Episode 324
Chapter 99: The Villa Assault (3)
Instinctively, Jin picked up the orb.
Upon closer inspection, it was a recording device from Solderet. The only difference was that it felt slightly heavier than the ones Jin had before.
‘Why on earth is this here?’
The unexpected discovery left him momentarily speechless. His companions exchanged glances, blinking in shared confusion.
‘Joshua… where did he get this? Could it be that he actually accessed Temar’s tomb?’
Temar’s tomb was off-limits to anyone without the proper credentials.
And that credential was, of course, being a contractor of Solderet.
Two possibilities immediately came to mind.
First, that the so-called “Prophet” had somehow manipulated things to let Joshua enter Temar’s tomb.
Second, that Joshua had obtained this recording device somewhere else, not from Temar’s tomb.
‘Either way, the important question is whether he knows this orb is a recording device.’
Jin looked down at the fallen demon.
The dead say nothing.
If they had been able to revive the demon, they might have learned a great deal. But now, it lay cold and lifeless, black blood pooling from its throat.
A pity, but…
It was an unexpected gain. Compared to the near-death experiences Jin had every time he acquired a recording device, this one had practically fallen into his lap.
“Gongja, we should gather the demon’s other belongings as well.”
“Yes, it seems this demon is worth investigating.”
They rifled through the demon’s possessions. Aside from a bundle of papers inscribed with indecipherable ancient and demonic scripts and a single book, there was little else of note.
Then, as if on impulse, Jin opened the book.
Suddenly—
Whoosh!
The book emitted an ominous purple glow, and from within came a strange, resonant voice.
[You who dare to pry into the Great Duke Rontelgius’s grimoire of the demon realm, be forever cursed by Rontelgius! You shall become a living statue, shattered but never dead, and even as dust, you will eternally curse yourself.]
The voice was different from that of the demon they had just killed.
As the curse finished, translucent purple chains shot out from the book, wrapping tightly around Jin.
“Gongja!”
“Jin Gongja!”
His companions gasped and drew their swords, but the cursed chains were impervious to their blades.
Jin calmly raised a hand, signaling that he was fine.
“Don’t panic, everyone. I’m immune anyway.”
As a contractor of Solderet, Jin was completely immune to all kinds of curses.
This was the very power Valeria had once described as “excessively overpowered,” something Jin hadn’t experienced in a long time.
The chains slowly dissolved, sinking into the shadow beneath Jin’s feet.
Within five seconds, the chains were swallowed by the shadow, vanishing without a trace.
His companions watched in stunned silence before asking,
“Gongja, are you really okay?”
“Yes, luckily. If anyone else had touched this book… they would have become statues. Unless Rontelgius set this trap just to scare people.”
Jin shivered—not from fear of the curse, but because if another had touched the book, irreversible horror would have followed.
“We’ll need to be more cautious dealing with demons or those who wield dark magic. That was pure luck just now. At least we learned the name Rontelgius, which seems to be the demon’s family name.”
Fssssss…
The demon’s corpse began to decompose rapidly, leaving no trace of blood where it had lain.
“A disgusting race.”
“Let’s keep moving.”
They resumed their advance. The sudden encounter with the demon had heightened their tension.
Yet, until they reached the end of the underground facility, they encountered no enemies.
The three guardian knights and eight hunting dogs were nowhere to be found.
That absence was unsettling.
If so many were missing, perhaps Julian’s guardian dragon had been relocated elsewhere…
Just as that uneasy thought crossed their minds, Julian pointed shakily into the darkness beyond.
“Ka-Kaltor…! Kaltor!”
Shining their light, they saw a man hanging on the wall.
It was Kaltor, Julian’s guardian dragon in human form.
He looked utterly pitiful. His crushed hands and feet were nailed to the wall with massive spikes, his body covered in unknown torture marks.
He barely breathed.
“Kaltor! It’s me, Julian! I’ll get you free soon…!”
Tears streamed endlessly from Julian’s eyes.
Even Kuzan, usually stoic, seemed moved and silently helped remove the spikes. Each time a nail came free, Kaltor’s body trembled, but there was no sign of consciousness returning.
“Ah… Kaltor, answer me. What did those bastards do to you?”
“He’s alive, Julian. Just get him back and treat him. Gongja will surely call the saints of Vankela to help. So calm down and keep your voice low. It’ll hurt now, but Joshua has no way to threaten you anymore.”
Kuzan patted Julian’s back reassuringly.
Jin took off his coat and wrapped it around Kaltor’s emaciated body.
