Chapter 628: After One Night

A dense forest located in the central continent.

It was remarkably quiet there.

There wasn’t even the sound of animals or insects, not a single rustling leaf.

It was disturbingly unnatural. It felt as if someone had deliberately silenced the place.

A land where sound had died.

Then, the sound of rustling was heard.

Around a dozen children were lying on the ground, and in front of them stood a middle-aged man.

The children looked emaciated as if they hadn’t eaten for days, while the middle-aged man was dressed in an unnaturally fine manner.

He looked stylish enough to be well-regarded in a big city.

Among the children, a boy holding a baby with his last bit of strength pleaded for help.

“Please… Please help us, my lord…”

“….”

“I… I want to see my mother…”

“….”

“Or… please let me see Ube at least…”

The middle-aged man didn’t know who Ube was, but with experience and intuition, he guessed it to be the tiny body the boy was holding.

It was fascinating. The boy had no strength left but still held onto the baby. Even though it was already dead.

It wasn’t the first time he had seen such a case, but it remained intriguing each time.

Thus, the middle-aged man… Puppet, silently looked down at the child.

His eyes didn’t show sympathy or pity. Instead, they contained interest, curiosity, and envy.

Yes. Now, this legendary dark sorcerer, who had lived for hundreds of years, raised and supported countless dark sorcerers, and accumulated immense wealth and influence, felt envy toward a boy dying of hunger.

It was an incomprehensible sight. However, upon reflection, it wasn’t so strange.

Envy comes from lacking something, after all.

Even someone who had everything others praised could still feel it.

Puppet quietly reflected on those feelings as he looked at the children pleading for help. After a short pause…

…The boy’s thread-like breath ceased.

“What brings you here?”

As the boy drew his last breath, a voice came from behind Puppet.

It was the Pied Piper, the one who could be considered the master of not just this forest, but the entire central continent.

A monster among monsters, the strongest dark sorcerer in history, who stopped not just nations but even the Pater Church and the Archive from defeating him.

He appeared without Puppet even noticing his presence.

By the time Puppet realized he was there, it was when the voice was heard.

A regular sorcerer would never understand, but Puppet, who had studied and researched not only dark magic but also general magic, druidic spells, and the Holy Power of Pater Church over his long centuries, quickly grasped the principle.

It was something beyond conventional sorcery. That’s why he couldn’t detect it crossing space.

In other words, he crossed space as naturally as he would move his own body.

It was closer to an authority than a spell.

The Pied Piper, who wielded this authority, bypassed Puppet and examined the children lying on the ground.

As mentioned before, the children were emaciated, their lips chapped, and their complexion darkened like mud.

Some had even eaten dirt. They had gone mad from hunger and fear.

After carefully observing the children, the Pied Piper let out a short sigh.

“Aah…”

In that sigh lay a sense of relief, as if a long-held breath had finally been expelled.

The Pied Piper savored that feeling for a moment, then cracked his head to the side to stretch his neck.

Crack.

“Did you come to complain about my poor performance? I removed the binding curse as best I could.”

The Pied Piper raised one hand and spoke.

At one time, an immensely powerful spell was attached to that wrist, invisible to all but the most skilled sorcerers.

It was a kind of restraint, limiting the Pied Piper’s range and actions.

Thanks to this, for hundreds of years, the Pied Piper’s range of movement was limited to the central continent, and the number of children he could kidnap at one time was also restricted.

It might sound trivial, but as the saying goes, knowledge is power, and it was indeed significant.

It limited the actions of the Pied Piper, who was filled with rage.

It reduced what could have been a great flood to a local one.

It was understandable, considering it was the Archive’s last desperate attempt, using both their secret techniques and their lives.

Of course, that powerful spell was broken not long ago by Puppet, using the Archive’s corpse to craft a Zombie Puppet.

“Surely.”

Puppet denied the Pied Piper’s assumption.

“I did ask for help, but that foolish plan to attack the prince and clash with Randa wasn’t my idea. So I’m not here to criticize the failure. But…”

Puppet added one last thing. From here on out, it was the main point.

“I’m personally curious… why you let them go.”

Although he didn’t specify what he was referring to, the Pied Piper seemed to understand.

After all, it was extremely rare for the Pied Piper to show mercy.

“What a joke.”

That’s why the Pied Piper also understood the intention behind Puppet’s words.

Having wandered the world for so long, he had seen and learned much. Though much time had passed, that insight hadn’t disappeared.

“You should already know quite a bit.”

Puppet remained silent.

“So don’t bother me with trivial matters. I’ve decided to stop caring about such things.”

“I returned your freedom, so it shouldn’t be a problem to bother you a little, right?”

“I’ve already paid that debt. Just by appearing in Randa, every eye is on that city. Isn’t it easier for the Kingdom to make its moves now?”

