The Last Place Hero’s Return - Chapter 181

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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 181. Interlude – Escape (2)
The room had grown cold.
Three pairs of eyes gleamed with an eerie light, fixed upon me.
“Everyone, calm down. Professor Elisha was just joking.”
I swallowed hard against the oppressive atmosphere and forced myself to speak.
“Joking? You mean she was joking?”
“Then you weren’t actually with Professor Elisha?”
“Well, I—”
I was with her, that much was true.
“See! I knew it! You were with her!”
“Compose yourself, Candidate Iris.”
Professor Elisha’s lips curled into a playful smirk.
“Being together amounts to nothing more than engaging in some vigorous exercise with Candidate Dale, perspiring, and exchanging the occasional groan or cry.”
“….”
At her words, Iris’s eyes widened.
“Perhaps we should end the jest there, Professor.”
“Oh, you’ve caught me?”
“No matter how much of a womanizer Dale may be, he wouldn’t be so tactless as to dally with you in the midst of war.”
“Heh. I concur.”
Professor Elisha tilted her glass of potent whiskey and nodded.
“So what exactly happened between the two of you?”
“Candidate Dale and I fought against the Archbishop of Beasts, who had invaded the Abyss.”
“…Pardon?”
“What did you say?”
At this bombshell revelation from Professor Elisha, Iris and Yurina’s eyes widened in shock.
“Is that… truly what happened?”
“The Abyss? You mean that place beneath Hero Academy where the Demon God is sealed? We were taught that it’s protected by a powerful barrier that prevents anyone from entering….”
Their gazes trembled with disbelief.
Professor Elisha smiled bitterly, as if recalling her former self, and nodded.
“We don’t know how the Archbishop of Beasts managed to descend into the Abyss. Candidate Dale simply noticed the Archbishop’s absence while surveying the battlefield and pursued him.”
“Now that you mention it… only the Beast Legion appeared, and the Archbishop of Beasts never showed himself.”
“There weren’t even any particularly powerful beasts.”
Yurina and Iris nodded, retracing the memories of war.
“So… what happened? Was Dale injured?”
Lanez asked, her voice trembling.
Though her voice sounded frozen like that of a frightened herbivore,
the way her nails dug into her palms and her eyes gleamed with a sinister light suggested that if I had been hurt, she would have ground the Archbishop of Beasts to dust and consumed him whole.
“Heh. Don’t worry. He wasn’t seriously injured.”
“But he was injured, wasn’t he?”
“Well, one can’t capture an Archbishop without sustaining a wound or two, can one?”
“That’s… but still.”
I nervously bounced my leg and gnawed at my nails.
“W-what happened to the Archbishop of Beasts?”
“I killed him.”
“…Is that so?”
Lanez’s expression drooped with disappointment.
Watching her reaction, I exhaled a short sigh.
‘I already told her before that I don’t die.’
In Lanez’s case, the moment her mental state crumbles, she loses all control over her power, so I had called her separately once to explain about resurrection and divine protection.
If I were to die in front of her, the shock could cause the blessing of extreme cold to run rampant.
In other words, Lanez knows that I won’t die no matter how severe my injuries are.
‘Yet despite knowing that, she’s reacting so sensitively….’
I gazed at Lanez with a complicated expression.
I was grateful for her concern, but since she herself was like a bomb that could detonate at any moment, I couldn’t feel purely happy about it.
‘I need to think of a way for Lanez to control the power of her blessing.’
While I was thinking such thoughts and sipping the drink in my glass.
“…Dale.”
“Yes?”
“Can we talk privately for a moment?”
Elisha, who had been watching Hero Watch, turned to me with a stiff expression.
I nodded and followed Elisha out of the Main Building Cafeteria.
“What’s the matter?”
“A problem has arisen.”
Elisha opened her mouth in a low, grave voice.
“The Bishop of Corruption… Serpente, was it?”
“Yes.”
Mephistopheles’s subordinate whom I had captured before and locked away in the Demon Containment Facility in Valhalla City.
“Serpente has escaped.”
“….”
What?
Escaped?
“More precisely, during the war with the Beast Legion, someone attacked the Demon Containment Facility and extracted her.”
“…Huh.”
At Elisha’s continued words, my expression hardened.
‘Someone attacked the Demon Containment Facility and extracted Serpente during the war?’
It wasn’t difficult to think of a likely suspect.
“…Is it Mephistopheles’s doing?”
“Nothing’s confirmed, but… circumstantially, it seems so.”
“….”
Mephistopheles directly attacked the facility to rescue Serpente?
For him, they were nothing more than chess pieces to be used and discarded whenever he pleased—why would he go to such lengths to save a subordinate?
“…Wait.”
Suddenly, a conversation I’d had with the Archbishop of Beasts came flooding back.
Jackal had said he descended into the Abyss using the method Mephistopheles had taught him.
“Then… was the reason Mephistopheles taught Jackal how to descend into the Abyss in the first place so he could extract Serpente from the Containment Facility?”
