Chapter 89

Chapter 89, Discovery

At Arlin's words, Hwa-ryeon sheathed her sword with a slightly fed-up expression.

“Then what do we do? Shouldn't we hurry and run?”

“Not necessarily. If Association President Dorothy were completely dead, that would be different, but her body is still alive. The shaking should stop soon.”

Arlin spoke calmly.

Even when the ceiling split apart and a falling chunk smashed through her protective barrier, her attitude didn't change.

Seeing how confident she sounded made me trust her too.

If Arlin was that certain, then it was probably fine to believe her.

I suppressed the Flame I had been about to unleash and instead looked around.

The surroundings had been destroyed so thoroughly that I couldn't even remember what they had looked like when they were clean.

It wasn't only the exhibition hall.

The entirety of False Utopia was like that.

The fields, once full of life and green color, were now buried beneath thick ash as though a volcano had erupted.

The clouds were riddled with holes, making them look like cotton candy that a child had randomly poked over and over.

And the sky had lost its refreshing blue color and turned red from the aftermath of the demon summoning ritual.

None of it retained the beauty that had once suited the name Utopia.

The aftermath seemed far too great for a mere battle between humans.

I felt a little uneasy about that, but at the same time, I felt good.

It meant we had grown this much.

Even so, I still felt the need for greater power.

I had always felt that way, but after everything that happened this time, the feeling became even stronger.

I had just watched a major faction suffer because of one person's greed.

Maybe it was natural that I would think this way afterward.

I hated seeing my companions get hurt.

And once again, I realized that to prevent that, I needed overwhelming force.

From now on, I needed to grow even stronger, enough that even major factions wouldn't dare touch us carelessly.

And to do that, I would need even more Mysteries.

Naturally, my eyes turned toward the hill formed by countless piled-up objects.

“Wow... I've never seen this many Mysteries before.”

“According to my detection magic, there are 126 in total. I've never seen this many either. One hundred and twenty-six...”

“...We can't just quietly take one, can we?”

“No, Sword Freak. Of course not. All of those Mysteries belong to different factions. If you touch them, the consequences won't end with you.”

The Mysteries Dorothy had poured out from the box were piled up there.

I glanced through Lucy and saw several Mysteries tempting enough that even I wanted them.

If we took those, the combat strength of my companions and me would rise dramatically.

But in exchange, we would earn the hatred of all kinds of factions.

Just like the Eye of Ra, those Mysteries were things that would cause trouble if swallowed.

Still, borrowing one for a moment should be fine.

“Arlin, could you bring me that mirror-shaped Mystery over there?”

“Yes. Here.”

I caught the Mystery Arlin pulled over with telekinesis.

Judging only by its appearance, it looked like an ordinary hand mirror.

But the ability it possessed was excellent enough to make me want it, and it could be useful in all kinds of situations.

[Mirror That Reflects Memories]

[Reads the memories of whoever is reflected in it.

The more secret the target considers a memory, the later that memory will be read.

If the target holds even the slightest resistance in their heart, the mirror cannot read their memories.]

It was perfect for Dorothy, whose mind had been cut apart and who therefore couldn't resist.

I immediately took Dorothy out of the bag and reflected her in the mirror.

Memories began flowing across the small surface.

The moment she first encountered a Mystery.

The moment she first came to own one.

As I continued holding Dorothy in front of the mirror, more meaningful memories gradually appeared.

The memory of founding the Mystery Protection Association.

The memory of contacting the Demon Worshipers and secretly negotiating with them in order to obtain more Mysteries.

Only when my arm was starting to ache did I finally find the memory I wanted.

It was a memory of Dorothy storing all the Mysteries she had collected over the years inside a space of her own.

“The location is... fortunately, somewhere inside False Utopia. If I think about it a little, I should be able to calculate the approximate coordinates.”

Arlin stared carefully into the mirror and began calculating where Dorothy's secret storage might be located.

It looked like the calculation would take some time, so the rest of us began thinking about what to do with the Mysteries piled up across the field.

It had already been decided that we couldn't take them with us.

