Chapter 60. The Tenant (1)

Sikri.

The capital of Indika.

A city where a hundred thousand slaves, ten thousand commoners, and a thousand nobles lived.

The city, famous for its ivory walls and golden domes, had dozens of palaces alone.

Each was a miserable fruit built on the blood and sweat of slaves.

Of course, just as the inner workings of human affairs are often more tragic than their outward appearance, another tragedy was blooming in the basement of the Blue Jade Palace, one of Sikri's palaces.

A red magic circle, created at the cost of the blood and flesh of hundreds of humans.

On top of it, hearts, sealed alive, throbbed and supplied mana.

The sorceress who had been lying in a formal posture on the magic circle.

Chincharina shot up.

“Heeuk!”

Her long hair, which covered her down to her toes, spread out.

Covering her mouth, she bowed her head.

“Uuuk!”

Blood and stomach acid poured out.

Her fine hair became matted with vomit.

It was not good.

The state of her body was at its worst.

“Heuu, heu, uuk….”

In a hurry, she plunged her hand into a bowl.

A fresh heart, preserved by magic, was slowly throbbing.

It was a spare for repairing the magic circle, but also emergency food for times like this.

Chincharina greedily stuffed the heart into her mouth.

The art of human sacrifice quickly restored her twisted body.

Only after eating the fourth one did she lie down again as if collapsing.

She checked her body while spread-eagled.

“……”

Still not good.

It seemed there would be lasting after-effects.

It was only natural, having been neglected for a fortnight.

For two whole weeks, she had been lying there without receiving any food or water.

And even the connection to her soul had grown faint.

During that time, her soul had been wandering the border between the netherworld and the world of the living, searching for a way back.

It was only because she had the body of a high-level sorceress that she had endured; an ordinary person would have died long ago.

Chincharina wiped the blood trickling from her nose and took out the holy artifact from her bosom.

She let out a small gasp.

“Ah.”

The eight branches of the candelabra.

One of them was broken.

She had lost one of her possession abilities.

And among them, the most useful one: ‘the ability to possess humans.’

The cause of this whole situation was simple.

She had used her possession ability on the owner of a holy artifact.

The holy artifact of the ‘Nameless Tentacle.’

Possessing the guardian of a holy artifact was a breach of contract among the outer gods, and thus she had paid the price with damage to her holy artifact and her soul.

“…Fucking idiot.”

Cursing, she gathered her mana.

She had to hurry.

The guardian of the ‘Nameless Tentacle’s holy artifact was Tribus.

That necromancer with the creepy smile had definitely possessed the holy artifact until a few months ago.

‘Did he betray me? Or did someone steal the holy artifact?’

She didn't know.

Her memory was hazy.

The soul fragment that had possessed Count Maenenwood had taken damage, and in the process of wandering the nine heavens, the memories held by the fragment had been significantly damaged.

What was certain was that the owner of the holy artifact had been hostile to her.

Chincharina snatched a heart.

She had to get the information to Marquis Ricardo as soon as possible.

She planned to backstab the Marquis in the end, but to do that, she couldn't die on the battlefield.

“Svaha. Ayur. Shanti. Om. Vipham.”

Crushing the heart with her sharp nails, she chanted the spell along with the hand signs.

The magic circle began to glow, splitting her consciousness and sending the fragment far away.

The split soul crossed rivers, mountain ranges, and fields.

The destination was a plain south of the Jilber River.

The fragment of consciousness entered one of the military barracks set up on the wide field and hills.

Her voice manifested inside Marquis Ricardo's barracks.

[Ricardo! Ricardo!]

“Chincharina. You’re late.”

[…Huh?]

“Count Maenenwood has turned. I hear you were the one who bewitched him.”

The air in the barracks was frigid.

Even though only her voice had manifested, she could feel the chill.

Marquis Ricardo was sitting at his desk, fiddling with a statue.

A statue of a woman holding two spears.

The holy artifact of ‘The Maiden Who Heralds the Time.’

“You tried to backstab me, didn't you? No, I should say you already did. Since the army you dispatched burned down Imperial villages and massacred the residents.”

[You, you believe that? Isn't that what the pro-Emperor faction said?]

“It is from the pro-Emperor faction, but I have no choice but to believe it. My own men confirmed it themselves.”

The Marquis rose from his seat.

The statue he was clutching so tightly it might break was glowing red.

The ability of the Marquis' statue was limited foresight.

The ability to sense impending misfortune.

A power she had always coveted, while pretending not to.

Bang!

The Marquis slammed his hand on the desk.

“Yes, even if we serve the great beings together, there is no such thing as an eternal ally.”

[…Ricardo, calm down and listen. The holy artifact of the ‘Nameless Tentacle.’ Its owner was hostile to me.]

“Was it Tribus?”

[Probably. It might be someone else. Now that Count Maenenwood is out of my hands, he will soon send reinforcements. You will be surrounded.]

