This chapter was sponsored generously by: Michael O. ($5) Felix H. ($20) Marc K. ($10) Christopher S. ($25) Arnold A. ($10) HiddenStorm ($100) James F. ($10) Kevin M. ($20) Joshua C. ($1) Joseph T. ($2) Jeff H. ($50)
A celebratory parade was held two days after the victory over the rampaging monster horde and the mysterious bandits.
In ordinary circumstances, such a parade would be held on the day of the victory, but nothing about that battle had been ordinary – that was how significant a battle it was for the city of Morksi.
In the end, the only deaths were those of the bandits and a few who had been too late to escape from the forest. Many had been injured, but none had suffered any permanent injuries. Considering that there had been Rank 8 Thunder Dragons and Mountain Giants among the enemies, it might have been one of the victories with the least casualties in all of history.
But upon hearing of the size and power of the monster horde closing in on the city, everyone – including Earl Isaac Morksi, the city’s lord – had been certain that the city would be destroyed. Thus, a messenger on a fast horse had been sent to Duke Alcrem and the nobles who governed the surrounding regions before the battle began.
The messengers had carried letters containing news of the powerful monster horde assaulting the city, that the city would likely fall, and that losses needed to be minimized. They had also contained a request for the refugees to be treated warmly.
On top of that, the messengers had called out to all of the merchants and travelers they rode by, shouting and warning them that the city of Morksi was under attack – in order to prevent them from unknowingly heading towards the city and being attacked by the monster horde.
Like the earl, the Commerce, Mages’, Adventurers’ and Tamers’ Guilds had used various ways to contact other Guild branches.
After the long battle, the earl and the Guilds’ leaders were swamped with the task of sending out the message that the city was safe.
At the same time, the bandits’ corpses and belongings were also examined.
The bandits were the two people that had appeared at the front gate, the ten or so that had attacked Vandalieu, and the one that had fought against the ‘Starving Wolf’ Michael – Miles – in the forest.
Ordinarily, an investigation into the identities of bandits would not have so much effort poured into it. Such an investigation would merely check whether they had bounties on their heads, confirm whether or not there were any other bandits with them, examine their faces and belongings, and interrogate them to see what they knew. It would not go as far as to conduct an autopsy on their corpses.
But to the Earl and the others in the city, these bandits – Hajime Fitun, his subordinates, and Murakami’s group – were no ordinary bandits.
The peculiarity of their actions didn’t need to be stated, and the strangest thing about them was their strength.
The Tamer woman and the young mage that had appeared at the front gate had been far too powerful to imagine that they were mere criminals. The same was true for the bandits that had attacked Vandalieu, who had been witnessed from the watchtowers and whose battle had even been heard from the front gate. The one that Miles had defeated in the forest, judging from the state of the forest afterwards, had likely been as powerful as a B-class… or possibly even A-class adventurer.
A part of the grassy area had been turned into a patch of burnt land, and as trees had been felled by the shockwaves produced during the battle, the forest now had a small clearing in it.
No matter how one looked at it, this was not the kind of strength that any bandit should possess. Their actions had indeed been peculiar, but there was enough information to suspect that there was some unknown power making a move behind the scenes.
Vandalieu’s group and Miles had repelled such bandits; their power was also far from ordinary, but… the earl had already suspected that they were no ordinary people, and more importantly, they were the ones who had been attacked by the bandits and fought to protect the city.
Thus, the earl had decided to leave Vandalieu and his companions alone for now in order to prioritize a detailed investigation into the bandits.
He would have liked to interrogate the bandits themselves, but as all of them were dead, only autopsies could be conducted on the corpses.
The ones conducting it were the mages employed by the earl’s house, mages and alchemists from the Mages’ Guild, and some individuals selected from among the priests of the Communal Church.
This was a different procedure from Earth and Origin’s forensic science, but all of them were well versed in the structure of the human body.
“This is strange. Are these really the corpses of bandits? They’re like the corpses of sick people on the verge of death, or elderly people. And yet, there is a vast amount of Mana left in their body structures. That’s true not only for the mages, but for the front-line fighters and shield-bearers who would normally tend to have relatively little Mana,” one of the mages murmured.
“Their muscles and tendons are in pieces, their bones are brittle, their cartilage is worn down, and several of their organs were on the verge of failure. And the insides of their skulls are covered in blood, possibly because of the rupture of small blood vessels,” Priestess Paula observed. “These people weren’t just half-dead; they were nearly completely dead.”
The results of the autopsy: The majority of the bandits had already been in a near-dead state at the time of their deaths.
“There are records of autopsies finding people in this state –berserkers who repeatedly used ‘Surpass Limits’ or ‘Transcend Limits.’ But even if the front-line fighters did this, why are even the mages from the back-lines in this state?” another mage muttered.
“… I have heard one story, a long time ago. A hero, beloved by a certain god, was willing to give up his life to defeat a powerful Majin. He prayed to the god – requesting that he send a being too powerful for himself to handle,” said Priestess Paula. “The records didn’t say whether the being that descended upon him was a heroic spirit or a spirit clone of the god himself. However, these corpses are in the same state as that of the hero.”
The autopsy-conductors listened to Priestess Paula intently. Many of them had been present at the battle at the front gate, and they had seen the bodies of the Tamer woman and the mage glowing faintly.
No pillars of light like the ones produced by familiar spirits and heroic spirits’ descents had been witnessed around the city of Morksi since Darcia’s use of ‘Familiar Spirit Descent.’ However, the bandits had been so powerful that it wouldn’t be strange to think that a god’s subordinates had descended upon them.
And one of the bandits, the ex-‘Strong Arm’ Gordon, was a C-class adventurer who had been seen in the city of Morksi not too long ago. At that time, he had not possessed any more strength than a C-class adventurer should. It was difficult to imagine that he had somehow acquired strength rivalling that of a B-class or A-class adventurer within such a short period of time, so if this really was Gordon, the only conclusion was that he had borrowed some other being’s power.
Murakami and Akira’s corpses had suffered little damage other than the wounds that had caused their deaths, but the rest of the bandits showing these signs could not be ignored.
Just then, the alchemists that had been examining the bandits’ equipment came with a report that would support the findings of Priestess Paula and the others.
“Orichalcum! Orichalcum weapons were being used by the bandits! And the most fascinating thing – these Mythril and Adamantite weapons that have been plated with Orichalcum!” one of the alchemists said. “All of them are new… They were created less than a year ago!”
It had been discovered that there were Orichalcum weapons among the bandits’ equipment – ones that had been created within a year ago, no less.
Orichalcum didn’t occur naturally; it was the metal that stood at the top of the hierarchy of magical metals, and it was said that it could only be refined by the gods.
That would mean that the gods had created these weapons and given them to the bandits. These weapons were proof that the bandits had the support of the gods.
“D-D-Demon King equipment! There is no mistake! Thirty years ago, I once conducted research in how to seal away fragments of the Demon King. During that research, I once saw real Demon King equipment! This equipment is different from the equipment I saw back then, but it is certainly Demon King equipment!” another alchemist announced.
The continuing report made not only the priests, but the knights present as well, almost lose their composure.
“There were reports that these swords mysteriously grew their blades back no matter how many times they were broken, but to think that they were Demon King equipment!” one of the priests murmured.
“Priests! Quickly! You must seal them away at once!” the second alchemist cried.
Demon King equipment was equipment crafted from sealed fragments of the Demon King so that they could be used as weapons. Seals upon such equipment were, by their nature, weaker in effect than the seals used before they were crafted into weapons.
With that said, the seals were still not easily broken, but… the terrifying nature of Demon King fragments was well-known, especially in recent times, where there had been multiple instances of fragments’ seals coming undone and rampaging out of control.
“Seal them away, you say, but the fragments used in the equipment are already sealed! It is not a simple matter for us to take any further steps than that,” said Priestess Paula.
“Ordinarily, we would be able to do nothing beyond storing them within an Orichalcum or Orichalcum-lined container in a chamber blessed by the gods,” said another priest. “But that is impossible, as the Communal Church does not have facilities of such a scale.”
“Then where are such facilities?!” the alchemist demanded.
“If I recall, the closest is the Church of Alda, the Church of Fitun and the Church of Ricklent in Alcrem City…” the priest replied.
“Out of those, we don’t know what’s going on with the Church of Fitun,” said Priestess Paula.
The statue of Fitun at the Communal Church of Morksi had cracked during the battle against the monsters. And the priest of Fitun, who had joined Priestess Paula and the others in providing support for the soldiers, had suddenly lost consciousness despite not having used up all of his Mana. He remained unconscious even now.
If it was just the priest fainting, it could be assumed that it was just a personal health problem, but… the statue had cracked at the same time. It was only natural for the leaders of the Communal Church, the earl and everyone else to link this incident with the one that had occurred just the previous month – the incident in which the tome held by the statue of Alda crumbled and the priest of Alda lost consciousness.
“Very well. For now, let us report our findings of the equipment to Duke Alcrem and ask for support so that we may store it safely. Until that support arrives, our knights’ order will watch over the equipment twenty-four hours a day to ensure that nobody comes near it,” said one of the knights.
“In that case, we will investigate the source of the equipment. The Demon King’s equipment is created by mortal hands altering the seal on the fragments. Due to their nature, it is impossible to discover them in Dungeons,” said Priestess Paula. “They are even rarer than Orichalcum equipment. Asking every Church and Mages’ Guild will likely reveal where this equipment was taken from.”
“There is a possibility that they excavated them from some ruins, or perhaps they belonged to some secret military force or an evil god’s cult. But even so, we must investigate,” said one of the mages.
“Very well. All that is left is the questioning of the people who fought against these bandits, but… the earl will be attending, and it will be conducted with limited people, so that will happen later,” said another.
Generally, questioning was carried out by city guards and Adventurers’ Guild employees. But in this case, the city’s highest-ranked authority was attending, and only a limited number of people would be involved.
This was proof that the earl and his advisors suspected that Vandalieu and his companions would speak truths that could not be made public.
Having entrusted the Demon King fragment he acquired in the Minotaur King’s nest to the Church of Ricklent, Randolf ‘the True’ immediately left the Alcrem Duchy and returned to the center of the Orbaume Kingdom – the royal domain.
This was the domain that was under the direct rule of the king, who was elected from among all of the duchies in an election that took place once every ten years. But in reality, it was the realm of the marquises and earls that served the king.
There were many nobles that one needed to be wary of in the royal domain, such as Prime Minister Tercatanis and Marshal Dolmad, but it was also a place where dukes other than the current king had little influence. That was why Randolf had kept his hideout here for the past several years.
… It would be easier to escape from interference by nobles in a remote countryside, but that would make gathering information difficult. If he lived in such a place, it was entirely possible that the country could be on the verge of annihilation by the time he received word of any of the events leading up to it.
Information was necessary in order for Randolf to stand up in times of national crisis and prevent or avoid disaster. And receiving news more quickly would likely give him more time to save not only himself, but his friends and acquaintances as well.
And right now, Randolf was eating at an ordinary bar.
But he was not in the mood to enjoy a peaceful meal.
“First, the god of records, and now the god of thunderclouds as well. The Vampire organization that served the evil god of joyful life seems to have been annihilated as well, so it’s not clear what became of that evil god… What am I supposed to do when something could happen to the gods before the kingdom faces any threat of destruction?” he muttered to himself.
It had been a long time since Randolf stopped praying to the gods. But even so, when statues of Fitun crumbled, the high priest of the Church of Fitun lost consciousness in the middle of a sermon and other priests and holy figures collapsed one after another, news of it would find its way to his ears.
