I’m Stuck on a Remote Island With the Male Leads - Chapter 193
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 193
The Pope stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his gentle face turned toward Kaiden as he posed his question.
“Do you remember the Experiment we conducted a decade ago, Lord?”
Kaiden turned the words over in his mind.
An Experiment from a decade past.
The specifics of what that Experiment had entailed eluded even Kaiden himself. He had expended so much Mana during it that he’d been forced into a state of Hibernation immediately afterward—a choice that was scarcely his own.
In truth, even that Hibernation had not been his will. It had been the doing of Marquis Rohade.
“We reshaped our Lord’s body to align perfectly with Jenas, so that his soul might adapt seamlessly to our Lord’s form.”
The Pope chuckled darkly as he spoke such words.
There was nothing particularly shocking about what the Pope had said. It was as he’d anticipated.
Yet Kaiden scrutinized him intently, desperate to discern the Pope’s intention in broaching this subject now. Why reveal such things so suddenly?
Was he testing whether Jenas was truly Sealed within his body?
Then the ground trembled violently. In the distance, beyond the Barrier, Magical Beasts swarmed and converged.
As expected, the Peony Faction’s machinations were beginning. Margaret needed to know of this.
As Kaiden turned to leave in search of Margaret, Pope Benatrie blocked his path.
“Hear me out to the end, Lord.”
The Pope, stroking his beard, walked toward him with an unhurried expression.
Kaiden remained vigilant, prepared to activate a Magic Circle at any moment, but it was already too late.
Beneath his feet, a strange Magic Formula suddenly materialized—one he had not created, and certainly not the Pope.
“Curse it, what is this…?”
“There exists an Activation word, should Lord ever find himself in a predicament where Jenas becomes trapped within your form.”
“What? An Activation word?”
He needed to escape, but his body refused to obey. The Pope, who had been watching Kaiden silently, now opened his mouth with deliberate calm.
Zenas Igran Rohade. Awaken for the sake of Alea—
A voice layered upon itself, discordant and alien, struck through his entire being.
Boom—!
A violent impact crashed against his heart.
His heart plummeted like a weighted pendulum, sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss.
A strangled groan escaped him.
Kaiden coughed up blood.
The dark shadow of “Rohade” consumed him. For all his desperate struggles to break free, all he had accomplished was to flounder endlessly within the shadow of that name.
On the Island, thanks to Margaret, he had learned a training method that allowed him to Control his Mana perfectly. Yet now he was powerless to restrain his strength, like a child first learning to wield Magic.
Following the assault on his heart, even his earlobes burned unbearably. More precisely, the phenomenon originated from his right ear, where the Earring was worn.
The Earring was a Mana Auxiliary Device that regulated his Mana and prevented his body from being destroyed.
It had not functioned on the Island, yet he could not remove it because it had become, in essence, part of his body.
Depending on their type, Mana Auxiliary Devices could become connected to the user’s nervous system—and Kaiden’s Earring was precisely such a case.
‘Above all else, I cannot touch the Earring. The time is not yet right.’
His refusal to touch the Earring stemmed from a separate reason. He would sooner die than do so. At least, not now. The time was not yet.
‘I must endure. Damn it…’
Yet unable to bear the agony any longer, Kaiden finally released his Mana in an attempt to resist the force crushing his heart.
The Mana composing Kaiden surged outward in a tremendous wavelength, spreading through the air and unleashing a violent wind that whipped across the surroundings.
Zing—
The released Mana collided with the protective Magic Formula Barrier he had created, vibrating fiercely. The Magic Barrier protecting Duke Flone’s Castle could not withstand such raw force and shattered completely.
Crash—!
‘Damn it, this can’t happen!’
Kaiden slowly lost consciousness.
Through his flickering vision, I saw Magical Beasts charging toward Duke Flone’s Castle.
‘No. I have to protect Margaret….’
Margaret….
I have to protect her….
The moment he fell completely into unconsciousness, Jenas appeared as if he had been waiting.
* * *
Where the light had led us, we found the Pope. Kaiden was nowhere to be seen.
“Oh my, the Saint has come as well. But I’m afraid you’re all too late.”
