The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 28

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 28

Rita didn’t tell Gid it was impossible. Somehow, she felt like he could make it happen.

She thought for a moment, then spoke honestly.

“No. I just want it to end with us no longer following Command’s orders.”

“Don’t you want revenge?”

She clenched her fists tightly. Her voice came out hoarse, but her answer was calm.

“I do. But… we’re already struggling just with the war against the demons. If we do that, we’ll just spill unnecessary blood. If we fight Command, the Last Line of Defense might be breached. Then even more people would die.”

“Then what do you want to happen going forward?”

“I want this war to end. And I want all of us to survive and live peacefully in a world without demons anymore.”

“I see.”

“That doesn’t mean I forgive Command for what they did. It doesn’t mean we should just leave those bastards alone either. It’s just…”

“I understand what you mean. It’s a matter of priorities, right?”

“Yeah, when the war against the demons ends… a new world will come. A world that doesn’t need the Last Line of Defense or Command.”

Gid reached out his hand to her. His scarred, rough hand traced her cheek as he smiled faintly.

“Alright, if that’s your dream, then I’ll make it mine too.”

“Was your original dream different?”

“A little. But it doesn’t matter.”

Rita asked him what his original dream was, but instead of answering, Gid posed a new question.

“Rita, do you think there’s a way to end this war? Even though it’s been going on since long before we were born?”

“Don’t you know that better than I do? We have the maps we’ve drawn from continuously exploring the ruins. There’s a reason we’ve been diligently measuring magical contamination levels.”

She looked up at Gid and added.

“You’re looking for the direction the magical contamination is spreading, right? You think that if we trace that flow upstream, there might be something that caused the demon war there, like the starting point of magical contamination.”

“…You really are amazing, Rita.”

“I’ve just known you for a long time.”

She chuckled softly and asked him in return.

“Gid, do you think we can find a way to end this war?”

Gid smiled faintly. Rita knew he was thinking the same thing as her.

“Let’s find it and signal the end of the war. True to the name Beacon.”

Winter of their 19th year. The day when cold snow quietly covered the tombstones. The day when fleeting deaths were painted over in pure white.

She set a new goal together with him.

The surviving comrades heard their story and future goals and agreed.

After that, Beacon no longer accepted new recruits. They accomplished everything with just six members.

However, just once.

There was an exception to the principle of not accepting new recruits.

“I’m a weapon, so you just need to take me out when necessary.”

“I perform well. If you take me out, I’ll fight very well.”

It was Oli who discovered the boy.

Oli Pascal, who had gone to fulfill a request from the high-ranking officials of the ‘City’ as an outstanding mage, found Luca Pascal among their collection.

The boy was living trapped inside a large glass box. As a beautiful exhibit and living weapon. Without even realizing he was half-mad.

“Gloves? They put them on me because they said my bitten nails looked disgusting. They told me not to bite them, but I couldn’t help myself.”

“The scar on my forehead is because I kept banging my head against the wall… It’s embarrassing, but I did it without realizing.”

“Mage, could you talk with me a little longer? It’s been so long since I’ve talked like this, I’m enjoying it…”

Oli made a deal with the high-ranking officials to buy the boy along with his glass box. It was a somewhat forceful transaction.

“Damn, I saw the kid was mentally broken from that shit, so I couldn’t just leave him there.”

The trouble with the high-ranking officials that arose from this process was resolved by Gid and Is, Sera took charge of getting the boy out of the box and rehabilitating him. And Rita and Ethan retrained him.

Luca Pascal became Beacon’s seventh member that way.

Age 20.

They completed an independent autonomous squad.

By hunting down named demons called Commanders who traveled with countless subordinate demons, Gid earned the nickname ‘Emperor.’ Their skills became famous through those battles, and Rita and the other squad members also gained nicknames.

Command had no choice but to tolerate Beacon’s existence as they achieved overwhelming results with a small number of personnel. They couldn’t do anything even though Beacon no longer followed Command’s orders.

