Chapter 261

No matter how great a general Hannibal had been or what his achievements were before, this time it was Hannibal’s defeat. Should we view this as a result of the goddess of fate not raising her hand for him? Or should we view it as Hannibal’s mistake in underestimating Crispinus?

“…I…”

A voice, dimmed and buried in emotion, continued.

“…I must have failed to properly evaluate your true worth. Perhaps, I might have hoped for this to happen….”

“……”

Lu Barre’s cold hand descended from my shoulder and slipped inside my wrist. As if he wasn’t in his right mind, he was pressing down as if to crush my bones. His eyes shook wildly without focus.

“It might not have been fun if you fell into my hands too easily. I would have felt uncomfortable. Is this the maximum capability of the opponent I chose? Of course, I sincerely wished for you to come over and did my absolute best…. But then, just at this moment, you to me….”

He buried his face in my shoulder.

“You’re the best.”

“……”

“As expected, you’re my greatest opponent. You asked why my emotions were directed at you. Don’t you know the answer now? Before, you said to me, ‘If you’re looking for an opponent to compete with, wouldn’t it be fine if it’s not me?’ Don’t you now realize how much that statement showed you didn’t understand the situation?”

“Ha….”

I burst into laughter at the absurdity of it.

‘He’s mistaking competitive spirit for love.’ This was the topic I had asked about on the day I first met him and went on a date in Pleroma’s world.

It was just as I had thought then. Just as he possessed towering self-love, he couldn’t see most humans as people who could match up to him. Because he loved himself too excessively, he had no choice but to love those who made him admire them.

‘Should I consider this an honor?’

Now the answer came to the question I had asked him earlier. Why had he seized the lives of 600,000 people and played this terror game? Obviously to gain benefits. And through this plan, he was able to verify one more element. Through this terror, he could confirm once more whether it was okay for him to love me.

This situation where I had seen through his strategy paradoxically ended with an outcome that amplified his love. To be precise, it was madness rather than love.

He muttered while burying his face in my shoulder.

“You’re the only person who can compete with me. …The only person who can truly compete with you must also be me alone. The person who can make you engage in the game with your whole heart must be only me.”

He gasped for breath, burst into laughter, and sluggishly raised his body. Then he looked down at me and said.

“How was it? Was the game I made somewhat fun? Doesn’t it finally match your level now?”

“Fun? After holding the lives of 600,000 people hostage?”

“No, no. It seems I attached too little value to you instead. I should have made you panic more… I should have put more effort into creating it.”

“You’re the one who needs to understand the situation first.”

Putting even more effort from here?

I was honestly curious how that would turn out. A strategist like him wasn’t a person one could easily meet.

At this point, I recalled the strategic battle between Catacombs Chairman Simon Eberhardt and Max Richthofen over the alliance between the Catacombs and Pleroma.

Max Richthofen was also an excellent strategist. However, this terror was an incident that kept me in a more awakened state, more certainly than that incident when Richthofen had used me as a tool against Eberhardt. Throughout the entire month of February while I was on top of his schemes, I had never once completely let down my guard.

And….

“You care too much about the ethics the world created. Be honest. You enjoyed it too.”

“No.”

I answered briefly to the crazy talk that sounded like background noise and looked at the pure white ceiling.

I wanted to know more about his strategy, his way of thinking as a leader. However, because he was in the enemy camp, I absolutely didn’t want to know.

I had thought this before, but we could have been good friends. If only our beginning had been a bit more ordinary.

“I love you.”

The nonsense was still flowing like background noise, and at just that moment, a nauseating phrase stuck in my ears.

“Let’s be honest since it’s just between us. We can’t be understood by anyone but each other.”

“……”

“You know the reason too. We’re among those countless humans, but we can’t belong anywhere. That’s our destiny.”

Wasn’t this something I had heard somewhere before?

I smiled faintly while listening to that trembling voice.

“The world moves too slowly for us. It’s suffocating. You’ve felt it too, haven’t you? Haven’t you ever thought you’ve become a crazy person because your speed and theirs don’t match? Of course, I might be crazy, but I’m speaking from your perspective. Haven’t you ever become a strange person, only you, because your speed and theirs are different? Why aren’t my thoughts conveyed to them? Why do I have to use all my strength to empathize with them? Haven’t you ever spent a long time trying to fit in with them, thinking you were wrong because you were different from them? We….”

His cold fingers wrapped around my neck from behind.

