Chapter 365: Creaking Gears (1/2)
The place Alte Barrette was headed to was clear.
There’s two Goddess Apostles in the present age.
To the side of the Limia Hero that they were originally supposed to have met up and cooperated with.
But Alte, who learned about the plan of the Anti-Goddess Cult to take over a major power, thought that this would be a great gift to the hero, and took a detour to save the Aion Kingdom.
Thinking back on it, this was the biggest mistake of Alte.
The wasteland that’s the gathering of the trash in this world, and the remote city of Tsige that serves as its lid.
What was hidden there were crazed merchants, and a monster that wore the skin of a company.
Their faith in the Goddess and Spirits is on a burning low, and in the eyes of Alte, it looked as nothing else but a metropolis of degeneration.
That’s why she thought that there was a need for the Aion Kingdom to restructure the city and guide it to the right path.
She ended up thinking that.
The wasteland is where the people, who the Goddess herself deemed as unnecessary, were thrown into and abandoned. There’s no way they would have faith in the Goddess.
Depending on the way you see it, the Aion Kingdom ignored the wasteland’s threats and left it to the merchants. Even if they managed to change that mistreatment into a chance and profited from it, there’s no way they would have high loyalty towards the kingdom.
The wasteland was recognized as a place of high risk and high reward in the world, and Tsige had caught the attention of the people as a city of profit…loyalty and faith are not something that just rises as time goes.
“Quick… To the place of the Hero and the Geezer…! I must not meet my end here. I finally learned the reason for it… The reason for there being two Apostles, the descent of Heroes…there’s no way it was only to counter mere demons!” (Alte)
She pushed back the revolutionary army with overwhelming power.
Using the intelligence gathering ability of Aion to its full extent, she learned of the contact between the Revolutionary Army and the Anti-Goddess Cult, and the internal affairs of Tsige that declared independence.
On top of that, she utilized any exploitable internal cracks and drove a wedge in them, weakening both sides.
That’s what Alte thought.
That plan of hers was actually half successful.
The miscalculation she did was truly a small one.
They were what you would call the luck of the moment, and for Alte, they were all small negligible factors.
She trivialized them all by saying ‘If it is something of that extent’.
Alte Barrette wasn’t a weakling who relied on the elements, and didn’t neglect her acquisition of knowledge. She was without doubt an outstanding woman that guides the hyumans as one of the Grants…and one of the few Apostles of the Goddess in history.
But due to the clever schemer by the name of Patrick Rembrandt, and the irregular called Raidou from the Kuzunoha Company, she had mercilessly bitten into the only experience she was lacking.
There’s no other word to describe it but unfortunate.
In order to see through the tricks of a magician, you need a decent amount of knowledge, experience, and revelations.
Even if you are sitting at the best spot to see through the magic trick of someone in your first time, it is almost impossible to guess it right straight away.
That goes the same when dealing with unprecedented natural disasters.
Even when you have some degree of knowledge to avoid it, it is hard to say whether you can put your knowledge to full use at the times when you have faced your first natural disaster like a big earthquake or a tsunami, and survive.
Sadly to say, it would be pretty difficult to do so.
“…There you are! We have to hurry on the treatment of my body. Even the recovery of the magic power… Who knows how long it would take…” (Alte)
The style that Alte is not that good at with her lightning element is cladding lightning onto her body. Within that category, there’s one high level spell that allows her to do something similar to teleportation.
It allows movement at a slightly decreased rate as lightning, and it is in essence the same as instant transmission.
It is a dream-like spell that’s said to allow you to run across the country in the blink of an eye, but the burden in the body is heavy, and it is mostly a physical type of skill that requires quite the physical training.
Taking into consideration the state of Alte, it would be like demanding someone heavily injured to do a full power sprint for 50 meters.
In that state that Makoto described as coming straight out of a horror film, having arrows lodged in her at several supposedly vital points, she had to run all the distance on the shortest route she could think of.
She crashed onto demonic beasts and people on the way, but she had absolutely no leeway to care about them.
And in this way, Alte Barrette is now in the present place.
At the training grounds of the capital where the Hero Hibiki and her party are at.
“! Is that you, Alte?!”
““?!””
The sudden thunderous sound and destruction as if lightning had struck.
Only one member of the party -an aged man- noticed the being that was clad in light and had suddenly destroyed the surroundings.
At a glance, it looks like nothing but an attack, however, his words made the guard of Hibiki and the others loosen a bit.
“Geezer…I have messed up.” (Alte)
“I can tell just by looking. The fact that you lost despite all the preparations you did… Was your opponent that Raidou that Jou-chan spoke of?”
Without minding being called geezer, the man looked at Alte, the prince, and Hibiki.
Seeing the wounds of Alte -the arrows pierced in her- he guessed who it was, and Hibiki herself had a pale white face.
The man saw the equipment of Alte and could tell how serious Alte was, which made cold sweat run down internally, but he was acting as if he were calm.
“If I hadn’t been sharing souls, I would be dead already.” (Alte)
“I have to question that way of using a sacred treasure, but…well, if you are alive, that’s good. Alte, even though we warned you that much to not go too deep…”
“Uuh…I don’t have the time right now. Please heal me. Also, hear me out on what I have to say.” (Alte)
Alte reluctantly accepted the painful sermon, and prioritized the urgent matters.
She had to tell them about Raidou.
His dangerous way of thinking which might be far more dangerous than that of the Anti-Goddess Cult.
“Hmm. Chiya, can I ask this of you? First, let’s take out the arrow and pour as much healing magic on her as possible. As you can see, she is also an ill-suited Goddess Apostle comrade of mine. She has a better brain than me, so she will be of use.”
“Y-Yes!!” (Chiya)
“Good grief, you lowered your guard too much, Alte.”
Chiya and the man approach Alte to provide treatment to her and check her state.
At that moment, Hibiki, who was silently watching the events unfold, speaks with a grim expression.
“Alte-san…” (Hibiki)
“What, Hero? Right now I am trying to talk about Raidou; about that Devil of the Kuzunoha Company…” (Alte)
“I know. If you have something to say, say it at once. I am sure you don’t have much time left anymore. Hurry.” (Hibiki)
She didn’t stop the man and Chiya, she simply hurried Alte.
“? Yeah, I know that. Listen here, Raidou has no interest in Aion, Tsige, and the wasteland. He was probably happy to have encountered me.” (Alte)
“…”
“Hibiki?”
Hibiki didn’t react to the call of the man at all as she looked at Alte.
“He is waiting for the chaos of the world. Waiting for the result which would be the Goddess-sama having no choice but to descend.” (Alte)
“…”
“And then, he will face the Goddess-sama.” (Alte)
““!””
“I can tell now that…Raidou was trying to gauge the power of an Apostle, the power of a God. He wasn’t even focusing on me at all -me, an Apostle! That guy…!” (Alte)
Anger and wrath take over the words of Alte.
The man, who had grabbed the arrow on her forehead, opened his eyes wide at the raw emotions Alte was showing from the bottom of her heart.
Chiya was already healing her.
The surroundings were getting noisy, and only Hibiki was calm while biting her lips.
“Continue.” (Hibiki)
“…Raidou will defeat the Goddess. I am sure he will. But he won’t become the new god. Because order, ruling, peace, and chaos are of no worth to him.” (Alte)
“…I see.” (Hibiki)
She groaned lightly, and responded weakly as if she had been expecting that answer, or had received backing for her thoughts.