Chincharina pointed at the statue.

Since only her voice had manifested, she had no finger, but that was the general feeling.

The statue was glowing red.

The Marquis swept his hair back.

“Is that so?”

He smiled.

“Who said I would let myself be surrounded so easily?”

“So forget the past, and with me again….”

“I was already chipping away at their forces. Even without the help of your paltry soldiers.”

The Marquis smiled again.

It was different from before.

It was a sneer.

“We are retreating. We will make our last stand in my domain. No, at least, I will make them think so. And also.”

He paused for a moment and let out a long breath.

“Don’t get your hopes up, Chincharina.”

[…….]

“Even if my plan goes awry and I end up being killed by the Emperor, I will never hand my god over to you.”

[…How.]

“It was too obvious.”

The Marquis' gaze turned towards the source of the voice, the darkness in the corner of the barracks.

“Pretending not to, yet coveting my possessions, pretending to help, yet constantly trying to push me into crisis.”

[Th-that is.]

“You were waiting for me to fall and ask for your help, so you could steal my god, weren't you? But do you know what?”

[…….]

“That ‘The Maiden Who Heralds the Time’ also detests you. She looks at you as if you were an insect.”

The Marquis flicked his hand.

At that, the energy from the statue pressed down on the inside of the barracks.

Something was wrong.

Sensing this, Chincharina tried to return her split soul to her main body.

To be precise, she tried to do so.

[Uh, ugh…….]

It wouldn't move.

It felt as if her entire soul was freezing over.

Impossible.

She had only sent a part of her consciousness using [Soul Splitting].

She should have been able to return at any time.

[Wha-what have you done….]

“You don't know. It seems you can't use the full power of your god yet, can you?”

The Marquis slowly sat back down.

Watching him fiddle with the statue, Chincharina checked her condition.

The connection to her main body felt faint.

As if space-time itself had been distorted.

“I also have many guests to invite, so I must conserve my strength. For now, I'll just give you a small taste.”

With those words.

[Kyaaaaaaah!]

A nightmare from Chincharina's distant memories descended before her eyes.

* * *

Three days had passed since I rescued Count Raman Maenenwood from Chincharina's long-held clutches.

The Count, who had been in a coma, sought out the Captain of the Guard and me as soon as he woke up.

The timing was perfect.

I had been seriously contemplating whether it was time to return to the mercenary band waiting in the forest.

“Melven. Melven.”

“Yes, my lord Count.”

The Count's bedroom.

Count Maenenwood, still bedridden, embraced his nephew with red eyes.

A single tear streamed down his gaunt cheek.

“I am sorry. I can finally see you now. My mind is clear. Thank you, and I am sorry.”

“Not at all, my lord Count. I am the one who is grateful that you have woken up.”

“What is this ‘my lord Count’? Call me uncle.”

“Yes, uncle.”

It turned out that Count Maenenwood had no children.

He had not been close to any woman, unable to forget his wife who had passed away early.

Instead, his nephew, the son of his brother who had died around the same time as his wife, the Captain of the Guard, was his de facto heir.

Well, considering he appeared as a random hero in the game, it probably wasn't a very important part of the lore.

“Ahem. My apologies for calling you here and being so rude, Captain Ash.”

The two, who had been putting on quite the melodrama for some time, stopped crying just as I was debating whether I should tactfully leave.

By the way, that Captain of the Guard, I thought he was taciturn, but he turned out to be a man of many tears.

The Count, after wiping his face with a wet towel, called me closer.

“Captain Ash, you have saved me.”

“I only did what I had to do.”

“There are many knights in the world. But there are few who truly fulfill their duty.”

[Activating [Freelancer].]

[‘Raman Maenenwood's favorability has greatly increased.]

The Count promised me an unparalleled reward.

Furthermore, I received his firm assurance that he would side with the Emperor.

Although he had been possessed and turned into a puppet, the Count's inherent disposition was the same as in the game.

A few more days passed.

The atmosphere of Maenenwood, a major city in the central part of the Empire, changed rapidly.

The first thing the Count did after waking up was to expel the Indika forces from the city.

For reference, the full story of the Indika reinforcements was as follows.

Marquis Ricardo requested support from Indika.

In response, Chincharina dispatched reinforcements in exchange for various trade preference conditions.

However, at the same time, she used the puppet Count Maenenwood to bring in more troops than agreed upon, without the Marquis' knowledge.

Those additional troops, based in Count Maenenwood's territory, went on a rampage of looting within the anti-Imperial faction's domain.

“I don't know why she did it either. Indika and the Empire are not even neighboring countries. What possible gain could there be?”

The Count did not know the true intention behind that incomprehensible act either.

However, perhaps because he had shared a part of his consciousness while possessed.

He seemed to have a vague feeling.

“…It felt like she was trying to steal something important. After cornering them.”

Something important.

It was still vague.

In any case, the remnants of Indika were quickly expelled from the city.

The command headquarters.

