Ch.147Cleanup (1)

# Chapter 147: Aftermath (1)

“For the sake of the imperial system, we can’t completely eliminate the Papal Office.”

“Then how about pinning all the blame for this incident on those who are still resisting?”

“Oh.”

As a strange situation unfolded where we had to sacrifice the forces defending the Papal Office in order to save the institution itself.

I casually tried to offer a word of comfort to Assistant Emilia.

No, to the current Acting Pope.

But the moment I turned my gaze toward her to do so.

“Phewww.”

She exhaled with a relieved expression, as if a heavy burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Seeing this, I quietly returned my gaze to its original position and thought.

‘She must have been through quite an ordeal.’

Just from the stories I’d heard, Assistant Emilia seemed to have been in an “I’m the only sane one” position in a Papal Office full of fanatics.

Having to manage the Papal Office while leading such colorful characters in that situation.

‘I understand.’

Thinking about how much stress she must have endured while handling her duties, I unconsciously felt a shiver run down my spine.

Moreover, when I glanced aside, I noticed that Riel, who happened to be there, must have had similar thoughts.

She was looking at Emilia and trembling just like me.

————————————

Anyway, after gaining the consent of the mistress of the Papal Office, no, the Acting Pope Assistant Emilia.

The fate of the Pope’s loyalists, who were still rampaging like madmen, was essentially sealed for destruction.

“Kill the heretics! It’s time to raise the imperial banner high once again!”

Of course, as always.

The parties involved continued repeating what they had been doing, unaware of their fate.

They acted solely on their belief in purifying the Empire by tearing apart and killing heretics, following the words of the great Holy Pope whom they believed in, followed, and supported.

But no matter how elite a battle-hardened unit might be, it was natural that they needed to fill their stomachs to fight.

“Why aren’t supplies coming from the Papal Office?”

“…There’s a limit to how long we can respond with fasting prayers.”

Not long after supplies from the Papal Office were cut off.

Due to extreme starvation, they were showing signs of being unable to exert even a tenth of their original combat power.

But their ordeal was far from over.

-Wooooo…!

“Oh… supplies?”

When they saw an “army” appearing from beyond the horizon in the distance approaching them, the Papal forces tried to move toward them, but.

-Bububububoom!

“Aaaagh!!!”

“Gyaaaah!!”

“What in the… guh!”

The newly appeared “army” answered by unleashing indiscriminate bombardment on the Papal forces, the Sacred Realm Protection Knights, who were approaching as if entranced.

Naturally, since the entire unit was in a state of starvation…

As mentioned above, the Sacred Realm Protection Knights were mercilessly slaughtered without even being given a chance to exert their proper combat power.

Of course, for those experiencing such a situation, it was truly maddening.

“You fools! What are you doing firing on your allies?!”

They tried to ask the other side to stop the bombardment through the public communication network, but…

-“There is no mercy for heretical imposters who pledge loyalty to humans instead of God.”

“…What?!”

“W-who are you calling imposters and heretics, you bastards!”

Understanding the meaning of the cold communication that came with the bombardment, they realized they had been abandoned by the Papal Office.

“…Assistant Emilia, did you really abandon us?”

There were two pieces of fortunate news for them.

One was that the despair they would have felt from the orbital bombardment that followed immediately afterward probably didn’t last long.

The other was that they weren’t the only ones being purged.

——————————–

Sometime later, inside the Foreign Affairs Execution Minister’s office.

“Minister, I’ve just received word that the annihilation operation against the Toscana Legion was successful.”

“Ah, finally.”

As I listened to Riel’s report, I checked the event message that had appeared a few days ago.

No, the quest message.

[Quest: Extermination of the False Cult]

[Through negotiations with the Papal Office, you have decided to place all blame for this incident on the Papal execution units that massacred refugees and on the deceased Pope.]

[Therefore, it is necessary to completely annihilate these false heretical units as soon as possible to once again firmly establish the imperial banner.]

[Objective: Eliminate Pope’s loyalist units (4 out of 4 eliminated)]

[Reward: ???]

‘It’s been a while since I’ve seen a quest.’

Perhaps because I haven’t seen quests for several years.

I was about to get lost in idle thoughts while looking at the quest window floating before my eyes, but…

‘Ah, that damn random… no, hidden reward.’

As soon as I saw the [Reward: ???] written at the end, I felt an inexplicable surge of annoyance.

That’s because according to my memory, rewards written like that.

Nine times out of ten ended up being either completely useless or just something to recover my “fatigue.”

Those were the only two possibilities.

Yet I couldn’t just ignore the quest because it was bothersome.

Because for some reason, unlike event messages, that damned quest window wouldn’t disappear from my sight no matter what I did.

It kept appearing even when I closed the status window.

It kept appearing even when I moved the screen—a truly annoying quest window.

Currently, the only way to get rid of this damned quest window was to complete the quest as quickly as possible.

‘Damn thing.’

To eliminate the Pope’s loyalists specified in this quest, I mobilized not only purge units but also internal security forces and imperial guards.

I even deployed regional peacekeeping forces and Papal Office troops to thoroughly slaughter those bastards.

And thanks to that, I was able to successfully eliminate all those damned Pope’s loyalists in less time than expected.

But even after eliminating them all, the quest wasn’t completed, which made me tilt my head in confusion.

After a while, I remembered that to complete the quest, I needed to click on the objective.

‘…Tsk.’

Everything else can be controlled with just a glance or thought, so why does this one thing require physical touch?

‘They talk about system updates, but they never fix things like this.’

While inwardly cursing whoever created the status window, I placed my finger on the completed objective in the quest window.

And shortly after.

-Ding-a-ling~!

[Pause]

With a cheap-sounding effect, the “quest window” floating before my eyes had changed into an “event message.”

[Event: Extermination of the False Heretics]

[Through negotiations with the Papal Office, you have decided to place all blame for this incident on the Papal execution units that massacred refugees and on the deceased Pope.]

[Therefore, it is necessary to completely annihilate these false heretical units as soon as possible to once again firmly establish the imperial banner.]

[Objective: Eliminate Pope’s loyalist units (Completed)]

[Rewards available]

‘This seems a bit different.’

It hadn’t changed dramatically, but that wasn’t particularly important.

‘Claim reward.’

I naturally decided to take a proper look at what rewards I had earned for clearing the quest.

Interestingly, unlike before, a separate reward list appeared before my eyes.

[Reward 1: Recovery of Arto Virtorius Sevelli’s Fatigue (Extra Large)]

‘What is this now,’

And the first thing I see is that fatigue recovery again.

Naturally, since fatigue recovery is now useless to me.

I lightly skipped reward 1 and decided to check the next reward.

[Reward 2: Acquisition of Holy Sevelli Empire Papal Office Administrator Position]

‘Holy shit.’

As soon as I saw the reward, I hastily closed the event window containing that reward and fell into contemplation.

‘Are they asking me to become the Pope?’

Of course, such contemplation didn’t last long.

That’s because I was already refusing the position of “Saint,” which was just below the Pope and Emperor, due to the overwhelming administrative workload it demanded.

And now Pope?

For a common citizen like me, such a position was too burdensome and involved far too many duties.

So I skipped this part as well and decided to look further at what other rewards there might be.

But what had seemed like a long list of rewards…

-Tick tick.

‘…’

Was literally just long in appearance.

In reality, there were only two actual rewards inside—a typical case of excessive packaging.

I was seized with the desire to immediately unpause and slam my fist on the table.