Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 146: One or the Other
By the time they left the Root Church, Myss was already sleepy.
The morning sun had just risen, spilling bright daylight over everything. He narrowed his eyes slightly and tilted his head back. A pomegranate blossom slid down along his hair, only to be caught neatly by Salaar.
Feeling the warm palm supporting the back of his head, Myss simply relaxed and treated it as a pillow.
The two of them were sitting in an open carriage wound with flowers, dried fruit, and vines. But what pulled the carriage at the front wasn’t real horses. Instead, they were four-legged alchemical lifeforms wearing magical collars. They had no heads, only limbs, resembling enormous white dogs with nothing but their bodies left. Heaven knew where the Secret Garden had found them.
Their tails were likewise tangled with brightly colored flowers, and the heavy fragrance spreading through the air made Myss even sleepier.
The carriage followed a road carpeted with turf and flowers. Its wheels crushed tender grass and petals beneath them, producing damp, muffled crunches. Behind the carriage seats, in the place that should have been filled with bouquets, Sogné stood quietly.
Father Kalen had concealed him. Amid the surging blessings of the crowd, only Myss and Salaar could hear his words.
Unfortunately, the Blind God was far too quiet that Myss almost forgot he was there.
Salaar was silent too, but the Archdemon hadn’t forgotten about him and glanced over from the corner of his eye every now and then. Salaar’s gaze rested on the laughing crowd beneath the morning light, and he seemed to be in a fairly good mood.
Myss had absolutely no interest in those noisy humans. Their voices were like bubbles in boiling water, and to him, the flowers on the ground were no different from the decorations on the carriage. Once again, he raised his head against Salaar’s hand and looked toward the silent sky amid cries of “Praise our Blind God” and “Bless your love.”
The stars had been swallowed by daylight, leaving the sky exceptionally clear.
The High Priest of the Secret Garden raised his staff high. A beautiful circular rainbow appeared in the sky. Paired with the riot of flowers covering the plaza below, it looked as though this vivid world had been born from that beautiful ring of rainbow light and fallen from there to the earth.
Myss stared fixedly at the ring-shaped rainbow. It was the first thing since the Eye-Opening Ceremony began that had genuinely interested him.
Salaar liked looking down over the earth. Myss liked looking up at the sky. Unfortunately, Sogné didn’t seem particularly interested in either.
Perhaps he had spent too long in darkness, or perhaps he had seen too much through other people’s memories. He turned his neck somewhat stiffly and looked around with sluggish movements.
“The priest who suggested I come see this seemed to hope that I would be happy because of it… Mr. Salaar, you said that I already possess a heart, but I don’t feel joy or happiness.”
Surrounded by a joyous crowd, Sogné lowered his voice. His tone was slightly tense, as though he were confessing some kind of sin.
He still wanted to inherit Salaar’s position and do everything possible to end Kalen. The unshakable mission embedded in their minds had been built from countless sufferings within their memories. It couldn’t be forgotten or removed.
In a sense, they were no different from flesh-and-blood machines implanted with commands.
But Salaar had said that they had been born as “people.”
If he already possessed a human heart, then he should have been moved by this beautiful scene and delighted by these humans’ gratitude. Yet Sogné felt nothing… Those people sincerely praising him remained just as distant as before.
Had he truly been born? Could someone as cold as him truly succeed in taking Salaar’s place?
Salaar thought for a moment and was just about to speak when…
“What a ridiculous amount of fuss,” Myss said, his tone laced with exasperation.
Sogné: “?”
“You’ve spent all that time explaining it, but isn’t the problem simply that you can’t resist your instincts?”
Myss had no interest in dwelling on how cruel Kalen was or how noble this so-called mission might be. In his eyes, what Salaar and Sogné described was nothing more than “instinct.”
Salaar and Sogné’s instinct was to “end the Night Scourge.”
His own instinct was to “be born healthy.”
Instinct against instinct. That was all.
But that didn’t stop Myss from enjoying the Hero Cushion, playing with Salaar when the man opposed him, or even imagining how he would properly deal with the Hero after destroying the world. If he wanted to do something, he simply did it. Why bother thinking about so many pointless details?
If V.O.R and whatever beings stood behind It wanted trouble, he would destroy Them without hesitation. Just as if Salaar tried to fight him to the death one day, Myss would kill Salaar without hesitation.
As for whether he felt empty, lost, or bored afterward, none of that mattered.
At the very least, he would still be alive.
“Relax. Salaar was a much bigger bastard than you before.”
Myss couldn’t resist continuing. “Aside from insisting on ending the Night Scourge, this guy never did a single human thing. You’re worrying yourself sick just because you ‘weren’t moved.’ If anything, I think you’ve got too much humanity in you.”