And even though this information had found its way to his ears, it was difficult to say that he had an accurate understanding of the situation. What he did know was that significant events were taking place one after another in places that were beyond his reach.
Even if an event took place that resulted in the destruction of the kingdom, Randolf was confident that he would survive. But even he did not have the same confidence if it was an event that caused something to happen to the gods… a global crisis whose only precedents were the war against the army led by the Demon King Guduranis, and the battle between Alda and Vida.
He could escape from the Bahn Gaia continent, but he could not escape from this world.
Randolf felt something of a resentment towards himself for being able to imagine the seriousness of the situation.
He had never imagined that he would see the day where he would feel envious of the bar patrons who were laughing without a care in the world, saying that the priests were old, or that the Church’s kitchen must have used ingredients that had gone off, or that Fitun’s statue had crumbled because the offerings made to him had been rotten as well.
“… If I had stayed in that city, I might have learned something,” Randolf murmured to himself.
He had not stopped in the city of Morksi; he had simply left Natania and Juliana in the care of the one-armed man who had tamed a Hellhound, then left with the sealed fragment of the Demon King that had gone berserk.
He did not know the fine details of the events that had occurred afterwards, but… what did reach his ears was all stories that sounded like nothing more than idle gossip.
According to these stories, a Dark Elf priestess had summoned a familiar spirit of Vida in a city called Morksi in the Alcrem Duchy.
A Deputy Guild Master of the Commerce Guild had tried to set up an ambush for that Dark Elf by hiring corrupt city guards, and he had been punished by knights serving the earl.
A Dhampir food cart owner had begun selling Goblin and Kobold meat from food carts across the city of Morksi, and to everyone’s astonishment, they were selling incredibly well.
There was a Dhampir with an incredible mastery over taming, and he had tamed strange and previously undiscovered races of monsters one after another.
Randolf thought that at least half of these rumors were false. But he believed that the other half was true – especially the last rumor.
“It seems to be a fact that there is a Dhampir in Morksi. And the hellhound that I saw… The man I saw that time was a human, not a Dhampir, but I might have been too hasty to jump to conclusions,” Randolf said, continuing to talk to himself..
Perhaps the one-armed man was just an acquaintance of the Tamer, and the real Tamer was a Dhampir who had not been there at the time.
But even so, there was no proof that this Dhampir was involved in the events that had occurred recently. Even if he was a member of a scarce race and was blessed with talent, he wasn’t the center of the world.
But there was one thing that Randolf was sure of.
“Now that I think about it, the Demon King fragment might have reacted back then because that Dhampir was about to return to his familiar,” he murmured to himself.
Back then, the Demon King fragment had become quiet again as soon as Randolf gained distance from the city. And during the time it had taken him to take it to the Church of Ricklent, the seal on the fragment had not threatened to break, and the fragment itself had made no further noise.
Randolf suspected that the fragment almost going out of control was not because the seal had weakened. Perhaps there was something in that city… something that the Demon King fragment longed for so much that it had affected the seal.
Perhaps it was the Dhampir who was spoken of in the rumors. And although Demon King fragment rampages had previously only occurred perhaps once every few centuries, Demon King fragments had been rampaging frequently in recent days with a goal that they were trying to achieve.
That goal could only be the Demon King’s resurrection.
“The only thing I can think of is that this Dhampir is the ‘Demon King’s core,’ or he has been infested by the ‘main body’ or a fragment that is classified as such… although this theory only holds up assuming that such a fragment, which has never been heard of, even exists,” Randolf muttered.
Fragments of the Demon King would seek out other fragments, fuse with them and attempt to resurrect the Demon King. This information had been known and passed down for tens of thousands of years before Randolf was born. A fragment would not care what body part of Guduranis another fragment originated from – as long as they were fragments, they would try to fuse.
Whether it was the heart or the pinky finger, fragments would not prioritize one fragment over another. Randolf had never heard of fragments trying to gather at the location of a specific fragment.
Thus, it was highly likely that a ‘core’ fragment didn’t exist. Even if it did, it would have been sealed away by the gods themselves, rather than sealed away inside a Church – just like the Demon King’s soul.
“If that’s the case, there’s no reason for me to be in a rush to act, but…”
The Dhampir himself may be the Demon King’s main body, Randolf thought, finishing his own sentence silently in his head.
Whether this conclusion was correct or not, even though he was using spiritual magic to ensure that his muttering under his breath to himself could not be heard by those around him, these words were not words to be spoken aloud lightly.
“Fortunately, I no longer have the fragment. I guess I’ll do some investigating myself,” Randolf decided.
Even he could not abandon the world if it was in danger.
Leaving the payment for his meal on the table, Randolf stood up out of his seat to go and make preparations for his journey.
The parade was a magnificent one. As a band played music for the parade, the one walking at the front of it was… not Vandalieu, but Darcia.
She was followed by Zadiris and Basdia, and Vandalieu and Miles were behind them, walking alongside Simon, Natania, Kanako, Melissa, Doug, Fang and the rats.
“Ah, it’s the ‘Holy Mother of Victory!’”
“Holy-Mother-sama! Thanks to you, my husband came home safe! Thank you very much!”
“So, that is the ‘Holy Mother of Victory’ that people are talking about. Some people are calling her the ‘Steel Mother’ or the ‘Ferocious Mother,’ so I was wondering what kind of brave warrior she would be, but…”
“What, did you just come to this city this morning? If you go to the entertainment district, Holy-Mother-sama will always give you a smile.”
“Huh… That sounds nice. So, what’s the store’s name? And how much does it cost for a night?”
“Food carts don’t have store names, do they? And there’s always different kinds of meat skewers every day, so you’ll have to ask for the prices yourself.”
“Huh? Food cart? Meat skewers?”
Though there was a strange misunderstanding for some, most of the attention from the city’s people was on Darcia. She was the one who had performed outstandingly during the battle at the front gate to protect the city, in front of all the soldiers, adventurers, mercenaries and mages.
She had not only fought against the monsters herself, but simultaneously also strengthened her allies with enchantments and used healing magic to treat the wounded.
“The ‘Giant Slayer’ is there, too!”
“And the ‘Magic Staff Master!’ How considerate of the earl to not only let them be a part of the parade, but have them walk as a part of the leading group!”
Immediately behind Darcia was Basdia and Zadiris, who had also stirred the hearts of the knights and adventurers with their contributions to the battle at the front gate.
Zadiris, who had defeated monsters with spells even more advanced than those of the mages of the Mages’ Guild, and Basdia, who had cut down the Giant that had been created by one of the bandits.
Their actions in the battle were known not only by those who had been a part of the battle, but almost every single person living in the city of Morksi.
Bards had already written songs about their feats.
Naturally, there had been some who disapproved of Darcia, a Dark Elf, and Zadiris and Basdia, who were Ghouls, leading the parade.
To be more precise, even if having Darcia at the front was unavoidable, the Ghouls should be in a less conspicuous part of the parade. At the very least, they should not be walking in front of the knights’ order. These were the claims made by several of the earl’s vassals.
Earl Morksi had political enemies. With this parade, he was showing that he valued Ghouls – creatures that were considered monsters in the Orbaume Kingdom – more highly than the very knights that served his house. Would this not be a weakness that those political enemies could exploit?
That was what the vassals had been apprehensive about.
But the knights themselves had insisted that their pride as knights would not allow them to march in the parade in front of Basdia and Zadiris, and if they were to be ordered to do so, they would rather create an excuse of being in poor health and refrain from participating in the parade altogether. And thus, the opposing vassals had been left with no choice but to fall silent.
“The ‘Flying Sword’ Simon and ‘Iron Cat’ Natania are there, too. I had Simon in my party for a commission once, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah. The punchline is that it was when you were doing a day job to clear some weeds, right? I’ve heard this one already.”
“That running that Natania did, that wasn’t humanly possible. Her teamwork with the rat monsters was mesmerizing.”
“Hey, hasn’t that Hellhound become kind of huge? And those rat monsters look a bit different as well…”
“Their Ranks probably increased. It was apparently a fierce battle, after all. All of the people who took part in the battle apparently changed Jobs afterwards.”
“They got that many Experience Points?!”
“Yeah, my buddy was happy that he’d overcome his growth barrier. I mean, there was a countless number of Rank 5 and 6 monsters, as well as Dragons and Giants.”
“That’s amazing. There won’t be any more D-class adventurers left in this city, right? They’ll all be promoted.”
“No, I wouldn’t go that far, but… there might be more C-class adventurers.”
It could be said that the city’s ability to defend itself had increased a considerable amount. The knights and city guards hadn’t been very powerful before the battle; their increase in strength was a particularly significant improvement for the city’s security.
With that said, the knights’ order and city guards had become so much stronger that they would be able to defend another monster rampage of a similar scale on their own.
Meanwhile, the people of the city didn’t have much of an impression on the others among the group at the front of the parade.
“Hey, that man is the ‘Starving Wolf’ Michael, right? Why is he walking at the front of the parade? I know that Starving Wolf Security are doing pretty well, but even if you wanted to publicly acknowledge that, there’s no need for him to be at the front…”
“And that Dhampir, Vandalieu, if I recall correctly. Holy-Mother-sama performed wonderfully during the battle, but isn’t he riding on his mother’s coat-tails a little too much?”
“And that Dark Elf, Elf and the dark-skinned guy – who are they?”
Vandalieu and the others had not fought in the battle at the front gate, and only two guards at the watchtowers had witnessed their battle – and even they had only seen it from a distance. Thus, the average person didn’t have much of an impression regarding their feats.
Thus, although Vandalieu had defeated Hajime Fitun, the enemy’s leader, the feats of Darcia and the others were more well-known and highly praised.
“I’m proud that Mother, Zadiris, Basdia, my apprentices and my companions are being so highly praised,” said Vandalieu.
He didn’t mind this at all. In fact, he was proud of it.
“… Well, I didn’t expect you to be concerned about the little details, but doesn’t it bother you? I am, a little. If I could, I’d love to slip out without anyone noticing me,” said Doug.
People in the crowd were pointing at him and murmuring, “Who is that guy?” amongst themselves.
Doug had no doubt that Vandalieu was unconcerned when it came to public recognition of his achievements. He had known how Vandalieu would be treated, given the fact that he was keeping silent about the fact that Hajime Fitun was no mere bandit, but an incarnation of the god of thunderclouds himself.
And if Vandalieu wanted to make a name for himself, he could achieve as many things as he put his mind to. He could show off a return journey to the Demon Continent that he had reached long ago, show off and clear the Orbaume Kingdom’s A-class Dungeon on his own… or if he wanted something closer and more easily accessible, he could look for the Dungeon that was likely, in the forest, the one that the monster rampage had originated from, and clear that. Vandalieu could easily make history by achieving any of these incredible feats.
What Doug was bothered about was the fact that he was being exposed to the gaze of others. Though their gazes contained no disdain, their looks of confusion being directed at him wasn’t particularly pleasant.
“It’s alright. You’ll receive more praise over time,” said Vandalieu, indicating with his eyes that Doug should look at the crowd.
“You don’t know who they are? There were bandits at the front gate, right? Those bandits’ buddies were outside the city as well, and these guys fought them.”
“My little brother’s a city guard, and he told me they’re amazing. He was talking about how that kid blocked a spell that a bandit sent towards the city.”
It was already well-known that most of the bandits had been as powerful as B-class or A-class adventurers. It was likely that the ones at the front gate had been equivalent to A-class, while the others were B-class.
