82. Destroyer of Anger
The Hidden Quest, [Perfect Weather for Stirring Up Trouble].
The completion condition for the Hidden Quest through which I could obtain Ian’s journal was not merely to steal the Dark Merchant Company’s funds.
The fall of Violess.
‘Violess is nothing more than a stage.’
Violess was practically a city created by the Dark Merchant Company.
In other words, someone else had constructed this stage and was controlling it from behind the scenes.
The Destroyer of Anger, Iratum.
Iratum was an important, pivotal figure in the Emperor’s plan to devour the continent.
‘I have to catch him.’
Thus, after completely cleaning out the Dark Merchant Company’s funds, I quickly headed toward the place where Isolde was running rampant.
However—
‘Just how much havoc did she wreak?’
The entire Black Market had been utterly devastated.
Forget functioning as a Black Market—it had been reduced to complete ruins.
“Was she holding back when she fought me?”
....This outcome exceeded my expectations.
Even with my disruption operation, I never imagined she would destroy the Black Market to this extent.
Perhaps that was why—
“M-Monster!”
The few remaining Acatas had lost their will to fight and were trembling in fear.
“How could a mere Worshipper of an Empty Shell be this powerful...?!”
Worshippers of an Empty Shell.
That was the collective term used by the Devotees of the Fallen Souls for the priests and holy knights of the Holy Kingdom.
Strictly speaking, the god worshipped by the Holy Kingdom was not a god that truly “existed”.
It was a god created from the collective faith known as Holy Power—the ultimate form of Aura—and had merely transcended the ontological argument through that faith.
For that reason, the Devotees of the Fallen Souls referred to the believers of the Holy Kingdom as people who worshipped an “empty shell”.
In other words, they called them Worshippers of an Empty Shell.
Meanwhile, they proclaimed themselves the true believers who worshipped a genuine god.
The Monarch of the Abyss.
Regardless of whether he was truly a god, he was undeniably an entity that “existed” beyond the Negative Dimension.
“W-We can’t take any more...!”
“Run...!”
The frightened Acatas began retreating and fleeing.
Then they discovered me—
“Executor...?”
“Did you say the Executor?!”
“The Executor is here!!”
Every Acata brightened, and hope spread among them in an instant.
They were all wearing masks, so I could not see their expressions, but it was still obvious.
“It’s the Executor who mercilessly slaughtered a hundred Visters from the Black Grasp!”
“No matter how much a bastard like you struggles, you cannot defeat the Executor!”
The Acatas became triumphant, like children running to tell their parents what had happened.
Following their gazes, I turned my head and saw Isolde wearing an ogre mask.
However, golden Aura was undulating around Isolde’s entire body.
It was stripping away her human appearance—
‘Divine Ascension?’
The Divine Martial Fist created personally by Isolde.
Divine Ascension.
‘No wonder.’
I had been wondering why the Black Market had been devastated to this extent.
However, if she had used Divine Ascension, this outcome was not only understandable but inevitable.
‘Had she already been using Divine Ascension at this point?’
A monster was still a monster.
The Acatas had not been trembling in terror for no reason—
‘In that case....’
It seemed we could proceed with the plan immediately. I turned toward the Acatas and asked,
“Where did you move the slaves?”
“We moved them to the Scrap-Iron Zone!”
The Scrap-Iron Zone was a dumping ground where resources discarded by Violess were thrown away.
It was located outside the city of Violess.
Since people rarely visited the region, it was used by the Dark Merchant Company to conduct secret experiments and rituals.
It was also used to conceal various illegal drugs and weapons. In other words, the civilians’ safety had been sufficiently secured.
The impoverished residents of Violess had probably evacuated on their own because of the Visters’ rampage as well.
“Do you know something?”
As if signaling Isolde, I said,
“Dead men tell no tales.”
Rip!
I immediately turned around and tore out an Acata’s heart—
And Isolde charged forward without the slightest hesitation.
