Became the Patron of Villains Novel MTL - Chapter 236

Chapter 236

Approximately seven days had elapsed since those events, and during that interval, Alon’s faction had effectively raided three separate temples, liberating every surviving captive they found.

“Our next destination is the east, correct?”

“Precisely. It would be most strategic to bolster our numbers while we travel.”

Rangban noted that they already possessed sufficient manpower to face a challenge if they so desired.

However, despite the look of relief on his face, he also voiced a lingering suspicion.

“Progress is undeniably smooth, yet something feels peculiar.”

“Are you referring to the priests?”

“I am.”

Alon nodded in agreement.

recently, he had been harboring the exact same doubts as Rangban.

“…It is anomalous that there has been absolutely no retaliation.”

Over the course of three weeks, Alon had assaulted eight temples and rescued a multitude of people in the process.

Given how aggressive and open his movements were, it was bizarre that he hadn’t encountered any substantial resistance thus far.

“Is it possible they are focusing their attention elsewhere?”

Much like Penia, who had been quietly contemplating before speaking, Rangban shook his head as he watched Rine silently stroking her chin.

“I cannot say for sure. There are dozens of priests, and their territory is immense, so a delayed response isn’t impossible—but total inaction to this degree is odd. Above all else…”

Rangban thought back to a previous temple they had struck and continued his thought.

“It is evident they are aware we have attacked other sites, yet they haven’t dispatched reinforcements. That is what makes me wary.”

As Rangban’s voice trailed off, seemingly lost in his own analysis, Alon inquired,

“Is there a specific concern bothering you?”

“This might be overly optimistic, but perhaps the cause lies with the front lines.”

“The front lines?”

“Based on the testimony of a soldier we dragged out of a temple two months ago, the conflicts at the front have been so fierce that there is no respite.”

“So they lack the spare troops to deploy here?”

“Correct. Again, this may be viewing things through rose-colored glasses, but it isn’t an implausible explanation.”

Although Rangban added that the situation on the front lines didn’t appear favorable for their side either, their discussion eventually moved forward.

“…Regardless of the reasons, our strategy remains unaltered. Let us proceed as planned.”

“Understood.”

With Alon’s concluding statement, the meeting was adjourned.

“I shall take my leave as well.”

After Rangban departed, Rine was the first to stand up.

She appeared to be deep in thought about something and soon slipped out of the room without a sound.

Observing her departure, Alon let out a soft sigh and turned his focus inward, inspecting the divine power residing within him.

In contrast to the concerns he held when they first began their all-out assault on the priests, his divine power was steadily recuperating as normal.

This fact puzzled Alon.

The issue was the recovery mechanism itself.

Initially, Alon hadn’t questioned it because he hadn’t realized he was currently in the past.

But now that he was aware of the truth…

While it was logical that divine power he had already received could accumulate, the fact that it was regenerating on its own was undeniably strange.

What could be the cause?

Alon’s internal monologue was cut short.

“Marquis, incidentally, have you been testing that technique you mentioned previously?”

Penia inquired.

Alon nodded.

“…I have been attempting it. However, the drain on divine power is excessive, so I haven’t managed to utilize it properly yet.”

The subject Alon and Penia were discussing concerned transmutation.

To be more specific, it was about the magic they had originally been researching.

Transmutation—specifically Brain God—was merely a spin-off of that research, while the core project was still in the experimental stages.

“It appears optimization is the hurdle. Why not attempt this approach? I noticed something recently while observing you channel it.”

They lingered in the meeting space a while longer, debating the intricacies of the magic.

“I would love to conduct some trials, but for the moment, I must conserve my energy as much as possible. Let’s leave the discussion there.”

“Very well. I should get going too.”

As they concluded their talk, Alon’s gaze fell upon the book Penia was clutching.

“…Is that a book?”

“Yes, I discovered it in a deserted house during our journey. It turns out to be a magic tome. It is inscribed in an ancient language, making it difficult to decipher, but the contents are captivating.”

Seemingly anxious to continue her reading, Penia quickly said, “Well, I shall be off then…!” and scurried away like a squirrel.

Alon watched her vanish from sight before he began to walk.

“Ryanga.”

“Oh, Chief.”

He soon located Ryanga sitting absentmindedly in a secluded corner of the cave, lost in thought.

Her expression, which had been blank, brightened ever so slightly into a gentle smile upon seeing Alon.

“Were you thinking about Dalma?”

“…Was it that obvious?”

“Yes.”

She no longer stumbled over her words as she once did and could now respond with more fluidity.

After a somewhat awkward laugh, Ryanga quickly shook her head.

“But I am certain they are all doing well. Our race doesn’t die that easily.”

Witnessing her effort to appear cheerful, Alon sighed quietly.

