Chapter 243. Merlin (1)
─ What just happened? What happened to the Nameless King?
─ Did he get hit by Gáe Bolg and disappear?
─ The camera angle was bad, but I saw spikes burst out, right?
─ I can’t see anything! He must’ve disappeared in one hit!
─ So if you take a weapon on Gáe Bolg’s level head-on, you vanish immediately.
─ Yeah. Siegfried and Beowulf took a while to disappear.
─ This makes no sense! He died like that?!
─ Why didn’t he finish off Cú Chulainn?!
─ He was too far away. It made more sense to regroup with Kang Yujin and the others than waste time going all the way over there.
─ Still, because of something like that...
─ He stupidly left Cú Chulainn alive and ruined everything.
─ It’s over.
─ Do the Constellations and Contractors in the Material Realm even know what happened?
─ Probably not. It would be unfair if an Apostle told them.
─ Everything from here is basically an epilogue.
─ No, not necessarily! Kang Yujin could still defeat Merlin!
─ But if the Nameless King is dead, then Kang Yujin too...
“Hehehe... hahaha...!”
Merlin suddenly burst into laughter.
Christina, Sylvia, and Alexandros, who had been waiting nearby, looked at him in confusion.
“What’s wrong?”
“Did you finally go insane?”
“What happened?”
The three each asked their own question.
Merlin didn’t answer.
He only kept laughing.
Through the magic he had spread across the entire city, he had confirmed that the Nameless King had been struck by Gáe Bolg and vanished without leaving a trace.
You let your guard down, Nameless King!
Compared to the other renowned Constellations, the Nameless King’s direct combat power had always been lacking.
He had won battles through intelligence and ingenuity, but he was certainly not a hero on the same level as Siegfried or Beowulf.
Perhaps things would have been different if he had fought alongside other Constellations or Kang Yujin.
But choosing to face Cú Chulainn with only the badly injured Cheon Sangwoon beside him had been a mistake from the start.
He was never someone who could truly compete with them in raw ability.
Merlin had already formed a rough theory about the Nameless King’s identity.
Compared to most Constellations, Merlin was extremely knowledgeable.
Even so, that didn’t mean he knew every great person and hero from every part of the world.
He couldn’t identify the Nameless King with certainty.
But one thing seemed clear.
He was likely someone from the modern era.
Looking back at the overall history of the Fantasy Realm, the closer a person was to modern times, the harder it tended to be for them to display superhuman combat abilities.
Considering that...
this ending was only natural.
Now then...
Merlin used his magic to inspect the other battlefields.
Achilles and Perseus were still fighting the Greek Constellations.
Karna was successfully keeping Arjuna tied down.
And Heracles was on the verge of breaking through the formation of the Knights of the Round Table.
The only ones who can reach this place now are Kang Yujin and the other Contractors, along with Princess Longji, Jason, and Atalanta.
Merlin finished calculating.
Then he addressed the Contractors waiting nearby.
“Alexandros.”
“Yes, Lord Merlin.”
Heracles’s Contractor stood from his seat and answered politely.
“Go outside and invite Kang Yujin’s group here.”
“Is that all right?”
“They’ll find this place eventually anyway.”
“There’s no point wasting time. It’s better to invite them directly.”
“Understood.”
Alexandros nodded and left the temple.
At some point, the rain outside had stopped.
“Merlin, are you sure about this?”
Christina asked.
“Wouldn’t it be better to gather the other Constellations before fighting? We should prepare for the unexpected.”
“You don’t need to worry, Christina.”
“You just seem too relaxed.”
“This isn’t carelessness.”
Merlin smiled.
“Now that the Nameless King has disappeared, there’s no longer any reason to fight Kang Yujin.”
“What?”
“Yes.”
“We may still end up fighting the others, but Kang Yujin will no longer be able to oppose me.”
Christina looked confused.
“Are you... planning to recruit Kang Yujin?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
Merlin looked back and forth between Christina and Sylvia.
“You two were recruited by me as well, weren’t you?”
