Ch.189Revelation (3)

The content was as calm as the tone, focusing primarily on stories directly related to the mission rather than personal anecdotes.

Thanks to this, Maria could easily grasp the overall context.

“What a mess.”

Maria growled while looking toward the Southern Papal Office. As befitting an Inquisitor, she held no illusions about the church.

Since understanding that the church was ultimately a gathering of people, and that everyone can be tempted and fall but also overcome and rise again, she had become even more pragmatic.

An Inquisitor returns those who have lost their way back to God’s embrace while discerning the right and wrong of teachings. They remove what is harmful and preserve and refine what is good. Like a doctor stitching wounds and cutting out abscesses.

But combining what she heard from Kain with what she herself had seen, heard, and experienced, this matter seemed far from simple.

The two traced back everything they had heard so far.

The Seven Heroes and the Fifth Crusade headed to the Northeastern Wasteland, a cursed land, to suppress the Demon King’s forces. When the Empire was established, the once-powerful Life Tree Order split into two factions.

The minority faction of light and fire priests converted to the Two-headed Eagle and sided with the Empire, while the majority faction fought for shadow, darkness, and the traditions and freedom of the king’s era.

Thus, under the protection of light and fire, the Two-headed Eagle and the Empire achieved victory. However, unnecessary sacrifices followed. The majority faction, peacefully contained in the northeastern lands, was massacred.

As they died, they cast a curse, a powerful spell: as the Empire’s life endlessly cycles, hatred would grow with it. Someday, the Empire would have to pay for their bloodshed with interest.

Due to the poison, the Northeastern Wasteland became an abandoned land where not even a blade of grass would grow. Those who approached went mad, and animals turned away completely.

It was a land where only resentment, hatred-filled resentment, lived and writhed.

And the world overflowed with other grudges. The Crusades, which occurred three times, were battles against heretics. Unfortunate ones like the Samarians were born, and people who lost their families filled the world.

There were no winners or losers—just scrambling to keep what was theirs and take more from others. That was the extent of the value of the grandiose thing called the Crusade.

The decisive blow was the Fourth Crusade. Though relations between the Empire and the Eastern Alliance weren’t good, they had shared the common ground of the Two-headed Eagle faith, so they had uneasily remained in the same boat.

But the boat capsized absurdly. The Easterners taught the Empire that even beliefs could be sold for immediate gain.

Hatred seethed in the world. Lost hatreds answered the call. “I will resolve your anger. I will liberate you. I will free you from the obsession that binds and constricts you, preventing you from sleeping or eating.”

Hatred was absorbed into greater hatred. Thus, resentment became the Demon King. The impact was visible to the naked eye. Foolish humans who willingly sacrificed themselves to destroy the world in despair and frustration became monsters unrecognizable from what they originally were.

As the Demon King’s forces and the Shadow encroached upon the land, the Fifth Crusade arose. The brave had already lost their lives in previous wars, and this Crusade consisted of cowards who survived, opportunists looking for a chance, and those overwhelmed by the feeling that things couldn’t get any worse.

There were also those wrapped in courage and faith. The Children’s Crusade. But by the time they reached the northeast, they were already slaves. In other words, only children believed that taking up arms would make the world better.

What the Seven Heroes saw at the source of the disturbance was each person’s fear. The Demon King was a monster without substance. To the eyes of the Seven Heroes, the Demon King appeared in the form each feared most.

So they gathered hatred.

“It’s you. You led us here. You, who led us, are you not the Demon King’s minion?”

Ismene. An apprentice cleric who received a revelation that she would become a hero and shared half an Asas fruit with her friend Laios.

But by then, she had almost given up on herself, a broken girl who only muttered, “I will be a hero. God told me so.” The Seven Heroes placed the blame on her.

At that moment, the Demon King appeared before everyone’s eyes. Not the Demon King that existed only in their minds, but a vivid Demon King right before them.

A Demon King of flesh and blood that could be cut, stabbed, crushed, destroyed, and conquered. That’s how Ismene became the Demon King. She was designated as the Demon King. Whatever sin she had committed, whatever kind of person she had been, it didn’t matter.

The fact that seven people present had pointed at her.

That was all.

“So,” Maria rubbed between her eyebrows. “These great Seven Heroes divided her soul into seven parts and each ‘swallowed’ one?”

“Yes. I don’t know why they made that decision. It seems clear that the Apostle of Temperance, Arius, proposed it. Roberta of Kindness encouraged others.

And not everyone ‘ate’ it. Arianne of Humility just buried it in the ground. So… instead, that piece dwelled in Laios.”

“So Laios became the Knight of the Scabbard.” Maria nodded in understanding. “What do you think, Kain?”

“About what?”

“We need to form a hypothesis. Why these great heroes are causing such chaos after ten years. Why Laios suddenly woke up six months ago and started wandering around covered in a black blanket. And why our order is trying to cover all this up… Let’s take it one by one.”

