Ch.226Report on the Collapse of Patience (19)

Laios slammed his fist into the ground. Black fire surged forth. But when Günther stomped on it with his foot, it faded away powerlessly.

“You try to defeat light with darkness?”

Laios struggled to get to his feet. But trapped in the net of light, he could neither move freely nor transform into shadow as he wished.

Though he tried to force his way, each time the heavy mace of the armored infantry crashed down on his back. Groans escaped him bit by bit. Günther smiled coldly.

“Yet the Lord discards no tool. As the Lord does, so shall I. You need only return to where you belong.”

“I will take back what isn’t yours!”

“Does a servant do his duty and then demand his share from the master? Do the hammer and forge do their work and then demand compensation from the blacksmith? Then the master will hire a new servant and prepare new equipment.

There was never such thing as your share or my share. To be used according to God’s will is proper, righteous, and glorious—what more could you possibly want?”

Günther’s face was filled with light. Victory and conquest filled him.

The beasts of the sky were intercepted by arrows of light, and even those that descended closer couldn’t approach due to the tangled ropes of light.

Now the priests threw holy fire directly. Beasts distracted by the flames were pierced by arrows and steel darts. Very few reached the ground, and those that did fell beneath the knights.

Victory cries spread. Glorious banners fluttered. We can win—no, we have won!

But then signal flags waved from the watchtower. Flags warning of danger and calling for preparation.

‘What danger could there be when we’re winning?’

The knights ignored the orders. They focused on killing the monsters that had fallen to the ground and were howling.

Hadn’t they trained through bitter years for this day? Hadn’t they endured harsh training to become heroes who could slay beasts from nightmares?

At the moment their dreams were coming true, what danger could there possibly be? What should they prepare for? The archers felt the same. The priests too stoked their fires higher.

Without their realizing it, their formation was collapsing.

Without their knowing, the monsters were smiling eerily even as they died.

* * * * *

“Sound the trumpets! Everyone out! We need to bring those fools to their senses! The formation is collapsing!”

At the chief of staff’s declaration, officers from the watchtower rushed out. But neither soldiers, priests, nor knights outside responded. No matter how much they blew the trumpets or waved the flags, they remained focused solely on slaughter.

“Move aside.”

The Grand Marshal Allegieri, who had been observing the situation, took a trumpet from a trumpeter. He closed his eyes, blessed the trumpet, and blew it forcefully.

The shock wave made the fortress stones rattle.

Some sounds are so loud they cannot be heard by human ears. The ears cannot hear, but the body feels the impact fully. It is heard not with the ears but with the entire body.

Startled by the impact, the knights looked toward the watchtower. The Grand Marshal shouted with blessing in his voice:

“Form ranks! It’s not over! They’re targeting beneath your feet!”

Beneath their feet? The knights all looked down at the ground. Only then did they see.

The heads of the beasts that had fallen from the sky. The heads of the monsters they had joyfully beheaded were silently looking up at them, laughing, chattering, and mocking.

Though their heads were clearly severed, they moved. Though they had no bodies, they moved.

– Yes. Congratulations, victor. Are you pleased? Were you pleased when you cut us down?

An impatient knight struck one of the heads. That head disappeared, but other heads gathered and smiled.

“Y-y-you worthless creatures…!”

The knight frantically smashed his mace into the ground. He knelt down trying to catch the heads that rolled around mockingly. Other knights tried to pull him away by force, but it was too late.

Small, writhing, but vicious worms were crawling into his armor. “Aah! Aaaahh!”

The knight rolled around, but that was all. A swarm of black rats appeared from nowhere and climbed onto his body.

– Rejoice, rejoice, the knight has come!

Mockery imitating hymns spread across the ground. Waves of faces rose from the fortress floor. Kill us, kill us, try to kill us again, shadows surged from everywhere.

The knights struck them down with the power of light, burned them with holy fire, but the stronger the light, the darker the shadows became. Burning them in one place only made them stronger elsewhere.

– Rejoice, rejoice, the knight has come! The knight who will save us from death has come! But why didn’t you come sooner? Why didn’t you come earlier? If you had come before, we would still be alive!

Even the priests could not act. Frogs that leaped from here and there covered their mouths. Frogs made of darkness, mud, and rotten blood. Shadows that suddenly rose from the ground bound their hands and feet.

From within the shadows, human hands and mouths, hands holding small knives and awls, emerged to prick the calves and insteps of the priests and knights.

