[Shadow Veil]

After making Ariella my dependent,

I had made very practical use of this space.

It was basically a portable refrigerator where I kept all kinds of ingredients and dishes.

The truth was, the chef class was nothing without ingredients to cook with.

No matter how much I went around making [Combat Rations], the limits of that were obvious.

If not for this skill giving me an environment where I could carry around large quantities of ingredients and tools, I probably wouldn’t have been able to bring out even half of my abilities.

In fact, I had a hard time on that island after losing this veil.

But.

Even while using it however I wanted,

I had never gone back inside it.

'Inside there is a noble’s private space.' 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Maybe that was why.

Ariella had absolutely hated the thought of that space being defiled.

At least in the case of her own dependents, since they were beings already subordinate to Ariella from the start,

there was no risk of their inner image defiling that space.

But if it was me, or anyone else.

The moment someone who was not one of Ariella’s dependents entered that place,

that person’s inner image would also be reflected in the space.

Because of that,

I respected that part of her, at least a little, and after that, I had never entered this place again.

...Not anymore.

'Compared to the last time I saw it... this is on a different level.'

Falling from the high sky,

I looked over the surrounding landscape.

When I had first come here,

Ariella had been, at best, a quasi-baron-level noble.

Now, not only had that title risen,

the power she contained surpassed even that.

Which meant...

'Quite literally... a small territory.'

If in the past it had been a space only just large enough for [Bimana] to fit inside,

now spread before me was a territory comparable in size to Chuncheon, the city where we had settled [Bimana].

The last time I came here,

the [Bimana] inside me had been forcibly summoned to protect me,

so I never got to see this space’s true appearance.

On the other hand,

right now [Bimana] would be floating in the middle of the river over there in Chuncheon, not inside me.

So the sight before me now was the real appearance of this space.

And.

When I saw it, the feeling I had was simple.

'It’s familiar.'

This landscape

looked like somewhere I had seen before.

I quickly realized where I had seen it.

'...Isabella’s territory.'

And only then

did I vaguely begin to understand why Ariella had not wanted to let anyone else in here.

But...

There was one slight difference too.

While it looked extremely similar to Isabella’s territory as I had seen it in Ariella’s memories,

the fortress built right in the middle of it

was not Isabella’s castle.

'Bimana?'

It looked strikingly similar to Bimana.

Not exactly the same.

More like Bimana spread out a bit wider.

That could not have been the real Bimana, of course.

Either the Bimana she had encountered here had left a tremendous shock on Ariella,

or perhaps the aftereffects of that summoning still remained, leaving it in a similar shape even now.

...Anyway.

'That’s not bad for me.'

If the inside of this place matched Bimana, that was better for me.

I knew Bimana’s structure inside and out,

so finding my destination within it...

Fwaaaaaash...

wouldn’t be difficult.

That was what I was thinking...

at that exact moment.

Splash!

“Khk...!?”

Along with a tremendous impact,

I felt my body plunge into something.

“Puhah...!”

Frantically flailing, I forced myself upright,

and when I barely managed to lift my head and look around—

“This is...”

only then

did I get a proper look at the inside of the fortress.

It resembled Bimana... but there was one major difference.

“Blood?”

Bloodwater, filled high enough that my feet couldn’t even touch the bottom,

had flooded this vast fortress completely.

***

Kgh...!

When I first fell into this fortress, I hadn’t been able to see it properly,

but now that I looked,

the fortress was filled with a massive amount of bloodwater.

'It wasn’t like this the last time I came here.'

I was a little caught off guard,

but I still tried somehow to paddle my arms and get out of this pool of blood.

But then.

Kwoooooooosh...!

“...This.”

As if it had no intention of letting me escape so easily,

the waves swirled and dragged my body with tremendous force.

No matter how bad shape my body was in right now,

I wasn’t so weak that ordinary currents could sweep me away.

This wasn’t ordinary bloodwater.

Thinking that, I looked at the liquid more closely.

—Kkeeeeeeeeeeeek...!

“...”

Countless faces twisted in agony

were imprinted across the surface of the bloodwater.

'Vampires devour a target’s power, memories, and even soul in the form of blood.'

I wouldn’t have known before.

But now I could understand what that meant.

'Ariella’s drained souls...!'

Even when I first came here,

there had been a sea of blood outside the fortress.

Back then I simply hadn’t noticed because it was too far away,

but that sea of blood must have looked the same.

If there was one difference from then,

it was this.

'Because Ariella can no longer handle these souls.'

At the time, Ariella had possessed power appropriate to her rank, so she had been able to control that blood.

Now, through a twist of events, she had taken in power that didn’t match her rank.

Because of that, those souls were running wild,

defiling Ariella’s territory.

“Kh... damn it...!”

Paaaaash!

Even if I had managed to identify the cause,

nothing improved because of it.

If my body had been in normal condition, maybe.

But I didn’t have the strength to resist the waves created by these souls and break free.

'What do I do...!'

The waves of blood kept dragging me along and sweeping me through the territory.

Without finding any way to escape them,

I could do nothing but barely keep breathing as I endured...

And then, at that exact moment.

Thud.

“...?”

My body, which had been getting battered around by the violent waves,

hit something and came to a stop.

