Light of Arad: Forerunner

Chapter 59

As Jinseong was heading from Underfoot towards the dungeon area: Neuyerpera, ultimately aiming for the first dungeon, ‘Golden Cave’, he was startled by a sudden vibration.

“Hmm? What’s this?”

“Gworrok?”

Jinseong immediately began fidgeting with something, sensing a strange response from inside his [Inventory].

He soon realized it was the emergency contact coin he had received from the Wizard’s Guild. It was the same item he had used when escaping from Behemoth with Lenny. While Jinseong could use it to contact Sharan, it could also receive messages from her, though he had never used it in that way, making this situation a bit surprising for him.

“Is something going on with Sharan?”

“Gworrok! Gwor!”

“It’s a hassle to go back and forth multiple times… Eyy… Tako! For now, gather as much as you can. .”

Jinseong instructed Tako to gather gold coins using its extending tentacles. The task of scooping up gold chunks with tentacles and Jinseong collecting gold alongside Tako had to be wrapped up quickly.

As soon as he collected a sufficient amount of gold, Jinseong gulped down a teleport potion to return to the Wizard’s Guild.

─────────────!

Jinseong returned to the [Abnormal Phenomenon Emergency Response Committee] office, intending to meet Sharan, but it wasn’t necessary.

“Jinseong, this… what is this? Did you know about this?”

Sharan was already waiting for him in his office.

Jinseong couldn’t grasp the intent behind her unusually urgent tone.

“Huh? About what?”

What she was pointing at was the set, though he wasn’t quite sure what she meant.

“These equipment items, the ones you entrusted to me.”

These items indeed had Diregie’s energy imbued within them. Due to level restrictions and other reasons, Jinseong couldn’t use them yet. However, the method of obtaining these items differed from when Jinseong was a player.

Instead of repeatedly clearing dungeons to earn rewards or loot, Jinseong had handed over his ‘existing armor set’, specifically the plate armor he used back in Sky Castle, to Diregie.

Afterward, Diregie had imbued his energy into the low-level plate armor and returned it.

‘…So even when looking at it through [Inventory], I felt that the item illustrations were slightly different, or at least not quite the same as I remembered. That’s why I asked Sharan to check it out, just in case…’

However, how these facts related to Sharan’s current attitude was unclear to Jinseong.

Aside from simply reaching the required level, Jinseong still wondered what else he might need to properly use them.

Would it involve purification or activation? Jinseong didn’t know, which was why he sought Sharan’s help in the first place.

But now, all of a sudden, this situation arose?

“Judging by your expression, it seems you didn’t know… Is that correct?”

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“Yes, to be precise, I don’t quite understand what you’re talking about.”

“Sigh… I thought so. Go ahead and touch it.”

Observing Jinseong’s confusion, Sharan gestured towards the items on the desk. Jinseong hesitated for a moment before placing his hand on one piece of the set.

“Uwaaah!?”

He immediately pulled his hand away, letting out a scream. Sharan sighed at the sight of Jinseong’s wide-eyed shock.

“Do you have any idea how serious this is?”

Even Sharan’s concerned voice didn’t fully reach Jinseong. All he could do was suppress his pounding heart while staring at the equipment.

‘What the heck is this? Crazy!’

As soon as he touched the item, a voice echoed in his mind. Jinseong knew exactly whose voice it was.

[Jinseong…]

As soon as he realized who the voice belonged to, he understood why this was happening.

‘…This is what Diregie meant. He said that if I betrayed him, he’d track me down somehow— that I wouldn’t be able to escape his pursuit. This is what he was talking about!’

Diregie had once said to Jinseong in the dimensional rift:

Exact your revenge on Hilder, disrupt the plan no matter what. Should you fail to do so after receiving his aid, he would track Jinseong down and infect him, which wasn’t just an empty threat.

* * *

Sharan gestured towards the items with her chin and asked,

“What are you going to do about it?”

