Genius Warlock - Chapter 598
“No, I know as much as everyone else. Originally, it was a holy place where devout believers gathered. That was before the devil worshipers caused a catastrophe.”
“Yes, unlike the other princes, he is someone who saves people, not kills them.”
Captain Mero and the guards arrive at an empty village to find a prince candidate with healing abilities, but the village is deserted and the prince candidate is said to have no combat abilities. Oliver discovers a secret passage to a hidden chapel and finds a book about the history of the cursed land. Captain Mero receives a report that traces of the prince candidate lead to a nearby village. They return their vehicle to its original size, and Oliver decides to move separately in case of an attack by monsters or the Swan Sect. As expected, the vehicle is attacked by monsters and the Swan Sect. Oliver arrives at the village, wipes out the monsters of the cursed land, and finds the body of the prince candidate. However, the unyielding knee of the Swan Sect appears and offers Oliver a deal.
Genius Black Mage – Chapter 598
598. Twisted Persuasion (1)
“What happened here?”
A village that they arrived at, guided by Gavino, a believer of the Swan Sect.
As soon as he saw the village, Captain Mero said.
The reason was because there wasn’t even an ant to be seen in the village where they barely arrived, let alone a prince candidate who applied for asylum.
Mero immediately pulled Gavino’s shoulder and asked urgently.
“Hey, what happened? Where did the prince candidate go?”
“I, I don’t know either! The prince was here when I left!!”
Gavino seemed to be flustered as well, so he spoke urgently.
Judging from his emotional state, it didn’t seem like a lie.
“Here, there are traces of an attack.”
Just then, one of the guards who was looking around the area raised his hand and said, and Captain Mero walked there, throwing Gavino away.
Oliver also followed naturally, and as the guard said, there were traces of an attack not too long ago.
“It doesn’t seem like the prince candidate was attacked······.”
A hut where there were traces of people living for a while.
Looking at the collapsed walls, windows, and broken door of the hut, Captain Mero judged.
Oliver agreed. It seemed more like a beast attacked rather than a person.
‘Above all, if the prince candidate was attacked, there wouldn’t be only this much trace left.’
Oliver thought, recalling the prince candidate of the Swan Sect he had encountered while searching for the legacy of the cannibal chef in the past.
The one wearing a thistle crown on his head and holding a spike-shaped sword that seemed to be made by casting flesh.
Rather than leaving traces, he wouldn’t have left such small traces.
The others thought the same, so they ruled out the possibility of the prince candidate being attacked and brought up other possibilities. For example-
“- Was it an attack by monsters?”
Monsters that appeared in the cursed land.
Oliver had seen them once too. A centaur with a human face.
He had heard that it was a monster that appeared due to the influence of the cursed land.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand.”
Oliver, who had been quiet, raised his hand slightly.
Naturally, the attention of those around him was focused on Oliver.
“If the prince candidate wasn’t attacked, but just attacked by monsters, I don’t understand why he ran away. As far as I know, the prince candidate is quite strong.”
Everyone looked at Gavino without saying anything, agreeing with Oliver’s words.
It was a bit difficult to understand why they ran away from the prince candidate, not from the attack of the monsters, but from the monsters and left the village.
It was true that the monsters that appeared in the cursed land were threatening, but that was only limited to ordinary people.
Even trained soldiers could handle it to some extent, let alone superhumans.
Oliver alone was able to subdue it just by firing an ordinary gatling gun mounted on a car.
“Our prince doesn’t know how to fight.”
Gavino answered, and he was sincere.
“He doesn’t know how to fight?”
“You mean he can’t fight?”
Gavino continued his explanation.
He said that each of the Swan’s prince candidates was given a strange item by the Swan Princess, the leader of the cult, and that they gained certain abilities from it.
The awl that the prince candidate Oliver first met used was one of them.
“And the prince I serve received a healing ring, which he used to heal the sick. He is a man who saves people, not one who harms them.”
Gavino said, his voice utterly sincere.
But one of the guards sneered.
“How dare you pretend to be pious when you offer people as sacrifices.”
“Watch your tongue! In this place where there are no proper doctors, he is a man who sacrifices one person to save ten.”
This remark, too, was sincere and unadorned.
It seemed that he had not simply asked the Empty City for help because he had been forced into a power struggle.
Voices rose briefly. Captain Melo, who was in charge of this operation, calmed the men down and brought the conversation back on track.
“Anyway, you’re saying that your prince doesn’t have the ability to fight. Is that right?”