As the Last Defense Line Command, there was no way to check Beacon, who piled up mountains of demon corpses, didn’t depend on their rations, was self-sufficient, and even fulfilled their duty to defend the line.

For the next 2 years.

Beacon wrote legends by hunting named demons like Red Queen, Malefic, Crawler, and Doppelganger with just 7 squad members.

And finally, they headed beyond the Last Line of Defense, to the deep places humanity had not yet reached.

To lands where no one had gone, where terrible named demons without even names swarmed.

At that point, they received contact from Archmage Pascal for the first time since training.

The Archmage, who they met after 10 years, looked exactly the same as when they were training and asked.

“Do you know where you are heading?”

“It must be the starting point of magical contamination. The source that creates demons.”

Gid answered immediately and asked back.

“Do you know what is there?”

The Archmage was silent for a moment, then answered briefly.

“I know.”

Then he turned his head to stare at Rita.

“So it’s you.”

It was a statement without context. Before she could frown and say anything, Gid moved to stand protectively in front of her.

Pascal didn’t particularly react to such behavior. He simply held out a bundle of papers he took from his coat.

“These are the things that are there.”

“Your thinking is correct. That place is the starting point of this disaster.”

“I wish you success.”

After that, the Archmage suddenly disappeared as if he had never been there from the beginning. The bundle of papers he left behind contained drawings of what looked like ruins and a roughly drawn map of those ruins.

Ruins of a dilapidated castle.

Beacon squad fought desperately against unnamed demons and broke through dense contamination to finally arrive there.

Strangely, there were no demons inside the ruins. The demons wandered around the exterior of the ruins but wouldn’t take a single step inside.

Thanks to this, they could rest, but the outlook wasn’t very positive.

They were battered from the fierce battles to break through to this point, and they were completely trapped in ruins surrounded by demons. They couldn’t even hope for support.

While the squad members rested, Is Pascal used his summons to thoroughly scout inside and outside the ruins.

Gid, who heard his scouting results first, called Rita aside and held up three fingers on his right hand.

“Only three pieces of bad news? Damn, what is it.”

Inside the relatively intact tower, he told her Is’s scouting results.

First. They had searched the entire interior of the ruins but found nothing particularly special.

They did find landscapes that matched the pictures Pascal had given them, but that was all. There was surprisingly nothing inside. There were no supplies like food or water either, so they had no means to hold out here for long.

Second. The demons outside had increased much more than before.

From the moment they entered the ruins, all nearby demons had been flocking here. There was no way for Beacon’s current forces to break through them.

Third. The magical contamination levels inside the ruins were continuously rising.

It was just somewhat uncomfortable now, but if it continued to increase at this rate, even they as Oathbinders wouldn’t be able to withstand it within 48 hours. They might last a little longer than 48 hours depending on their internal Oath levels, but the result would be the same anyway.

Everything pointed to their isolation and annihilation.

Rita was silent for a moment, then held out her hand to Gid.

“The pictures Pascal gave us, give me all of them.”

She set up a fallen marble table and spread the map on it. Then she placed the pictures depicting the ruins’ landscapes at the locations where Is had found the corresponding scenery.

The pictures were arranged at regular intervals. Gid immediately noticed.

“It’s a hexagon.”

“It could be a hexagram. Either way.”

Rita pointed to the center where the lines would intersect when connecting the six pictures as points.

“Let’s check here.”

That place was a small garden in a corner of the citadel. The flowers and trees had all withered leaving only traces, and only the sculptures that had decorated the garden remained, damaged and fallen here and there.

“Wait, that sculpture’s pattern… I saw it earlier!”

Rita found the same pattern on one of the sculptures as in the landscape pictures. She set that sculpture facing the direction where the scenery from the picture was located.

When she set all six remaining sculptures in their proper positions using the same method, the sculptures emitted a faint light, revealing a magic circle. And a door leading underground opened.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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