Chapter 315: Leaving Without Saying Goodbye

Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav

On the second day, I finally left the now-finished Truth Symposium conference. The Truth Symposium gave me a small golden question mark-shaped emblem to go with my other three emblems. The emblems on my chest now had even more authority than before.

Although this little emblem wasn’t much, it represented the fact that the Truth Symposium would notify me whenever they held a new meeting in the future. It also stood for the fact that I would now officially have the right to be there. Not only that, the “Great Industrial Party” had become an officially recognized powerful mage organization in its own right. All those bastard subordinates of mine could finally be proud that they were a part of it.

As for what result came about at the end of the Truth Symposium conference? Obviously, nothing was resolved in the end. If simply drinking tea together, chatting, and meeting with each other could solve the world’s problems, then this world would truly be an easy one to live in. There would be no such thing as war.

Orloss and the dragons had a rather simple train of thought. At any rate, if the titan giants arrived, the entirety of human society would suffer so helping Orloss and the dragons meant we were helping ourselves. Helping them would be to our benefit as well, and they didn’t care even if we didn’t help them; after all, we would all be dying together in that case.

At any rate, the Bardi Empire was going to be in a tremendous amount of trouble either way. They had nothing to fear from the Mage Country compared to the troubles already on their plate, so they could afford to so brazenly demand assistance despite their earlier antagonization.

As for the mages, it was certain that they were all in a bad mood about this. Nobody would enjoy being dragged into such a major issue like the titan giants. No wonder they were completely uninterested in Bardi’s “offer to make peace.”

Judging from what Halent told me, the dragons still seemed to be quite optimistic about things. Apparently, the dragons believed that all they needed to do was put the four elements back in balance before having the mages fix the Seal of the Four Elements. They were so naïve as to believe that would be all that was necessary to protect their Dragon World.

The battles they had so far in the Dragon World against the titan giants’ tiny little helpers had been quite successful. Some dragons were even under the impression that the titan giants weren’t much to deal with and that they would be able to easily take them on even if the titan giants broke free.

Well, I could understand why they would be so overly optimistic. After all, if any human started prophesizing about how the world was about to be destroyed in such a catastrophic fashion, humanity’s first reaction definitely wouldn’t be to unify and develop new technologies to fight against the impending catastrophe. Instead, humanity’s first reaction would be to make that so-called prophet shut up and only think about ways to deal with the disastrous situation once it was made too clear that it really existed. Perhaps, at that time, some world-saving heroes would even appear.

“Unless they’ve truly been pushed to the brink, no existence is willing to give up their own home.”

However, it was obvious that there were no world-saving heroes who were going to save the day this time. The nature of the impending catastrophe was a bit ridiculous in scale, and the difficulty in saving the world had long surpassed the power of any single individual.

“To balance all four elements, we only have two choices. Either make sure there’s a total of four Elemental Gods so that they’ll balance each other out, or kill them all.”

From a personal standpoint, I preferred the former choice. After all, we had connections with the Wind and Water Elemental Gods. I even had a hold over Aylos with the way to revive her husband Sidunwar, which might come in handy in the future. Yet from an overall strategic standpoint, I preferred the latter choice, to kill them all. That would help abate the overall increase in the Elemental Tide and lessen the difficulty in fighting against the future elemental creatures’ invasion.

It was fine to think that, but truly killing off the two remaining Elemental Gods was far too difficult a task.

If I was Camdian or Aylos, I would stop running around and simply hide out in my stronghold in whichever home Elemental Plane and adamantly refuse to leave unless things were truly catastrophic outside.

After all, considering that Emordilorcan, who was incredibly seriously injured to begin with, had been so difficult to deal with in his home turf, I had zero desire to find out just how powerful a fully healthy Elemental God would be in their home plane.

As for establishing two more Elemental Gods? Although that was quite onerous as well, it was, in truth, far easier.

Elisa herself was the one who devoured the Fire Elemental God. I also possessed a shard of the Earth Elemental Throne in my Frigidwinter Earth, not to mention how there were numerous powerful Earth Elemental Lords like Ainslo the Sculptor who had joined my cause (due to Beifeng). As long as I invested enough into establishing new Earth and Fire Elemental Gods, it was definitely possible to establish two existences that could pass as suitable Elemental Gods.

However, I didn’t volunteer to undertake such a task at the conference. Offering timely assistance should be separate from offering to do something superfluous. I wasn’t so foolish as to volunteer myself so quickly for such an obviously arduous task.

“…In that case, let’s temporarily set aside the dragons’ request. If anyone has a detailed plan for what to do, let us know as quickly as possible.”

So, naturally, no result came about after the meeting ended. It was far too difficult—if this was given as a System Quest, instead, it would definitely be a minimum of the Epic rank… No, wait, was I going to jinx myself by saying this?

[Congratulations, Roland Pele. Epic Side Quest: “Establish Two More Elemental Gods, or Slay the Two Remaining Elemental Gods” has now been activated. Quest Requirements: You already know. Quest Reward: You already know. Quest Failure Punishment: You already know.]