“In this strange world, we’ve finally met someone who lives at the same speed as us.”

Strange world.

He said Wunderland, not Seltsame Welt. Even in this moment, I realized he was quoting Alice in Wonderland and let out a hollow laugh. He was playing with me right now. Looking at the ecstasy and madness dwelling in his eyes, it wasn’t a particularly strange action either, but for him, this time right now was no different from the peaceful time we had spent over the past ten days. Rather, it was time that stimulated his pleasure even more.

“We’re not strange people to each other. What should I do with this moving moment?”

“Sorry, but I’ve heard these words from someone else too.”

From Abraham, that is.

At those words, the Archbishop stopped stroking my neck and looked at me. Not jealousy but just curiosity rose on his face.

“Do you acknowledge that person too?”

“……”

Was he asking if I acknowledged Abraham as my worthy opponent?

To be as honest as I would never be again, I could understand in what sense the words they both pleaded to me, craving empathy—that we aren’t understood by outsiders and we can’t understand outsiders either, and only we can be complete understanders of each other—came from. That point made my heart uncomfortable.

This didn’t mean I agreed with their other ideologies. Abraham thought that if someone was excellent in any way, they should be valued accordingly, and it was okay to give differential treatment to inferior humans while ignoring their basic rights—though she never said this was ethically right, she thought it was consequentially inevitable for utility maximization—so she could be seen as being at a completely opposite point from my position.

However, regarding ‘that statement’ of theirs alone, what they commonly said wasn’t something I completely couldn’t understand.

This was a story about the categories of normal and abnormal, and about the obsessive self-reflection that one inevitably goes through as a minority and the subsequent frustration. It was a story about how ‘good’ abnormality, for example pathological perfect memory ability accepted as a good trait by society, returns as double violence to the individual. Though neither the Archbishop nor Abraham spoke to that extent, we knew what the essence was of this plea of a sentence or two—’can’t only we truly be each other’s understanders?’

It wasn’t a story I could ignore. Abraham’s attempt to create a religion leading the Old Humans starting with Primrose Path, though the above anguish wasn’t the primary cause, wasn’t completely unrelated to it. She treated the white sheep flock she didn’t understand as inferiors and wanted to create a world made of black sheep. Abraham’s underlying eugenic ideology started from this.

Could such a person not be my enemy? Because she was such a person, I had to acknowledge her as an enemy.

“I acknowledge it. Because she’s someone who truly made things difficult for me.”

“…Ah, I’d like to meet that person too.”

The Archbishop said with a flowing laugh.

“If we get out of here alive, let’s go meet that person.”

“Can we get out alive?”

“Haha, do you think you can kill me within today?”

At that answer, I couldn’t help but laugh.

We were both in the same situation.

I had before me the very person who had set Pleroma on the path to revival, and he had Pleroma’s adversary before him. Neither of us believed we could easily kill the other.

Of course, if I could completely neutralize him as if I had killed him without killing him, that would be better. I had no intention of creating two Werner Strauchs or having two Ainsidels.

So….

“Let’s negotiate first.”

“Negotiation. Go ahead.”

“After today, don’t use innocent people’s lives for your benefit.”

“……”

This wasn’t the end. If he backed down here, there would be more to demand.

For example, ‘Retire from Pleroma and go live outside.’ With those abilities being in the enemy camp would only be a loss for me.

Of course, this was a negotiation that would never be concluded. Because it was all loss for him. If he were someone who could accept this, he wouldn’t have carried out terror against 600,000 people in the first place.

I was just giving him the chance to choose.

The Archbishop slowly raised his eyebrows and asked.

“If I do that? If I agree to it, will you be with me?”

“Together. In what sense?”

“Let’s quit all this tiresome worldly affairs and go somewhere to live peacefully. How about it.”

“Didn’t you just enjoy fighting? How am I supposed to accept your suggestion that the two of us live in seclusion?”

“One can simultaneously want two incompatible things. When you live a bleeding life for too long, you sometimes come to want peace….”

“You’re destined to return to bleeding lands eventually. Because your nature is such that you can’t endure without fighting.”

“That’s the same for you too.”

“……”

The Archbishop looked down at me gently with a face holding inexplicable certainty.

Just then, I felt a faint vibration on the table.

I smiled while shaking my head.

The negotiation was over.

Kwaaaaang—!!

