Chapter 336

Jacob looks down at the manacles on his wrists. His Mana is being cut off, and he is walking toward the distant promontory with Cornelius.

He hasn’t called him by his name yet, since Cornelius hasn’t offered an introduction. But to avoid a slip, Jacob just says, “By the way, I’m Jacob Cloud. What’s your name?”

Cornelius gives him a side eye and doesn’t respond.

“And why are you not telling me?” Jacob sighs. “Come on. I’m not putting up any resistance. You have taken the corpse of the guy I was after and we’re good, right? Just— and why are we walking, by the way? We could just be flying, right?”

In the background, there is the sound of waves ebbing and flowing with small crashes against the golden sand. The air here feels purer than what Jacob is used to in the outside world. And he walks behind Cornelius, looking at the man’s slender physique.

“I do not trust you with Mana,” Cornelius replies. “You’re an intruder, whether or not you belong to the bloodline of Rafnov.”

“But I haven’t done anything. I just ended up in this world here, this place, and I don’t get it. Have I broken some law?”

“Several,” the white-haired man replies.

“Like what?”

“We are the most important mining outpost of Rafnov’s legacy,” Cornelius says. “Many have coveted our riches in our history, and we’re tasked with guarding them from people like you.”

“People like me?” Jacob is starting to feel a little tired of being accused like this. “What do you mean, people like me? Again, I have done nothing but hunt down the— this guy who’s…”

“This man you claim to hunt has Rafnov’s blood as well.”

Jacob inhales sharply at that.

“I have checked before putting his corpse away in my Interspatial Ring.”

He has an Interspatial Ring? Jacob thinks. This guy looks like a guard of some kind. Interspatial Rings are very rare, especially one big enough to store an entire corpse.

He looks down at his manacles and realizes that perhaps that was a mistake, letting this man chain him. At the same time, what could he have done against an Early Adamantite Rank?

They keep walking in silence until Cornelius says, “My name is Cornelius.”

“Oh, nice to meet you, Cornelius.”

“I’m not sure it will be that nice.”

- - -

One Hour Prior

Lancelot and the others have left the Sacred Grounds. Princess Priscilla, Jacob’s mother, is immediately in front of the Squire, inquiring about her son.

“Where’s Jacob?” she asks, grabbing Lancelot by his shoulders.

Everybody looks almost as concerned, until they see the state that Kai, his older brothers and sister, and Bastian Valemont are in. They all still have holes in their forearms and feet after being nailed to those crosses.

“What happened?” Emrys, the Ancestor, asks, while Queen Anthea walks forward, takes out a potion of some kind, and pours it over her descendants. Their wounds close, but they’re clearly all still in shock, unable to talk.

It’s Kai who musters up the courage to do so.

“Jacob saved us,” he mutters under his breath. “It was the Mad God. We were forced to solve a puzzle after he trapped us. But the more we interacted with this puzzle, the more we lost ourselves and succumbed to the madness, and we weren’t able to do anything against it. We were powerless.”

Princess Priscilla looks shocked.

“Why did you interact with the damn Mad God?” the Ancestor snaps. “I told you not to.”

“We had no choice, Ancestor,” Valerius says, slowly rising from the ground where he had been on all fours after leaving the Sacred Grounds. “It was all a trap. And it wasn’t just the Mad God’s incarnation. They clearly hid their power from you. There were both the Mad God and the God of Monsters, Asmodeus.”

“What?” The Ancestor’s face goes pale. “Asmodeus was there?”

“Yes.”

At that point, they all notice that there is another person close to Lancelot and Marcel, who is still unconscious in Lancelot’s arms.

“Hello,” the young man says awkwardly. “I am Garland Valemont, my lords.”

Everybody looks confused until Lancelot explains.

“Jacob exorcised Asmodeus and essentially killed the incarnation while keeping the guy alive.”

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Lancelot, back in his human form, pats Garland on the shoulder and says, “You should probably go get checked for some wounds or anything, but I’m pretty sure you’re fine. And do you remember anything?”

Garland shakes his head in silence.

“Okay, scram, then. You really don’t want to witness the shit show that’s probably about to go down now.”

Garland, looking at the most powerful people in the Kingdom of Aurion, immediately starts running away.

At that point, Princess Priscilla understands that Lancelot clearly knows what happened to Jacob and is expecting the others to be angry at him for whatever happened.

“Wait — Marcel!” Duke Dorian steps forward and takes Marcel from Lancelot’s arms. “What have you done to Marcel?” he roars at Lancelot.

“Jacob saved his life. You’re welcome,” he says, stepping away from the angry duke.

His brother, Duke Arthur, is silent and observing.

It is Queen Anthea who addresses Lancelot for more information.

“Sir Squire, would you mind telling us what Jacob has done? And is he okay?”

“He should be. But he’s made a blood pact, uh, with the Mad God. And now, uh, I think they’re racing to get the weapon that could destroy everything and kill gods.” Lancelot shrugs. “Uh, that’s the gist of it.”

All those present stare at Lancelot’s casual body language with incredulous eyes as he reveals a possibly devastating piece of news regarding Jacob.

“Why didn’t you stop him?” Priscilla roars, going up to Lancelot like an angry bear.