“I know, the hell with that! I hate a phrase like ‘you already know’ more than anything! Is it so hard to clearly say what you mean? I understand? I comprehend already? The hell with that! You have to make people so confused? I don’t understand at all!”

Alright then, I could only helplessly accept reality after venting my complaints and voluntarily begin preparing to take on this Epic Quest. Yep, my imagination would run wild when I thought about the “you already know” part of the Quest failure punishment.

“What type of punishment will there be? My System’s favorite punishments are those that will make me suffer the most, so what will it do? Permanently turn me into Princess Peach? Make my Luck stat negative for more than a week? Or simply force me to enter one of Omar’s bodybuilding contests…”

Sometimes, people had a limitless power of imagination. The things in one’s own mind were always the scariest. Even a dragonslaying hero might be scared to death by his own shadow, or a king who had everything might go insane by imagining himself slowly aging and dying.

[…Normally, when people say “you already know” they haven’t thought things out entirely yet themselves. Since you’ve already come up with such appropriate punishments, the Quest failure’s punishment shall be all of the above. Thanks for the ideas!]

“You bastard!”

Alright then, with such a powerful authority above me, complaining was useless. Now I had an absolute reason why I absolutely couldn’t fail at this new Quest.

Despite me interrupting the Truth Symposium conference midway, they were unable to come to any conclusions in the end. Nor did they resolve the other bothersome issue on their plate.

How were they supposed to deal with the undead? The Undead Emperors still hadn’t arrived, and it was now impossible to close the six Undead Plane Dimensional Doors. All that was left was a countdown to when the true battle would break out. Were the mages supposed to rush into the Bardi Empire and establish a frontline base? Orloss would probably laugh his head off at suddenly receiving so much free cannon fodder. The mages could only take things one step at a time.

How were the mages supposed to deal with the Bardi Empire’s offer to make peace? If they agreed to make peace, wouldn’t that mean that the mages would lose any reason to intervene within the Bardi Empire? But if the mages continued attacking the Bardi Empire with full force, the Bardi Empire would collapse even sooner, making the overall situation even more difficult to deal with. After all, the moment the Bardi Empire collapsed, the Mage Country, which was the biggest neighboring country that the Bardi Empire had, would definitely become the next place where disaster spread.

Once all the archmages at the Truth Symposium learned the truth and plans of the sly old fox Orloss, some bad-tempered archmages were already gritting their teeth and swearing to kill him if they ever met. However, the pity for them was that for a long time to come, the mages even had to pray for the Bardi Empire to remain as powerful and steady as possible, which would at least help slow down the impending disasters.

What about the dragons’ request for assistance that the mages just learned about through me and Halent? That would be dealt with in a later Truth Symposium conference. After all, this was far too difficult a task, and things were already in utter chaos in the Dragon World. It would be tantamount to committing suicide for an ordinary mage to go there and participate in the battle between the giants and the dragons

When I finally returned to Thorn Garden, I discovered that Halent, who gave me all this information, had already left.

“He left without saying anything? Is this a joke? Last time I talked to him, he said that he would wait for me to finish with the Truth Symposium conference.”

“…The dragon knight Archduke said that he had many matters to attend to, so he had to leave. I just happened to be here at the time, so he told me to give pass the message to you…”

The person who told me about this was that little girl, Cher. She had been coming here more and more often as of late. Thanks to my repeated ridiculous efforts at pleasing her, the relationship between us seemed to have improved slightly. At the very least, we were capable of normal communication with each other.

Yep, don’t all girls love presents? That was why I kept sending her endless gifts, including valuables in such large quantities that they required warehouses to be stored. The moment the mage police station opened their doors, they found a sea of flowers inside, for instance. The other police mages were now looking at me quite strangely. Also…

…Also, Cher still didn’t react at all to my presents, and I even mysteriously obtained several more “Oni Chichi” titles of glory from my System. And then, even the bastards under my command began looking at me strangely…

Cough, all of this had nothing to do with how Evelyn’s letter told me that Cher was my “daughter.” I only wanted to have a closer relationship with a local mage, and I also wanted to investigate just what exactly could have happened back in the day I forgot about, and just who Evelyn was and what she intended. That was why I sent Cher flowers every day and went to pick her up every afternoon when she got off from work. I definitely didn’t have any other thoughts, I swear!

I wasn’t sure if that really helped improve her opinion of me, but she accepted my presents. Not only that, I was working quite hard to make sure the police mages wouldn’t discover any tax evasion. Harloys interrupted me. “Stop bragging about how it was all you. It’s mostly that those bastard subordinates of yours got used to how the police mages here do things, so they’ve become more difficult to catch as well.” Cher also performed fewer investigations on Thorn Garden than before, so, at the very least, she was being a lot more polite with me than previously.

Cher seemed to hesitate as she glanced all around her. It seemed that she still had more to tell me from Halent.

“Relax, nobody is able to eavesdrop on our conversation. Everyone here is someone I trust.”

“Archduke Halent told me that the undead have begun their attack on the Bardi Empire and that the situation at Nightrain City is dire. He rushed back to assist them!”

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