The white marble ceiling seemed to collapse, and the ceiling pieces of the basilica appeared. A thick floral scent suddenly hit. The white limestone table I had been lying on transformed into the altar used earlier for the engagement ceremony. Since it had been covered with space magic, it was natural.

Beyond the Archbishop’s arm gripping the altar, I saw several familiar faces. The moment the Archbishop turned his head to look at them, my eyes turned to the restraint device connecting him and me.

‘Mm.’

Something to convey had emerged.

Leo, who had brought Bavaria’s mages, was pointing his wand at the Archbishop. Yet his gaze was directed at me below the Archbishop.

I squinted at him, sending the pre-arranged signal.

He must not use magic now.

With the just-completed dismantling of the space magic, the moment a large amount of Magic Power dispersed in the air, a shock was applied to the restraint device’s limiting magic.

What did this mean?

It meant the Archbishop had been giving his all every moment to activate transformation magic. With shocks hitting both internally and externally simultaneously, an abnormality occurred in the restraint device’s waves.

‘It makes sense he’d keep trying to transform.’

The stats I had discovered from Lu Barre’s status window were honestly dismal except for the Skills value. That was also why I had kept him bound in Lu Barre’s state.

On the other hand, the Archbishop’s body stats, though with differences by category, were similar to Ainsidel’s. Simply beyond wanting to look good to me or not, he would naturally want to return somehow.

Leo, who had been looking at me with an impassive expression, slightly raised his gaze to look at the Archbishop, at Lu Barre’s face. A chilling voice echoed through the vast cathedral.

“This is somewhat different from what I heard.”

“…Ah~”

The Archbishop flicked his hand and narrowed his eyes.

“Direct Wittelsbach. Finally, I wasn’t conscious of you because I wasn’t interested, but you really seem to see me…. This is somewhat important, but by any chance, could our component compositions be similar?”

“Come out.”

At Leo’s words, the Archbishop rattled and shook his restraint device. A gentle smile rose on his face.

“My fiancé won’t let go of my hand, so what should I do? I’d like to accommodate Your Highness the Crown Prince’s request, but it’s difficult.”

“Stand up from your spot and step away.”

“Shouldn’t there be a reason not to use Magic Power? It would be better if you threw your wand rather than standing there blankly.”

It was speech for addressing royalty, but the content had hardly any respect.

I could see pistols at the waists of Bavaria’s mages. However, whether following the manual or exercising flexibility, they wouldn’t use those now. Because the possibility of the Archbishop using me as a shield couldn’t be completely ruled out. Perhaps thanks to his +8 Skills stat, Lu Barre was better at fighting than me.

The Archbishop muttered in my ear.

“Your friend is quick-witted too. You must have sent a signal, but… I didn’t expect him to catch on immediately.”

“Hmm.”

“He figured out that I’d try to use it to escape if Magic Power spread in the air now. Right? I thought I could finally return to my face when your reinforcements came here, but you’re the best at crushing hopes…. But you know.”

Before the warning countdown even ended, Leo gestured. The mages who had been approaching step by step while watching the Archbishop’s movements began rushing toward us. The Archbishop put one hand inside his jacket.

“As much as I pay tribute to your excellence, you should also….”

“…!”

Kwajik—

My right hand flew at him, but it was too late. The pocketknife pierced the carotid artery and the skin next to it. The pierced skin became hot as if on fire. The smell of blood. The moment I felt my blood’s Magic Power spreading in the air, human teeth bit and tore through the pierced skin. The sound of liquid being swallowed came. In that instant, I saw shock spreading across Leo’s and the other mages’ faces. The Archbishop swept his lips with his tongue and said.

“…Your Magic Power amount is impressive. I trust you didn’t underestimate me too much.”

Kwaaang—!

With the sound of violently stamping feet, the platinum hair that had come loose from the hair ornament fluttered before my eyes.

Kwagwang— Kwang—!!

A noisy impact sound struck my ears. Leo, who had sent the signal to commence the attack, thrust his wand. The world flickered black repeatedly, so I couldn’t know precisely. The Archbishop drew his wand from the holster behind his ball gown and aimed it at Leo.

Bavaria’s mages’ attacks hit the Archbishop’s barrier, causing light to explode endlessly. The Archbishop wore a light smile and while blocking the attacks coming at him, only turned his head toward me.

“I’ll cleanly acknowledge my first defeat. But….”

In an instant, his eyes passed over the wand I aimed at him and fixed on my face. The Archbishop smiled and said.

“We have to play best two out of three. Don’t you think?”

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