NOVEL NEXT WORLD Chapter 1026
<1026 – Lord of Darkness (4)>
The Emperor might seem unimpressive because of the Empress Masugaki, who established an utterly baseless nation called the Sacred Dark Central Empire in the Western World, but that’s far from a trivial position.
The true Heavenly Sovereign, Jin’s Emperor, was found to be one of the Shinigami of the God of Death, while the current Heavenly Sovereign is known to be a fake who impersonates the real one.
With this background in mind, it’s already suspicious to be hunting for the Everlasting Grass in the Imperial Palace garden at the center of the Eastern Empire, where suspicion levels should be at an all-time high.
‘Why didn’t I think this was a crazy idea from the start?’
Because I was too overconfident.
To be honest, normally, considering Jiang’s stealth skills, he would have easily slipped out of this situation and out of Professor Red Mountain’s awareness.
But the continuous thefts of Spirit Herbs by Oknodie raised Professor Red Mountain’s vigilance to unprecedented levels.
No matter how hard Jiang tried, there was no way he could succeed in stealth.
Thanks to that, Jiang had to stand awkwardly in a corner of the Imperial Palace garden inside a dimensional camouflage tent set up by Professor Red Mountain, wearing a face that seemed to ask when he could go home.
There was a chair, but I didn’t sit down because I suspected it might be one of those chairs that you just can’t escape from once you sit.
Honestly, considering the seniors who sat in the dining hall chairs at Oknodie’s main house and experienced a backrest trap, it was understandable to have a bit of chair phobia.
“Looks like you’re really an unlucky second-year.”
“How many years have you been here to become an instructor?”
“I graduated.”
“Oh really.”
Jiang glanced at the instructor, wondering how a student would end up making such a poor choice as to take on a role as a professor instructor after graduating.
“The truth is, before entering the academy, I borrowed some money from a loan shark to cover the admission fees.”
“If you graduated, couldn’t you have just taken down the guards and loan sharks with your skills and torn up the contracts?”
“There’s a graduate above that loan shark who is of royal descent.”
“Now that’s a crazy line-up.”
“Right? But that graduate is a bit long in the tooth. Turns out, they’re eighty years old this year. They’ve been so desperate for a breakthrough in their skills that they’ve hoarded too much mana, and it looks like they might kick the bucket in one shot due to complications. So they’re just staying put at the academy working as an instructor.”
They couldn’t ignore the debt collection from the loan shark backed by a graduate, and normal social life was already out of the question, meaning they had taken on a defensive instructor position.
“Where did you get all that information?”
“If you go to the Administration Department, you can find out where all the graduates are and what they’re doing. If you know the exact document names, you can check them directly at the snack bar or library.”
“Better to swing by the Administration Department than the library, I guess.”
“Not bad for a second-year, huh?”
“Well, a lot has happened.”
Despite being a senior and junior pair, there was a strange bond forming between Jiang and the instructor! It was a result stirred by the grievances of students who had rolled around in the Gift Academy like dogs.
“Hey, senior. We need to be quiet for a bit. Someone’s coming.”
“…!”
Since the sound from inside the dimensional tent wouldn’t carry outside, they felt prudent to remain silent, given the circumstances—any strong master wandering by might perk up their ears and unsheathe their sword at any moment.
The two felt it was a good call to keep silent upon seeing someone appear in the garden.
━━━
Heavenly Sovereign of the Eastern Empire
???
━━━
An unidentified false emperor.
With a towering physique draped in a broad ceremonial robe, he looked like an obnoxiously carefree warrior.
Yet, they noticed the long beads dangling from his hat that concealed his face with a coronet, and they felt it.
This was not someone who should exude such carefree vibes.
First impressions from a person’s face affect perception as much as their build.
If they had seen the true face of someone impersonating the Heavenly Sovereign, they might have thought the person looked just like the Heavenly Sovereign.
But now, cloaked in a long robe obscuring his face, they felt an indescribable sense of foreboding emanating from the faceless Heavenly Sovereign.
While Jiang knew the person was a fake, even the instructor, without such knowledge, sensed the same ominous feeling.
“Nice, a flower of midsummer.”
The emperor was meandering around the garden, fiddling with the plants in the courtyard.
Once he left, the instructor spoke.
“Why are you toying with the stems and leaves if you say you love the flowers?”
“…If you don’t know what a flower is, it could happen.”
“How could someone not know what a flower is?”
“You know, those beings that live in ways incomprehensible to humans. They don’t share our understanding of the world.”
“One-hundred-dimensional invasive species…!”
“Exactly. If not, it wouldn’t make sense. Such inexplicable behavior.”
It’s as if the emperor had an algorithm that dictated he should express his affection for flowers while walking in the garden after lunch.
However, since he didn’t know what flowers were or the essence of their beauty, his actions seemed exceedingly strange.
Think of it as someone who doesn’t know what a human is calling monkeys humans or mistaking monsters for humans—how bizarre!
