episode_0039

“Illuminate the path to the Heroic Mausoleum.”

Ergo silently nodded, accepting the Holy Spear. His face was just as it had been that day, the young man from the Duchy of Germania who had engaged in a public duel before Sir Roland, the Divine Spear. He was also clad in the black uniform symbolizing the Royal Guard.

It was yet unknown whether this would finally be the answer to reaching the Heroes’ Tomb, or if it would become a new riddle game, just like with the . They would soon find out.

It was then.

“Excuse me, Commander-nim.”

Aria, who stood by his side, spoke. Faster than anyone else there. Then, with a precariously brief pause, Selena of the Dark Moon picked up the conversation. The timing was so close it could practically be considered simultaneous.

“…It seems we have uninvited guests.”

I frowned at the ensuing words. Of all times, it had to be when I least wanted to be disturbed. Even I, who tried hard not to show emotional turmoil, found it difficult to maintain composure.

“Who is it?”

“They don’t appear to be from any of the Three Kingdoms, at least.”

A country or faction outside the Empire, Kingdom, or Duchy. Yet they dared to track the 《Black Serpent》 and find their way to where we were staying. Did they have some other purpose or reason?

“What shall we do, Commander?”

“…I suppose we’ll hear them out.”

After saying that, I calmly prepared to receive them.

Inside the ruined factory, moonlight seeped through the gaps in the collapsed ceiling. I positioned myself on a moderately high steel beam, where the moonlight shone as a backlight from behind me. Hmm, it needed to be this high to make an impression when seen from below.

Thanks to the already complex tangle of steel beams and pipes, it was a perfectly ideal spot for villains to gather and strike poses.

From the looks of it, this wasn’t the first time they had sought out such a place. In any case.

While everyone took their positions with preparatory movements, at the end of that slightly awkward silence, they finally revealed themselves.

A group in Eastern-style attire, resembling those who claimed to be ‘Heavenly Beings’ whom I had seen previously in the Labyrinth City.

Leading them, a woman appeared, dressed in robes like the feathered garments of a celestial maiden.

At the same time, she respectfully knelt before us.

“I, your humble servant, am Dalgi of the Silver.”

Following the custom of her country, the woman who called herself Dalgi bowed respectfully and continued speaking.

“Oh, Black Dragon, who is destined to swallow this world.”

“…We are not dragons.”

As soon as I heard that, I answered coldly.

“We are merely snakes.”

“Just as a dragon falls and becomes a snake, and a snake ascends and becomes a dragon…”

The woman called Dalgi replied with a smile.

“The difference between the two is not as great as you might think.”

Accompanied by a captivating and seductive eye-smile.

“State your business.”

There was no time to waste on useless nonsense. So I asked again, perched on the steel beam, with the moonlight from the broken ceiling backlighting me.

Dalgi looked up at me from the factory floor and answered my question.

“As this humble servant understands, I heard that the Black Dragon-nim is aiming for the Heroic Mausoleum.”

“…Who told you that?”

“Hehe, that is a woman’s unspeakable secret.”

Dalgi smiled with her eyes, letting her words trail off suggestively. I was silent for a moment before that smile.

“Do you find this amusing?”

At the end of my silence, I asked. Simply out of pure curiosity. However, before my curiosity, the attitude of my subordinates standing by my side was a little different.

With just that one thing, the atmosphere of the entire area shifted. In the changed atmosphere, I continued.

“You would do well to choose your next answer more carefully.”

“…”

“Who told you that?”

Dalgi no longer smiled. Nor did she let her words trail off suggestively.

Without hesitation, she knelt and prostrated herself before me, burying her head on the floor. In that position, she replied.

“This humble servant merely wished to offer helpful words regarding the Heroic Mausoleum…”

“Speak.”

“Black Dragon-nim—Sir Rain, you must never go to the Heroic Mausoleum!”

Dalgi cried out.

“I-I just wanted to warn you of that fact!”

“Why?”

“Because the heroes in the Heroic Mausoleum… already have strings attached to them!”

—*Those who remember heroes can attach strings to us.*

The phrase written in the inadvertently resurfaced in my mind.

“Sir Roland’s death, and the Divine Spear you thus acquired, are all traps aimed at the Black Dragon-nim!”

“How do you know that?”

“Because this humble servant also intended to target the ‘Heroic Mausoleum’.”

Dalgi said, still maintaining her subservient posture with her head deeply bowed to the floor.

“However, when my subordinates reached that place, the heroes of the tomb already had ‘strings attached’ to them. Not a single one returned alive.”

“…Is that so?”

“Therefore, please, this Dalgi of the Silver—I have something I wish to say.”

“Speak.”

“To Sir Rain, and to all who claim the name of the 《Black Serpent》, I humbly address you.”

Dalgi spoke.

“Please come to my country, Silver.”

She was asking them to come to her country.

“Come and, please, rule and reign over this entire country!”

Even the content was utterly preposterous.

“Why should we do that?”

“Because unless we combine our strength, we will never be able to win.”

Dalgi replied.

“When the ‘puppeteer with strings’ moves in that place, the Heroic Mausoleum—and swallows this continent.”

