Ch.106106. Rampage of the Lambs

# Chapter 107

Marbas regained consciousness.

Amon tortured him with a dagger thoroughly coated in Divine Power.

“In the name of the Mother, the Saint, and the Holy Spirit! Speak, demon!”

“Why don’t you ask what you want to knowAAAARGH!!!”

As the demon screamed his throat raw, Amon belatedly asked his question.

“Tell me what’s happening in the Holy City.”

“Why ask me? We never even made a deal…”

Ting.

When Amon tapped his daggers together like a bell, the correct answer immediately followed.

“I don’t know everything… I only remember that Heinrich bastard stole my knowledge more than ten years ago…”

“What knowledge?”

“I told you. He took it. He threatened me just like you’re doing, and I gave him the knowledge.”

“You don’t want to talk, I see.”

Amon began sharpening his sword.

Marbas panicked and spoke with an attitude close to begging.

“You think I gave him lessons? He stole it! Obviously the content isn’t in my head anymore!”

After shouting frantically, Marbas breathed heavily.

“You asked me to reveal the secret of what’s happening in the Holy City? I don’t know that either. That bastard bound me to this city, so I can’t find out…”

Seeming to believe there was nothing more to extract, Amon raised his sword.

Before Amon finished him, Marbas spat curses at him.

“You damn crusader bastard… and you call yourself a believer?”

“Violence is permitted against heretics and monsters.”

And since demons qualified as both, Amon was innocent.

“Wait for me in hell.”

“When are you sending me back to hell?”

“Wait, hey, hey!”

Amon cleanly eliminated Marbas like any other demon.

“All this commotion and nothing to show for it.”

Of course, it wasn’t completely fruitless.

Through his “conversation” with Marbas, Amon learned about Heinrich’s past.

The fact that he tortured a demon to extract knowledge,

That Heinrich, despite appearances, was strong enough to handle Marbas,

And finally, that he had bound the demon to this city.

The information itself was valuable.

But it didn’t explain what Heinrich was hiding.

Just then, the priest on the radio contradicted that thought.

[That’s not entirely true.]

The priest had started searching records as soon as Marbas spoke, and

[There are records of places the Cardinal frequently visited during the period the demon mentioned.]

He had found a useful clue.

“Where?”

[The Necropolis.]

“The one under the Vatican?”

[Yes.]

Amon tilted his head.

“Why there?”

[I’m not sure. But it must be related. Perhaps he was trying to resurrect a saint…]

Amon’s expression hardened.

Resurrection of the dead.

It was among the highest forms of blasphemy.

But for some reason, he didn’t think Heinrich would do such a thing.

“I’ll head there for now. How is the conclave going?”

[It seems it will start soon.]

“We should hurry then.”

Amon prepared to leave the city of water.

There were about three days left until the conclave began.

*

Amon’s group returned to the Vatican.

They headed straight for the Necropolis.

The Necropolis, city of the dead

It was a cemetery that appeared when one descended deeper below the tombs of past popes and saints.

Some say the remains of the first pope are buried there, others say that’s a lie and they’re buried elsewhere, but only the Goddess knows the truth.

Sonia nodded at Amon’s explanation.

“So, what are we looking for here?”

“I’m not sure.”

They had come, but even Amon didn’t know.

“There’s no record of what Heinrich did here…”

Finding evidence seemed impossible.

This was from over 10 years ago. There was no way evidence would remain at the scene.

Looking around, there were only stone statues and coffins.

They couldn’t just start opening coffins in search of evidence.

Yet, despite the lack of evidence, Amon somehow felt he knew who they needed to find.

“This can’t be a coincidence, can it?”

Amon pointed to an elderly man in a wheelchair.

It was a face Kathy recognized too.

And for good reason—he was the manager of the mercenary agency where they first met.

He was also Amon’s exclusive broker.

Amon approached the manager from behind and made his presence known.

“Elder, it’s been a while.”

“What? You’re still alive?”

“What kind of reaction is that?”

“A guy who took jobs like clockwork once a month disappears for a year—of course I thought you were dead.”

“Haha…”

Having gone underground for security while operating in Europe, such a misunderstanding was understandable.

“So, why are you here?”

“Well…”

Instead of answering, Amon showed him Sonia who had come along.

Sonia affectionately held Amon’s arm.

That alone was enough for the old man to understand.

“Hmm. So she was the saint’s lover.”

“Manager, this is your first time seeing Sonia.”

“I thought that Kathy girl was your lover.”

Crack.

For some reason, there was a sound like joints twisting in an arm, but Amon’s expression remained unchanged as the conversation continued.