“Yes, he does not. But it is strange. One of the believers who serves the prince knows how to use black magic to hide from the monsters here, so I don’t know why this happened.”
Gavino muttered, as if he really couldn’t understand.
But they didn’t know either.
Captain Melo, who had a lot on his mind, scratched his head and asked Gavino if he had any idea where they had taken refuge.
“No, the situation was too urgent to decide that.”
“Damn it, we’re screwed.”
“What are you going to do?”
The guard asked Melo, who had heard the answer, and Melo quickly made up his mind after organizing his thoughts.
“Hey, Jorge. Take the boys and search the area. They may have left some traces as they fled. The rest of you, secure the perimeter with minimal personnel and search the town. There may be something else.”
The guards didn’t welcome the order, but they didn’t refuse it either.
They knew how important this was to the security of the Empty City.
Everyone moved quickly as instructed, and Oliver naturally blended in among them and searched the town.
There was a place he personally wanted to look at.
***
Creak…
While everyone was searching the town and its surroundings.
Oliver went into a chapel in the corner of the town and found a secret door hidden in the floor.
It was as if he knew in advance. It was somewhat similar.
Among the demon-related books he had obtained from the ogre chef’s secret vault was one that recorded the history of this cursed land.
‘It was an arrogant town….’
Of course, he couldn’t be sure until Captain Melo explained it to him.
Thud-!
He opened the thick iron door hidden in the floor and went down below it, and just as the book said, there was another chapel.
A twisted chapel built by the arrogant townspeople who had fallen into the arrogance of faith.
According to the book, the people who lived in the cursed land were so faithful that they became arrogant, believing that they alone received God’s love, and committed various sins.
As evidence of this, there was evidence of twisted faith remaining in the underground chapel.
A large altar, torture devices, blood hardened over many years, torn paper, etc.
Whether it was voluntary or a devil’s trick, the fanatical faith was distorted into devil worship, and eventually crossed the line that should not be crossed, resulting in the cursed land.
Oliver had two questions here.
The first was why the story was distorted.
According to Captain Mero, the cursed land was created because of devil worshippers who cursed the faithful villagers, but the truth was the opposite.
The original inhabitants who fell into the arrogance of faith created this cursed land.
I thought it might have been distorted over time, but the story was changed so cleverly that I didn’t think it was a simple distortion.
Rather, I felt more strongly that someone had cleverly changed it.
The second question was, what on earth is the devil?
I’ve felt it subtly since the old days, but the devil doesn’t seem to be simply an evil being as taught in the Pater Church.
Whether it was the burnt Zara or the contents of the devil’s book or this cursed land. It seemed to play a role.
‘As if······.’
“Oh, were you here?”
As Oliver tidy uped his thoughts and collected torn paper and hardened blood around him, Captain Mero’s voice rang out.
“Captain Mero.”
“Where is this?”
Captain Mero asked as he came down.
“I’m not sure either. I found it by chance while looking around.”
Oliver beat around the bush very naturally.
It wasn’t meant to be malicious. I just thought it would be too long to explain that I had read it in the devil’s book, so I just beat around the bush.
Along the same lines, Oliver changed the flow of the story.
“But what’s going on?”
“The search party is back. We found traces of where the prince candidate went.”
That was true.
When I went outside the underground chapel and listened to the detailed story, Jorge, a coast guard officer from a smuggler, said that he had found traces leading to a nearby village.
“There is a section where smugglers sometimes take a break. In the first place, there is no other place to rest except here, whether you like it or not.”
An argument based on experience. Captain Mero got to the point right away.
“On the other hand, it means it’s an easy place to get caught, doesn’t it? Other prince candidates are searching the area with their men?”
“On the contrary, doesn’t that mean it’s an easy place to get caught? The other prince candidates are leading their subordinates and searching the surroundings, aren’t they?”
Starting with firearms, the Swan Cult, armed with miscellaneous weapons like sickles, saws, and pickaxes, stubbornly stuck to them, overturned one of the cars leading the way, and as a result, everyone’s ankles were caught.
“There’s a high possibility of that. That’s why we need to make a decision right now. If we’re going to leave, we should leave as quickly as possible, or we should retreat. If we act ambiguously, we won’t gain anything and will only invite danger.”
Captain Mero hesitated, but not as long as before.
“We will continue the mission. We can’t come all this way and return empty-handed. Mr. Dave. Can you release the shrinking spell and return the vehicle to its original size?”
“It’s possible, but will you be okay with that? Didn’t you say that if we move by car, we could become the target of monsters because of the noise?”
