Chapter 88 |
Juniang looked like she was caught off guard as Charon charged her.
And just like when he’d fought me, he swung his sword from a distance.
Vwoong!
A slash flew out from his shortsword toward Juniang, but she didn’t seem surprised. No, more than that, her expression didn’t change at all as she held out a hand.
Clang!
The sharp slash that could dent even the thickest of trees dispersed as if it were just a breeze.
Not a single mark was left on Juniang’s hand.
That’s an insane level of durability...
Was it just her arm?
In any case, it was clear that the two of us wouldn’t be enough to face her.
“Hector!”
After shouting loudly enough to be heard outside, I joined the battle.
Was our enemy a human?
I didn’t know, but I needed to act as if she wasn’t.
For some reason, though, something felt off.
Juniang had been looking only at my face.
Her kinetic vision...
A heretic inquisitor of the Church of the Sun... It was a small and elite group whose members were all said to have combat capabilities on the level of a master martial artist. I could now see that that was true.
Dash!
At that moment, Juniang kicked off the ground and appeared right in front of me.
It was the first time that hidden steps had been so ineffective that I was too slow to even respond.
How is she going to attack me?
As I tried to block whatever move she used, Juiang reached out with her palm in front of me as she spoke.
“Lord Aton...”
“...!”
The moment she mumbled the name of the Sun God, divine power erupted from her palm.
I immediately crossed my ears to block the energy blast, but it didn’t do anything to reduce the impact.
Boom!
I crashed through the wall of the meeting room and rolled on the ground outside for a bit.
“Luan!”
I saw Evan approaching me from a distance away.
“What is it?”
“...I’m figuring that out.”
It was the most honest answer I could give.
I still wasn’t certain that she was our enemy.
Another section of the wall was destroyed as Charon also flew out. After rolling on the ground not too far from me, Charon immediately jumped up before staring through the wall.
“So impatient...”
From the broken hole in the wall, the Instructor of Doctrine walked out.
Juniang looked around with a bored expression, but she stopped when she saw a specific face.
“You were alive, Evan Helvin.”
“Pardon?”
Evan didn’t seem to have been expecting to be called out by the Instructor of Doctrine, who he’d never talked with particularly much. He was so surprised that he spaced out for a second.
I clapped my hands.
Clap!
When I did, the others quickly regained their senses and took on a circling formation.
Of course, I still didn’t think we had the upper hand.
Juniang brushed her hair back as she said, “I’m not your enemy.”
“...Then why did you attack us?”
“You attacked first.”
...That was true.
I had been the one to first show suspicion toward her. Honestly, I hadn’t expected Charon to charge her like that.
I let out a sigh.
The cult and those who received the authorities of the demon lords had access to something called “necromancy.”
It wasn’t simply raising a corpse to act; it could fully take over someone else’s body.
However, the Instructor of Doctrine had completely proven that she wasn’t a cultist.
She could still use the divine power of the 72 gods.
—The baptized faithful alone can truly prove their innocence.
This was a saying from the priests of the Church of the Sun, and the reasoning was simple: the cultists of the Church of Darkness could not be baptized by the Church of the Sun.
It had been confirmed that the blessings unique to descendants of the Great Houses could coexist with the demon lords’ curses.
But that made sense. Be they the 72 gods or the demon lords, if one ignored the division of good and evil, then they were both just gods, and blessings and curses were just words.
The divine power that Juniang had just utilized was more than enough to prove her innocence.
I lowered my combat stance first, and the others around me began to lower their guard in turn.
Confused, I asked, “If you’re a believer of the church, why couldn’t you recite a passage for me?”
Saying a few lines from memory shouldn’t be that hard.
Juniang avoided eye contact as she responded, “People have things they are good at.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m not good at memorizing things.”
“Even though it’s the scripture?”
“What’s the use of writings like that?”
She closed her eyes and gathered her hands together in prayer.
“The most important thing is our faith in the lord.”
