Chapter 655 – Eve and Expectation

000

“In other words. The cause of our family’s deification is… The result of our ancestors incurring the wrath of Gaios, the Earth Dragon.”

Aisha heard all the explanations from Cleon about why he was surprised to hear the name of her family, and learned about their original sin, which had been a mystery for a long time.

If there was such a reason, it wouldn’t have been strange if they knew it or had such a record come down, although there were times when it was strange that there was no such record.

It could be that she didn’t even think of it as an incidental problem caused by Gaios erasing her own traces.

“The only ones who know this fact are me and a few other people in this eastern country. All memories and records of Gaios were sealed or erased by her hand.”

“Cleon-sama, how…? Huh, has Cleon-nim ever met Gaios-nim?”

“That…”

In a way, you could say yes, or you could say no.

What Cleon had met was, to the last, traces of the soul left behind by Gaios in the past, so to speak, her residual thoughts.

If I were to explain it- would I be able to say that it was a trace I got through the videos of Asteris that Kanon kept in order to find Gaios…?

But if that happens, she will have something else to tell her.

Gaius, who cast her curse on her, is no longer, and only Herti, who has inherited her powers, exists.

It may be almost impossible for someone else to apply a curse so strong that it has been passed down from generation to generation.

If that’s possible, unless she’s a person with far more power than the one who put the curse.

And yet, Herti didn’t even know that he had the power of Gaios, and telling him about it was something the current Cleons wanted to avoid.

There was even a risk that Herti’s personality would disappear, and the traces of her Gaios would be exposed and cover her ego.

Seeing Cleon’s silence and his troubled expression, Aisha shook her head as soon as she realized how much of it had happened.

“It’s okay, Mr. Cleon! Here, I’m assuming that it’s the result of Cleon-sama’s diligent research…!”

“I would be grateful if you think so now. Because we also need time to organize information.”

When Layla said that on behalf of him who was hesitant to answer, Cleon nodded accordingly.

When Aisha heard that, she thought for a moment, then nodded her head vigorously and answered with her fists clenched as before.

“All right! I’m fine, so I’ll leave it to you two when it comes to the timing!”

That bright attitude rather made Cleon feel remorse for not being able to tell the truth right now, but it wasn’t like a solution could come out right now.

“However, maybe Gaios isn’t the only one who can cast off that nobleman’s curse.”

“Yes…?”

Layla’s words made Aisha look back at her a little surprised.

Then, Cleon also looked at Layla without understanding the meaning of her words because her remarks were contrary to the common sense he knew.

“Lyla. Do you have any clues?”

“Of course, Cleon. Would I say that for no reason? The gist of it is the part that says, ‘If you don’t have the power of Gaios, you can’t do it’, right?”

Saying that, Lila took out her glasses from her bosom without any warning.

It was the red-framed glasses that I usually use when entering explanation mode.

And as she put it on her face, Lila was talking with her arms crossed.

“It was Darwin’s experiment that gave you a hint of the curse. Didn’t she say that she used your blood to make a drug that makes others attribution?”

In the story of Aisha, who finished explaining what she had heard and seen there, as Layla confirmed, when I asked her again, Aisha nodded her head with a slightly dark expression.

“That’s probably… A way to implant the curse inside you into someone else, using magic infection through blood. Family- So, since it is a curse that has been handed down through ‘blood relatives’, it is only natural that it is transmitted through ‘blood’.”

“Yes… Huh?”

Aisha looks like she understands what Laila is saying but doesn’t know, but she doesn’t care and continues her story.

“The curse of the Oberti family is transmitted through blood. If so, we just need to find a way to isolate the curse from the blood. Then, since the ‘curse’ has not actually disappeared, it has just been removed from the human body, and it still exists, so even if you do not purify it with the power of Gaios, you can stop the curse from affecting you.”

“Okay…?”

“Lyla. Aisha can’t keep up with her story…”

At Cleon’s words, Layla nodded and scratched her head as she looked at the teacup full of tea that was placed in front of her.

“Therefore! If this car is your blood, Aisha. Tea is the powder of tea leaves that changes from water to tea, right? So, if you separate the tea leaf powder from this tea, you can return to the original water!”

