Chapter 203: Reality (4)
TL: SHW
Mont Saint-Michel.
A small rocky island in Normandy, France. More precisely, the name referred to the abbey built atop that island.
For more than a thousand years, it had sheltered those who followed God, and even after a Dungeon Gate appeared at the very top of the abbey, it remained a beautiful sanctuary of God.
As the centuries passed and the modern era arrived, the monks eventually left and the abbey became a tourist attraction. After the Dungeon appeared, however, it was closed to tourists, and monks were permanently stationed at Mont Saint-Michel in case of an emergency. Though they were called monks, they were Hunters affiliated with the Holy See who normally traveled to areas suffering severe Dungeon damage, killing monsters or volunteering to help with recovery efforts.
“Mont Saint-Michel.”
“Yeah.”
In addition to the Holy See's Hunters, Guilds from France and Britain took turns monitoring the Dungeon at Mont Saint-Michel.
Every country had a Dungeon it watched above all others. Dungeon classifications only ran from E through A, with S-rank above them, but that did not mean every Dungeon of the same rank was equally dangerous. There was one very simple way to tell the difference.
The number of casualties.
When a Dungeon like that broke, the damage could spiral completely out of control. It was impossible to monitor every Dungeon, but some absolutely could not be allowed to break.
Mont Saint-Michel was one of them.
And for good reason. The Dungeon at Mont Saint-Michel was infamous for having swallowed not dozens or hundreds, but thousands of Hunters.
Most of the Hunters who entered had died, leaving the interior almost entirely unexplored even now. If a Dungeon Break ever occurred there, the consequences would inevitably reach not only France but nearby Britain as well. That was why the Hunters stationed at Mont Saint-Michel included not only French Hunters and volunteers from the Holy See, but British Hunters who otherwise would have seemed completely out of place.
Fortunately or unfortunately, Mont Saint-Michel would remain quiet for the next twenty years. True to its nickname as a library, the only thing that occasionally raised its body count was mages secretly entering in search of the books inside.
“Mont Saint-Michel.”
Hong Seok-young repeated the Dungeon's name once more, his expression distinctly sour.
Hong Seok-young had heard from me which Dungeons would still remain uncleared in the future. Every Dungeon marked as off-limits on the Uncleared Dungeon Forum would eventually be cleared one after another. The only one that never fell was Mont Saint-Michel.
...The Hong Seok-young of the present had never entered Mont Saint-Michel.
But my father, who had been inside, had warned me.
No matter what happened, never go in there.
Think positive.
People should focus on the bright side of life, shouldn't they?
All that had happened was that one more annoying complication had been added to an already infamous Dungeon. Just because some King or whatever was holed up inside didn't suddenly make Mont Saint-Michel... go from an E-rank Dungeon to an S-rank Dungeon.
It had already been S-rank to begin with. Apparently, S-rank didn't even begin to convey how dangerous Mont Saint-Michel was. There had even been calls to create an entirely separate classification just for it.
Danger plus danger was still just danger. It was already dangerous, so what difference did it make if it became even more dangerous... What the hell was I even saying?
Anyway, wasn't it a relief that there was only one Dungeon like that? Much better than discovering that some little Dungeon I hadn't even known existed was actually the final boss. I only had to clean up one Dungeon, and then it would all be over. Simple, right?
......Fuck.
“Mont Saint-Michel.”
So I had no choice but to repeat the name myself.
I pulled myself together.
I had a new goal. From now on, I needed to figure out how to clear a Dungeon even my father had found daunting.
Damn it. I should've made him tell me more about what it was like inside.
“But...”
Hong Seok-young spoke again, still looking displeased.
“Uh, Mont Saint-Michel has been off-limits for a long time, hasn't it? As far as I remember, it's been under supervision since the earliest days of Dungeons.”
“Probably?”
“Not probably. Definitely. I remember because it caused a huge uproar back then.”
Hope shrugged. Hong Seok-young slowly folded his arms before continuing.
“Noah Michel is the Agent? That means she gives you orders on behalf of that King... or something like that, right?”
“Right.”
“Then Noah Michel must have gone inside and seen this... King, right?”
“I guess?”
I frowned as well, then cut into the conversation and asked Hope a question.
“Even if Michel is the Archmage representing France, Mont Saint-Michel isn't somewhere just anyone can enter. How did she get in? I've never heard anything about Michel entering Mont Saint-Michel.”
Not even in the future. If the pride of France had entered Mont Saint-Michel, the Dungeon no one had ever managed to clear, it would have been splashed across every headline. They would have been proclaiming that the Jewel of Nantes was going to save us.
I'd never heard a word about it. Something that big would've stuck in my memory.
“Did she sneak in?”
Even with Hunters standing guard, getting into the Dungeon wasn't impossible. Idiots sneaked inside every year.
Getting back out was another matter. Whenever a Hunter entered a Dungeon, a residual trace was left in the mana around the Gate. The guards would see those traces and think, Ah, another bunch of empty-headed morons decided they wanted to kill themselves.
The devout monks would hold prayer vigils for the Hunters' safe return, but almost no one ever made it back through the Gate.
“How?”
Under those circumstances, even Noah Michel shouldn't have been able to come and go through the Gate whenever she pleased.
“Ah, well.”
Did Michel have some other way of getting through the Gate?
“You think there aren't any mages among the guards at Mont Saint-Michel?”
“Mages?”
“You think there aren't mages who follow Noah, like Sem did?”
“......”
It was such a painfully mundane explanation that it had never even occurred to me.
So they simply turned a blind eye.
