What Happens When The Second Male Lead Powers Up [EN]: Chapter 622

Liberation (1)

“Huk!”

-Kugugugung······!

The Crown Prince of this town glanced towards the door, and in that instant, I quickly picked up the crystal bell and hid it in my arms.

Then, I busily looked around.

The subtle sensation of the ground rumbling felt ominous.

It was definitely not an ordinary, temporary earthquake.

While I was hastily hugging the sleeping Lesser Pandas, Sir Johan, who I didn’t even notice had woken up, took out a dagger from beside my head.

Sreung! The sight of white wisps of wind tangling around the sharp blade was chilling.

Nine or ten GuGu birds spiraled up his wrist.

The man looked at me with eyes completely devoid of sleepiness.

My Adam’s apple bobbed at the frigid temperature in his gaze.

【Something’s up, again.】

“What should we do, Sir? Should we evacuate everyone outside?”

“No. It seems like something is approaching… The feeling is strange.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It’s neither human nor a magical beast. I don’t sense any killing intent or mana. Prepare yourselves.”

“Yes!”

Kugugugu······! No sooner had the Cardinal’s warning been issued than the ground shook once more.

The Crown Prince glanced at me and then strode towards the entrance of the temple, and Lady Elizabeth, who had finished washing her face in the corner, immediately drew her rapier.

I hurriedly threw myself onto the opposite bed.

Shu-nim, who was sleeping warmly with Acorn, was stirring and opening his eyes. ‘Kkieueu.’

I quickly handed him a glass of water and tidied up the bedding with the precious ones. ‘Meeeh.’

“Eung? Princess Consort, is there another commotion?”

-Meeh-eh-eh

“It seems so, Shu-nim. You should pack your things and be ready to move at any time. Prince, Prince Yeseo. Would you please open your eyes?”

The blonde prince was also lying stretched out near Noon.

He must have been in a deep sleep, as he was having a particularly hard time waking up today.

Whether it was in the Imperial Palace or traveling with us, he had never been a late sleeper, but it seemed he was more relaxed now that his friends had come.

After shaking his shoulder several times, his white eyelids fluttered and opened like flower buds.

“Eueum······. Yeseo-ssi?”

-Kkia

“Prince, something of unknown origin is approaching. You must wake up and prepare to move.”

“Now? Just three more minutes······.”

“Yes, right now! Do you know this is the first time you’ve been grumpy with me?”

Even in the midst of the urgency, his childish attitude made me chuckle.

The moment I pulled his arm―

-Kwaaaang!

“Princess Consort! Princess Consort! Bbaek! Bbaek!”

“Tteuheoeok!”

A deafening sound echoed from the front of the temple, and the window outside, where the sun was rising, suddenly became as dark as evening.

At the same time, Gain-ssi and Christel screamed and ran in!

“We’re doomed! It’s more serious than Moulin Rouge or the Imperial Army! Bbaek!” [Moulin Rouge is a famous cabaret in Paris, often associated with extravagance and chaos.]

“Pardon?”

【……Hyung will go review something for a bit, so hold on as much as you can.】

What review all of a sudden, Hyung?!

“We just need to run! Immediately!”

“Princess Christel, what on earth is going on?”

Lady Elizabeth, surprised, grabbed her friend’s arm and asked.

The Princess’s blue eyes were shaking wildly with confusion and fear.

The lower half of her dress was torn off in chunks, but it wasn’t because she had been hurt or fallen; it seemed Gain-ssi had torn it off with her bare hands.

The ribbon that had been holding her hair back was also gone.

The Princess fluttered her hands, trying to give a logical explanation.

“That, the bell tower! Sacred object! Biryeom’s Ark [a legendary vessel or artifact associated with air magic]! It’s out of its mind right now,”

-Kwakwakwakwang―!

“Uwaaaak!”

A ground tremor that made me feel numb from head to toe struck the temple!

Instinctively, I knocked the Prince down and lay flat on top of him.

The Lesser Pandas and GuGu birds were clinging to Shu-nim’s side.

It wasn’t the first time we had been caught up in such a commotion, but the unpredictable situation was scary and frightening.

The threads in my head were quickly rolling around in all directions, trying to pick up clues.

Could that really be Biryeom’s Ark? What does it mean that the Ark is out of its mind?

······Wait, how did it even wake up?

-Gugugugung!

“Yeseo-ssi, Yeseo-ssi. Please wake up.”

“Ah······!”

This time, the Prince grabbed my shoulder and shook me.

