35 – Into the Empire – 3
“Ha-am… Uh… Dizzy…”
I woke up yawning.
“Did you come to your senses?!”
“…Irina?”
It must have been quite some time since I fell asleep, but the sun was already up in the middle of the sky. And next to me when I woke up, Irina was looking at me with worried eyes.
“Are you alright brother?”
“I told you not to call me your brother.”
“Whoa…Thank God…Your mind seems to be intact.”
Do you want to search?
“By the way…What happened?”
“…Don’t you know? Didn’t you subdue the fragments of chaos?”
“…I…?”
“When I went back to find you, you were asleep and the fragments of chaos were crushed and dead.”
It was definitely Veronica who killed the fragments of chaos. It was because the image of the fragments of chaos crushed by Veronica’s words was still vividly remembered in her mind.
More than anything else, I can’t catch the fragments of chaos with my own power. In common sense, how does a level 41 catch a level 81 monster?
“Hmm…I didn’t kill him, but…”
“Then who dealt with that monster?”
“Don’t you know? A mysterious swordsman passing by must have helped.”
“…Do you mean that?”
“What if I have no memory?”
First of all, Veronica is formally the commander of the Demon Army Corps. Talking about Veronica to Irina, the princess of an empire hostile to the demons, would only get a bad reaction, so they decided to hide the fact about Veronica.
“Whoa… I hope I’m alive anyway.”
“How many knights are left?”
“There’s about a third left.”
From noble mtl dot com
Most of the knights died yesterday due to the Chaos Shard attack. Originally, there were about 30 knights in a large scale, but now there are less than 10 left.
“Anyway, a level 81 monster… How amazing.”
“Is this your first time seeing a level 81 monster?”
“? Of course not. Basically, except for the lowest level of the 5 labyrinths, there are few monsters with such a high level.”
Surely, if there were a lot of monsters like that out there, humans would already be extinct.
“But a fragment of chaos… It was the first monster I’d ever seen. A monster I didn’t even know I had read through the monster encyclopedia more than 5 times…”
“That’s right, it was the first monster I’ve ever seen.”
I’ve seen other fragments in the Abyssal Labyrinth, but the Chaos Fragment has a slightly different appearance from the other fragments. Unlike the Abyss and Void Fragments, which were in the form of giants, the Chaos Fragments looked like slimes made of sticky tar.
Of course, all the creepy things were the same.
“I’m thinking of starting again with the corpses of the knights. Some of the corpses are not intact, but since they gave their lives for the empire, the empire should let them hold their own burials.”
Irina began to carefully move the corpses of the knights to the carriage.
Even though she is a noble princess in her own right, seeing the way she painstakingly moved the corpse herself made Irina look a bit new.
If you think about her objectively, she is Irina. Although she has a peculiar taste, doesn’t she have a personality suitable for her ruler? When she was fighting fragments of chaos, she was good at commanding, and above all, she was a human being who knew how to treat her subordinates. Would she be the good type if you meet her as a company boss in Korea?
Of course, the problem was that he would turn into a pervert in front of me…
“I’ll help you too.”
“What?”
I used [Psychokinesis] For Irina, who worked hard to move the corpse.
Then, Irina was perplexed as she saw the corpses of the knights floating in the air all at once.
“Is this… Your ability?”
“Yeah, isn’t it amazing?”
“The ability to manipulate objects… How far are you going to surprise me?”
Irina is the one who witnessed me fighting the fragments of chaos, so she must have guessed what kind of abilities I have.
First of all, orange flames that are different from normal flames, purple mana with suspicious energy, and wind attribute magic as a bonus.
“Do you really have 6 unique abilities? Since you are a person from another world, the limit of abilities you can acquire when you reach level 40 is 6. Besides, excluding [Transfer to another world], There should actually be 5…”
“Well?”
“Ugh…You really are a man with a lot of secrets..! But I don’t hate that either.”
It’s okay if you don’t like it.
“Anyway, let’s start again. The number will decrease, so the arrival time to the empire will be accelerated.”
“How long does it take?”
“One day is enough.”
After that, we got on the wagon, and the wagon started moving a little faster than before.
‘By the way…Where did Veronica go?’
I remembered this while riding in the wagon, but Veronica, the person responsible for handling the fragments of chaos, is not showing up. Maybe there is Irina, the princess of the empire, so she doesn’t show up?
“Again, I instructed you to keep going at night as you may encounter monsters like fragments of chaos like this time. If you feel sleepy, sleep in the carriage, even if it is a little uncomfortable.”
“Okay. I’m not very tired after a good night’s sleep anyway. Rather, I think you should get some sleep.”
Irina had thick dark circles under her eyes as if she had stayed up all night. It seemed that she couldn’t sleep because she was busy collecting her corpse, retreating servants, and knights.
“It’s okay… I’m a little tired, but if the monster attacks again…”
“What if they attack? What will you do if a monster like a fragment of chaos comes again? I’ll be awake, so go to sleep.”
“But…”
Irina seemed to be thinking that she wouldn’t sleep until she reached the Empire. She must have felt a sense of responsibility as the princess who had to take command when the monsters attacked.
But she already knew how much she could command with less than 10 knights left. It would be better for me to quietly deal with the monsters when they attack.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be stronger than 10 knights.”
“…Then I understand…Just a little bit…Just a little bit of sleep…”
In that state, Irina dropped her head and fell asleep within 5 seconds. She was already at her limit, but she was holding on.
“Q……Huh…Ku…Huh…”
“The sound of sleeping is cute.”
Looking at Irina, who makes a cute sound when sleeping, unlike her usual solemn voice, I smiled and threw it away.
‘Then I think it’s time for them to appear…’
I confirmed that Irina was fast asleep, and I tapped her on the wall as if she were calling someone.