What we were thinking about now was how to return those Mysteries to their owners.

There had been more than thirty people invited to the exhibition.

Even if I only counted the different groups invited, there were probably more than fifteen.

Personally delivering these Mysteries one by one to that many factions seemed far too troublesome.

It wasn't like we were volunteers.

There was no reason to go that far.

I decided to simply leave them here.

I didn't have any way to directly contact the owners of all these Mysteries anyway, and both my body and mind were exhausted.

I just wanted to go home and rest.

They could come retrieve them themselves.

I placed the Eye of Ra on top of the mountain of Mysteries, then stepped back.

“The more I think about it, the less I understand. What gave her the confidence to make enemies out of this many factions?”

Hwa-ryeon stepped back beside me and muttered.

Even if Dorothy loved Mysteries, Hwa-ryeon clearly couldn't understand why she would antagonize more than a dozen factions.

The one who answered her near-question was Arlin, who had just finished her calculation.

“Association President Dorothy was probably confident. Maybe not confident that she could fight all of them, but confident that she could escape their pursuit.”

“How?”

“She probably intended to use the Demon Worshipers and the demons they worship. Demons grant rewards proportional to the price offered, so someone like Dorothy, who possessed Mysteries numbering in the hundreds, would have been an excellent match for them.”

The worshipers had summoned a 900-series Mystery, a demon, using only seven Mysteries and a ritual that hadn't even lasted ten minutes.

If those people had properly cooperated with Dorothy, with enough time and resources to prepare a ritual, I didn't even want to imagine what could have been summoned.

Thinking about it that way, it had actually been a gamble worth taking from Dorothy's perspective.

In the end, the variable called us stopped her before she could properly carry out the plan.

Even so, the thought sent a chill down my spine.

“If it hadn't been for Yuhyeon's secret, if that hadn't allowed us to drive it away, the result would've been completely different.”

“I see... But why do you call it it?”

“You shouldn't use a demon's name when referring to one. If their name is spoken, they can recognize it.”

Arlin warned us that saying Astaroth's name aloud could attract the attention of other demons.

Once the number in front reached the 900s, it really felt like the scale of what they could do was completely different.

I wonder when I'll finally get a 900-series Mystery of my own.

If I continued growing like this, I would probably obtain one someday.

Still, I couldn't stop myself from feeling impatient.

“For now, let's head to the storage Dorothy hid. Arlin, please lead the way.”

Arlin nodded and began guiding us.

We left the nearly collapsed exhibition hall and moved onward.

Outside, things were quiet now.

Just as Arlin had said, the shaking gradually weakened until it almost completely stopped.

As we walked, the only sound was the crunching noise of our feet stepping on the ash piled across the fields.

I was enjoying the strangely satisfying sound when Arlin suddenly stopped walking.

I broke from my thoughts and looked at her.

Her eyes, glowing faintly with blue mana, stared down toward the ground.

“There's a hidden space beneath us. It appears that only Association President Dorothy can open the entrance.”

At those words, I took Dorothy's body out.

Her body lay there, breathing softly at regular intervals.

Nothing happened.

So I rubbed Dorothy's body around against different parts of the ground.

Eventually, when her palm touched the earth, the ground began splitting apart with a sharp crack.

Through the gap appeared an oval-shaped purple object.

It looked almost exactly like a portal from a game.

It felt familiar, so I searched my memory.

Then I remembered.

That was it.

One of the three most famous Mysteries in the world.

The one said to have appeared more than thirty thousand times in Korea alone.

The portal leading to another world, where not a single person who entered had ever returned.

It looked exactly like the photographs I had seen online.

Arlin and Hwa-ryeon also seemed to know about the portal, because they each added a comment.

“That's a Gate to Another World.”

“It's been a while since I've seen one. Ugh. It still feels unpleasant.”

They seemed to know far more about the purple portal than I did.

I only knew its basic characteristics.

So I asked them about it.

Arlin answered.

“That's a portal leading to another world. A portal to the other worlds where the headquarters of major factions like the Order and the Company are located.”