This was false information leaked by the earl and his vassals, but even being as powerful as B-class adventurers didn’t change the fact that they had posed a huge threat to the city.
“That kid did that?!”
“From what I heard, it was a completely defensive battle. They kept their distance, threw things at each other and used Magic Items to shoot beams of light.”
“I’m sure it was those three that did most of the fighting. Those girls can apparently do ‘that’ thing, like Holy-Mother-sama.”
“Are you serious?! It’s actually my dream to see those girls doing ‘that!’ I hope they’ll do it for us today!”
“My son, too. And according to what I’ve heard, the earl’s son is a fan, too. I’m sure they’ll do it for us in the central plaza.”
“More importantly, the staff and axe needed for ‘that’ can apparently only be made by that ‘Food Cart King’ Vandalieu. According to the rumors, there’s some secret manufacturing method or some Unique Skill involved.”
“… This isn’t all that relevant, but everyone around that ‘Genius Tamer’ has one, don’t they?”
“I also heard that he used some kind of poison on some of the Dragons and Giants to confuse them. He might not have fought, but there’s no mistake that he helped protect the city.”
“To begin with, it’s that boy who’s tamed the ‘Giant Slayer’ and ‘Magic Staff Master.’ He’s the one who trained the ‘Iron Arm’ and ‘Iron Cat,’ too.”
People here and there in the crowd could be heard murmuring to themselves, talking about Vandalieu and his companions. And there were other voices, praising Doug, Kanako, Melissa and Michael (Miles) as well.
“… Information really does spread, even without social media,” Doug muttered.
“Of course it does. Don’t underestimate how much we spread the story when we opened the store in the plaza the day before yesterday and in the entertainment district yesterday,” said Kanako, still smiling and waving at the crowd.
“We even ended up transforming, too… Thanks to that, I don’t remember how many times the customers asked the same question over and over,” said Melissa, sounding rather tired.
Kanako and Melissa hadn’t done any information manipulation. They had simply been approachable workers working at a food cart in a place that people could easily go to, and the curious customers had simply asked their questions. All Kanako and Melissa had done was answer those questions.
And as the parade reached the central plaza, Earl Isaac Morksi, the city’s high-ranking officials and the masters of each Guild welcomed them.
“Okay everyone, here we go!” said Darcia.
“… Very well. It cannot be helped,” muttered Zadiris.
“This is depressing,” said Melissa.
“… I am a little ashamed,” said Simon.
“Isn’t the color of our hair a little different?” asked Natania.
“That doesn’t matter! Let’s go, all at the same time!” said Darcia.
“Transform!” the five of them shouted in unison, taking off their outermost layer of clothes and holding their equipment in the air.
The liquid metal of their equipment separated from them like Slimes, and in the same manner, Simon and Natania’s artificial limbs changed shape as well.
A deafening cheer echoed from the crowd, and the knights and soldiers all fanatically praised their majestic figures.
“… What an incredible sight. Is it like this on Earth and in Origin as well?” asked Miles.
“The kids might be like this, but I don’t think the adults would be,” said Doug.
“As the creator of their equipment, I am very proud,” said Vandalieu.
Though Darcia and the others had transformed, they did not give a sermon (concert). Earl Morksi waited for the crowd to quiet down, then began his public speech to them.
The day before the parade.
The questioning conducted by Earl Isaac Morksi, the leader of the knights’ order and a few high-ranking officials was not conducted in one-on-one sessions, but with everyone gathered in one place.
This was a way for the earl and his retainers, the side doing the questioning, to implicitly show that they had no intention of forcing information out of Vandalieu and his companions.
In response, Vandalieu had told them everything that he did not mind telling them.
He did not speak of the physical incarnations of the heroic spirits and the god, nor did he speak about his own true identity.
Regarding the strange events witnessed from the watchtowers… Vandalieu told them that the explosions were created by Magic Items crafted through alchemy, that the beams of light were a function of his staff, that the whip-like object he had used in battle was a whip that he had hidden up his sleeve, and that him appearing to be cut down by the bandits multiple times and later being unharmed other than his clothes being damaged was nothing more than an optical illusion.
Kanako’s ‘Venus’ hadn’t been noticed at all, so she could simply play dumb. Doug lied that his ‘Hecatoncheir’ was an efficient way of using ‘Telekinesis’ that his family had researched over generations, while Melissa stated that her ‘Aegis’ was simply a barrier created by magic.
Isis seemed to have been crushed by the Giant but later emerged unharmed; she gave the explanation that she had fortunately avoided a direct hit but lost consciousness from the impact. As for her not being visible from the watchtower, she must have been in the shadow of some other object.
As for who they were, there were no deep suspicions, as they had already passed through the city’s gates before. Kanako, Melissa and Doug were adventurers, while Isis was just a wandering traveler. All of them were being treated as acquaintances of Vandalieu and Darcia.
… If they were to question the city guards in detail, the earl and his retainers would have learned that these people had not been through the front gate on the day of the battle. But they did not doubt the story that Kanako had left the city to fetch Vandalieu during the chaos at the gate after learning that there was a horde of monsters approaching the city.
As for Kimberley, Vandalieu told the earl and his retainers that he was an adventure who had happened to be passing by, assisting in the battle with wind-attribute enchantments and then going off somewhere without entering the city. As for Orbia, who had appeared momentarily, Vandalieu gave the explanation that had been decided upon beforehand: “That was a highly secret spell cast on me by the great elder of the hidden Dark Elf village. I’m not familiar with the details.”
Most of this information was lies, but Vandalieu answered in considerable length regarding the bandits. He told the earl that the enemies had called themselves heroic spirits of Fitun, and that the heroic spirits had descended upon this world. He also gave accurate answers about the names of the martial skills and spells they used.
Vandalieu also told the earl that they had been aiming to take his life.
“I see… It seems that these bandits were heroes that Fitun, the god of thunderclouds, had chosen and granted his divine protection and heroic spirits. The monster rampage may also have been caused by that god, but… we cannot say that much for sure,” the earl concluded after listening to all of this, a worn-out expression on his face. “I have received word that statues of the god Fitun have cracked and his priests have lost consciousness, all across the land. It is likely that he was punished by Alda for this incident, or that something happened to him after his heroes were defeated… In any case, I can scarcely believe that he was able to nurture Gordon, a C-class adventurer, and the Flame Blades, a group of D-class adventurers, to the point that they could serve as vessels for heroic spirits in such a short period of time. Even though their bodies were ultimately unable to withstand this and perished, it is terrifying to think about.”
The identities of Gordon, who had recently visited Morksi, and the Flame Blades, who had been active in a nearby city, were known. But the identities of the other bandits had not yet been determined.
Perhaps having left them somewhere, Murakami’s group hadn’t been carrying their Adventurers’ Guild Cards, and even Vandalieu and his companions didn’t know the identities of the original owners of the bodies used by the two heroic spirits at the front gate or Kizelbyne.
But as Hajime and the other reincarnated individuals had registered at the Adventurers’ Guild, their identities would eventually be discovered… The ‘Sylphid’ Misa Anderson would be more difficult to identify, as her body had been in vapor form from the very beginning, so nobody had seen her at all and she had left no corpse behind. But since the earl and his retainers didn’t know of her existence in the first place, it was unlikely to become a problem.
Isaac let out a deep sigh.
“I don’t think they would be able to do the same thing again, my lord,” said Vandalieu, in a tone fitting for someone speaking to an important figure.
“What proof have you of that?” Isaac asked.
“The bandit named Hajime that I fought said that Gordon and the others became stronger because of him. Though this is but a conjecture, I believe that he possessed some kind of special Unique Skill, and perhaps it was this that allowed him to produce such improvement in Gordon and the others in such a short period of time,” Vandalieu explained, leaving out the details around ‘Marionette’ and simply explaining it as a Unique Skill.
“I see, a Unique Skill,” the Earl murmured with a nod, seemingly satisfied by this explanation. “At the very least, it seems that such events will not happen again today or tomorrow… Well then, Vandalieu Zakkart and his companions. I am very grateful for your valuable testimony and information. Let us maintain friendly relations moving forward,” he said, reaching out towards Vandalieu to shake his hand.
As he listened to the earl’s speech, Miles thought back to yesterday’s questioning. “I was sure he would tell us to get out of the city. ‘Maintain friendly relations,’ huh?” he murmured.
The bandits… it had been almost fully confirmed that they were heroes serving Fitun, and that they were after Vandalieu’s life. In other words, the earl was aware that Vandalieu being in the city was the cause of the events that had taken place two days ago.
With that being the case, Miles had expected the earl to banish them from the city, but he could not have been more wrong.
“I am sure he considered it, but I suppose he realized that it would have been meaningless to do so,” said Zadiris.
“He is already aware that this city can be used as a hostage against Van. With that being the case, there’s no saying that the ‘enemy’ won’t target this city even after they exile us,” said Basdia.
“So that’s why he wants Master to remain as his ally rather than exile all of us… Noblemen’s thoughts are complicated,” said Natania with a frown.
“I think he had the city’s people in mind. And maybe he thought that it would make no difference whether we’re here or not,” said Darcia.
Vandalieu and his companions had been accepted by the city of Morksi before it was attacked. Vandalieu’s business in the entertainment district, his feats in the slums, the ‘Familiar Spirit Descent’ that Darcia had displayed at the Communal Church.
They were already famous among the people who didn’t know the truth, and their reputation had risen even further after they suppressed the monster rampage.
The number of Vida worshippers in the city had increased, and the Ghoul extermination requests had been removed from the Adventurers’ Guild’s commission board due to the voices of the adventurers and civilians.
With Vandalieu and his companions having this much popularity and fame among the people, even if they were exiled from the city, the people might think that they had simply left to prevent more enemies from targeting the city. And if they did leave the city, the city would end up being attacked again regardless.
With that being the case, the earl exiling Vandalieu and his companions would only worsen his relationship with Vandalieu and create negative emotions within his realm; nothing good would come of it.
“Still… I wonder if we can do anything about this. This is too much fame for me, I think,” Simon muttered, the corners of his mouth twitching.
“Simon, there will be another parade once we return to the empire that I rule. I think it’s best that you get used to it while you can,” Vandalieu whispered to him.
After recent events, Vandalieu had told him everything. The truth had far exceeded what Simon could have possibly imagined; he would never have even dreamed that he would be the apprentice of an emperor. But it was too late for him to be ungrateful and pretend that he didn’t know anything.
“… There’s no need for me to take part in that, is there? I’ll just be cheering for you on the side of the street, so don’t mind me…” said Simon.
“If you resist, I’ll give you a court rank and dub you Sir Simon. Or I could adopt you, and then you’d be Prince Simon,” said Vandalieu.
“Spare me, Master,” Simon sighed.
Just as this heartwarming whispered conversation between master and disciple came to an end, the earl’s speech to the crowd came to an end as well.
“Now then, I shall now present these decorations from the Morksi house of earls in recognition of your deeds,” the earl announced.
In the Orbaume Kingdom, nobles with a court rank less than duke could not grant court ranks to others, not even a single-generation noble status that could not be inherited.
Incidentally, there were also regulations on the decorations that could be granted; the highest decoration, the platinum order, could only be granted by the king. The gold order could be granted by the twelve heads of the houses of dukes, and nobles between the court rank of marquis and baron could grant the silver order.
“To the ‘Holy Mother of Victory’ Darcia Zakkart, and the ‘Patron Saint of Transformation Equipment’ Vandalieu Zakkart, and to the nameless heroes, I grant upon you the silver order,” said the earl.