A smile played at the Pope’s lips as he noticed us. From his meaningful words, I intuited that he knew Kaiden’s whereabouts.
“This damned old fogey.”
Yuanna showed signs of immediately using Holy Power, so I stopped her.
The Pope, possessing formidable Holy Power, was not someone to be easily suppressed. If Yuanna, a Saint, fought him, it would become a battle of Holy Power and surely drag on.
But with Kaiden’s condition unknown, I had no time to wait for a fight to end. I needed to find out where Kaiden was immediately.
“Where is Kaiden? Where is he?”
I drew out a Flare and aimed it at him. Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid, who had stepped forward before me, drew his Sword and pointed it at the Pope.
“Margaret asks—where is the Lord?”
With Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid’s sharp voice, electricity flowed from the Sword he held, and a Sword Aura was generated.
The Sword crackling with Sparks was quite threatening, but the Pope didn’t bat an eye and maintained a benevolent smile.
“You’d do well to open your mouth. If you want to keep all your limbs intact.”
Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid tilted his head lightly and swung his Sword casually. The Sword Aura split the ground and passed by the Pope’s side. The Pope’s eyes widened, and then he burst into laughter.
“Hmm. Young people these days certainly have quick tempers, hehehehe.”
“Listen here, you old fogey. Stop spouting nonsense and tell us where the Lord is.”
Yuanna interrogated the Pope, speaking just like Kaiden would. The Pope then shrugged his shoulders and answered.
“Everyone seems quite fond of the Lord. You didn’t realize he’s a child who shouldn’t have been given such affection.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Our Lord was raised from childhood to serve Jenas. The Papal Court conducted Experiments to alter the nature of his Mana so it would harmonize with Jenas’s. Marquis Rohade noticed that the Lord’s Mana had changed when he returned alive from the Island.”
I felt myself reeling at those words. It was a horrifying account of Kaiden’s past—raised solely for Rohade and Jenas.
After committing such terrible acts against Kaiden, the way they called him never changed.
‘Our’ Lord, ‘our’ descendant.
Revulsion welled up inside me.
“Marquis Rohade knew that the Lord was serving Jenas. So to resume our Plan, he headed to Alea Island. How relieved I was to hear that.”
This must have been why Marquis Rohade disappeared along with the Blood Scripture.
He may have known from the beginning. That Jenas was alive.
“How much longer did you think you could hide Jenas from us…! Gack!”
I couldn’t even tell when he’d closed the distance. Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid seized the Pope by the throat and slammed him to the floor, subduing him. His sharp blade pressed against the Pope’s neck.
“So I asked where the Lord is. Did I make it too complicated?”
Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid remained composed throughout. Like a pressure cooker on the verge of explosion. That’s what made it truly terrifying.
Yet the Pope, despite gasping in pain, still maintained his composure. He carried himself as though he held the upper hand in this game.
“It seems the Crown Prince doesn’t know how to respect his elders.”
At that moment, a familiar voice emerged from the bushes. I turned my head toward the sound and called out his name.
“Jenas!”
The face that appeared between the bushes belonged to Kaiden, yet I could now tell at a glance whether he was Jenas or Kaiden.
The Pope still struggled, pinned to the ground beneath Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid’s grip, but Jenas showed no intention of rescuing him.
“Where’s Kaiden?”
I aimed the flare at him as I asked. Jenas’s inscrutable gaze turned toward me. Standing with his arms crossed, he looked down at me with arrogant eyes.
He wore a crooked smile. As if displeased that I was anxiously searching for Kaiden.
“Still only looking for our descendant. How disappointing.”
He approached me and placed a hand on my shoulder. I shuddered and swatted his hand away.
At that moment, the ring on my finger crackled with static electricity. Jenas looked puzzled, staring at his hand and the ring on mine.
“If you try anything funny with Margaret, your head will roll instantly.”
“I agree with Your Highness. If you touch Margaret, I won’t stand idle either.”
However, as Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid and Yuanna Lucy spoke in turn, Jenas’s gaze shifted to them.
Especially when pure white light that appeared to be Holy Power rippled from Yuanna Lucy’s hand, Jenas surrendered, raising both hands and speaking to me.
