Chapter 82 - A Nod (2)

Following the main road, Alon soon realized he had reached Sifra’s eastern coast and looked around. Unlike the village where he had first disembarked, the eastern beach was exceedingly quiet. There was nothing to see but sand, sea, and a distant cliff.

'I really made it here...'

With an odd look on his face, Alon recalled the man who had abruptly changed his attitude and kindly given him directions. He had only walked along the shore for a short while when he took out the necklace bearing a black-tree emblem, which the 'thing' he had met in Coloni had given him. He did not expect a member of a race he had never even seen in Psychedelia to be sitting out in plain sight on the shore.

Holding the necklace, he continued across the deserted beach until he neared the cliff.

“Hmm?”

On the rocky path leading toward the cliff, he spotted a woman who was already watching him.

No. She was not a woman.

'A mermaid.'

Her upper body was unmistakably human, but her lower body was streamlined like a fish’s. As Alon approached, the beautiful mermaid asked in an openly wary voice,

“... Who are you, and why do you have that necklace?”

Noting that her voice was every bit as beautiful as her face, Alon replied,

“... The dragonkin sent me.”

“The dragonkin?”

“I was told that if I brought this, I would be able to look into the truth.”

As he spoke, he showed her the necklace. She repeated the word “dragonkin” several times, seemingly considering something, then asked,

“... Do you mean the dragonkin with the long tail?”

“Tail...? Hmm, I do think it’s rather long.”

“How long?”

“... Long enough to form a question mark with it?”

Alon answered despite wearing a look that plainly asked why she wanted to know.

Apparently that was the answer she wanted. Her wary expression relaxed considerably as she said,

“... It seems you really are a guest. You came to me so you could look into it, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Come this way.”

When Alon nodded, the mermaid immediately crawled down the rocks and plunged into the sea.

HUM

She soon formed an enormous sphere like a droplet of water in front of herself. It shone orange in the light of the setting sun.

“Get inside.”

Alon hesitated briefly at her words, but soon climbed into the sphere. The instant he did, spells settled over it in layer upon layer.

“Then we’ll set off now.”

Pulling the sphere with Alon inside, the mermaid began descending beneath the sea. In moments, they passed through the orange waters tinted by twilight and into the dark depths. Alon descended into the Deep Sea.

The mermaid, with whom he had not even exchanged names, descended calmly, as though she felt no particular fear in this situation. Alon, however, felt an involuntary chill as their surroundings grew blacker and blacker until nothing was visible. It felt as though he were suspended in an endless void.

Yet that strange unease and discomfort lasted only a short while.

“...?”

At some point, he saw a shaft of light appear in the empty darkness. As he registered it, a soft green light like an aurora spread through the previously empty depths, dispelling his anxiety.

Alon involuntarily let out a quiet gasp at the beautiful sight. The farther down the mermaid pulled the sphere, the more vividly the green aurora appeared before his eyes. A little more time passed.

“We’re here.”

They had arrived at a cave.

“This place is...”

As the sphere dissolved, Alon stepped onto the cave floor and looked around in fascination. It looked like an ordinary cave, but the very fact that a person could breathe normally here was intriguing.

“Follow me.”

While surveying his surroundings, Alon turned toward the mermaid’s voice and looked startled. Two legs had grown from what had been her streamlined lower body.

Apart from the gills beside her ears, she could have passed for a human. Seeing his surprise, she briefly looked puzzled, then gave a soft chuckle as though realizing its cause.

“This is only possible in this sanctuary.”

She then led him farther into the cave.

How far had they gone? After what felt like about ten minutes, they reached an enormous cavern.

“... Oh.”

The exclamation escaped him unbidden.

There was nothing there apart from an altar at its center, but on the cave ceiling he could see the 'sky.' Yes, the sky. Though they were in the Deep Sea, where the sky should have been impossible to see, a star-filled night sky shone on the vast cavern’s ceiling.

As he stared blankly up at it, voicing an exclamation he had not uttered even at the aurora, he suddenly heard the voice of the mermaid who had guided him.

“... Does it look beautiful to you?”

“It does.”

As Alon nodded, an oddly bitter expression crossed her face. No, it was subtly different from bitterness. Sorrow. Just as Alon recognized the emotion—

“I see. For now... yes.”

She murmured so softly that even Alon could not hear her, then continued their conversation.

“This is the actual sky you see every day.”

