Ch.588You’re not going to fight?

“How troublesome. Could he have remained on the island…!”

Pairus frowned.

Perneisia, the only fairy on the island. He had assumed she’d returned to Alvheim or been eliminated while spying, so he hadn’t given it much thought. He never imagined she would be wandering around in such a bizarre state.

It was only natural that this fairy would recognize him immediately.

Three hundred years might seem like ancient history to humans, but for fairies, it was merely like childhood. How could Alvheim’s guardian not recognize someone who had been such a famous figure, shaking the entire Holy State at that time?

For Pairus, who had only been wary of priests, this was an unexpected situation.

Feeling a trickle of cold sweat running down his cheek, Pairus gritted his teeth, unable to decide what to do.

‘If I fight the fairy guardian in the middle of the island…’

All the island’s forces would come rushing in.

The aftermath was predictable. Having expended considerable power subduing Nidhogg, it would be nearly impossible to kill them all and escape, even if he gave it his all.

“Why are you glaring like that? Don’t want to fight?”

However, Perneisia merely raised both arms and smiled, showing no intention to fight.

—-

“…You don’t want to fight?”

“That’s right… If we fought here, it would cause an uproar… I’m in a position where I can’t afford to make a scene… So, let’s pretend we never saw each other. What do you think?”

It was a reasonable judgment for Perne. She had spoken to him on impulse due to the alcohol, but as she watched Pairus gradually gathering his power, she became increasingly convinced that this was not an opponent she could handle alone.

‘This is troublesome… When did he become so powerful?’

His aura was incomparably stronger than her memories from three hundred years ago. Back then, Pairus had merely been at the level of a high-ranking mage, but now he seemed more dangerous than all the mages on the island combined.

In the end, Perne gave up on fighting. To face him, she would also need to use her full power… not only were her chances of winning low, but such a battle in the middle of the island would undoubtedly cause tremendous damage from the aftermath alone.

Moreover, even if she somehow managed to defeat him by any means necessary, once word reached Alvheim that she had summoned a high-level spirit in the middle of the island, the elders would realize she hadn’t been captured but had betrayed them, and they would mercilessly withdraw her blessing.

‘…That would be problematic. Not yet.’

Even though it was a blessing she would eventually discard, she needed to maintain her power until she could witness the World Tree burning to ashes. Only then could she enjoy the spectacle from the best seat.

No matter how she thought about it, fighting would only result in losses.

If there was a reason to risk her life and accept enormous casualties to kill him, that would be different, but Perne had no reason to do so.

To Perne, who was neither a human priest nor knew anything about Heaven’s Wall, Pairus was merely a legendary serial killer she happened to encounter on the street.

It wouldn’t hurt to kill him if she could, but if she couldn’t, pretending not to have seen him was the wiser choice.

“…Alright. Let’s pretend we never saw each other.”

After a moment of silence, Pairus nodded and slowly backed away. For him too, it was an offer he had no reason to refuse.

‘The fairies will learn that I’m alive… but that’s better than the Empire and Holy State finding out.’

He was convinced that Perne was a spy for Alvheim. Logically, there would be no reason to place a guardian-level fairy in the middle of the island otherwise. In fact, the Alvheim Council of Elders’ purpose was to use Perne as a spy, so his assumption wasn’t entirely wrong.

Only, no one had expected that Perne would abandon her entire race after just fifteen years.

Pairus, unable to anticipate the existence of a fairy waiting for the day to burn the World Tree, naturally mistook Perne for a spy loyal to Alvheim.

Therefore, he couldn’t imagine that the fairy before him would inform humans about his survival to help them.

‘At least I’m fortunate it was a fairy who discovered me, not a human.’

‘How lucky that she’s actually retreating.’

The two powerful beings inwardly sighed with relief, grateful for their good fortune.

Pairus backed away toward the wall without lowering his guard against Perne, while she watched him intently from the rooftop. Until he activated a strange spell and naturally crossed over the wall.

And so, an incident that could have engulfed a quarter of the island’s citizens ended in a non-event by mutual agreement.

=============

“…So you just let him go?”

“What else could I do…? No, I was really surprised. How could a human live for three hundred years?”

Looking at Perne tilting her head with such nonchalance, I felt a headache coming on that made my temples throb.

