339. The Immortal and the Mortal (8)
-Boom!
Surprisingly, flower petals scattered. And as much as I didn’t want to believe it—
[Savior, may you live forever!]
[Live forever!!]
The wraiths were shouting in unison, with all their passion, calling out to one person.
Fernandez stared blankly ahead. The wraiths gathered in the plaza, scattering pollen and cheering……
[What’s wrong, Fernandez? Perhaps your mind hasn’t fully cleared yet? I should call the physician. Didn’t I tell you, you need a check-up!]
“Perhaps…… could the physician prepare some medicine?”
[Ah, you were also well-versed in alchemy. Yes, tell me. In Ibalis, there’s no such thing as an impossible potion.]
“I need the quickest and most painful death possible…….”
Fernandez muttered, biting his lips tightly. The focus in his eyes was fading.
His sharp senses screamed that the height of that statue was higher than Ibalis’s outer city walls, and that this plaza was located at a high altitude relative to the plains.
After that, it was simple math. Any outsider wandering near Ibalis and looking at these walls would, without exception, see the face of this statue.
Like a mischievous child peeking over a fence…… his face adorned with a benevolent smile.
‘Faijashi!! Emergency. Come out quickly! Take…… take over my body!’
Fernandez shouted in panic. Of course, there was no response.
A profound loneliness engulfed him. Truly, in this hellish Material World, he had no allies…….
My life is my gallows. Faijashi’s old voice echoed like an auditory hallucination.
[Haha, what an interesting joke! But it’s too early to be surprised. The ancient arts of Ibalis know no bounds. Now, begin!]
“Begin…… don’t. Whatever it is. Never begin.”
Ignoring Fernandez’s desperate voice, Lavirata cheerfully waved a long staff.
Soon, magic began to flow and bloom along the surface of the statue, coated with a dazzling array of colors.
Fernandez instinctively analyzed the form of the magic. Contrary to his halted thoughts, his instincts eagerly delved into the magic he had just encountered.
A conclusion was quickly reached. It was a spell to draw water from an underground aquifer.
A bit complex and flashy, but its structure wasn’t much different from the water supply facilities found in any city.
“Water……?”
-Splash!!
With Fernandez’s soft muttering, water began to pour from the eyes of the statue modeled after him.
The sight of the statue, facing the sky with the sun behind it, shedding tears, seemed to embody the pinnacle of ancient Asit art, appearing sublime.
The water flowed down the channels painted on the statue’s surface. Due to the massive scale, even a small stream looked like a river by the time it reached the ground.
The water soon met the city’s water supply facilities spread throughout.
[This is the result of Ibalis’s craftsmen putting their heads together to depict how you returned life to us. The aquifer is the city’s lifeline, the beginning of life. The sublime tears flowing from your eyes bring life to my thousand-year-old city…….]
Lavirata’s voice echoed loudly. She turned to look at Fernandez.
Seeing him motionless, she tilted her head and said.
[Fernandez? Fernandez! Oh no! Physician!! Call the physician! It seems he overexerted himself right after the grand ceremony!]
Fernandez, who had fainted standing, was soon carefully supported by the wraiths and led to a resting place.
It was the first day after returning from death.
* * *
“I’m sorry. I…… can’t, anymore…….”
“Just a little more strength. Piel. Just a little more…….”
Inside the tent, papers, maps, and hastily scribbled notes were scattered everywhere.
A makeshift bed in one corner of the tent was soaked in cold sweat and bloodstains, and on it, Piel gasped with a pale face.
A man’s rough hand rested on her sweat-drenched hair. The man gently stroked her head with careful gestures.
Piel closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.
“Count…….”
“Just a little more strength. We’re all saying it, Piel. We’re almost there.”
It was Robert. He sat down beside her with a haggard face, shuffling through a pile of papers.
Crumpled files and torn notes were scattered around him.
He pulled out a sheet of paper from the pile and handed it to Piel.
Piel staggered to her feet.
“The ninety-seventh scenario. Piel. Look at this?”
“……No. Count. This…… I can’t see it.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Yes, Count. This plan will fail.”
Robert sighed deeply and picked up a copper cup. He lifted the teapot hanging over the campfire and poured tea into the cup.
Piel took the cup from his hand and took a sip. She set the teacup down with trembling hands and looked at Robert.
“I’ve been so incompetent, wasting your precious time for months now.”
“If you’re incompetent, then no one on this continent is competent.”
Robert shook his head firmly. He plopped down opposite Piel and scratched his disheveled hair.
Considering his past, where he was obsessively neat and organized, this was impossible.
But…
These past few months have completely turned him around.
A future shrouded in dark clouds. The kind of horrific apocalyptic visions that make all the prophets want to end their own lives. That reality is approaching moment by moment.
The existence of demons, cackling dryly from the shadows. The civilization crumbling and fracturing under their rise.
