Chapter 588: The One Behind It (1)

Alon continued asking and answering questions with Yan for about thirty minutes.

About Elivan’s past.

And in the conversation that continued like that, Yan felt something strange.

'...What is this?'

Alon’s questions were not strange.

He asked strictly about Elivan’s past, and most of the questions he asked were things Yan could answer without much difficulty.

Of course, among those questions, there were some Yan herself did not know in detail and could not answer, but even those questions themselves were not particularly strange.

Most of the questions Yan could not answer had to do with the connection between Elivan and the Sin, and even when she heard those questions, apart from the fact that they made her feel depressed, she did not think he was asking anything strange.

Because although she still did not want to acknowledge it, it was unmistakably true that Elivan had become the Sin of Wrath and blown away the capital of one of the Allied Kingdoms’ nations.

In other words, overall, Alon’s questions and answers proceeded without anything strange.

Yet what made Yan feel puzzled was this exchange of questions and answers itself.

'What does he want...?'

Fundamentally, the reason people exchanged questions and answers was ultimately to obtain information.

And the person answering could usually understand what kind of information the other person wanted to obtain through the questions being presented.

No matter how indirectly someone asked, if there was information they wanted, they would eventually move toward it.

But.

“...Hm, is that so?”

“Yes.”

Even after exchanging questions and answers for nearly over thirty minutes, Yan could not grasp at all what intention Alon had behind the questions he was asking.

'...No, in a way, it does seem like he is investigating the connection between Elivan and the Sin, but—'

Just as Yan began to tilt her head because, if she judged it that way, the other questions he had asked made no sense again—

“...That is everything I wanted to ask. Thank you for cooperating.”

“...Is that the end?”

“Yes.”

Alon nodded and was about to rise from his seat, but then took something out from inside his clothes.

“...?”

It was a pendant.

One with no particular pattern drawn on it.

“This is...?”

As Yan asked in confusion, Alon handed the pendant to her.

“Elivan gave it to me.”

“...Elivan did?”

“Yes. It is something he handed over a very long time ago.”

“...Why this?”

Yan asked, bewildered.

“If it is all right, can you go every day and show Elivan that pendant?”

“...The pendant?”

“Yes. From what I saw, he looked completely consumed, but—”

Alon looked at the pendant and murmured.

“—perhaps, if he sees that object, he may recover his mind, even if only slightly.”

“I heard it was an important object,” Alon added, and when he held the pendant out again, Yan carefully accepted it.

“...All right.”

Soon, she placed the pendant Alon had handed her inside her clothes.

“It would be good if there were a proper method...”

After exchanging farewells with Yan, Alon turned around and left the temple.

“Lord Alon!”

“Penia, was Yutia there?”

“No. From what I heard, she had business in Raksas and went there.”

“It will be difficult to meet her this time as well.”

“It seems so...”

“Then I will prepare to leave immediately.”

With Penia and Deus’s words as the end, Alon left Rosario without delay, as if he had finished all his business.

####

After that, another five days passed.

They had traveled for far longer than usual and were already passing through the wasteland.

“...It seems there really isn’t enough time after all.”

At Penia’s words, Alon nodded as though he agreed.

“The time remaining is—”

“If we say it is exactly three weeks, then there is now less than one week left.”

“Hm—six days.”

“Six days, is it...”

At Penia and Deus’s words, Alon murmured quietly.

Six days.

For Alon, who had a time limit placed on him, it could be called a fairly tight amount of time.

However, the reason Alon could maintain a certain degree of calm despite that was because, assuming the Karma seats would fall exactly at the three-week mark—

He judged that they would not immediately begin fighting.

In other words, if Alon aimed for a situation where the Karma seats had been weakened through battle with other Karma seats, as he had originally planned, then it could be said that time was not quite that tight.

...Of course, that did not mean he had time to spare.

“Even if we are somewhat late, it will not be a very ‘strange’ time.”

“I think so too.”

“As do I. In any case, it should be around that time.”

After Penia and Deus agreed, Alon organized his thoughts for a moment.

“...”

He quietly looked at the tower visible at the far edge of the endless wasteland.

“What are you looking at?”

Penia asked curiously at that point.

“I was looking at the tower.”

“The tower? ...Ah.”

Penia moved her gaze along Alon’s and soon saw the tower at the end of the wasteland, then let out a small sound of realization. After thinking for a moment, she carefully asked,

“...It’s because of that, right? The other side world.”

“Yes.”

Reinysius had said that the designer of the other side world was interfering with the tracking of Evan.

And as far as Alon knew, there were two people closely connected to Monster blood in some way.

One was the Seeker, who had distributed the power of Monster blood to the envoys of each kingdom.

And the other was Yutia, the daughter of Monster blood.