“Did you know already, King?”
“It’s just Veronica, I think you’d be sneaking around.”
At that moment, black smoke rose from inside the carriage and a beautiful woman appeared.
It was Veronica, a peerless beauty with black uniform, eyes like red rubies, and hair like obsidian.
“So, what did you do after I fell asleep?”
“I saw the princess approaching about an hour later, and she was hiding in your shadow and waiting.”
“Eh? Go into the shadows too?”
“It’s a basic skill for the night clan.”
Come to think of it, Veronica was the first race that came to mind when talking about vampires and the clan of the night.
Then do vampires have the ability to hide in the shadows?
“To be precise, it’s an ability that only exists in me, the true ancestor.”
Ah, what is it, I thought you were a vampire breeder.
“By the way, Veronica, do you know anything about the Chaos Fragments?”
“You know, at least more than a king.”
Veronica began her story, crossing her legs proudly next to her sleeping Irina.
“What does the King think of the Void?”
“Void..? Just…Nothing..? Empty?”
Actually, even though I am a person who has a job as a void egg, I hardly knew what a void was. All I knew was that emptiness did not mean physical ‘absence’, but expressed the ‘absence’ of human emotion or mind.
Think about it, you don’t look at an empty box on Earth and say, “Oh, it’s an empty box?” However, I often use the phrase “You look very empty?” To someone who seems to have no emotion and no will to live.
“If you understand that much, you know a little bit. Then I’ll briefly explain the void.”
Veronica seemed to have read my thoughts before I knew it, and with a beautiful smile, she summoned black smoke in the air and started explaining about the void.
“Emptiness is an emotion that means ‘absence’ of human emotions.”
“…What is that nonsense quiz?”
“It can be a little difficult if you are hearing it for the first time. So keep listening.”
Veronica created various shapes of humans out of black smoke.
“Is this…?”
“It shows human emotions, this person is angry, this person is jealous, this person is sad…”
Veronica created a human with a single emotion by merging the black smoke of human forms with multiple emotions at once.
“……What is this?”
The human created by Veronica remained expressionless. As if you had no idea.
“This is the feeling of emptiness.”
“This?”
“If you think simply, you can think that the ending of all emotions is empty. For all humans, when one emotion reaches the end, all emotions eventually wear out and become empty.”
Veronica took a part from the black smoke of the human form that expressed the emotion of emptiness and created a new human form.
“This is… A madman? Madness?”
“It’s a little different.”
The newly created human was looking crazy as if he had fallen into madness.
“To be precise, the feeling is chaos.”
“Chaos…?”
I immediately remembered the black slime that was shooting black tentacles at me.
“The end of my feelings is empty, but there is an exception.”
“Is there an exception?”
“That’s chaos. Chaos is an emotion that arises from a collision with the emotion of emptiness when a human being on the verge of falling into emptiness has some other emotions left.”
“……”
Um… I have no idea what you’re talking about? My ability to memorize is rather good, but it’s a bit difficult to explain problems in such an abstract way.
“This can be hard to understand. Just think of it as simple and think that void is the final stage of all emotions, and chaos is the emotion that exists between normal emotions and void.”
“Then is the end of positive emotions such as joy and love also empty?”
“Yes, in the king’s hometown of Earth, there are strange theories such as the theory of good and evil, but originally, when God created humans, he created them based on ‘evil’. Thanks to that, all human actions are negatively connected. Isn’t death, the end of human beings, also meant in denial?”
Damn it, I accidentally found out an important human secret?
“What are you so surprised about? Isn’t it natural when you think about it simply? Does a newborn baby act for his parents? No, rather, he urges his mother to feed him. I won’t even cry for it. The fact that children who grow up without parents are more likely to commit crimes is a very good proof of the vocal evil theory.
“…Does it sound like that after hearing it?”
“Anyway, that’s a little wordy, but that’s what I mean.”
Veronica crossed her arms and continued her explanation.
“The end of all emotions is empty, and chaos is an unusual existence.”
“I don’t know what he’s talking about even if he suddenly said that…”
“Well, you don’t need to understand it now. You’ll understand it naturally over time anyway. What you need to know now is about the fragments of chaos.”
Veronica used her black smoke to create chaos fragments and show them to me.
“The Fragments of Chaos are anomalies, and they hate the void, the emotion that represents the end of all existence.”
“..Is that why you hate it so much when you use void magic?”
“That’s right, they were originally the ones who ate the world in the dimensional rift, but with the appearance of you, the king, they started appearing directly in the world to kill the king.”
…Wait, then you’re saying that the fragments of chaos came out because of me?
“Well, you can see it that way. So originally, I went around to deal with the fragments of chaos myself, but… I guess I missed one by mistake.”
“So that one came looking for me?”
“Correct answer.”
So the knights died because of me…?
Hmm, that’s right. Too bad.
“To my surprise, I feel absolutely no guilt.”
“A king must be ruthless sometimes. Huhu…”
Veronica gave me a small smile as she smiled at me.
“Is it thanks to [Cool Mind]?”
“That’s right, thanks to that ability you can exist as a king.”
“…? What does that mean?”
“Whoa… That’s all I can tell you. If you talk too long, this princess will wake up, so I’ll go back to the king’s shadow.”
“Hey, let me explain for a moment..!”
Veronica ignored my cries and disappeared into my shadow as black smoke.
Anyway, thanks to [Sober Mind], I exist as a king…
Where is it if I just tell you something nice?!
“Queue…Huh…Pooh…”
“Haa…”
While I was lusting after each other in my heart, Irina was sleeping like an angel, and the carriage was running smoothly.
In the end, Irina and I were able to cross the border and arrive at Eos, the capital of the Hyperion Empire, within a day.
Yeah well it’s serious boring that she can know everything about him even it’s ability and read his thoughts