“Oh~”

“It’s a strangely clumsy metaphor for Lyla…”

Aisha speaks out as if she understands, and Cleon tackles Layla.

“Ugh, shit, that’s noisy. Anyway, I just need to be able to understand.”

At Lila’s words, Cleon shrugged her shoulders and asked her a question.

“But is that possible? To remove the curse in the blood.”

“Yes, it is possible. It’s impossible right now… But if you prepare equipment and materials.”

Lila answered so simply, and then casually drove into the car she had used in her analogy.

“…”

Aisha and Cleon just looked at Layla in silence.

Then, as she put the tea they had been lighting on her desk, she looked back at the two people staring at her, then smiled and corrected her glasses.

“It’s okay, Cleon. This time, it’s a way that you don’t have to use your strength.”

“No, I didn’t particularly care about that part…No, I feel relieved after hearing that.”

After reassuring Cleon, Layla looks back at Aisha and talks.

“The problem of the curse that comes down to blood is surprisingly a story that has been a problem on the continent for a long time.”

‘A jinx that only comes down to that family.’

‘Mystic eye that the people of that family will manifest.’

‘There is a disease that develops at a certain age in that family’

‘A family whose body is too weak to walk properly, but all babies born have magical powers dozens of times that of ordinary people’

“Etc… From a human point of view, digging into family secrets that could be seen as a blessing or a curse wasn’t such a strange thing. When I was at the academy, I also did research there. One of my friends… There’s a kid with such a rumor.”

As she says so, she looks down at her own teacup.

Cleon must have noticed right away that the friend she was talking about was Beatrix.

That, of course, wasn’t because the friend Lyla had made at her academy was Beatrix.

It was because there was a story that Beatrix’s family, Hutrus, was descended from a race that was classified as a high-intelligence monster rather than a human race – ‘Evils’.

As a result, it’s not a demon, but ‘Demiurge’. In other words, he was a demon of the highest rank.

Since the Demiurge factor she possessed was of a type that was mixed with her soul, not her blood, it was a different story from Lyla’s research.

“Therefore. The academy has a lot of materials for that kind of research. Also, magic tools for extraction.”

“Really, is it?”

“Then. There’s no reason to lie.”

Aisha’s expression was a little hard to believe.

If the curse that has plagued them for a long time, including themselves, was in fact curable…

And if you think that someone like Darwin, there’s no way he wouldn’t know that.

Aisha felt a bit miserable.

Looking at Aisha whose expression darkened, Cleon and Lyla turned to each other with slightly unexpected faces.

Still, as if to comfort Aisha, Layla talks to her while taking off her glasses.

“Well, when I’m done with my work here, I’ll write a letter of introduction to the academy. You will be able to extract the curse from there… Leaving this place now will be dangerous for you as well.”

“…Thank you!”

Aisha listened to her, and as she nodded, she somehow smiled.

Now was the time to move forward, seeing the opportunities and hopes that had come down before her, rather than regretting her past.

001

So, Aisha talked a bit more with the two of her and then went back to her own quarters.

In the end, she seemed to believe the story that she couldn’t meet Schrödinger, but she didn’t have to worry anymore.

After seeing her off, Cleon returned to her living room and took a seat next to her as he watched Layla still sit there.

“They started to gather. This and that. The things I was looking for.”

“Ah.”

At Layla’s words, Cleon nodded her head and looked back at Layla.

“Rachal. Nayuta. Gaios. All the causalities that have been handed down from the events that happened in the Eastern countries in the past. And- the exiled church, the regressor, and the resurrected black giants who are greatly connected to the fate of the entire continent intertwined there…”

To put it all together, there were several intertwined stories that were difficult to see as small even compared to adventure stories in legends of a tolerable scale.

“I think you did a good job researching this and that. What. It was a bit complicated feeling that the number of girls who knew Cleon increased every time.”

“There’s no excuse…”

Cleon laughed bitterly at Laila’s words.

And, a moment of silence followed.

It was a natural and pleasant silence that did not come from an awkward atmosphere, but from the fact that what the two wanted to say to each other came through without having to open their mouths separately.

As the warm air enveloped the two of them, Layla reached out and took Cleon’s hand.

“…With the festival ahead. …I still remember. The scenery of what happened in the capital that day.”