“...”
The sight of her praying with the damaged building behind her looked quite divine, and we were all left speechless for a second.
Honestly, having seen her like that, I wouldn’t be surprised if she told me she was a saint.
“If your misunderstandings have been amended, shall we talk? Are you hungry?”
* * * * *
* * * * *
We followed Juniang back into the instructor’s lodge.
We went to the cafeteria and sat at a decently long table. There, we shared the video in the communication crystal that we’d found in the meeting room.
“A high priest? Instructor Juan?”
“I can’t believe it...”
“...Hm.”
Hector and Evan were quite surprised, while Sellen seemed to fall into thought.
“Take this.”
Juniang, who had disappeared somewhere for a moment, reappeared and threw some items at us.
One was a water bottle, and the other...
“What is this?”
“It’s called an energy bar. You’ll have to eat these until you’re sick of them once you become official heroes, so get used to it.”
“...”
From what I could see, it looked like a dried chunk of various vegetables all mashed together...
Crunch.
It was terribly hard to chew, so I chose to focus on the fact that it filled me up.
Juniang looked at us as she asked, “Are you the last remaining young heroes?”
“There’s a few more of us.”
“I see.”
Having eaten his energy bar without a problem, Charon opened his mouth and said, “What happened to the other instructors?”
“They were killed or suppressed.”
“By who?”
“Instructor Juan. Or... I guess I should call him the high priest?”
“...A high priest.”
I looked at Hector, whose expression had hardened.
“Elder brother, do you know anything about the Instructor of Martial Arts? For example, what he was like before becoming a grand master?”
Right now, I was curious about what kind of person he’d been before all this.
I was also curious about how someone who had the rank of a high priest was able to take up a job at the main house as a grand master without anyone realizing it.
“Instructor Juan is from House Baskes, a famous house in the southern region. He showed a genius talent for martial arts from a young age, and with that excellence, he became the youngest in history to join the Third Imperial Guard Unit. At age 30, he reached the position of unit leader. After that, the palace offered him a master position, but he politely declined and instead became a grand master of our house.”
“Hmm...”
He’d been born into an influential house and had even had a career in the Imperial Guard.
With such a career, it would have been odd to even doubt him.
Thinking about the timeline, there didn’t seem to be any gap where he could have come into contact with the cult, so how had this happened?
In a low voice, Evan mumbled, “...What do we do now?”
“...”
Juniang looked at Evan’s face for a second.
She was staring at him so much that I was beginning to get embarrassed for him.
Now that I think about it...
Juniang had been observing Evan all this time.
When Evan started to get put off, Juniang shifted her gaze away from him.
“Due to the barrier around the Forest of the Butterfly, nobody outside will be able to enter any time soon...”
“...”
“...Is what most people would think, but something is suspicious.”
“Suspicious?”
“Even if this barrier was created by an archmage, does it really make sense that no one from Bednicker noticed?”
“...”
She was sharp.
Rather than excelling in a logical sense, I got the feeling that she had great intuition.
Hector frowned slightly in what seemed to be displeasure.
“Are you suggesting that Bednicker might be overlooking this event?”
“I’m just saying I’m a little surprised. How would I know what those high-headed old people are thinking?”
“...”
“Stuck inside among enemies, unable to even hope for reinforcements from outside... In this situation, we need to abandon pointless hopes and create a strategy we can carry out with what resources we have. The most likely strategy is to rally everyone who is still alive and kill the high priest.”
Sellen looked at Juniang with her signature transparent eyes.
“...Even the instructors weren’t able to do anything but die. What can the young heroes even do?”
“He didn’t kill them, he just created an opportunity for the demon lord to intervene.”
“What do you mean?”
Juniang crossed her arms and began to speak quite quickly.
“Didn’t you see it in the communication crystal? The high priest said that ignorance is a tragedy. The people there were only able to attack the high priest after the ritual started. That’s why the demon lord was able to intervene. Thus, we need to do something else to mess up the ritual. Then, the enraged demon lord will kill the high priest.”