The temporary barracks.

The wiretapping base.

The Imperial army raided them all at once.

The wiretapping base was literally a facility for eavesdropping on communication crystals.

Apparently, a fixed base station like this was needed to tap into communication crystals.

The Count executed the commanders and took the soldiers as prisoners, throwing them into the underground prison.

Usually, it was the other way around, but the Count's thoughts were different.

“The Indika bastards use slave soldiers for more than half of their numbers. Wouldn't it be too cruel to take the lives of those who have lost their own will?”

A sound judgment.

I had done the same when dealing with Indika.

Of course, it wasn't for such a grand reason, but because Indika was not very active in prisoner exchanges.

And with a little re-education, one could gain a large number of former slave laborers.

“My memory is hazy… as if I was dreaming.”

In any case, despite his busy schedule, the Count held short, intermittent meetings with me.

A kind of psychotherapy, I suppose.

It seemed that being possessed by an evil spirit left considerable after-effects.

Though I didn't know why he was specifically using me, an honorary paladin in name only.

I understood feeling a special connection to the person who directly performed the exorcism, but….

There were plenty of priests in the city.

Couldn't he just pick any one of them?

“I have a question. How did you disguise yourself as an Indika soldier? I heard you came with fellow defeated soldiers. Melven just said it was a trick.”

Then I wouldn't have had to hear such troublesome questions.

I managed to vaguely talk my way out of it each time, but.

Something felt off.

Like a psychiatrist telling a white lie to a patient.

“As you said, it was a light trick. I have a personal talent for it.”

“I see. Truly remarkable. By the way, I don't know when this headache will subside.”

“…Let us pray together.”

In any case, there wasn't much I could do for him.

Reciting a few prayers was all.

This was even more so because I had an idea of what the Count had been hit with.

‘She must have used [Soul Splitting].’

Like any legendary hero, Chincharina also possessed a unique, overpowered trait.

This ability, called [Soul Splitting], was literally a secret art of splitting one's own soul.

In fact, the act of dividing a soul itself was a forbidden art, but it wasn't a technique only she could perform.

Any sorcerer with a deep knowledge of curses could attempt to split their soul once, at the risk of their own life.

However, what made her special was that she could maintain a sound ego even after slicing her soul into dozens of pieces as if cutting a watermelon.

She could even send those split souls across the entire continent through magic circles.

The one that possessed Count Maenenwood was probably one of those fragments.

What I was curious about was this.

I understood the splitting part, but how in the world did she possess him?

As far as I knew, long-term possession was impossible unless one was a vengeful spirit.

‘As long as one has a body to return to, it is impossible to occupy another's body for a long time. Because the bond with the original body weakens. I'm sure that was the lore.’

I had a theory.

The hint was the two statues that appeared at the last moment.

In that time that seemed to stretch a fleeting moment into an eternity, which no one else saw.

The two statues had clearly been conversing.

I was able to understand some of it.

- A light that bewitches souls. You have broken the rules.

- Begone.

If I used my imagination, the story probably went something like this.

Possession was the ability of the candelabra-shaped statue.

Chincharina, through her spiritual body, tried to possess me with that ability.

However, the possession itself was first blocked by my officially recognized overpowered trait, [Lord’s Unyielding Mind].

Immediately after, she was retaliated against by the statue I had taken from Tribus, or more precisely, by the entity lurking behind it.

‘…This isn't a question that can be answered right away.’

I thought so and moved on.

To be precise, I tried to move on.

I had already checked the statue several times, but there was nothing unusual, while my schedule was becoming increasingly hectic.

Bringing the mercenary band into the city for maintenance, hunting down the remnants of the Indika forces that had gone into hiding, and planning a full-scale operation to strike the anti-Imperial faction from behind with Count Maenenwood—the list of things to do was truly endless.

However, I had already experienced many times in this life that things don't always go as planned.

Wriggle.

When the arrangement of the items in my subspace started to change slightly, I thought it was just my imagination.

[Activating [Small Subspace].]

The incident occurred on the day I put in a snack, a cookie made of hardened almond powder mixed with honey, which also served as emergency food.

‘Yes! This is it, you fucker!’

A voice that pierced my consciousness like an auditory hallucination.

‘Slurp! Haaah. I feel like I’m melting. This sweet fragrance and taste……! Hardtack can fuck off now!’

I dropped the cookie I was about to put in my mouth.

For the first time in a very long time, I truly understood the meaning of the phrase ‘brain freeze’ as I opened the subspace.

Wriggle. Shlurp.

There was a bundle of tentacles.

A tentacle was carefully picking up one of the cookies I had just put in.

‘Ah, master. How are you? A fine morning.’

One tentacle swayed.

As if waving hello.

‘This is our first formal greeting, isn't it? It seems you can finally hear my voice.’

“……”

‘Ah, first, I would like to express my gratitude for the delicious food. In that vein, would you mind buying me another bag of these?’

What the fuck is this?