I Have a Task Log

Chapter 300: Chapter 299: The End of Everything

"Can you tell me why you’re doing this?" the dean lowered his head, his face ashen from blood loss. "This place raised you..."

Lil Moss flew into a rage at his words.

She raged, "Reason? If you hadn’t brought me to this stupid place, you fool, I would’ve carved out a legacy for myself by now! I would be a king!"

"A king of bandits, living in the woods?" the dean asked.

A Tiefling urged impatiently, "Shut up and sign with your blood! Or do you want to see what we’ll do to those little bastards upstairs?"

The dean looked at the guards and sighed.

He shakily reached out, intending to dip his finger in the blood seeping from his stomach.

But just then, he glimpsed Colin’s right hand—which had been behind his back—reaching for the Spellcasting Material Bag at his waist.

’A Potion of Protection from Evil and Good also resists the Charm ability of Evil Demons.’

Colin chanted the Spell for Flaming Arrow.

As he produced the Smoke Bomb, a spark flared between his fingers, instantly igniting its fuse. The spark shot along the cord and vanished inside the Bomb.

The instant he dropped the Bomb, Colin chanted a Spell.

The silver mist of Misty Step instantly teleported him to the farthest point behind his opponents.

BOOM!

The wrathful creation of the Gods blossomed in the darkness. A terrifying explosion of Flame and shrapnel tore everything apart. Even creatures not particularly afraid of fire, like the Tieflings and the Cambion, couldn’t withstand it.

Colin spun around.

As the sparks died down, he saw the three figures had been thrown by the blast.

The two Tieflings were down for the count, but Lil Moss managed to push herself back up.

The membranes of her wings were shredded by the Bomb, and most of her gear was ruined.

Just as Colin raised his Hand Half Sword, ready to fight her...

Lil Moss extended a finger and began to chant a Spell. A blood-red light appeared at her feet, and several Purgatory Runes materialized, flashing in the gloom.

Colin was about to move forward to stop her Casting when Lil Moss suddenly looked past him, her eyes wide with an indescribable terror.

Immediately after, a ball of golden light the size of a ping-pong ball streaked across the edge of his vision.

The golden light landed at Lil Moss’s feet and detonated, throwing the Cambion to the ground, where she lay unmoving.

’Is that the Fireball Technique?’

Colin turned to see Ale panting at the hall’s entrance, leaning against the doorframe for support. Her collar was soaked in blood, as if her throat had been slit, but her smooth neck was completely unmarred.

’She must have been ambushed by Lil Moss,’ Colin thought. ’Then she drank a Potion to heal herself.’

With that thought, Colin finally relaxed.

Then, a blue light flashed beside him. He turned again to see Kase, who had been lying on the ground, pushing himself halfway up.

From his expression, he didn’t look fully conscious, but the Half-Orc stubbornly activated his ability anyway, creating a Shield for his companion.

Before Colin could say his name, Kase’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed.

The dean, still on the floor, pulled the Arrow from his side and began to treat the wound.

"Any more trouble?" Ale asked.

Colin said, "I’m going to check the area."

Though he was at the limits of his physical and mental endurance, he knew this was exactly the time he couldn’t afford to be careless.

The See Invisibility Magic didn’t require constant concentration from the Caster, so no invisible Demon could escape his sight.

At the same time, the Light spell, with its hour-long duration, hadn’t ended yet.

Colin scanned the area as he walked over to the Array.

In the center of the far wall was a massive alcove. Bas-reliefs depicting the life of some important figure were carved into it. As the lowest level of the Bone Repository Hall, this place was likely meant to enshrine the remains of a saint or a Legendary hero.

But the alcove was now empty. Since the relics of a saint were considered Magic Items in this world, Colin guessed they had been requisitioned by the Church.

On a table in front of the alcove sat a pile of bizarre, blood-stained instruments of torture. ’The Chain Demon must have put them there to desecrate the Church of Morninglord,’ he figured.

Colin walked closer and saw a strange piece of parchment on the table as well.

The parchment was covered in strange diagrams, with small annotations written in the Purgatory tongue.

Besides that, there was nothing else of note.

’Probably a secret message from some Demon,’ he thought.

As he had this thought, Colin idly flipped the parchment over... and froze.

On the other side was a simple map. Marked on it were the very same key locations they had seen in the records at the White Tower: Thousand Masts City and the other major cities of Ora Kaim.

Colin felt his throat tighten.

A thousand terrible possibilities flashed through his mind. His head was already spinning from overexerting his Magic, and this new shock made it even worse.

He took a few sharp breaths and bent down to examine the map more closely.

’Thankfully, some of the markings are different from what we saw in the White Tower’s records.’

’Most modern cities are built on the ruins of Ora Kaim,’ he reasoned. ’Marking a few locations doesn’t necessarily mean anything.’

’Of course, the fact that Demons marked these cities at all means there’s a problem.’

"Dean? Come take a look at this," Colin called over his shoulder.

The dean was standing by Lil Moss’s body, lost in thought.

Colin had to call out twice before the man responded, shuffling unsteadily to his side.

"Can you read the Purgatory script on this?" Colin asked.

The dean took the parchment and glanced at it. "It’s all written in some sort of code. It will take time to decipher."

"So we should send it to the Holy City to be deciphered?"

"Cadopolis does have the best experts for deciphering the Purgatory tongue. I can contact them," the dean said. "But that can wait. Do you all need to rest? You don’t look well."

At his words, Colin’s legs felt weak, and he nearly passed out on the spot.

"Yes. Definitely."

***

「Four days later, in a guest room in the Church.」

Dressed in his Armed Clothing, Colin walked to Orelia’s bedside.

With the help of a Priest, their injuries had healed quickly. After all, the Monastery lacked neither Divine Arts nor medical resources.

However, he’d been plagued by nightmares for the past couple of days, waking every two hours without fail, leaving him mentally exhausted.

’Guess I’ve gotten soft since I stopped worrying about survival.’

’Back when I saw that scene in the sewers, I slept like a log that very night without a single nightmare.’

Ale followed behind Colin, holding a wooden bowl filled with gruel.

Colin gently lifted Orelia from under the covers and helped her sit up against the headboard.

Ale sat on the edge of the bed, gathered the little Tiefling into her arms, and gently pried her mouth open with the spoon to feed her, bit by bit.

Feeling a little restless, Colin stretched and asked casually, "By the way, that last spell you used four days ago... was that the Fireball Technique?"