Chapter 58: Prologue: Under a Nameless Star Has Concluded
[Prologue: Under a Nameless Star Has Concluded]
[Checking Progress...]
Staring at the system screen, Eiros couldn’t even blink. At first there were only two screens, but the very next second, dozens more system screens appeared, surrounding his entire body, each one packed with different information he had no time to read at all.
Still, all of it pointed to one single thing. Every last bit of it was a mission Eiros would need to complete, from today onward into the future, as though the system itself had already prepared and predicted the fate of everything that was going to happen from here on out.
With so many screens flashing at once, Eiros felt a certain kind of headache creeping in from not blinking at all. His head throbbed slightly, and he winced, gritting through it, trying to hold onto whatever he could.
[Sacrifice....]
[Prevent.... Death....]
[Help.... The.... Herions....]
[The..... gods....]
But no matter how hard Eiros tried, each newly appearing system screen only flickered for less than a second before vanishing completely.
Cold sweat poured down his face, along with a headache that only kept getting worse.
Luckily, though, it didn’t last long. Eiros wasn’t sure if he’d actually caught anything useful, but with ragged breaths, his gaze finally settled on the one remaining system screen.
[World Mission]
Objective: Help Awakening the Saintess.
Time Limit: Eight Months.
Failure Condition: Growth of the Corruption Seed.
[Time remaining until the corruption seed matures: two years, nine months]
[Additional missions will continue to be issued during this period]
Eiros held his breath.
He wasn’t even looking at the mission itself, or what would happen if he failed to complete it. His gaze was locked, frozen, on the remaining time.
His expression turned dark and pale as his hands clenched into tight fists.
’...This doesn’t make sense.’
He let out a hollow laugh.
He nearly lost his footing, his composure cracking. But Eiros quickly steadied himself, drawing in one long, deep breath.
’No. Calm down, that’s still a long time. Yeah, I’ll definitely find a way through it before then. Don’t get too worked up. There’s a cure to slow it down too.’
Eiros rubbed at his own chest, trying to force his thoughts into a more positive direction. He couldn’t afford to spiral like this, not when negative emotions were exactly what fed that seed’s growth.
It was genuinely unsettling—he wasn’t even allowed to feel hopeless, not even a little. But honestly, that was probably for the best. He didn’t want to drown in despair anyway.
He looked over at Estiel, already walking off ahead, not even bothering to glance back to check if Eiros was keeping up.
Eiros closed his eyes for a moment, letting himself feel the refreshing evening breeze drift past.
After that, he started walking again, as if nothing had happened at all. His hand, tucked into his pocket now, was trembling.
***
In that somewhat complicated state, Eiros went through the light procedure required to register his stigmata. Luckily, thanks to the beginning-of-semester exam, Eiros didn’t need to demonstrate his powers all over again. Besides, that would’ve been difficult anyway, since his ability was already considered to be on cooldown at the moment.
So, after finishing the necessary procedure and chatting with Estiel for a bit, Eiros finally managed to leave the procedure room and head back to his dorm.
In that short stretch of time, he didn’t do much of anything, deciding to just take a quick shower before finally collapsing onto his bed and falling asleep.
An overwhelming exhaustion had been gnawing at his body. That, combined with his mental state growing increasingly unstable, thanks to the corruption seed’s influence and whatever he’d just witnessed.
Regardless, Eiros realized that everything that had happened so far had really only been the prologue of this webtoon’s world. Essentially, the actual main story was only just beginning from here, with a dark, uncertain future stretching out ahead.
The mission about helping the Saintess recover sounded genuinely difficult on its own, difficult enough that Eiros refused to even think about it for now.
There was a lot to consider, but again, let’s just leave that to future Eiros. And so, Eiros slept straight through that evening until the following morning.
After such a long stretch of sleep, Eiros found himself feeling genuinely refreshed and energized.
He stretched lightly, working the stiffness out of his body, yawning comfortably.
Mornings were always the time that made anyone feel lazy, reluctant to part with their bed. But once they finally left that bed to start their day, after a good long sleep, they’d realize just how much energy their body actually had.
