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Chapter 247

“Seeing how this item came from the Highlord’s beloved treasury, I’m certain that this contains formidable power, but because I don’t know its purpose, I’m unwilling to use it,” Kim Jin-Woo said as he observed Mimir’s demeanor. The characteristically sarcastic imp, who usually did his best to hide his inner feelings, was nowhere to be seen; Mimir instead appeared frantic and desperate.

“Seeing the look on your face, you do indeed know the identity of this object,” Kim Jin-Woo remarked.

Usually, Mimir would have realized his own mistake at this point and hurriedly tried to regain his composure. However, instead of doing so, he once again asked how Kim Jin-Woo had gotten the item and totally ignored how he appeared to the Highlord.

“Isn’t it more important to know how to use this item rather than how I got it?” Kim Jin-Woo asked. Of course, from his point of view, his question made complete sense, but perhaps due to the situation, Mimir didn’t seem to oppose him.

“If I answer my Lord’s question, you must also answer my question.” Mimir offered a deal, having barely begun to regain his composure.

From Kim Jin-Woo’s point of view, the Mask wasn’t something he had obtained through a secretive process, nor had he gone out of his way to obtain it, so he answered Mimir and waited for a response as he pressured the imp with a stare.

Mimir, who still couldn’t take his eyes off the Hypocrite’s Mask, spoke after a long time. “That monster isn’t something that should exist here.”

Hatred. Fear. Greed. Longing. Conflicting emotions were buried in Mimir’s low voice.

Upon hearing the imp’s sudden uncharacteristic deep voice, Kim Jin-Woo found himself subconsciously asking, “Monster?”

But instead of an answer, Mimir started to sing a song with a gloomy melody.

“The one-eyed giant who pursued the Truth had his one eye plucked out and pinned to the Spear, and the song of the woman who honored his noble death became wails of hatred and mourning. The lake where the Fairies sang became a rotting swamp, and the scarlet symbol of life ceased to flow and turned black.”

Kim Jin-Woo instantly felt chilled to his bones by the eerie lyrics. Regardless of how he felt, however, Mimir continued to sing.

“The young man who roamed in the forms of a hundred and twenty-two beasts had his legs broken and fell, and the brilliant Earth Dragon disappeared without leaving behind a single scale. Its dazzling brilliance grew cold in the light, and the giant who stood tall on the shoulders of the entire world fell to his knees and found himself unable to get up again. After Twilight, there was only the Night of Immorality.”

The Earth Dragon, the young man, and the giant were beings Kim Jin-Woo had never heard of before, but he had heard of the names of the other Lords, including the One-Eyed Lord and the Wailing Lord. Mimir’s song had turned out to be the lore of the Ancient Lord who was victorious at the end of Twilight, and it was ultimately about the secret of the Underworld.

“A song about the Ten Ancient Lords?” Kim Jin-Woo asked.

“That’s correct.” The song ended and Mimir nodded tiredly, seemingly out of breath.

Looking at Mimir, Kim Jin-Woo tilted his head and asked, “But why are there only nine and not ten Lords? One-Eyed Lord, Wailing Lord, Fairy Lord, True Blood Lord, Lord of Youth, Earth Dragon, Lord of Brilliance, Giant Lord, Usurper. Did I miss one?” The number of Lords in the song was nine, and he thought carefully about whether he had missed someone, but it was still nine in the end.

“It’s not that my Lord has missed someone out. From the beginning, the song was about the story of the nine Lords,” Mimir explained.

“Why is that so?” Kim Jin-Woo asked.

“Because the creator of this song was left out.” Mimir’s gaze once again turned to the Hypocrite’s Mask as he continued, “He was the last Highlord, who didn’t make his appearance in the song, and the culprit behind the Twilight.”

An unknown ominous feeling started to creep up from Kim Jin-Woo’s fingertips and tightened along the nape of his neck.

“He was the original owner of the Mask in your hand,” Mimir finished.

***

Kim Jin-Woo sat deeply on his throne, craning his neck as he concentrated on Mimir’s song.

No one could blame him for doing so. He had only asked what the Hypocrite’s Mask was, and what he had unexpectedly gotten in return instead was the secret of the Underworld, stretching from ancient times to the present. There was no way he couldn’t be surprised.

“So, it wasn’t the Usurper, the Immoral Lord, who started the war,” he remarked. For some reason, he felt bitter about the revelation.

“It was the Usurper who organized the immediate war. However, even if the Immoral Lord was so mighty and received countless help, how could he have won against eight Highlords?” Mimir replied.

He stated that it was the Usurper who had ended the war, but it was the original owner of the Hypocrite’s Mask who had created the foundation for the war and manipulated the bigger picture to ensure the inevitable defeat of the other nine Lords.

Having heard the story of the real culprit, Kim Jin-Woo still had some lingering doubts. The power of a Highlord was mighty. Kim Jin-Woo, who had inherited that power, knew that fact better than anyone else. Although he hadn’t inherited it via a proper succession, nor had he completely acquired those powers, he had been able to defeat a mighty Duke with relative ease. Considering that fact, what exactly had the Mask’s original owner done to cause the defeat of eight Lords?

“He was, ironically, the most trusted being in the Underworld. Perhaps the Lords who trusted him deeply might have confided in him at least one of their respective weaknesses,” Mimir explained.

