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[Translator - Hestia]
[Proofreader - Starfall ]
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Chapter 12: Revelation and Trial (3)
Adelia saw it all— every step that man took to pass the trial of an Elder God.
KWAAAAGHH!
The moment the crystal shattered, a torrent of ominous energy surged forth like a tidal wave.
Powerful enough to shake the entire cavern.
And as it concentrated, it began pressing down on the man’s body.
“……!”
Adelia's eyes flew wide open. Warning bells rang loud in her head.
This was dangerous.
With a trial that intense, even a seasoned warrior would likely meet their end.
But then—
“That’s enough. Cheap illusions like these don’t work on me.”
—Contrary to her fears, the man passed the trial effortlessly.
FWOOSH—!
The ominous energy vanished in an instant the moment he finished speaking.
What...?
Adelia, who had been observing from a few steps away, was completely stunned.
“N-No way…”
The pressure of the trial had been terrifying enough to freeze her in place.
And yet, he had overcome it—so easily it was almost surreal.
“……”
Even as it all ended, his expression remained utterly calm—so composed it was hard to believe he had just endured the ordeal of an Elder God.
Eventually, still gazing blankly at the ceiling of the cave, the man spoke.
“I’m done here. Let’s head back.”
Step, step—
He turned and started walking back the way they had come, utterly unfazed.
Watching his retreating back, Adelia couldn’t hide her confusion.
“Just who is he…?”
Her pupils trembled.
A Swordmaster.
A pilgrim moving by the will of the Elders. A genius who had achieved the pinnacle of the sword.
She had known Swordmasters were in a class of their own— but never could she have imagined such overwhelming, otherworldly power.
…Unless, perhaps, he was a uniquely exceptional case.
Stop—
Just then, the man halted mid-step.
Turning slightly, he spoke in a flat, indifferent tone.
“What are you doing back there?”
“R-Right behind you, sir…!”
Startled back to her senses, Adelia hurriedly followed after him.
* * *
Step.
Having finished our business, we walked out of the abandoned factory.
It was pitch black outside. A cool breeze began to blow.
Not once had I thought the air of Dark City Dungard was pleasant, but after that suffocating underground, the open air felt refreshingly crisp.
I glanced at Adelia’s expression and broke the silence.
“Still weighing on you?”
“……Pardon?”
Adelia, who had been staring at the factory with a troubled look, jolted at my words.
After hearing the truth of what happened inside, she hadn't been able to shake off her discomfort.
No doubt she was sympathizing with the children and spirits who had been sacrificed in the experiments.
She was a textbook example of a good-aligned character—always overly concerned with this sort of thing.
“If it bothers you that much, then hold a requiem.”
Adelia hesitated.
“Would that be all right? It might take a while…”
“It’s fine.”
“……”
“It’s not like we’re in any rush with the next objective.”
Requiem.
A rite to comfort the souls of the dead.
It was a rare skill that only a chosen few—those born into sacred bloodlines—could perform.
“The victims’ spirits are still trapped in that factory.”
Of course, since we had already passed the trial, we could technically leave with no issue…
But I knew Adelia.
Her inherently kind heart wouldn’t let go of this place for days, maybe weeks.
Better to deal with it now than have her distracted by the past later.
She needed to focus on the present.
Besides...
…I also had something I wanted to confirm. Something worth taking the time to witness.
“Thank you for your consideration.”
Just then, Adelia bowed deeply and expressed her gratitude.
She immediately began preparing the requiem for the factory’s victims.
Wooooom. WOOOOOM—!
FWOOSH—!
Teal-blue flames rose from Adelia’s body, latching onto the factory ruins.
Her sacred aura soon began engulfing everything in sight.
Murmur, murmur—
Eyes closed, Adelia began whispering a quiet prayer.
Pale smoke drifted up from the flaming ruins, blurring into the night sky.
The wavering air above the pyre looked as if the souls of the dead were being set free.
…No. It didn’t just look like they were being set free.
[Thank you.]
[Thank you.]
[Thank you.]
The smoke began to take form—one by one, the shapes of children began to appear.
Ashen boys and girls floated through the night sky, gazing down at us with gentle smiles.
And then, a new system alert appeared before me.
Ding!
〔You have comforted the trapped spirits within the abandoned factory.〕
〔The spirits express their gratitude to you and your companion.〕
FWOOM, FWOOSH—!
All around us, teal-blue flames danced.
The abandoned factory—once a site of horrific experimentation—now slowly drove back the darkness that had swallowed it whole.
I had never seen this happen, not once in my previous 200 playthroughs.
No wonder—by the time most players reached Dungard, every member of a sacred bloodline who could perform the requiem was already dead.
To make matters worse, the sole survivor—Adelia von Goldheart— had long since been excommunicated from her house and stripped of her holy powers.
That’s why I’d never once seen the requiem performed in Dungard’s 【Hidden Dungeon II】.
I had pitied the wrongly sacrificed children— but I’d never had the means to offer them peace.
[…Thank you. Truly, for not abandoning us. For giving us comfort.]
But not anymore.
The worldline had changed.
The grim fate that once seemed inevitable was beginning to shift.
I’ve fallen into the world of a game.
An open-world dark fantasy RPG—Lost Elder.
And I know this game inside and out.
