Chapter 1:
Year 499
IT WAS YEAR 499 of the Armored Dragon Era, eighteen years after the death of Rudeus Greyrat.
Deep within a nameless forest in the northern region of the Central Continent, a lone man was running. The man panted, his hair clinging to his skin from the sweat on his forehead. He had an ordinary build and was dressed like the sort of merchant you could find anywhere. Nothing about his features was particularly notable. As he ran deeper and deeper into the forest, he repeatedly whipped his head around, but he kept running.
In fact, he was fleeing. But from what?
From the killing intent creeping up on him from behind.
It was silent in the forest, so quiet that not a single flap of wings could be heard, yet he could feel that something was closing in on him.
“Oh, my lord,” he whispered, gripping the short sword with the Asuran crest at his hip.
His short sword resembled any other weapon of its kind, but for those in the know, it would have been abundantly clear that it was not the sort of weapon carried by the average merchant.
The man was a spy, one of many such agents who’d been sent to investigate the inner workings of the Ogre God Empire.
The empire had been founded only recently, and in less than twenty years, it had completely taken control of the northern part of the Central Continent. They were in the process of riding that wave of momentum to take over the western region as well… In other words, they were after the Asura Kingdom.
Regardless of how powerful the empire’s armies were, as long as the Red Wyrm’s Upper Jaw existed, they would never be able to invade the Asura Kingdom—or so it was believed. However, this spy had acquired intel that proved the Ogre God Empire had a secret plan. Unfortunately for him, that was precisely why he was being pursued.
His only means of communication had been destroyed. When he tried to return to his country on his own, he was spotted at the border and forced to flee into the woods.
His pursuer was the most feared executioner in all of the Ogre God Empire, an ally-killer known as the Shadow Chasing Demon. She was a member of the empire’s second military special police and one of the infamous Superd.
The man knew. As a spy gathering intel on the Ogre God Empire, he knew all about her. She never let her target get away. Deserter, traitor, spy—it didn’t matter. She eventually hunted them all down.
Perhaps if she’d been on her own, some would have managed to get away before. It wasn’t easy to escape a member of the Superd’s eyes, but they were just another sense organ at the end of the day. There were ways to fool the eyes, as many as there were stars in the sky.
But the Shadow Chasing Demon had a shadow of her own. A shadowless shadow that served her, called the Shadowless Demon. The man didn’t know the demon’s true identity. Until a few days ago, he’d believed it was a rumor that only the credulous took as fact. But things were different now. The shadowless shadow that aided the Shadow Chasing Demon in her pursuit truly existed. Otherwise, none of this would make sense. There was no other way she could know about the man. And there was no other way she could have caught up with him.
“Urgh! Haah…gah…”
His pursuer was still on his back. There were no sounds coming from behind him, but his long years of spy work told him he was still being followed.
He had an ominous inkling—
I’m not going to be able to get away.
He had to do something. He had no choice but to lie in wait, spring a surprise attack on his pursuer, and take her down.
He would have to defeat Luicelia, the woman who had captured and killed so many spies. The Shadow Chasing Demon that was said to have never failed a job.
“Haah… Haaah…” The man stopped in his tracks and leaned his back up against a tree, taking a deep breath. It was then that he noticed something.
“Hmm?”
Within the thick forest stood a single house, the type that you would see in any town. It was old, but it showed no signs of decay or rot.
The man silently approached the house. He thought it was odd to find a lone building like this in the middle of the forest, but he also felt he could use it to his advantage. It would be easier to spring a surprise attack from within the house than from the woods.
But the man soon noticed something was off. The house had no entrance, and no windows either.
“It can’t be…”
His heart raced. He’d heard the rumors: Somewhere, there was a research lab that had belonged to the great magician who died almost two decades ago, Rudeus Greyrat. It was said he’d conducted research he couldn’t risk introducing into the world from a secret lab, one that could only be accessed by teleportation circles.
The research materials he’d hidden away were supposedly vast in quantity. Anybody who acquired them would be bestowed with great wisdom. In fact, there were rumors the Ogre God Empire had only made such rapid progress because they had acquired that wisdom.
Using his magic, the man formed a hole big enough to crawl through, stuck his head inside of it experimentally, then entered the house. He summoned a lamplight spirit to illuminate his surroundings and cautiously proceeded deeper into the building.
He saw desks and bookshelves… Magic tools of some kind… Then, among the notes carelessly placed on the desk, he spotted writing about an old type of automata. There was no mistaking it—this was Rudeus Greyrat’s laboratory.
The man’s face colored over with hope. If this was Rudeus’s secret lab, there would have to be a teleportation circle somewhere.
A dozen or so years ago, teleportation circles across the world lost their light, but it was possible the one here was still operational.
The man found something else a moment later. He’d seen a collection of this series before, just once, in the Asura Kingdom’s royal library. Here it was just…sitting out. If that had been it, the man wouldn’t have been so fascinated, but it was the number on the book that drew his interest: twenty-nine. Among the supposed fifty-two volumes in the series, there had been one missing from the royal library. The fabled volume.
The Book of Rudeus, volume 29.
“This is it.”
The man picked up the book, only to groan a moment later.
“Urgh…”
With a trembling hand, he touched his own chest. The tip of a white spear had sprouted out of his body. He hadn’t noticed her at all. He should’ve put more distance between them, enough to prepare for a surprise attack.
When he turned his head, the woman who radiated silent killing intent was standing behind him. She had pierced his chest with the short spear in her hand.
She would be the last thing he ever saw.
“Hmph.”
She pulled the spear out of the man, who collapsed to the ground.
After making sure he was dead, the woman flicked her spear, sending the blood on its tip flying. The blood drew an arc in the air and splattered against the wall.
Well, it should have. Instead, it hit the face of another man, who was suddenly standing by said wall. When had he gotten there? Did he even actually exist?
The inconspicuous man smiled eerily, his face lit by the lingering lamplight spirit.