Unfortunately, he didn’t know the exact reason either. There was no way that someone like him, who had roamed the Underworld after the war to collect scattered loot across the battlefield, would know a secret of the Underworld that no one else knew about.

“This makes no sense,” Kim Jin-Woo muttered.

“As it should. It was because the Underworld back then valued honor and pride above all else, unlike the Underworld of today,” Mimir said.

It seemed the Underworld of the past was very different from the Underworld of the present.

“Anyway, the reason I referred to the Mask as a ‘monster’ was because of its original owner.” Mimir didn’t seem willing to talk about the secrets of the past any further, as he changed the topic rather hastily. “No one knew it was hiding such an evil spirit until the Twilight came. If the original owner was indeed such a terrifying being, it’s fairly possible that he’s hidden something terrible in his remnants.”

Kim Jin-Woo couldn’t understand Mimir’s words. He had yet to hear how the original owner of the Mask had weakened the power of the other Lords. He couldn’t even understand why the last Highlord had been pointed out as the culprit. But ultimately, he couldn’t ask the reason why, because the words Mimir spoke next caught him by surprise.

“The other name the original owner of the Mask, who caused the Twilight, went by was the ‘Wandering Lord’. There was nothing that could hold him back as he wandered the Underworld like the wind… including his own body.”

Mimir said that the original owner of the Mask had visited the One-Eyed Lord several times, using the body of a completely different being each time, adding, “If it’s him, maybe he could have put a part of his soul into that little mask.”

Kim Jin-Woo felt a chill up his spine. The message that had nudged him to wear the Mask several times flashed through his mind.

“So please, no matter what, you mustn’t wear that Mask, my Lord. In the worst case scenario, you could lose everything,” Mimir warned him.

Upon hearing those words, Kim Jin-Woo found himself subconsciously staring at the Mask. The weight of the Mask, which he hadn’t felt earlier, was somehow making his fingertips tremble.

In the end, he didn’t find out what the purpose of the Mask was. However, he slowly revealed how he had ended up in possession of it.

“There’s definitely something strange about this.” After hearing Kim Jin-Woo out, Mimir put on a more serious expression than ever before. “The Eternal Treasury is a treasure trove that’s capable of thinking and judging for itself. It is a warehouse of sorts, but it’s also a living entity. And it has its own sense of pride and temper, with the strength to match its rarity.”

According to Mimir, the Eternal Treasury wasn’t an entity that would have given such a precious gift to someone whom it didn’t recognize as its master, and who had even endured its temptations. Nevertheless, the Hypocrite’s Mask that was in Kim Jin-Woo’s hands was real, and so were the events of the day he had received the Mask.

“Perhaps, and this is just on a whim… Is this object really something that ominous?” Kim Jin-Woo asked.

In the end, it was an answer that couldn’t be obtained while they remained in the Grand Labyrinth. But that didn’t mean there was no way to figure out the answer.

“Let’s go and check it out together,” Kim Jin-Woo continued, and Mimir nodded.

***

The flashing light was a soft purple, and the skeins of light that covered that dazzling light were red. The Eternal Treasury wasn’t that different from when Kim Jin-Woo had last seen it.

If anything, the one thing that had changed was that the entrance to the Treasury, which had constantly expanded and compressed itself in the past as if it were a living organism, was no longer moving and resembled hardened concrete.

“This is what it usually looks like. It seems that that day, the Eternal Treasury was determinedly committed to its decision,” Mimir said. He explained how greedy the Eternal Treasury was, and how delicious the Highlord that had yet to fully realize its potential would have looked in its eyes. “That’s why I warned you that day.”

“I remember it clearly.” Kim Jin-Woo nodded, recalling Mimir’s words of warning about the dangers of being swallowed up by the Treasury should he show any signs of weakness.

As he looked at the entrance of the Treasury that had changed so much, he could feel its insidious nature, which he hadn’t recognized the last time he had been there.

Even now, despite hardening his resolve and doing his best not to reveal his inner self, he still had an eerie sense of foreboding that the Eternal Treasury was somehow watching his every move.

“Mm.” As time passed, he could feel the Hypocrite’s Mask in his hand trembling more and more.

They had all been kicking up a fuss for being unable to consume their masters. The Grand Labyrinth. The Eternal Treasury. Everything related to the Highlord had tried to devour their master and failed.

The realization of that fact only made Kim Jin-Woo feel more bitter about the circumstances he had been put in, as he cursed the Ancient Lords under his breath. “Don’t tell me you all enjoyed this kind of tension, you fucking perverts.”

“What did you say?” Mimir, who was holding a long stick he had obtained from somewhere in his hand, looked at him and tilted his head.

“What are you trying to do?” Kim Jin-Woo asked. Although the stick looked similar to the material that made up Gungnir, the bizarre-looking rod was actually a fishing rod.

“If anything were to happen to the Eternal Treasury, it would be crazy for me to step in personally to check it out,” Mimir explained.

An Eternal Treasury that the treasurer himself was afraid of? What madness.

“Can you pass me the Mask?” Mimir asked.

“Sure.” Kim Jin-Woo agreed as he waited to see what Mimir would do next.

“Milord?”

However, for some reason, despite agreeing to hand over the Mask immediately, Kim Jin-Woo was holding onto it tightly, refusing to let it go.

“Milord?” Mimir frowned as he called out to Kim Jin-Woo once more.

But strangely, Kim Jin-Woo’s expression was filled with bewilderment as he continued to hold on to the mask.