"Sorry about that, buddy, but I swear! I’ll definitely repay you for that brilliant plan of yours!"
Across from him, Valkas looked absolutely fired up. They’d agreed to wait for each other in front of the academy’s main building and check the beginning-of-semester exam results together.
That’s exactly why Eiros found himself here this morning, alongside Valkas, Alen, and Godon. Watching just how pumped Valkas was about landing first place made Eiros feel genuinely amused.
"Ugh... why are you so confident about that? I also survived the full one hundred eighty minutes, you know?"
Hearing Alen’s voice, Valkas just shrugged.
"You’re underestimating me. Right before I started hunting you down, I’d nearly hunted every single piece of prey outside that cave, you know that?"
"Heh, that’s it? I hunted down a ton of them from inside the cave too."
Both of them looked fired up, arguing over who’d end up on top.
Eiros, of course, couldn’t care less, refusing to even get involved. Besides, wasn’t the outcome already obvious anyway?
"Ah, Lovia’s here. She’s really late."
Godon spoke up from the side, and Eiros turned to see Lovia had just arrived, her face pale.
"S-sorry! I overslept a bit!"
Judging by her gloomy expression and the dark circles under her eyes, she really had overslept badly. That made Godon chuckle with amusement.
"You look like a wreck, Lovia."
"Shut up!"
Lovia let out a long sigh, looking utterly exhausted, then shot Godon a sharp, hostile glare.
"This is all your fault! Ugh...."
Hearing that, Godon burst out laughing.
"That’s on you for being weak. Remember? We had a bet, so you owe me fried chicken later."
Godon smirked.
Once the roles had flipped, and Godon fled after leaving Alen behind, it turned out he’d run straight into Lovia, who’d already become a hunter.
Long story short, that fight had gone to the prey. Same thing had happened with Alen and Valkas, where the prey had come out on top there too.
Ah, and apparently Rein had lost to Reina as well. Eiros remembered Rein getting absolutely wrecked back then.
Thinking about it more, the prey side had genuinely been ridiculously strong.
’....I couldn’t beat Erness either.’
That made Eiros smile awkwardly. He genuinely didn’t understand what was going on with his own side of things.
Letting out a sigh, he looked at the four of them still arguing, then rubbed his face and said:
"Can we go in now?"
He glanced at them for a moment, then looked toward the building, where a massive crowd had gathered—first-years, second-years, all the way up through third-years. Of course, the second and third-years had also shown up to check their own rankings.
Once they got the others’ agreement, they finally stepped into the building. Yeah, since this was the academy’s main building, it wasn’t surprising that it opened up into an enormous lobby with impossibly high ceilings.
Second-year results were posted on the second floor, third-year results on the third floor, and first-year results on the ground floor.
As they stepped inside, Eiros and the others could feel the stares of other students land on them. But none of them seemed to care, too caught up in their own heated argument.
"A bet?! Haha! Sure, I’ll show you all that I’m not just charming, but genuinely amazing too. If I take first place, you all better start calling me Valkas, the Sacred Sky Emperor!"
"Oh?! Sure, sure! Let’s do it, if I rank higher than you, you have to kneel in the middle of the crowd and shout, ’Lovia is the best!’ Deal?"
And then came a string of even more ridiculous bets, each one sounding more absurd than the last.
Once they finally reached the ranking board, all four of their gazes turned toward Eiros.
"What about you?! What’s your bet?"
Eiros blinked for a moment, glancing at each of them, his lips twitching as he looked over at Valkas.
’Sure, that betrayal was something I set up myself, for my own benefit. But it’s still annoying seeing him act this smug about it.’
So...
"If I rank higher than all of you, then you all have to call Valkas ’Lizard’ for the next eight months."
"H-huh?"
Valkas looked shocked, an awkward smile crossing his face as he tried to voice his objection. But the others agreed instantly, even fired up about it, since it didn’t affect them at all.
"W-wait...!"
He yelled loudly, but—
"Come on, why’re you still yelling like that? As long as I rank below you, this isn’t a problem, is it?"
Of course, that was exactly how it worked.
After winning over Valkas, who clearly wasn’t happy about being singled out like that, they finally arrived at the ranking board.
***