"You saw that, right?"
The orc mage Walter said boastfully.
"What are you doing?"
"That woman failed to summon and control the Wendigo. She needs to die for the Wendigo to be sealed, but she has half of the copy of the Book of the Divine King that we used as the mana source for the ritual. I have the other half."
"You have a copy of the Book of the Divine King? How many pages?"
"I have two, and she has two."
So that meant there were four pages of the copy of the Book of the Divine King here.
'This is amazing.'
Azadin currently possessed five pages of the Book of the Divine King. If he added four more, he would have nine. At that point, killing Azadin with the curse of service would be utterly impossible.
"What's a Wendigo?"
"That's the name of that massive nether monster."
At that moment, Liz burst into anger.
"That's a blatant lie! Saying you need to kill me to seal that monster? Nonsense!"
At her outburst, Azadin stepped forward.
"Lady Liz?"
"And who are you?"
"A woman named Franc is dead. At the hands of Sir Brock."
"Really? Tch. Poor girl. It was her own fault for being so foolish, but Brock killed her himself? So what? You think killing her with his own hands means he should be forgiven now?"
"Before that, let me ask—why did you make her a follower of Arthra?"
"Why? Because she seemed so obsessed with beauty and love, so I let her dedicate herself completely to the goddess of beauty and love!"
"If it was out of jealousy due to an affair, then you should know it was the husband who bore the greater fault, no?"
"You think I'm stupid? You think I should just step back because of some dreamy little girl? Don't be ridiculous! I'm not going back to the jungles of Bruma again!"
If Franc was naïve and innocent to a fault, this Lady Liz was far more cunning and frightening.
"Ugh..."
Brock trembled in fear at her words.
"You got that? Try getting another woman, and I swear I'll kill her, stew her, and feed her to you! But I won't kill you. You'll live, trembling in fear for the rest of your life! You'll live remembering forever the disaster your own lust caused!"
'To think he cheated on a woman like this. Was he brave or just stupid... Probably both.'
Azadin marveled again at Brock's foolishness and asked,
"Well, let's put your marital issues aside. What about that massive monster outside? Did you really summon it, like they say?"
"Summon it? Do I look like I could pull off something that grand? That Wendigo was originally sealed here. A being the Kurt Divine Clan sacrificed heavily to seal long ago, and due to the light of the king's virtue, its connection to this world was severed, leaving it to wander without ever manifesting in this world."
That was different from what the orc said. The orc claimed she had summoned it… but she insisted it was originally sealed here. And having seen that monstrous creature firsthand, her version seemed more credible.
Perhaps for that reason, Walter promptly corrected himself.
"To be precise, the Wendigo wasn't sealed here—it was exiled here. So calling it back from exile is still summoning. It's just a matter of terminology. I wasn't trying to deceive you. If I were trying to lie, then I'm a half-orc. A half-orc!"
Walter tried to prove his honesty by insulting himself in front of humans.
'What do these damn orcs even think of humans?'
Azadin felt a growing resentment toward the orcs' arrogance, but both the orc and Liz were getting far too heated. At this rate, the place would turn into a market square if they were allowed to keep shouting.
"Okay, fine. Just be quiet for a moment. So whether it's summoning or unsealing, why did you do it?"
Azadin asked Liz.
"I didn't originally plan to break the Wendigo's seal. Do you think anyone in their right mind would want to release that thing? I just wanted to make a light contract of servitude and draw a bit of power from it."
"Lightly?"
Draw power from a nether being? That alone would get her executed as a horrific dark mage. Yet Liz, the one who had committed the black magic, seemed to think little of it.
"But those followers of Kurt had other ideas. If that thing were released, the Eight Divine Kingdoms would have to use up a massive amount of national power to deal with it. And if the followers of the Yaegas Divine Clan depleted their strength doing that, the Kurts thought their time would come. That's why they interfered with my ritual and caused the seal to break! It's not my fault!"
To those listening, it sounded utterly insane.
Of course, from Liz's point of view, she hadn't intended to release the Wendigo. She just wanted to siphon a bit of power from a nether monster, and things spiraled out of control. One could argue she had a right to feel wronged.
'Even if what you're saying is true, from the perspective of the king's church, burning you at the stake immediately would barely be enough punishment.'
Zebeck realized more than ever how entangled his recent circumstances had become. First, a gathering involving the Herald Clan, an orc necromancer, and a naga agent—and now, a noblewoman dabbling with nether monsters?
Still, solving this situation required her knowledge and information. Azadin asked once again.
"So, do you have any idea how to resolve this?"
Azadin directed the question at Liz, but it was Walter who answered.
"Kill that woman, the medium, then return the pages of the Book of the Divine King to the light of the king's virtue, and use that light to banish and seal the Wendigo again!"
"Don't be ridiculous! That's just an excuse to kill me!"
Liz roared in fury.
"Then why are the two of you standing face to face like that?"
"Our mana is clashing right now. If either one of us withdraws, that person will burn to death."
