The stone statue's head shattered with a crack under his grip.
Ivan had encountered beings who were worshipped as gods while still alive. He had even met some of them face to face.
The Demon King and the Seven Dragon Generals.
And one of them had died by his hand.
Therefore, killing someone who believed themselves to be a god without question wasn't his first time.
And Ivan was an efficient man, so he felt no difficulty doing something for the second time.
With a loud crack.
The marble statue's head crumbled beneath his hands.
He remembered the Hero.
The Hero didn't take up the sword for his own happiness.
When the Hero first cut down one of the Seven Dragon Generals, what he brought wasn't just a severed head. It was hope.
He wielded his sword for hope. Like gazing at a star between thick clouds on a dark night.
If one were to guess what hope he desired, perhaps it was peace for everyone.
Ivan was a selfish person. Therefore, he couldn't harbor the same hope as the Hero. His hope was merely for himself alone.
The desire to return to Earth.
This simultaneously meant something else: that there was no happiness in this world, this primitive pre-modern fantasy world.
[What...? What are you doing...?! How can a human think like this...!]
His left hand finally gained freedom.
He raised it, ignoring the screams of muscles and nerves begging to rest, pleading to stop.
Ignoring the whispers of fatigue, telling him how sweet a moment's rest would be.
[Stop, stop...! Listen to me!!]
"No."
His right hand gained freedom.
There is no happiness in this land. Only duty.
He only does what needs to be done. Beyond that, any joy he could personally contemplate had already died during the past 30 years.
His hands slowly rose to grip the statue's head.
[Stop, STOP!! You cannot kill me! I am your god!]
"I've met those who believed themselves gods before."
The tendons in Ivan's grip writhed like snakes.
"They died."
The world has places where magic pools more densely and places where it's relatively faint, but magic that permeates truly everywhere is, if one must define it, close to the origin of all things.
All objects contain a certain amount of magic. They naturally absorb the magic dispersed in the atmosphere.
But divine power is different. Divine power belongs solely to the God of Light, the Heavenly Lord.
It is a fragment of God that descends upon priests when they pray to the Lord. It's an unprecedented power that warriors and mages dare not possess, with no way to analyze its origin, nor reason to do so.
Therefore, one cannot say something like, "Kuh, the divine power of an evil god...!" There's no basis for comparison with such power. However, there is such a thing as rational inference that can be reached by observing phenomena and eliminating impossible conditions.
'Alexander was right.
To think a sealed god really exists. And beneath the academy, no less.
Is this the second stage? For the children of the Hero Party?
No, the difficulty is too high for that. The first stage was already difficult, but this case is on an entirely different level.
Perhaps it was meant to be a hidden event that would appear later. And by a curious coincidence, it revealed itself to me.'
Ivan glared at the statue while gripping the sword hilt. As if refusing to allow himself to look away or release the sword. An unprecedented power had seized his body.
[In a world where only those who see one phenomenon and understand one truth, and sophists who preach that one thing alone is truth remain, how great a suffering it has been to be born with the quality to see true wisdom. Child. I know your concerns.]
The statue's eyes looked at Ivan and twisted into a distorted expression.
It was a strange smile, as if forcibly imitating something human.
Ivan stared expressionlessly at the statue while slowly tightening his grip. He still didn't move.
'The church wouldn't have set a trap.'
Ivan was always someone who had to reason with suspicion, even with the smallest clues. His entire life had forced such thinking upon him. Nothing kills a soldier more easily on the battlefield than "certainty."
Therefore, Ivan could infer immediately upon seeing this trap. Assuming "something" was sealed in this place, there would be no reason to cleverly manipulate perception to release the seal.
Then the conclusion is simple. Two thousand years ago, this seal didn't have such a trap.
All types of "structures" inevitably have lifespans. Ruins without continuous maintenance are bound to be destroyed. For that reason, if this seal had also "loosened" in some sense.
If in the meantime, the sealed "something" exerted influence and planted some kind of trap in these ruins.
If it guided someone to completely dismantle its seal. Especially if it wasn't a trap using magic.
If one can infer these conditions, anyone who fails to grasp the whole story isn't human. All humans know this type of cliché, this "common sense."
In 21st century Earth, this situation would be described as "an underground dungeon where an ancient evil god is sealed." Typically a situation found in hack-and-slash action RPGs.
[Your thoughts are correct.]
The statue continued speaking with its strange smile.
[Yes. Your inference is accurate, and the thoughts you'll have afterward are also correct. I am one whom you once praised as a god, condemned as a demon, and will again be hailed as your savior. I have many names, but you may call me Salvation. I know the desires you hold. Rightfully desire, and it shall be fulfilled.]
Ivan looked at the statue with dry eyes.
The statue spoke with a voice tinged with laughter.
[Draw it out. Then you shall receive. As you wanderers have always done, aren't you also wandering, nostalgic for distant stars? I tell you that you shall receive what you have sought all your life. Raise your hand and draw it out.]
With a clatter, the steel sword in Ivan's grip twitched.
Ah, yes. Temptation.
The temptation to send him back to Earth. And the price is merely drawing this sword.
How simple and attractive.
Ivan remained still, not loosening his grip.
[Do you resist? Is it attachment, compassion, longing? Or... fear?]
"No."
Ivan opened his mouth while forcibly suppressing his arm that wanted to rise on its own.
"Your words are false."
[Do you have faith? Like those sophists?]
"No."
Ivan slowly closed his eyes.
Crunch, tearing out his hearing.
Wrench, pulling out his sense of smell.
"If you truly read my thoughts and knew about my homeland. This trap would have had better things than mere combs. That would have been dangerous."
If Earth's items had been piled up like hills, Ivan would never have been able to resist.
The fact that it couldn't show such an easy method, the things he truly yearned for, determined this being's limitations.
Mere combs. These cheap, meaningless little accessories were this being's limit.
It couldn't recall Earth, couldn't manifest Earth's items.
Meaning it also lacked the ability to send him to Earth.
[Most who face me begin with doubt, proceed to certainty, and eventually only praise remains. You too shall do the same.]
"You were sealed by human hands."
Ivan spoke indifferently, not even paying attention to the statue's nonsense.
[What...?]
"If the remains in this place are traces of ancient people."
The pile of remains that Ivan finally saw after breaking the illusion had human skeletons. The form of the limbs, the structure of the bones, even the length of each part was entirely human.
Therefore, by inference, this was sealed by human hands.
He knew beings who were worshipped as gods while alive. He had even met some of them face to face.
The Seven Dragon Generals and the Demon King.
The monarchs of each race, great kings who ruled solely by the power they possessed as individuals among their entire race.
And even the Demon King who ruled over those seven kings and was finally praised as the emperor of seven races.
They were all gods in their own right. Untouchable beings.
Tens of thousands of armies perished before the Seven Dragon Generals. More than half of the over twenty kingdoms disappeared into history, and the number of dead humans was beyond counting, more than half.
It was a terrible era. One where no one could resist. An era where the reason to take up arms wasn't for victory, but for survival.
In that time when everyone whispered despair, the Hero appeared.
Ivan understood this unprecedented power that suppressed his grip.
It was "happiness." Instinctive happiness that prevented him from even imagining anything other than drawing the sword to break the seal. Supreme happiness like the whispers of hell or the melody of heaven.
But Ivan's hand still didn't move.
Slowly, one finger after another detached. The fingers that had firmly gripped the sword hilt, painfully but surely, as if glued.
Because he remembered the Hero.