“He’s an extremely despicable and cunning fellow. Everyone, be careful!”

Even without Lee Han’s warning, every member of the exploration team was already on guard.

They were in the deep underground waterways on the outskirts of the capital, a place they had entered to track down monsters from another dimension.

A stranger appearing in a place like this could never be ordinary.

“I’ll take the lead. Support me.”

“Yes.”

The exploration team member born to a knight family explosively poured mana into the sword. Surging aura flickered over the blade.

The other exploration team members behind the knight quickly drew their crossbows. They planned to restrain the enemy the moment their knight colleague charged.

Faced with that murderous momentum, the evil-god-worshipping elf chose a response no one had expected.

The elf raised both arms and knelt down.

“I surrender. I have encountered a monster, so I cannot win.”

“...”

“...”

The exploration team members were flustered, but they did not stop. They immediately paralyzed and subdued the other party completely.

“Alshicle. Please handle the interrogation.”

“Right. Got it. Frost, forbid intrusion.”

Alshicle took charge of the paralyzed worshipper of evil gods and cast mental protection magic.

There was not much a completely subdued enemy could do, but enemies with souls twisted by madness, like worshippers of evil gods, could infect others simply by revealing their inner selves.

Unless one was the sort of person who tasted acid pools from other dimensions directly to check their toxicity, casting protection magic was the right choice.

“You’re a worshipper of evil gods, aren’t you? Which god do you serve?”

“...”

Though the elf’s vocal-cord muscles had been released so speech was possible, the elf said nothing.

Alshicle frowned.

Worshippers of evil gods usually fell into two categories.

One type babbled like madmen, trying to spread their insanity.

The other shut their mouths with conviction and remained trapped in their own world.

This elf seemed to be the latter.

A much more troublesome sort to interrogate.

“Doesn’t look like this one will answer?”

“Right. Interrogating this one here seems impossible. We’ll probably need to take the prisoner outside first.”

“You’re saying we should retreat?”

“Since things have gone wrong, retreating would be the proper choice.”

The exploration team member looked at Alshicle with dissatisfied eyes.

They had spent so much time and money chasing monsters from another dimension, only to retreat because of a single intruder.

“!”

The exploration team member looking at Alshicle was startled.

The penguin’s eyes were brimming with tears.

They were tears of frustration and regret.

‘...I was stupid. Alshicle must be just as disappointed as I am!’

While the exploration team member and Alshicle shared their emotions, Lee Han was bewildered.

“N-no. Is this worth crying over?”

“I wasn’t crying! It’s moisture condensing because of the erosion from another dimension!”

Alshicle angrily denied it.

It was frustrating and disappointing not to even catch a glimpse of the monster’s tail, but it could not be helped.

‘Is he really crying over this?’

To think Alshicle would react like that over a monster that might not even be useful.

Lee Han felt sorry for him and wanted to help somehow, so he spoke to the worshipper of evil gods.

“If you have accomplices who came with you, at least tell us about them. We’ll take that into consideration. If you end up in Einroguard’s punishment cells, the prison food...”

“Understood. The accomplices who came with me are as follows. Magical criminal Kitarenannum. He has contracted with a powerful demon. That is why he is also pursuing the monster. Separatist Basirmac. He is...”

“??!?”

“????!!!”

When the names of two major wanted criminals suddenly came out, the exploration team members were shocked.

“Kitarenannum is here?!”

“Basirmac, that bastard. We thought he’d fled across the sea...!”

“Wait. Why is this one suddenly talking?”

Alshicle was the first among the exploration team members to sense something strange.

Why would someone who looked as if silence would be kept until the end of the world suddenly open up and speak so freely?

“In my opinion...”

Lee Han spoke with a serious expression.

Alshicle listened intently, focusing on him.

The boy before him was the one who had made this worshipper of evil gods speak. There had to be something he had figured out.

“...I think he opened his mouth because of the notorious reputation of Einroguard’s punishment cells...”

“...A worshipper of evil gods wouldn’t care about that!!!”

Alshicle shouted in a voice full of despair.

Ordinary criminals might fear Einroguard’s punishment cells, but worshippers of evil gods were different.

Weren’t they genuinely insane?

“Why did you speak? Tell me!”

“...”

At Alshicle’s question, the elf closed his mouth again.

Then Lee Han asked.

“If you want to receive prison food, answer properly.”

“Understood. The reason I spoke is to avoid provoking the monster.”

“???”

Lee Han fell into confusion.

He could not understand either the content of the answer or the reason the elf had answered.

“Could it be that he answered because I spoke politely? You know, like how Alshicle gives you an extra sardine when you compliment his ice magic.”

“You, how do you know that...! No. That can’t be it.”

Alshicle wanted to question Wardanaz’s powers of observation, but there were too many urgent matters right now.

“Let’s ask about something else first. What do you mean by monster?”

“Well, obviously the monster from another dimension. What kind of pointless question are you...”

Lee Han was about to scold Alshicle when he stopped.

The elf was pointing at him with his chin.

“...”

“...No! This cunning bastard is trying to sow discord?!”

“C-calm down, Mage.”

The exploration team members hurriedly stopped Lee Han.

‘This is strange.’

Alshicle fell into thought.

Worshippers of evil gods were not actually good at devising sophisticated schemes. Because their way of thinking was tainted by madness, something would always break down or reveal some bizarre aspect.

A worshipper of evil gods like that would not attempt such low-level discord sowing.