"She tried to flee, so I cast a binding spell to stop her. She reversed it, and now we're stuck holding each other in place."
In short, the orc and the noblewoman were like two stags in mating season, whose antlers got tangled mid-charge, and now both were on the brink of death.
"Kill that orc! Then I'll deal with the Wendigo."
"Don't listen to her nonsense. Everyone, do not trust that woman. She is evil! I can deal with the Wendigo."
"And you think you can say that, you orc!?"
"And you're a witch yourself!"
Brand, who had been watching the scene, suddenly apologized to Brock.
"Uh, well. I'll apologize for being a bit harsh earlier. Of course, I'm not excusing the, uh, affair, but your wife is… truly terrifying."
She was a woman terrifying enough to turn her husband's mistress into a monster. Sure, it was Brock who had done wrong first, but perhaps Brand now felt that harshly blaming him alone had been excessive.
"What are you talking about? Oh, come to think of it, you're scribe Brand, and that gentleman over there is Young Master Guillaumevalt, isn't he?"
"That's right. It's been a while, Lady Liz."
"Haah."
Liz lowered her head.
"Now that I've been caught using nether magic, what happens?"
Even if she survived this, it would become known in noble society that she was a mage who used forbidden sorcery. And not only that—she had been secretly working with the Nagas here from the very beginning.
She had colluded with the Kurt Divine Clan from behind the scenes, and regardless of the love rivalry, she forcibly turned one of Hubris's citizens into a follower of the Kurt God, so her crimes were immense as well.
"There's no way, from your point of view, that you can let a woman who colluded with the Kurt Divine Clan live as a noble lady, right? So let's make a deal."
Walter gripped his halberd.
"I'll open the way, so kill that witch! If she, the summoner, is killed, the Wendigo's existence will fade, and once the copies of the Book of the Divine King are returned to the light of the king's virtue, the Wendigo will be sealed once more!"
"Wait. So, if we use the Book of the Divine King, what happens to it? Is it lost?"
Azadin asked that critical question.
"It is lost. Well, not completely destroyed—the Book of the Divine King fuses with the light of the king's virtue, and later, if certain conditions are met, it can manifest again."
"..."
The copies of the Book of the Divine King would be lost. There were four pages here—losing those would be a painful loss.
But thinking about Wendigo, if it could truly be sealed, now wasn't the time to weigh gains and losses. The problem was—what if returning the Book of the Divine King to the light of the king's virtue didn't seal the Wendigo?
Would they then need to use the ones Azadin possessed as well? And if so, Azadin would lose the leverage he had in negotiations with the Herald Clan and the Aragasas.
'I've been able to stay alive despite the curse of service because I have the Book of the Divine King... If I lose that… Even beyond that, is it really the right thing to return the book to the light of the king's virtue now? The nobles and kings are corrupt, and the light of the king's virtue only continues to weaken…'
As Azadin hesitated, Liz picked up on his indecision.
"If it were me, I could fix this without losing the Book of the Divine King. Kill that orc!"
"That woman is worse than a dark mage—she's a nether sorceress. No matter how lowly humans are as a species, surely you're not foolish enough to trust a nether mage?"
Everyone was left speechless at the orc, who should have been begging for his life, instead insulting humans as fools.
At that moment, a sound like a wolf's howl echoed through the underground passage.
"Uh-oh."
"A young Wendigo."
The corpses scattered throughout the underground passage began to transform into smaller Wendigos and swarm toward them.
"I was told not to use necromancy… but in a situation like this, there's no other choice!"
As the situation grew dire, Scott MacGreen formed a hand seal and stomped on the ground.
"Rise! From beyond death!"
His shadow followed the light cast by the glowstones, slithering across the ground and touching the corpses buried under the ice.
Sewer rats broke through the ice, rising as undead. Even if they were rats, they were about the size of small dogs—well-fed on the waste that flowed from the sewage systems. Their bloated corpses glowed with an ominous light as they trembled, filled with unholy energy.
"Go!"
Receiving Scott's magic, the undead rats darted across the ground, rushing toward the Wendigos. The Wendigos initially ignored the rats and charged toward the humans, but the moment the rats clung to them, Scott changed the hand seal and crossed his hands.
"Corpse burst!"
The rats' bodies exploded, their flesh and fluids splattering across the Wendigos.
"Necro Control!"
Scott fired black mana bullets at the Wendigos now drenched in the rats' fluids. Of the ones hit, two began to twitch and turned against their own, attacking the other Wendigos.
"Hmm. Only two controlled. For the amount of mana I used… the spell isn't working too well."
Scott gulped water from his canteen, stepping backward as he formed another hand seal.
"I warned you not to use necromancy!"
Zebeck shouted in anger, but Scott replied with a smirk.
"Oh? So I've defiled the dignity of rat death now? Because I used necromancy on some rat corpses, a holy knight of the king's church is going to get angry on the rats' behalf?"