“Our descendant has fallen into a comatose state. The reason he won’t wake is simply a matter of will.”
“A matter of will? So Kaiden’s failure to wake is a choice he made himself?”
Jenas nodded at my question. Then he glanced at the Pope, whose head was pressed into the ground as he was subdued by Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid, and continued his answer.
“Well, I did design our descendant’s body to respond to a trigger word.”
“A trigger word? What do you mean by that?”
Jenas stroked his chin with a contemplative expression, staring intently at me. He seemed to be reassessing the situation and calculating what would work in his favor.
“As you know, I don’t have much Mana. So even if you recite the trigger word, it’s impossible for me to take complete control of our descendant’s body. Unless I regain Mana in my hands.”
Regaining Mana in his hands. That was a loaded statement indeed.
However, he didn’t seem inclined to provide specific details about the trigger word. It clearly appeared to be connected to Kaiden’s past experiments.
Moreover, the reason Kaiden couldn’t wake was a matter of will. Did that mean he didn’t want to wake? That was completely unlike Kaiden.
Why on earth?
“If he continues to fail to wake like this, our descendant might enter Hibernation just as he did in the past. I’d be very grateful if that happened.”
Jenas spread his arms wide in a pose as if inhaling the air. Soon, he placed his hand in his Robe pocket and gazed up at the sky, leisurely surveying the situation.
“I’ve wasted enough time. I should be going now.”
“Going where!?”
“Margaret, I told you. I need to go to Alea Island.”
“Jenas. If you’re finally putting our plan into action, then I…!”
As the Pope, still subdued by Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid, opened his mouth, Jenas looked at him as if he were an insect.
“Fool. It’s not ‘our plan’ but ‘my plan.’ Your role ends there. You should know I’ve kept you alive this long thanks to the Magic Stone.”
The Pope’s face showed he couldn’t comprehend Jenas’s words. He struggled, trying to escape from beneath Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid’s grip, but it was naturally impossible.
And in that moment, I became certain that Jenas had been manipulating the Peony Faction using the Magic Stone.
And then there was Alea Island.
Could it be that the Magic Stone rumored to remain on Alea Island was becoming a new source of power for him?
‘As you well know, I possess very little Mana. Even if you recite the incantation for me, it would be impossible to fully seize our descendant’s body. Only if I regain Mana in my hands would that change.’
Then his words from moments ago made sense. If he found the Magic Stone and recovered his Mana, he could seize Kaiden’s body.
‘Damn it, this is all because of that accursed dimensional rift…!’
The dimensional rift was the root cause of all this. And the true enemy we needed to kill was not the Peony Faction—it was still Jenas.
Murderous intent surged within me toward Jenas. I felt as though this rage and thirst would not be quenched unless I overturned everything.
If only I could find a way to seal the dimensional rift, then neither Jenas nor those Peony Faction bastards could ever commit such atrocities again…!
‘If only I could seal the dimensional rift…!’
Then, suddenly, I recalled a hypothesis I had once formulated.
What if the key to sealing the dimensional rift was truly me?
What if my corrupted soul, having crossed between dimensions, had to return to Korea for the dimensional rift to be completely sealed?
What if that was the only way to save everyone—and to save Kaiden?
If that were truly the case, if that was why Jenas refused to let me go….
I would gladly sacrifice myself and abandon this world.
‘I will not stand idle. Not for anything.’
Then Yuanna stepped forward. As she stretched both hands toward the sky, pure white light began to spiral and surge within her palms. Her hair whipped wildly, and her eyes gleamed with a brilliant radiance.
She glared at Jenas with eyes consumed by madness.
“You and that old fogey won’t take another step from here.”
The moment her words ended, a colossal pillar of light crashed down upon the spot where Jenas stood. The ground was gouged so deeply that the force of the attack was devastating.
Yet Jenas evaded Yuanna’s assault with contemptuous ease, and in an instant, he drew near to me.
“I’ll be waiting on the Island.”
The soft words that brushed against my ear soon scattered and vanished into the air. Jenas had already concealed his presence.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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