Ch.210Heresy Inquisitor (2)

Sometimes, those in this world who consider themselves somewhat educated have this thought at least once as they grow up.

It’s a thought about a question worthy of serious consideration: How on earth can human civilization remain safe from cultists in this chaotic world?

For morale-boosting purposes, educational propaganda often portrays cultists as mere vagrant fanatics, and in reality, the vast majority of cultists are indeed social malcontents only slightly better than rioters.

However, the ‘real’ cultists, as they are commonly described in information controlled for social stability…

To be frank, despite making up less than 1% of all cultists, these ‘real ones’ are responsible for more than half of all damage attributed to cultists.

The power that cultists obtain through human sacrifices or ‘deals’ can, at best, transform a passing vagrant into a being with moderate combat capabilities.

Moreover, due to their unique propagation mechanism, they can infiltrate other groups with remarkable ease, resulting in far more cultists hiding throughout society like a plague than one might imagine.

Therefore, the hypothesis that these cultists are secretly expanding their influence across society is too realistic to dismiss as a mere conspiracy theory, making it difficult to treat as complete nonsense.

However, despite this harsh reality, there still remains something in the world that should be called hope…

This hope—though somewhat gothic to call it such—is known to the public as the ‘Inquisitor.’

Inquisitors, often called cultist hunters, are unique clergy who, simply put, are closer to inspectors of society at large.

Of course, their authority for inspection is incomparably higher than that of ordinary inspectors. Their power can truly be described as reaching the heavens without exaggeration.

Unlimited punishment—execution authority over all sentient beings within the Western Continent, the domain of the Pantheon. Unlimited right to resist regardless of power. Even the authority to freely requisition all assets of the Pantheon when necessary.

Such overwhelming legal authority, where the law might as well exist for them, would normally be considered too easily abused…

But along with this overwhelming authority, Inquisitors must also bear commensurate responsibility.

To put it bluntly, once someone becomes an Inquisitor, that priest is stripped of all autonomous rights and becomes merely a tool that moves only for the gods’ purposes.

It’s fundamental that the will of the gods, not personal opinion, becomes the primary criterion for judgment in all matters.

There’s no guarantee of a private life, so naturally, things like romance and marriage are strictly forbidden.

Some do return to regular priesthood after undergoing measures like memory erasure, but this applies only to extremely rare exceptions—literally ‘exceptions’ with only two recorded cases.

This is the identity of an Inquisitor—one who has pledged to fight evil (cultists) by dedicating their entire life.

And one such Inquisitor was Jäger, a veteran Inquisitor known as the ‘Heretic Hunter.’

Typically, Inquisitors move according to missions delivered in the form of divine oracles and are deployed to dangerous battlefields, which is why many of them die in the line of duty.

However, Inquisitors who survive to be called veterans possess exceptional combat skills and insight, becoming beings like Jäger who excel above all else in finding and killing heretics.

Jäger in particular was a typical radical Inquisitor with an impressive gothic-style coat and hat like something out of Blood■, along with mechanically enhanced weapons.

Having had his entire family sacrificed to cultists and barely rescued himself just before being offered, he was thoroughly armed with vengeance, and today too, he had unfailingly unleashed that hatred by wiping out a cult…

【─.】

As Jäger rested his blood-soaked body after annihilating the cult, compressed information—an oracle—descended into his mind in a voice not of human origin.

A torrent of information with dozens or hundreds of pieces compressed into a single word enters—so much information that an ordinary organism would not only fail to comprehend it but would likely go insane.

Of course, Inquisitors are already different from normal organisms, their souls altered and bound to the puppet strings of the gods, becoming appendages of the Pantheon.

Their brains can handle this overwhelming torrent of information, allowing Jäger to fully interpret the oracle and complete his analysis in relatively short order.

‘…What is this?’

It was about a rare case that the Inquisitor Jäger seemed to be encountering for the first time.

According to the oracle, his task was to verify the elimination of a doppelganger and recover artifacts from enemies as requested by ‘Sir Camille d’Alzar,’ a talented young knight and ‘miracle experiencer’ making a name for himself in the Frankish Kingdom.

Considering the maddening characteristics of doppelgangers, it was a reasonable condition, and especially with this doppelganger suspected to be ‘Wedge Samson,’ it was understandable that an Inquisitor would be dispatched directly.

But the reason why Jäger, an Inquisitor who had been through all manner of trials and seen all sorts of filth, was perplexed was because…

‘…The legitimate child of ‘Gluttony’?’

The identity of this knight Sir d’Alzar was that of a legitimate child of an evil demon lord, and on top of that, the lofty gods of the Pantheon were advocating for and protecting this being—an unprecedented situation.

Honestly, Jäger was bound to be shocked at this enormous figure from his position as an Inquisitor, but separately from that, he did not express any personal opinion on this matter.

Despite his personal circumstances of having lost his family to cultists, specifically servants of ‘Gluttony’… that was merely the story and circumstance of the human Jäger.

Inquisitor Jäger moved according to the will of the oracle without any regard for his personal views.

Of course, no matter how much an Inquisitor is born as a fundamentally different being with an altered soul, their essence is ultimately human, so they too have emotions and personal preferences.

In reality, Jäger personally found this ‘Sir d’Alzar,’ the legitimate child of Gluttony, quite disagreeable, but having such personal feelings had no impact whatsoever on his work as an Inquisitor.

Beyond separating public and private matters, with ‘celestial’ will designated as the top priority in all thought and judgment, he simply did not have the authority to manipulate his work based on such personal thoughts or feelings.

Anyway, in the process of faithfully fulfilling his duty as an Inquisitor to carry out his assigned mission regardless of personal feelings, Jäger was able to receive additional oracles from the heavens several times, as he always had.

Most were passing on additional information related to regular missions, and this time too, Jäger received information related to the mission—mainly about Sir d’Alzar.

And the more he received this information in the form of oracles, the more Jäger could feel the negative image he had of Sir d’Alzar being stripped away.

A ‘heroic’ being born as a child of ‘Gluttony’ against his will, who resolutely rejected all temptations and achieved his current accomplishments.

The content that he had reached his current state by maintaining his convictions despite numerous temptations and contacts resonated even more strongly with Jäger, who knew well the evil nature of demons.

The most common situation encountered during Inquisitor activities is the absurd scenario where a human, whose reasons for corruption are incomprehensible, suddenly turns out to be a cultist.

For Jäger, who had encountered the abyss of human depravity many times, the image of a human who strives for good despite being born from evil was incredibly noble.

And… this perspective was further amplified after actually meeting Sir d’Alzar.

Despite carrying a beast within that growled with ferocity and savagery, he restrained it with reins and faced him with a dignified attitude—a rare sight.

Such a human figure, possessing a straightforwardness and uprightness like a sharp, straight blade, was like rain in a drought to an Inquisitor who had inwardly felt disillusionment with human beings…

“…If needed, you may rely on the Inquisition as much as you wish.”

Having delivered the message he originally needed to convey, with his personal views added, Jäger then resolved to return to his primary duties.

After all, his essence was, ultimately, the scalpel of faith that excises and removes heresy.