Well, that was better than her having some secret trick. Think positive. Positive.
“...Then when exactly did Noah Michel start going in and out of Mont Saint-Michel?”
“Hmmm.”
Hope let out a low groan.
After squirming in place for a while, Hope finally blurted it out.
“Seriously, no one else knows this. You can't go telling anyone, okay? You really can't.”
What the hell was she about to say?
Hope kept insisting over and over that we couldn't tell anyone. Only when Hong Seok-young and I were both visibly getting annoyed did Hope finally get to the point.
“Listen.”
“I already said we won't tell anyone.”
“...Do you know how old Michel was when she Awakened as an Archmage?”
“Well, that's...”
Michel's Awakening was famous.
“Six.”
She had been the youngest Archmage ever.
“And how many years ago was that?”
“Twenty years ago.”
I had no idea why Hope was asking, but I answered anyway.
Hong Seok-young's brow furrowed even more deeply. My father had never liked these twenty-questions-style conversations.
“Right. Twenty years ago.”
Hope ignored his reaction.
“Then here's another question. When did the Cradle at Mont Saint-Michel appear?”
“Twenty...”
I stopped halfway through the answer.
“......!”
“Yeah. Twenty years ago.”
Hong Seok-young, who had been sunk into his chair with a disgruntled expression, abruptly sat halfway upright. Rarely had I seen him look so shocked. Even when he'd learned I could see mana, my father hadn't been that stunned.
But I understood. This was shocking enough to warrant it.
“Ugh!”
Before I could think any further, I grabbed Hope by the collar. Fortunately, Kim Chae-min's magic didn't stop me.
The Library of Mont Saint-Michel had appeared twenty years ago.
Noah Michel had Awakened as an Archmage twenty years ago as well.
It could have been written off as a strange coincidence. The same span of twenty years didn't mean the exact dates matched.
But Hope had brought it up deliberately.
There was a connection.
“Can you force someone to Awaken?”
“Ow!”
“Is there a way to make someone Awaken?”
“I said that hurts!”
Hope thrashed around, trying to knock my hand away.
With the heavy Mana Restraint strapped on, Hope didn't stand a chance. Hearing Hope cry out, Gamble finally looked up at us. She clearly didn't dare try to stop me and could only watch Hope with a worried, helpless expression.
“Let go!”
“Answer me.”
“It hurts!”
“Was it you bastards who made Noah Michel an Archmage?”
In the end, Hope surrendered.
“There is no way to do that! Noah was exposed to an enormous amount of mana, so an Awakening that would've happened eventually just happened early!!”
Hope explained while I still kept my grip on the collar.
“She was a kid, and that place was still a tourist attraction back then, remember? She was there sightseeing. On the day the Cradle, the Dungeon, appeared.”
Six-year-old Noah Michel had been visiting Mont Saint-Michel with her family. Mont Saint-Michel was famous enough that even French citizens made special trips there.
June 4.
A Dungeon appeared at Mont Saint-Michel.
Eighty-nine tourists, including Noah Michel, had been within the Gate's area of influence. It was the largest number of civilians ever caught up in the emergence of a Gate.
“I heard there were no survivors.”
“Well, that's because the Magic Association covered it up?”
Thump.
I released Hope's collar.
“A six-year-old human child became a mage. An Archmage, at that. You two know better than I do how the Magic Association operates, don't you?”
The sole survivor was six years old. If she hadn't been an Archmage, her return would have been hailed as a dramatic homecoming, God's grace, a miracle, or something of the sort.
But Noah Michel, the survivor, was an Archmage, and there had been no miracle. She had killed the monsters inside the Dungeon entirely on her own and walked back through the Gate under her own power.
An Archmage, but six years old. Six years old, but an Archmage. The Magic Association wanted control over a young Archmage who had no guardian, so under the pretext of protecting the survivor, they concealed Noah Michel's existence. Only three months later, though, they were proudly announcing the birth of the youngest-ever Archmage at the age of six.
“Do you know what Noah's parents were like?”
“All I know is that they were mages.”
They had died long ago, so there wasn't much information left about them.
“Yeah. So Noah grew up as a mage. From birth. You know what that means too, right?”
It meant Noah wasn't right in the head.
Hope rubbed his neck and watched me warily.
“She Awakened inside the Cradle, where the mana was incredibly dense. And then she met the King. To a mage who'd only just Awakened... hmm. I can't say for sure, but wouldn't the King have looked like mana itself? Like mana incarnate.”
“......”
“Noah was a mage, so she didn't believe in the sort of god humans usually worship... But she did believe in the omnipotent being that appeared before her. She said there was something even more perfect than the parents who had seemed perfect to her. That's how Noah herself explained it to me, so don't accuse me of letting my personal feelings color it.”
“...And?”
“Hmm. It's simple. The six-year-old human mage decided the being before her was a god. So she did what was expected of the first believer.”
“What was that?”
“She offered up her own blood relatives as precious living sacrifices, and when she felt even that wasn't enough, she sacrificed the other humans around her too.”
“......”
“In return, Noah was promised that when the god descended upon this land, she'd stand at its side as the first servant.”
“At six?”
“At six.”
“So does she still think that being is a god?”
“No. But she said that didn't change anything.”
“Wasn't it more that she sacrificed her parents to survive when she was little, then couldn't let herself deny the god because she needed a way to escape the guilt?”
“Ahahahaha!”
Hope threw back his head and burst out laughing at my question.
“You'd never say that if you'd met Noah yourself.”
“......”
“She is just a crazy bitch. Even without the King, she'd exterminate humanity simply because she hates humans.”
***
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