Chapter 193

He had no memory of anything except returning with Leandros's cloak and book.

He could only tell that Arndt had cried a great deal and hadn't been seen much since then.

He wanted to cry too, but couldn't.

It seemed his tear ducts had become blocked from not crying when he should have.

Instead, his mind remained clear.

Amid the pain and suffering transmitted throughout his body - the throbbing of feet that had finally gotten frostbite, or his vision blurring from fever that had risen due to wandering around in nightclothes on a cold night -

A corner of his mind remained rational, coldly assessing the situation.

There was no way Leandros could have originally possessed that book.

Though he didn't know the reason, there was a high probability that Yurik had deliberately left it behind when he visited the castle.

What should he do to get Leandros back?

First option: Call Hastur directly. But he remembered that when he had tried to summon Hastur in the worldline before last, he had to offer all the blood in his body. Or was it skin?

Anyway, if there were heretics who served him, he might be able to get help, but the only believer of Hastur he knew no longer existed in this world.

Second option: Go find the source of this trouble.

Going to find Yurik was much easier than directly summoning Hastur.

But that also had problems. First, there was no physical way to get to the capital.

To overcome the realistic problem of expenses, he would have to go to the gambling den prayer house in the west to procure funds, but that was usually something Leandros covered with his god-possessed physical abilities...

When his thoughts reached this point, he suddenly realized.

Without Leandros, he would be completely powerless.

Though this world had been designed from the beginning not to give supporting characters much importance, actually experiencing the protagonist's absence in such a created world was a separate matter.

However, he couldn't just lie there doing nothing.

Because he was the only supporting character who understood the regression of this world.

And, most importantly.

Leandros had always come to find him.

When Yurik had pointed his sword at him, there had been a hand that snatched him away.

When he was sinking into the deity's rotting body, there had been ice that blew away the ceiling and a voice calling his name.

When he returned after making a contract with Aphoom-Zhah buried deep in the underground tunnels, there had been arms that caught him.

When he was attacked by monsters at Schützenfest, there had been feet that came to collect him.

Someone might say it was natural because one was the protagonist and supporting characters were bait for trials arranged for the protagonist.

But for a living human, it wasn't natural. Unlike him, to risk one's only life and courageously head toward places that might be dangerous.

So he had to repay him.

As long as he remembered him, he had to continue.

On a morning when the first snow fell on the ducal castle.

He left the castle alone to do what only a supporting character could do.

* * *

At the very bottom of the abyss.

In the cold frozen earth where not even a handful of sunlight entered, there was a fire.

A fire that no one could approach, that was instinctively avoided.

A white specter trapped within walls of its own making, burning without fuel, taking nothing from the surface.

To the fire that had spent eons alone, retracing forgotten days and past radiance, a living young man came.

The young man, whose feet and hands were blackened and difficult to move, whose body temperature was so low that his heart stopping was only a matter of time, looked at the fire.

"Aphoom-Zhah."

The fire gave no answer.

The young man approached the undulating light and wearily leaned his forehead against the ice wall.

"You're the only one."

The suppressed cold air burrowed into the young man's bare skin. Though it was pain that seemed like his flesh would rot and fall off immediately, the young man muttered numbly.

"You're all that's left... Help me."

[My believer. Deluded prodigal, the one who chose his own trials has returned.]

"......"

[I have answered your call. As I do for all who serve me, I have done so for you who serve me with devotion and love. But believer, you have betrayed me.]

"I'm sorry."

[A disgusting stench comes from you. The smell of indelible sin. Did you meet that thing? Did you converse with it? Did you allow it to take your soul and flesh?]

The young man gathered his long red hair and lifted it up.

His bare neck, without any winter clothing, was revealed palely.

On his nape, above the first vertebra of his gauntly exposed spine, was a blurred mark like ink spreading in water.

The mark of a staff with twisted horns.

The young man honestly confessed to the deity's interrogation.

"I thought it was unavoidable to help your apostle. You were already advancing toward the capital, and your avatar was broken."

[A story from long ago, from a distant universe different from here. Schemer, your misjudgment has ruined everything.]

"Hastur promised me then. That I would be the last role. That he wouldn't want anything more. So I believed him."

[Do not speak that foul name. Malicious believer. Have you forgotten what happened to those who call his name?]

"Your apostle is in Hastur's grasp. To get him back, I need to die once more."

[Harm yourself.]

"I need to die by the Crown Prince's hand to return. Lend me your power."

[There is no reason to help a heretic who turned his back on the deity he serves.]

"Hastur."

The young man swallowed dry saliva and looked up at the fire.

"...seems to be trying to stage a new play."

The flames swayed leisurely.

The young man continued.

