you, for instance. Long time no see, Ermes."
"...Lord Laplace."
A high-ranking member of the mysterious 'Organization' that stood opposed to the kingdom — a feud that began at the very end of the academy incident — and, moreover, the true owner of the Bloodline Magic Ermes had just used.
Laplace appeared before Ermes and the others for the third time, bearing as his gift the 'strongest archbishop' he had crushed with his overwhelming power.
"Like I said earlier — I've been watching for a while now."
With that, Laplace addressed Ermes — who remained on his guard — in a manner one could only describe as casual.
"You put my magic to good use, Ermes.
...No wait, seriously, you really saved our skins. For us,
those archbishops
were the biggest obstacle — the most obstructive existence there was. Individually they weren't much, but when you looked at them as an organization, as the 'Archbishop faction,' they weren't an enemy you could afford to take lightly. You'd understand that better than anyone, having faced off against Johan, right?"
"What are you..."
"You took down two of those nuisance archbishops. And with the one I clobbered, that makes three. There's one left, but... well, appearances aside — or rather, as long as that one's still around, it's not exactly a defeat, right?"
"What are you talking about... No — more fundamentally, why are you even here—"
"So, here's what I want to ask you."
He cut off Ermes' questions for the moment.
Laplace wore — for the first time they had seen — a thin smile, one that held no venom and somehow gave an impression of transparency.
"This country, you see...
The reason
not to destroy it
,
what
is it?"
For Ermes in that moment, it was simply
too much — a question that cut far too deep.
"Th-that's..."
"Well, I guess it'd be rough to demand an immediate answer from you in your current state. Fine, then — let me answer the question you asked me instead."
"That said — why am I here, right? I'm sure a smart guy like you has already got a pretty good idea, haven't you?"
"!"
Once again, Ermes swallowed hard, having been struck right where it hurt.
That's right. Laplace had appeared from where Archbishop Varen's opponent — the "vanguard of the Neutral Nobles" — was supposed to be stationed.
And then there was "his" unfathomable nature. The warning Yurugen had given.
Piece all of that together, and the answer naturally narrows down to just one.
"...The Archbishop's faction has been half-destroyed. The thing we're after is right in front of us. And the Royal Capital, without me there, is probably in total chaos by now."
"And the icing on the cake — every last one of the higher-ups just happens to be gathered right here."
Before the dumbfounded Ermes and the rest of the Third Princess's faction, who could do nothing but watch.
Laplace turned toward the last person remaining on the scene — Chrono von Feybrad.
With an exaggeratedly familiar, theatrical tone, he delivered his opening line.
"— It's about time."
"Let's kick off the delightful destruction you've been wishing for. Hey,"
"Boss,"
"?"
Chapter 3 — from here, we get to the core of the story.
Next time, we'll be switching to Second Princess Laila's perspective. The plot will start moving, too. Look forward to it!