Sogné was left speechless. “But…”
Myss was terribly sleepy. The humans around him were buzzing, and Sogné was muttering too. He gradually grew impatient.
“There is no ‘buts.’”
“You protected these humans for more than three hundred years, and you don’t intend to hurt them in the future. Isn’t that enough? Your instincts are only telling you not to starve to death, and here you are worrying about table manners.”
“…As long as you’ve eaten your fill, you’re free.”
Myss spoke as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. After all, every living creature was born knowing this truth.
Salaar’s body paused slightly. The hand resting on his knee tightened.
Without drawing attention, his gaze swept across Myss’s face. Beneath the morning sun, those blue eyes were tinged by red, flashing faintly purple.
He pursed his lips and reached out to wrap an arm around Myss’s shoulders, laughter in his voice.
“Listen to Mommy Myss. He’s right.”
Myss rolled his eyes at Salaar, but didn’t shake off the arm.
He still had his head tilted slightly upward, as though trying to break through the surface of the sea amid all the noise. The beautiful ring-shaped rainbow was reflected in those vivid red eyes like a pair of distorted pupils.
The rainbow seemed near one moment and far away the next, sometimes blurred and sometimes sharp. Before Myss’s consciousness could react, he sank into the abyss of sleep.
Salaar gently shifted his hand, letting Myss rest his head against his shoulder. Then he raised one index finger and made a “shh” gesture toward the people around them.
The onlookers understood and lowered their cheers, their smiles growing even brighter.
Praise the Blind God. Bless you both, they mouthed.
Bless you both. Bless you both.
Bless you both.
The carriage rolled over flowers and grass toward the center of the city. The sun rose completely, the redness of dawn fading away until the sky became a clear azure once more.
In the endings of countless legends, the Hero would ride in a carriage with his companion or lover, smiling amid flowers and blessings. Everything would be settled, and no shadow would remain in the world.
A forget-me-not was lifted by the wind and brushed across the corner of Myss’s lips before catching in the hair at his temple.
Still asleep, Myss smacked his lips. Salaar lowered his eyes and looked at the companion, lover, and adversary.
The Crimson Marsh truly was a dreamlike place. If one wasn’t careful, one might willingly sink all the way to the bottom of its depths.
Salaar smoothed the hair at Myss’s temple and removed the flower.
“Sogné, what do you plan to do next?” he asked softly.
Without hesitation, Sogné answered, “Hide myself completely and use the Secret Garden to gather more knowledge. Wait for your summons or inherit your mission after some unforeseen change.”
“According to Myss, you’re still acting according to instinct. I’m asking about you yourself. Aside from those things, do you have any questions, or any guesses you want to verify?”
Sogné hesitated. A few seconds later, he moved closer to Salaar and Myss, looking as though he wanted to speak but was unsure whether he should.
“How is… the Chaos Demon God?”
Salaar smiled slightly, feeling Myss’s warm breath.
“He’s still alive and doing quite well.”
…In fact, He was even snoring softly against his shoulder, making Salaar’s neck itch.
“As I thought.” Sogné paused for a moment. “If the masked man wasn’t lying, our situation is extremely bad, Lord Salaar.”
“As things stand, it seems that certain unknown gods want to kill the Chaos Archdemon and destroy the human world in the process. If they win, the human world will perish. If they lose, once the seal loosens, The Night Scourge will inevitably return. Either way, the end will still come.”
“To avoid the apocalypse, we must defeat both sides. We do not even have a chance of erasing the Chaos Archdemon alone.”
By the end, Sogné sounded increasingly uneasy.
“Then we deal with those outsiders first.”
Salaar smiled. “The Chaos Demon God hasn’t even been born yet, and those beings still don’t dare attack directly. They have reservations. At the very least, they cannot be stronger than the Archdemon.”
But we aren’t stronger than the Chaos Demon God either, Sogné thought, utterly speechless.
As Salaar moved, another forget-me-not was brushed loose and swept across Myss’s nose.
Myss sneezed, blinked sleepily a few times, then quickly fell asleep again.
Salaar’s smile widened. “I have my methods. In any case, from now on, focus on gathering information about V.O.R and investigating the truth behind the Firmament’s loss of contact.”
“I understand.” Sogné breathed a sigh of relief.
Perhaps Salaar’s personality was not particularly heroic, but he was certainly not a madman who made reckless boasts. Now Mr. Salaar even had a lover. Perhaps he had found an extraordinarily powerful companion.
Only then did Sogné lift his head and look at the beautiful circular rainbow.
For the moment, he couldn’t feel its beauty.
All he thought of was the Ouroboros in his memories, biting its own tail.
