Chapter 515 – The Fetus and the Hero
000
The new year of a new day has dawned.
The fire that lasted all night was extinguished with the rain-calling magic that Tamamo and Yoho had prepared in advance, and not a single ember escaped from the barrier.
Neat clean up after no one was killed thanks to having evacuated in advance.
As originally planned, the Tower of Dreams and the houses around it were all burned down.
A new shelter was prepared for them, and a new building was planned to be built on the burnt rubble.
Cleon quietly opened his eyes in a room in such a brothel.
What you feel in your body is the weight of Galatea clinging to you.
Cleon stood up with a slightly drowsy expression and blankly looked down at the blanket he was covering.
Then, little by little, he began to recall what had happened yesterday.
Last night, the party succeeded in defeating the dark giant Poltuk and the wyvern armor he created using the elixir of evolution, but most of the party, including Cleon, had consumed almost all of their mana.
In the end, the body was too tired to return to the outside of the brothel – the original mansion.
As a result, when Cleon, who had fallen asleep as if passed out after escaping from the barrier, opened his eyes, the entire party was in a large room, lying on the blankets, coolly asleep.
Still feeling drowsy, Cleon shook his head heavily for a moment while holding his hand on his forehead to shake off his slumber.
And quietly, so as not to wake others, follow the sunlight filtering through the crack in the door and step outside-
Even inside the brothel, I could see that the top floor of a larger building was where the party stayed.
From a place high enough to look around the entire brothel, leaning against the railing and staring blankly at the scene for a while.
A fluttering sound was heard, and Tamamo flew up from below.
“Ohh. Are you awake, young man?”
“Tamamo…”
Tamamo, glistening in the sunlight, lifted the corners of her mouth and smiled, then stepped down and stood beside Cleon.
“How’s your body? It looks like you’ve been wasting your mana.”
“It’s okay. No problem. I’m trying to remember the events of last night little by little.”
Saying that, Cleon puts his hand on his forehead and brings his memory back to the scene where he defeats Paul Tuke.
Obviously, I remember until the end that Caliburn summoned Galatea with her trump card and defeated the Wyvern Armor with all her might.
At that time, when Galatea tried to reproduce Caliburn’s power her.
How did the power of the two resonate?
On top of Galatea, like Caliburn, two swords merged into one—
“…”
Cleon thought to that point, and when he remembered Galatea who had been holding him down earlier, his expression hardened and he went back into the room.
Then, in addition to the sound of the children’s breathing quietly, if you follow the snoring of Galatea and walk to the place where you slept.
There, Galatea was lying.
However, it was different from the usual Galatea.
There was no doubt that she, in her mid-teens, had green hair.
However, there were blonde bridges everywhere, and her skin color wasn’t that pale.
A crucially different part is the ‘wings of light’growing from her back her.
There wasn’t a single pair, but only the left side was attached to her body while swaying.
It was as if her appearance was a mixture of the humanoid characteristics of ‘Galatea’ and ‘Caliburn’.
“… Galatea. Wake up.”
“Eh… Cleon…?”
When Cleon leans down and shakes her body to listen to Galatea, Galatea raises her body with a sleepy voice and looks at Cleon.
“Ah… Cleon~ Good morning~”
And, seeing Galatea still talking like that with a fierce expression, Cleon shut her mouth for a moment.
Somewhere in her her way of speaking her is not like her.
“Galatea… Right?”
“Then~ If it’s not me, who else~ haam… More than that, where are you?
Watching her yawning loudly as she spoke her nonsense, Cleon shut her mouth for a moment before—
Soon, she nods her head knowingly and speaks.
“…Caliburn.”
“Yes~”
When Cleon called her by that name to her Galatea, Galatea answered like that once more-
He paused, and her body hardened like a stone.
Soon, she was started and covered her own mouth with both hands.
“As expected. Right now, Galatea and Caliburn are united as one…”
“Uh, why!? That kind of thing… Uh, uh… But thinking about the reason is also drowsy…”
Galatea covers her head and is confused, but she immediately throws herself back on the blanket and talks.
“…Can I wake up and think about it?”
“…”
When Galatea, whose personality had been so strongly mixed with her Caliburn her, spoke like that, Cleon looked at her with a puzzled look on her face her, so that he didn’t even think her to stop her .
“Are you okay?”
Tamamo carefully opened the door from the outside of the room and asked Cleon.
“Ah… I’d be lying if I said there were no problems. For now.”
After Cleon said that, he went outside again, taking care not to wake up the party.
Then she talks while looking at Tamamo.
“Anyway, with this, Poltuk, who was hiding in the brothel, disappeared. As for the guy’s identity, Lila also revealed it.”
Cleon narrowed his eyes as he said that.
After hearing Cleon’s words, Tamamo also looked a bit surprised, then waited for Cleon’s next story her.
What comes to Cleon’s mind is after defeating the Wyvern Armor.
It was at that moment when he looked at Poltuk’s remains, which had emerged from the wreckage.
001
The intense light caused by the resonance of the power of the holy sword and the demonic sword did not subside easily.
