Ch.142Turbulence (4)

Regardless of Ortes’s bewilderment, Niobe’s judgment was precise. The false god attempting to be born was an entity that couldn’t be stopped with the half-hearted resolve of merely preserving the foundation of the magic tower.

Had Ortes himself taken control of all the Blasphemia forces and dismantled each of the false god’s fable spells one by one, things might have been different, but there wasn’t enough time or communication for that.

Ortes quickly grasped and accepted this fact.

‘Anemone Magic Tower…’

Service terminated.

Ortes squeezed his eyes shut. Damn it. What would he say to Knemon?

‘Come to think of it, the original request to make the magic tower disappear from the world has been fulfilled. It happened exactly as requested.’

Though Ortes didn’t consider himself the type to grant wishes like a monkey’s paw, he believed things had turned out this way because Karisia’s invisible hand—truly invisible since she had activated her invisibility—had recklessly cast magic on the tower.

Ortes laughed hollowly and looked down at the ground, feeling a mixture of resignation and sadness for the Anemone Magic Tower.

However, Nastion, who was observing the parasite’s fable, thought differently. That guy had never cared about the “Anemone Magic Tower” from the beginning.

As soon as signs of the fable appeared, he mobilized such strategic weapons to prevent its growth and committed all his reserve forces to attack.

‘Did he know from the beginning?’

The idea that emerged from the mental parasite’s final struggle was simple: change the target of its incarnation from itself to the magic core of the Anemone Tower.

The magic core enshrined in the tower was within the influence of the Ten Towers. As long as the connection to the Ten Towers remained, even the faithful of the false religion couldn’t identify them. Therefore, if they could avoid detection during their single infiltration attempt, they could launch a surprise attack against Ortes.

Fortunately, Nastion knew a path for stealthy infiltration.

It was the trace left by Sprigo, who had confronted Ortes first and died a violent death.

Nastion noticed through the scars left throughout the city that Sprigo had used an angelic transformation elixir. He must have become a silver giant tree, taking root in the city itself. He would have used his silver gift ability to absorb magic from the city’s mana conduits as nourishment.

Although the Panoptes had undertaken city facility maintenance, there was too little time to examine every underground facility in Algoth City.

Of course, the mana conduits were surrounded by dense alarm spells. But Sprigo had already taken measures to ensure his silver gift wouldn’t be recognized as a “foreign substance” while taking control of the mana conduits.

Nastion, honoring the spirit of his unfortunate comrade, placed the mental parasite in a silver gift-fused magic core and released it into the mana conduit.

The mental parasite traveled back up through the mana conduit and settled in the magic core of the Anemone Tower. Now it only waited for the moment of incarnation to strike Ortes, who would be focused on the tower master selection battle, with an unexpected blow.

He didn’t think the enemy would die easily, but at least he could inflict a deep, difficult-to-heal wound that would restrict his activities.

That was the plan when calculating only the false god’s surprise attack. If Nastion himself assisted from the shadows, there was a sufficient possibility of going beyond permanent injury to assassination.

But what was this scene before him?

As soon as the incarnation began, Ortes’s surprise attack followed. Nastion couldn’t help but consider an ominous possibility.

If Ortes had been confident from the beginning that he could hunt the false god…

The situation he would most want to avoid wouldn’t be a final battle with the false god, but rather the mental parasite continuing to increase its reserve terminals as a parasite. Without a priest specializing in mental matters like Bacchus, it would be impossible to eradicate the parasite.

However, if all the consciousness was concentrated into one incarnation, it would now face permanent silence with just one death.

He had covered one trap with an even bigger trap.

The situation needed to be changed somehow.

Nastion could see Ortes looking at the ground with a mocking smile. No, he wasn’t just looking at the ground.

Deep below the foundation. He must be looking at the mana conduit, the passage through which the mental parasite had infiltrated.

Was he analyzing the infiltration route to calculate the position of the mental parasite’s helper, namely Nastion?

If so, it was a wrong choice. Nastion had long since fled from the place where he had pushed the silver gift-fused magic core into the mana conduit.

‘…No.’

The Divine Faith Order’s pursuit of him had decreased over these past few days. At first, he thought they needed time to regroup due to divine power consumption exceeding the recovery rate provided by the demigod. Or perhaps they were preparing to exert more powerful authority.

Given the time afforded to the Order and the nature of the “demigod,” they would have accumulated enough divine power to use Holy Spirit, beyond the level of the faithful.

