The Return of The Mythical Archmage [EN]: Chapter 414

A moment of silence passed.

Both Umbra and I seemed lost in thought, our minds tangled in complexity.

“…Anyway. That’s the extent of my deductions.”

Umbra spoke first.

“Was it of any help?”

“Yes. Of course. It was a great help.”

My once blank mind had cleared up considerably.

“Good. I’m glad to hear that.”

Umbra chuckled.

“Well, you probably already know this, but just in case, I’ll say it anyway. Take what I’ve said as a reference. Don’t blindly believe it.”

“Yes, I understand.”

A deduction is just a deduction.

No matter how certain a hypothesis may seem, one shouldn’t blindly believe it.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Umbra smiled faintly at my firm answer.

“Good. Now, you and your capable partner, try to coordinate well.”

Her role was done. The rest was up to me.

That was the kind of smile she gave.

“By the way…”

Umbra’s gaze sharpened.

She glared at Persona, who was still lost in thought beside her.

“How long are you going to stay like that?”

“…”

Persona showed no reaction.

Still lost in his own world, deep in thought.

“This guy is really…”

Umbra shook her head and approached Persona.

Then, she raised her fist and smacked him on the head.

“…Ouch.”

Persona feigned pain with an expression and voice that didn’t seem pained at all.

“Why did you hit me all of a sudden?”

“I hit you to snap you out of it. Why?”

Umbra gave a menacing smile. It was a cold smile that sent shivers down my spine even from where I was standing.

“I was already awake.”

“Yeah, right.”

Umbra scoffed.

“Whatever. Just tell me what you were thinking.”

“…My thoughts?”

“Yes, your thoughts. You were so lost in thought, there must have been something on your mind, right?”

“…”

Persona’s eyes narrowed slightly. There was an inexplicable seriousness in his expression.

It was a very intense emotional shift for Persona.

“…I was thinking about the past.”

“The past?”

“Yeah.”

Persona’s expression went blank again.

“I was thinking about when I met the contractor’s teacher.”

“…Are you talking about the avatar of the Human God, Ray Bell Bytenner? You met him?”

“Yeah, I did.”

Persona had met his teacher during the Empire era.

“…You met him. But why?”

Persona fell silent again.

He didn’t want to say it.

His silence seemed to say that.

“Um… It’s nothing.”

Persona avoided the question.

He had nothing to say about this matter.

No, he didn’t want to talk about it.

That was the kind of firm will that was evident in his expression and answer.

“There’s no way you’d be so hung up on something that’s nothing. What is it?”

“It’s really nothing. More importantly, about what happened between the Human God and the End God…”

Persona changed the subject.

It was an obviously forced change of topic.

“Don’t change the subject. What’s the deal with meeting his teacher…?”

“There’s a way to find out about their past.”

“…What?”

Umbra stopped talking and widened her eyes.

“…There’s a way?”

Forcing the topic or whatever. That was not a topic that could be ignored.

“Yeah, there is. I can’t say it’s 100% possible, but it’s probably possible.”

The End God and the Human God.

A story from the past that had no remaining records, a story that was impossible to know.

There was a way to know that story?

“What is the method?”

What method could it be?

“Find Mora.”

“Ah.”

Umbra made a realization at Persona’s words.

“…Right. There was that way.”

Such a clever move.

She nodded a couple of times with eyes that seemed to say that.

“Mora… It sounds like the name of a god. Is it?”

“That’s right. It’s the name of a god.”

So it was a name.

“Goddess Mora. Her other name is the Goddess of Time.”

“Time…!”

The Goddess of Time, then…

“If we borrow her power, we’ll be able to find out what happened between the End God and the Human God.”

* * *

After hearing about Mora, Shin Hayul immediately left the sacred relic.

“I thought he’d disappear right away. It seems there’s a bit of a grace period.”

After Shin Hayul left.

In the world where only the two of them remained, Umbra spoke casually.

“Mana… Divine power isn’t a power that disappears so easily.”

Mana and divine power were essentially the same power, just expressed differently.

Only the structure had changed slightly with the flow of time.

Its foundation was no different from divine power.

“The time flows differently inside and outside, and considering the remnants of mana, it should last for about 5 minutes.”

Of course, they were only similar in foundation, not exactly the same.

Divine power was a slightly higher concept than mana.

“Okay, well, that’s not bad. 5 minutes is enough time for the two of us to chat and say goodbye.”

Umbra turned to face Persona.

“So. What was that you were trying to say earlier?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Earlier. The thing you blatantly glossed over.”

Persona had only said that he was thinking about when he met Ray Bell Bytenner, and then he had glossed over the rest.

“The contractor is too focused on Mora to think about it, but I’m not. What were you thinking?”

“…It’s nothing, I told you.”

“I know better than anyone that you’re not the type to waste your energy on useless things.”

Umbra moved her face closer to Persona’s.

“Tell me the truth.”

When Umbra was talking to Shin Hayul about the past.

What was Persona thinking?

“We don’t have much time. Tell me quickly.”

Umbra stared intently into Persona’s eyes.

If he didn’t tell her, she wouldn’t forgive him.

That was the look in her eyes.