Like the previous time when the demon that controlled Amelia’s body was defeated, a brilliant pillar of light did not appear.
In any case, considering that it takes a little while for the overwhelming but never hot light to fade.
Even with the light blocking my vision, I felt something heavy thud and fall.
And along with the vibration that shook the ground, the light that covered my eyes slowly disappeared.
“Uh… Cleon. From now on, that blindfolding technique is prohibited.”
“Sorry… No, this isn’t really a blindfold technique…”
When Layla staggers down from the sky and stumbles to find Cleon and grabs his arm her.
It wasn’t until Cleon felt the touch of Layla’s hand that she could properly distinguish what was in front of her.
And – speaking of the scene unfolding before them.
The trace of destruction that runs from the point where Cleon swung the sword straight ahead, right before the boundary of the barrier.
The wyvern armor right in front of my eyes was the one I just had before, and the upper and lower body were separated by an oblique line, and the upper body fell to the ground and stopped.
Not only that, but a sharp slash that pierced the Wyvern armor and extended in a straight line, burning the remains of buildings- and even the flames were digested with a shockwave.
From a place several hundred meters away, I could see that the ground was cracked.
“…It wasn’t really a blindfold technique.”
Lila also looked at the sight and put on a look of bewilderment.
“…Is it over?”
“Ah. The Wyvern Armor is completely silent… That guy who has been bothering me since yesterday – I can’t feel any trace of Poltuk anymore.”
When Cleon answered Amelia’s question, who had unlocked her transformation, he cautiously approached him.
Quon and Sasha sighed in relief as they sat down, perhaps tired from the tension and intense battle.
Following Lila, when she descends to the ground to Kuzunoha, she too, like Laila, sees the aftermath of the long slash and looks a bit confused.
“…It’s much stronger than I thought, oppa. That’s the power of that sword?”
“…”
Cleon turned her attention to his sword her, which he had ignored for a moment because he had many things to pay attention to.
I feel a fine vibration in my hand.
From a while ago, the ringing sound as if claiming his existence his was none other than his sword his.
Cleon looked at his sword his, a sword of gray light, whose vibrations did not stop, for a moment, and then, Pajik! He almost lost his sword as if his hand had been attacked by the sparks.
“Kuh…”
Without properly grasping the identity of the spark, the changed Galatea – no, is it Caliburn?
When you try to talk to a sword you don’t know exactly which one.
“Cleon!”
Cleon, who suddenly came to her senses at the sound of Lyla’s voice her calling her name her, looked back at her and saw that Lyla was examining her upper body her as she fell to the land of the Wyvern Armor.
If the head in the shape of a sub-dragon was forcibly removed from the position corresponding to the control part of the magic armor – Poltuk, who had changed into the form of a brain as seen before, was not there.
I just see a mysterious creature wriggling, like a young lizard whose volume is rapidly shrinking.
However, the movement was really subtle, and the creaking movement, as if he could n’t breathe, could tell that his life was short.
I’ve seen it somewhere
If Cleon thinks so, Layla looks at something that is even grotesque and tells Cleon.
“This. It’s a homunculus fetus.”
“Homunculus-“
When Cleon heard Layla say that, he knew where she had seen the lizard.
That’s exactly what she saw in the workshop, in Layla’s mansion at the academy.
It was none other than that, when I was making Innis, I started with the flask that contained it.
“So- Poltuk was a homunculus?”
“I don’t know if the original was like that. But… The dead have been resurrected. And yet they are not undead.”
“——Someone, Poltuk- No, it means that all of the black giants made homunculus.”
“Then…!”
Amelia also listened to the two of them from the side, and she couldn’t help but raise her voice.
The official empire of the continent – and the four people who gained notoriety for their brutality who supported the demonic sword emperor in that empire.
Still, on this continent, the wounds created by the empire have not all been fully healed, so why did they do that?
When Amelia clenched her fists as if she couldn’t forgive such an existence, Layla was thinking of something else.
“…The theory itself of making a human clone out of a homunculus has been around for a long time. It’s called a ‘homunclone’, and for this, a large amount of genetic information of the object to be created is required. “
“…Please explain in an easy-to-understand way.”
In response to Layla’s explanation, which contained a lot of jargon, when Cleon spoke like that, Layla sighed and fell silent for a moment.
“So. It’s difficult to clone without the original. The genetic information that Cleon provided when he created Innis- that is, semen. Like that. Besides- a wizard capable of creating a homunculus would also be indispensable.”
“…Then, does that mean that the remnants of the empire also have wizards like that?”
At Cleon’s words, Leila shut her mouth for a moment.
And when he glanced at Amelia, Amelia tilted her head.
“… What’s wrong? Lila?”
“… No, what I’m about to say… I guess it could make Amelia feel a little bad…”
Amelia realizes that Lyla’s words are instinctively connected to the dark side of the kingdom.
But she shook her head and told Layla.
“If that’s what you need to know.”
“Yeah, I knew you would talk like that.”