Isolde’s physical capabilities had transcended their limits through Divine Ascension.
Her speed was so great that even my sense of agility could not track her movements.
“H-Huh...?”
“What’s happening...?”
Perhaps because of that, the Acatas still had no idea what was happening.
Together with Isolde, I swiftly eliminated the Acatas one after another.
When only the final Acata remained—
His eyes, visible through his mask, were trembling violently.
“Y-You couldn’t possibly...!”
Apparently, this truly was the reason.
“You deceived usssss!!!!!”
It explained why the Imperial soldiers in my previous life had ground their teeth whenever they saw me.
The Acata trembled with rage after realizing I was not Avarus.
The gaze he now directed at me was filled with a profound sense of betrayal.
“Do you think you will escape unharmed after doing this?! Do you not fear the heavens?!”
He was truly shameless beyond belief.
Experiments, torture, exploitation, abuse, assault, plunder, massacres, and countless other atrocities.
Considering everything they had done to innocent people, he had no right to say such a thing.
Therefore—
“Your logic is garbage.”
Well, they were already insane, so expecting them to speak logically was pointless.
“I am not the one who should fear the heavens. You are.”
Rip!
I tore out his heart with Dragon’s Claw [A].
When the final Acata collapsed—
Isolde removed the ogre mask she had been wearing.
At that moment, Isolde staggered.
The golden Aura that had been stripping away her human appearance was no longer visible.
Fortunately, she barely regained her balance before collapsing.
“Haa...! Haa...!”
She looked dangerously unstable.
Hot breath continuously poured from her mouth as she breathed heavily, and blood she had failed to swallow trickled down the corner of her lips.
Divine Martial Fist, Isolde Style - Divine Ascension.
This technique operated through the same mechanism as Metabolic Overdrive [U].
However, regarding performance, it was a superior version of Metabolic Overdrive [U].
To express it childishly, it was an extremely, overwhelmingly superior version.
That was because Divine Ascension drove not only the endocrine system into overdrive but also every individual muscle fiber and nerve cell.
Through this, Divine Ascension allowed its user to “transcend” the limits of humanity, but it also placed an equally tremendous burden on the body.
What if someone with an ordinary human body used it?
Their entire body would explode the instant they activated it.
In other words, it was a technique that could only be used because Isolde’s body had practically been forged from Holy Power.
Even the Saintesses and Saints of previous generations would have struggled to use it.
That was how severe the overload caused by Divine Martial Fist—Isolde Style, Divine Ascension—was.
At present, all of Isolde’s muscle fibers had been severed, and every one of her nerve cells had ruptured.
Her body was, quite literally, completely wrecked.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m….fine.”
Isolde answered with difficulty.
Perhaps it was because of her lack of proficiency in Divine Martial Fist and because the technique was still incomplete, but she could not easily recover from the backlash caused by the physical overload.
I wanted to give Isolde enough time to recover, but—
“Contrary to our expectations, the Crimson Soiree did not make a move.”
Unfortunately, we did not have much time.
“You mean....”
“The Black Grasp and the Vister alliance alone will not be enough to drive out the Dark Merchant Company.”
“Then what should I do now?”
Isolde spoke after swallowing her ragged breath.
Her body had yet to recover fully.
Nevertheless, she looked at me as if asking me only to give her an order. She paid no attention whatsoever to her own safety.
In that regard, she was no different from how she had been in my previous life.
However, the person issuing the orders had been the other way around back then—
‘This feels strange.’
“....A report will have already been sent.”
“Ah.”
....This truly felt rather strange.
“At present, we cannot determine the Crimson Soiree’s precise intentions. Do you have any way to contact the Eye of the Pilgrim?”
The Eye of the Pilgrim.
It was the Holy Kingdom’s Secret Order of Knights, which monitored the activities of external heretical forces and anti-religious organizations while gathering intelligence.
Its members were spread throughout the continent and tasked with identifying and eliminating threats to the Holy Kingdom in advance.
