Chapter 265: Molting (3)
Following Elisha’s guidance, we arrived at the very center of the first layer of the Abyss. Judging by its position, it lay directly beneath the main building of the Hero Academy. At the heart of the first floor lay a single, charred corpse.
“This is...”
“A body?”
Frowning, I stepped closer to the body collapsed on the ground and scanned the area around it. There were no signs of anyone else being here. It meant that for some reason, the owner of this body had trespassed into the Abyss, made it all the way to the central area, and burned themselves alive to take their own life.
A hollow chuckle escaped me. “It looks like they were being controlled.”
“That’s the most likely explanation.”
It made no sense for someone to come all this way of their own free will just to commit self-immolation. They were either brainwashed or hypnotized. The real question was who had done this and why they would send someone all the way here just to have them die.
Moreover, the passage to the second floor of the Abyss wasn’t even active. One couldn’t simply descend further from the first floor. Only by activating the magic circle carved into the Abyss’s core, left behind by the Great Sage Julius Bastion, could a person open the gate leading downward. At least, that was how it worked before that bastard Mephisto showed up. Mephisto had been able to create fissures leading to the lower levels of the Abyss without activating the Great Sage’s magic circle.
Right now, however, I didn’t spot any traces of a gate or a fissure. It meant that Mephisto likely wasn’t behind this.
Clicking my tongue, I rolled the body over. The corpse’s face had been burned beyond recognition, and its features, even teeth, were completely destroyed.
I frowned and looked back at Elisha. “Can you tell who it is?”
“Not from this alone.”
That was understandable. Even with the Blessing of Insight, extracting information from a corpse burned this thoroughly wouldn’t be easy.
Suddenly, Elisha said, “Dale. Step back for a moment.”
“Ah, okay.” I nodded and moved away from her.
She drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes. Spider silk extended from her fingertips and wrapped itself around the charred corpse. When the silk brushed against the left side of the corpse’s chest, Elisha’s expression subtly twisted.
“Hmm. That’s strange,” she muttered.
“Huh? Strange how?”
“There’s no soul stigmata.”
“No soul stigmata?”
That meant that a completely ordinary person, without a soul stigmata, crossed the numerous barriers surrounding the Abyss entrance, trespassed inside, reached the core, and burned themselves alive? That was nonsense. There was no way that was possible.
“It seems they erased the lingering energy of the soul stigmata from the body to destroy evidence,” I said.
Elisha nodded quietly. “That’s probably it.”
“Damn. Then does that mean we can’t track this any further?”
She slowly shook her head, a faint smile tugging at her lips. “No. Normally, if a body were this thoroughly damaged and its soul stigmata’s energy dispersed, it would be difficult to find any clues, even with the Blessing of Insight. But, they overlooked one thing.”
“Overlooked what?”
As I tilted my head at her, Elisha smiled deeply and tapped her own chest. “No matter how clever they are, they wouldn’t have predicted that I would undergo physical reconstruction.”
“Ah.”
The single variable in an otherwise perfectly concealed incident was Elisha’s growth. It was something they could never have anticipated.
“So, you can still find a clue?”
“Of course.”
With a confident nod, Elisha spread her arms wide. An even greater number of spider silk threads wrapped around the corpse. As if reconstructing flesh burned away by fire, the silk intertwined, forming the shape of a human body.
I was amazed. “This is...”
“I reconstructed the corpse using the skeleton as a base. It won’t be perfectly accurate, but we should be able to tell by their rough appearance.”
“You can do something like this now?”
Elisha shrugged and grinned. “I told you. There was something they overlooked.”
I let out a breathy laugh as I looked down at the silk-reconstructed body. Once, I had read that the Republic had reconstructed the appearance of a species extinct for tens of thousands of years using only fossilized skeletons. But I had never imagined someone could do that with pure magic control.
Elisha’s goal for her closed-door training had been to reach the level of a Master. But it felt like she had gone beyond that. Of course, exceptional magic control alone didn’t earn someone the title of Master, but at her current level, Elisha could likely stand toe-to-toe with any Master other than Camellia.
Seeing me stare at her, Elisha asked, “Hm? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Oh, it’s nothing.” Watching how much she had grown in just a month, I smiled faintly. “I was just thinking you really worked hard.”
“Ahem!” Elisha’s cheeks flushed slightly as she looked away. “Well, I can’t just freeload off my husband forever, can I?”
Those shy words reignited a spark deep in my chest, but now was not the time. I turned my attention back to the body. Stepping closer to the figure reconstructed from spider silk, I slowly examined its face.
My expression stiffened as I examined the face. “What?”
“Do you recognize this person?”
If I remembered correctly, then this face belonged to someone I was familiar with. “Uh, yeah. Amon.”
“Amon?” Elisha’s expression twisted. “Amon? You mean the Archbishop of Ruin?”
“That’s right.”
The face reconstructed atop the corpse was unmistakably that of Amon, the Archbishop of Ruin.