The crowd stirred upon hearing the earl’s mysterious words ‘nameless heroes.’
Kanako and Doug put their hands over their mouths, and Melissa sighed.
“Some people were too late to escape when the monster horde advanced on the city. There were some individuals that sacrificed themselves to buy the time needed to escape for those people. They were young men and women, and some were elderly,” said the earl. “Their remains were never found, and nobody knows their names. It is likely that they were residents of the slums who lived in poverty. It is my wish to praise their bravery and the goodness of their hearts, to praise them as true heroes. And I shall make a declaration here: I shall place great effort into combating the poverty in the slums and solve that problem within my generation!”
A cheer erupted from the crowd. Among the people were the young men and women who were saved by a mysterious old woman, their eyes wet with tears.
Incidentally, there were plans to erect a stone statue of these ‘nameless heroes.’
There were multiple reasons that the earl was doing this. In addition to being moved by these heroes’ brave acts, he also wished to turn some of the people’s goodwill back to himself, as it was currently too focused on Darcia. He was also aiming to gain so much support that his plan to combat poverty could not be opposed, and also to declare to the ‘enemy’ that had directed Fitun’s heroes to the city… to the gods, that those were the true heroes.
“It must be hard on Isis – or rather, Legion,” said Melissa.
It seemed that Legion, the ones being praised, were overwhelmed with guilt. There were two reasons Isis wasn’t a part of the parade – one was that her deeds had not been witnessed, and… this was the other.
Meanwhile, those who had fought the heroic spirits in the Dungeon were either watching over the house or preparing for the parade that was to be held in Talosheim… and the change of the nation’s name to the new one that would be revealed by Vandalieu afterwards.
“I really wanted to see Bocchan in his best clothes,” Rita said wistfully.
“You’ve already seen him in them multiple times, so once is enough, isn’t it? And Talosheim’s parade is going to be even more grand,” said Saria.
This conversation was suddenly interrupted by Juliana.
“Umm, I have figured out the meaning of the Divine Message. I think it is about where a goddess is,” she said.
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NOVEL DISCUSSION
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Korath
I wonder how strong Randolph is. Is he on Schneider level (solid s) or basically on rank 15+ or so. Something like Belwood or Faurman strength. My guess, probably something inbetween. Would be funny though, if hes like Saitama and just fooling around. 🙂
Zenden1st
hmm new info on water gods?
next arc?
Chiu ChunLing
Randolph: “Killing off crippled women…eh, not really my job.”
Randolph: “Weird shit involving the Demon Fragment’s and maybe the end of the world–okay, now it’s my job.”
Ignitra
That might be truly his job, i mean, he is a S-class adventurer and if the world is destroyed he will die as well so it’s not like he can turn arround
Alke
This guy has 3 options : let the competent people who know all the circumstances work and stay out of it (Vida and Vandalieu’s pple) , join the competent people…, or die eaten by Vandalieu 😇😇😇
Giorgos Giorgos
For some reason, that little detail about the devil king weapons being more rare than Orichalcum made ones made me crack up. Like, if that’s considered rare, then I wonder what would their reaction be if they find out that the average citizens of Talosheim are equiped with weapons and equipment surpassing that of the human soldiers.
felinoel
Well no, there are a very limited number of demon king fragments, and weapons made from sealed demon king fragments are more powerful than the weapons Van makes from producing materials generated from the demon king fragments he has. Also orichalchum weapons are limited too but gods can just make more of those, while demon king fragment sealed weapons only can be made from the pieces of the original demon king so once they run out of pieces there is no more demon king fragment sealed weapons
Sailon
Beside is good to notice that demon king fragments weapon is made using seals made of orichaculm, so weapons made of fragments need fragmabts puks orichaculm and orichaculm wepons only need the metal.
SheepySenpai
Thank you for the chapter!
Does anyone know when the next Banda chapter is and how many there will be?
Paps
Thanks for the chapter, everyone got such a weird new tittle but Van as always is the best Patron Saint of Transformation Equipment thats just unique in its own way. Eat that ZORDON.
Lord Rin
It was interesting to see the actual process of them investigating everything. Usually we’d just get one or two paragraphs stating the results and findings of their investigation. Here we see them autopsy the corpses and discuss among themselves how they could be so messed up internally. We also see them investigate their equipment and find out that it’s mostly new Orichalcum so a god must have been backing them and also the Demon King equipment would be very easy to track where it originated from. Then we saw the earl interviewing Van and his comrades to get a better picture of what happened. Meanwhile Van has told the Earl that this was all Fitun’s doing and for his part the Earl doesn’t try to deny that it could be true. Whether this information will have any effect on Alda’s believers is unknown right now though honestly I doubt it will have much effect. Alda’s believers will probably rationalize it as Fitun’s heroes going mad with power and attacking a dhampir out of racism while Fitun’s statues breaking will probably be explained as Alda punishing Fitun to have him take responsibility for the actions of his heroes.
It’s a bit interesting that Randolf entrusted the DK fragment to the Church of Ricklent. He’s burnt out and no longer prays to the gods but he’s not about to leave a DK fragment to Alda’s faction. I like that Randolf doesn’t automatically label Van as evil after speculating that maybe Van is the “main body” all the rampaging DK fragments have been recently screaming about. He’s been aware of Van since when he first showed up warning Rudel Sauron about not angering the dhampir boy and he’s no doubt learned a bunch of information about a dhampir boy with a very unique appearance showing up in many places where many things have happened. I mean dhampir’s are a very rare race with only two acknowledged to exist on the continent. There’s two more: a nun from the Morksi orphanage but she’d been brainwashed into thinking she was human and then there’s Zod’s unborn child but neither of them are known to the public. There’s also Veld but he’s now a Heroic God of Vida so he doesn’t count. Anyways Randolf would be able to very easily piece together that all of these appearances of a dhampir boy are the same individual. Regardless Randolf is going to first investigate Van to see if he’s a threat to himself and his loved ones instead of immediately trying to kill him. He may even personally talk with him face-to-face.
Everybody has gotten a bunch of nicknames. Are they all going to become titles I wonder? Meanwhile half of Van’s group are embarrassed to be receiving so much attention. It was funny how Van threatened Simon with a court rank or making him a prince. Also finally Van has told Simon the truth about him being and emperor. I assume he’s also told him about how he’s the one who gave him the mysterious Divine Protection.
All of Van’s hard work is really paying off. More people are converting and worshipping Vida and the Ghoul extermination requests have been taken down from the Adventure’s Guild because the public demanded it. Meanwhile Earl Morksi has made it clear that he is siding with Van by not banishing him from the city even though he knows that the city was attacked because Hajime was targeting Van. Also the Earl has shown that he will not discriminate against Ghouls even though his political opponents will use that against him. Well it does help that all the guards and adventurers have sided with him plus there’s many people who’ve also become fans of transforming magical girls like Zadiris and Basdia.
Welp off to have another parade in Talosheim. I wonder what will be the new name of Van’s empire? Hopefully it’s nothing weird like Vanland.
And now Juliana has finally deciphered the Divine Message Peria sent her. I would assume it’s about the location of Botin so that Van can go free her since unlike herself, Botin can’t escape her seal. It’d probably also draw Alda’s attention away from her a bit so that it’d be easier for her to also leave.
Dr. Steel
*snickers* Vanland…
Also Van did tell Simon about the DP earlier, I think it was right before the fight. You might want to re-read, and I can say that this book is just as good the second time, if not better.
ReignGuard
Randolf has already won my respect by simply deciding to investigate instead of assume.
Doc
“If you resist, I’ll give you a court rank and dub you Sir Simon. Or I could adopt you, and then you’d be Prince Simon,” said Vandalieu.
Something about this passage is just so satisfying to read. It’s little bits of characterization like this which make Van such a likeable character.
Jonathan Hurd
Van refuses to be in the spotlight alone, lol. If you try to mock him for it then he’ll find some title to grant you!
Vitor
I feel this threat could be specially effective against Isla, Eleanora and Bellmond
Tejing
I wasn’t really expecting them to be able to realize so much from examining the corpses. It looks like Fitun getting a bad rap among those in the know is pretty much certain now.
Hmm, Randolf will be coming back into play next volume, apparently. Lots of interesting possibilities there. He’s such a difficult character to predict.
I’m surprised Van revealed as much as he did to the earl, and that the earl reacted so well. However, on further thought, I suppose it does make sense. I still really wonder how the duke is going to take this though. He could so easily go either way.
Doc
It wouldn’t really serve Van not to tell the Earl that the bandits were after him. If he doesn’t say that and Van’s still in the city then it would become clear eventually that’s they’re specifically targeting Van.
Even if Van were to leave, if he ever came back for some reason the fact that he’s a target would still be true, so it’s better for the Earl to hear it from Van himself instead of figuring it out later.
As far as saying all of the bandits abilities, there’s no reason to hide that information. Allowing the city’s officials to know about potential threats can only make them more secure and other than Hajime and Murakami’s group’s true identities none of that information is sensitive or harmful to Van.
Jonathan Hurd
Its hard to not realize the Bandits were after Van when about eight of them attacked Van and two attacked the city gates, lol. Now we know more of them were going for the city, but since all of those were intercepted the numbers look like that to the City, heh.
Jonathan Hurd
I gotta admit I hadn’t thought about there being a precedent for Gods taking over someone’s body, but reflecting it does make sense. The big reason why Alda’s group was upset with Fitun wasn’t so much the taking over people, but the take over being against their wills. That hints that if it wasn’t against their will that sort of descent has happened before.
Van basically revealed everything that was safe to say as far as I could see. Of course he didn’t state that he ate anyone’s souls or why the Gods are after him, but he left enough evidence in the items and the bodies that there is no doubt they worked for Fitun.
Lord Rin
They mentioned at the end of a previous chapter that Hajime’s God’s Puppet job is a job that has previously existed but it was very rare since it involves the user giving over their body completely to a god and most people wouldn’t do that.
no1
Thanks for the chapter Yoshi and on the last month of the day, wasn’t expecting that. Randolf is hitting the nail on the head. Wonder if he will confront or join Van in the future? Simon really does not want to be in the spotlight. The full truth on hajime and murakami’s group will never be fully known to the city and it seems like Peria will appear in the future if Juliana recieved the goddess’ location in her divine message. Can’t wait for the next chapters starting next month, hope they come soon
Randy Rando
Seeing as he isn’t rushing over to kill van on the tiny chance that he might be “evil” without listening to the reasoning of the person in question, he is likely far smarter than your average Alda follower, and therefore highly likely to survive.
MihaelZ64
Oooh, time to see the water goddess’ answer. I can’t wait for tge divine realm to be shaken over the results of Fitun’s actions causing of the two human nations to begin leaning towards Vida. That HAS to sting for Alda.
Doc
Well, I don’t think the human nations will side with Vida just yet. The empire is strictly on Alda’s side and hearing Fitun was loosely involved in attacking a rival kingdom’s small territory would mean nothing to them. Secondly most of the kingdom wouldn’t care anyway. While Vida worship is more accepted there, even if it grows a tiny bit more because of recent events, it’s still a predominantly Alda worshipping nation. They have been given no reason not to stop worshipping Alda.
But yes, when Peria and Botin both side with Vida, Alda’s divine realm certainly will be shaken up.
Jonathan Hurd
I’m with you Doc. I think there are too many scapegoats to really shake faith in Alda. People will probably think that the heroes Fitun choose went crazy with power and tried to attack a Dhampir out of racism. Fitun’s statue being damaged could even be interpreted as Alda punishing Fitun for his Heroes evil deeds. So I don’t feel like too much blow back will fall on Alda for this.
