The Crown Prince Who Raises Alt Characters

#Chapter 244 Folk?lorist? Mogers (14) - Doubt Although a disaster occurred where a girl's courage ended in a futile effort, Mogers's request to be guided to the altar was accepted. Trudge, trudge. While moving under Vanya's guidance, Mogers carefully asked Morana. "Morana, you seem to be in a bad mood. Is there some problem?" "No, Professor. There's no problem at all." "Still." "Originally, didn't you come here for local exploration and cultural research, Professor? Your desire to explore the goddess's altar is a very reasonable request that aligns with your purpose. You've done nothing wrong, Professor." "Hmm." "You two, can you save the lovers' quarrel for later?" If she had known it would be like this, she should have assigned the guide role to someone else, Vanya grumbled. Her face looked extremely tired, making Morana feel slightly awkward. She herself was aware that she was behaving quite childishly. Originally, she wasn't someone whose emotions fluctuated this severely. In the past, whatever Mogers might answer, she would have accepted it with "I see" and kept her mouth shut. Had being continuously treated like a child actually made her become one? Mogers' kindness felt good. His gentleness and consideration felt like they were filling something she had never received before. However, being continuously treated like a child - that was something she didn't like in its own way. While Morana was racking her brains over these difficult-to-organize thoughts about what she was supposed to do about it. "Here it is." At Vanya's explanation, Mogers and Morana looked ahead. A long, straight staircase leading downward. At its end, a blue-tinted stone chamber. "Quite atmospheric." Mogers merely said that as if appreciating the surrounding scenery, but Morana was different. For someone who rarely showed expression changes, she frowned quite conspicuously, causing Mogers to ask with puzzlement. "Morana. Are you feeling unwell somewhere?" "It's not that. It's just..." Trailing off her words, Morana looked around again. "...I think I need to go a bit further to understand." "Hmm, alright. If there's any problem, let me know immediately." They descend the stairs. Step by step. Step by step. Her lips dry up, her fingertips crack, and endless languor and heaviness grip her ankles like shackles. No, that's not right. Her lips and hands are fine. There's no reason her body would suddenly reach its limit from walking just this much. This was definitely a place she was visiting for the first time, yet for some reason it felt like something she had already experienced. That déjà vu reached its peak the moment she entered the stone chamber. "Ah..." Everything visible was blue, cold, and beautiful. But the space itself was actually warm and cozy. Morana finally gained certainty. The dream she had last time. It was exactly the same as the space where a woman had set foot in that dream. "Hmm. Morana. It's quite similar to the dream story you told me before." Mogers also seemed to recall the same thing as he spoke those words. Morana felt slightly happy that he had remembered what she had rambled about incoherently. "Dream? What are you talking about?" When Mogers briefly explained to the puzzled Vanya about the dream Morana had previously, she tilted her head. "Another Belastok besides us came here? Well, it's not impossible, but how did Morana dream about it?" "Well. That might be exactly what you called the 'goddess's blessing.'" "...When you put it that way, there's nothing more to say." Vanya scratched the back of her head, then spoke with a reluctant expression. "Honestly, I have no idea. When we came, this place was completely empty." "Then it might be better to ask those in the residential area. They have more experience than the friends here. They'd know more about past events." Mogers, who had been carefully examining the interior of the stone chamber and the goddess statue, asked as if something had suddenly occurred to him. "By the way, I don't see any living sacrifices. Didn't you say animals needed to be kept here?" "If you mean them, it's their feeding time now." Vanya shrugged her shoulders. "The goddess's blessing requires keeping the animals serving as living sacrifices in a 'living' state before the goddess statue. It might be fine for a short while, but if we kept them tied up here continuously, they'd obviously die." Ordinary living sacrifices only need to be alive until they reach the altar, after which you're free to cut their throats or remove their hearts, but the ritual here isn't like that. According to Vanya's explanation, they needed to periodically take them outside for care, whether to feed them or clean up their waste. "Hmm." However, Mogers' reaction upon hearing the story was subtle. "Why, what's wrong? Is something strange?" "Then tell me, what about things like time limits? The types of food?" "What are you talking about?" "I'm asking about procedures like the time for taking animals out to wash or feed them, what to feed them, how to put them to sleep - those kinds of things." "There's nothing particularly special? Just feed them appropriately, and if their condition seems poor, untie them. That's all." "So there are no established detailed procedures." Mogers' eyes narrowed. Originally, rituals toward gods are quite complex and difficult things. When praying to gods, you must recite established phrases to offer greetings, or wash your body for days to cleanse impurities - things like that. Especially if it's a ritual that takes life as payment, not only the state of the offered sacrifice but also the mindset and procedures of those handling it can never be treated carelessly. But what about the Belastok ritual? Though Mogers and Morana had easily subdued them, that was only because the two were strong and their advance preparation was thorough - it wasn't that Raslro's group was particularly weak. A soldier who can't handle mana would be killed without being able to resist even once against such overwhelming physical prowess, and you'd need to at least know physical enhancement to have a decent fight. Yet the ritual to obtain such power is this sloppy? "If the 'Winter' goddess were so mighty and a divine being receiving faith from many people, it might somehow be possible. But let me ask: besides you Belastok, are there others who believe in her? No, even before that, do even you know much about 'Winter'?" "Of, of course we know!! She's our people's Guardian Deity!" "Then what kind of god is she? Who was she born from, who did she marry, what