I hurriedly sat up and blinked.

Thankfully, the man under my chin seemed unharmed.

The surrounding environment didn’t seem to have changed much either, but it was too dark to see clearly······.

Huh? Dark?

“······Sir Johan? Gain-ssi?”

“I’m here!”

The outline of someone I knew suddenly emerged from the pitch-black gloom.

Hearing Gain-ssi’s voice relieved me a little.

However, I couldn’t help but be taken aback by the slowly adapting vision in the night-like interior.

Now, the only light was the flickering embers in the center of the temple.

It was definitely a bonfire before I went to sleep, but it seemed the flames had naturally died down as dawn approached. I repeatedly checked that Shu-nim next to me was safe and sound, and then calmly looked around.

Sir Johan was walking towards us, and the Prince was with us too.

Gain-ssi, Christel, Shu-nim, Lady Elizabeth. That presence over there is probably Francois······.

Besides, the Crown Prince of this town seemed to still be here.

Although not certain, a large figure standing by the door caught my eye.

I had to count all the precious ones too. Demi, Rhea, Perry, Acorn. Tite on Gain-ssi’s back, GuGu on Sir Johan’s shoulder.

“······Huh?”

My heart sank. I curled up the fingers I had been counting one by one.

“Where is the Duke?”

“Eung?”

“Our Crown Prince, Gain-ssi. I don’t see Rophido, who’s always with him, either.”

“Are they both not here? Ah······.”

‘That’s right. I don’t feel any fire-attribute aether [a magical energy or essence associated with fire].’ Gain-ssi’s brow furrowed.

Immediately, a great anxiety pressed down on the top of my head.

On top of that, Sir Johan’s low voice settled down.

“They went out for an early reconnaissance. It seemed they were also taking care of Charlemagne and the other horses.”

“······Reconnaissance? But they haven’t returned yet?”

“I was outside the temple until a little while ago, but I didn’t see him,” Marquis Francois added.

A sense that something was going wrong washed over me.

I had assumed that Gain-ssi and the Crown Prince had gone out together, but now it seemed that the Cardinal was the last one to see the man.

Normally, I would have just waited, thinking, ‘I see,’ but given the situation, my heart was pounding ominously.

I quickly got up and walked towards the window.

Fortunately, my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, so I wouldn’t trip over broken furniture or pews.

Sir Johan immediately approached and escorted me.

“Princess Consort, slowly.”

“Yes. I think it would be good for you to see it too.”

I approached the bottom of the window frame, trying to keep the noise to a minimum.

Meanwhile, Gain-ssi stuck close behind her teacher.

Barely managing to hold up my tense body, I peeked out with only my eyeballs.

“······Heok.”

What.

What is that outside?

I turned to my partner and Sir Johan with a dumbfounded expression.

The look in their shaded eyes was just as serious.

What lay before us was a very large······.

To put it simply, it was an object that looked like a pincer.

“Ugh, it looks even more horrifying up close······.”

That thing, which looked like rusty scrap iron, was so huge that it would take four or five adults to encircle it. The shape, which became sharper towards the bottom, looked like the claws or beak of a bird.

Nevertheless, the reason I thought of ‘pincers’ first was because there was more than one of those pillars.

For now, one piece was sticking out of the window, and other legs were standing close together on either side, with only a few centimeters of space between them.

I guessed that it was surrounding the entire temple.

Otherwise, the interior couldn’t have become so dark.

-Kkigigigik······

“······.”

-Kkieeek, kkieeeek······

The creepy noise was a bonus.

The height was so high that it seemed completely impossible to observe the top from inside the temple.

Curious about where it started, I completely stuck my head out of the window and looked around.

The increasingly thick upper part was curving around and connecting to the roof.

My heart dropped for a moment.

I wondered where I had seen something like this before, but it resembled an unidentified flying object or alien from some science fiction movie.

It was clearly not Biryeom’s Ark. It was too big.

“This is······. It looks like it’s gripping the temple.”

Right? I muttered in a trembling voice.

The gray sacred object, split into petals like a flower, just felt terrifying and bizarre.

Jeong Hyeon-seo, I don’t know what you’re reviewing all of a sudden, but come back quickly······.

“Disciple. I think an explanation is needed.”

“Well, Sam. We’re really innocent, you know? We just went for a walk to the bell tower, and······.”

Sir Johan asked, and Gain-ssi started up as if she had been waiting for it.

I struggled to calmly digest the content.

