Chapter 337 – Wilhelmina

000

Since ancient times, there is a story that moonlight confuses people’s minds.

Poets say that the moon goddess bathes in moonlight to drive people into madness, and wizards say that moonlight activates magic and affects people’s emotions.

Whichever one is true, the light that unnaturally brightens the dark night when the sun goes down may be creating a sense of incongruity.

As Lyla and Beatrix had requested, Emma had made her arrangements to leave town if there were any signs that things were amiss.

All that was left was to wait for the safe return of the two from this mansion with Illenu.

Suddenly, looking at the moonlight pouring through the window, Emma recalls the first time she met Cleon.

Surely, the moonlight was so bright that day as well.

And, under the moonlight, he, Cleon, and Illenu became strongly intertwined with each other’s destinies.

Although there was an opportunity to unravel the tangled thread of fate, the three of them spent a not short time together as if they were attracted by something.

There, Lyla and Beatrix came, and I thought that the fate of the five people would be woven into one thread and continue forever.

I was thinking…

“Illenu…”

As expected, it was Emma who took care of the life of Illenu, whose body was deteriorating and now it was difficult to even eat alone.

In her closest place her, she had been by her side her for the longest time, but whenever she saw her getting weaker after her breakup with Cleon, Emma hated herself for being unable to do anything.

She thought she would do anything for her, if she could do something for her.

However, Illenu wanted it.

I hope that other people’s steps won’t stop because of you alone.

She is a vampire, and because she inherited the blood of a monster that had to devour the lives of other beings, she hoped that the heat would not disappear from the souls of pure and passionate people.

It’s because the monster himself is enough to cool off.

Both Ryla and Beatrix seemed to have found their own path.

But- Emma herself…

“…Eh. That’s later.”

Emma regains her senses by slapping her own cheek, which may have been influenced by her moonlight.

Now that she has finished all her preparations, she heads to the room where she is, worried that Illenu may not have deteriorated by any chance.

“Illenu? Are you awake?”

She knocks carefully on the door, and when she doesn’t hear an answer, she thinks she’s asleep and opens the door.

Inside, there’s an open window and fluttering curtains

The dazzling moonlight pouring in from beyond.

“…Illenu?”

And, her appearance is nowhere to be seen.

Elma felt a chill run through her body her in an instant and ran out of her mansion.

Who was it that was drawn by the moonlight and enveloped in madness?

001

The center of the ruins where Wilhelmina is buried.

When the party who completed the installation of the barrier stone in each location gathered, the owl masked girl called the Warden of the Kingdom was also present.

Rhys and Layla were blatantly uncomfortable, but as they stopped them, Solina took out a decorated dagger from her bag.

Judging from the amount of mana he could feel, it looked like it was a type of magic tool.

“What kind of magic tool is that again?”

“Wilhelmina’s tool to unseal her. She seems to be a keepsake of her hero who sealed her.”

“Hmm… Come to think of it, what about that hero’s holy sword? If you have it, it will be easier to seal Wilhelmina.”

At Lila’s question, Solina shook her head.

“Unfortunately, the whereabouts of that holy sword seems to be unclear. The hero’s keepsakes were also brought back from donations to the royal family…”

“Well, even if you have a holy sword, it’s meaningless if no one can use it.”

Only the hero chosen by the holy sword can use the holy sword.

It should be possible to make a new contract, but hoping for a new hero to be born in this situation would be too hopeful.

If you don’t have it, you just have to gather what you have and do it.

“Pause. I have a question.”

At that time, the warden raises her hand and speaks out.

As her gaze her returned to her in unison, Lila looked at her, creating a wrinkle between her brows.

“I am under no obligation to answer your questions.”

“The ground of this ruin… There are traces of excavation here and there. As far as I know, I heard that the village guards were blocking people from entering this ruin.”

At the words of the warden, Solina and Rhys face each other in dismay and briefly see each other’s eyes.

“…Don’t worry. Seeing that the seal of the ruins hasn’t been broken, it’s the monsters who don’t know anything about it. In fact, they’ve found orcs and goblins that lived around the ruins and have already stopped their seeds.”

“Is that so. But it’s very tidy for being messed up by monsters. Besides, it’s exactly…”

Saying so, the warden rubbed the ground with his shoe.

Even with a little rubbing, you could see that something like a pillar from the ruins buried right underneath was exposed on the surface.

“Pretty accurately, you dug up the core of the seal.”

“What’s the story you want to tell?”

Lyla listened to the warden, and she snapped.

However, the warden looks at Layla and replies.

“No. I just thought it was strange because it was different from the situation I had heard about. Considering that this ruin itself was created to seal her, if the pillar that is the core of her seal is exposed, even if Wilhelmina wakes up, that will happen. It will weaken you a lot.”