I think the actions of Darcia, Zadris, and Basida will have a bigger impact overall, but still be limited since it only happened in one city. It won’t be enough to overturn everyone’s ingrained beliefs about Ghouls, but it will definitely spread Darcia’s name and the idea that Ghouls are a Vida race so progress!
cathulion
So this has been happening to me for a while now, apparently whenever I open this site but don;t log it burns my cpu, as in 60-100% cpu processing power usage and even from time to time the site itself freezes. My phone is fine though.
I log in and it all goes away.
Anyone else?
asdsdsffdhffggkl
your computer is shit, though the website is laggy as fuck when I read on my shitty phone, but on the pc there’s no problem.
Reiji
Thank you very much an please stay safe.
The goddess she’s talking about is more likely to be Peria than Botin right? Since Pagtartha (idk the spelling sorry 😂) has met up with Ricklent the other chapter and has been dropping hints continuously
Dr. Steel
I think Peria told Julia where Botin is sealed, cuz Peria is awake, so maybe she wants Van to free Botin, but there would be no point telling her where she(Peria) is, and she’s probably in a Divine Realm anyway.
Jonathan Hurd
I’m with you on that. I also think the location is where Botin is sealed. I will say though that just because Peria is in her Divine Realm that doesn’t mean there isn’t an entrance to it from the physical world. Especially since this is a place Peria originally made to rest during the war a hundred thousand years ago. The time when the Gods and mortals walked the world together. I do think the entrance is sealed though so nosy idiots like Alda’s group can’t get in though.
Doc
As Dr. Steel said, Peria is “sleeping” in her divine realm (she’s faking being asleep so that Alda won’t bother her). So she isn’t in a place Van could find. Botin however is sealed and Peria likely wants Van to find and free Botin. Who I believe was being watched by a subordinate God of Alda.
Valdemar1607
I hope Randolf won’t be thinking that if Vandelieu is main body he is immediately evil.
Superboy8338
I don’t really have anything to say about this chapter other than I enjoyed it.
Kazza
And the next chapter arrives!
Ok, lots to talk about here. To begin, I have to ask anyone who reads the raws (Or Yoshi, I guess), is the “Holy Mother” in the title Darcia got the same as the “Holy Mother” that is in Heinz’s killer title? Or is it a similar situation to how Van could be known as both the Holy Son and Holy Shrine Maiden?
Randolf seems to be coming close to the truth. I am a little confused, because I remember Randolf talking about Van when he was with Rudel Sauron and the other guy. Would he not think about how it’s possible this is the same Dhampir from the rumors?
Now that Van’s Transformation Staves are becoming the next hot seller, how likely is it that the Alchemists Guild will be trying to create imitation suits? And then most of the Adventurers and knights will be using them instead of regular gear? The picture of that makes me laugh more than it should.
Finally, who’s excited about (what I assume to be) the next arc, wherein it looks like Van and Co. Have to hunt down either Peria or Botin’s resting place and wake her up. I’m a little confused on that one, because neither were sealed by Alda, right? They fell into slumber after being defeated by Gudurandis, didn’t they? Or was Big Daddy G able to seal them, and Van is necessary to break them out?
ObserverBias
The “Holy Mother” connection is a direct correlation. At around the same time that Darcia got the Holy Mother title, the denizens of Van’s empire were taught her (legitimately unbiased) gospel, and those that listened still took more issue with Heinz than she did, which got him that title. The Blue Flames group as a whole was very concerned when it popped up in the middle of their efforts in Bellwood’s Trial.
Kazza
But this title would be granted by the citizens of Morski, who have no frame of reference for that. I’m asking if a Japanese person were to see the two titles side-by-side (Holy Mother of Victory and Holy Mother Killers) they would see the same Holy Mother in both, even if they could write it off as coincidence.
ObserverBias
… What? You mean if someone somehow got access to both of their guild cards (which is a thing Darcia does not have), would it be spelled the same?
Considering it’s still the same singular people that have those titles, one would presume “yes.” Since the title explanation from several chapters ago didn’t mention either being a relatively common title (or even knowing more than one individual with it), I see no reason why the “Holy Mother of Victory” (derivative of the “Holy Mother” title she already had) and “Holy Mother Killers” titles would conceivably be spelled differently.
Kazza
Not spelling. You’re thinking in English, I’m asking for someone fluent enough in Japanese. Back in the Orc Empire arc, there was confusion on Van’s gender because in Japanese, the “Miko” of his title could mean “Holy Son” or “Shrine Maiden.”
I’m asking if this situation is similar, more like “Are the two titles different words in Katakana (or Hiragana/Kanji, etc.), but are just translated to us in English as the same words to reduce confusion?” That’s why I’m asking for someone who can read the raws or Yoshi for clarification.
Because I do think it’d be interesting for someone in-universe who could conceivably see both of the titles to wonder if Darcia is the same Holy Mother in Heinz’s title. It’s certainly not impossible, as Marshukzarl had a spy person who could see job numbers and such.
Chiu ChunLing
Holy Mother of Victory is “勝利の聖母”.
Holy Mother Killer is “聖母殺し”.
The term for Holy Mother is “聖母” in both cases.
Anyone capable of reading kanji (which are mostly Chinese characters with a few unique to Japanese thrown in) would read this as “Holy Mother”. A modern Japanese person would normally associate this as a reference to the Virgin Mary in Catholicism, as this is the most prevalent usage today. The people of Lambda are not widely literate in Kanji and do not have any contact with Catholicism.
Thus many of them would need contextual cues to even realize that the spoken term “seibo” meant “Holy Mother” rather than some other kind of mother or something other than a mother.
bk3k
She had such a title before they entered Morski. The citizens there are now calling her the same thing for reasons of her spirit descent ability. Even more so with Vida until recently being sealed. Then seeing Darcia’s ability on top too.
bk3k
Peria was not sealed, but defeated and sleeping. This happened before Guduranis was defeated and thus before Alda attacked Vida. So Peria did not participate on either side, as she was sleeping. She woke up long ago, but pretended to remain asleep. [spoiler title=”Reason: “] She didn’t want to join Alda, but Vida’s side is under a barrier. So she decided it was better to pretend to sleep still.[/spoiler]
As for the message, [spoiler title=”minor spoiler”] it concerns the location of the sealed Botin. She was also defeated by Guduranis. While he can destroy souls, for him isn’t a quick thing. He didn’t have time to destroy Botin at the time. So he sealed her using an immense amount of mana in the process. And so Botin has been forced to sleep ever since – locked under the seal – and is unaware of everything. She doesn’t even know Guduranis has been defeated. Peria wishes that Van will free her. There isn’t anyone else who can do it anyhow.[/spoiler]
But of course it can’t be that simple – [spoiler title=”Somewhat worse spoilers”] This won’t be the next volume, but the one after. The whole thing is on yet another continent – where the invasion began. Alda’s forces believe Van is heading there to devour Botin, and have an army of demi-gods ready to defend. Thus there will be several battles of course. Van will also discover an underground civilization there. There are Evil Gods who had not been convinced by Zakart, who none the less wish to join with Vida. They understand they won’t easily be trusted by Vida’s faction and don’t want to be discovered by Alda’s faction at all, so they’ve been taking care of people while living underground. [/spoiler] It is a really good part of the story IMO. I look forward to proper translation.
Tejing
The title Darcia got from the BMR folks (and is referenced by Heinz’ Holy Mother Killer title) is 聖母 (translated as Holy Mother), and the one she got from the Morksi folks is 聖女 (originally translated as Holy Woman, but then switched to Holy Lady). 母 means mother, and 女 means woman, so those are pretty straightforward translations. However in the raw of this chapter, the people of Morksi are calling her 聖母, so… I don’t really get it either. The blurb at the end of ch219 is somewhat relevant here though. Apparently normally it wouldn’t be possible to gain 2 titles that are so similar like that, but it works in this case because the BMR and Morksi are such separate communities.
Kazza
I see. Thanks for the clarification. Maybe because of Van’s actions, they want to honor her for raising such a good son, as such the “lady” is replaced with “mother.”
Gives me hope for the hypothetical viewing of Heinz’s titles.
Doc
I don’t think the mages guild would have much success making knock offs. Van’s transformation equipment requires the metal alloy infused with his death magic that can only be produced by Van.
And as Bk3k said, Peria is not sealed nor is she truly sleeping. She’s just pretending to be asleep in her divine realm because she doesn’t want to deal with Alda’s nonsense if his side knew she was awake. Peria wants Van to unseal Botin who was sealed by the previous demon king during their battle.
Jonathan Hurd
No clue about Japanese so can’t really comment on the Holy Mother titles.
I internally laughed at the thought that everyone would go out and get a transformation staff made. That would be Epic if all the city guards started using that. What popped into my head was two armies completely composed of Transformation staffs fighting. We could call it the Magical Girl Wars, hahaha.
Sadly I doubt the Alchemists Guild could pull off Transformation staffs. A big part of their ingredients is Death Iron since it works as a liquid and a solid. I think they’d be hard pressed to do something similar with conventional metals.
So the status of Botin and Peria are a little different. Both fell down during the battle against the Demon King, but Peria merely ran out of strength and fell asleep. Botin was actually sealed away. Peria was basically just sleeping off the damage and has now woken up. She’s just pretending to be asleep to avoid dealing with Alda, but she can leave anytime she wants currently.
Botin on the other hand is inside a seal. She has probably been collecting up power just like how a bunch of the Evil Gods were even when they were sealed too, but until the Seal is broken she can’t move or exert her power. I think Van might be necessary to break the Seal on Botin and to do that Peria gave him Botin’s location. That is just my theory though. I don’t think she gave her own location because I don’t think there is a reason to lead him to her.
Dr. Steel
I concur with your theory. Also, Death Iron is used for weapons, it would the other metal he created for the transformation bit and armor (Was it called Dark Copper?)
Baldingere
Randolf… Come to the dark side… We have whipped cream!!
Thank you for the chapter!!
BobsYourUncle
thanks for the chapter.
one more small error: “It was already well-known that most of the bandits had been as powerful as B-class or A-class adventurers. It was likely that the ones at the front gate had been equivalent to A-class, while the others were A-class.”
It should be B-class.
VEreality
Thank you Yoshi-sama!
Lmao becoming part of royalty is a threat?!!! I am dead after this chapter. I have now been embraced by Lord Vandalieu’s power. I am one with the river of souls that flows around his majesty. Who else wants wants to join??
On a serious note now, Randolf has realy peaked my interest. He has a good head on his shoulders but lacks the ambition to do anything about what is happening. What will the future hold for him I wonder?
Jonathan Hurd
I do love how Van tries to drag other people into public jobs. Since he himself is forced to stand at the front as Emperor, lol. I remember before he started forcing titles like Chief Military Officer and Court Mage on Borkus and Zadris during his inauguration as king so he wasn’t the only one to stand out.
I don’t feel like what Randolph lacks is ambition to interfere with what’s happening. I think it has more to do with he currently doesn’t have enough info. Randolph seems to work similarly to how Van does. Mostly want to be left alone by people in power and protect his loved ones and livelihood. If Randolph really had no motivation to do anything he would be living in isolation instead of a place he can efficiently gather information.
What I like about Randolph and I think Alda hates is he doesn’t seem the type to jump to conclusions. Currently he suspects Van might be the main body of the DK, but that’s not enough for him to label Van as Evil and must kill. I think Randolph will investigate Vans actions, ponder over them, and eventually go and have a direct talk with Van.