“W-wait a second. Are you saying the Archbishop of Ruin came here and killed himself?”
I shook my head firmly, recalling memories from my previous life. “No. That’s not it. This is a fragment of Amon— No, a spark.”
“A spark?”
“You know how, when a fire’s blazing, and you bring dry kindling close, it catches fire? It’s like that.”
In this case, the “dry kindling” was a demon, someone who had the blessing of a Demon God engraved on their chest, like Amon.
“I don’t quite follow the analogy. Do you mean a kind of puppet?” Elisha asked.
“Not exactly a puppet. More like an avatar.”
The moment the flame spread, the demon’s original soul and consciousness, their very existence, would burn away completely, replaced by Amon’s will. In other words, by sacrificing the life of a demon as fuel, Amon could create a remotely controlled avatar.
“A demon that becomes Amon’s avatar also has their physical body altered to resemble him,” I explained.
Elisha nodded, understanding dawning on her face. “I see. That explains why the face matched the Archbishop of Ruin. Then, does this mean the Archbishop of Ruin is starting to make his move?”
“Probably.”
Originally, Amon and his apostles weren’t supposed to act in earnest until roughly ten years from now. It was not just the formation of the Tri-Nation Alliance that had been accelerated. No, perhaps the very formation of that alliance had provoked Amon into moving sooner. Either way, what was certain was that not only the heroes but also the demon legions were mobilizing several times faster than they had in my previous life. A sigh slipped out as I contemplated the rapidly shifting future.
Elisha, who had been quietly examining the corpse, tilted her head. “Hm?”
“What is it? Did you find something else?”
“No. Hmmm. Dale, could you come a bit closer?”
“Huh? What for— Mmph!”
Elisha suddenly grabbed my collar and pressed her lips against mine. As she pushed her tongue in and drank in my saliva, her Cursed-Eye gleamed with an even more ferocious light.
Her expression hardened as she inspected the corpse again, her Cursed-Eye glowing. “Just as I thought.”
“W-what do you mean, ‘just as you thought’?”
“They’re similar.”
“Huh?”
“The residual power inside Amon’s avatar and the flame within you feel extremely alike.”
“Ah, well, isn’t that just because both of them originate from the power of a Demon God?”
The Primordial Flame dwelling inside me had been created by a Demon God, and Amon was also a subordinate of that same Demon God, so it made sense that their energies would feel similar.
Elisha slowly shook her head. “No. It’s different.”
“If it were just because they shared the same Demon God, I should feel the same thing from the other Apostles of Ruin as well, but....” She bit her lip, anxiety flickering across her face. “This feels almost like the Demon God himself. No, that can’t be right.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, doubting what I just heard.
The Demon God himself?
“Hah. No. Let’s stop this line of thought for now.”
“But...”
“Rushing into conclusions often does more harm than good, doesn’t it?”
She was right. Once people formed a half-baked hypothesis, they tended to get trapped inside it and stopped considering other possibilities.
I agreed with her. “Alright.”
“Then for now, let’s take this body back to the Hero Academy.”
“Okay.”
Together with Elisha, I exited the Abyss and headed toward her office. Or rather, we were about to.
Elisha suddenly turned to me. “From here on, I’ll continue the investigation alone. You should go back, Cadet Dale.”
“You’re investigating alone? Shouldn’t I come with you?”
“Even if you did, it wouldn’t yield much more. Other than this corpse, there aren’t many clues to work with.”
“Well...”
She wasn’t wrong.
“I’ll report this incident to the Headmaster and prepare countermeasures myself.”
“But...”
“Hehe. Don’t you have something else you should be doing, Cadet Dale?”
“Huh? Something I should be doing?”
Lately, aside from personal training, I had basically been living like an unemployed bum. What could I possibly have to do?
“Hmm. Things got hectic, so you must have forgotten to check the time,” Elisha replied.
“Check the time... Ah.”
I glanced at my Hero Watch. Tomorrow was already the first day of the new semester. Just how many days had we spent in the Abyss? After being caught and thoroughly devoured by a lust-starved spider, I had completely lost track of time.
“Guh! Alright. I’ll head back to the dorm.”
“No. Not the dorm. Isn’t there somewhere you should stop by first?”
“Huh?”
Elisha smiled softly while glancing in the direction of the party house. “Hehe. By now, everyone should be gathered there.”
* * *
Following Elisha’s words, I arrived at the party house. The moment I arrived there, the party members rushed out all at once. And then, I felt a shiver up my spine.
“Ah, Dale!”
Berald exclaimed. “Big Broooo! We’ve been looking for you forever! Where the hell did you disappear to?!”
“Ugh, again. D-did you go to m-meet the Empress?” Laneige murmured.
The Saintess approached with a bright smile. “I heard everything that happened while you were gone, from Sister Laneige.”
I replied, “Ah, Iris. Long time no— Guhk!”
Iris viciously grabbed my crotch, her face still beaming with a radiant smile. “So, I hear you’ve been swinging your dick around however the fuck you please, you bastard?”