“Yes, I did. But right now, I think speed is more important than caution.”
Oliver nodded in agreement.
The original plan was to quietly escape with the hidden exiled prince, but that plan had already fallen apart. It was necessary to revise the plan to match that.
“There’s one more thing I’d like to ask.”
As Oliver turned to restore the 6-wheeled military vehicle to its original size, Mero spoke to him.
“We’ll give you another vehicle, so can you move separately from us?”
“I’m not sure what you mean?”
“It’s just a feeling, but I think that if we travel by car, we’ll soon be attacked by monsters or encounter the Swan Cult.”
It was a very possible story. Even Jorge, who explained the geography, said that there was a high chance of encountering the Swan Cult.
“If we meet them, our ankles will be caught, whether we like it or not.”
Oliver nodded.
“If that happens, we’ll act as bait and draw their attention, and in the meantime, Mr. Dave, you can go to the village by yourself and check if the exiled prince is there. I think it would be more effective for Mr. Dave to move alone in this case.”
“I don’t mind, but will you be okay?”
Oliver asked sincerely. Of course he would, this was a matter of Bin City’s safety.
Although the situation was unfavorable, he wondered if it was okay to leave everything to Oliver like this.
“The situation is urgent. And if something happens to the mayor, he told me to leave it to you. He said that he trusts Mr. Dave’s reputation in Landa. So he said that he would accept whatever the outcome.”
“I understand what you mean······. If something goes wrong in the middle, I’ll go and check it out myself. It would be better if that doesn’t happen, though.”
***
“So this is what happens.”
Oliver said, not even a few minutes after they started moving by car.
As if to prove that bad feelings never go astray, various monsters inhabiting the cursed land appeared as if they had planned it and began to attack not long after they started moving by car.
Monsters with hideous forms like creatures and Landa’s contaminants sporadically popped out and tried to overturn the car.
Bin City’s city guards tried to repel them using various equipment.
At first, they fought quite well. Not long after, the flow was broken as attackers presumed to be from the Swan Cult joined in.
Armed with a mishmash of weapons ranging from guns to sickles, saws, and pickaxes, the tenacious Swan Cult members caught up to the leading car and overturned it, halting everyone in their tracks.
The only one they failed to catch up to was Oliver, who was in the custom vehicle gifted to him by Philip.
As he had discussed with Mero beforehand, Oliver drove towards the village alone.
He judged that speed was of the utmost importance right now.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!!
When he reached the entrance to the village, Oliver spun the car around rapidly and mowed down the cursed land monsters chasing him from behind with the Gatling gun before getting out of the car.
Then, he immediately activated his Dark Sorcerer’s Eye. He scanned the village and found no sign of anyone.
However, he detected something ominous.
Oliver headed there reflexively.
Clang.
He found the body of a man inside a dilapidated abandoned house.
The body had its fingers crudely cut off.
The body was sitting on a chair, and Oliver could tell that it was the royal candidate from the thistle crown on its head.
We were too late.
However, Oliver did not feel sorry. There was a more pressing existence in front of him now.
A Native American with a spotted, discolored skin and a thistle crown on his head.
Oliver greeted him.
“Long time no see, Unbending Knee.”
***
Unbending Knee could not understand at first.
Why was he not allowed to fight Dave?
He had seen with his own two eyes how strong he was, and he had heard stories of how he had even defeated Panjo, but he could not understand Puppet’s words that he should persuade him instead of fighting him.
As Dave grew stronger, Unbending Knee also grew stronger by killing the royal candidates of the Swan Cult and taking their artifacts.
He thought he could at least try once.
To be exact, he wanted revenge.
Revenge against Dave, who had prevented the Native Americans from getting revenge and had played a part in the annihilation of the tribe.
However, even though Puppet knew this, he told him not to think about fighting and to persuade him as he told him.
So that Dave would not be able to interfere with them in the future. Or at least so that he would hesitate.
Despite knowing Unbending Knee’s resentment, desire for revenge, hatred, and anger.
However, surprisingly, the moment he faced Dave here, Unbending Knee could understand the reason.
The Swan Princess, who had made a deal with the devil in exchange for the end of the world.
As a royal candidate who had received her blessing in its entirety, Unbending Knee was finally able to see Dave properly.
This guy—no, this being could not be defeated. He should not be defeated.
Realizing this, Unbending Knee activated the Ring of Grace and Tribute that he had just taken. He controlled the body to speak on his behalf.
“I… would… like… to… make… a… deal.”