He had thoughts about the first point.

“I think they split into two factions. William of Chastity wrote in his letter that someone, or some people, broke their oath and betrayed them.

Arius of Temperance and William of Chastity committed depraved and cursed evil acts, and each one of them was nauseating…”

Struggling with how to express it, Kain finally gave up. There is no such thing as greater or lesser evil. Evil is simply evil. If those who sought power were wicked, the actions of Temperance and Chastity were obscene and disgusting.

“Anyway, they didn’t want to seize power. They just seemed to want to enjoy their status. Arianne of Humility was completely opposite. She didn’t want to return to her miserable past, but instead hid behind the name of hero.

But Hans, Roberta, and Leonardo were different.

They cooperated with each other, smuggled Asas grass that could mimic the terror of the northeastern wasteland, and created their own community. Though different in form, one thing was the same: they sought power.”

Roberta created a small village and seduced even a count, essentially acting as a sovereign. Hans operated like a shadowy figure, pursuing his own interests.

Leonardo worked as a businessman while trying to devour Venelucia. They knew how to use the Demon King’s power that dwelled within them. And they had enough ambition.

But because Arius of Temperance still dominated the heroes, they had been quietly building their power.

Then when he was first hunted at the pearl coast of Venelucia, the remaining heroes all revealed their true colors.

“Then the problem is this.” Maria pressed her finger on the table.

“According to you, Laios can’t see properly, but he’s obsessed with gathering the soul of the Demon King, that is, his girlfriend’s soul?”

“That’s right. Since Laios also has a piece of her inside him, there must be some kind of resonance between them.”

“Whatever it is, anyway. Then what I’m curious about is why Arius of Temperance crawled all the way to Venelucia, why he met with Father Prolo from the order there, and how Leonardo is connected to him… Venelucia decided to ‘gift’ him to the Empire?”

“I believe so. I don’t know when he’ll arrive though.”

“He’s in for a rough time.” Maria didn’t seem particularly sympathetic.

“Anyway, something will come out if we squeeze hard enough. What I want to say is, it’s not about Arius and Prolo-Leonardo. It’s about Laios.”

“Why?”

“From what we’ve learned so far, Laios doesn’t just appear for no reason. He drops in on his monster ship when heroes use the Demon King’s power or when something similar happens around them. Right?”

“That’s true. It was like that with Arianne too. The Black Phoenix priests practically summoned him.”

“Then, at the pearl dock, doesn’t that mean either Arius of Temperance used the Demon King’s power or the Black Phoenix Faith people performed some ritual? That’s why Laios appeared and took him away.”

Kain nodded. Logically, that had to be the case.

“According to William’s letter, Arius was the one who proposed the concept of sealing. It doesn’t seem likely that he would lead a Black Phoenix ritual or use the Demon King’s power. He used it to continue his lustful and obscene life without restraint. It wasn’t about power hunger. Then someone…”

“Performed a ritual to summon him?”

Kain and Maria had the same thought simultaneously.

They wondered if Leonardo of Charity had set a trap. The Black Phoenix priests would have been sufficiently cultivated by then, and there would have been enough Asas.

So they performed the ritual to summon Laios. Laios easily hunted Arius and…

“But this doesn’t add up either,” Kain pointed out.

“Arius was attacked first. So they couldn’t have known that performing a Black Phoenix ritual would make Laios appear.

So it’s also awkward to say Leonardo set a trap. Though he certainly had enough motive to eliminate him.”

“There’s a lot to squeeze out of this Prolo person in many ways.” Maria seemed unsatisfied. But she soon shook her head lightly. Kain smiled and answered.

“Don’t worry. I’ll send a letter about that part. I have a lot to ask. Actually, I couldn’t think that far on my own.”

“It’s convenient to have someone who’s suspicious and picks fights about everything, isn’t it?”

Maria raised her chin arrogantly. Kain burst into laughter. But Maria looked serious.

“Don’t laugh. There’s one more thing. Laios, that dark guy. He said he was a real hero, right?”

“He did. That he was chosen as a hero.”

“He split the Asas fruit in half and shared it with Ismene.”

“That’s what he said. Though Asas is actually a plant that causes hallucinations and dulls the senses, and the fruit is just an ordinary fruit unless processed.”

“Doesn’t something seem off?”

At Maria’s point, Kain tilted his head.

“What?”

“He says he was ‘chosen’ as a hero. But stealing and eating the fruit wasn’t something he did because he was ‘chosen,’ but because ‘they wanted to.’ Doesn’t that feel completely different?”

A strange sense of dissonance was felt.

That was true. Laios clearly said he was ‘chosen.’ Then, who told him that?

Kain looked toward Valhalla Castle. If Laios was truly an apprentice knight of the White Blood Knights, they needed to see the White Blood’s records. But only the Grand Master of the White Blood Knights had that authority.

“Hey, Maria. By any chance, is Lily…”

“Sigh.”

Maria’s heavy sigh filled the air.