“Isn’t that… Good?”

When Beatrix said that, the warden girl nodded her head.

But Lila’s mind was getting more and more confused.

‘Emma- No, to be precise, it was the work of the vampire who remained inside Emma. … She wasn’t trying to break the seal, she wasn’t trying to find the artifact… She made the seal stronger? Why…?’

According to Laila’s prediction, the purpose of the vampire inside Emma was to absorb Wilhelmina’s mana.

However, if she tried to unseal Wilhelmina with Emma’s body, the ending would have been that she would be brutally murdered in an instant.

That’s why she wondered if he was thinking of obtaining an artifact that contained part of that power, but if that was n’t the case, what was his purpose her?

“Lyla Flamewatch. Your expression hardened. Don’t you think it’s something to be happy about?”

“…I’m not happy about this. …You didn’t even answer my question earlier in the first place. Why are you here? If you want to keep an eye on it, why don’t you look down from the sky? I’ll send you up.”

“I do not lend my power to you, but I do not interfere either. There are things that can only be seen from close range.”

As she said that, the jewel of the ring she put on her own hand shimmered, and a thin magic shield spread over her warden girl’s surface.

‘…Did you put a barrier around your body? No, it’s something different… A more alien feeling of magic…’

Layla looked at her magic her with some displeasure, then looked back at Solina as if she would no longer be swayed by her pace her.

“Sure. Let’s begin. Wilhelmina gets up, and Reese puts the sword right after him.”

When everyone nodded her head as if she had finished her resolution, Solina drew out her dagger her, a memento of her hero, and cut off the tip of her own finger her, smearing it with her own blood.

“Sacred things are on the right path. Unclean things are on the wrong path. Fitting, cutting, connecting again and again. My blood to your call. Your soul to the will of God.”

Solina’s chanting ensues, as drops of blood from her dagger fall to the ground on her-

As if there was a magic circle created long ago on the ground, a turquoise light ran inside the ruins in response to her Solina’s blood and her magic power.

‘Nocracy’s unique magic fire reaction…!’

Layla immediately spreads a protective barrier of her magic around herself.

Because as soon as Wilhelmina appeared, there was no guarantee that she would not launch an attack on them.

The ground trembled, and magic power bubbled up.

As the soil falls away, pillars buried underground rise.

And, between the pillars, a huge sphere was placed on the floor made of stone slabs.

It was the core of the seal, where the sealing technique that sealed Wilhelmina in the past remained intact.

At the same time, it is also a coffin for Wilhelmina.

It was because Wilhelmina’s body was actually in there.

“…In there, the necromancer…”

As Solina murmurs, Rhys raises her sword and commands her guards her.

“All! Prepare for battle!”

The guards immediately form formation according to the captain’s order.

At that time, Wilhelmina felt a strong pulse of magical power inside the sealed sphere.

That heartbeat exerted magical pressure on everything around it, Lyla and Beatrix. And it made Solina’s body shrink.

“Ugh…! This is…!”

Lila breaks into a cold sweat, barely supporting herself with her cane.

It was the first time in her life that she had been so overwhelmed by someone’s magical pressure.

“Solina, are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah… Magical pressure gets used to it a bit over time…”

After looking at Solina like that, Rhys pondered something about her for a while, then pulled out her magic-eating sword and stepped forward as if to surround her party.

“Wait! You are the key to this strategy! The only ones who can handle that sword right now are you and Solina…!”

Lila yells at her not to do anything wrong and gestures for her to get out of the way, but Rhys only responds by grabbing her sword her.

“If this sword is a sword that absorbs mana, it should be able to defend against the opponent’s magic to some extent. It will have a much higher chance of survival than just protecting it with a barrier.”

“That’s true… But the shock will be transmitted to the person holding the sword as it is.”

When Beatrix worried, Solina answered instead.

“Okay. In case your body gets damaged, I’ll grab the sword and go in instead.”

“Okay.”

Thinking of things like ‘this stupid brother and sister!’, Lyla raised her magic power her to increase the power of the barrier that protects them.

Next moment, bang! If you think you heard the sound.

The ceiling of the sphere soared high into the sky with great vigour, as if uncorking champagne.

I stared breathlessly at what seemed to be a gloomy black mist pouring out of the sealing sphere-

Poof! Seeing a hand reaching out from the inside, the party simultaneously aimed their weapons at it.

With a sound like a low cry of an animal, ‘uuuuuh…’, The protruding hand grasped a part of the broken sphere and climbed upward as if pulling itself up.

Like a zombie, it was a woman wearing a robe made according to ancient rituals on her body.