About an hour ago. The two Christels had started walking happily along the white cliffs.

She swore she didn’t sing and didn’t even hum anything by mistake.

She just said that as they were talking, they reached the bell tower at some point, and only then did they notice something strange, according to Gain-ssi’s statement.

It was clear that it hadn’t been like that when we visited it before, but now that she came to see it······.

“Are you saying that the Ark was rotating? Like our Earth?”

My mouth dropped open in astonishment. What kind of development is this?

“Yes! But wasn’t it not doing that before?”

“······That’s right. Until it absorbed my aether, it was motionless in that spot······.”

I became even more confused after hearing Gain-ssi’s explanation.

I frowned, looking up at the house-sized, no—now temple-sized Ark.

A thought suddenly occurred to me, and I turned my gaze to Herrit’s father.

“Sir Johan, you said a little while ago that you didn’t feel any killing intent or mana. Then what about aether? Is special aether flowing out of this sacred object right now?”

“No, not at all. There’s nothing.”

“I agree too. Honestly, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it even if Princess Consort had said directly that it was stubborn. It just feels like a cold, brutal lump of metal.”

“······.”

I quietly bit my lip. This is······. Strange. It’s really strange.

I was resting my chin on the window sill when I suddenly turned around.

The Crown Prince of this town, Francois, and Christel were observing outside the opposite window.

From the looks of it, their reactions didn’t seem to be much different from ours.

It meant that they didn’t know much about this phenomenon.

“Demi, what about you? Don’t you feel anything strange?”

-Kkureut

The divine beast, who had approached me, tilted its head.

I worked hard to roll my eyes and gather the information I knew.

Even though the world was flowing without considering our circumstances, there was no way there would be so few clues.

There must be a missed clue somewhere.

For the sake of the ‘plausibility’ that those three sisters liked so much.

Calm my head and go back to the very beginning.

Let’s start from the basics again.

“The bell tower of the Northern Sea that serves Grand Duke Ivelyn, National Husband Alexandre. The air-attribute sacred object, Biryeom’s Ark, is sleeping here, but in fact, the tower was built later, and······.”

“Our Princess Consort is showing her genius again.”

“I’m looking forward to the conclusion.”

According to Grand Duke’s fairy tale , the Ark had been here since the beginning.

The bell tower was a structure that the Empire belatedly built to serve the sacred object after a long time had passed since then.

The temple next to it was also built at that time.

The Ark, pleased with the prayers of humans, drove away pirate ships and enemy soldiers approaching the Northern Sea with storms, and······.”

“······Wait.”

I hung my finger in the air and muttered to myself.

Occasionally, the area in front of my eyes flashed with gold. I was on the verge of grabbing some clue.

The legend that the Ark, pleased with the ‘prayers’ of humans, used its power to ‘protect’ them······.

Jeong Hyeon-seo, oh my god.

“······It’s because of the temple.”

“Pardon?”

My lips trembled at the shocking realization. I looked back and forth between the two with a blank look.

“The temple that was dedicated to it a long time ago and only prays for it is collapsing right in front of it. And it’s being invaded by someone. The sacred object is still asleep, but it’s not so indifferent or insensitive that it wouldn’t notice that. As everyone knows.”

“Ah······. Crazy.”

‘Things keep happening everywhere we go.’ Gain-ssi bit her tongue and looked up at the ceiling.

I nodded carefully.

“Yes. Until now, the Ark has never done this even once, so there won’t be any related records in any other ancient documents. Who would dare to enter the imperial family’s private property and arbitrarily destroy the temple and offend the sacred object’s mood? The reason it’s showing such a reaction is only the will to protect―”

Right then.

-Seureung, Kwaaaang!

“Eueoeok!”

Along with the sound of someone drawing a sword, a fierce sword aura struck the pincers of the sacred object.

Sir Johan immediately covered my head and lowered my body under the window frame.

However, unlike the loud noise, the vibration transmitted to my body was extremely weak.

A familiar scent of fire tickled the tip of my nose and disappeared like a lie.

I finally realized whose attack it was. Unlike me, Gain-ssi stood straight and stared at the gap in the pincers.

“Your Highness! Don’t do that and try to cut it harder. Infuse the Hyegeom [likely a special sword] with a lot of flower flames!”

The moment she waved her arms and raised her voice,

-Kwagwagwagwang······!

“Uh, uh, uh!”

“Everyone over there! Gather in the middle right now, quickly!”

The heavy pincers outside began to close inward.

As if trying to firmly grasp us.