Her mood had been visibly gloomier since a week prior—and the fault lay with Alon.

To be precise, it was due to the intelligence he had shared with her, information obtained from the prisoners they had liberated from the last temple.

News that Dalma, her village, had been subjected to repeated invasions by Baarma as the battle lines shifted back and forth.

“Ahem, as I told you before, we have hideouts just like this one. I bet they are all hiding there. Or perhaps they managed to escape.”

Alon recalled the moment he had first informed her about the situation in Dalma.

Even then, rather than succumbing to despair, Ryanga had nodded firmly, her face filled with unwavering faith.

She didn’t seem like a child at all in that moment.

…Or perhaps it was precisely because she was a child that she could harbor such pure belief.

Alon looked down at her hands, which were trembling slightly.

Countless words of comfort rose to his mind, but he chose not to voice them.

Rine, Penia, and Alon all understood the same reality.

That in this monochromatic world, innumerable tragedies are birthed daily, and despair runs rampant.

Thus, he understood that hollow words of comfort—spoken merely out of reflex—would only deepen the wounds of a child like her.

“Come speak to me whenever you need to.”

Alon gently patted Ryanga on the head and simply offered those words.

“Okay, Chief!”

Although not all her sorrow had evaporated, her expression brightened a fraction as she nodded.

Alon found himself suddenly curious.

“There is something I have been meaning to ask.”

“Hm? What is it?”

“Why do you address me as Chief?”

He was referring to the title she had abruptly started using for him recently.

“Well, you are the one leading us, aren’t you?”

“That is true, but still…”

“Then you are the Chief!”

“…So it is just based on a feeling?”

“Isn’t that how it works? If someone is leading everyone, they are the Chief!”

It was a peculiar logic, yet it held a certain sense.

As Alon paused to ponder this—

“Ahem—”

Someone cleared their throat loudly, clearly demanding attention.

“Ah, there you are.”

As Alon turned, he saw a young girl approaching as if she hadn’t just made a noise to get noticed moments ago.

Blond hair with two small horns protruding through.

A tail wrapped around her waist, and pink eyes that held a reptilian sheen.

“Oh noble one, I have arrived to personally deliver your dinner.”

She proudly extended a sweet potato.

Dinner had already concluded some time ago.

Alon reached out, puzzled, to accept the sweet potato.

“Here, Chief—”

“Hey!”

Ryanga suddenly snatched the food away and placed it in Alon’s hand herself.

“Y-You brat! What do you think you are doing!!”

“What? I handed it over!”

“I was intending to give it to him!”

As the girl stomped her feet in frustration, Alon finally spoke up.

“Thank you, Arquil… cquil…”

“Arquilainisis!”

“Right, Ar.”

“!!!”

The girl, who had howled, “It is Arquilainisis—!” let out a grumpy noise and turned her body away.

“Wow, she is sulking again. She is such a sulker.”

“I am not!”

“You are totally sulking.”

“I said I am not!”

Watching Ar—no, Arquilainisis—shout back at Ryanga’s teasing, Alon smiled faintly to himself.

‘It seems she has finally recovered.’

Ar was a young dragonkin girl Alon had rescued after saving Nangwon.

According to what he had heard, she was a half-dragon who carried the bloodline of a black dragon.

‘The problem is… she is still too young to be of significant help.’

When he first liberated her, Alon had briefly harbored some hope.

At that time, she had been bound in chains as if she were an entity of great danger, so he had believed she would become a powerful asset.

But contrary to his expectations, she was only eight years old—very young, even for a half-dragon—and thus not much use in combat.

In fact, for an entire week after her rescue, she cried incessantly, wrapping her tail around Alon’s waist all day long, which had been somewhat troublesome.

‘Still, I am relieved she has regained her energy now.’

Alon recalled how she had slowly bounced back through constant comfort and encouragement.

He had spoken so many words just to console her when she wept in sorrow.

“I will avenge you! Do not underestimate the wrath of a black dragon!”

“Go ahead and try!”

As Alon watched Ar passionately shouting once more, he found himself wondering:

‘Did a black dragon named Ar ever appear in the original story?’

Dragons, by nature, live for an exceedingly long time.

That holds true even for a half-dragon like Ar.

So considering her lifespan, it wouldn’t be odd for her to appear in Psychedelia, yet Alon had no memory of ever hearing her name.

‘Was she originally destined to die?’

If that were the case, it would explain why she never appeared in the narrative.

But the thought kept circling back.

‘If I hadn’t saved Ryanga or Nangwon, how would they have escaped?’

Maybe not Nangwon, but Ryanga had been in genuine peril.

Alon remembered the specific moment he had saved her.

At least from his perspective, had he not intervened back then, Ryanga would almost certainly have died.

