Chapter 270: Ashes (2)

After meeting them by chance in a shop in the Ashes, Arlos led Mage Epherene of the Mage Tower and Prosecutor Rose from the Supreme Magic Prosecutors' Office to the base of her adventurer team. It looked no different from an ordinary office. There, Epherene and Rose removed their robes—only to be stunned in surprise as their eyes met.

“Are you the Professor’s protégé?” Rose asked.

“

Oh

, you’re Professor's bodyguard,” Epherene said.

"I'm not a bodyguard. I'm a prosecutor—assigned to the Supreme Magic Prosecutors' Office of Yuren," Rose replied, her brows drawing together ever so slightly.

“

Oh~

”

Epherene, of course, had no idea what a prosecutor from the Supreme Magic Prosecutors’ Office even was.

“Anyway,” Epherene said as she turned toward Arlos, or more precisely, toward her puppet. “Do you know who it was that stole the transformation formula?"

“I cannot say for sure,” Arlos replied, shaking her head. “But it’s obvious—it’ll be one of the names on this wanted list.”

Several wanted posters were pinned to the corkboard on the wall of the adventure team’s base.

“Carla the Authority? Carla’s here?” Epherene said, peering at the array of faces on the corkboard, then flinching as her eyes landed on a name she hadn’t expected.

Carla, the Authority, was once a prodigy and the leading candidate to become the next Archmage. But at some point—whether she fell to corruption or had grown tired of the Floating Island and its politics—she disappeared from the magical world, erased her record, left her legacy behind, and in the end, became a criminal, wandering the Ashes.

“Yes, she’s here,” Rose replied, her mouth tightening with visible displeasure. “She’s been a nightmare in both Yuren and the Ashes, and her brother Jackal speaks for himself—but she has committed far too many crimes on her own.”

As the words left her lips, Rose’s eyes remained locked on Carla, the Authority’s wanted poster.

However, there was no face, no features—just the name

Carla

written beneath the figure in a robe. Just as expected from the most mysterious mage in the world.

“It was five years ago that Carla first appeared in Yuren. At the time, we were hopeful. Yuren had few magic talents in the region, and we had hoped she would become a guiding hand for the next generation.”

“And what happened?” Epherene asked.

“Guiding the next generation? That dream died fast,” Rose replied with a chuckle. “She turned to theft, buried herself in strange magic research in the Ashes, and her brother Jackal—he’s a murderer, but he’s so powerful that even Yuren’s authorities have never been able to lay so much as a hand on him.”

At those words, Drent and Julia—both as delicate as flowers raised in a greenhouse—swallowed hard, the kind of fear that tightened their faces and dried their throats.

“Fortunately, Jackal has disappeared into Hadecaine, and Carla, too, has been quiet for a while... but of course, something else had to go wrong,” Rose added, turning toward Epherene and clicking her teeth. “Miss Assistant, is that research really worth one billion elne?”

“Yes—but I’m not an assistant. I’m an assistant professor,” Epherene replied.

“I’m not a bodyguard either,” Rose said as she adjusted her robe across her shoulders. “I’m a prosecutor.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m headed to the volcano since someone has begun to follow Decalane’s trail.”

“I’ll come with you. Drent, Julia—are you coming too?”

Drent and Julia rubbed the backs of their necks before shaking their heads.

“We’ve got something we need to do... so I think we’ll have to head back to Yuren.”

“Yeah? Alright then. What about you, Miss Puppeteer?”

“I’ll come with you. The Ashes are full of dangerous types, and I’ve known Deculein for some time—consider the escort free of charge,” Arlos replied with a chuckle, swinging a large duffel over her shoulder.

***

... The volcano in the Ashes buried everything even deeper than the village and the commercial district. The further they descended underground, the darker everything became—washed in crimson shadow—and the air grew thick with volcanic ash.

The ones who came and went in that lowest layer were miners, criminals, and drug addicts—people who had no purpose, no direction. Pathetic souls who’d long since thrown away even the worth of their own lives.

I stood deep in the center of the volcano, looking down at the molten magma churning beneath the crust.

“This is as far as it goes. There’s nothing beneath it,” the man said. “

Umm...

”

“Take it, and be gone,” I said, tossing him the pouch of gold coins.

“

Oh

! Thank you, sir!

Hahaha!

”

The man who guided me here stepped back with the brightest smile, and I stood there, staring into the volcano in silence.

Beneath the ground, an aura swirled and shimmered, the flow of mana too dense to hide, and through my

Sharp Eyesight

, I saw it all.

Without a word, I raised the Wood Steel and bound four blades of steel into a platform beneath my feet. I stepped on and let myself descend into the volcano like an elevator, gliding through the heat of the magma, chasing the aura below.

Then, I found a shelter carved into the wall of the volcano. It led into a long, winding passage, its stone scorched by the breath of the magma.

Clack—

I stepped inside and looked around. The first things I saw were ordinary furnishings—a sofa, a desk. Magic paper was likely here too, but none of it caught my eye.