"I read 'The King in Yellow' that he wrote. ...I don't know about other things, but I can't let Leandros become like that. You remember too. How much Leandros relied on you."

[The detestable words and annoying face of that human finally come to mind.]

"You agree that we shouldn't let a human in black clothes appear in Hastur's next work, right?"

The flames gave no answer. The young man judged that it was definitely hesitating.

The young man willingly knelt before the wall.

His nearby hair froze with crackling sounds, and frost formed with each breath the living person exhaled.

Even so, the young man touched the ice wall and whispered.

"Instead, listen to the story. The things I couldn't tell you in Dreamland, the things you couldn't see - I'll tell them to you."

The flames, already bound by a promise made in some universe, leaned toward the believer.

The first story the believer told was a tale of a certain world,

An adventure story involving many people.

Several weeks later.

A massive fire began from the north.

Unlike ordinary fire, the white, smokeless fire expanded its momentum fiercely.

The fire that advanced devouring the Dikenter Mountains narrowly avoided Hartmann Castle and froze everything else it touched.

Moreover, the fire acted as if it possessed intelligence. The white fire that expanded its territory while avoiding private homes, villages, and cities spared only human and animal lives.

But because of this, people began to tremble with even more fear.

Was it divine wrath? Or was it the disturbance of a large demonic beast?

If it was divine wrath, did it mean those of us who survived were forgiven?

If it was a large demonic beast's doing, why did it pass by only our village? Wouldn't it come back tomorrow to massacre everyone?

Meanwhile, one strange eyewitness account began circulating.

Though all in different locations, the stories were unanimous about seeing a person in the white fire.

At first, no one believed it. How could there be a person inside fire that gave off such a cold aura that just approaching it made one's hair stand on end?

But when the eyewitness accounts all shared the common point of describing a person with red hair, someone raised a question.

"Could it be... a wizard?"

A wizard.

Those who could use mysterious powers, traces of whom could hardly be found nowadays.

People began to think of the red-haired man who accompanied the fire as a wizard, and as if to put an end to such controversy, the Central Temple boldly proclaimed:

[Unbeliever who impersonates a deity and brazenly freezes the deity's works.

The arrogance that makes light of the deity's creatures and life will surely fall into purgatory and suffer infinitely.

In the deity's name, we shall execute the heretic who defiles the great one's holy seat.]

The Central Temple wasn't the only place to make such proclamations.

The royal palace announced that considering the great anxiety of the kingdom's people and various factors, they had made a decision.

Moreover, since the wizards managed by the kingdom had long since lost their lineage,

They couldn't just stand by when the crime of causing political chaos with evil power was so grave.

Thereafter, in place of the ailing king, the only Crown Prince and a cardinal emerging as a key figure of the Central Temple's next generation met and decided to unite their strength to eliminate the evil fire.

Of course, various political interests were entangled beneath this.

However, when the fact that a wizard who deviated from the doctrine preached by the Central Temple had appeared was combined with the story that the royal family and Central Temple, who had long been at odds secretly, would cooperate to execute the wizard, many people's curiosity poured out ridiculously.

When the fire had spread to the eastern wasteland,

The Holy Knight Order dispatched by the Central Temple and the royal army marched toward the east.

The royal army should properly have been led by generals who received royal commands or renowned knights.

However, now, in the situation divided into various units, the force advancing toward the enemy's front was personally commanded by the Crown Prince.

When Yurik and the soldiers entered the east, cold air was the first to greet them.

At first, they thought it was a natural phenomenon since it was that season, but the more they marched, the more their thoughts changed.

"I-isn't this frost on the armor?"

"Suddenly? It wasn't there just a moment ago."

"The east isn't usually this cold. It was fine when I came here before!"

"Isn't it because of that evil wizard? It's not right nearby, is it?"

The soldiers' mounting anxiety would have a bad effect on battle.

But Yurik himself wasn't particularly interested in the humans' anxiety or worries.

It didn't matter whether those things lived or died. He could just watch the situation appropriately and keep a reasonable number alive.

Rather, what interested him was the identity of the 'fire.'

If what he remembered was correct, there were five things sealed in the north.

Though he couldn't grasp which folklore dwelt in whom and summoned whom,

If Arenheit had subordinated the existence that had been in the north to himself, if he had been born faithfully possessing Hartmann's qualities to that extent,

Arenheit would be of great help to Yurik's plans in the future.

What if that wasn't the case?

Then he would just kill him.

Hero Hartmann had also tried to live humanly but died by human methods.

Mother was a death row prisoner, son a war casualty.

Yurik, who had been inwardly laughing while recalling the ducal family's tragedy, raised his hand in front of a sharply sloped path.

The forces following him stopped.

Below this, in the wasteland about half covered with ice and fire,

A man with red hair burning like sunset stood at the center, staring at Yurik.