“…Senior, shouldn’t we run away now?”
“Professor Red Mountain is intentionally stirring things up. He’s probably watching us from somewhere in the palace right now.”
“…!”
“Give it up. There’s no way to escape.”
“I’d prefer if things just happened sooner. At least we could get past this suffocating wait.”
Truth be told, it wasn’t just Professor Red Mountain or the Heavenly Sovereign that was unsatisfactory.
The target they were surveying.
Spirit Herb Everlasting Grass.
The Spirit Herbs, known for granting consumers ageless bodies, were also profoundly suspicious.
The energy felt from the Spirit Herb was undeniably reminiscent of Oknodie’s, matching the essence of Dark Mana.
It wasn’t just Dark Mana.
The warmth of the first snow.
The refreshing coolness felt when soaking in a hot spring.
A mix of all kinds of contradictory emotions.
That made it even more foreboding.
If you felt warmth from coldness.
And coldness from warmth.
What kind of sensation did this pure Dark Mana originate from?
Was the foreboding the result or the cause?
Did something evoke the sense of foreboding?
Was it necessary to feel something from foreboding?
What did immortality stem from?
Or had it obtained the contradictory quality of immortality from something else?
“Do you want to eat that Spirit Herb?”
“Are you nuts? Absolutely not.”
“Not even if there were no curse from Professor Red Mountain?”
“Not even then.”
“Not even if the Heavenly Sovereign isn’t around?”
“Not even then.”
“Looks like I’m not the only one sensing that ominousness.”
The instructor had aged wisely as a graduate.
Those half-hearted people didn’t even graduate.
“Wait a moment. Senior, someone else is coming.”
The royal garden is often deemed a hidden realm of conspiracies where secret conversations take place.
Though the palace attendants were quietly engaging in hushed discussions with distressed faces, the two’s keen hearing allowed them to eavesdrop on the conversation.
“Staying close to the Heavenly Sovereign is incredibly terrifying. How long must we serve this fearsome being, even considering the weirdos as citizens?”
“Stop talking nonsense and toughen up. If we get kicked out of the palace, how would we survive in the hellish Eastern Empire?”
“That’s… true, but isn’t it said that the Western World is different?”
“You think of crossing the border?”
“Back in the day, the Yin-Yang Masters protected the border and prevented the Western monsters. Nowadays, aren’t the Eastern weirdos more terrifying than Western monsters?”
The crumbling fate of the Eastern Empire was evident, as even servants in the middle of the capital’s palace were having such impure conversations.
“Senior, let’s go together. Since you’ve taken care of me as someone from the same region, I feel grateful, and I’m risking my life to tell you this.”
“What about family?”
“I’ll take care of them if I can, but if it seems too risky, I’ll abandon them.”
“I can’t just abandon my family.”
“…I figured you’d say that. I’ve thought of alternatives. Brokers who help cross the border accept anything valuable.”
“So?”
“If we extract the Everlasting Grass, wouldn’t it be possible to take my entire family with me?”
“You… are you crazy?”
“The real madman here is the Heavenly Sovereign. Is it normal for even monsters to be treated as citizens while those who can’t offer tributes are treated worse than monsters?”
Once someone crosses a line, they’re no longer afraid of getting their hands dirty.
The difference between getting a little dirty and getting a lot dirty doesn’t matter much.
If your hands are so tainted that they can never be clean again, it only makes it worse.
What difference does it make if your hands get a little more dirty?
“Let’s dig up the Everlasting Grass and cleanly relocate.”
“…Yeah. That might be for the best. I’ll go dig.”
Jiang and the instructor’s faces shared a look of discomfort.
If this happens, the thieves stealing the Everlasting Grass wouldn’t be Oknodie but rather just the palace attendants.
How could such bad luck exist?
Should I stop this?
Or should we exude some survival instinct to scare them off?
In a flurry, Jiang grabbed the instructor’s shoulder, who was about to rush out.
‘Don’t go out, senior.’
‘If we miss this, the professor is going to throw a fit.’
‘There’s no way such a Spirit Herb would be easily harvested by hand.’
There are always spirit beings guarding ordinary Spirit Herbs.
Is there really nothing protecting the Everlasting Grass?
If not, is it just left out there unprotected?
That can’t be the case.
Jiang learned at the Gift Academy that anything valuable carries its own risks.
It didn’t take long for that lesson to prove true.
“Uwaaaah!”
The attendant who touched the Everlasting Grass instantly aged as if his lifespan had been sucked out, collapsing into a heap.
In an instant, he became fertilizer for the Everlasting Grass.
The more shocking thing was the reaction from the attendant who lost his senior.
“Today’s fertilizer has been well provided. The color looks good.”
The attendant’s face and attire swapped in a flash, transforming into a palace guard armed with a sword.
“I’ll need to feed someone brawny tomorrow.”
Jiang internally screamed.
Oknodie.
More than anything else, that should not be stolen!