It must have been at the same time, that the life of the fetus of a homunculus that had lost the form of Poltuk disappeared.
The group looked at it for a moment, then Layla reached out and used her magic to burn it.
“…Even if you analyze this, no more information will come out. More important than that is that they are imperial mages. First of all – there are still many mages from the empire. They changed their names and surnames.”
“That…”
Amelia, as well as Cleon, looks at Layla as if she is hearing the story for the first time, and Layla puts her hand on her forehead her.
“The war with the Empire is over. Discussions on what to do with the defeated soldiers and prisoners were held in the kingdom. Those who committed war crimes, of course, were all put to death. , Measures have been taken to send them back to their hometown- The problem is, the mages of the empire.”
“Most of the mages of the empire voluntarily cooperated with the sword emperor, so a large number of mages were executed… That’s how it is written in the history books.”
When Amelia said that, Lila shut her mouth for a moment, then shook her head.
“The skills possessed by the wizards of the empire were quite useful and coveted even from the kingdom side. There was a limit to reproducing them only with the data they left behind. In particular, amplification that exerts a direct effect on the human body It’s like magic that is effective in strengthening soldiers in war. It’s not just that. The wizards of the Empire collaborated with technicians including Poltuk, and technology related to the fusion of machines and magic, such as magic armor. They were also plentiful.”
“Somehow, the next story is expected to some extent…”
When Cleon frowned at her, Layla continued the story while looking at Cleon.
“So. Rather than killing those wizards, the kingdom decided to bring them to their side. They changed their names and surnames, and said that they were originally kingdom people. I tolerated it. Most of the elite of the empire’s mages were from the academy before the war broke out.”
“Then…!”
Amelia raised her voice at Layla’s words in her.
“I don’t know if Adam’s will was involved in that. But the technology they brought must have accelerated the development of the kingdom. Things like magical streetlights that automatically light up at night, things that are deeply involved in life.”
“Isn’t that information that the general public doesn’t know?”
When Cleon asks Layla, Layla nods her head too.
“Yes. This is information that I can know because I am the head of the magic department at the academy. In the Forbidden Books Library, there are books about the continent’s hidden history. …How did Otis break through the barrier that opened on the day of the kingdom’s victory anniversary? I wondered if he had come. …I didn’t break through, but he was inside from the beginning.”
“…Then, the suspects are those guys.”
“For 30 years, they’ve been serving the kingdom, while behind the scenes they’re aiming for the revival of the empire… It’s not an impossible story. However, the question still remains is where did those guys get the ‘ black giant’s genetic information’? Did you get your hands on it? You can’t even guess this unless you investigate.”
Even as Lila sighed, she was pondering whether she should search for the wizards from the Empire.
Amelia opened her mouth cautiously.
“Anyone who was at the heart of the Empire at the time-“
“…Amelia. Again.”
Layla spoke to Amelia as if her words had hinted at something.
Then Amelia lifted her head and looked at her Lyla and spoke quietly.
“So, those who were in the Empire at the time. And those who have watched most of history right next to the emperor and the dark giant. Wouldn’t they know?”
“Is there such a person…?”
When Quon carefully asks the two of them, Cleon also puts his hand on his chin and talks while thinking.
“…Lilim.”
At Cleon’s words, when Quon looked surprised, the rest of Lyla and Amelia nodded.
“If it’s her who has lost her memory, she would n’t know, if she regained her memory her… There’s a good chance she knows. But she’ll have to think about how she wakes her up.”
“…Then let’s go back. We’ve done all we can here…
After Cleon said that, he looked at his sword his, which still didn’t stop shaking, then turned around and faced the outside of the barrier with his party his.
With various questions remaining, the sound of their footsteps somehow managed to secure victory.
And as if to erase the sound of those footsteps, rain poured down from the sky.
002
“…I see. It means there are parasites inside the kingdom.”
“It’s only speculation, but…If I find out anything, I’ll let you know. You’ll want to know too.”
Saying that, Cleon raised his body from the railing.
“A kind-hearted young man.”
Tamamo laughed bitterly as she spoke, and then she approached Cleon.
“There are only a few ways I can repay you. However, if there is any information you want, I will try to find it with all my might. The owner of the brothel has wide feet.”
To Tamamo’s words, Cleon nodded.
“…That alone is enough. Whatever I did, I took responsibility for my own destiny. It’s too much.”
“That’s not true. …You guys are the heroes of our brothel—and even of the continent. Why was Lesia called a hero, and why did she become a symbol of peace to people? Those children have more than just the goal of ‘saving the world’—Because I was more enthusiastic about saving the people in front of me.”
After Tamamo said that, he jumped over the railing and floated in the air.
“More than using the holy sword, more than race, that mindset. It makes a hero like a hero. Cleon. Our hero.”
“──.”
Saying that, Cleon looked at Tamamo who was walking away and looked down at his hand.
And, along with the sense that Lesia’s figure, which seemed so far away as if she could n’t reach it, shimmered in front of her eyes.
She clenched her fists and went back to her room to wake the others who couldn’t get up until the sun was over her head.