Apparently, the Eye of the Pilgrim had been monitoring the Lawless City.
Then again, Isolde had previously said that she had learned of my presence in the Lawless City through the Eye of the Pilgrim.
Violess had now been thrown into complete chaos. There was no possibility that they remained unaware of the situation.
Ordinarily, they would have observed the situation or waited to see how events developed, but—
“The fact that I’m here will have been reported as well.”
The situation was different if Isolde was in Violess.
There was no possibility that they would abandon the princess of the Holy Kingdom in this chaotic city.
This presented one advantage and one disadvantage.
The advantage was that we did not need to take any additional measures. The disadvantage was that we now had even less time.
“I’ll explain everything later.”
“Can you use Divine Ascension again?”
“How do you know about it?”
....Damn.
Divine Martial Fist consisted of martial arts created by the Saintesses and Saints of previous generations, but Divine Ascension was a technique that Isolde had created “personally”.
Moreover, it was still incomplete.
It had been a completed technique in my previous life, and I had witnessed it countless times, but that had only been in my previous life.
Now that I had returned to the past, nobody other than Isolde should have known about it.
Because the situation was urgent, the words had slipped out without me realizing it.
Perhaps because of that, Isolde stared directly at me. Her eyes shone like topaz, but suspicion had settled within them.
In other words, her gaze demanded a reasonable explanation from me.
“It is complicated to explain. We do not have enough time for me to explain everything one detail at a time.”
It was a somewhat forced excuse, but I had no other choice. Still, perhaps she had come to trust me to some extent.
“I think I can use it one more time.”
Fortunately, she appeared willing to overlook it for now. I inwardly sighed in relief and immediately organized my thoughts.
‘We have to move quickly.’
Especially now that Isolde’s presence here had become known, the Holy Kingdom would either dispatch an army or take some other form of action.
And once the Holy Kingdom moved—
Iratum would decisively abandon Violess and conceal his whereabouts.
There would be no telling where he might appear next or what schemes he might devise.
Therefore, we could not allow him to escape.
“The man currently ruling Violess from behind the scenes is called ‘Iratum’. He is currently in the Ruins District.”
I took oil from my Inventory, poured it down my throat, and swallowed.
The final diversionary operation.
“I’ll deceive him and wait for an opportunity. Lady Isolde, please draw his attention.”
A decision to drink the Dragon’s Poison.
* * *
No matter how much Iratum thought about it, he could not understand the current situation.
Rumble-rumble-rumble—Boom!!
Even at that very moment, the chaos in Violess continued.
“These bastards, seriously!!”
His anger finally exploded.
Just as Iratum could no longer tolerate it and prepared to intervene personally—
“Lord Iratum...!”
Had there finally been an Acata with some common sense?
Someone called out to Iratum. When he turned toward the voice—
“...Avarus?”
Avarus was there.
Furthermore, he was covered in blood and limping.
For a moment, Iratum’s cognitive abilities plunged into the furthest depths of the abyss.
“Cough!”
Avarus suddenly coughed up blood in apparent agony.
Iratum momentarily regained his senses, but then—
“You must….escape...!”
What was that supposed to mean?
Iratum had no idea which development he was supposed to respond to.
However, Avarus was not merely covered in blood—he was also coughing it up.
Judging from his condition, something extremely serious had clearly occurred.
And precisely then—
Something shot toward Iratum at tremendous speed.
He hurriedly dodged.
KABOOOOOM!!
The spot where Iratum had been standing moments earlier exploded, producing a dense cloud of dust.
The dust cloud soon settled, revealing someone standing beyond it.
An unidentified figure wearing an ogre mask.
However, an extraordinary energy could be felt emanating from the figure.
Iratum immediately understood.
The cause of all the unrest that had consumed Violess.
The reason the Acatas sent to investigate the situation had vanished without a trace, like offerings cast into the abyss.
And finally, the cause of Avarus’s current condition.
“....It was you.”
It had all been caused by that figure wearing the ogre mask.
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