Chapter 20 : Chapter 20
Chapter 20
The heart of the cathedral, a place that would normally be filled with praises to God, was now filled with blood and screams.
Instead of the fragrance of devoutly burning beeswax candles, the pungent smell of blood stung the nostrils, and with every step, the sound of splashing blood echoed.
The priests sat collapsed, calling out to God as they watched death approach.
“Are you not afraid of God!”
As the protective barrier created by dozens of apprentice priests wavered, one of the priests bit his lip and shouted at the man in the white mask.
“God will never forgive you!”
The moment the man shouted to overcome his fear, his eyes met the man’s behind the white mask.
The eyes, curved like a crescent moon, held obvious ridicule.
“God?”
The plain white mask looked around.
“The god who stood by even as you sold your faith for a few coins?”
A sneer was tinged in his eyes, which looked at them as if they were insects, and in his indifferent voice.
“Everyone you let die must have resented God, and cursed the divine power that moves for gold.
Do you really think God will not forgive me?
And not you, who have disgraced God?”
“How is it a sin to receive money for providing treatment!
Only this Moner domain was special; money is received in other places as well!”
“Divine power is a gift from God to save everyone.
The Moner family paid a just price, and you have broken both your faith with the Moner family and your own beliefs.”
Ian looked at the priests hiding behind the protective barrier.
Those who had traded faith and belief for money.
However, he had no intention of punishing them for that alone.
The fact that their faith wavered before gold was a matter between them and God.
But crime was different.
The citizens, who feared God’s wrath, did not reveal the priests’ sins, and the security forces turned a blind eye.
So, someone had to make it clear.
That at least in this domain, a realm of sacred inviolability did not exist.
Clang!
Finally, the protective barrier that had been protecting the priests shattered, and Ian pushed his way through the priests who were looking at each other with dumbfounded expressions.
* * *
Ian showed no mercy in his hands.
Standing before a priest, he would look at Reina, and she, having already completed her investigation, would signal with a gesture whether the person was on the kill list.
There was no judge, no verdict.
Those who raped the domain's people, those who intimidated them, and those who mocked them in the face of death.
All would pay for their sins with death.
They were a cancerous presence.
For the sake of their precious God and for the sake of the domain, if they were not dealt with now, similar things would grow and threaten the domain at any time.
‘As things are, the Moner domain has no choice but to rely on the clerics.’
Even if the situation improved with the development of stimpacks and various drugs, clerics would always be needed on the front lines where deaths and serious injuries occurred daily.
That was why he had to convey it to them clearly.
What the Moner family needed were clerics who followed the will of God.
Not merchants who weighed the value of money.
“Keoheok……”
After mechanically plunging and withdrawing his dagger, Ian walked towards the next priest and looked at Reina.
She slowly shook her head.
“Hmm.”
Having confirmed the signal, Ian passed by the priest who was sitting on the floor praying and muttered.
“May your faith be rewarded.”
Then he looked around for his next opponent.
“I think we’ve almost cleaned up now…?”
At Ian’s murmur, Reina, who had stolen and put on a nun’s habit, walked out and said.
“I think almost everyone on the list is dead.”
“Alright, let’s check one last time.”
Spreading his mana wide to check for anyone else in the vicinity, he felt people in the confessional and the solitary confinement cells.
“No different from rats.”
Annoyance and fatigue were evident in his voice as he headed towards the solitary confinement.
Creak
As he opened the door to the solitary confinement, the man huddled inside shrieked in terror.
“Hiiik…!
Please!
I, I have committed no sin!”
Ian didn't even look at his face.
He just glanced back to check Reina’s signal.
As soon as he confirmed that Reina’s thumb was pointing downwards, Ian’s dagger pierced the priest’s heart.
Thrust!
“He raped the parents who came to him with their sick 7-year-old child in front of the child.”
“Hah… of all the things in the world……”
At this point, I began to think that perhaps divine power was a power given only to the wicked.
No, how on earth could there be more wicked people than saints in a cathedral?
After spitting on the bastard’s corpse, I looked for another person.