“Then why are you here, Elder?”

“I’m involved with the conclave.”

“Were you a Cardinal?”

“No. Let’s just say I’m a relative of a saint.”

“So it really wasn’t a coincidence.”

“Are you investigating the chaos happening in the Holy City right now?”

“Yes. You too?”

“I’m confirming rather than investigating.”

At Amon’s muttering, the old man looked at his face.

After a moment of silence, the manager spoke again.

“Follow me. I have something to show you.”

Amon’s group obediently followed the manager’s electric wheelchair.

Passing a sign that read <Authorized Personnel Only>, the old man stopped at a corridor and swiped a card on the wall.

Swoosh.

The door opened, and the manager headed inside without hesitation.

Eventually, they came upon a container completely different from the other sarcophagi.

It was barely a coffin.

A man was sleeping inside what looked like a glass capsule, the kind you might see in a laboratory.

A man who appeared dead, as if sleeping submerged in visibly cold cooling fluid.

He wore a head gear connected to a monitor,

which continuously output sentences with no discernible meaning.

“This is…”

Facing the bewildered Amon, the manager introduced the man.

“Isn’t it fascinating?”

Amon agreed.

And for good reason—despite having no heartbeat or breathing movements, the man’s brain was violently active as if alive.

The manager looked at the man with eyes that seemed both nostalgic and reverent.

And without taking his eyes off the man, he said,

“You once told me, didn’t you? That you would become a mercenary as legendary as the Mercenary King.”

“Could it be…”

“Let me introduce you. The one who saved the world, restored freedom to cyberspace, and chose to eternally guard that space…”

The poor Entity.

*

50 years ago,

In what Amon would call the era of Punk City 3.

At that time, society’s internet was far from free.

Insane Super AIs drifted through the space, and humanity had to build firewalls—walls by another name—to escape from them.

Within those narrow firewalls, citizens were monitored by corporations.

The Mercenary King was a hero who suddenly appeared during that period.

A hero who defeated Super AIs that fried human brains, and ultimately allowed humans to regain freedom in cyberspace.

That was how his exploits were known to the public.

‘But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.’

When he heard that the man had liberated humans from Super AIs, Amon couldn’t help but smile wryly.

In the original work, his achievements couldn’t be described so simply.

According to the true ending of the original, the beings the Mercenary King faced were beyond Super AIs.

An AI that designed monsters transcending biological limitations.

An AI that designed the future at the molecular level and led to inevitable outcomes.

An AI that created equations that devoured thermodynamics.

An AI that manipulated human cognition.

The Mercenary King single-handedly isolated these worst artificial intelligences that controlled the world from behind the scenes and farmed humans.

More precisely, he sealed them within his own brain.

His subsequent activities remained unknown.

After sealing the artificial intelligences and returning freedom to the world, he completely isolated himself from the internet.

Such a being was sleeping in the basement of the Vatican.

“I don’t understand the principle, but afterward, the old man became an Entity.”

Even after several decades, the manager still called the Mercenary King “old man.”

“The Vatican recognized his achievements and canonized him as a saint, giving him this place.”

The old man stroked the container sadly as he continued.

“There have been multiple reports of Cyberpsycho phenomena in the Vatican this month alone. You might not know, but for me and this man, it’s a familiar phenomenon.”

Amon nodded.

The mass seizure scene only visible in the final battle of the true ending.

The current phenomenon was quite similar to that time.

He simply hadn’t considered Super AIs as candidates because he knew they had definitely disappeared.

The manager, sensing something from Amon’s nod, pointed to the monitor.

“I don’t know what’s going on right now. But I know what I need to do. You try asking there. When the priests and I tried, there was no response, but maybe it’ll be different with you.”

As the manager suggested, Amon approached the monitor.

He tapped on the keyboard installed below the monitor.

<Hello World.>

There was no response.

“Programmers have already tried that.”

Hearing the manager’s words, Amon tried different sentences.

<Hey>

<Let there be coding>

<System encoding command>

“Try ‘print’ once.”

“Console log?”

His companions chimed in from behind, but still there was no response.

After continued failures, Amon pondered for a moment.

Then he typed again,

<Hey, cowboy. Get the fxxx up. We’ve got walls to burn.>

At Amon’s typing, the two women tensed their cheeks.

In contrast, the manager burst into laughter.

“Haha! That’s exactly what that man used to say! Good attempt. But… huh?”

The manager stared blankly at the screen, then began to tear up.

( ͡¬ ͜ ͡¬) , “It’s time for Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Along with a sly smile, a familiar response was being displayed on the screen.