“…”

“To prepare for that time, there is no way for us to survive other than by combining all our strength.”

I did not answer immediately. A brief silence. At the end of the silence, I asked again.

“Do you know who attached the strings to the heroes?”

“I do.”

Dalgi replied, bowing her head to the floor again.

“—The Queen of the Empire, the girl who bears the sun.”

“…”

“At the time my country, Silver, began tracking the existence of the ‘Heroic Mausoleum,’ the Bretona Empire had already known its existence and location and secured all of it.”

“When was that?”

“From the very day she, herself, bore the sun.”

The day the Queen of the Empire bore the sun.

At those words, I silently swallowed my breath. I had thought, “No way.” No, it wasn’t “no way.”

I had bought this damned game series that churned out titles like a factory, without question or complaint. I had then been transmigrated into a work where I couldn’t even play it, a game I’d invested in by buying the ‘Ultimate Sucker Edition’.

And the previous work in that series.

I recalled the epilogue that followed, after defeating Romeo and Juliet of the 《Black Serpent》 as the final bosses in that work.

It was the story of a girl who, succeeding the deceased queen, became the new queen of the Bretona Empire.

For reference, the epilogue’s title was ‘The Girl Who Bears the Sun’.

I could say nothing. Strings had already been attached to the heroes in the Heroes’ Tomb. Then who exactly were those heroes? What did it mean to attach strings?

Not a single one of my doubts was resolved.

That’s why nothing would change even more.

“Ergo.”

“Yes, Commander-nim.”

“Illuminate the path to the Heroic Mausoleum.”

“!”

I commanded without a care. And Ergo, too, carried out my orders without a care.

He adjusted his grip on the Holy Spear I had given him, carefully moving his hand as if peering into something hidden within it.

Meanwhile, Dalgi cried out. She was still in a posture of subservience, kneeling and burying her head before me.

“W-Why?!”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a trap, Sir Rain! Roland’s death, and the Holy Spear given to you, are all moving according to that woman’s plan!”

“Indeed.”

I finally realized. The situation where Roland died meaninglessly, collapsed without any plan, and handed over the Holy Spear. Even while all nations with some power were expecting such an event, he had so readily handed over the Holy Spear—the key and map to the Heroic Mausoleum.

Considering Dalgi’s warning, which revealed the truth, if her words were true, the Heroic Mausoleum was nothing more than a trap from the very beginning.

This was the true trap.

That’s why I thought.

Perhaps, the past me would have changed my policy upon hearing those words and joined hands with her before me.

I would have believed the words of her, Dalgi, from the Silver Country, and relied on the information she provided, cooperating with her.

It wasn’t that I specifically didn’t want to join hands with her now.

It was just that one thing had changed.

From the moment I confronted Sir Roland and read aloud the ‘braille’ deeply etched into a part of my consciousness that even I didn’t know about. From that very moment, I had realized a fact to my core.

The man named ‘Rain Grey’ was a being unfathomable with my paltry imagination.

Therefore, I imagined how petty and ludicrous all the schemes and struggles happening in places I didn’t know about would appear in his eyes.

There would be no difference now either.

“I shall open the path.”

Ergo bowed his head and replied. Dalgi was about to say something more, but it was then.

*Clang.*

A black sword, now pointed at her, radiated a chilling menace.

“The Commander-nim.”

Aria, her eyes covered with a pitch-black bandage, said, a dark, chilling sharpness accompanying her words.

“Has already made his decision.”

So calmly.

“If you intend to bow your head and claim to be a servant before the Commander-nim, you would do well to remember this.”

Aria said.

“That nothing in this world can obstruct the Commander-nim’s will.”

“…”

Dalgi said nothing.

With that, Ergo had already re-gripped the Star Spear and traced an arc in the empty air.

Then, following the trajectory of the swinging spear, the empty air was torn open.

Beyond the torn air, a ‘passage’ just wide enough for one person to enter had opened.

Like constellations adorning the night sky radiating their unique brilliance, beyond the constellations, a just wide enough for one person to enter.

A rift that did not exist in this world, the Heroes’ Tomb.

The key leading to the Heroic Mausoleum. It was literally that.

I stood silently before it. Then I glanced back, surveying the faces of those watching me.

Nothing had changed.

Whatever lay ahead, even if it was a trap or anything else, I had a duty to know.

Thus, I took a step.

And the moment I stepped forward to move. As soon as my foot touched the very edge.

The scenery of the world I stood upon utterly transformed.

The sensation of moving alone, away from those there, and further into the beyond of the world.

“Orabeoni…!”

At that moment, I heard a voice calling me.

It was a voice imbued with the will not to let me go until the very end.

In the moment I moved away, leaving the scenery of the ruined factory behind, amid the twisting and transforming landscape—

When I realized, I was walking on stars.

As if walking on a transparent glass floor in a space station.

I was not alone there.

We were walking there together.

Upon an endlessly unfolding curtain of galaxies.

“…Aria.”

As always, she who guarded my side spoke there.

“Please forgive me, Commander-nim.”

—*Unraveling the black bandage that usually covered her eyes.*