“... This is where you were.”

There, at the back of the cave, a bed had been placed—and on it, lying without the faintest movement, was a woman I’d seen before. One of the strongest beings in this world.

“Carla,” I said.

I stepped toward Carla, the Authority, and looked down at her as she lay sprawled across the bed, drenched in cold sweat, her black hair clinging to her skin, soaked through, while her whole body burned like a live flame.

Carla looked at me in silence. From the very beginning, her body had been terminal—born with a death sentence and a talent too immense for her frame to contain, and now, that body was little more than a shell.

[Independent Quest : Carla]

◆ Carla, the Authority, does not want to die.

“... I wonder if you are Deculein,” Carla muttered, barely above a whisper.

The sound of Carla’s voice reached into me, drawing me back through time—into Deculein’s past, far removed and fading at the edges of memory.

From her earliest years, Carla bore the genius of a mage born, not made. Once, through sponsorship from Deculein, she came to teach me—and that memory still burns clearly in my mind. In other words, she was Deculein’s mentor long before Rohakan ever was.

“

I wonder why you don’t know this.

”

“

I wonder why Deculein never seems to understand the lessons.

”

However, the difference in our talent was overwhelming. Carla, confused that Deculein couldn’t understand a single part of her teachings, eventually left the mansion. That innocent confusion of hers became a deep wound that Deculein could never quite shake for years.

“Indeed, I am Deculein,” I replied. “We haven’t met since Ghost Island.”

“... I wonder,” Carla said with a smile.

Meanwhile, I turned to the magic papers laid beside Carla’s bed, and each line of spellwork revealed itself to me in turn—

Comprehension

coming as naturally as breath. They described a Harmony category spell designed to trigger an artificial eruption by planting a magic circle at the base of the volcano.

“Carla, why are you trying to make the volcano erupt?”

[Main Quest : Volcano of the Yuren Mountain Range]

◆ Reward Granted Based on Choice

The Main Quest had begun to overlap with the Independent Quest—and Carla’s appearance was the sign. A signal flare marking the start of the episode’s second half, she was, after all, a named character aligned with the Altar.

“... I wonder if Deculein came here to stop me?” Carla asked, sitting up and leaning her back against the bed frame as she looked up at me.

“I came to ask for the reason.”

Carla lowered her head without a word, sweat pooling on her face and trailing down beneath her chin.

“I wonder... if maybe I don’t want to die after all,” Carla said, her voice shaking as she caught her breath.

Carla’s voice trembled with emotion, on the edge of tears. Within Carla’s failing body, mana erupted like a volcano—raging hot and unrestrained. It was eating away at her heart and veins, devouring her from the inside out.

“Was that why you cooperated with the Altar—because you didn’t want to die?” I inquired.

The will to survive was universal. Whether this world was a game or not, almost no one welcomed death. That was only natural—we're all human, after all.

“I wonder if it all started with requesting it from Decalane. Was he chasing immortality even then, through his research? But...”

“Decalane is dead.”

Carla nodded and turned her eyes toward something in the distance. I followed her line of sight without a word.

“I wonder if Decalane left behind a legacy. But perhaps it was never enough to sustain my life.”

There, I saw it—the demonic core, a grotesque, living organ, a heart swollen with tendrils, but already dead, slumped over in still silence.

“I wonder if that was the reason Altar told me—that if I cooperated, they would let me live.”

I remained silent.

“

Cough—

Cough—

”

Carla stopped speaking, let out a cough, and blood tinged with mana spilled from the corner of her mouth.

“Carla,” I called.

Carla raised her eyes to meet mine.

“You chose your own life—even if it means the world burns around you—and every flame is lit by another life you took?”

“... You say that like you’re any different,” Carla replied, her eyes burning with rare anger. “But you don’t want to die either!”

Carla spat the words like something too bitter to hold, and they struck like a cry—her first that wasn’t filled with wonder, but a shout from deep within.

“Of course you don’t understand—you’re alive.”

“I do understand,” I replied, shaking my head at the certainty in her voice.

Carla looked at me with a furrowed brow.

“I’m not as alive as you think,” I added, smiling as our eyes met.

After taking in Deculein’s memories—those hundred years of chaos sealed away in the Imperial Palace—there was no way I could come out of it unharmed, for no one could withstand that and stay the same.

Of course, I told Sophien it was all fine—but I knew her better than she knew herself, and in doing so, I betrayed her trust and spoke nothing but lies to her.

Carla looked at my chest in silence, and I took her hand, placing it over my heart.

In that silence, Carla nodded, her gesture full of meaning that neither of us needed to speak aloud.

“However, I have a theory that will save your life.”

Then Carla looked up at me, her eyes wide with surprise.

“By implanting an artificial heart—an elegant organic construct designed to withstand your mana—I can sustain your life. Of course, any advanced spells must forever be beyond your reach.”

Carla’s condition was, in the end, just a physical overload from mana, and compared to Yulie, she was far easier to cure—because hers had a name and a path to follow.