Just as boredom was about to set in from the simple, repetitive labor of opening doors and plunging a dagger into a heart.
CRASH!
In the solitary confinement cell with the broken and opened locked door, a skinny corpse was visible.
“…I think that one’s alive?”
Though it was no different from a mummy, it was clearly breathing, its chest moving faintly.
“The vice-bishop… I think.”
“That’s the vice-bishop?”
The fact that this being, which wouldn't be strange to die at any moment, was alive, was surely thanks to the divine power it possessed.
Thinking that it would die even if I left it alone, I glanced at Reina, and she slowly shook her head.
“She’s a renowned cleric who undertook a path of penance not only near the Lord’s Castle but throughout the entire domain.
Even after her period of penance ended, she consistently went to the front lines to care for the injured.
I’m sure I heard that she had returned to the Holy Empire a few years ago for training……”
At her words, I looked at the mummy with surprised eyes.
A being that shone alone in the decaying organization.
It was a figure too precious to die here.
“Really?
It seems flowers can bloom even in the mud.”
I had a rough idea of why she was here.
Probably when the clergy began to walk the wrong path, when the order came down not to treat the poor, judging the weight of life by gold, she must have rebelled.
She would have stood against the entire clergy within the domain with a conviction that could break but not bend.
And so, she was locked away in a solitary confinement cell with no light and no exit.
‘She won’t die even if I leave her like this, so it should be fine, right?
I’ll need someone to lead the clergy in the domain later anyway…….’
With that thought, Ian turned to leave the solitary confinement cell, but the collapsed vice-bishop whispered in a voice as faint as an ant’s.
“Finally… finally the demon has come.”
Joy was laced in her clear voice, which was unbelievable for someone who had been in a desperate situation for a long time.
“I have been waiting.”
Ian habitually fumbled with his mask.
How on earth could everyone mistake him for a demon even with a mask on?
At this point, wasn't the problem with himself rather than Ian’s infamous reputation?
Of course, anyone would go mad if they were locked up in solitary confinement for a few years, but for a cleric to have been waiting for a demon.
Judging that she was not in her right mind, Ian tried to ignore her and leave.
“I, I am a virgin.”
“Crazy.”
Even Ian, who was immune to being baited, couldn’t help but stop at those words.
For a moment, I thought she was completely mad, but the vice-bishop, still collapsed and unable to move, continued.
“They say demons like virgins.
I, I am a virgin with divine power.
Please, take me and leave these sinful people be.”
Ian could feel the faint life force remaining in the vice-bishop’s body gradually diminishing.
This woman, who didn’t even have the strength to move her own body, was speaking by sacrificing her own life.
And for the sake of the trash she herself admitted were sinful.
That sight was so pathetic and irritating that Ian growled and asked.
“Let’s say I’m a demon.
Do you think I would make such a stupid choice?
When I can take both you and every human in this place?”
“I……”
Her voice grew smaller and smaller.
Every time she opened her mouth, what little life force and divine power she had left drained away, but she did not give up and continued.
“I, I will give you my soul.
No matter how many people you kill here, you will not be able to take the soul of a human with divine power.”
Ian frowned as he listened to her.
In Lost Chronicle, there were no demons, no demonkin, no demonic race.
I wanted to dismiss it as nonsense, but the message that had appeared on the day I was detoxified from the poison had been bothering me.
-[You are the first to overcome the poison of the demon world.]
The system that had called Queen’s Mercy the poison of the demon world.
Until now, I had intentionally ignored this message, thinking it was the system's consideration to give me a better reward.
But if there really were a demonic race and demons in this world, and if they were actively operating, the story would be different.
After a moment of thought, Ian slung the vice-bishop over his shoulder like a piece of luggage.
“A wise choice, demon.
My soul will surely be worth enough to save the lives of others.”
As he heard the vice-bishop’s voice whispering in his ear as if in relief, Ian smacked his lips and opened his mouth.
“Think about it logically.
Do you think a demon would come all this way without killing anyone?”
