Ch.117117. Assassination Cult (1)

‘············Serves them right.’

A moment later, as I watched the grotesquely shaped abomination being well-packaged and abducted to the church, I snorted and muttered those words—when suddenly a thought occurred to me.

‘There will be more of them······these types.’

There would always be more fools who fail to understand their place and run wild, but to deal with all of them, the Inquisitors are… too few in number and lack the necessary stealth.

Of course, when it comes to combat prowess for slicing through heretics, gathering information about heresy, and interrogating subjects to reveal what they’re hiding, each Inquisitor is practically superhuman—with a bit of exaggeration, they’re like Sherlock Holmes-level deductive geniuses who can extract personal information from casual conversation.

The original purpose of establishing the Inquisitors wasn’t to deal with such small fry anyway; they were specifically organized as a special position to identify and handle internal enemies in my stead.

Therefore, while they were designed to intervene externally to some extent, they had clear limitations when it came to full-scale external operations.

Every Inquisitor has at least once wiped out a heretical sect that disrespected the church while claiming to serve me.

Even if such an organization doesn’t seem problematic, they ultimately ignored my decree, making them heretics who, by their own admission, defied the will of the god they claimed to serve.

And when conducting these heretic purges, the Inquisitors deliberately move with flair.

They intentionally act with overwhelming force to instill fear in overzealous believers, preventing rash actions and thereby establishing and enforcing church discipline—they are the “stick” in the proverbial carrot-and-stick approach, which naturally creates problems in terms of covert operations.

They must announce the presence of Inquisitors in all directions during their “activities,” which is why Inquisitors typically travel with supporting priests or warriors to compensate for this.

Therefore, for these flamboyantly operating Inquisitors—who are close-combat priests not numerous enough and somewhat doctrinally misaligned—to regulate and address individual deviant behaviors, especially those committed by non-church entities, there were inevitable material and practical limitations.

So, after much contemplation, I finally came up with a brilliant idea.

‘····Ah. That method could work.’

A high-quality workforce that could easily and covertly clean up these deviant outsiders, while also being deployable for various covert operations and missions requiring discretion.

What I envisioned was none other than a secret organization composed of assassins—an Assassination Bureau.

Of course, while I call it an Assassination Bureau, it would effectively be an organization that combines modern espionage, and such an organization doesn’t exist anywhere in this ancient era······.

Correction. Unless under the command of the God of Conspiracy, an organization as I’ve conceived wouldn’t exist.

Anyway, the most crucial mission of this Assassination Bureau would naturally be assassination—swiftly eliminating blasphemers who run wild using my name and talented individuals from the Roman Empire who could become obstacles in the future.

One might wonder how to eliminate all such individuals, but for assassins specialized in assassination, this would be their primary duty.

Assassin, an advanced class of the warrior profession Rogue, specializes in stealth and assassination as the name suggests.

In Dungeon & Adventure, an Assassin’s assassination combo attack could deplete half of an enemy’s HP, making them incredibly powerful nukers capable of delivering massive burst damage to a single target.

Add to this their stealth ability, which functions almost like high-level invisibility magic yet isn’t magical (and thus undetectable by certain means).

For strategies that involve rapidly expending resources to take out the enemy’s core forces first, no profession excelled more than the Assassin.

Additionally, while not as proficient as other advanced Rogue classes, Assassins are skilled in detection, infiltration, and eavesdropping—the specialties of the Rogue line.

Though not as specialized as the Treasure Hunter line, they are specifically designed to approach assassination targets through unexpected routes.

For sneaking in, taking a head, and escaping safely—for assassination—no profession surpasses the Assassin.

Moreover, the Assassination Bureau could excel in various intelligence operations beyond assassination.

VIP protection from assassination attempts.

Counter-intelligence operations to detect, eliminate, or capture enemy spies who infiltrate to gather information or attempt assassinations.

Also, using various methods to establish identities within enemy formations for black operations, or infiltrating to collect diverse information.

With a proper system in place, one could gain an information advantage, and such espionage/assassination organizations become insanely efficient once faith becomes involved.

Common issues in intelligence organizations—internal betrayal, interrogation or torture of captured agents, or information leaks through negotiation—all become meaningless in the face of an agent’s overwhelming faith.

To put it simply, one can cultivate assassins or agents who do not fear death.

Typically, agents defect because they value their lives or are threatened regarding something precious like family… but would one’s life really be so precious when a god is directly watching over them?

Additionally, when the god they worship gives direct orders, it becomes a divine oracle, providing a motivation stronger than anything else—”following the will of god.”

Even if they die during a mission, the afterlife promised by their god awaits, making them prioritize mission success over their own lives.

Therefore, having come up with this idea, I decided to implement it all at once, but…

Before I could even begin, I encountered a serious problem.

Namely, the absence of a method to cultivate thieves (Rogues) such as assassins or agents.

Training warriors or soldiers for the Avenger Legion was solved by using faithful former Imperial Legion members or Blood Warrior veterans as instructors.

For priests using holy magic, understanding how to use power came naturally, so religious cultivation was more important.

For mages, I had the full cooperation of the magical scholar Lunifer Paicentrius and naturally gifted magic users like vampires, but…

While it might be possible to train people as secret intelligence agents or spies, educating them in system professions like assassin or thief required experts.

Of course, for truly fundamental assassins—those who take hashish and, intoxicated with fanaticism, kill openly in broad daylight, closer to the roots of the Assassin—cultivation would be easier.

Take social misfits or dispensable fanatics, secretly persuade them, and simultaneously “bless” them with a slight mental adjustment, and the basic preparation is complete.

Strengthen them with blessings that eliminate pain and provide explosive physical abilities, give them a knife, and send them charging—a disposable assassin is created.

However, these disposables consume much effort and faith relative to their combat power, create societal aversion to the church, and have extremely low success rates.

From the beginning, I wanted professional assassins or intelligence agents, not terrorists who worship me as a god.

It would be far more efficient to send such individuals to the Holy Assault Squad, which is always short on manpower.

So, after pondering how to solve this problem, I came up with a rather good idea:

‘········Ah. Then I’ll just recruit existing ones.’

This was a reverse approach.

The best method would be to organize an Assassination Bureau exactly as I want, but I currently lack the personnel and training methods.

So I thought in reverse.

Rather than building from scratch, I’d recruit one of the existing assassination specialist organizations and then reshape it according to my wishes while instilling loyalty.

It might be less stable than raising them from the roots, but I had confidence in my ability to cultivate fanatics.

‘Alright, then········.’

As I shifted my gaze to find an organization worth recruiting, my eyes fell upon one that met all the right conditions.