“I wonder if it could be possible.”

“If my theory reaches completion.”

“I wonder if I’m running out of time.”

“It will be enough. Therefore, your mass destruction spell must be dismantled here.”

At my words, Carla looked into the air with blank eyes, caught in hesitation she didn’t voice.

Watching Carla hesitate, I ground my teeth and quietly stoked the heat of my mana, knowing that if she refused this offer, I would have no choice but to kill her.

“... Deculein,” Carla said, pointing past me toward the far end of the cave where shadows settled. “Look there.”

I turned to look where Carla was pointing.

Thud— Thud—

There was movement in the dark, and the man stepped forward, one step at a time, as if the darkness itself made way for him.

I furrowed my brow as I watched him approach, yet he simply looked at me and smiled.

“We meet at last, Deculein.”

The uninvited guest who called my name resembled Sophien, though there was something more androgynous about them. But one thing was clear—their appearance was beautiful.

“It is I.”

The one who called himself

I

—I had a feeling I knew exactly who he was.

“... You must be the self-proclaimed God.”

“Indeed. I’ve borrowed the body of a puppet—nothing more. This is neither incarnation nor descent. I came merely to walk the world, as your kind do, and to witness the truth of this continent with my own eyes,” He replied, smiling.

I looked at him through my

Sharp Eyesight

, but there was nothing remarkable—no overwhelming mana, no hint of divine aura, nothing at all.

“Deculein,” He added, never looking away. “Will you spare a moment to journey with me? There is much I wish to show you...”

***

Meanwhile, Epherene was busy eating squid skewers, pork skewers, octopus skewers, crayfish skewers, and more, her hands full as she devoured them one bite after another, as if the meal would never end.

Believe it or not—and not a single person on the continent would’ve guessed—the Ashes were a paradise of street food!

Epherene thought.

“Assistant Professor,” Arlos said with a dry chuckle. “You were the one who said we should head to the volcano—so what are we doing here?”

“Just a sec—this is far too delicious to leave unfinished.

Oh

, and I believe I’ll take one more for the road.”

At the end of her feast, Epherene’s eyes landed on one last skewer—beef tongue.

As Epherene tried to sample every skewer stall in the Ashes, Arlos and Rose could only shake their heads, as if there was nothing more to be said.

“I don’t think she’s listening. So, at least you and I—what does the volcanic eruption really mean?” Rose asked.

“They say Carla lives somewhere near the volcano. No one’s ever seen her, but the rumors are everywhere. Some believe she predicted the volcanic eruption... Others think she means to cause it, and...” Arlos replied, sighing as she pulled a wanted poster from her inner pocket. “This puppet was my creation.”

“That thief’s been making a name for themselves lately, and you’re saying it’s a puppet?” Rose asked, glancing over the wanted poster with a nod.

The montage on the wanted poster showed a criminal responsible for thirty thefts across Yuren’s capital—stealing prized inventions and precious goods. Rose, of course, recognized the face all too well.

“That is correct. But it’s not just any thief. That puppet... is a masterpiece—crafted for the flesh of God.”

It had taken no small courage for Arlos to speak about it, but Rose didn’t react at all, as if she hadn’t heard her.

Is it too much for her to believe?

Arlos thought.

“

Wow

, this is delicious!

Nom, nom—

Oh

, excuse me—what’s that one? Sorry? What? Roahawk?! You serve Roahawk here?!”

Behind me, all I can hear is Epherene munching away. How could a Mage Tower mage love the foods of the Ashes this much?

Arlos thought.

“

Oh

, yes, of course. You must be a skilled puppeteer,” Rose replied.

“

Skilled

is far too small a word for me. I am capable of crafting life itself.”

“... Are you one of those cults as well?”

“

Tch

. Believe me or don’t—that’s your choice,” Arlos replied, scratching her temple. “But if God’s consciousness resides within that puppet...”

Arlos paused for a moment, turning her eyes across the Ashes—a nation buried in volcanic ash, branded by the world, discarded by the continents, and yet, it stood tall, forging pride from the very insult into its identity.

“This is the holy book the Altar follows,” Arlos added, shaking her head as she handed Rose what the Altar called their Bible.

“Holy book.”

“Yes, the holy book. It names the volcanic eruption as the very first sign of God's descent. Why don't you see for yourself—read it.”

At Arlos’s words, Rose gave a nod, but she didn’t open the holy book—she merely slipped it into her coat, as she had no time for a cult’s bible and her assignment came first.

“Roahawk—yes, this one here. Could I have a few more? No, wait, pack up ten to go—”

“Excuse me, Miss Assistant Professor? Could we get going now?” Rose said, calling back to Deculein’s assistant professor, who was still lost in whatever that Roahawk thing was.

“Sorry?

Oh

—Prosecutor, you should try some too. I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to eat it all myself~” Epherene said, smiling as she offered her a skewer, her lips gleaming with grease. “Here—say

ahh~

”