“Did you not come for me, wanting a shining soul?
There must still be many people alive.
I am satisfied with them just being alive.”
It seemed the vice-bishop was greatly mistaken.
Indeed, she probably couldn’t have imagined that I would find her by chance while checking the solitary confinement cells one by one for survivors.
Ian asked her, slung over his shoulder.
“Heh… how can you offer your own soul for the sake of sinners?
Weren’t you locked in that solitary confinement cell because of the trash outside?”
“Not all sins need to be washed away by death.
There will come a time when they too will realize their mistakes.
Then God will also forgive their faults.”
Unable to agree with her words, an uncontrollable killing intent leaked from Ian’s body.
“Forgiveness?
Why would God forgive them?
It was the people of this land who suffered from the corrupt clerics, who died, and who were used and abandoned.”
Only those who live on this land, only the families of those who suffered and died, can speak of forgiveness.
“If there is anyone who dares to forgive those scumbags, it would be only the master of this land.
I assure you, he has no intention of forgiving those who dared to disgrace his people.”
After saying that, Ian left the room, and the blood that filled the entire space greeted them.
Ian felt the squirming movement of the vice-bishop on his shoulder and asked in a satisfied voice.
“Even if I kill the trash, God will forgive me, right?
Isn’t that so?”
The vice-bishop’s eyes trembled as she faced the indescribably gruesome scene.
* * *
“What is going on!
All the paladins in the cathedral have already been taken down!
Now that bastard will come in here!”
Even at Bishop Demnok’s roar, the Knight Commander did not move.
“What are you doing not going out and stopping him right now!”
At the continuous stream of despairing news, Demnok shouted at the Knight Commander.
Unrealistic stories, such as the breaking of a protective barrier created by dozens of priests or the annihilation of an entire knightly order, were constantly being heard.
No matter how much the cathedral of the Moner family was a gathering place for the abandoned losers from the Holy Empire, their number was twenty.
How could a single intruder annihilate a knightly order of 20?
Demnok wanted the relatively competent Knight Commander to go out and subdue the intruder immediately, or at least buy him time to escape.
For a paladin to die on the battlefield for a son of God would be nothing short of a blessing.
Just as Demnok was about to shout for him to go out and punish the intruder, the Knight Commander glanced at the door and spoke to Demnok as if giving an order.
“Wait.”
Demnok’s face turned red at the Knight Commander’s informal speech, and he was about to shout something, but before he could open his mouth, the door to the bishop’s office was broken down first.
CRASH!
Beyond the door stood a man in a white mask, holding a corpse on one shoulder and the vice-captain’s head in the other hand.
“Oh, God……”
As soon as the man in the white mask entered the room, the thick smell of blood and the sharp killing intent that could cut flesh filled the room.
The man showed no signs of nervousness even in front of the cathedral’s bishop and knight commander.
From his indifferent gaze that alternated between me and the knight commander, only a bone-chilling malice could be felt.
‘A demon, a demon.’
That was surely the demon that God in the scriptures had warned so much about.
Otherwise, there was no way a human could possess such thick malice and killing intent.
To stand against the demon, Demnok hurriedly clasped his hands and drew upon his holy power.
No matter how corrupt he was, as a cleric who had reached the rank of bishop in the Great Holy Empire, a level of holy power different from that of the priests who had died before gathered around him.
“Hah!
Retreat to hell, demon!
Divine Area!”
Just before the divine magic <Divine Area>, which designated a space as a sanctuary to destroy evil, was about to be activated.
Thrust!
The hand of the Knight Commander, who had been standing silently by his side, pierced through Demnok’s back and grabbed his heart.
“Keoheok!
Wh-what is this……”
As the hand that had grasped his heart was pulled out, the holy power that had gathered in Demnok’s body scattered into the air.
“Tch, a useless thing to do.”
The Knight Commander, who frowned at the warm holy power in the air, suddenly began to chew on the heart in his hand.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
At the unbelievable sight, Ian behind the white mask opened his mouth and muttered in disbelief.
“What the hell is this bastard?”