...Of course, thinking about it within common sense, both of them were generally ambiguous as people who would have a reason to block Evan’s tracking.

In Yutia’s case, for one thing, he did not even know whether she could properly handle the power of Monster blood. Even if she could handle Monster blood’s power and had designed that other side world, there was no reason for her to deliberately block the tracking of Evan.

...And above all, even if she had some kind of reason, he did not think she would deliberately do such a thing.

There were many secretive aspects to her, but Alon trusted her.

“...”

Of course, by that logic, the Seeker also had no particular reason to go this far to stop Alon from meeting Evan.

To begin with, Alon and the Seeker, assuming he was not lying, shared the same goal to some extent.

“I was actually thinking of stopping by once.”

The reason he thought so despite that was because the thought suddenly occurred to him that perhaps he could receive advice from the Seeker.

“Hm—I do think it would certainly be worth stopping by.”

Penia agreed.

However, the reason Alon was still hesitating was because, although the time it would take to stop by the Seeker’s tower itself would be short, he was worried it might cause some disruption to his current plan.

So after thinking for a moment, Alon soon shook his head slightly.

“Still, there is something urgent first, so let us put that off until later.”

He said that soon after.

####

The next day.

Alon’s group flew up on Basiliora and moved without rest toward the Empire.

Unlike before, after truly moving quickly without stopping, Alon’s group was able to reach the Western Empire, where the Karma seats were expected to fall, in only ten days.

“...It has been a while.”

“It has.”

At Penia’s murmur, Alon nodded and silently looked down at the Western Empire.

The scenery of the Western Empire had not changed much from before.

The land was still desolate and dry beyond reason, turned gray.

Between the cracked-open ground, dry trees and stones trembled precariously even in the smallest wind, as if faintly announcing that this land was dead.

“Basiliora.”

[What is it?]

“Let us descend. From now on, we need to move carefully.”

At Alon’s words, Basiliora descended toward the ground without complaint.

Once they landed, Alon confirmed that the borders of the other empires, which had been visible far away, could no longer be seen.

“From here on, we move on foot.”

“Yes.”

“Understood.”

Penia answered, and Deus, who had woken up with perfect timing the moment Basiliora landed on the ground, nodded.

With that as the end, they began walking inward, using the direction of the Western Empire’s capital as their reference point.

One day passed as they moved like that.

Although it was not to the extent of traveling on Basiliora, Alon had walked for quite a long time, enough that they were now a considerable distance from the borders of the other empires.

“...?”

At some point, he realized one abnormality.

A very small abnormality.

“...”

Alon silently looked at the ground.

The ground was still the desolate ash-gray earth.

What could be seen were dry branches and small stones.

Nothing else was visible.

However, Alon felt puzzled by that small stone.

A stone that had been hit and broken here and there, with only one side sharpened like a chipped stone tool.

There was nothing unusual about that stone.

If he forced himself to find something—

“...”

—it was that Alon had already seen that very stone repeated more than five times.

“Lord Alon, somehow... I think something is strange.”

Penia also murmured quietly, as though she had sensed that abnormality.

“I agree as well.”

Deus, who had been walking silently until just a moment ago, had at some point come in front of Alon and showed him purple thread.

Purple thread that had extended straight to one side, then at some point met itself and formed the shape of a circle.

“So we are going around and around in the same place after all?”

And the moment Alon murmured that—

[Correct.]

Someone answered.

“!”

Alon instinctively turned his gaze toward the direction the voice had come from.

But there was no one where his gaze landed.

All he saw was empty air with nothing there.

[You’re slower to notice than I expected. I thought you would figure it out an hour ago, so I’m a little disappointed.]

At the same time, when Alon turned his gaze again toward the innocent voice coming from another direction—

The next moment.

“!”

Alon noticed the abnormality.

“Ugh—”

“What is this—”

Penia and Deus likewise wore bewildered expressions.

It could not be helped.

Until just a moment ago, what Alon’s group had been looking at was an ash-gray wasteland with nothing there.

But what they were looking at now—

“...”

Were stairs.

There were stairs tangled and intertwined, as though they would twist a person’s perception.

Some were spiral staircases.

Some were stairs going up.

Some were stairs going down.

Others stood sideways.

Some were arranged diagonally.

Some had stairs turned completely upside down.

Some had doors of every color attached to them.

And some had something grotesque attached.

And in the middle of those doors.

It stood there.

[Hello.]

It was a bizarre outfit.

An outfit that looked as if a suit and a clown’s costume had been mixed together in moderation, yet it was also covered in bloodstains.

And there was a clown mask.

A mask that showed a smiling face when held upright.

But when worn upside down, showed a crying face.

With that mask covering its face—

[Star Eater.]

It—

No.

The Karma seat quietly offered a greeting.

With a grotesque smile so chilling that its mouth seemed torn all the way to its ears.