Her turquoise hair her, like the fire of her necromancer, seemed to have grown to twice her own height, and she seemed to be 180.

Her skin was pale, but she still maintained a human-like apricot color.

Her eyes on her, which seemed to be out of focus, were rolling rapidly here and there-

Even with all that bizarreness, it was undeniable that her face was beautiful.

“…That’s Wilhelmina… A rare necromancer who dreamed of becoming a necromancer…!”

Solina, with her tense expression of her, grabbed her own sword, and in the face of her overwhelming magical power of her, she too seemed unable to hide her tension and fear of her.

“… Bea, maybe we’ll go see Cleon before Illenu does…”

“Really, it’s not like Lyla to say that.”

Neither Ryla nor Beatrix could avoid the loss of their will a moment ago due to the magic pressure from earlier.

Some of the guards, who could feel magic, barely stood there with trembling legs, as if they almost lost their swords.

Only Rhys, who did not feel the magical pressure, was able to escape such fear.

“…Uh, uh…”

The voice that came out of Wilhelmina’s mouth was still like a low cry.

As if she had finally recognized her party, she tried to slowly take her steps towards it-

Slip!

Since the place she was riding on was in the shape of a ‘sphere’, her feet slipped without proper footing and she fell backwards and fell to the ground.

“…”

Everyone was silent.

“It hurts… What is it, where did it fall from, okay… ?”

And then, Wilhelmina, who raised her body from the dusty place, while spitting out her long-winded tone her.

Shaking off the dirt from her clothes her, she looked back at the sphere of sealing where she had been standing until now—

“…Ah, that’s right. I was sealed here, me.”

She touches the orb she has been holding with her hand, as if she has finally grasped the situation.

“Wilhelmina…!”

There was her voice her calling her like that.

It was her voice her as Rhys glared at her while holding her sword that ate her magic her.

“Ohh… You guys have unlocked my seal… I should say thank you…”

Responding to her lease her, Wilhelmina looked back at her party once more, then looked around her for a moment with her giggling face her.

Soon, she saw others looking at her with hostile faces, and her face her became saddened.

“Well, it can’t be… It looks like they’ve come to end me completely…”

“Wilhelmina. Since you were sealed, 831 years have passed. Now, the release of death will come upon you.”

When Solina declared that as her paladin, Wilhelmina looked at Solina for a moment and then sighed.

“I wished they’d come sooner. But, in 831… He must have died already.”

Wilhelmina looked down at her own knuckles with an expression of a little resentment on her somewhere.

Then, she grabbed the turquoise jewel from her own neck and tossed it at her party.

It was Solina who was standing next to Rhys who had accepted it without hesitation.

“What-?”

“That’s my core. I have two more jewels identical to those. If I destroy them all, I will disappear.”

“Why is this for us-“

“That’s right, I have no intention of fighting. Didn’t you tell me? I came to bring you the liberation of death. I’m accepting that.”

When everyone in her party is dumbfounded by her action her, which is so unnerving, she snaps her fingers and creates chairs and tables made of her magical power her.

And, she was talking while sitting in her chair.

“Before handing over the other two, there is one condition. The hero who sealed me… I will tell you the truth about the scumbag, so please pass it on to others.”

Wilhelmina offers to hand over the nuke if she listens to the old story.

Ryla, Beatrix, and Solina too. Even Reese didn’t seem to know what to do with her behavior.

However, soon Solina crushes her core with a strong grip.

Then, with a crackling sound, I could see a large amount of magic power draining from Wilhelmina’s body her.

“…Amazing, really nuclear.”

Layla, who always thought it was a fake to catch her off guard, seemed surprised that she had handed over the real core.

“…What should I do?”

When Solina asks Laila that question, Laila ponders for a moment before she nods her head.

“…If you can finish the job without fighting, that’s the best ending. Besides, it tells the truth of the past, right?”

Sweat trickled down Lila’s forehead, but the corners of her mouth her rose at the same time.

“…Maybe we can get more information than that. Ancient magic or something…”

Seeing Lyla’s words and actions, Beatrix let out a sigh as she saw Layla coveting her knowledge of her even in this situation.

“…I also agree with Layla. If you don’t have to fight, there’s nothing more desirable than that.”

Eventually Solina nods her head, and Reese returns her drawn sword to its scabbard her.

Seeing that as a sign that she would accept the deal, Wilhelmina leaned back in her chair with a smile.

“Okay, it’s fortunate that the words came through. This old woman will tell you an interesting old story, so listen carefully.”

She was talking about her own past her, wearing a smile that seemed like her villain’s forever.

“Once upon a time… There were these damned ‘Cults of Exile’…”