“Don’t panic, steel your hearts! If you fear them, they will grow stronger! We are still winning. We are still victorious!”

Günther shouted, but no one heeded his words. They had clearly been winning just moments ago. Until just now, they had evil kneeling at their feet. But now those things were rising again. Though they had burned them. Killed them. Cut them down.

– What makes a monster but another monster?

Late realization. Fear grew in the knights’ hearts. What had seemed so manageable until now was growing again.

‘These are evil spirits. Evil spirits that feed on fear. We must not be afraid!’ A story they had been taught countless times. Words etched into their minds until their ears hurt.

But fear is instinct. It is not something thought with the head but felt with the body.

The soldiers hesitated and stepped back. Günther alone waved his arms and stomped his feet, commanding, but his cries were no longer heard and his gestures no longer seen.

Laios rose again. The light of the net covering his body faded. His dented armor straightened, the extinguished darkness overflowed again, and he approached with clanking steel boots.

He had no sword in hand. Günther held it. Laios clenched his gauntlet and charged forward. But in the next moment, a banner flew toward him.

It was the brilliantly shining banner of the Mercy Knights. One of the treasures blessed by the Pope on its steel pole. It stuck into the ground like a javelin.

Allegieri, who had thrown the banner, charged forward swinging his axe. Darkness gathered to block the path of the holy warrior wrapped in light.

Knights who regained their senses at the Grand Marshal’s struggle rushed forward. Soldiers who saw their commander fighting remembered their positions.

“The sky!”

Someone pointed to the sky. Bruise-like marks spread across it. Vortices like those that had swallowed the sun surged from various parts of the sky.

There wasn’t just one. Two. Four. Eight. Sixteen. Darkness whirlpools as large as the sun writhed in all directions. More beasts and angels than had fallen before appeared.

– Behold. What you persecuted, ignored, and swept away has returned. You lived in luxury by taking our share as well. Now we must take our share. What was never fully yours, we shall now reclaim.

Innocent blood spilled on the ground. Resentment with nowhere to go. Indignation stacked in hearts and carried to the grave—that power capable of overturning even a nation’s fate was violating the sky again.

The blue, high sky was being torn apart like a whale mauled by a school of sharks. Dark red spread everywhere like blue sea drowning in blood.

“I will take it back!”

The world howled. The high, high sky being torn and twisted, the ground thrashing about, repeated.

“I will take it back!”

The Knight of the Scabbard howled. Burning beasts rose, waving their rotting limbs.

Mouths, muzzles, jaws, tongues instead of fallen lower jaws, and those without even those waved their arms and shouted.

The beasts’ momentum increased. Among them, a horse’s head growing from the nape of a four-legged human made a snorting sound and licked its lips. Drooling and gnashing its teeth, it looked at the knights as if eyeing a delicacy, then leaped high above them.

As if this were a signal, the monsters rushed in all at once. The infantry raised their shields and the priests prayed again, but the shields crumpled and the weakened light flickered ominously. Yet the wave of beasts was thick, thick, thick.

The beasts leaped up. They flew over the infantry’s heads. They crushed them. They devoured them…! The knights braced for impact. They closed their wide-open eyes until the very end….

Thwack.

Something cold splattered. It was a black stain. The knights wanted to wipe away the slippery, unpleasant substance, but they couldn’t take their eyes off the scene before them.

The beast that had clearly leaped up was now sprawled backward. Pierced by a silver spear, it trembled on the ground. Other beasts jumped up in outrage but soon hit the ground with thwack, thwack sounds.

The monsters flowed down. They were trying to reconstruct their bodies by changing back into darkness and shadow.

But this time there was a snap, the sound of fingers snapping. They withered away in red flames, making sounds like horse neighs and women’s screams.

Commotion broke out among the beasts. Something moved within the shadows. Each time steel reflected light, one monster knelt down.

It was neither light nor darkness. Yet it cut down darkness. It did not yield to fear. As if it didn’t care. As if such things never existed.

Now it was the monsters’ turn to be afraid. They howled, shouted, and writhed, unable to handle the confusion. Feeling fear of the darkness that devoured darkness, they targeted the easier children of light instead.

But again came the snap of fingers.

“…And thus He spoke: ‘Will You truly sweep them all away?’ Then God said, ‘If I find fifty righteous people in the two cities full of sinners, I will not punish them.'”

Like the sea parting, waves of light split in two. It was an intensely bright light. A fierce light that would make even light itself close its eyes.

