TMLOP 94

Chapter 94

 He Became So Obsessed with the Proposal

87. And So, He Went Mad.

Was this the reason why Clifford had looked so confident?

The deeper they went past the barriers of the hunting grounds, the paler Senellia’s face became.

Did he really intend to kill everyone inside just to get to Venerucia?

The inside of the barrier was swarming with monsters—far more than what could be seen from outside.

If Clifford’s confidence came from knowing that it was impossible to slay them all, then it was understandable.

But Senellia still had one last method to turn the situation around.

Perhaps even that had been foreseen by the emperor who knew every possible future.

“Clifford, that insane bastard.”

Lukalina bit out a curse.

She tried to maintain the dignity befitting a noble, but truth be told, she was a woman who had fought on battlefields from age twenty-one to thirty-two—for eleven years.

Counting the years after she regressed, it had been even longer.

So it wasn’t surprising that foul language came naturally to her.

“That lunatic. Just to kill his own brother, he unleashed this many monsters in the middle of the capital?”

She ground her teeth furiously.

If the monsters weren’t completely exterminated and somehow broke through the barrier, it would be the ordinary citizens—the powerless and innocent—who suffered the most.

“Before the regression, that bastard would lose his mind every time a war broke out. What the hell has gotten into him this time?”

Lukalina muttered a string of curses against Clifford.

Hearing her, Senellia hesitated before asking,

“What did His Majesty do… during the war?”

The Clifford Senellia knew might have been a tyrant, but not one who bullied the weak.

To her, he had been cruel beyond measure—but the emperor she had watched for eight years was different.

While the nobles were crushed under his rule, life for the common people had slowly improved.

“…He’s comparatively sane now,” Lukalina said after a pause. “But the more wars he fought, the more unhinged he became.”

“In the later years, he even sent the weakest—those who could barely hold weapons—to the front lines.”

The Clifford in her story wasn’t the emperor Senellia knew.

“He used them as living shields. While we hesitated to strike them down, he’d command his mages to attack us from afar.”

Neither Lukalina nor Venerucia could stay sane under such conditions.

The people Clifford sent to the front were already brainwashed by imperial mages.

Pity them as they might, they couldn’t simply stand still while armed bodies charged them on the battlefield.

In the end, Lukalina and Venerucia had no choice but to cut down innocent people—people who had been their comrades just days before.

With every passing day, they grew more exhausted, more hollow.

Clifford’s plan to shatter their sanity had worked perfectly.

“And that bastard didn’t stop there,” Lukalina continued bitterly. “He even used the hostages from our side as conduits for barrier magic—turning humans into components for spells.”

Senellia’s eyes widened in horror.

Using people as magical conduits meant forcibly injecting mana into their bodies, as one would with a mana stone.

It was unimaginable agony.

And yet, it was an effective tactic.

To break the barrier, they had to destroy the medium itself—meaning Lukalina and Venerucia were forced to kill their own comrades to advance.

“…Honestly, even if Ben hadn’t died,” Lukalina murmured, rubbing her face with trembling hands, “I might still have chosen to turn back time.”

Clifford might have devised the plan, but she was the one who executed it.

She had personally cut down powerless civilians—people she’d shared words and laughter with just days before.

How unbearable that guilt had been.

But by reversing time, all those sins would vanish as if they had never happened.

It was a sweet temptation—too sweet.

That was why, after victory in the war, Lukalina hadn’t hesitated to regress.

Senellia pressed her hand over her mouth, trying to suppress her confusion.

This was yet another difference between the future she knew and the one Lukalina knew.

In Lukalina’s future, Clifford had gone far more insane.

And perhaps that was because the emperor remembered multiple futures.

In the future Lukalina had seen—where both Venerucia and Clifford died—Clifford had already remembered the timeline in which he lost to Venerucia.

Senellia’s fingers trembled violently.

If that was true… wouldn’t that mean Clifford could become even more monstrous than he already was?

The thought alone made her mind go blank.

“Ben’s nearby,” Lukalina suddenly said. “I can feel his aura.”

That snapped Senellia back to her senses.

“Then I’ll undo the concealment spell.”

Until now, she had cloaked both their presences to avoid attracting monsters—conserving strength until they found Venerucia.

Lukalina had only fought the few monsters resistant to the spell while Senellia maintained the concealment.

But that approach had reached its limit.

To locate Venerucia through magic, the search radius was inevitably wide, and Senellia couldn’t maintain both concealment and tracking simultaneously.

“I’ll cover you,” Lukalina said, raising her sword toward the approaching beasts.

Senellia released the spell.

KRAAAAHHH!!

Instantly, monsters spotted them and charged.

Lukalina moved swiftly, cutting them down while keeping close enough to guard Senellia.

“Seek him.”

In the midst of the chaos, Senellia closed her eyes and began chanting.

To focus, she shut out her vision entirely.

The screeches of monsters rang in her ears, chilling her to the bone, but she trusted Lukalina.

Lukalina was, in every future, the one who never died—the heroine who survived.

Invisible waves of energy rippled from Senellia, spreading across the hunting grounds.

All for the sake of finding Venerucia.

How much time passed, she couldn’t tell.

Sweat beaded on Senellia’s forehead.

After repeatedly gathering and releasing mana, her stomach churned nauseously.

“Lady Daphne… huff… is it still far?” Lukalina’s breathless voice betrayed exhaustion.

Fighting countless monsters while protecting Senellia was no easy task.

She was bound to tire eventually.

That made Senellia all the more anxious.

Her lips trembled as she bit down hard.

‘Why… Why can’t I sense Ben’s presence?’

Even though she had cast the tracking spell exactly within the range Lukalina indicated, she couldn’t detect him at all.

At last, Senellia stopped the spell, her face pale.

“This is bad, Lady Elian. I can’t trace Ben at all…”

Her voice was shaking. Panic had taken hold.

Lukalina, startled, cut down another monster and quickly moved to her side.

“That’s impossible. I definitely felt his aura nearby…”

She focused her senses again—and then her expression hardened.

“…Lady Daphne,” she said gravely, “could you locate the strongest monster nearby instead?”

Senellia blinked in confusion, but realizing there was no time to question it, she nodded.

Indeed, she had sensed an unusually powerful aura earlier—one she had tried to ignore to avoid distraction.

“Can you cast a teleportation spell to that location?” Lukalina asked urgently.

Senellia hesitated. “If I use teleportation, I might not be able to cast anything else afterward.”

The distance wasn’t great, but teleportation was a high-level spell, and even the simplified ritual form required enormous mana.

“…We must go there immediately,” Lukalina insisted firmly—uncharacteristically unwilling to back down.

“Because that powerful aura…” She swallowed hard.

“…I think it’s Venerucia.”

Her words struck Senellia like lightning.

Something she had never imagined—
that the “strongest monster” nearby…
might be Ben himself.