Chapter 213

Rocks rose up in the plaza, becoming the trial grounds.

A swarm of people, seized by their own suspicions, wavered back and forth.

Looking down on the dividing crowd, I moved my feet.

I stood in the center of the trial grounds.

No one was looking.

Even if I tried to speak, they wouldn’t listen.

The crowd was in chaos, and their hearts were too shaken to look up.

The Widow Queen muttered quietly.

“People of Schmeizen, be silent.”

Even at her words, the chaos did not easily subside.

Aida’s eyelashes trembled with displeasure.

She did not hide her irritation.

The ground squirmed as if responding to it.

“I said, be silent.”

A vibration spread.

Those with weak legs lost their balance, and those who had been clamoring loudly shut their mouths and looked at the sky.

Even after shaking the earth with a single word, the Widow Queen was composed.

‘Her skill in handling the Ancient Weapon is impressive, as expected.’

I marveled.

The remains of Ancient Gods are called Ancient Weapons.

They possessed great power, but they were just as difficult to handle.

No, it wasn’t just difficult to handle; they were dangerous enough to devour one’s entire soul if mishandled even slightly.

But the Widow Queen Aida was using the Ancient Weapon ‘Uvula of Abundance’ with supreme skill.

“The trial is not over yet.”

Her tone was polite.

But there was an undeniable dignity that pressed down on the thousands in the crowd, silencing them.

However, the pressure did not create suffocation.

Her voice merely reigned quietly and nobly.

“It is Shion of Merion’s turn. He says he has something to say for all of you.”

“Yes, I am Shion of Merion.”

A few people murmured.

My name was spreading throughout the entire West.

The man who drove out Cordis, defeated Niko, and rescued the White Lord.

Even in the extremely reclusive Schmeizen, many had heard my name.

“Unfortunately, we failed to filter out the fake with the three methods, but I have prepared another way.”

“How do you, a foreigner, have a countermeasure for ‘Mimic Crumb’?”

“It is because it is a power that can expose all fakes, not just ‘Mimic Crumb’.”

I smiled faintly.

I seemed to be looking at the Widow Queen, but I was actually speaking to the thousands in the crowd.

The Widow Queen was the same.

This was close to a play.

“Your Majesty, do you know of the Breath of Light?”

“The Ancient God from the legends.”

“It is not just a legend.”

They were just very old; they were beings who truly existed.

This is a world with magic, dragons, and Ars.

People did not particularly question whether the gods truly existed.

Especially Aida, as she used the Ancient Weapon ‘Uvula of Abundance’, and had abundant knowledge about the Ancient Gods.

“He is the incarnation of the sun. The one who blazes with a brilliance that reveals all falsehoods.”

“But the Breath of Light has vanished.”

The Widow Queen said.

They exchanged dialogue in a somewhat explanatory manner, which had the effect of making the crowd listen intently.

“7 years ago, the expedition team that visited Arete Island, which had reappeared, said. That there were neither gods nor humans, only an empty space.”

“Why do you think Arete Island, which had been isolated by waves and rocks for 53 years, suddenly reappeared 7 years ago?”

I spoke, remembering the time I made Amethus my subordinate.

“It is because the Breath of Light was alive until then, but lost its life 7 years ago.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because we gave peace to him, who had been put in a miserable state by the Cordis Empire.”

I said calmly.

Because I calmly spat out something so hard to believe, it was not easy to accept.

It was the same for the Widow Queen Aida.

“…Can you prove it.”

“As for proof.”

I motioned with my eyes.

Amethus strode forward.

“Greet Her Majesty, Amethus.”

“Yes.”

It meant revealing the identity he had hidden, but he held no complaint.

Because I was the master and he was the servant.

The Widow Queen realized Amethus’s eyes were a vivid jade color and let out a gasp.

“I offer my greetings, Your Majesty the Queen.”

The jade light flashed fiercely.

“I am Amethus Aretion.”

“…Aretion! There was one who remained……”

“I am the last.”

Amethus continued speaking and took a mask from his bosom.

When Amethus’s hand touched the white mask, jade sparks flew.

The Widow Queen felt the Ancient Weapon she harbored, the ‘Uvula of Abundance’, resonate.

“And this is his face, which the Light left to me.”

“…….”

Amethus quietly put on the mask.

Soon, a jade flame rose up.

Before the ephemeral, beautiful flickering, chaos and suspicion quietly vanished.

His head heated up with a jade color.

Watching the head that bore the flame, I smiled with satisfaction.

“Reveal the falsehoods, Amethus.”

“Yes.”

Amethus drew his sword without hesitation.

A jade flame clung to it.

Then, when he swung it, the flame leaped out and stuck to the two Yulans.

The awake Yulan, the one Amethus and I brought from the Underworld, looked down at his flaming body and let out a sound of bewilderment.

“Huh? F-Fire!”

“Stay still, Yulan. It won’t be hot.”

“…Oh. It really isn’t.”

Yulan did as I said.

He stood still with the jade flame on him.

This flame merely blazed but did not affect him in any way.

However, on the Yulan who was lying down, the one who had been a burden on the Widow Queen’s heart for 14 years, a different reaction appeared.

“…….”

Thousands of gazes turned to the Yulan lying down.

They watched the flame with bated breath.

Soon, gasps were mixed in.

“Oh……”

That Yulan, lying still even as the jade flame blazed upon him, slowly changed his form.

Like a pile of straw dried golden.

The evidence that something not human had been mimicking a human was revealed.

“…It’s a fake.”

Someone said.

“…That one is fake!”

“The one the Minister brought 14 years ago was fake!”

“…No, but just with this……”

“It’s obvious to anyone!”

The angry voices were thunderous.

The hearts that had been divided became one and burned fiercely.