After thinking on it briefly, Alon let the thought go.

In the end, that wasn’t what mattered right now.

“…I hope things proceed according to plan.”

He muttered quietly to himself, recalling his conversation with Rangban.

The following day.

Alon set off toward the eastern region, leading all those he had rescued thus far.

En route, as planned, he raided two more temples and freed additional prisoners.

The situation was proceeding even better than anticipated.

aside from the two raids along the way, they hadn’t encountered any skirmishes.

At the final temple, they rescued a significant number of soldiers from the Union.

Unlike the gloomy gray skies that had loomed overhead for dozens of days now—

Alon’s group steadily expanded in size and continued their advance.

If events continued to unfold this way, they might just be able to break through the front lines without issue.

Everything was going far too smoothly.

So smoothly, in fact, that it began to feel ominous.

“Hrrmph—Welcome.”

And as always, Alon’s instincts proved correct.

“E-enemy attack!”

“Form ranks! To the front!”

Alon frowned slightly and surveyed his surroundings.

They were currently situated at the southeastern edge of the border zone, where fierce battles still raged.

Unlike the open grasslands, this specific area was a canyon.

Under normal circumstances, the cultists of Baarma should have been stationed beyond the canyon’s exit.

“…I had a bad feeling about this.”

Penia sighed beside him, while Rine remained silent.

“Damn it… There are two apostles—”

Hearing Rangban mutter with a scowl, Alon turned his gaze forward.

There, the canyon was teeming with cultists.

Not merely on the ground level.

They were spilling out from atop the cliffs and crawling out of tunnels carved into the canyon walls.

!!

Bizarre monsters with unnaturally elongated limbs were scaling the cliffs, drooling as they emitted unsettling screeches.

“Th-the cultists—”

“Even the parasites—!”

Alon heard people whispering in dismay all around him.

Voices filled with despair and grief began spreading like wildfire.

But the primary reason Alon sensed things were going terribly wrong—

“Rine.”

“I apologize, Godfather.”

It was because of the grotesque red tendrils that had emerged, blocking Rine’s attacks.

They resembled blood vessels, looking similar to the tree-like tendrils they had faced against Greed previously.

As soon as they appeared, Rine’s golden crown shot forward—only to be halted completely.

And the cause was none other than the man standing ahead—an Apostle.

“Well well—I have been waiting so long for this moment. You are going to be worth the wait.”

As Alon glared at him, the man who had just moments ago been grinning smugly stepped forward.

Strange black horns sprouted from his head, and he was clad in a black cultist robe.

There was something oddly familiar about the man as he bowed gracefully.

“First, allow me to thank you. I am Baarma’s second Apostle, Rumurfa.”

A word Alon didn’t expect came from the man’s mouth.

“Thank us?”

Rumurfa tilted his head with a creepy grin.

“Because you followed our guidance all the way here.”

“…Guidance?”

“Yes. Did you truly believe you reached this place through sheer skill or brilliance?”

Rumurfa’s lips curved into a wider grin, and his voice projected louder.

“As if! The reason you were able to raid the temples without any resistance—”

“The reason you rescued the sacrifices so easily—”

“And the reason they quietly allowed themselves to be martyred even when you attacked—was all—”

Lifting his arms high, as if he ruled the entire world—

He let out a slow, deliberate grin again.

“Me. It was me. I ordered it—all to gather you here.”

“…Even if that meant sacrificing so many innocent people?”

“The sacrifices of our great Baarma’s followers are tragic—but necessary. After all, we require their faith and souls for His will.”

Alon fell silent.

He was beginning to comprehend what Rumurfa implied.

He had definitely heard something similar from Kalannon before.

That faith could be harvested in this manner.

‘In the end, the essence of faith is emotion. The stronger the emotion, the more powerful the faith offered becomes. In that sense, mass slaughter is one of the easiest ways to gather it. You just have to trample people—brutally, horrifically, and hopelessly.’

‘…And if you desire even more faith? Just give them a little hope.’

‘Hope is like fire. If you control it, it warms—but if not, it burns everything to ash.’

Recalling Kalannon’s voice, Alon had no choice but to admit—

They had walked right into a trap.

The situation was dire.

The cultists had emerged.

Rumurfa’s speech.

Everything that had occurred so suddenly had plunged everyone into despair and grief.

Not a single person was free from the oppressive atmosphere.

Rine’s attacks were blocked by the red tendrils.

Penia, who was preparing a wide-area defensive spell, had realized their disadvantage, and her face twisted with tension.

They were already fully positioned as sacrificial offerings.

And yet, despite all that, Alon did not shrink back.

Instead—

“Penia.”

“…Yes, Marquis.”

He was preparing a move.

A move he had been crafting ever since arriving in this place.