And at the same time...

'...Cold!'

At the terrible chill spreading up my back,

I threw my eyes wide open and turned around.

“...A glacier.”

There,

stood a gigantic red glacier.

No, to be exact—

—Kaaah... ak...

—Cold... so cold... lonely...

a freezing cold powerful enough to freeze even the violently crashing souls was raging there.

***

[You have consumed a dish!]

[Please select a trait.]

[You acquire Trait - Resistance to All Attributes.]

A glacier made from bloodwater frozen solid.

By barely climbing onto that glacier, I managed to escape the waves of blood.

“...Back then I did it without thinking much about it.”

After eating and getting a little relief from the cold,

I looked around and muttered,

“No wonder Ariella... was so horrified.”

I hadn’t realized it while falling in a rush from the sky,

but only after standing atop the glacier could I tell.

Ariella’s territory had expanded through her rise in rank until it was incomparably larger than before.

But.

'About a third... maybe?'

Of it,

about a third had been frozen solid by a savage cold.

Even that frozen glacier had been made of red bloodwater, so I hadn’t noticed when I looked down from the sky earlier.

And.

I looked toward the direction where the cold was intensifying.

Somewhere so far away I couldn’t even make it out properly from here.

From that place,

Gooooooo...

there came the presence of something enormous.

Something so dreadful that merely looking toward it felt as though my soul were freezing solid.

A grotesque presence.

So overwhelmingly powerful that without any intention at all, simply by existing there,

it had turned this wide domain into a glacier.

“...Not that I have much right to say this after leaving it buried in a place like this.”

But.

“Thanks to it, I lived.”

I didn’t feel much fear toward that presence.

And for good reason.

'It’s the one that didn’t even show interest while I was butchering its subordinates.'

Separate from the seal on this world,

I knew that if that thing truly wanted to,

it was a being that could still exert its influence even while sealed.

But it hadn’t.

If it had wanted to affect the outside, then this space wouldn’t have remained this intact to begin with.

No matter that the owner of this inner image was Ariella,

the power within Ariella’s inner image couldn’t surpass that being.

If it had wanted to exert influence, this place would already have been filled with a cold so overwhelming it would be hard to even breathe.

The same was true now.

Even though 'that thing' was clearly aware of my existence,

it sent nothing but such ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) bewildering indifference that it felt as though it had no interest in me whatsoever.

“Hoo...!”

Anyway.

The cold created by that thing was enough to overcome even those violent waves of bloodwater,

so I had barely managed to climb onto the glacier and escape them.

“Hup!”

Now that I was out of the waves,

moving toward my destination wasn’t difficult.

Smack, pak!

Jumping between the buildings and clinging where I needed to,

I moved toward my destination.

As I did, I looked at the structure visible in the distance.

'Where I need to go is obvious.'

If this place’s structure matched Bimana,

then the thing I was after

was probably located at the most important place here too.

Yes. In Bimana’s terms...

“The inner keep.”

And so,

after arriving at the place that corresponded to Bimana’s inner keep,

I paused for a moment in thought.

The place I needed to reach was the most important location in this Bimana.

And in ordinary cases,

most people would point to the command and control room as that location.

Situated at the very top of the inner keep,

it not only offered a full view of everything inside and around Bimana,

but was also the core place tied to all sorts of Bimana’s systems.

...But.

'If we’re talking about the most important place...'

After a brief thought,

I soon

“Huup!”

drew in a deep breath,

then—

Paaaaaash!!!

threw myself forward,

and plunged into the bloodwater of the inner keep.

—Kkeuaaaaaaahhh!!!

Thankfully,

because the inside of the inner keep was enclosed, the force of the bloodwater there wasn’t that strong.

Grinding my teeth, I swam through the screaming souls.

'The command and control room is definitely an important place.'

But.

From my perspective, knowing a little more about Bimana than other people did,

that wasn’t the most important place.

It was the place on the opposite end instead.

'Underground!'

The command and control room at the top of the inner keep was too exposed.

And from what I had sensed,

the designers of [Bimana]...

'wanted to hide something'

rather than place importance on a public place like that.

A place that wouldn’t catch anyone’s eye,

something completely invisible from outside,

that was the kind of place they valued more.

“Puhah!”

And so,

after swimming through the bloodwater for quite a while and diving down into the underground of the inner keep,

I only managed to breathe once I reached a chamber there.

When I finally forced my eyes open,

a sinister sight came into view.

Massive pillars were embedded everywhere,

and those pillars and the walls were covered all over with bizarre, dreadful patterns that looked like they were meant to summon a demon.

A place where strange chains extending from all the surrounding pillars were linked toward the center of the room.

'Barracks.'

I had reached the place corresponding to Bimana’s [Barracks].

That’s right.

This underground area—

it was the most important and most secret place in Bimana,

and also

'in Ariella’s inner image... the most important and secret place.'

And.

The reason I had wanted to come here was simple.

Because.

“Hm...?”

If the being I was looking for

was somewhere inside Ariella’s inner image—

“This is not a place that permits visitors.”

...and if even Ariella herself had not noticed that being,

“What business brings you all the way down to a place this deep?”

then I was certain this was the only place such a being could be.