“That… I’m not sure either.”
Elisha shook her head slightly as she continued.
“But if that hypothesis is true….”
“…It was a double trap.”
I had thought Jackal descended into the Abyss using the Beast Legion as bait.
But what if.
Jackal himself was another layer of bait?
“I don’t understand. Why would he go to such lengths to save a subordinate? Even if he’s an archbishop, to the Demon God he’s nothing but a chess piece to be used and discarded whenever he wants?”
“…I don’t know.”
It made no sense.
I had interrogated Serpente quite thoroughly, but she didn’t possess much information about Mephistopheles.
That’s right.
Just as Elisha said, she was nothing more than a ‘chess piece to be used and discarded.’
‘Yet he went so far as to use another archbishop to save that subordinate?’
It wasn’t just burning down a thatched cottage to catch a flea—it was burning down an entire city for it.
“…I’m sorry.”
“Pardon? For what?”
Elisha continued with a dark expression.
“The Demon Human that Dale entrusted to me… I let him slip away through my carelessness.”
“Ah.”
So that’s why she was apologizing out of nowhere.
“It’s not your fault, Professor Elisha.”
This was a scheme that used even another archbishop as bait.
No matter how careful she had been, there was no way she could have prevented this.
“But….”
“Even if I had known Jackal was bait, I would have gone after Jackal first.”
Serpente and Jackal.
There was no need to even question which one was more important.
“Hmm.”
Dawn broke across Elisha’s face, which had been shrouded in darkness.
“As expected, Iris was right.”
“Pardon?”
“You’re far too reckless.”
“….”
What was she talking about?
“Well, in any case… the mystery surrounding Mephistopheles has only deepened.”
“Indeed.”
He had gone to such lengths to rescue his own subordinate.
‘Mephistopheles….’
I exhaled a deep sigh and gazed up at the sky.
No matter how much I rifled through the memories of my past life, I couldn’t fathom what Mephistopheles was truly after.
‘What exactly is he scheming?’
The Academy was abuzz with Festival excitement.
The sky was gradually being swallowed by darkness.
* * *
An Abandoned Building within Valhalla City.
In the pitch-black darkness where not a single light pierced through, a White Masked Man sat motionless.
“Hmm.”
The man stroked his chin and spoke in a low voice.
“What is your objective?”
“….”
To the man’s question, a handsome figure with snow-white hair and a single golden monocle clamped his lips shut.
Beside him lay a woman with equally snow-white hair, her exhausted form collapsed against the wall.
Mephistopheles, the Archbishop of Beasts, and his subordinate Serpente.
Swiftly.
Mephistopheles cradled Serpente and laid her upon a worn bed tucked in the corner of the room.
The White Masked Man watched Mephistopheles with leisurely composure, leaning back against his chair.
“I distinctly recall ordering you to bring Raneez Malam under the cover of chaos.”
“….”
“Do you have no intention of answering?”
Pressed by the man’s continued interrogation, Mephistopheles finally spoke.
“My calculations were off.”
“Off?”
“Raneez Malam participated in the war.”
According to the plan, Raneez should have been hiding within the Academy alongside the other lower-ranked Candidates, but for some reason, she had joined the battlefield where the Beast Legion was actively engaged in combat.
“The professors of the Hero Academy and Raonel Ryu were present there, making it impossible to extract Raneez.”
“I see. So you rescued your own subordinate instead?”
A low chuckle escaped from between the white mask’s gaps.
“Well… from where I’m standing, it seems rescuing your subordinate was the priority all along, wouldn’t you say?”
“….”
At the man’s continued words, Mephistopheles sealed his lips firmly shut.
“No matter. The plan remains largely unaffected anyway.”
The White Masked Man rose leisurely from his seat and turned his gaze toward Serpente lying on the bed.
“I have just one question.”
“…Yes.”
“What exactly is your relationship with that subordinate of yours? You don’t seem to meet very often in your daily life.”
“….”
“Hmm. You have no intention of answering this time either?”
The masked man chuckled, his shoulders trembling with amusement.
“In any case, it would be wise to be cautious.”
“…Cautious, you say?”
“Having someone precious to you can sometimes become your most fatal weakness.”
“….”
At the man’s continued words, murderous intent flickered across Mephistopheles’ pupils.
“If you lay a hand on Serpente….”
“Oh my. I’m too frightened to even speak.”
The masked man raised both hands in a playful gesture.
“Don’t worry. I have no intention of laying a hand on the subordinate you cherish and love.”
Why was it?
Even though the mask concealed his face, I could almost see the man smiling broadly.
“For now, anyway.”
“….”
Mephistopheles clenched his fists until they trembled, grinding his teeth.
“It’s quite fascinating, really… risking your life for the sake of a mere subordinate.”
The masked man gazed at Mephistopheles with eyes gleaming with intrigue.
“How unbecoming of a Demon Human.”
“….”
Mephistopheles turned away from the man and spoke in a low voice.
“And you… are unbecoming of a hero.”

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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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