“What do you mean, what am I going to do?”

“If you act now, you can destroy them. Before you arrived, I examined them, and they haven’t fully developed a consciousness yet… It’s not exactly Diregie, more like a fragment or shard of Diregie? Or maybe even smaller… a splinter of Diregie? That’s about all it amounts to.”

It was certain that Diregie’s energy was present. However, it wasn’t Diregie’s main body, nor was it exceedingly powerful. Sharan’s opinion, representing that of the Wizard Guildmaster of the Duchy of Bell Meyer, was to eliminate it before it grew into a bigger problem.

“It’s not the main body of Diregie… is it?”

“You said it yourself. If it were the main body, you and I both would’ve been—”

“No, no, I mean… did you check if it’s somehow connected to the main body?”

But Jinseong still had more questions. The energy before him, was it truly something separate from the Sixth Apostle, Diregie, the Black Disease? Or were their intentions and thoughts fully connected?

“Why do you think I called you here?”

“Ah, yeah, right. Sharan, you’ve never met Diregie, so… Ahem, I’ll check it out.”

Flustered by Sharan’s response, Jinseong hurriedly moved to action. The moment he laid his hand on a piece of the set again, a voice seeped into his mind.

[Kekeke… you’re foolishly struggling over trivialities.]

Though the voice was unsettling, Jinseong quickly understood its meaning.

‘It can hear external conversations. To hear this voice, one must make direct contact. Also…’

Jinseong knew exactly what “foolishly struggling over trivialities” implied. Familiar with the Sixth Apostle, Diregie, the Black Disease, he wouldn’t take the statement lightly.

“This is a different entity. It’s not connected to the Diregie in the dimensional rift. The personality, the voice, sure, they’re similar, but this conversation isn’t being relayed to the Diregie in the rift, right?”

[Correct. The true me, the one in the rift, is both me and not me.]

“As expected.”

This was an entity that couldn’t freely control its own influence. Setting aside the lack of power, the mere fact that the Black Disease’s energy didn’t spread outside confirmed that the energy here was separate from the ‘main body’ of Diregie within the rift.

Moreover, wasn’t Diregie already consumed by rage? Had this been connected to the main body in the rift, it would have lashed out the moment Sharan touched it. It was unlikely that this calm demeanor would have shown under such circumstances.

[Are you so complacent, Jinseong? If you grow complacent over something like this, Hilder will kill you in no time… Kehehe.]

The speech pattern Jinseong was hearing also hinted at this.

It was Diregie, but not quite. Claiming to be a separate entity from the Diregie in the dimensional rift, even its manner of speaking felt distinctly different.

‘But… somehow, it also feels familiar?’

Unlike the rift’s Diregie, which was consumed by vengeance, this one had a somewhat playful vibe, even showing a hint of calmness and composure in its jests.

[You seem at a loss for words. If the me in the rift heard this, it’d tear through the rift and come to end you right away. Kekeke, though it should probably worry about its own torn body within the rift first…]

“Oh! Ah! I remember now!”

“Gah, you scared me! Jinseong? What do you remember?”

Sharan’s eyes widened as Jinseong suddenly shouted. He awkwardly bowed his head towards her before touching the set again.

And then he asked about the strange sense of familiarity.

If this self was so different from the wrathful Diregie within the rift, it felt more like a past version of Diregie.

There was only one reason why Jinseong recalled such a similar experience.

“Are you… the old Diregie?”

According to Jinseong’s memory, with the most recent main scenario quest update, Diregie’s character had undergone a complete rework. If the Diregie raging within the dimensional rift reflected that update, then this ‘other Diregie’ in front of him was showing traits similar to the past version of Diregie, before the rework!

[Kekeke… Hilder was the only one talking incomprehensible nonsense, and that was enough.]

‘Although its joking has leveled up a bit… still, trusting its invulnerability to act this nonchalantly… it’s unmistakable.’

