How can a retired savior be considered retired if his price drops to 40,000?

Chapter 35 A conversation no one knows about

"We call this place the 'Abandoned Hole'." Merlin introduced it to Conrad Coates.

Judging from the latter's expression, he obviously had a lot to ask: Why did you drag me to the bottom of Fujimaru Ritsuka's dream world just after a disagreement?Why does she still have such a structure in her mind? What exactly does "Abandoned Hole" mean to "abandon"? What exactly does "you" mean?Do you know there are a lot of people here?

But in fact, what first appeared in Coates' mouth was the most simple and intuitive question:

"You define this place as a 'hole'?"

He pointed at the scene in front of him, clearly questioning the naming standard of "you" whose subject he had not yet made clear.

During Kurtz's short trip to the fantasy world, it was not like he didn't learn anything related to magic.At least he knows that most of the scenes in other people's spiritual worlds are a landscape between the physical universe and subspace: there may not be much logic and operate according to inexplicable laws that are contrary to reality, but it is not completely detached. cognition that humans can possess.But in this area, he felt that the rules he had summarized were not enough.

What lay before him was pure, gnawing darkness.This darkness made Curze, who was born in darkness, instinctively want to peek into what was hidden behind it. However, immediately afterwards, the original body's keen senses, which were countless times stronger than those of mortals, gave him a warning: Don't do this.

These darknesses do exist to cover up some of them, but this cover-up is for protection - the things under the darkness that make even the incarnation of fear like him feel creepy should not be exposed openly. of.

Why is this structure connected to the bottom layer of Fujimaru Ritsuka's dream?

"Oh, actually, I originally planned to do some other tasks and this matter secretly while you were sleeping, but you haven't slept all the time, so there's nothing I can do about it." Merlin still had that annoying look on his face. With a flirtatious smile, he said something in a cheerful tone that didn't sound right to him, "In this case, I have to let you know 'what this is going to do' first, and then ask for your consent."

These words obviously aroused Kurtz's rebellious mood: "What if I don't agree?"

This sentence elicited a seemingly hearty laugh from Merlin: "Your Majesty the Primarch, you are joking. Considering that we are currently in the same camp, there is no need to let things progress to this point, right?"

"Can I understand this as saying that you must complete your purpose even if it involves blood?"

Coze even seemed a little excited when he made this confirmation. Unfortunately, Merlin didn't answer his words and just turned his head to look at this area of ​​indifferent direction. Therefore, it was difficult to judge the actual scale of the darkness:

"This is the 'waste hole'." He put away his smile and explained, "Simply understood as a 'landfill plant' for the 'malignant information' that Ritsuka was consciously or unconsciously exposed to during his journey. good."

Coates weighed briefly whether to stick with the previous topic.But considering that this is Fujimaru Ritsuka's dream world, and he has to rely on the power of the half-dream demon in front of him who deliberately applied fluorescent effects to himself to make himself very conspicuous in pure darkness, he thinks that for the time being It is still somewhat necessary to let the other side go.

"What did you want to do by bringing me here?"

"I want to tell you: why there are several Primarchs who 'do not exist in the real universe' due to death or disappearance, but the Emperor chose you."

Coze stared at Merlin displeased: "Then, I hope you can speak more clearly."

"The simplest way to put it is that the Emperor has observed the existence of this 'abandoned hole' and hopes that if it gets out of control, at least someone can barely restrain the damage caused by the flood of 'malignant information'." Merlin described straightforwardly. , "And among the primarchs, your essence is the most suitable."

"…my essence."

"After what happened just now, you should have a basic understanding of your own nature, right? After taking off the shackles of the physical body, that should be your instinct."

Kurtz slowly lowered his head and looked at his hands.In this near-complete darkness, the information that the original body's vision could capture was very limited, but he knew that his hand, which looked ferocious and hard due to the armor attached to it, was there - touching in some form. After touching his son's soul, the subtle cutting feeling that was different from touching flesh and bones still remained on his fingertips like an illusion.

"So be it." He said after considering, "At least it can be used."

Darkness is the appearance, fear is the method, and foresight is the pair of eyes given to him by the Creator to guard against being blinded.The power that he truly holds firmly in his hand is judgment and punishment, the judgment of crimes, and the punishment of evil thoughts.

