Chapter 225. Premonition of War (1)
“The life signs have completely stopped.”
Alexei, the bearded man in his thirties, spoke while looking down at Astaroth’s limp body.
“I think this is all the information we’re going to get.”
“Yeah.”
I nodded, then gestured for Alexei to burn Astaroth’s corpse.
Still... we got a lot out of her.
Before dying, Astaroth had told us quite a bit.
Pandemonium was currently taking a defensive stance.
Amid the conflict between the pro-war and peace factions, Bael, the current number one, was insisting on maintaining the status quo.
Bael was more focused on collecting holy relics than fighting humanity.
And perhaps...
he intended to use those holy relics to resurrect Lucifer.
Ha Mina was working with Pandemonium’s pro-war faction to resurrect Lucifer.
Is whatever Bael is doing separate from that?
If Bael was also trying to resurrect Lucifer, Belial wouldn’t simply sit still.
Belial would never tolerate such blasphemy.
Belial believed resurrecting Lucifer would defile his honorable death.
That was why he had cooperated with me to capture Ha Mina in the first place.
But Ha Mina suddenly fell unconscious.
Because of that, Belial had been unable to do anything with the prisoner he had gone through so much trouble to capture.
So lately, he had been monitoring the movements of Pandemonium’s pro-war faction, the group that had been cooperating with Ha Mina.
If Belial gets angry at Bael and decides to eliminate not just the pro-war faction but Bael himself... would that benefit me?
Belial currently had little attachment to Pandemonium itself.
If destroying Pandemonium completely was necessary to punish those who tarnished Lucifer’s honor, he probably wouldn’t hesitate.
If I’m going to keep fighting Pandemonium, I need Belial’s cooperation.
But...
There was a problem with cooperating with Belial against Pandemonium.
Right now, I was fighting Pandemonium as the S-rank Constellation ‘Nameless King.’
But Belial only knew me as the Contractor ‘Kim Nameless.’
If I handled this poorly, I could lose Belial’s trust.
So I needed to approach him as carefully as possible.
And then there’s this...
I took out the Holy Nail and examined it.
Unlike the Holy Spear, this one was intact.
There should be three Holy Nails in total, but even a single one seemed to contain tremendous power.
Even Galahad didn’t know everything about holy relics.
Galahad had acquired both the Holy Grail and Holy Spear during his lifetime.
But according to him, even he hadn’t fully understood everything about them.
They possessed divine power capable of causing miracles, but he had never been able to use that power however he wished.
In the end, Galahad’s conclusion had been something vague.
If you try to use them to fulfill selfish desires, things probably won’t go the way you want.
Astaroth said she tried to reverse the Holy Nail’s divine power and use it for herself, only to lose control.
Considering what happened to her, it was clearly dangerous to use these things carelessly.
Galahad had encountered the Holy Grail and Holy Spear without suffering any trouble, but that was likely because he was a deeply devout and perfect knight.
The Holy Nail, the Holy Spear fragment Astolfo gave me...
For now, it’s probably best to simply keep them safe.
I wasn’t a deeply religious person like Galahad.
If I carelessly tried to use them, I might end up like Astaroth.
With that in mind, it seemed better not to think about using the holy relics at all.
Still... is Joyeuse safe?
Joyeuse didn’t contain the entire Holy Spear.
It only used a fragment.
And that fragment had been ‘sealed,’ suppressing its power.
As a result, Joyeuse was essentially just a holy sword with unusually strong sacred power.
But if someone tried to draw out the sealed Holy Spear’s full power...
something dangerous might happen.
Did Charlemagne know the danger of holy relics and seal it like this on purpose?
No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t find an answer.
Even Galahad, who seemed like the person most likely to know, hadn’t given me anything definite.
At this point, I might simply have to beat the answer out of Bael, the one collecting holy relics.
No... maybe Merlin knows.
There was a good chance Merlin knew everything.
The problem was that he was currently my enemy.
“Things seem to be getting complicated.”
Alexei approached after finishing the cremation.
“Are you going to be okay?”
“They definitely are getting complicated.”
Merlin.
Pandemonium.
The holy relics.
And...
Taigong Wang.
There were plenty of things I needed to think about.
“But don’t worry, Alexei.”
"..."
“I promised I’d uncover everything.”
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexei’s enemy, had died by my hand.
But Alexei still wasn’t satisfied.
Why had his Constellation needed to perish?
Why had his own fate been turned into a toy for Constellations?
“I’ll uncover everything so that you can understand why it happened.”
“All right.”
Alexei had become my Contractor after seeing hope in me, the man who defeated the Count.
And I needed Alexei too.
A Contractor who already has an Awakening Skill...
Alexei already possessed the Awakening Skill [Status Inspection].
It was the kind of ability you might have found in an old fantasy novel, allowing him to view another person’s status window.
There will definitely come a time when he plays a decisive role.
With that thought, I stood to return to the Spirit Realm.
The moment I returned to my throne and sat down, Number 49 appeared.
“Nameless!”
“You startled me.”
I frowned and pushed Number 49 away as she shoved her face right in front of mine.
“What happened?”
“Check Constellation Tube! It’s going crazy right now!”
“Going crazy?”
I immediately connected to Constellation Tube.
And I found the video Number 49 was talking about almost immediately.
“The Dragon-Slaying Immortal... Siegfried?”
The video was definitely enough to cause an uproar.
The S-rank Constellation ‘Dragon-Slaying Immortal’ had publicly criticized my actions, then declared that he would personally stand at the front and stop me.
“Wasn’t that Constellation completely obsessed with Kang Yujin? Why is he suddenly doing this...?”
"..."
Siegfried had certainly been an enthusiastic fan of Kang Yujin.
He didn’t speak often, but every so often he would donate enormous sums and leave lengthy comments.
Listening to the serious advice he gave made it impossible not to think:
He genuinely cares a lot about Kang Yujin.
“I thought that since he liked Kang Yujin, he’d be friendly toward us too.”
“There’s no rule saying he has to be.”
“But he supported us before during a Constellation Tube broadcast.”
“He did.”
“I was pretty moved back then.”
During the Kaesong operation, when Saionji Keito and numerous other Contractors participated, a controversy had erupted in the Constellation Tube comments over why the broadcast focused so heavily on Kang Yujin.
The one who had stepped forward and changed the mood was Siegfried.
I support the current broadcast format.
I am watching because I support the Constellation, Apostle, and Contractor involved in this broadcast.
He had said that openly.
“Do you think he really hates what you’re doing that much?”
“I’m not sure.”
“But...”
Watching the video again with a bitter feeling, I voiced my suspicion.
“Merlin is probably behind this.”
“Merlin?”
Heracles had told me something during our last encounter.
Merlin might send another Constellation instead of him.
There weren’t many Constellations capable of replacing Heracles.
Siegfried was certainly a plausible choice.
Siegfried is by no means inferior to Heracles.
Siegfried, also known as Sigurd, was one of the representative heroes of Germanic mythology.