“…”

Victory March Day. The day when Amelia’s runaway occurred, which was the trigger for them to come to this eastern country.

Cleon suffered a mortal wound, and Amelia destroyed everything she was trying to protect – the capital.

At that time, Layla was originally supposed to be watching everything from the sky, grasping the omens in advance and helping Cleon so that the situation would not turn strange.

Due to a sudden surprise, he was thrown away from the capital along with the Exiled Church, and he had separated from Cleon while dealing with him.

Although she was victorious, she felt herself still powerless, considering what had happened to Cleon in the meantime.

“Are you anxious? Lila.”

“No way. The past failures I regret – because I’ve already entrusted them all to you.”

The only thing she regrets so far is the time she was at the Albein party, the feud she had with Cleon – the foolishness of herself at that time.

“I will definitely protect it this time. I won’t take my eyes off you.”

“Ah. I believe in you.”

When Cleon responded to Lyla’s declaration, she stood up from her seat with a small smile.

Shaking her hand, she left her living room, Cleon followed her with her eyes, and she herself went back to her room to rest herself.

002

“At this rate, we should arrive at Asteris by tomorrow evening.”

When the captain of the soldiers leading the escort that accompanied the delegation said so, Lionel, who was dispatched from Asteris to help him, nodded.

“Thank you so much for helping us with our mission this time. Lionel.”

“You don’t have to be so humble with me, young man. I’m just a mercenary I’m not a regular soldier like you.”

“Humility… Lionel’s performance in Daejeon is well known to us…”

The relatively young soldier seemed to have no intention of hiding his respect, treating Lionel as if he were a war hero.

Lionel also didn’t hate that kind of stare, but he was worried that he might be a little too flattering on an ordinary human like himself.

“I’m just an old man who’s retired and runs a coffee shop. Aren’t there knights of the kingdom in this escort? Just think of it as a guide.”

“Umm… If you talk about that, even we, who are more ordinary people than kingdom knights…”

Haha! What a weak voice a young man is talking about!”

So, in the middle of a conversation about casual, recent events, Lionel slowly brings up a topic about something he was concerned about.

“Come to think of it- an accident that happened a while ago in the kingdom during a victory march. The ringleaders haven’t been caught yet?”

“Ah. Yes. It seems like he fled abroad… I’m gathering information in various ways, but even the intelligence articles say they can’t find a proper trace.”

Lionel nodded at his words.

Speaking of intelligence knights, they are the kingdom’s intelligence unit.

He knew very well that his ability to gather information was so good that he received help several times even when Lionel was running around the battlefield.

“The reason why there are more soldiers and knights than last year’s delegation- is it because of the worry that they might be hiding in the East?”

“Well… That’s right. Actually, everywhere I go, there’s a lot of noise from upstairs that I need to pay attention lately… But this time, the duke’s daughter is with me. Besides, the escort reinforcements this time were ordered by him himself…”

As the captain says, the usual envoys are Sir Percys and Aurelia of House Tromeia. Or, from time to time, Aruru, who will lead the next duchy, was with him.

Percys said that he could protect his body by himself, and said that leaving the royal capital in order to escort them was sacrificing the safety of the people. They limited their forces to just enough to carry.

But this time, in addition to the soldiers of the duchy, they were moving with the kingdom’s army and knights, so anyone watching would feel as if they were going to war.

Regarding the composition of this delegation, Mi-Yeom-Gong could have been wary or expressed his disapproval.

However, in addition to the atmosphere in which the kingdoms that had been inherited from before viewed the East as a top-down relationship, with the Kingdom as the leader and the East as a member of its alliance, rather than as a country with mutual equal relations.

The moment this army refused to enter Asteris, it could be suspected that they were protecting Princess Amelia, who had become the kingdom’s enemy.

That’s why, right now, it must be a situation where we have no choice but to accept this delegation.

“Do not worry. I don’t know what the superiors think, but I don’t think there are people in the field like us who think that such a vicious criminal is hiding in Asteris.”

To the soldier’s words, Lionel had no choice but to reply with a dry smile.

At that time.

Thinking that he heard the sound of the clanking armor, Lionel turned around and looked around.

There, a knight in red full armor passed by the two of them.