Perhaps this was the Emperor's original intention when he was created.But the biggest mistake he made was to put a human heart into a judgment machine.

His father did give him an almost paranoid sense of justice, but that was far from enough.Justice that was always out of reach just drove him crazy.

"What are you trying to do by bringing this up?" Coz swept away the complicated thoughts surging in his mind and forced himself to focus back on the current topic. "You are implying that my essence can..."

He paused and chose a wording that better reflected his dissatisfaction: "'Sweeping trash' here?"

Merlin laughed.I don't know whether this half-dream demon couldn't read the atmosphere, or whether he understood it but was deliberately making it uncomfortable. In short, Coz was indeed offended once again.

"Oh, it's really helpful that you can understand so quickly. It doesn't really require you to do anything, just leave a little bit of your essence here."

The Flower Magician raised his hand and made a "little bit" gesture, but Coz was very suspicious of this so-called "little bit".

"What exactly is this so-called 'malignant intelligence'? You haven't explained it yet."

"In layman's terms, it is the 'evil thoughts that everyone can have' in human life. For ordinary people, they are thoughts that 'they will think about in their hearts, but will not actually do it.' For example, 'noon' The food is so terrible that the cook should be beaten up,' 'My friend who was in a similar situation suddenly became very successful and I hope he will lose everything soon', 'Why don't you just die when your boss is so annoying' and so on."

Merlin described the malice of people's hearts in a cheerful tone:
"But do you think that most people will not put this kind of idea into practice? This means that these 'malignant intelligence' are normally thrown into the 'waste hole' and disposed of. But if that person If the 'waste hole' is filled with a large amount of 'malignant information' and the bad thoughts have nowhere to go...you can imagine what will happen, right?"

Conrad Coates looked at the darkness in front of him, which was too excessive in terms of scale no matter how he measured it, and remained questioningly silent. "Of course, the above are the situations of 'ordinary people' whose lives don't have too many twists and turns." Merlin stopped smiling here, "In Fujimaru Ritsuka's 'Abandoned Hole', there are not only It's just her own 'malignant information'. She originally had a constitution that was 'easy to bond with others', and because of various things that had happened before... this 'abandoned hole' gradually became like this."

"What's in here?"

"The 'malicious intelligence' that is related to her but does not belong to her - the resentment of the dead, the curse of the defeated, the reality that does not exist or has been erased, the urge to burst the womb of unborn things. If you want a For a more succinct definition, the phrase 'all that is humanly evil' fits the bill perfectly."

Curze looked at Merlin's calm face suspiciously.The glimmer of light emitting from his body makes his expression completely exposed to the viewer even in the darkness.

"...If Fujimaru Ritsuka is just a mortal, why hasn't she been destroyed by so many evil thoughts?"

"Well, first of all, it's because there are outstanding guardian knights, and secondly, because she has signed a contract with something similar before, and there is no loophole to exploit this contract. Of course, there are various other reasons. , but those are not important." Merlin smiled, "Ritsuka is a very good Master, so everyone is willing to continue to help even after the agreed journey is over."

Conrad Curze was fed up with the barbed manner in Merlin's words.He pretended that he didn't understand that the other party was being arrogant and resentful of himself. Just as he was about to ask the next question, the whole space experienced slight fluctuations.

"It seems that the outside has succeeded, the singularity has been eliminated, and the information about 'Jestal' has poured in." Merlin said.

Curze still couldn't see anything, but he was too familiar with similar things - he didn't really need sight to know what was flowing into this thick darkness.He perceives greed and arrogance, he perceives plunder and theft, he perceives killing and sacrifice in the name of righteousness, and he perceives more complex sins and evil thoughts.The facade of development and prosperity that Jestal had enjoyed for more than a hundred years was stripped away and fixed in reality, and the rancid blood concealed beneath it flowed into the place unbridled.Just a glimpse is enough to shock you.

Curze suddenly remembered one of the incomprehensible titles his father had given Fujimaru Ritsuka on his own initiative before they left the Star Torch: "Sin Drinker".

She was literally sipping sin.