“I am not in the position of arguing with Jacob about this kind of stuff,” Lancelot says as Priscilla literally lifts him in the air effortlessly, despite his hyper-dense bones and flesh. “I just do what Jacob says, man. If I could have followed him, I would have — through a sea of fire and mountains of knives.”

“Priscilla, let the boy go immediately,” Queen Anthea snaps. “All of you, have you lost your damn mind? What is this behavior? How are you royals? Everybody, fall in line before I strip all of you of your titles.”

Vice Principal Lyanna, who had stopped exchanging blows with the Ancestor, just witnesses the scene with her arms crossed.

“So, Lancelot,” Lyanna says, “Jacob has bet against the Mad God and is now trying to kill him.”

Lancelot nods.

“You.” Vice Principal Lyanna addresses the Ancestor with little to no respect. “Can we access the portal?”

The Ancestor seems to remember the portal just then and immediately turns to it, putting a hand on the translucent entrance that closed after everybody came back.

“No, it’s sealed again.”

“So, it appears that when Jacob used Rafnov’s Ruby,” Vice Principal Lyanna says, “he opened it momentarily, and now it’s closed again. There’s nothing we can do. We can just wait and hope that the person coming out of there is going to be Jacob and not the Mad God.”

And so they wait. They wait a little more than an hour before the portal actually opens again.

And this time, the Ancestor says, “The trial is complete. Everybody can enter now.”

They all rush the portal and soon are standing in front of the same altar where Jacob and the Mad God stood just minutes before.

“Where are they?” Queen Anthea asks the Ancestor.

And Emrys kneels in front of the altar, touching its surface and then looking at his finger. There is a bloodstain on it.

“Jacob Cloud has activated this with his blood. I don’t know where he is right now. But he is definitely closer to Rafnov’s weapon than he was before.”

- - -

The Mana manacles did not stop Jacob’s Grimoire. And so he has been reading up on who Cornelius is through its pages.

Apparently, Cornelius is part of the city watch. He isn’t one of the strongest. He was simply on duty, checking the skies, when the Mad God arrived here. And this place is called Zamorye.

Rafnov had apparently founded this city because this is a world where Mana is plentiful. But that’s all the information about the city that the Grimoire has given Jacob.

Jacob is brought to a wall, to the captain of the city watch, who, after taking one look at him, immediately escalates this and brings Jacob to the palace, to the keep of the city. There, Jacob is faced with many questions about where he came from, to which he answers mostly truthfully, and waits for a verdict that is apparently gonna be dished out by a member of the royal family.

The verdict is not something that Jacob likes very much. But it is definitely fitting for the city. It is Cornelius, his escort, who delivers it to him.

“You shall labor for five years in the mines of Zamorye, and then there will be a hearing to confirm your citizenship, after you’ve proved your usefulness through labor. If you’re a true descendant of Rafnov and an heir like you claim, you will do well enough to earn your place here. This is something you should consider a great honor,” Cornelius tells Jacob.

“Of course, it’s a fucking mine,” Jacob sighs. “I would like the corpse back,” Jacob says to Cornelius, who was about to leave the room and now frowns, looking at him.

“Why?”

“That man is a distant relative of mine. I want to bring the corpse back once I leave.”

“It’s going to be years before you even get a chance to leave the mines,” Cornelius says pointedly.

“Yeah, I’m sure I’ll be able to earn my place faster than that,” Jacob replies.

“We can’t give you the corpse. It will be examined and then disposed of. We fear contamination.”

Jacob rubs the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Now, we’ll put the manacles on your hands again and then bring you to the mine.”

There is a foreman shouting something at Jacob while Jacob just looks around the mine. It is way bigger, with giant tunnels going all around this underground. But the feeling — the same oppressive feeling of the mine that he had experienced for most of his life — is back. The smells are similar. The dust circulating, even when no one is smashing a pickaxe against the wall. It is all there.

And he doesn’t like it one bit.

He listens to the foreman. A man called Ivan.

“So, have you understood what I’ve just said to you?”

Jacob nods. “Sure. Mine my quota and bring it back to you. Every day.”

“Yes. And as I’ve said, you will be allowed to use Mana for the mining. But if you were to do anything out of place, foreigner, I will personally dig your grave.”

Jacob nods. “Yes, of course, Luthor.”

“Luthor?”

“My friend.”

“My name is Ivan, foreigner.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Jacob says. “Um, where do I start mining?”

“First, it’s time to rest. You will be brought to one of our dormitories together with other new faces in the mine.”

“All right.”

Jacob is led by the foreman himself to a dilapidated large room with eight beds, two of which are occupied by dangerous-looking men. And on the other side of the room, right beside where his bed is placed, there is a wildly beautiful woman, covered from head to toe in dust, wearing rags styled so perfectly she almost looks fake.

Jacob smells the con from miles away. And when he activates the Grimoire, it just so happens to say that the name of the woman is Princess Yekaterina Rafnin. And as he goes down the pages, it says pretty clearly: She has joined the mines to spy on the foreigner, Jacob Cloud.

This is going to be pretty fun, isn’t it? Jacob smiles to himself, looking at the two men and then reading their levels.

Volkov and Gromov, both at Peak Adamantite Rank.

Fuck, Jacob swears internally. Well, I’ll just have to be a little careful.