The dungeon mechanics, boss patterns, even the backstories of key NPCs—I’ve memorized them all.
‘But I can’t rely blindly on what I think I know.’
This world has already deviated greatly from the one I remember.
The player who should’ve died at the hands of the Human Butcher, Barba
was now walking freely through Dark City Dungard— armed with a 12-star myth-tier skill.
Under normal circumstances, it would’ve been impossible to meet the NPC Lea de Karayan at this point in the game, let alone be accompanied by Adelia von Goldheart as a personal escort.
“No one knows what kind of butterfly effect my actions might trigger.”
It was obvious.
I’ve said it enough times already, but none of this had ever happened in any of my 199 previous playthroughs.
Fwoooosh, fwoosh—!
Maybe even the now-burning abandoned factory before me was part of this same distortion.
“Of course…”
…these distortions didn’t always bring negative outcomes.
A faint smile touched my lips as I read the system notifications hovering before me.
Ding—!
〔The ‘Master of the Second Hand and the Split Second’ thanks you for your virtuous deed.〕
〔Your reward has been enhanced.〕
〔The true form of the Authority Skill, “Ritardando: True,” has been unlocked.〕
A special reward.
The True version of Ritardando, something no one had ever obtained, was now mine.
…And that wasn’t all I gained.
Resolve.
Watching the freed souls of children laughing and soaring joyfully through the night sky, a firm conviction took root in my heart:
“’I’ll change everything with my own hands.’
The world I had once observed through hundreds of playthroughs had deviated from its course.
And I, the one at the center of that deviation, would set everything right.
So this world wouldn’t crash toward some cursed bad ending—
So that, at last, I could reach the true ending no one had seen in the past twelve years.
At this point, there was nothing left to do in Dark City Dungard.
It was time to move on to the next destination— a place where more could be achieved, more could be gained.
* * *
“Adelia.”
On the road out of Dungard, I spoke to the girl walking beside me.
“My next destination is the Free City of Veritas.”
“……”
“It’s going to be a long and tedious journey. Are you still planning to follow me?”
Without a second’s hesitation, Adelia nodded.
“Yes. As I’ve said before—I’m willing to do anything if it brings me closer to enlightenment.”
Good.
That was exactly the answer I’d been hoping for.
Having unofficially extended my contract with my bus driver, I smirked inwardly.
Maybe it was just my imagination, but my steps felt noticeably lighter.
‘Well, that aside…’
Suddenly, a thought crossed my mind.
‘…The Undead.’
That was the original trajectory of my fate.
In the normal game, I was destined to be killed by Barba the Human Butcher—and then resurrected by a necromancer as one of the Undead.
In other words, if I hadn’t possessed the passive skill Soul of the Swordmaster, that would’ve been my fate.
‘But I survived the Underground Arena.’
Now that the future had changed, what would the necromancer do next?
Would they just leave the corpse pit untouched?
Or… create another Undead in my place?
‘If someone entirely unexpected were to be reborn as an Undead…’
…That would be a disaster in its own right.
Undead beings are a threat to this world simply by existing.
The destruction of the boundary between life and death would cause untold harm to the world’s balance.
If one were to be created, it would only hasten the world’s end—and that’s exactly why I’d fought so hard to survive Barba’s onslaught.
‘Just in case… I need to prepare.’
Fortunately, in the Free City of Veritas, there’s a hidden power capable of opposing the Undead.
I needed to get my hands on it—and fast.
To be ready for any unforeseen dangers.
To survive in this damned world, I had to eliminate every single variable, no matter how small.
‘More importantly…’
One day, I might have to face that deranged Swordmaster.
Which meant I had to secure the hidden power in Veritas.
* * *
“Hmm, hmmm~!”
Hop, hop—!
A girl with her hood pulled up skipped cheerfully through a dim, corpse-ridden space, humming a tune.
All around her were piles of rotting corpses, discarded bones, and all manner of waste.
“Hm?”
Stop—.
She suddenly halted.
Her face, which had been bright with an innocent smile, went blank in an instant.
“The threads of fate… have changed.”
Tsk—.
Losing interest in a flash, the girl clicked her tongue and casually kicked a skull nearby.
Thunk—! Clatter-clatter—.
The flying skull crashed into a heap of corpses, causing the unstable pile to collapse with a deafening crash.
“…Oh?”
And from within the toppled mound, something unexpected emerged.
A fresh specimen.
The girl's eyes lit up again.
“Hmm… Well, looks like there’s still a fun toy left.”
She bounced over to the corpse and gave it a few curious pokes before grinning from ear to ear.
“Hey, what’s your name?”
Vwoooom, Vwooooom—!
From the cleanly severed neck, new life began to grow.
Muscle, bone, and flesh writhed and squirmed, slowly constructing a new head.
How much time passed?
Eventually, the body with its newly grown head opened its mouth.
“Barba…”
His voice was dry and cracked—parched beyond recognition.
“…Barba the Human Butcher.”
The girl asked again, “And what do you want to do?”
Barba’s eyes gleamed crimson.
His newly born gaze burned with murderous hatred.
From the very moment of his resurrection, there was only one thing he desired.
“Revenge.”
Ding—!
〔Hidden Message: A twisted causality has given birth to the Undead Barba.〕
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[Translator - Hestia]
[Proofreader - Starfall ]
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