Then, the soldier who was talking to Lionel saluted the knight with a slightly nervous attitude and maintained an immobile posture.

‘Drake…’

Lionel knew the knight’s name well.

That nickname, famous as the Dragon Knight, has been passed down to the East.

Originally, she, who had to stay in her palace to escort her royal family, was included in her envoy, the biggest proof that this envoy was under the command of the royal family.

That’s why Lionel, too, worried that she might notice something about her, and she was following her actions with her eyes.

She did not speak with the other knights, nor did she speak in front of anyone.

So she couldn’t even know what she was thinking, and she couldn’t even guess what she was doing.

Besides, if you think that she disappeared from time to time, it is said that she broke away and returned several times.

If it were other soldiers and knights, it wouldn’t have been strange if they were punished for violating military law.

After all, are the knights who escort the royal family different?

No one stopped her or did anything.

Even now, from the fact that she was walking toward the outside rather than the center of the group, and seeing that she was going somewhere again, it was clear that she was trying to break away from the group again this time.

“No one is stopping Lord Drake.”

“Well… Even from above, the story has come down so that we can leave her work alone…”

He who leads her escort must be on the same level as her knights in terms of rank, but he is still swung by her because she is her special knight.

“We also think of her as an agent who receives orders from the royal castle and moves directly rather than as a member of the escort. Of course, I don’t think she’s leaving the ranks for no reason, but…”

He, too, talks as if he can’t completely erase his doubts, but he seems to understand that he can’t express his dissatisfaction.

“The position in the middle is the most difficult.”

As Lionel said, he patted him on the shoulder as if he understood.

003

If you walk a little further from the path of people illuminated by the moonlight, you will soon come out into a forest full of animal paths.

Only skilled hunters can understand that the eyes of the beast shining in it are the eyes of ‘trained beasts’.

They crouched among the bushes to hide their presence with bated breath, watching the red-skinned man who had stepped into their territory without hesitation.

It continued walking without even looking at them for a while, and then stopped at a good hiding place for beasts everywhere.

“Made with the technology of the Empire. Beasts… Are they the hounds of the black giant? I’m chasing after you without getting tired of it.”

The voice that came out of that mouth sounded like a monster rather than a human, perhaps because it came through the helmet.

“It’s nice that I’m not boring, but…”

Saying that, he drew his weapon from his back and took his stance.

What he is holding in his hand is a long spear that is imbued with flames.

Then, after turning round and round around him, Drake grabbed the mouth of his helmet with his hand and tore it open.

“Kaaaaa!!!!”

Not the eardrum, but a threatening roar resounding loud enough to shake the brain.

How could that voice be called human?

It was so loud that one would think that it was not a human but a dragon that was really trapped inside the armor.

That scream soon stiffened the bodies of all the beasts hiding around it, and made them tremble in fear as blood flowed from their ears.

Its appearance was no different from other creatures who were terrified in front of the dragon.

‘Dragon Roar’.

All living beings that touch the dragon’s majesty lose all will to fight on the spot and become hardened like stone statues that cannot move.

The next moment, what the beasts saw, realizing that all they were allowed to do was stand there, not blink or breathe.

The human figure that had been standing there until just now had disappeared.

And immediately, almost simultaneously.

Suddenly they realized that their field of vision had gone down from their original height.

I didn’t know what had happened right away.

The moment they noticed that the reason their bodies didn’t move had changed, they realized their heads were on the ground.

All of them had their bodies and heads separated on the spot.

After moving without leaving even an afterimage, the knight returned to his seat and put the armor on his mouth back open.

The spilled blood soaked into the ground and trees, but did not stain the knight’s armor.

Because it moved faster than a drop of blood that jumped out.

End with it.

All signs of the beast felt around him disappeared, leaving only Drake in their place.

After checking it out, Drake put his hand on his helmet and took it off.

“It’s cramped. Because I have to work as an escort. I don’t mind working overtime.”

And, the voice that came out of Drake’s mouth completely removed from his helmet was so soft that it was difficult to think of it as being the same as the human who screamed earlier.

The red hair, like magma, that was bound inside it flowed down.

“Wait a munite. Amelia…☆ I’m going to see you…”

A sullen smile glowed in the dark.