After defeating the Knight of Ruin and returning to the island, the news Perne shared with me was shocking to say the least.

When I casually asked if anything had happened while I was away, I never imagined the name Pairus would come up in response.

“Why on earth did you let him go…?”

I grabbed my forehead, looked up at the ceiling, and let out a deep sigh. It was so absurd that my vision seemed to spin.

The first apostle of the Church of Forgotten Gods and the culprit behind Heaven’s Wall’s collapse.

The fact that he had appeared on the island was shocking enough, but to have simply let him go? Even washing five winning lottery tickets in the laundry wouldn’t have been this dismaying.

“Hmm…? Should I have caught him? But… we all would have died if I had tried?”

“Should you have caught him? What kind of obvious question is that…?”

Ah, right. She doesn’t know.

I stopped mid-complaint and closed my mouth. Come to think of it, there was no reason for Perne to understand Pairus’s importance. It was classified information that I had never shared with her.

So… from her perspective, he wasn’t an enemy worth capturing at the cost of massive casualties. Just chasing Pairus away as he tried to enter the island was probably all she thought she needed to do.

“Haaaaah… So, you don’t know why he came to the island?”

“Hmm… no? He left right after that.”

…This one is useless. Should I just throw her away?

—-

In the end, it became my job to guess Pairus’s purpose.

I informed Lacy about Perne’s sighting of Pairus, then together we sought out Leopold to discuss the matter. If the head of the Forgotten Church had personally come here, it couldn’t be a trivial matter.

“To think he was actually alive…! And to dare set foot here. As Elpinel’s saint, this is an unparalleled insult.”

Lacy gritted her teeth in anger, while Leopold sighed deeply at how easily the island’s defenses had been breached.

It wasn’t the guards’ fault. Unless they had known in advance that Pairus would be coming and prepared accordingly, there was no way ordinary security checks could have caught him.

Afterward, the two announced the survival of Pairus, the heretic from three hundred years ago, throughout the island. At Perne’s request, the identity of the witness was substituted with someone else.

“Pairus. Pairus… Do you mean THAT Pairus? The necromancer Pairus?”

“…To think he’s still alive, is such a thing even possible? It’s been three hundred years, after all.”

The nobles and priests who heard about the existence of this historical figure were understandably shocked and skeptical.

Even though it was a joint announcement from the Emperor and the Archbishop, it was too incredible to simply believe.

Lacy swore it was true in Elpinel’s name, but that alone wasn’t enough to convince the doubters completely. Even those who believed Lacy wouldn’t lie thought she must have been mistaken somehow.

Of course, neither Lacy nor Leopold were the type to waste time trying to convince non-believers.

Instead of wasting time on meaningless persuasion, the two issued a wanted notice for Pairus throughout the Empire and notified the Holy State to request cooperation.

We haven’t heard their reaction yet, but they were probably just as shocked.

At the same time, we mobilized numerous personnel to thoroughly search the island for any traces Pairus might have left behind, to determine his purpose.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, no one had been killed by him. There were also no signs of magical tampering at the cathedral, imperial palace, or other locations.

“This suggests he didn’t come for assassination or sabotage… which leaves only one possibility in my mind.”

“You mean the underground waterway?”

Leopold nodded.

“Indeed. Whether information leaked or he knew all along… he must be after the dragon remains buried there.”

I thought the same—it was the only remaining possibility. Surely someone like Pairus wouldn’t visit the island as a tourist.

“We’ll need to strengthen the search of the underground waterway…”

Leopold’s expression darkened further. Mine probably looked similar.

A necromancer and a dragon’s corpse. It was an ominously dangerous combination just to think about.

—-

After that day, Leopold issued an imperial order to Floheta to temporarily halt the airship development and mobilize all the magic tower’s personnel to search the underground waterway. Lacy also deployed all available paladins and priests.

What did I do, you ask?

Initially, I wanted to help with the search too. To prepare for the possibility that Pairus had tampered with something underground. The Seal of Collapse would certainly be a great help in excavating and searching.

But I couldn’t. Because of a letter that arrived at my mansion.

‘Of all times…’

I looked down at the letter on my desk and exhaled a smoke-filled sigh. Below the envelope sealed with a familiar insignia, the sender’s name was written in large letters.

/Ludwig Wilhelm von Landenburg/

The East was calling for me.