Chapter 193: The Knight Hates Rofan Events (5)

In Pendragon, there was a concept called [weekend]. If in other kingdoms or empires only nobles could enjoy vacations or holidays, in Pendragon, everyone could enjoy weekends, one day of vacation every seven days.

However, Pendragon didn’t create weekends to bestow their goodwill on the people.

But rather…

“I would like to express my gratitude for the many brothers who came today. May you all be blessed by the Light.”

[May you be all blessed—]

Due to the strong insistence of the temple.

The temple gatherings—they called it prayer meetings or masses—were events that people of Pendragon had to participate in. Though unbelievable, even farmers who should be busy harvesting crops and grains would come on weekends and attend masses that lasted for over three hours.

In other words, the people’s faith in the religion was real.

There were even families who designated the weekend as ‘the day to go to the mass’, and this wasn’t a strange view among them.

Especially considering that Light of Brilliance was a religion that more than 80% Pendragon citizens believed in. If anything, those who missed the masses would be alienated from the community.

‘Merciful Light, please let this harvest go well.’

‘Please, please don’t let the drought come, I beg you. My son is going to enter the Academy this year!’

‘Oh, Merciful Light, let my family always be healthy. And, please let me meet a pretty girl.’

‘Money, I need money! So please let me get a good hand in the game!!’

Farmers, merchants, mercenaries, even gamblers. Countless people, regardless of their social status, reverently clapped their hands together to make their earnest wishes. Just by looking at this, it was clear to see what kind of attitude the people had towards religion.

And, that was exactly why…

“Sir Priest, please take this. It’s beer made from the first barley harvest this year.”

“Could you… Please hold my child’s hand? I want my child to become a great person like you…”

“Priest, there is someone who needs a confession. Is that okay?”

The priests held enormous authority among the people.

There were many who respected and admired them. Including the little child who held his mother’s hand tightly.

“Mama! I want to become a respected person like him someday!”

“Yes. Since you’re my son, you’ll definitely be able to do so. I will cheer you on.”

“Yes!!”

The child looked at the priest with admiration, and the priest smiled kindly at the child’s gaze. It was a scene that showed the authority of the priests, who had ‘power’ no less than that of the nobles—no, the power they possessed made even nobles unable to treat them lightly.

At least, that was supposed to be the case…

Crackle-!

“So, where did you come from?”

“!!!?”

“Say something already. Why won’t you open your mouth?”

Bang-!

“!!!”

“Woah, what a vicious guy. Still don’t wanna open your mouth?”

The knight clicked his tongue as he failed to receive an answer from the priest. His mouth was just too heavy.

Well… After an hour of this, surely…

“-Instructor, shouldn’t you take that gag off first? He won’t be able to answer you this way…”

“…”

“Instructor?”

“Tch. What a vicious guy! Answer my question already…!”

“…Ah.”

…I see. He’s just harassing the guy…

After he realized that, the boy promptly kept his mouth shut.

Because he knew, if he were to interfere any further…

I’ll get hit by the Lion’s Roar.

When he turned his glance at the table that had been blown to bits by the Lion’s Roar earlier, Derrick decided to hide his presence.

He didn’t want to share the same fate as that table.

*  *  *

“To summarize, the temple is in a chaotic state, am I right?”

“…You aren’t wrong, but that’s oversimplifying it too much.”

“Since that’s the case, your masters are calling you to join in the chaos.”

“I don’t have a master….”

“Don’t have a master my ass! You wagged your tail when they called you, didn’t you? Even after I beat you up, you still can’t come to your senses. You hopeless fuck. I pity Father Raphael.”

“…”

“What? Are you angry? My bad then, the truth always hurts.”

“You don’t need to apologize. It just makes me angrier…”

“But that’s exactly why I apologized?”

“!!?”

For the first time, Pierre’s expression cracked. Her eyes also turned bloodshot for a moment, it was clear that she was angry. However, Lee Han just snorted and ignored her before moving his gaze towards the two trash lying on the floor.

Tap-! Tap-!

One of them was an intern who bled so much that it wouldn’t be strange if he were to die at any moment, and the other was a guy who had been kicked by him after he heard him spouting nonsense towards Irene Windler under the guise of missionary work.

Fortunately, the priest had somewhat recovered from his injuries after receiving treatment with Divine Power, however, the guy just kept his head down and watched Lee Han’s every move.

Of course, he wasn’t like that at first.

Back when he first came to his senses…

-You blasphemous bastard! How dare you do something like this when you don’t know who I am! I’ll definitely punish you!!

Since he had what seemed to be an Intermittent Explosive Disorder, Lee Han started his treatment. After all, treating this kind of guy was his specialty.

Then, less than 30 minutes after he started his treatment…

-I-I’m sorry… P-Please… J-Just let me live…

The priest finally learned what manners were, and Lee Han once again was convinced that Anger Management Disorder was a treatable disease. However, because the disease could relapse at any time, he gave the guy additional treatment for three hours. After that, the bastard couldn’t even look him in the eye.