I can imagine Van and Randolph coming to an understanding. Van doesn’t want to indiscriminately kill and Randolph seems likely to let Van do what he wants as long as Van doesn’t touch his friends or family. Randolph could be requested by higher ups to fight Van but he has enough clout to just refuse such an order.
VEreality
I don’t know why but to me Randolph seems just… so done with everything. He is a member of a long lived race so he most likely seen a lot of bad things. The fact that he was first presented as someone who tries to cut all the ties with his past by finaly paying what he owed doesn’t help his case.
Eddy
They will at least balance it, it did not give him responsibility but it did not give them any benefit, now they dedicate themselves in the case of Zaridis to follow his syndrome style plan, if they are all magical girls, none will be special, Basdia and Vigaro to their children to raise Jadal and Vigaro to make more) and to train (although Basdia is also the novice instructor), Honestly, at this point, Borkus training more than a job is not a hobby? and the only ones who do real jobs work beyond human limits and their salary, Vandeliu, Kurts, Chezare, Lucililiano and the legion of Undead bureaucrats (a la tim burton).
without spoiling anything, the resolution of Randolph’s character arc is the level of eccentricity that Densuke has us used to
Doc
You say he doesn’t jump to conclusions…but he kinda did exactly that to even arrive at the thinking that Van is the main demon king body. I mean his evidence is “the fragment was unusually active near the city” and “there’s a damphir in that city that allegedly is a powerful tamer”. How he arrives at Van must be the “core” from that is ridiculous. I mean he’s right, but there’s just not enough information he has to be able to make that conclusion.
Secondly, from his monologue I got the impression he didn’t view Fitun’s statues breaking as a good thing for the world so the implication from that is he sees Van as a threat to the world. Now whether he immediately decides to attack Van without investigating him or talking to him remains to be seen. From his actions thus far, it looks like he’d at least try to talk with Van first.
nadirku
It was not mentioned in this chapter, but I think the first time we ever met Randolf, was after the coronation of the duke of the Sauron duchy, shortly after the fight with fifteen evil breaking swords, and in that chapter Randolf warned the duke to not do anything to piss of the damphir. So I would give him a pass for suspecting Vandalieu is the same damphir from those earlier rumors, rather than there being another damphir, which would mean that he has reason to suspect that Vandalieu is more powerful than the rumors claim, and that he has potentially also had previous dealings with Demon King Fragments.
Doc
The problem with suspecting it to be the same damphir in both locations is there is not enough similarities between the incidents. Apart from involving a damphir that’s powerful both scenarios played out very differently if you were an outsider. In Hartner a damphir was going around the outskirt villages helping people and Orbia’s people. Here a damphir joined the commerce guild and tamer’s guild to sell meat skewers.
Even if you are grant him the leap of logic that says these two damphirs must be the same person, then suggesting he must be the demon King’s main body because his fragment acted up a bit somewhat in Van’s general vacinity? As I said in my other comment to the you, it’s not a major criticism. I realize the author needs characters to be in certain places and act in certain ways so some level of hand waving is fine to swallow.
Jonathan Hurd
I would argue that there is a very important similarity for all the cases. That would be the spread of Vida’s religion. Everywhere a Dhampir shows up he keeps helping people in the name of Vida.
In the Cultivation villages of Hartner Duchy he reconstructed the temples to Vida. Around the Hartner Duchy too there was the whole Clay Dolls with Vida’s symbol.
A Dhampir showed up in Sauron Duchy and helped the Scylla. Afterwards the Knight Princess and her group seemed to receive mysterious backing and instead of praising Alda like they did before she started praising Vida.
Now in Morksi and Dhampir has come into the city where his mother is preaching Vida’s doctrine and he made a bunch of Food Carts with Vida’s holy symbol painted on them.
Every place a random Dhampir boy travels news of Vida seems to spread and people of Vida’s races seem to be helped. Also each of these places had supplies and hunger dealt with.
A direct connection for the Dhampir that showed up in Hartner and the city of Morksi. In the cultivation villages Van taught them to make Gobugobu. In the city of Morksi a dhampir boy taught others how to make Gobugobu. Now it is possible that maybe these are two separate people, but considering how rare Dhampirs are it seems pretty unlikely.
Another big link is remember when Van tried to join the Adventurer’s guild in Hartner Duchy he wrote down his name. He has never used an alias. So if you researched you could find out that the Dhampir is called the same thing in all of the three Duchies. You could also get the form from his registration in the Merchants guild in Morksi City and use that to compare the Handwriting from the Hartner Duchy. See if they match if you want to know if they belong to the same Dhampir.
For the main body part. That has mostly to do with just how weirdly the Demon King fragments have been acting in the past few years. The fragments have always tried to combine and seek out others, but now hosts have been saying “I must join the main body!” That was never said before. It doesn’t seem too big of a jump to think that the sealed fragment going berserk would be because the so called main body was getting close to it.
He knows there is a main body, but no one knows just what form it has taken. Its not a impossible hypothesis to think maybe a Dhampir who seems to be followed by chaos wherever he appears might have something to do with it. Now if Randolph just stated “Van’s the main body. I know this!” Yeah that would be stretching things too much, but currently he is at “Van is suspicious I need to investigate him more.”
Doc
The line specifically is, “The Dhampir himself may be the Demon King’s main body, Randolf thought, finishing his own sentence silently in his head.” which isn’t as concrete as your exaggeration, due to the “may” in there, but it’s still damn close and the inference here is that Randolf is sure of the conclusion he’s reached.
But you’re right, the Vida worship and Van’s name in the Hartner Dutchy’s adventure’s guild registration are more clear lines to follow. As I said in my previous comment on the subject, it’s easier for us, the reader, to look at those pieces and connect the dots because we know everything, that isn’t so obvious to an outsider who wouldn’t necessarily know that Vida worship is up in dutchies a Dhampir passed through. I suppose by telling us Randolf is close to the heart of the Oubaume Kingdom as a way to get better quality information is the author’s attempt at justifying why Randolf would be able to get certain information that wouldn’t likely travel far from its source.
Anyway, it certainly will be interesting how Randolf approaches Van going forward. Will he treat him as a threat or try to communicate with him to figure things out.
Tejing
I don’t get that impression at all. I read that to mean he’s suspicious enough to be worried, but isn’t sure of anything yet.
Jonathan Hurd
Honestly it’s been years since Van was in the Hartner Duchy, but the fact that the castle tilted has to have been big news to everyone. If not just as gossip, but also out of concern about the missing sealed Demon King Fragment and the chance it could be done to other Duchies castles.
I don’t know about you but if I heard something like that I’d have the most powerful and knowledgeable person I trust go and take a look. That person would be Randolph. Part of the rewuest would be to have him figure out how the castlr was tilted and the other would be for him to try to find and reseal the Demon King Fragment. If I’m Randolph and i want to be ready in case something goes down I would also look into it.
For knowledge on what happened in the Sauron Duchy and the city of Morksi we know Randolph has info on them because he’s been in those areas close to when the big events went down. Honestly if Randolph isn’t completely incompetent at gathering info he should be able to find info on Van because he’s been in at least two of the three relevant areas close to when Van was.
I will also second Tejing that Randolphs statement to me lacks an extreme amount of certainty. If anything the way it’s phrased to me sounds less like “Van is probably the Demon King” and more like “Theres no way this is possible, but I need to look into this in the 0.00000001 percent chance it’s true and he is the resurrected main body I need to know and prepare countermeasures just in case.” It never hurts to check and there are to many suspicious factors around him.
Putting aside being the resurrected Demon King you have to admit Van is at the center of a ton of turmoil and chaos. That in itself is worth looking into and keeping an eye on. Add in the new main body of the Demon King could be in Morksi and you have even more reason to look around.
Chiu ChunLing
There is a vast difference between jumping to conclusions and considering the evidence without rejecting it out of hand.
Rejecting the evidence out of hand because it suggests something “ridiculous” is happening is jumping to conclusions. Considering the evidence even though it suggests something unprecedented is the exact opposite of jumping to a conclusion.
Randolf isn’t the one jumping to conclusions here. Dolmad is.
Eddy
Well, we must take into account that unlike the land where we all dream of being famous, in Lambda being a noble is usually just that, a dream, because the law treats the nobles as a different species, if you were not born noble the only chance is to become a master at your craft and marry a nobleman, being royalty is almost impossible for the average citizen and for someone with low self-esteem like Simon is a shock
Lord Rin
Randolf is burnt out. As an elf he’s probably seen and experienced many things and come to the realization that he can’t help everyone. Now he’s going around paying off debts to people he knows or their descendants so that they don’t come looking for him anymore asking for more help. It sounds like he’s only looking to investigate Van to see if he might be a threat to his loved ones and begrudgingly the world too since he lives on it too after all.
Nox
Thanks for the chapter.
One parade with the normal people to strengthen the concept of idols and and another to celebrate the new name of the country Van-sama rules and between this the divine message telling where to find a goddess.
Dust
Thanks for the chapter, Yoshi
Darkhelios
Thanks for the chapter!
Little correction:
Zadiris, who had defeated monsters with spells even more advanced than those of the mages of the Mages’ Guild, and Zadiris, who had cut down the Giant that had been created by one of the bandits.
“and Zadiris, who had cut down”…etc… => Basdia, right?
Edit: Oh. Someone else already said it while I was still reading.^^
Diggydawg
I guess the Fitun Arc has been wrapped up quite nicely, now we have the turncoat goddess arc!
Mossy Stone
“Zadiris, who had defeated monsters with spells even more advanced than those of the mages of the Mages’ Guild, and Zadiris, who had cut down the Giant”
FIX “and Basdia, who had cut down the giant”
“Hajime Fitun was no more bandit, but an incarnation of the god of thunderclouds”
FIX: “no mere bandit”
Yoshi
Thanks, fixed! Sorry about the errors.
Mossy Stone
No need to be sorry for 2 grains of rice in a 5 POUND BAG!! Thank you for an exceptional translation …it’s nice to be able to contribute a tiny TINY bit in the Herculean task that was this chapter. Many thanks for the prompt fixes!
JeKeBe
Wow, another huge chapter with a lot of fun tidbits and interesting info to unpack.
It’s nice to see Van and crew get a little of the recognition and acceptance that they deserve for once, rather than being shuffled out of the light or thrown out of the city.
The foreshadowing for Randolf was intriguing too, it’ll be interesting to see whether he’s going to be a potential ally or a boneheaded hater.
Thanks for the chapter!
Doc
Personally I thought the logical hoops Randolph had to jump through to arrive at the conclusion that Van had to be the demon king “core” was a bit flimsy and forced, but it does seem like they’re foreshadowing a potential confrontation there. Hopefully he does the smart thing and simply talks to Van instead of going after his life first.
nadirku
I made a similar comment in another post, but the first time we met Randolf, he warned the new duke of the Sauron duchy to avoid pissing off the damphir who had cause an issue for the Mirg Shield nation, and the Hartner duchy…
Perhaps the amount of detail they went into in this specific chapter is a bit shallow, but I think that based on previous chapters there is a enough going on for Randolf to get a working hypothesis that Vandalieu is stronger than he is letting on, and has previous experience with demon king fragments.
There is also how it was strongly implied that Randolf was the only one outside the boundary mountain range who might have had the correct idea about the true nature of the Trial of Zakkart dungeon.
So I think the author is trying to set Randolf up as one of the more insightful characters in the series, and letting he correctly jump through those hoops seems to be one way the Densuke is trying to do that.
