Chapter 182: Fulfiling the mission?
"I…" Hearing the open threat in my words, Longinus staggered a bit before regaining his footing. For a moment, rapid changes took place on his face before it finally stabilized on a look of defeat. "I understand. Arsha, stand down."
"Yes, sir." Contrary to the man, the girl who previously attempted to attack me clearly had some troubles retracting her hostility. And I wasn"t surprised by it at all.
There was an undeniable fact that there was a huge hostility between wingless and winged humans. While I had no idea what was the reason for the conflict, I wasn"t naive enough to believe that just moving to the north a bit would change the general hostility all that much.
In fact, rather than being surprised by how Arsha had some troubles pulling her hostility back, I was shocked at how quickly Longinus managed to accept the new reality that I showed to him!
"Follow me, I will take you to where the main altar was." Moving forward, Longinus ordered. Not waiting even for a second, he seemed unwilling to give his companion any moment to protest or disapprove his order in any way or form.
"Arsha… Was it?" Turning my head to the girl instead, I pretended to be struck down by the hateful look that she threw at me in response.
"What do you want?" To claim that these words were filled with enmity, would be akin to calling the grand canyon a small rift.
"Nothing much. I was just curious where did all the enmity between you and the winged people come from." This was something that I attempted to ask Teria about several times already, but every time she would give me either a cold shoulder or just outright ignore the question. Only once did she mutter something about a failed marriage…
But who would I be to believe in something so silly? While it was possible for wars to be started over a woman or an arranged marriage, just like it happened in the legendary myth of the war for the city-state of Troy. Yet, unless this marriage would lead to some countries uniting and creating a superpower that would destroy the balance of the powers in the entire world, I could hardly imagine for Teria"s words back them to make any sense.
"Wait, between us and them? Who are you to exclude yourself from the equation like that?" Suddenly, Arsha"s face changed as she noticed the small bait I included in my words.
"Because I"m not a human from this world? I do not belong to any of the races present in this place?" Grabbing my chin with my hands, I slowly rubbed it as if looking for the right words to phrase what I wanted to say was actually a huge, intellectual challenge.
"Wait, what in all h.e.l.ls?!" Surprised by how open I was about this topic, Arsha jumped away as if I was a spilling pot of boiling water, with her hands instantly coupling together. Before I could even react, the same pure light from before coated her hands…
Only for Longinus to take a step back, smack the girl in the back of her head and resumed his march forward without even a single word. Yet, the momentary look on his face that I managed to sneak only proved that he was just as surprised as his female companion was.
"h.e.l.ls? No, I do not come from any of the h.e.l.ls you believe in. I"m in this world for three distinctive reasons." Not bothered by the situation at all as I could always use the emergency exit and move on, I put a smile on my face instead.
"First off, is to learn something that will give me an edge over… Let"s say, an overly compet.i.tive ally of mine." As confusing and incomprehensible as my earlier claims were, I could see how the expression on Arsha"s face calmed down once she realized that despite claiming to be an otherworldly being, my problems were exactly the same as the ones any random Joe of her world faced.
"Wait, don"t leave me out of it!" Suddenly, Teria came storming forward, refusing to miss even a single word of mine. Because just like she refused to tell me much about her own circ.u.mstances before, I never believed it was necessary for me to enlighten her about my situation either.
"Secondly, is to establish a foothold in this world so I can learn more about your local means of utilizing mana. But as you can figure out from what I said before…" Taking a moment to increase the tension of the situation, I put an enlighten smile on my face as I brought my eyes up, putting a thoughtful expression on my face. "it"s still just one of the means of gaining an edge over my riv… uncertain supporter."
This time, I mixed the simplicity with some complex matters. Still keeping up this fake expression of mine, I could pretty much freely observe the changes on both Arsha"s and Teria"s faces. And those changes couldn"t go in more opposite directions.
To my left, Arsha"s expression only continued to sink, indicating that she properly misunderstood the meaning of the foothold in my previous sentence. On the other hand, Teria"s face only continued to brighten when she realized that I wasn"t one of her mortal enemies at all!
"As for the third thing, it"s what I"m here to deal with." Lowering my head and finally dressing a natural expression on my face, I explained. "Which is finding the altar of the cathedral and checking if it"s… If it"s the thing I"m looking for."
This time, I didn"t dare to be fully honest. Right now, Teria could already put two to two and understand what was the real crux of my missions. But given how she didn"t flare up or allowed her expression to turn dark again, I could tell that she didn"t really mind this kind of development.
Yet, the chances that both Longinus and Arsha, both of whom were subjects to the northern kingdom, would react in the same way were pretty small. While the fact that the prince of the southern army didn"t mind parting with the Scared Core didn"t necessarily mean that all of the wingless humans across this entire world would share the same view on this item!
"I… I understand." After this entire spree of honesty from me, there was no longer any hostility in Arsha"s eyes or soul. Rather than that, she appeared to be just confused about everything I told her, currently dedicating the entire processing power of her brain to making a sense of my earlier words.
"That"s great. Because we are about to reach that place you were so eager to visit, sir." Suddenly stopping in front of a set of completely ordinary doors, Longinus spoke up. Moving a few paces forward, I leveled myself with the mercenary before putting my hand on the door.
In that single moment, a mix of emotions surfaced in my soul. From worry that this might all be nothing but an elaborate trap, through the antic.i.p.ation of fulfilling this system"s mission so quickly all the way to the near ecstasy of being able to return into Ayda"s embrace soon.
"Are you not going to push those doors open?" After a few moments, Longinus finally spoke up, startled by the lack of action from my side.
"I"m sorry… I just didn"t expect for everything to go so smoothly." Taking my hand down from the door, I shrugged my shoulders before speaking out with honesty once again. "To be honest, I was prepared to eradicate every other person in this city just to get to the altar. It"s too easy. So I hope you will do me a favor…" At this point, my expression instantly turned cold as the recurring stone appeared in my palm once again. "of opening those doors for me. "
When I should be the least guarded in this single moment, I forced myself to remain fully focused on the task. In the end, I was already inside the cathedral so there was only so far that the altar could be away from me right now if Longinus" actions so far would prove to be a trap all along. Reaching this point only to be sent back to earth with nothing would be truly infuriating!
"Huh? Sure?" Clearly surprised by my sudden change of mind, Longinus placed his hand on the door"s k.n.o.b before pushing it open and stepping forward. Following Arsha, I entered third with Teria lagging behind me.
"This is the altar you wanted to look at. Does that satisfy your needs?" Ignoring Longinus as I walked past him, I placed my hand on the cold, squarish stone. Reaching my belt in terms of height and as long as two of me laid alongside its length, it was truly a ma.s.sive piece of… stone.
Without any markings, runes, or decorations on it, one could hardly say that it was an altar of sorts. IF Longinus didn"t point it out for me, I would most likely just walk past it in an attempt to locate the real thing elsewhere!
"I don"t know yet." Finally pulling out the Sacred Core from underneath my robes, I made sure both of my remaining standard barriers were in full swing. Thankfully, while the eyes of both Longinus and Arsha widen when they saw the item in my hand, they didn"t dare to do a thing. "But we will soon find out."
Placing the stone on the altar, I felt my vision snapping a bit before a system window appeared right in front of my eyes.
//Standard Mission Fulfilled
//Finish the mission //Enter second arc of the mission (Warning, extreme difficulty)