BXBX NOVEL volume 3 - 171
“Who are you?”
“Me?” Came the reply.
The man opposite of Brendel suddenly laughed. He placed an upright arm on the throne’s armrest, tilting sideways, and placed his chin on his fist: “I am a fool.”
“What?”
Brendel’s brows furrowed a little.
[Is this some kind of quest? But I don’t recall anything like this in the Dark Forest, or even the other areas in the game. No, calm down, think of how to respond. The first thing to do in the game with a setting like this, would be to continue the conversation...... Hopefully, it’s not some kind of riddle.]
“Then why am I...... Why are you here?” He asked, wanting to ask why he had appeared in this place, but changing his mind at the last moment.
“You should ask yourself this question, boy.” The voice said, demanding subservience.
“Me?” Brendel became nonplussed. “I apologize, I do not know why I am here. I did, however, offend a woman, subsequently killed a bishop, and came to this place.”
There was mockery in his voice.
But the air in the vast hall turned cold, and the youth could feel the piercing gaze on him.
“It is a little interesting to know these additional bits of information from your lips, but these are not the cause, they are the conclusion.”
“What?”
“For what reason did you lead your men towards death? Why did you fail to protect them? Most importantly, do you truly not know the state you are in right now?”
Brendel could not help but swallow.
“Fool. Such a fool,” the mysterious man laughed coldly as he watched Brendel’s reactions as though he was pitying him, “even unto death you do not know how to regret your actions, such is the vanity of all humans!”
The cause of his troubles was due to his oath before Makarov and the others. He was the one who practically invited the various factions to travel to the Green Tower over the Lionheart. The Rock Key, insulting Faena, fighting Veronica with the Holy Sword card, all of them were causes that led further to his downfall. He even chose not to betray his core values to spite Amman.
Time seemed to pass painfully slow as Brendel continued remaining silent, agonizing over his decisions on whether they were mistakes, while the mysterious tyrant simply stared at him.
“Enough. I no longer want to dwell on this matter.” It was ultimately the mysterious man who ended the silence first.
“To answer the earlier question, you’re here because you’re carrying a Seed of Destiny.”
[Seed of Destiny? I don’t get it, is he talking about his artifact?]
But the youth dropped his jaw when he recalled Amman’s dropped gemstone and made a connection. Perhaps the person in front of him was Farnezain, one of the four Sages who took on the role of the Priest profession, in the form of a Heroic Spirit? The possibility was there because the Wind Empress and the King of Fire left behind their Legacies. Even though the Pope’s Legacy did not appear in the game, it might just mean that nobody discovered his Legacy.
[Farnezain, one of the four sages? His divine artifact put me here?]
“You are......” Brendel was almost stuttering.
[Of course! Orthlyss said that gemstone looked familiar. If it came from the same era, how could it not be familiar— Wait, I remember that Farnezain’s artifact should be a staff, how did it end up as a gemstone? Hmmm, perhaps the gemstone is one part of the staff?]
“Your Eminence,” Brendel’s tone became polite, “you refer to the gemstone that I’m carrying.”
“That gemstone you’re referring to is indeed a Seed of Destiny.”
“Excuse me?” Brendel’s head hurt when he heard that term.
[So it’s the Item of Destiny after all that brought me here. I just gave one of the best Item of Destiny, the Golden Apple, to Scarlett recently, and now I got another Seed of Destiny. It might even help suppress the Blood of Gods! What luck!]
“Are you a member of the Golden Lineage?” The mysterious man asked.
Brendel’s mind threw aside the difficult questions and chose to focus on the current one. He decided to answer truthfully: “I’m sorry, I’m not even a member of the Silver Lineage.”
“I see, so you are garbage. It is certainly fitting that you failed others and even yourself.”
There was a moment of silence. Anger flared in the youth’s heart, but it quickly subsided. Brendel did not respond and his eyes look glazed at the supposed Heroic Spirit’s judgment. He failed in his past life, in the game and reality, and when he came to this world, he doomed his allies in the Dark Forest, and in extension, Aouine’s fate. He could not even save himself.
“The Blood of Gods isn’t something to be feared of most of the time, but the condition your body is in does not allow you to use your Element Power to control it. Though I don’t think you are capable of resisting it anyway,” the mysterious man said.
“What exactly do you want from me?” Brendel said.
“Ah, what should I do indeed? I thought you were at least from the Golden Lineage, but you said you are not. If this is true, then why do you have our blood running through your veins? Garbage, perhaps, but even so, you are still our descendant, and helping you is not out of the question.”
[What? Did you say ‘our blood’? ‘Descendant’? Are you saying that I’m one of direct lineage from one of the members of the Holy Alliance? How can they be related to me?]
Brendel suddenly thought of his secretive grandfather; the latter possessed a Ring of the Wind Empress, and now he was related to the human members of the Holy Alliance?