…Still, it really was much more vivid than the pale ring on a sheet of paper.
……
Father Kalen moved against the flow of the crowd and hurried back to the inn.
When he saw “Earl’s” neat, empty bed, his eyes shifted slightly, but in the end, he said nothing.
“You really have gotten quite a bit stronger.” The Dragon Fae tried to cheer up the deflated priest. “Before, you could only hide yourself. Look at you now. Even from this far away, you can hide the Blind God!”
“Thank you, Tass. You don’t need to go out of your way to comfort me.”
The priest gave a bitter smile.
The Dragon Fae rubbed his nose. “All right. Truthfully, I don’t really understand what it feels like to have family. If I said anything offensive, don’t take it too seriously.”
“Hermit wouldn’t leave me for no reason. He must have something more important to do… He even swore before our god.”
Kalen sounded certain, though it was hard to tell whether he was explaining things to Tass or trying to convince himself.
Tass was considerably less polite. “Then why didn’t you just ask him about the Order of Shadows? If I remember correctly, he was the one who brought you into the faith, wasn’t he?”
Kalen: “…”
Kalen pitifully lowered his head. “I was too excited at the time. I forgot…”
You even forgot the Order of Shadows?
Tass glanced at Kalen’s proper priestly attire and shook his head vigorously. “Forget it. Our route is already decided anyway. I can investigate my wings along the way, so I suppose I’m benefiting from you too.”
Kalen: “……”
“I wonder where Mr. Hermit plans to dump the real Earl Nebula.” Tass smoothly changed the subject. “Hopefully the Karns family won’t get dragged into this. It would be a pain if it caused some kind of social scandal… Ngh!”
Tass suddenly bit his tongue.
He wobbled down onto the bed and fiddled with the black scales on his wings.
Only then did Kalen notice that the scales covering Tass had turned completely black. Even the faint, tiny scales along his legs and feet had changed color. They resembled fine obsidian, gleaming with a delicate luster.
Beautiful though they were, their aura felt rather unpleasant… and Tass himself didn’t look particularly well either.
“Are you all right? Should I take you to Salaar?”
Kalen hurriedly untied his herb pouch and began searching for calming herbs.
“It’s fine. Just stings a little.” Tass moved his wings slightly. “About the same as a stomachache. Doesn’t really affect anything. Once the wave passes, I’ll be fine.”
Despite what he said, neither of them looked particularly reassured.
Father Kalen said seriously, “Hermit didn’t mention the Order of Shadows to me, which means that matter probably isn’t urgent. I’ll speak to Myss and Salaar later. We’ll prioritize your condition.”
“Thanks.”
Tass smiled, and his wing spasmed uncontrollably. He immediately pressed it down with one hand as though nothing had happened.
In truth, he had lied.
The pain just now had been far worse than “a little stinging.” For one instant, Tass had almost thought he was a balloon about to burst, his entire body filled with explosive agony.
As magical creatures, Dragon Fae didn’t fall ill like ordinary living beings. The only thing that could make them feel unwell was an abnormal magical environment. But what exactly counted as “abnormal” was difficult to say.
Throughout their journey, the environment had changed again and again. The only things around him that had remained constant were his companions: Salaar, Kalen, Myss.
The Dragon Fae turned around and looked out at the city through the window. The distant clamor of the Eye-Opening Ceremony drifted over, and even that noise seemed soaked in sunlight.
Salaar was the legendary Saint Salaar. The nature of his magic was healing. That kind of magic was the gentlest and most accommodating of all, so there was no way it could provoke such a violent reaction.
Kalen had no magic, but he carried the Lord of Shadow’s divine power. The Order of Shadows was shrouded in mystery, so that divine power truly might be the “source of contamination.”
As for Myss…
Tass suddenly realized that the person he knew the least about was actually Myss himself.
“Hey, Kalen. Historically speaking, and I mean actual history, Salaar wasn’t supposed to have a lover, right? If he really had someone he was involved with, all those legends about him wouldn’t be such a mess.”
Kalen shook his head blankly. Hermit had never allowed him to read those messy books. And Kalen himself never pried into his companions’ private lives, even if that companion happened to be the famous Saint Salaar.
Tass: “…Forget it.”
The most likely explanation was still “the influence of the Lord of Shadow’s divine power.”
Myss’s magic was merely a little sinister. Surely it couldn’t be even more outrageous than actual divine power.
In any case, they would soon be heading to Atla. They could investigate properly there. Tass rubbed his cold scales and confidently flapped his wings… Then promptly crashed headfirst onto the floor.
The author has something to say:
Tass: Is this the price of stuffing myself on too much gossip.jpg
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Sogné: How’s the Chaos Archdemon doing?
Salaar: We have a child 👍
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