Doc
I get what you’re saying. Like there are pieces there to put together, but I feel like Randolf specifically shouldn’t be aware of all of them. I mean there’s no conclusive evidence that the Damphir hunted by the Mirg Shield Nation that escaped to the boundary mountain region is the same one that turned up in the Hartner Dutchy or is the same one that appeared in Alcrem Dutchy. Van mostly stuck around the outskirts of the Hartner Dutchy and anybody involved that knew about him is already part of Talosheim now. And in Morksi he’s selling meat skewers, so that behavior should be completely different if one were to follow his sightings earlier.
Like I get it, a certain amount of leeway is required when an author needs people to be in certain places and react off of one another. I don’t bring it up as like a major criticism. Just as a point of discussion I thought it was a bit too forced a conclusion to reach from the facts available to him.
Jonathan Hurd
I don’t think its too far of a logical jump if you ask me. Van being the DK core honestly seems more like a hypothesis than a known factor for Randolph currently. He’s still knocking around theories, but you gotta admit there are plenty of suspicious things surrounding Van.
The fact that the DK fragment reacted violently only in the Hartner Duchy then immediately calmed down. Rumors of an elite Dhampir tamer who tames unusual monsters and a giant tamed Hellhound. It doesn’t seem too unlikely that Van was the true owner and was coming back.
The reason he would consider Van potentially being the main body is because Van doesn’t appear to have been taken over by the Fragments. He is running a Food Cart and by all outward appearances is normal and sane. At the very least he is either stupidly powerful and able to suppress the fragments, which shouldn’t be possible for a 10 year old Dhampir, or the pieces are a part of him and obey him.
For connecting all the Dhampir appearances to Van. Dhampirs are a very rare race to begin with. Especially since they were always hunted down by the True Blood Vampires or the church of Alda.
Now I do agree it would be strange to connect the current Van all the way back to the Dhampir that was born in the Mirg Shield Nation, if you’re not the Emperor of that nation and been keeping tabs on how the vampires have been acting, but I do think you could connect the Sauron Duchy incident and the current Van.
As nadirku pointed out considering Randolphs warning to the new Duke Sauron he definitely has heard some news about Van before. Randolph also lives at the heart of the Orbaume Kingdom and is actively collecting info. Add in that Van often times has stood out pretty extremely in all the places he’s caused incidents.
For instance in the Hartner Duchy, he made a huge scene in the adventurers guild and afterwards a new dungeon appeared. Shortly after that all sorts of stuff like the seal in the Hartner castle broke, the castle tilted, and the slave run mine was destroyed. Anyone with some knowledge of the Duchies dirty secrets would know that there were illegal Titan slaves in that mine. Add in the clay earth dolls with symbols of Vida showing up.
After a Dhampir showed up in the Sauron Duchy and visited the Scylla the Amid Empire was driven out. Two of the revolutionary leaders were killed and the Scylla territory became a no go zone.
Now there’s a Dhampir who setup a food stall with the symbol of Vida on them and his mother is preaching Vida doctrine and trying to spread the faith. A big connecting aspect to all of these events is all of them involve a Dhampir showing up and then races of Vida being helped or people being helped in Vida’s name.
Lord Rin
Dhampirs are so amazingly rare that it is probably more likely for an average person to meet a hero than it is to meet a dhampir. The only other dhampir that the public know about is Selen. Meanwhile in total to this day only 4 dhampirs have been introduced in the story: Van, Selen, Veld who has now ascended to being a Heroic God of Vida and finally one of the nuns in Morksi’s orphanage turned out to be one who had been brainwashed into thinking she was human. With so few dhampirs it just makes more sense to think that all these events involving a dhampir are the same one: Van.
Also Randolph is aware of Van since he warned Rudel Sauron about him. That he shouldn’t piss off the dhampir who crossed the Boundary Mountain Range.
Doc
The mistake in the argument here is to assume that because the author only told us about 4 that means there aren’t any more that could exist. I don’t recall the author explicitly stating they are exceedingly rare. It was mentioned that they tend to be hunted by either Alda fundamentalists that hate Vida races or by the pure breed vampires, but that doesn’t mean they can’t exist in enough numbers to make the odds of two appearing in two separate dutchies in a kingdom that is more open to Vida races quite high.
And this argument is to Johnathan Hurd. You have to be careful when considering perspective. Remember, as the reader we are aware of all the facts as they were presented. This is a world where communication travels slowly and through physical travel. Randolph should have no proof that Van has a demon king fragment or is related to them. The evidence he has is the piece he acquired acted up relatively close to Van’s general area, and died down when he got far away. Van being a powerful tamer who he suspects is the real owner of the hell hound he saw is not evidence toward his actions in the Hartner Dutchy. We know Van was in both places, but Randolph wouldn’t.
Again, this wasn’t a major criticism, and you’re trying awfully hard to go to bat for what really seemed like a fairly obvious case of “I need this character to do this thing, so a = c, now it’s done” mentality writers often fall into.
Metazoxan
That’s not a mistaken argument. True it’s likely there are more than just 4. But it’s still a fact they are rare.
First of all a Dhampire can only be born is a vampire produces children with a non vampire. Which is fairly rare since most people hate and fear vampires and most vampires would rather treat people as food rather than mates.
So there are a lot of obstacles for a Dhampire to even be born. Then add to the fact they tend to be hunted pretty aggressively by BOTH sides of the conflict and it’s likely very rare for one to stay alive.
Even the nun was only alive because the shadow vampire dude figured a dhampire would be useful as a spy. But it seems every pure breed vampire had their own style and he was the only one that really did that kind of thing.
So again it’s likely other’s exist but they are clearly VERY rare and most prefer to stay in deep hiding since literally everyone wants to kill them until recently.
Jonathan Hurd
I’ll admit that figuring out Van has a Demon King Fragment is somewhat hard. I will say though a few things that have been established in the story thus far…
First Dhamphirs are a rare race. It was discussed with Zod, but Vampires of the present day don’t see a need to have kids. Add in that the Pure Breeds actively hunt anyone who makes one for sport. The fact that Aldas faction reigns fairly high in the area it’s probably hard to even find a partner who would want to make a kid with a Vampire. This was also one of the reasons Joseph was so excited meeting Van. It’s hard to find Dhamphirs.
Another one is yes there are other Dhamphirs, but Vans looks are very distinct. How many Albino Dhamphirs who call themselves Vandalieu and have completely dead eyes do you think there are? Van has never hidden his name or features in any of the Duchies. If anything he’s made a giant scene in every Duchy leaving behind a lasting impression.
For why Randolph might suspect Van could potentially be the main host there are a few reasons that I don’t think really stretch things. We should probably start with the more general worry that the Demon King has resurrected.
The rumor of the Demon King reviving is actively being spread by Alda. The Demon King Fragments are acting more extreme than they ever have before. The Fragments also keep talking about a main body and joining it.
Taking all those factors and then seeing a sealed fragment going berserk it seems rather logical to think it could have sensed the main body close by. Now add in all the weird things that keep following a Dhamphir who calls himself Vandalieu. Such as a destroyed mine, a new dungeon, undead taking over the old Scylla lands.
Then consider that a Dhamphir who once again calls himself Vandalieu and matches the physical description is in Morksi and has ‘discovered’ multiple new races of monsters. This seems like something worth taking a look into.
I honestly don’t mind if you find all of this lacking. I’m just giving reasoning and evidence because you stated the story lacks it. Imo, I think you are reading into Randolphs beliefs too strongly. To me I read this chapter as Randolph thinking Van is suspicious and he needs to investigate more into him. The way you say it you seem to see it as Randolph is stating he knows Van is the new Demon King. If that is what Randolph said and believed i would completely agree with you that it would be premature.
Silverdrem
I just want to say Randolf’s choice seems believable to me. There are people who can only arrive to conclusions as long as there is a lot of evidence pointing it out but there are also others who use their imagination to fill in the blanks as long as there is some evidence to go on. This way of thinking doesn’t always work and lead to wrong conclusions but when there is not enough evidence to go on it can be the only way to find the truth.
Randolf has enough evidence to form a theory that van is in some way the demon king’s “core” or “main body” and if he is right, this means the demon king is being ressurected. This really serious because it would mean the whole world is in danger, so it makes sense for him to want to confirm wether he is right. If there is a chance the entire world may be destroyed he can’t just wait for evidence instead of look for it.
Chiu ChunLing
Another thing to keep in mind is that Randolf isn’t working with an excessively limited amount of evidence. He’s been an S-rank adventurer for over a century, “saving the world” is part of his job description for that time. He’s likely the foremost living authority on the behavior of DK fragments, and probably understands Marshukzarl better than anyone outside the Amid Empire court.
He clearly has heard all the intel Dolmad had on Van, and unlike Dolmad’s nonsense theory that the Amid empire made up a story about trying and failing to hunt down a newborn Dhampir until it ended up costing them 6,000 elite troops etc. and a number of villages just for lulz, and then followed that up years later by losing a quarter of their most elite top-secret 15 Swords, he realizes that this story is highly politically inconvenient for Marshukzarl and only the parts that simply can’t be hidden have been revealed.
He further would definitely have taken an interest in the seal on the DK blood being disturbed, so he knows what the Duke of Hartner knows and suspects about Van.
And he kept an eye on Heinz. The way he just disappeared after handing over the Trial finder is a pretty clear demonstration that they only found him because he allowed it. I’d guess he knows that Heinz is the one that hunted down Darcia, though their hunt for Ternecia is more important in getting clues to Van’s identity.
Randolf isn’t really hung up on Van’s name. The whole “Valen + Darcia = Vandalieu” thing probably strikes him as a highly suspect conjecture that proves nothing at all. But he’s aware that there aren’t going to be bunches of deathly white Dhampirs born in the same year running around, and even if they were, it’s already implausible enough for just one of them to be as precocious as Van, one extremely unlikely Dhampir is far less unlikely than several.
But he probably knows:
Heinz hunted down a young Dark Elf mother of a Dhampir, who was burned at the stake by High Priest Bormack Gordan.
The baby Dhampir was never found, but a bizarre incident wiped out the town where the Dark Elf mother was executed.
The Mirg Shield-nation discovered evidence of a Dhampir becoming King of the Ghouls in a Devil’s Nest and launched an extermination campaign (including Bormack Gordan), only to discover that the Ghouls had built wagons and carried out a mass evacuation. They were tracked to the Boundary Mountain range but couldn’t be followed further.
The discovery of a tunnel leading through the Boundary Mountains prompted the formation of a new expedition to conquer Talosheim, and Bormack Gordan joined this expedition in hopes of finally hunting down the Dhampir that had escaped him twice before.
The expedition, consisting of 6,000 elite troops, the newly raised A-rank Riley’s party, and Bormack Gordan with his retinue, returned as zombies and forced the evacuation of several cultivation villages before laying siege to the very city from which they had departed, in an incident that caused major embarrassment and losses to the Amid Empire, the Mirg Shield-nation, and the Alda Church.
The Amid Empire adopted an official (secret lol) policy of wariness towards the Dhampir believed to be responsible. It’s important to understand that while this policy wasn’t publicly announced, key figures in command of forces of the Amid Empire in any region bordering the Boundary Mountains would have to know about it, notably including the forces occupying the Sauron Duchy. Dolmad was well aware of this policy, presumably Randolf also knew.