In the middle of the parted path walked a woman in a nun’s habit. It was Maria with her hands neatly folded. She walked while reciting scripture.

“Then he asked, ‘Though I am nothing but dust and ashes, I dare to ask: if I find thirty, will You punish them?’ Then God said, ‘For the sake of those thirty, I will not punish them.'”

A large beast growled and leaped up. It didn’t care that its body was burning. But it couldn’t reach Maria.

A halberd flew from somewhere and split the beast’s head in half. As the beast howled and tried to retreat, the tip of the axe blade hooked it and pulled it to the ground.

The blade of the pulled-back halberd dropped from the air to the ground again. The beast’s limbs were severed like a butchered cow.

Maria raised her hands. Like water filling a bottle, waves of light rose upward.

Darkness struggled and retreated hastily, while the knights covered their eyes and sank to the ground.

Maria’s voice rang out above them:

“‘Let me speak once more and do not be angry. If I find ten, will You burn the two cities without leaving a single stone?'”

A pillar of light blazed from below to above. Not a single shadow remained. Even the celestial monsters groaned at the pillar that reached from earth to heaven.

The stains on the knights’ armor burned away. The faces flowing on the ground lamented, but soon accepted their extinction with peaceful expressions.

Maria watched until the last face disappeared, then finished the verse:

“Then God said, ‘For the sake of those ten righteous ones, I will not destroy them.'”

The beam of light vanished. The eye-searing light was gone. The Grand Marshal and the knights hesitantly stood up again.

They saw Maria with her hands neatly folded. They also saw the tall knight standing beside her.

Though he wore ill-fitting armor haphazardly fastened with leather straps, lacking elegance but holding a ferocious halberd, no one dared approach him.

They saw Günther sitting on the ground and Laios kneeling. With his shadow gone, wearing fire-scorched armor, hands on the ground, he breathed heavily.

They also saw a black-haired man holding a sword in one hand and a staff in the other. He had placed his blade on the Black Knight’s neck.

“I-I knew it!” Günther stood up. He fell on his backside once, unable to rise in time, but he stood up again.

“I knew it, I knew it! I saw correctly. I saw correctly…!”

Günther approached closer. He was full of joy and delight.

But in the next moment, Kain struck his leg with his staff. With a grunt, Günther fell to the ground. The Imperial Sword touched the side of his neck.

“What is this…!”

“Laios!” Kain shouted.

“If I see any suspicious movement, I will cut this man down and burn him with holy fire. The same goes if your ‘troops’ move! Don’t move unless you want to search for the Demon King’s fragments in a completely burned body!”

Maria snapped her fingers. A net of light entangled Laios’s body again. But it was much weaker than that of the priests.

The Holy Grail Knights and Mercy Knights couldn’t accept the situation before them. They tried to rush forward to save their hero.

But the tall knight pointed his halberd at them. There was no hesitation in the blue eyes behind his helmet.

“Don’t move!”

Had Grand Marshal Allegieri not ordered them, they would have suffered badly. Kain now shouted at Günther:

“Priest Günther. I arrest you on charges of leading the innocent citizens Laios and Ismene down the path of sin. Your ‘confession’ before the investigator is a favorable circumstance, but the terrible deeds you committed cannot possibly be overlooked!”

“What are you doing…!”

Kain’s sword dug into his neck. Under pressure that would cut flesh and draw blood with just a little more force, Günther could barely breathe.

“I am arresting a criminal.”

The Imperial Sword pushed Günther away. Günther leaned his body backward. His neck stung, but he had no time to worry about that.

“Me? You say I am a criminal? Me? This me?”

“You sealed the Demon King in the body of an innocent girl forced to be a guide, cut off her limbs, and buried her alive! You also instigated an innocent boy forced to be a guide to execute other heroes!”

The knights dropped their weapons in shock. They looked at their respected hero, holding their breath. They looked at each other in confusion, asking what this was all about, but no one knew the details.

The staff officers who needed to handle the situation were equally confused. Only Grand Marshal Allegieri silently watched them.

“You, who are you to…!”

Günther, his face turning blue, shouted. Kain swung his staff. Günther’s waist bent, and he knelt.

“I am Kain, Director of Department 4 of the Imperial Security Bureau!”

The shout echoed throughout the fortress.

“By my authority, I protect and detain the Imperial citizen Laios. By my authority, I protect and detain Priest Günther. These two criminals will be brought before the Emperor’s court and judged according to the law! Any attempt or act to harm these two people is defined as treason against law and order!”