“... Wasn’t the sun still up before we came in here?”

“It took time to descend. It isn’t too early for the stars to appear. Anyway—”

The mermaid changed the subject.

“Welcome to the Sanctuary of Observation. I am the 'Observer.' I assume you came here because you wish to see the truth?”

“That’s right. I was told I would be able to see the truth here.”

“You made a wise choice.”

“... Did I?”

“Yes. Once you see the truth, you too will understand everything.”

With those words, she went to the altar, retrieved a mirror, and held it out to Alon.

“What is this...?”

“Look into it. You will see what you have been searching for.”

At her prompting, Alon took the mirror and looked inside. It reflected his own expressionless face, and just as he began to wonder why—

“!”

He felt something exceedingly strange.

After a sensation as though the entire world were being sucked into the mirror, Alon realized that his view into it had changed in an instant. Then he heard a voice.

[“The original god had its divine throne usurped.”]

####

Hidan was a member working for Blue Moon and the man temporarily in charge of its covert operations after the 'Moons' had left to carry out the Great Moon’s orders. He was currently in Mulman, one of Asteria’s territories.

The underworld wielded greater influence in Mulman than in other territories, and the nobles had failed to manage it properly. Hidan had come here for one reason: he had received word that the Asterian noble ringleaders secretly plotting to slander the Great Moon would be gathering here.

On the orders of the Violet Moon—that is, Deus Makalian—he had come to identify those attempting to slander the Great Moon. He had arrived a little before the ringleaders’ appointed meeting time and intended to prepare a hiding place in advance.

“...”

He would have, if not for the red bloodstains he saw the moment he reached the basement entrance.

Seeing blood dripping out of the building, he realized the place had been attacked and opened the door.

DRIP. DRIP.

A gruesome scene unfolded before Hidan.

“...”

The place was filled with corpses. A corpse whose face looked as though something had ground it away. A corpse severed in half. A corpse missing its arms and legs, its terror-filled eyes still open in death. ... Other bodies horrific enough to make one wince lay scattered about, filling the room with an atmosphere of horror.

Yet even in these circumstances, Hidan’s mind did not succumb to panic.

'Who was it? The Betrayer? The Black Light faithful? Root? No—they have no reason to do something like this. Then was it the Shadow? ... No, the Shadow would never leave this much evidence.'

Instead, he was trying to deduce who had done this.

CRUNCH!

At the sound from above, he immediately moved toward the upper floor.

When Hidan reached the second floor, he saw five people seated around an enormous round table, all unmistakably Asterian nobles. Every one of them was grotesquely dead, their necks twisted through two full turns.

“Hmm?”

And one person stood in the middle of the table, watching him.

In the silent room lit only by moonlight, the black-haired, blue-eyed man stared intently at Hidan, who had suddenly appeared. He held no weapon. Nor was there anything that could be called a weapon at his waist. The same was true wherever Hidan looked.

But Hidan knew instinctively that the man before him had created this gruesome scene.

“...”

His expression tensed as he tried to suppress his heart’s involuntary, frantic pounding.

The other man had done nothing at all. Even so, Hidan realized that the being before him was extraordinarily powerful. He had no certainty or evidence to support this. He simply recognized it naturally, as though the black-haired, blue-eyed being made others understand that fact on an instinctive level.

Still, he could not simply stand there and let himself be taken down. He quietly grasped the sword at his waist. At that moment—

“Ah—”

A smile appeared on the previously expressionless man’s lips.

It was such an innocent smile that it was impossible to imagine him as the one responsible for this scene. The suffocating pressure vanished in an instant as well, leaving Hidan bewildered. Then—

THUD!

The man stepped down from the round table and walked toward him with heavy footsteps. Hidan immediately tried to draw his sword.

TAP

Already upon him, the man pressed down on the end of the sword’s hilt as Hidan tried to draw it.

CLICK!

Despite the strength Hidan was exerting, the blade slid smoothly back into its sheath. Before he even had time to be flustered, the man said,

“I’ve already taken care of the work, so you can go. Well—if I may say one thing.”

The man gave Hidan a cursory look.

PAT. PAT.

He patted his shoulder.

“Still, serve properly from now on.”

Then, wearing an innocent smile, he said,

“This is a rather sensitive matter.”

With those final words, he disappeared out of the building.

“...”

Left behind, Hidan could only stare blankly for a long while at the door through which the man had departed.