They were angry, and now they clearly knew the target of their anger.

The Widow Queen was the same.

“Belrsasal.”

“…….”

The queen called the minister.

He answered with silence.

“I will give you a chance to make an excuse.”

***

“…….”

The old man who resembled a fierce goat maintained his silence for quite a long time.

The queen waited with a merciful heart.

He stroked his beard seven times and rubbed his brow four times.

Only then did he open his mouth.

“……It was brief, but I contemplated a great deal.”

The old minister lifted his fierce eyes.

“Should I poke at the loopholes of this forced trial, should I drive those bastards out… I had many thoughts, and I could certainly turn the situation to my advantage, but……”

The old man let out a very deep sigh.

“Now, it’s just bothersome.”

He threw the hat he wore on his head to the ground.

It was a coronet permitted only to the Prime Minister of Schmeizen.

Throwing this in front of the queen was tantamount to an insult to the imperial authority.

And it was true that Belrsasal had thrown the hat with the intention of insulting the imperial authority.

“I’m sick and tired of this.”

His voice, no longer using honorifics, was endlessly cold.

A terrible weariness was plain in it.

In his hand, there was suddenly a long smoking pipe.

Regardless of whether he was in front of the queen or not, Belrsasal put the pipe in his mouth and took a deep drag.

White smoke billowed.

“You’ve hidden quite a lot of troops here and there. You really picked the day, Aida. You were determined to kill me today.”

“They are men very carefully selected, for the sake of the Minister who is a Four-Star Mage.”

“The effort is commendable.”

He wheezed, puffing on his pipe.

“The Face of Light! Dammit! For that thing to suddenly pop out of nowhere……. It was just about to wrap up nicely, but now it’s just tiring.”

“You should have been more meticulous, Belrsasal.”

Minister of Finance Adrak smiled slyly.

They were supposed to be enemies who had carried on a long political strife, but they looked extremely close.

The Widow Queen muttered questioningly.

“…Minister Adrak?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. It is Adrak.”

Adrak motioned toward Belrsasal with his chin.

“And I am also that bastard’s copy.”

“……?”

Before the Widow Queen could even grasp the situation, Belrsasal neurotically kicked the lying Yulan.

He didn’t care that it was in the state of a golden pile of straw.

“You get up too, Yulan! You’ve been lying down for 14 years, that’s enough.”

“Ah. Can I get up now?”

“We’ve been found out!”

Belrsasal wheezed again.

The fake Yulan and Adrak gathered by his side.

The man who had been lying down for 14 years suddenly got up.

Adrak, who had been at odds with Belrsasal for a long time, suddenly acted close to him.

It was something even I had not expected.

“Everyone is making a dumbfounded face.”

Minister Belrsasal snickered.

“The last Aretion, I really wanted to see you once.”

“…….”

“Why don’t you try shining that precious flame on the people?”

Amethus looked at me, seeking permission.

As soon as I nodded, Amethus sent the flame flying to surround the thousands in the crowd.

Soon, gasps were exhaled.

“…Oh, my goodness……”

No one could stop a groan from escaping.

Even if it was me and the Widow Queen.

The jade flame reveals falsehoods.

And so, the flame that surrounded the thousands in the crowd exposed that one in four of them was false.

At least over a thousand fakes were mixed in among them.

“……Since when, to this extent.”

“It was simple, Aida.”

Belrsasal snorted.

He treated the Widow Queen like a child.

“I intentionally made two types of copies. Cheap ones that could be filtered out by the distinction method I hinted at, and my clones, which cannot be filtered out.”

“…….”

“Humans tend to look for something to rely on when they are confused. They believed firmly that the imperial’s copy inspection was certain. They must have wanted to believe it. It was all too easy to exploit that gap.”

Aida felt her skin crawl.

Among the five thousand in the crowd, over a thousand fakes were mixed in.

If so, then other people too…….

“…Just how many……”

“Don’t worry too much. It’s just that there are particularly a lot of my clones in the capital. If you take the whole country, maybe one in twenty.”

“One in twenty……!?”

Schmeizen is a great nation.

One in twenty would be at least millions.

It was not a number one could say lightly.

How on earth did he create millions of clones?

“This is the power of an Ancient Weapon. You know it better than anyone, don’t you? That the remains of an Ancient God twist the laws just by existing.”

“…You have an Ancient Weapon?”

“Yes, the ‘Moon-Shadow Cranium’. I never told you, did I?”

Belrsasal took out a small bottle and showed it.

The Face of Light and the Uvula of Abundance resonated, as if crying out.

Aida felt confusion and doubt at the same time.

Why hadn’t she sensed another Ancient Weapon this close, and also, how did Belrsasal come to possess that Ancient Weapon?

“Belrsasal.”

I, Shion Pollinglight, said fiercely.

“As far as I know, the ‘Moon-Shadow Cranium’ is not an item that should be in the West.”

I growled.

“…That belongs to the Cordis Empire. It went missing during the war 53 years ago.”

“Hmm? You know quite a bit. I don’t know how you know, but why don’t you say more.”

“The last owner of the ‘Moon-Shadow Cranium’ was one of the Ten Great Generals of the Empire from 53 years ago, the fourth among them, the Four-Fiend General Karkarsso. When he died in battle, the Ancient Weapon disappeared with him.”

“Oho. Karkarsso, what a truly nostalgic name. Do you know him?”

“…Karkarsso was a Six-Star Mage. The greatest mage in the entire Cordis Empire, second only to Hermai Merhes.”

“No, no. You know well, but just one thing is wrong.”

The old man who resembled a goat fiddled with a black tear bottle and then swallowed it gulp.

A black light rose up behind his head.

“I am superior to Hermai.”

Six-Origin Halo, The proof of a Six-Star Mage.

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