“…A while ago.”

Persona started to speak slowly, as if he couldn’t help it.

“When I met the previous contractor, Ray Bell Bytenner, I sensed the End God’s energy in his body.”

“…What?”

Umbra widened her eyes with an expression that said, ‘What kind of nonsense is that?’

“You sensed the End God’s energy?”

“Yeah.”

“…And you still passed on the power?”

Umbra looked at Persona as if he were crazy.

“I did sense the End God’s energy, but it was very faint.”

“Even if it was faint, how could you pass on the power to someone who smelled of the End God…?”

Umbra shook her head as if she couldn’t understand.

“…Wait a minute. Ignis. He also passed on the power, right?”

Umbra let out a hollow laugh with an absurd expression.

“Are you all crazy? Why are you passing on power to someone who smells of the End God?”

“I didn’t know at the time.”

“…Know what?”

“That the End God had been annihilated.”

“That’s…”

The monster of the divine realm with overwhelming power, the End God.

Who would have expected his death?

“So I just thought it was normal. It wasn’t that strong. I just thought that some of the End God’s scattered power had rubbed off on him.”

“No. Even so…”

To transfer power to someone who seemed to be related to the End God.

It was something Umbra couldn’t even imagine.

“And more than anything, the End God’s energy that had seeped into that man had a hostile aura towards him.”

“…Hostile?”

“Yeah. It was like… it was desperate to devour him, or something.”

Persona recalled the day he met Ray.

A mysterious man who approached him, reeking of the End God’s energy.

Persona had transferred his power to that man without any hesitation.

“So I gave him the power.”

“…You judged him to be someone who opposed the End God. And you gave him the power?”

“Yeah.”

If the End God’s power had felt even slightly familiar to the man, he would never have transferred the power.

“…Okay. If that’s the case, I can understand it. So Ignis also gave him the power…”

Umbra nodded, now understanding a little.

“So when the contractor appeared before me and told me that the End God had split, I immediately realized that one of the two split parts was the contractor’s teacher.”

Persona had previously said, when he was talking to Shin Hayul alone,

that he knew the remaining half of the End God was Ray Bell Bytenner.

The reason was this.

Persona had previously sensed the End God’s energy in Ray’s body.

“I was thinking that the one full of the End God’s power was Veil Stole, and the other one was Ray Bell Bytenner.”

Wasn’t the reason the End God split his body in two to get rid of the unnecessary parts of his body?

That’s what Persona had been thinking.

Wasn’t Ray Bell Bytenner the one who was deemed unnecessary and cast off?

“But. That wasn’t it.”

But it wasn’t.

In the first place, Ray Bell Bytenner and Veil Stole were not the End God’s split bodies.

They were the Human God’s split bodies.

The End God had dealt with them.

“So. My head got complicated.”

“…Why? Because all your premises were broken?”

“That too, but…”

Persona’s eyes narrowed.

“Ray Bell Bytenner. I can’t understand why that man also had the End God’s power.”

“…Why?”

Umbra asked again, with an expression that told him to explain in more detail.

“Umbra. You must have come to the same conclusion as me, so you know. If the End God intentionally split the Human God in two to resurrect himself, then the End God’s power should only be concentrated on one side. That would be much more efficient.”

According to Umbra’s hypothesis, all of the End God’s power should have been concentrated on Veil.

“But Ray Bell Bytenner’s body had the End God’s power. I can’t understand that at all.”

The hostility was just because the End God hated the Human God.

The End God’s power was definitely in Ray Bell Bytenner’s body.

“…That’s strange.”

Umbra’s expression also became serious.

“And one more thing.”

Persona stared straight at Umbra and continued.

“Apart from not understanding it, there’s also something I’m worried about.”

“Worried? What are you worried about?”

“The power that the current contractor possesses… you called it Bytenner style, right?”

Persona spoke with a stiff and cold expression.

“Considering the End God’s power I sensed in Ray Bell Bytenner in the past… it means that there’s a high probability that the End God’s power is also in the Bytenner style power.”

Umbra’s eyes widened.

“If the End God’s power is embedded in the Bytenner style power itself…”

Persona paused for a moment and said.

“The outcome is already decided.”

If the End God had tampered with the Bytenner style, there was no chance of winning.

“Not only will it end in a one-sided defeat, but there’s also a high possibility that the current contractor will be absorbed by the End God.”

If the End God’s power was dormant somewhere in the Bytenner style power.

If it was set to awaken under certain circumstances.

Shin Hayul could be absorbed by the End God.

“Why didn’t you say such an important thing? You should have said it in advance so we could prepare for it.”

This was something the contractor needed to know.

“There’s no point in saying it now, it’ll only spread anxiety. Being consumed by anxiety because of such a hypothesis with no proof is too big of a loss.”

“Even so…”

Shouldn’t we know what we need to know?

Umbra swallowed those words.

“That’s why I told you to go find Mora.”

Goddess Mora.

Also known as the Goddess of Time.

And also known as.

“If it’s the Empress of the Divine Realm, Mora, she’ll be able to do something about it.”

The Empress of the Divine Realm.

It’s not too late to worry after meeting her and hearing her story.