Robert was the head of the intelligence agency. Naturally, he knew as much about the existence of demons and their schemes as the priests of the Inquisition Office.
But knowing something and seeing it with your own eyes are two different weights.
And, of course.
The reality of seeing it firsthand and the life of having to dive into that struggle and fight is a different weight.
With the heavenly gods turning a deaf ear to the pleas of the material world, Robert thought more desperately than ever.
In this hellish world racing towards its end, he wished someone could dirty their hands in his place.
It was a cowardly thought, but as he watched his knights fall and die, Robert prayed for it.
And then, a saint was born in the Great Wilderness.
A great saint who pushed through thousands of demons, faced the mightiest demon, and struck it down. A man who symbolized a ray of light like the sunrise in a night tangled with fear and despair.
Robert had always dreamed of heroes. The heroes in stories.
Heroes were forged in tragedy, and he believed they never turned their backs on it or ran away.
But when he saw Fernandez struggling in despair, he mourned his own cowardice.
And at the same time, he couldn’t help but be grateful that he wasn’t the one standing in that place.
So what could he do? He was the head of the intelligence agency, but the rise of the demons always outpaced information and strategy.
Then—
‘We need a prophet.’
Not the shamans who are close to superstition. True prophets.
In the vast talent pool of the Empire, there are such beings. Prophets. Seers who go beyond the realm of senses and wield true prophecy.
As the head of the intelligence agency, Robert had long been searching for a way to use them.
There was just one problem.
‘Prophets die young.’
To be precise, the power of prophecy was too great for mortals to wield.
All those who awakened to prophecy and used their abilities ended up taking their own lives not long after they began to stand out.
Information is toxic. As the one who oversees the Empire’s intelligence, he knew that fact better than anyone.
Unlike him, who grasped information through reports, prophets had to accurately read and face the opaque information of the future.
How could such beings be utilized? In the past, he had given up, but now he finally found an answer. From the prophet of the Great Wilderness.
“Piel, are you alright?”
“I must have worried you, Count. I’m still fine.”
With a haggard complexion, Piel stammered her reply.
From her appearance, Robert sensed that she was fighting suicidal impulses even at this moment.
To prevent that, he tried not to leave her side for even a moment.
He couldn’t lose her like this. She could be the only answer to this world.
“Let’s take a break and check the next scenario, Piel.”
“Yes, Count.”
As she answered, Piel slowly closed her eyes.
* * *
The power of prophecy is not a double-edged sword. It’s a blade that only points towards the prophet.
No matter how carefully it’s used, that blade will eventually strike the prophet’s neck.
So Robert formulated a hypothesis. If the reason prophets commit suicide is the overload of information, could artificially removing the acquired information extend the prophet’s lifespan?
Amnesa Morai. A poison used by the Empire’s Iron Side. In precise doses, it causes the subject to lose a day’s worth of memories. Robert began administering this drug to Piel and sorting through the information.
She couldn’t read the future heading towards the end. And prophecy shows the most probable future.
Based on these two propositions, if the power of prophecy is utilized, the end can be avoided.
Robert, based on the vast amount of information he possessed, categorized the possibilities of overcoming the end.
Hundreds of ‘end’ scenarios were created.
Over several months, he began to seclude himself with Piel to find the ‘visible future.’
During the months they spent together.
Piel had to live through decades every day and forget a day every night. Her day was fixed in a long flow of time, repeating itself.
Robert studied hundreds of ways the world could end every day and devised countermeasures to nullify all of them.
Every night, he lamented the fact that all those countermeasures ultimately failed and ended the day. He filled the day Piel lost with grief.
Piel, in exchange for overcoming the suicidal impulses from prophecy through poison, lost years of her own lifespan.
Robert sympathized with her and condemned his own actions.
Robert struggled for a future that might not change, in a world racing towards its end. He carried the despair of the future on his back and walked forward in Piel’s place.
Piel admired his stance and sympathized with his sorrow.
Several months. For the two struggling to illuminate a future of nothing but darkness, that time was long enough for the deficient man and woman to fall for each other.
Their love deepened amidst the despair of noon and the grief of deep night.
* * *
And when Everiz finally found them.
“Scenario one thousand four hundred and fifty-six.”
Scratching his unkempt beard, Robert smiled at his former subordinates and his sister who were looking at him.
“Iron Side. Are you ready to work?”
“Yes, my lord.”
There is a famous saying in the Empire’s Administrative Office. ‘The only information Iron Side doesn’t know is the information that doesn’t exist yet.’
And now, the head who even knows the information that doesn’t exist yet has returned.
The Empire’s Iron Side Graysercle. The continent’s top intelligence group has resumed its activities.
It was the fifth day since Fernandez returned from death.
![[TS] Obsessed Gamer: The Ultimate Return](https://i3.wp.com/novelhitam.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/TS-Obsessed-Gamer-The-Ultimate-Return2.png?resize=85,105 "[TS] Obsessed Gamer: The Ultimate Return")