“We’re heading back.”
Just before emerging from the underground and escaping into the forest, Jin glanced back at Joshua’s secret villa standing alone.
‘If Joshua’s father had truly acknowledged him during his training here… would he have become less of a scumbag than he is now?’
Jin shook his head at the thought.
‘No, the timing overlaps with when he cursed me as a one-year-old. I sometimes wonder what twisted him so thoroughly.’
“I’ve found a hideout, my lord.”
One of the three guardian knights, the leader among them, reported to Joshua.
“Where?”
“Surprisingly, it’s a rural village in the eastern part of the Ekan Kingdom. A place called Donkey Village, with fewer than a hundred residents, mostly elderly.”
“In a place like that? Are you sure?”
“Yes, we’ve already intimidated the villagers for confirmation. They’ve even built a research lab on one side of the village. We inspected it ourselves. All the residents’ descriptions of Aria Owlheart match perfectly.”
“Darkness lies beneath the lamp, as they say. That fits perfectly.”
“Still, without the demon’s detection magic, it would have been hard to find.”
The three guardian knights and eight hunting dogs, who should have been stationed at Joshua’s secret villa, were absent.
That was why.
They had left the villa to track Aria Owlheart’s traces inside the Ekan Kingdom, using the demon’s dark detection magic.
Rontelgius Lampen.
Joshua nodded, recalling the demon’s horrific appearance.
“Yes, he devoured a thousand death row inmates as ingredients for his detection magic. Finally, it’s paying off. Any clues about Aria Owlheart’s other hideouts in Donkey Village?”
“Since there are limited routes out of Donkey Village, tracking expected movement paths should narrow down suspicious areas. One thing’s certain: Aria Owlheart has another hideout in Hupester.”
“How long until we find that other hideout?”
“In about a month, we can discover at least one. Narrowing the search like this, we can finally catch her trail.”
“Understood. Good work. Shorten the time as much as possible.”
“We’ll bring back more satisfying results soon.”
“Provide Lampen with more death row inmates. His magic has proven effective.”
Joshua smiled.
‘Rontelgius Lampen… If he can figure out what that orb really is, I might even consider supplying death row inmates for my own cloning.’
The Spirit Orb.
He had found it in the spirit mausoleum of Runkandel. Back when he was a novice student, distracted by constant losses to Luna, he had retreated to the family mausoleum instead of cursing himself in his room.
He still didn’t know why he had suddenly gone there. As if drawn by fate or possessed by something.
Deep within the mausoleum.
In the empty tomb where the first family head, Temar, should have rested, he found the Spirit Orb.
‘The moment I touched the orb, that damn thing’s voice started echoing in my head.’
That damn thing—the Prophet.
At first, she existed only as a voice, comforting and advising young Joshua.
As he grew older, the voice took shape. Initially a ghostly figure, by the time he became a rider, she had transformed into a clear image of a woman.
‘But the Prophet doesn’t know she awakened inside the orb. She doesn’t even know I have it.’
Even when Joshua trusted the Prophet completely, he never told her about the orb.
It was instinct.
Young Joshua had an innate sense that the Spirit Orb could be a safeguard.
For example, something to use if the Prophet ever betrayed him for some reason.
“Lately, the prophet’s attitude feels like he’s just waiting for the right moment to betray me. Whether it’s the instant I become head of the family or before that, he’ll make sure to have some way to control me. One of those two moves has to happen.”
Joshua still clung to that old instinct about the spirit orb.
So, whether by chance or fate, he had entrusted Rontelgius, the demon, to find a use for it.
“I’ll take my leave now, my lord.”
Just as the guardian knight finished his report, saluted, and was about to withdraw—
Someone called out urgently for Joshua.
“Sir Joshua!”
One of the hounds entered the room, bowing his head.
“What is it?”
“The abandoned forest villa has been attacked.”
“What?”
“It happened just as we were heading east toward Ekan, based on intel we received from the demons.”
Joshua swallowed a curse rising in his throat. The guardian knight, about to leave, flinched and turned his gaze to the hound.
“…What’s the extent of the damage?”
“The brain dragon and the demons we had imprisoned are gone. And two of our remaining men were killed…”
The hound wasn’t sure if the demons were dead or had escaped.
There were no demon bodies left in the secret villa’s underground facility.
“Have you tried tracking them?”
“They’re too skilled. There’s no trace at all. I’m sorry.”
Joshua exhaled deeply.
In the end, there was no choice but to rely on the prophet once more.