“…”

He was just trembling, kneeling, while crying.

To someone who wasn’t in the loop, it would seem like Lee Han was bullying a weak and powerless priest, but Lee Han had already heard the bastard’s entire life story during the treatment, so he could only laugh in vain.

“Are priests these days no different than loan sharks? Taking people’s blood, forcing them to borrow money from you, or at least, forcing them into situations where they have to borrow money from you. Are you guys even real priests?”

Seriously, I didn’t expect them to be this crazy.

It was surprising enough that a priest was lending money as business, but what was even more amazing was that the money he got from it was used to fill the high-ranking priests’ pockets. They also had the balls to send him to meet the Magic Chick.

Those temple guys—no, the faction this priest belongs to… Are they trying to pick a fight with Galahad?

I can’t understand the logic of lunatics…

At that moment, Lee Han just gave up on understanding.

Whether it was the guy who ordered to come to meet Galahad’s adopted daughter, or the guy who gave the order…

A bunch of lunatics. Each and every one of them!

*  *  *

To summarize, the temple had been experiencing a heated factional fight. If all the big and small factions were tallied, there were about 17 factions engaged in a fierce battle.

The reason for the fight?

Well, there were many.

Differences of opinions in interpreting the words of the God they believed in and an uproar caused by Isis’ recent activities that suppressed their power were some of them.

Currently, the temple had an agreement with the royal family, but some people in the temple thought that if Isis ascended to the throne, she might just break that agreement.

…Well, those were the surface reasons. The actual reason for the division was none other than…

“They’re just fighting over the position of the leader.”

“…It’s not that simple.”

“Not that simple my ass!”

Lee Han sneered.

From what he heard, there wasn’t much time left until their current leader retired, and the time to elect a new leader was rapidly approaching. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that they were fighting because of those high priests who coveted the leader’s position.

As for the girl in front of him…

“You are waiting to see which faction you should join.”

“…I won’t deny that.”

That was the reason why she met several temple officials in the photos that Blackie showed. At this, Lee Han just stared at her expressionlessly.

…Should I kill her?

He had been keeping her alive to save Father Raphael’s face, but he felt that these guys were crossing the line. One betrayed him because he thought he was a pushover and sold information about the Chick next door to the temple, while one was an opportunist fuck who was looking to change sides.

Humans are creatures of forgetfulness… I can see the truth in that saying even more now.

No matter how much fear someone instilled in people, they’d quickly forget it, especially those with madness guised as ‘belief’ or ‘faith’ within them.

Of course, it wasn’t like he was denying belief or faith, it was just, it was those things that were now causing damage to him, so he made up his mind.

Whoosh-!

Whoosh-!

The moment Lee Han finished his short contemplation and opened his eyes, a sharp wind blew.

Crackle-!

It was so sharp that it could even cut through one’s skin.

“W-Wait…”

“W-Why are you doing this to us too…?!”

The target of his killing intent weren’t only the fallen priest and Pierre.

Crunch-!

The interns—no, ‘all the heretic inquisitors’ were bathed with his killing intent.

On the other hand, despite their protests, Lee Han just calmly pulled out his axe. At that moment, the entire surrounding area was under his sphere of influence, and there was no way for them to escape.

The knight was sure that a swing of an axe would split their heads even if they tried to run away.

“Ugh…!”

The heretic inquisitors struggled, but they couldn’t even move.

It was only natural. After all, only the Aura Users or people with extremely high tier Mystics could resist the killing intent he unleashed.

Even if there were more than a hundred of them here, they’d still be unable to resist him, let alone when there were only nine of them. They didn’t even dare to think of running away from his aura.

“Any last words?”

“!!”

“If there aren’t any, so be it!”

Whoosh-!

Declaring that he wouldn’t hear their last words, Lee Han threw the axe in his hand, and…!

Crack-!

──He threw it towards the forest where there was supposed to be nothing there.

Thud…!

“W-What…!?”

Expecting to watch the kaleidoscope depicting their whole lives flashed in front of them, they could only blink. Their minds simply couldn’t understand the situation that was happening in front of them.

Why did the axe that was supposed to hit their heads fly into the forest? Why did someone fall from the trees when there was supposed to be no one there?

Such questions rose in their minds, but Lee Han just snickered at them.

“What a bunch of cowards. Think about it? Why the fuck would I kill someone for something like this? I’m not a murderer.”

Lee Han wasn’t a butcher who’d kill someone just because he got angry. At the same time, he was also a great actor who knew how to fool even his own troops.

But…

Sniff-! Sniff-!

“…?”

…His acting was just so good that it turned into a problem.

When he smelled the strong ammonia smell that spread through the air, he immediately panicked.

No way… Even if my acting is too good, there’s no way…

“There’s on way, right? Heretic inquisitors like you guys…”

“…”

“Surely there’s no way…”

“…”

“…?”

“…Ugh.”

“…Ugh.”

Lee Han scratched his cheek, feeling slightly embarrassed by their empty stares.

Ugh…

…At least, now he knew that this passionate method was too much for them.