They would bind the false god to prevent it from overwhelming Ortes in a battle of strength against strength, and then annihilate the last variable, Nastion himself, with their accumulated divine power.

Despite the urgency of the situation, the Divine Faith Order’s trackers didn’t appear to confront the false god. They must have been deployed as a reserve force to target him—that’s what he needed to assume to survive.

Nastion’s survival instinct accelerated. It seemed certain that Ortes had taken control of the Blasphemia dispatched to Algoth City, but he couldn’t manipulate the entire Panoptes at his fingertips.

Creating chaos wasn’t a tactic exclusive to Ortes.

***

A construction site that had changed its purpose from redevelopment to demolition, mainly thanks to my employer. As dizziness welled up and I briefly looked at the ground, I could see at a glance the mess of the underground infrastructure’s maintenance state.

Signs of corrosion were visible throughout the mana conduits. When I saw it elsewhere, I knew it was the result of Sprigo’s large-scale bioterrorism here, so I didn’t pay much attention to it.

But seeing the parasite nesting in the magic core now turning the tower into a surrealist art piece, I could immediately understand what role the poorly maintained mana conduits played in this commotion.

Damn those Argyrions. If you damage public facilities, you should repair them before leaving.

Infiltration through mana conduits. Mana conduits connected to the magic core. And my eyes and spell overwriting.

Just as I was calculating what I could do, a roar that seemed to shake the earth came from behind me.

“False religion follower───!!”

Another chaos was added to the already sufficiently chaotic Algoth City. Near the Anemone Magic Tower. The lodging where Knemon, his sponsor Hydra Company, and the Divine Faith Order, nominally their employees, were staying.

That was the source of the roar.

Beyond the limits of what could be seen with the naked eye, my retina captured the image of a magician raining fire and lightning down on the lodging.

The magician had no distinctive features. An average impression of a modern magician of medium height, wearing a robe and holding a staff with several spell engraving drive slots.

However, the information my eyes showed me wasn’t just that. The essence beneath the human skin he wore. A shape like a black, bubbling shadow. Not an ordinary human.

“…This is insane.”

So the mental parasite had allies.

***

How about that?

Nastion couldn’t read emotions from Ortes’s eyes. They were narrowed.

But he could detect that Ortes had turned toward this place with uncharacteristically urgent movements. It must have been an unexpected blow for Ortes as well.

Ortes had mobilized all the Blasphemia forces at his disposal for the preemptive suppression of the false god. This was certainly the right decision.

However, sometimes the “right decision” is precisely what leaves one vulnerable. Just as he had opposed Haltos’s expedition.

Nastion felt a deep satisfaction for the first time in a very long while.

As the parasite continued to draw on the city’s magic to accelerate its incarnation, even the barrier for the tower master selection battle collapsed. The other Panoptes agents whom Ortes had excluded from the scene under the pretext of test supervision could now move.

In addition to the Panoptes agents, the participants who had been taking the test also began to move to condemn the Divine Faith Order. Now that the test had been rendered void, they probably judged they could score points by punishing those who opposed the order of the Ten Towers.

If the false god couldn’t be used to eliminate Ortes, then the most efficient attack must be made while the false god bought time.

Nastion knew well that the most “efficient” attack wasn’t directed at Ortes personally, but aimed at his forces.

If the collusion between Hydra Company and the Divine Faith Order was exposed here in broad daylight, Ortes himself would also become an enemy of the Ten Towers.

As Nastion prepared his next spell to stage the battle, he heard a clear tone and harsh words that didn’t match it simultaneously in his ear.

“That bastard! That bastard is a complete bastard!”

***

Kine had learned magic from Karisia and holy arts from the priests of the Divine Faith Order.

However, these two weren’t all she had learned.

Though unintentional, the two adults with whom Kine, staying at Hydra Company, conversed most were Karisia and Ortes.

Just as Karisia had unconsciously acquired Ortes’s rhetoric while being with him, Kine too had learned by observing Ortes’s actions.

The difference from Karisia was that Kine’s learning was conscious. After the deception in Elysion, Kine had carefully observed each of Ortes’s words and actions.

And finally now. Now that her teacher and old family friends were threatened. Something new combining magic, holy arts, and rhetoric had finally bloomed.

The power to break down people’s resistance through magic, twist the direction of psychology using holy arts, and finally induce action through words.

The name of this technique, which was both magic and holy art and thus should simply be called an ability, was:

Political Art (Politike Techne).

A mystery rite that Bacchus, god of wine and ensuing chaos, would find truly satisfying.