“Hmph, I thought you didn’t care about worldly matters.”

“I don’t. The wind, the rain, the trees—they simply told me.”

The Pied Piper claimed that nature itself had informed him.

It was a level of arrogance few could match, but it didn’t come off as mere boasting.

The Pied Piper was half-man, half-not, and in a different sense from Puppet.

“I don’t care what you do. You can form the Black Hand for your goals, conduct human experiments, incite wars, or disrupt the royal family… I don’t care in the slightest.”

Puppet didn’t use the Warlock’s Eye. Partly because the Pied Piper’s anger made it difficult to read his emotions clearly, but also because he knew the words were sincere.

“So don’t bother me anymore. If it weren’t for you, I would have just killed them all.”

Puppet, knowing the truth, silently agreed.

As their conversation ended, the Pied Piper was about to leave to abduct new children, but at that moment, Puppet called out one last time.

Hearing Puppet’s call, the Pied Piper looked back with a stiff expression, his smile gone.

This meant his patience had run out.

“The Holy Knights are going to move. Since you’ve appeared in Randa.”

“If they were doing their jobs properly, I wouldn’t even exist. I wouldn’t have survived this long either.”

“No, but Pater Church is negotiating with Dave.”

“I know.”

“They might send someone to deal with you.”

“It doesn’t matter. They can’t come.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes… Even if they do come, they won’t be able to do anything. Not in their current state, where they can’t even break through the surface.”

***

At dawn, the Randa City Council held an unscheduled emergency meeting.

Considering the workload of entertaining the prince who had visited Randa in recent weeks and his large entourage, this situation wasn’t welcome.

However, none of the eighteen council members and department heads present expressed any complaints.

It was no wonder.

In just one night, Randa had suffered one of its worst disasters in history.

In just one night!

It might have sounded like a bad joke, but it was the undeniable truth….

Or perhaps it was a joke. How else could one explain the sudden appearance of rats all over Randa, the corpses in the morgue, and in the alleys coming back to life to attack people?

The problem was that this joke had become reality.

As a result, Randa had incurred countless casualties, impossible to count immediately, and the economic damage had yet to be calculated.

However, the most horrifying fact was that the damage wasn’t limited to the lower class; it affected everyone indiscriminately, including the upper and middle classes.

A prime example was that only eighteen council members were present today.

Randa had a total of twenty-four city councilors, divided alphabetically by districts (Y and Z districts have no councilors).

Six of them were absent, and the reason was none other than the fact they had lost their lives in the catastrophe last night.

This was the doing of a single dark sorcerer.

“….As you can see in the footage, the man believed to be the Pied Piper was unaffected by the firepower of the Randa Defense Force.”

The Randa Defense Force minister played a video.

Taken with military-grade recording devices, the footage was difficult to view due to noise, like smudged ink stains, but it was the best they had.

[BOOM BOOM BOOM!]

The short video showed a spatial cannon on top of a building, showering down projectiles with the latest technology from Randa.

The projectiles were a mix of incendiary bombs and iron pellets, and even in the short video, the targeted area suffered devastating damage.

Countless explosions of fire and earth scattered, roads were torn up, and the ground shook and cracked.

Freeze.

Suddenly, the video froze.

Frozen in the image was a figure standing calmly among the pillars of fire.

Due to the backlight from the explosions, only the silhouette was visible, but even from that, it was clear that the man in the video looked relaxed.

If the footage hadn’t been brought by the Defense Force minister himself, one might suspect it was someone’s idea of a joke, such was the scene’s lack of realism.

This confirmed it.

The Pied Piper was an existence that even the full might of Randa’s military couldn’t subdue.

Bang-!

“How could this be?! No matter how chaotic the world has become, this… one person…!”

“So, the legend was true after all. Even when the entire country joined forces, they couldn’t bring him down hundreds of years ago…”

“This isn’t just some finger trick, is it? Is he even human?!”

Wearing their unique outfits based on their district’s characteristics—jackets, shirts, frugal suits, glasses, Inverness capes, and smoking pipes—the city councilors each expressed their shock.

Their minds rejected the information being presented as their logic refused to accept it.

“But then, how did the Pied Piper end up in Randa? Wasn’t he only active in the central continent?”

“Could it be because the Flesh Cook was killed? There’s still chaos because of that.”

“That’s old news. Gallos is regaining stability. If anything, things are crazy in the central continent. Refugees are emerging, and dark sorcerers are among them, I hear.”

“According to my sources, a cult worshipping the Devil was discovered. In the Kingdom of Aizen, no less.”

“The world has gone mad. But what does that have to do with the Pied Piper?”

-Clack. Clack. Clack.

As the city councilors buzzed with chaotic and unproductive chatter, a councilor dressed in a frock coat mechanically tapped the table.

The distinct sound drew everyone’s attention toward him.

Silence fell across the room, and the councilor in the frock coat spoke.