A Dhampir matching the description and age of the one behind the incidents in the Mirg-Shield nation appeared in the Hartner Duchy, leading to a number of bizarre incidents, most crucially the collapse of the secret catacomb that was supposed to contain the sealed DK blood, which went missing. This would have gotten the attention of Randolf.
Heinz used information about vampire activities to hunt down Ternecia. However, the DK horns in her possession mysteriously disappeared, along with her entire body except for her head.
Gubamon then was defeated by a mysterious entity at the same time the various resistance movements in the Sauron Duchy underwent a dramatic reorganization and started receiving mysterious assistance. The Scylla in the autonomous region disappeared at the same time.
The Amid Empire dispatched a number of the 15 Swords, ostensibly to hunt down Iris Bearheart, but clearly to deal with a far more powerful enemy. They were wiped out, the occupying forces were severely damaged, and Duke Marme disappeared except for his face.
We know from his own mouth that Randolf believed ‘that Dhampir’ to be involved in the last two incidents, though it’s not clear exactly what evidence he had, or how certain he could be that both incidents also involved DK fragments going missing. However, Dolmad certainly knew exactly which Dhampir he was talking about, even though Rudel was in the dark. Dolmad was stupid enough to mock Randolf for even mentioning ‘that Dhampir’ (and for criticizing the handling of the Resistance).
But Randolf wasn’t screwing around. He knows that Van is no joke, and seems to have been involved in the mysterious disappearance of several DK fragments (even if he didn’t know for sure about some of them). He doesn’t seem particularly prejudiced about Van having killed thousands of soldiers from the Amid Empire, unlike Heinz he probably sees it as a perfectly reasonable response to them killing his mother and trying to hunt him down. But the DK fragments are a different matter.
Metazoxan
Well first of all his conclusion is technically wrong. Van wasn’t taken over by a core fragment that no one knew about. He just took control of the fragments and made them recognize him as the main body.
But still he knows there is a mysterious Dhampir that can take unkown monsters and he knows the fragment tried to escape the seal desperately when he got near where that same Dhampir was living.
That’s enough to guess that the fragment was drawn to the one with the power to control powerful monsters as a small child.
Chiu ChunLing
Given that Randolph has been the only S-rank adventurer in the kingdom for longer than most people can remember, he’s likely their greatest living expert on finding and sealing Demon Fragments.
He clearly would be quite well-appraised of the recent changes in the behavior of rampaging fragments, as well as the disappearance of several known fragments (including those he would have suspected to be held by the evil vampire cult).
And he was already suspicious about the events surrounding Vandalieu’s previous attempt to gain a social position in the Hartner Duchy…which included the disappearance of a fairly major sealed Demon Fragment from under the castle that ended up sinking and tilting. While the collapse of the area containing the fragment would foreclose confirming the Demon King’s Blood had gone missing, it’s not at all odd for him to be suspicious.
Rollrock
Randolph is definitely too pragmatic to turn into a boneheaded hater, unless he becomes a victim of plot induced stupidity but so far the writer had avoided indulging the dumbing down of characters that were previously established for the sake of advancing the plot. Once and if he learns the truth about Vandalieu, he’ll just turn around and walk away because Van’s dealings extend to the realms of the gods and he is definitely not even close to someone that could oppose one. Randolph and Marshukzarl are both very interesting and I hope we get to see more of them, as they are examples of powerful people inhabiting the world of Lambda that don’t actually have an assortment of loose screws inside of their heads.
Seinvolf
Thank u always for ur great work…
^^…
Kiriaru
No way am I the first to read this and comment… Oh shoot I really am!
I have to start getting ready for work soon too… He told an Almost Truth to Simon and I found that funny as hell, that and the 5 of them transforming all at once and everyone going crazy! Now what’s this about a Divine message being translated??
Baldingere
Peria (water goddess) is on Vida’s side but as none of Van’s friends is a strong believer of her, she couldn’t tell him. Now Julliana is part of his crew and she used to pray to Peria sometimes, so Peria sent her a divine message. Juliana received it but needed time to understand it.
Jonathan Hurd
The Divine Message is probably referring to the Divine Message Juliana received during her rebirth from Peria the Goddess of water alongside Perias Divine Protection. Considering Peria is awake and healthy I don’t think the Goddess location is hers.
I think the Goddess location Peria gave is probably Botin’s. Botin is still sealed and asleep. Considering Van could break Aldas seal on Vida I think she wants Van to go and free Botin from her seal. I think after that happens Peria will then jump ship. Before Alda increases the guard around her and tries something extreme to wake her.
Renrobt
I do like the idea of it being Botin, but I think its just as likely to be her own location, wanting to see the reaction of Van. After all, if Van is actually the enemy of the gods, that meeting holds the potential destruction of the god he meets, and while our knowledge on Peria and Botin is limited, I don’t think Peria would take a risk with her sister like that. After all Botin is even less likely to be able to defend herself than Peria.
Though after seeing Van herself she might very well task him with that, so the end result might very well be the same, but going through different hoops.
And with that end result in mind, Alda will go crazy. Like Out of the 7 of the remaining original Gods, all of them but him have joined up with Van, and these last 2 are supposed to be the rational ones. Zantark and Vida can be argued to be corrupted, while Zurawan and Ricklent are known for their unpredictable, chaotic nature. But Botin and Peria? One is the goddess of earth and craftsmanship, the other of the seas and knowledge. They are supposed to be the reasonable ones.
Even champions turned god, Furmaun and Nineroad, don’t believe in Alda’s cause, with Nineroad only staying because she thought its too late to change things and atone. With careful persuasion she could be won over.
I have a feeling Alda will snap sooner rather than later. Even with just Peria joining, the fact that a strong majjority of the gods sided against him would probably drive him mad.
Doc
I mean the reason it’s unlikely to be Peria is because Peria is not in a location to be found. She’s in her own divine realm. She was never forcefully put there, she was injured fighting the demon king and sequestered herself to heal. Botia was actually sealed by the demon king in Lambda.
It’s entirely possible Peria might appear before Van (since she’s fully awake and aware of what’s happening) and then ask him to free Botia, but knowing the roundabout way these gods like to act, it’s more likely the location will just be where Botia is sealed.
Jonathan Hurd
I think Peria is physically somewhere in Lambda just like Botin is. Quite a few chapters back Alda said he was going to increase the guards around where his two sisters are resting since Van might go there. I think that is the place currently Parataga is hanging out.
I feel like Peria won’t physically appear before Van at this point because I don’t think she could sneak out without anyone noticing. If that was her goal I think it would be safer and smarter to have invited Rinklent in for a talk and set something up with him and Zuruwarn. Like projecting her image to Van, having Zuruwarn move Van in his dreams closer to her so they could talk, or opening a gate for her and Van to meet physically.
Renrobt
Actually when Ricklent appeared in front of Parataga it was mentioned that this is the most opportune time to move if she wanted to join Vida’s side.
That probably still stands, after all it has been only 3 days since the destruction of Fitun. These are gods we are talking about they might take weeks to discuss things. As urgent the matter is they definitely don’t have the same scale of time as normal people.
So its very possible that Peria might actually fully appear. Also she still seems to be on the fence about Van and Vida’s faction so its unlikely that she would be inviting in Zuruwarn or Ricklent.
Jonathan Hurd
I do agree with the idea that there is probably going to be a test from Peria to Van in her message, but I feel like if she was worried about him hurting them I doubt she would of given a Divine Protection along with the message. The Divine Protection to me says she’s leaning closer to Van’s side than Alda’s. Adding in the fact that she’s faking sleep around Alda while admitting shes awake to Van. It seems to me that she probably sees Alda as the bigger threat than Van.
I also completely agree with Alda melting down fairly soon. Especially if his two ‘rationale’ sisters don’t decide to join him in trying to kill his other sister as well as Zuruwarn and Rinklent.
I think Peria probably gave Botin’s location out of worry that as Van keeps racking up wins Alda is definitely going to get more desperate. Van is probably the only person able to break a seal on a God. So before Alda becomes too desperate and tries something crazy or ups the defenses around Botin to an amazing degree. Having Van go and free her early is probably for the best.
Giving Van Botin’s location can also work fairly well as a test too. Is Van willing to risk his life and help free Botin without any assurance that Botin will join his side. Admittedly if he refuses to help her or tries to hurt her then that means Peria should join Alda’s side and help to stand against him. It does seem somewhat cruel to use your sister’s life as a test, but honestly I think this is the only chance she has to free Botin since the seal hasn’t broken in a hundred thousand years.
Renrobt
She is stated to be waiting for the “Flow” whatever that may be. It seems that she is on the fence about joining Alda or Vida’s side, so she left it up to Van’s choices. With a divine protection she can easily keep tabs on Julianna and her surroundings so its more likely that its there so that she can observe Van more than that she supports Van. Even the fact that she’s awake might very well be a test probing Van’s reaction and what he does with that.
And I do see the rationale for using Botin’s seal as the test as well. After all its a very good chance to prove that he is not hunting the gods, only fighting back against those that target him and his surroundings. This might actually prove as a strong point to even win back subordinate gods from Alda’s side.
Dyneamaeus
It’s got to be unsettling to wake up after a healing coma and find that your stick-in-the-mud overly serious brother has not only taken over the family business, but ALSO has set his people to doing YOUR job.(EDIT: which I’m now realizing may actually have slowed down their healing. Considering how fast Vida’s coming back, maybe putting his subordinates to keeping the other gods domains running syphoned off some of that healing faith juice.) From Peria or Botin’s perspective Alda probably looks like a tyrant now, though possibly an accidental one.
Renrobt
Well let’s be fair, Alda is literally the god of order. He is by nature a being that will establish hierarchies and chain of command, and after the war with Vida he was left as the only original god still in action. In a system where he really has no equal it will turn into an authoritarian system, even if he is benevolent (to the most part).
Not that I am defending him, but it is something that the others could possibly correct upon awakening. But also lets not forget that only he has the power to punish and even strip gods of their authority, completely at his discretion…
Rollrock
People making the connection between Alda’s doman being order morphing into tyranny and stagnation seem to be right on their money. Order when taken to its logical extreme becomes perfect, absolute and sterile, leaving no room for deviation or evolution of any kind. In such a state it is the antithesis of life itself that thrives on chance and randomness and chaotic occurrences. Alda might not have been the god of tyranny initially, but his involvement with Bellwood together with the actions he had been taking to return the course of the world and other gods to the one he considers to be best have definitely crossed over into the domain of tyranny a long time ago. Somewhere around the time he decided to kill a fellow major goddess because she made new races that made him feel icky.
Lord Rin
I think it’s information about Botin’s position. Peria is awake and probably healthy enough to leave on her own. There is an entire vassal nation of the Amid Empire who has claimed her as their patron goddess they pray to and Peria isn’t currently managing anything so all those prayers are going to her that give her strength that she’s been stockpiling for however long she’s been pretending to still be asleep. If Peria just gave information about her own location just so she can meet Van then Alda’s forces would be made aware of Van when he approaches so they’d immediately increase the guards around Botin’s location in fear that Van would come after her next thus making it impossible or at least exponentially harder for Van to free her. Alda may even freak out and do something drastic like try to use the Stakes of Law on Botin and Peria thinking that it would be an extra seal to protect them from Van.
It makes more sense for Peria’s message to say where Botin is since she’s defenseless and if Van goes to her to free her then Alda would probably learn about it and station more gods there and focus more of his and his subordinates’ attention there which would give Peria a chance to leave while her guards aren’t looking. It’d be harder for Van to free Botin but at least he’d only have to worry about one goddess in that situation.
Superboy8338
Congrats on being 1st.