Then the elf really did regard Wardanaz as a monster...

“Are you from the Prahgal Order?”

Alshicle asked just in case.

Considering what the Prahgal Order had suffered, it would not be strange for one of its members to feel that Wardanaz was like a monster.

“...”

Of course, no answer came.

Alshicle sighed deeply and said.

“Wardanaz. Ask instead of me...”

“Are you from the Prahgal Order?” 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

“No. I serve the Great Prophet.”

“The Great Prophet means...”

“The Ksakasarigol Order.”

The exploration team members grimaced in disgust.

Among worshippers of evil gods, there were those who considered it sacrilegious to dare speak their god’s true name.

The Great Prophet was the title that worshippers of the Ksakasarigol cult used to refer to their god.

If Prahgal was the god of life, at least according to its worshippers, then Ksakasarigol was the god of prophecy.

Those who worshipped this evil deity were people who would do anything for perfect prophecy.

People who chose prophecy as an end, not a means.

If that prophecy seemed likely to go wrong, these madmen would forcibly twist reality to make it come true.

It was understandable why the exploration team members despised them. While there were no worshippers of evil gods anyone would want to befriend, the Ksakasarigol cult was particularly bizarre in its principles of action.

They were the type to set fire to a perfectly fine city and insist, “These people were supposed to die anyway”...

“Great Prophet or not, why am I a monster?”

‘Could it be because he licked the acid to check its toxicity?’

One of the exploration team members thought so inwardly.

However, the reason the elf revealed was completely unexpected.

“You are a monster that devours prophecy.”

“...This bastard is still trying to sow discord!”

“Calm down! Calm down, Wardanaz! Calm down and ask!”

“...What do you mean by a monster that devours prophecy?”

The evil-god-worshipping elf explained calmly.

When prophesying the world, there were opponents who were easy to predict and opponents who were difficult to predict.

And among them were bizarre singularities that, once triggered, would completely twist all prophecies.

The worshippers feared such beings as monsters that devoured prophecy.

“If we provoke you carelessly, up to half a year’s worth of prophecies will all become tangled. I will answer any question you ask, so do not go berserk.”

The reason the elf had surrendered was simple.

If the elf fought Lee Han by any chance and the provoked Lee Han went berserk, all the prophecies would become tangled.

The reason the elf had confessed everything about the accomplices was the same.

If Lee Han moved without information and the provoked Lee Han went berserk, all the prophecies would become tangled!

“Isn’t this sowing discord??”

When Lee Han spoke with such extreme anger that he seemed ready to throw the elf straight into the acid pool, Alshicle calmed him down.

“There is some truth to it.”

“What truth is there! Are you taking that bastard’s side too, Alshicle?”

“Ah, no. I don’t mean it that way. It’s actually a real concept! And you have so many contracted beings.”

A cornered rat might bite a cat, but with the mage of House Wardanaz before them, there was no telling what might really happen if he were cornered.

Just among the transcendent beings from other dimensions that Alshicle knew of, there were already...

“There’s the Spirit King, and Lord Gonadaltes too.”

“The skeleton? He’s not that strong, though.”

“...Principal. You crazy bastard.”

Alshicle shuddered all over again at Wardanaz’s catastrophic naming sense.

“Ah. But the Principal isn’t really a contract...”

“A priestly relationship is also a contract. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that this isn’t complete nonsense.”

Lee Han looked at the elf with suspicious eyes.

He was somewhat convinced, but he did not completely believe it.

“If you were so afraid of provoking me, why did you come here?”

“There was originally a higher chance that you would not come here.”

“Ha! Look at this bastard making excuses!”

“Wardanaz. Calm down and let’s extract information first...!”

“Understood.”

Lee Han eventually gave up on tormenting or interrogating the prisoner and turned to gathering information.

Magical criminals, separatists, even apocalypse believers.

It was such a tremendous gathering that the vicious mercenaries who had come with them seemed like mere crumbs.

“Is it a monster valuable enough to gather all of them?”

“It is a monster that came from the void between dimensions. If it can be controlled, its value is higher than any monster in the Empire.”

“!!!”

Everyone in the party, including Lee Han, was shocked.

When mages studied dimensional studies, they learned to distinguish between safe and dangerous dimensions.

However, there were also voids that existed outside such dimensional classifications. These voids were the outer seas of dimensions, where exploration itself was impossible.

A monster that came from such a void was on a different level from monsters that could generally be found in dimensions.

“This... shouldn’t we annihilate it rather than capture it alive?”

“The monster seems stronger than we expected. We need to report this immediately.”

“Defeated.”

The elf suddenly spoke up.

Lee Han shouted as if he had expected this.

“So this party will lose. Did you see that, Alshicle? This bastard is trying to bewitch people with false prophecies and deceive us again.”

“Not you. The other intruders underground have been defeated.”

“...”

The exploration team was shocked by the news that the major criminals mentioned earlier had already been defeated.

What???

“Monster, hurry and move upward. You must not go berserk.”

“Ha. Didn’t you foresee that your comrades would be defeated?”

“That was within the expected possibilities. It does not matter as long as this monster does not go berserk.”

The elf spoke as if Lee Han going berserk would be a more terrible disaster than the monster from the dimensional void sweeping through and ravaging this underground area.

Lee Han nodded.

“I think I’ve asked everything, so can I make him shut up again?”

“Endure it a little longer, Wardanaz.”