does she look like, and what stories does she have?" "That's..." Vanya, who had been mumbling dejectedly, soon spoke as if flaring up. "J-just wait a moment! I'll find out soon!" After briefly watching Vanya's back as she huffed up the stairs, Morana spoke. "But Professor, Raslro's group actually received the 'blessing' and gained power." "That's the problem. A god with almost no believers. A sloppy ritual. The process is a complete mess but only the results are clear - that's what's dangerous." Morana thought for a moment before answering. "...Are you saying there might be side effects? Like how Raslro's group's personalities changed?" "That would be the milder side of things. There's something worse." "What is it?" Mogers looked at the goddess statue and then bluntly said. "─If it wasn't the goddess's blessing to begin with." *** In the end, Vanya couldn't give Mogers a satisfactory answer. The truth was that not knowing much about the Winter Goddess was the same for the other young people as well. In the end, she had to bring back only negative news. "The living sacrifices disappeared?" "Yeah. It seems about half of them disappeared while we looked away for a moment." "The culprit... there's no need to deduce." Vanya and the other young people were all blushing with embarrassment. They had lost important resources due to lax security, so that was only natural. Mogers didn't particularly blame them. The young people here were fundamentally more like a group of deserters or rebels who couldn't endure unreasonable treatment and fled. You shouldn't expect the thoroughness of a proper military organization. 'No, that's not right. The castle town side is just as clumsy and sloppy, so a military organization wouldn't necessarily be better.' After finishing thoughts that wouldn't have been particularly comforting to the Belastok youth if they had heard them, Mogers stood up. "Everyone, prepare to leave." "Leave? To where?" "We have to go to the castle town, where else would it be?" Mogers made a gesture as if scooping something with a spoon while speaking. "Taking the living sacrifices for the ritual means they intend to use them somehow. But the friends here know the situation, so naturally they wouldn't eat raw meat or anything like that, so who do you think they plan to feed it to?" "The Belastok who remained in the castle town." At Morana's words, the young people asked back in confusion. "Grant the goddess's blessing to the people in the residential area? Why?" Unlike the young people here, the residents of the residential area are those who have resigned themselves to or complied with the castle town's rule. No matter what the most extreme of extremists, Raslro, might say when he goes there, they wouldn't be easily persuaded. Toward such doubts, Morana answered calmly. "There's no need to persuade them. No need to explain the situation. Just pretend it's goodwill, or if necessary, just mix it into other food and somehow make them eat it - that would be enough. Raslro's group showed us the results, didn't they?" "...Ah!" Those who receive the goddess's blessing undergo personality transformation. Becoming more violent, craving blood and slaughter. If hundreds of Belastok remaining in the residential area all transform into giant wolves and go berserk at once? Tremendous blood would flow in the castle town, and that bloodshed wouldn't distinguish between enemy and ally. "Everyone hurry!!" "Pack the bare minimum!! There's no time to carry heavy loads!!" "Wh-what about the guys locked up in prison?" "Leave them locked up for now!! We can let them out after the situation is sorted!!" After glancing sideways at the busily moving young people, Mogers once again took out the memoir left by the Count Palatine. The content remained in terrible handwriting, but thanks to his brief captivity and intermittent interpretation efforts, more content had been revealed than before. 《The power possessed by Belastok's Guardian Deity, Marzanna, is very dangerous.》 《She is the wind of bitter cold, the frozen earth, and the goddess who rules over snow and ice in the south.》 《Those who looked down on her saying she was just a god worshipped by barbarians, only to be found as frozen corpses, are too numerous to count.》 《What's most troublesome is that Marzanna greatly cherishes and loves the Belastok, who can be called her believers and descendants.》 《If you kill more than a certain number of Belastok, the goddess's wrath will inevitably descend upon that place.》 《Places that were manageable until yesterday if you wore thick clothes transform into extreme regions where even your exhaled breath seems to freeze.》 《Fortunately, resistance is possible to some degree through Vestania's blessing, but even that goddess said there are limits.》 《If the Belastok were all massacred and their lineage dried up, Marzanna would carry out bloody revenge even at the cost of her own extinction.》 《It's unreasonable. They unilaterally invade us, yet are we supposed to just take it quietly?》 《Fortunately, the goddess of the hearth told us the solution to this situation.》 《Embrace the Belastok.》 《If they become residents of the castle town, and thus their people mix with our people to become one blood.》 《Then Marzanna too cannot harm us. No, beyond that, she might even come to protect us.》 《Even if not, as long as the Belastok aren't immediately massacred, the goddess won't pour out curses at the cost of her own destruction.》 《What's important is time.》 《Time for the Belastok to assimilate with us. And time for the goddess who lost faith to gradually weaken. Time for that threat to become minimal even if she's prepared for self-destruction.》 《I have carefully told my son who will succeed me about this content many times. I am someone who has lived holding a sword rather than a pen since long ago, so I'm clumsy at this, but that child will surely pass this on well to his descendants.》 Mogers thought. The Count Palatine's arrangement had worked out to some degree. Faith toward Marzanna had weakened, and her descendants had reached the point where they didn't even properly know what kind of being the god they worshipped was. Though they failed to achieve ethnic harmony and gain the goddess's protection, they had at least managed to avoid the goddess's curse. It could also be seen as the success of a hostage situation at an ethnic level. As if proving this, Mogers felt no Divine Power from the altar where the goddess's statue stood. That's why a question arises. What exactly is this 'goddess's blessing' that Raslro's group is currently wielding?