“Well... yes.”
“Not in a particularly pleasant way, though.”
Neither Christina nor Sylvia had been cooperative with Merlin from the beginning.
In the past, they had been wary of him.
But after learning Merlin’s true intentions and directly interacting with Constellations, they had eventually been brought over to his side.
“If you were planning to recruit Kang Yujin, you should’ve told me from the start.”
“I thought I was going to fight him to the death this time.”
“My apologies.”
“You’re incredibly thorough when planning things on the scale of the whole world, but with little details like this, you can be surprisingly fickle.”
“I was never that different from a Celtic fairy.”
“Wouldn’t it be stranger if a fairy weren’t fickle?”
Merlin joked casually and sat down on a nearby chair.
It’ll all be over soon...
For a moment, Merlin felt a deep wave of exhaustion and covered his face with both hands.
If he could recruit Kang Yujin...
his plans would advance dramatically.
Until now, he had thought that would be difficult because of the Nameless King.
But now that the Nameless King had disappeared...
that problem no longer mattered.
“Kang Yujin, do you think Kim Nameless is all right?”
"..."
Hearing Seok Taejun’s question, Kang Yujin bit his lip.
Kim Nameless had gone off alone again.
It was similar to what happened on the Nautilus, when he had thrown himself into the sea alone to fight the Sea Serpent.
But Kim Nameless had survived then too.
Kang Yujin had mourned, believing he was dead...
only for Kim Nameless to suddenly reappear one day, perfectly alive.
Would the same thing happen again?
Would he return unharmed this time too?
“This is different from fighting that sea monster.”
“This time, his opponent is a Constellation.”
“Earlier he was able to win because he fought together with you, Kang Yujin...”
Seok Taejun sounded uneasy.
Kang Yujin wanted to answer.
But his thoughts were too tangled, so in the end he remained silent.
“Everyone, stop.”
Princess Longji’s voice cut in.
“Someone is approaching from over there.”
They looked in the direction she indicated.
A man was walking toward them.
“Heracles...?”
For an instant, Kang Yujin thought Heracles had appeared.
The man’s build was similar, and even his features strongly resembled him.
“A pleasure to meet you, everyone.”
But the voice that came from his mouth was completely different from Heracles’s.
It was extremely polite.
Almost intellectual.
“My name is Alexandros.”
“I am a Contractor of the S-rank Constellation ‘Greatest Hero.’”
“Alexandros...!”
“You’ve heard my name?”
“Then you probably don’t know this.”
Alexandros smiled meaningfully.
“I am also a Vessel... and a follower of Merlin.”
"...!"
Kang Yujin had heard about Alexandros from Cheon Sangwoon before.
He had only known him as a powerful Contractor called Heracles’s successor.
He had never imagined Alexandros was also a Vessel.
“Lord Merlin is waiting.”
“I’ll guide you to him.”
With that, Alexandros turned as though to leave.
But Jason immediately climbed off Atalanta’s back and spoke.
“Wait.”
“What is it?”
“You’re going to guide us to Merlin?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that suspicious? Isn’t this some kind of trap?”
“It isn’t.”
“Then why would Merlin invite us directly to where he is?”
“Lord Merlin seems to want to talk with all of you.”
“See? He’s doing it again.”
Jason raised one hand.
“I’ve been watching Merlin for a while, and that guy is weirdly fickle.”
“It doesn’t feel like he creates one perfect plan and follows it.”
“He looks more like he improvises depending on the situation.”
“That isn’t true, Lord Jason.”
“What?”
“Lord Merlin may indeed be fickle.”
“But even those changes occur only within the boundaries of the larger plan leading toward his final objective.”
“What does that mean?”
“No matter how much he changes his mind, no matter how many unexpected things happen...”
“events will ultimately proceed toward Lord Merlin’s intended goal.”
“So you’re saying this situation was all part of Merlin’s plan?”
“No.”
“I’m saying that even this situation will eventually become part of the path toward his goal.”