"In our world, this is the world of imaginary numbers that should not be 'proven to exist.'" Merlin's warm but cold voice did not take into account Kurtz's shock. "Simply speaking, it is similar to the 'observer effect'. As long as Things in the world of imaginary numbers cannot be recognized, and they cannot affect the real world because they 'do not exist'. But in this world, the rules do not work like this. The generation of subspace entities has always been in vain of human will, so , as the foreigner (Foreigner) Fujimaru Ritsuka gradually embeds his existence into this universe, this 'abandoned hole' will one day be 'proven to exist' by something other than human beings - sooner or later, it's just a matter of time. "

"...In other words, sooner or later this place will be transformed into a subspace entity due to the concept of 'all the evils of mankind'?"

"It hasn't progressed to that point yet, and I can't say. After all, this is something that has never been done before. Of course I hope it can become a subspace entity - and then Ritsuka can get rid of this ghost thing completely. But according to Caleb The more likely result of the joint deduction between the learned men and the Emperor is that this 'abandoned hole' will turn into a subspace projection that does not yet exist in Ritsuka in the future."

There were some sounds of fighting in the distance. It seemed that their location was not the front line of the "Abandoned Kong".

"So, you said you need my essence." Cozz deduced, "You need my judgment to judge evil, and punishment to eliminate evil. The size of this 'abandoned hole' is gradually expanding, and you need new gatekeepers."

"That's not entirely true, but it's not bad to think of it as such." Merlin said with a pleasant smile, "It's great that you understand, then I'm welcome-"

Caught off guard, Cozz's left little finger suddenly felt a sharp pain as if it had been cut off: before Merlin finished speaking, a small piece of his essence had been cut off.

This could almost be considered a hostile act.

"——I haven't agreed yet!" Curze reached out to grab Merlin in rage, but——unsurprisingly, what the Flower Magician placed here was another phantom.

"This is a dream. You can't hide your thoughts from me as a dream creature, right?" The half-dream demon had the same smile he always had on his face, and the old god said, "And there's no need to be so angry, right? Although it is true that intrinsic injuries are not easy to heal, this amount is only enough for you to grow back in a month or two. In short, thank you very much for your help, and you can go back now——"

Merlin's voice gradually faded away, and the darkness in front of him gradually became thinner at the same rate.This behavior of escaping immediately after succeeding made Kurtz even more angry, but before he could start thinking about revenge, he found that the memory of this matter in his mind was passing at an abnormal speed.

"Merlin! What did you do to my brain again!" He yelled angrily at the interface between dream and reality, and all he got in exchange was the hearty and infuriating laughter of the Flower Magician:
"I didn't do anything, right? Although the 'Abandoned Hole' is an imaginary world similar to subspace, it is also a dream:
"——Isn't it normal to not remember anything that happened in the dream when you wake up?"
-
Curze opened his eyes in the hallway of the Stormbound.

He didn't quite remember what he was doing standing here, but it was very clear that the anger burning in his chest was directed at Merlin.

Of course, the half-incubus who only cast an illusion here cannot be caught for the time being, and the reason for his anger is also unclear.Konrad Curze hesitated for a moment whether to let this matter go, but when he was thinking about it, he realized that he had just returned to the ship and was so dusty that he had not even replaced the Ortenus Spirit Base exoskeleton used for combat. Ritsuka Fujimaru passed by him - holding a paperback edition of "Sacred Words" in his hand.

"What are you going to do?" he asked inexplicably, "Don't you also clearly believe that 'the emperor is not a god'?"

Fujimaru Ritsuka turned around with a gloomy face: "But I feel like I saw Tzeentch in the dream-like space that I reprogrammed into a human being. It's so unlucky, I must quickly pray to 'disinfect' ."

This thing is enough to make anyone tense up and be alert in an instant, so it is normal for Coz's tone to be a little nervous that he himself was not aware of:

"You saw the Chaos God himself? What happened?"

"I don't remember. That's the big problem." Fujimaru Ritsuka still had a gloomy face, "Although things in dreams will naturally be forgotten when you wake up, why is 'between the cracks' considered a dream!"

She angrily muttered these words and ran to her room.Coze stared at her back silently, and for some reason, the anger in his heart towards Merlin became even stronger.

　Mea——(lay down)

　　The next day or two will be about wrapping things up with Jestal, which may or may not include some Storm Border tea drama, and then jump into the next story chapter... To be honest, I haven't thought about the next story yet. Where should it happen (.)
　　Regardless, let’s read Plague War (You) first.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)