Honestly, I didn’t really understand what she meant.
The demon lord will kill the high priest? Really?
However, Juniang was a heretic inquisitor, one of the people who knew more about the cult than even active heroes.
“How can we mess up the ritual?”
“Take away the sacrifices, mess up the forest’s mana, destroy the altar... We just need to create a big enough mess that the ritual can’t continue.”
“Hmm...”
“Of course, those are the most radical methods... There could be other options, so let’s think about it for a second,” Juniang said as she looked at us. “For now, though, rest. And... Luan Bednicker?”
“Yes?”
“Come see me for a second.”
Alone?
As I pointed to myself, Juniang nodded.
I ended up following her.
After walking up to the second floor, Juniang entered a room, and I could tell that this was her personal room.
“Is there something you want to talk to me about?”
“Yes. I’ll ask you this first: you’re their leader, correct?”
To be honest, I really wanted to avoid answering that question, but since there was no one I could shift the focus to, I nodded.
“Hmm.”
Juniang gave a vague response before opening a drawer and taking something out.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it turned out to be a smoking pipe.
Alongside the pipe, Juniange had also withdrawn some tobacco leaves, and she pressed them into the pipe.
“About Evan Helvin...”
Evan’s name came up again. I felt like she’d called me out because of him.
“Is there anything off about him?”
“Nothing in particular.”
He’d struggled a lot against the monsters because he’d sealed Raven, but I didn’t think Juniang was asking about something like that.
“Why are you obsessed with Evan?”
“Hmm. You noticed.”
“You keep mentioning him, again and again. I would be stupid not to.”
“I see. But I’m not the one obsessed with him. The high priest is.”
“Pardon?”
I noticed that Juniang looked depressed.
It took me a moment, but I noticed that she didn’t have a match for her pipe.
This woman...
“Give it to me for a second.”
I focused fire ki on the tip of my thumb and ignited the leaves for her.
“Oh... pretty good.”
“It’s nothing.”
Shwoo.
Juniang smoked with a satisfied look on her face as she continued, “There are a lot of problems with this summoning ritual that can’t be explained. One of the biggest issues is that there aren’t enough sacrifices.”
Juniang leaned on the wall and looked out the window toward the cold and dark forest.
“A demon lord... to borrow the words of the cult, the gods of disaster are quite fussy. They need to read the book of the cult, Wicked Scriptures, from front to end without stopping, and if they make a single mistake, the consequences can range from their bodying morphing to loss of life.”
“Hmm...”
“That’s why they always proceed with these rituals with great caution. If a ritual that has begun fails, all the cultists that contributed are punished.”
It was an interesting piece of information...
But what did it have to do with Evan?
“But there is someone who is completely free from that penalty. Even if they mess up a ritual, they will not be punished, and they can speak with the demon lords without any conditions. The one who is favored by all six demon lords, the greatest enemy of The Empire, the Incarnation of Evil...”
I knew who Juniang was talking about.
Everyone in The Empire knew of them, but no one had ever seen them in person. They were shrouded in a veil.
“The Cult Leader.”
“That’s right. If the cult leader directly oversees the ritual, then the difficulty drops significantly. Less sacrifices are needed and there’s no need to read the entire book.”
“Are you saying the cult leader is here?”
“No. But the ritual is indeed lacking in sacrifices... and I overhead the high priest’s commands.”
“What did he say?”
“That before the ritual finishes, he needs to secure the vice-cult leader.”
At that moment, I remembered the Evan Helvin of my past life.
Evan’s corruption had been the Worst Betrayal in Human History.
...But what if it hadn’t been a betrayal?
What if Evan had only returned to the place he’d come from?
Fuu.
Juniang exhaled the smoke.
In a low voice, she said, “Evan Helvin. He is the vice-cult leader the high priest is looking for.”
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