It appeared that this was based on the older version of Diregie’s personality, prior to the latest updates in the game Dungeon & Fighter.

Jinseong asked Sharan,

“Sharan, do you think the self imprinted on these items will grow stronger?”

“I’m not sure… if Diregie’s energy is parasitic in nature and the equipment serves as its host, there would be limits to how much it could grow due to the equipment itself. However, it will certainly grow.”

“Okay, if you’re confident about that, then I’ll trust you. I’ll use them.”

Jinseong began putting the set back into his [Inventory]. Sharan, observing his abrupt actions, spoke up.

“Wait, wait! I appreciate the trust, but this isn’t something to decide so lightly. If it were anyone other than you, I would’ve already called in the guild members to suppress, restrain, or even hold a hearing for such a significant issue, you know?”

Items imbued with the Apostle’s consciousness and energy had never existed before. There was no predicting what problems or incidents they could cause.

Under normal circumstances, those who brought such items would be detained and interrogated for days to uncover their intentions.

Considering that the Wizard’s Guild operated for the peace and safety of the Duchy, Sharan’s words were not an exaggeration.

“…But Sharan, you didn’t call anyone, did you? When I returned, you were the only one in my office.”

Therefore, Jinseong felt both gratitude and a deeper sense of trust toward Sharan.

She had called no one. Despite the clear risk of an unpredictable issue, she waited alone for Jinseong.

“Well, that’s because…”

“Thank you for trusting me. And if you’ve trusted me this far, please continue to trust me.”

If all this was rooted in Sharan’s promise of unconditional trust, Jinseong conveyed his gratitude to her.

Sharan let out a sigh and spoke,

“Who said anything otherwise? If I didn’t trust you, you’d already be in a cell.”

“Huh? But you just said it’s a big problem—”

“It’s a big problem… so I’m asking you to be aware of it. Besides… if any issue arises, you’d be the first to handle it anyway, wouldn’t you?”

“Aha, hehe, you’re sharp as always, Sharan. Your analysis is spot on.”

Jinseong gave a thumbs up with a smile. Sharan, watching his cheeky demeanor, could only let out a weary chuckle.

“…Honestly… our committee member sure knows how to weave things in peculiar ways.”

“It’s all for everyone’s good! Hehe, well then, I’ll go finish up my business! Oh, by the way, nothing’s fallen from the airships in Celestia, right?”

“Oh, make sure you tell me about that in detail. Is it another upcoming event? This time it’s not a plague, but—”

“Yes. But Sharan, I doubt you’ll need to do anything special. Actually, I’d like to ask you something instead.”

Jinseong, retracing the flow of the next main scenario quest, asked Sharan.

With the revelation of Celestia’s existence, thanks to an NPC who barely escaped from there, the possibility of interaction with Celestia was finally opening up, though at this point in the story, players still couldn’t go to Celestia.

“What is it?”

“Have there been any reports about the Bantu Tribe? Like them coming down near the northern border…”

At present, the greatest threat to the Duchy was the friction occurring near the northern border with the Bantu Tribe.

The Bantu were a federation of various tribes that typically lived scattered across snowy mountains. They had suddenly started a massive migration down from their snowy territory towards the border without notifying the Duchy.

‘In reality, it was because a problem had occurred, but for now… no one knows about this incident yet.’

The Queen of the Duchy of Bell Meyer would eventually ask the adventurers and players to investigate, and after resolving the matter, they would finally reach Celestia.

This was also why Jinseong hadn’t rushed regarding the NPCs coming down from Celestia.

Thus, Jinseong flinched.

“The Bantu Tribe…? No, not at all. The Queen hasn’t mentioned anything like that… I’m not well-versed in military deployments of the Duchy, but I haven’t sensed any unusual movements either.”

He was startled by the news that there had been no activity from the Bantu Tribe so far.

And he already had a word in mind about what this might imply.

‘…Contamination.’