“Hm… Nevertheless, we do have some encouraging news.”

“….”

“In all that chaos, the prince was rescued.”

No one could deny the claim.

Prince Albert. If he, who was sent by the royal family to improve relations, had been injured or died during the disaster, things would have taken a catastrophic turn.

That disaster might have included the very disappearance of Randa itself—like losing its status as a free city.

“In that sense, you could say we avoided the worst.”

“Indeed, Councilor.”

One of the ministers waiting behind the councilors stepped forward to agree.

It was Paul Carver, the Minister of Internal Affairs of Randa.

After exchanging a polite greeting with the muscular Defense Force minister, they switched places.

“As you’ve said, you could say we avoided the worst. Especially considering the Pied Piper targeted the prince.”

“He targeted the prince?”

One of the councilors asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you have any proof?”

“There is no concrete proof. But the prince himself and several dozen survivors who encountered the Pied Piper testified that he threatened to kill everyone in the city if they didn’t hand over the prince.”

Shiver…

In Randa, where madmen were a dime a dozen, such threats were commonplace. But the councilors who had experienced last night’s events all felt a chill down their spines.

“Why did he do that?”

“We couldn’t find out beyond that. We are investigating through the World Tree, but we couldn’t retrieve any footage of the Pied Piper.”

“Is that possible? The World Tree records and sees everything, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s correct, but we haven’t been able to find any. Even the four Net Navigators from the Moirai School involved in the investigation are confused.”

The councilors didn’t press further. The World Tree was an area where the highest authorities lay, and arguing would yield no benefit.

“The main point is that we protected the prince whom the Pied Piper targeted. As a result, Randa successfully defended itself. We can call this a victory.”

Considering the damage Randa had suffered, one could question whether the word victory was appropriate, but the councilors didn’t argue.

In this line of work, what matters is not the truth but the appearance of it.

Failing to stop the Pied Piper might tarnish Randa’s prestige, but claiming they protected the prince at great cost was more beneficial.

And it wasn’t even entirely untrue.

Understanding Carver’s point, the councilors unanimously agreed to announce the news as such.

This was how politics worked in Randa.

“Then, who was it that protected the prince? I heard that not only the Police Special Forces but also the Defense Force and the Security Bureau all fled the scene.”

“The one who fled with the prince was Joe, a dark sorcerer from New Gentleman.”

Carver manipulated the device to switch videos.

This video showed Joe wearing a suit.

“New Gentleman… the organization that some lunatics from attacked the prince? Most of them are in custody now, and those who were close to the attackers are all dead.”

“Silencing witnesses?”

“It hasn’t been confirmed, but that’s the general assumption.”

The councilors’ expressions grew grim.

The New Order was cursed, but still, they were the kind of people who had validated themselves through violence and wits in this harsh city.

Yet, if those people had been silenced overnight…

It was chilling, making one wonder what was happening in the city.

“To get back to the point, we managed to protect the prince thanks to Joe, the leader of the Fighter Crew and a director of the Redevelopment Union, who fled with the prince in a desperate attempt.”

“The Redevelopment Union…”

“Yes, that’s the group led by Dave, the fix-it man from T-District, No. 30. And the one who stood against the Pied Piper was none other than him. It was Dave who handed the prince over to Joe… In fact, he’s the one who saved both the prince and Randa.”

Minister Carver declared that the fixer Dave had not only saved the prince and stood against the Pied Piper but ultimately drove him away and saved Randa.

“I can understand saving the prince, and I get standing against the Piper, but driving him away? Is that true?”

“Circumstantially, it appears so.”

Although it was a conjectural answer, Carver had no choice.

No one around at that time had seen it. They all fled at Dave’s command, saving dozens of lives out of hundreds.

“But it’s certain. Dave was the only one left, and there was no one else.”

“I can’t believe he faced that monster alone.”

“But isn’t he a monster himself? Some say he was a disciple of the Archive and helped slay the sea monster.”

“And rumors say he plans to establish a dark magic school in the Tower of Magic.”

“Good! We should support him! This city needs a hero right now!”

“But isn’t it dark magic? Can we afford to…”

“We know he’s dealing with the Pater Church. He saved the prince too. The game has changed.”

“We should move beyond unofficial alliances and establish new relations—at least until this mess is over.”

“Can we afford to do that with someone this powerful? Can we handle the future consequences?”

“The future us will deal with that. The important thing is the present, and the one who stopped the Pied Piper!”

As the councilors were each thinking about how to respond, the councilor in the frock coat who had been silent until now spoke again.

“Minister of Internal Affairs.”

“Yes, City Councilor.”

“Where is the hero who saved Randa now?”

He pointed out that everyone had been too focused on the future and overlooked this detail.

Carver responded as if it was a good question.

“He’s currently lying in a hospital, in a coma.”