The youth could not help but think of the messy relationships in the royal families.
[This body’s genealogy traces back to one of the ancient royal lineage? But that’s unlikely, because this body would at least have some traces of boosted stats to match someone from the Silver Lineage. Instead, this body is perfectly average.]
“What exactly do you want from me?” Brendel asked again after thinking in confusion.
“A forgotten descendant of the past lineages, do you not understand what you are supposed to do? Reclaim what is lost to you.” The mysterious person laughed: “Accept. Your. Destiny.”
[What do you mean by accepting? Join the Holy Cathedral of Fire, or perhaps the other theocracies? What insane conditions do I have to fulfill to get your Legacy?]
“What destiny am I supposed to accept?” Brendel asked.
“In this world, there are countless talented people, either gained from bloodlines, their races, or their history,” the mysterious person sat up and pointed at himself, “but there are people who claimed their own Talent because of their birth, opportunity, and fate. The invisible threads that join the connections around them, which decide the path they are going to walk.”
The hall seemed to grow even darker than before.
“The Legacy that I bestow on you will be similar to your fate. Perhaps you will come to realize what my Legacy means in the future, it is the key to unlock potential—”
“What do you gain from this?” Brendel asked in suspicion.
“I am merely waiting for someone to inherit my full Legacy.”
“...... It sounds like I have to go around searching for things again,” Brendel mumbled to himself.
The entire thing sounded like a huge chain quest.
“Oh? Indeed. It seems like you understand quite well of what is to be expected of you. Finding a true successor is difficult, and the bloodline alone is already a strict condition.”
“I cannot refuse, can I? It sounds like a devil’s temptation!” Brendel vented in frustration.
“There is no need to test me,” the man shook his head, “the devils are my enemies.”
“...... Are you really Farnezain?”
Mocking laughter echoed directly into Brendel’s ears.
“Your imagination is rich indeed.”
The youth felt the personality of the mysterious person was too strange for a priest, but perhaps he was one of the four Sages, though it did not seem like he was any of them.
“Who exactly are you?” The youth asked yet again.
“Collect more of the ‘gemstone’ that you possess right now. In truth, I sealed my soul in the Grey Primordial Divinity after my death, but it was shattered into fragments during the great battle, and one of those fragments is the gemstone you hold right now. If you find all of them, you will find all the seeds required to gain my full Legacy.”
Brendel stood up in shock and could not help but yell out, shivering: “You! Y-y-you...... are......”
The mysterious man nodded: “The Silver Elves called me Darnols, the witches addressed me as the Lord of Eternal Darkness and Myriad Realms, but I prefer what you humans call me, Ooinn.”
“T-the Dragon of Darkness......”
“Afraid?”
[There was a video in the end-game where gamers fought again a projection cast by a fragmented consciousness. So this is the human form? But he looks like a normal person.]
Brendel was at a great loss. Going by the history excerpts from the Kirrlutz’s poems, the Dragon of Darkness was a supreme villain amongst villains, and he was a cliche tyrant who wanted to dominate the entire world.
Now the protagonist of the cliche plotline was in front of him.
The Dragon of Darkness was mentioned just a little less than the Goddess Marsha in the game, and he was actually tired of the NPCs mentioning him everywhere, but now that the real deal was in front of him, he could not help but feel all sorts of negative emotions.
Upon the revelation, the cold eyes that stared at him now had made him afraid.
“What do you want to do with this world?”
“I am already dead. You should ask what you want to do.”
Brendel blinked a few times before registering that fact: “Are you really dead?”
The Dragon of Darkness nodded: “You should understand that what you see now is just a stream of consciousness left behind by my soul.”
Brendel always thought that the Dragon of Darkness would surface as the final boss in the game, revived in the final piece of content where gamers would have to face him, but he became relieved that the latter would not come back.
The youth suddenly recalled Tulman and the Card of Fates. Did that old man not do a similar thing about handing his Legacy down to him?
But when he thought of how many times he failed, and failed despite having so many advantages, he doubted himself and was hesitant to accept the Dragon of Darkness’s offer.
The Dragon of Darkness raised a hand, and a golden light shot into Brendel’s body, and his voice boomed:
“Still, it doesn’t matter even if you refuse me. I have made my decision to give you my Legacy; that woman has angered me by giving you that filth. I will even lend you my flames for a while, but perhaps you are too much of a weakling to defeat her. Go ahead and struggle like a fool, boy.”
“Wait......”
Pain flared up in Brendel’s body when the light struck him, and he convulsed involuntarily as he clutched his throat, collapsing to the ground as the Dragon of Darkness’s laughter reverberated in his ears.
“—You have no choice but to face your destiny.”
These were the final words the youth heard before the world faded into darkness.
– System Notification: The destiny of ‘The Fool’ has been acquired.
Note: There are going to be spoilerish discussions in the comment section. Be careful when navigating there.