Ch.250Episode 12 – The Strongest Mage in History

The investigator’s gaze flies toward me. A cold stare.

“What do you have in your pocket?”

“……”

Nothing more to say, no excuses to make.

My plan has been discovered. The investigator has caught on.

By the time this thought crosses my mind, I’ve already drawn my gun.

And I pull the trigger, pressing the muzzle against the investigator’s abdomen.

Episode 12 – The Most Powerful Mage in History

The suppressed gunshot echoes across the low hill. The hot shell casing flies up and rolls across the snow, and smoke belatedly rises from the end of the silencer.

Despite taking a bullet to the abdomen, the investigator is still alive.

Even a sturdy man would scream when shot, but this guy doesn’t even show signs of pain.

The investigator, fallen in the snow, tries to get up by pushing against the ground. I quickly twist my wrist and spray bullets at him in point-blank fire.

-Bang! Bang!

I can clearly see him getting hit.

The fired bullets travel straight, lodging in his chest and shoulder. The guy who was pushing himself up plants his face in the snow pile once again.

Yet, he’s still breathing.

Without even showing pain.

“Son of a…”

I pull the trigger, and another suppressed shot rings out.

After emptying the magazine in the blink of an eye, I immediately turn around, pull out a fresh magazine from my pocket, replace it, and pull back the slide.

In my life, I’ve never seen anyone get shot and stand up except for those high on drugs. But this guy isn’t on drugs, and he’s getting up just fine after taking more than ten bullets.

This isn’t normal. An ordinary person would be immobilized the moment more than ten bullets lodged in their body, and they wouldn’t be able to notice the divine power contained in the amulet.

In other words, this guy isn’t ordinary.

Or he’s not human.

Honestly, neither makes sense, but I can’t explain what I’m seeing with my common sense. It means he’s beyond what I can handle.

By the time this thought reaches me, I’m already running away like a coward.

“Fuck…! What a goddamn world…!”

Cursing doesn’t change anything, but I can’t bear it without swearing. I sprint like a madman across the snow that sinks with each step.

One person follows me.

Feeling a presence behind me, I turn my head to check and can’t help but curse.

It’s the investigator.

“That fucking bastard!”

He’s chasing after me perfectly fine. With a staff in one hand and a bundle on his back, he’s running with a body full of bullet wounds.

Even as I run forward, I extend my hand backward and fire my gun to slow his pace even a little.

But bullets fired without aiming neither hit him nor slow his steps.

Still, I’ve bought time by knocking him down and fleeing disgracefully.

That time was more than enough for the Inquisitors who sensed something amiss to arrive at the scene.

“Heretic!”

The moment that resonant voice reaches me through the passing wind, a flash erupts at the edge of my vision.

“How dare you cause trouble here!”

“Stand back!”

Two Inquisitors block the investigator’s path.

They were Inquisitors disguised as civil servants who had entered the village.

While the Inquisitors block the investigator’s path and begin a standoff, another Inquisitor shouts at me as I run across the snow with my gun. He pulls out a Bible from his chest and yells.

“Father Rebecca is calling for reinforcements! We’ll handle this, so go!”

Though the situation is unfolding rapidly, I can only point my gun at the investigator.

Because he’s someone bullets don’t work on. That fact, at least, needed to be conveyed.

Even as my lungs feel like they’re about to burst, I shout with all my might toward the Inquisitors.

“Bullets don’t work on that bastard!”

An Inquisitor readjusts his silver dagger and recites a prayer.

“The word of the Lord is a sword, and you shall have the sword of the Spirit.”

Faith expressed in language is imbued in the blade.

Like a paladin’s sword, dew-like white light gathers on the Inquisitor’s dagger. At the sight of that blade made of light, the guy who had been pursuing without a word finally shows a reaction.

“…Inquisitors!”

The silver dagger trailing white light like a comet’s tail is swung toward him. The dagger, which cuts through the air and speech in one breath, flies toward the investigator’s neck, slicing through the cold wind.

The investigator, who had been pursuing with fierce momentum, blocks the sword swung by the Inquisitor.

He raises his arm to protect his neck and head, and in exchange for protecting his vital point, he has to sacrifice his left arm.

As the silver dagger passes, a deep wound is carved into his flesh. The blade imbued with divine power cuts through soft flesh, and droplets of blood spray along its trajectory.

At that moment, for the first time, a death rattle-like groan escapes from his mouth.

“Kugh…!”

The investigator, letting out a pain-filled groan, clutches his torn brown tunic and steps back.

The Inquisitor, twirling his dagger once with a flick of his wrist, takes a stance and prepares to attack, while the Inquisitor with the Bible clutches the thin pages and shouts.

“Go now! You must move the amulet!”

“……”

At the mention of the amulet, the investigator’s gaze snaps toward me.

With bulging eyes, he glares at me with enough intensity to tear a person apart.

At that eerie gaze that seems utterly inhuman, I freeze, unable to move. This isn’t a figure of speech—my legs truly won’t move even when I try to force them. It feels as if something is pressing down on my shoulders and holding my legs.

Just as the Inquisitor, reacting to the change in the guy’s demeanor, was about to lead with his dagger, the man strikes his staff down and begins approaching us.

Sensing that the situation has gone awry, the Inquisitor grits his teeth and tears the page completely.

It was a moment when magnificent light brightened the gloomy sky and drove away the darkness cast over the snow field.

“Die, heretic!”

A cluster of white light shoots like arrows.

The light rising from the Bible splits into multiple streams, soaring high against gravity before suddenly changing direction and rushing toward the ground.

The sight resembling a rain of arrows momentarily distracts me.

The white light rushing toward the ground collides with the earth, causing a snowstorm.

I stagger for a moment.

“Kugh…!”

It was truly an incredible impact.

I had witnessed paladins fighting with divine power before, but never an Inquisitor’s battle. I had encountered it in documents while serving in the intelligence unit, but I didn’t know it would be this powerful.

I had a feeling that with an attack of this level, even someone with a steel-like body that could withstand bullets would be difficult to find, even as a corpse.

It’s firepower comparable to military magic used by the army. Is this really the power that comes from tearing a single piece of paper?

The Inquisitor with the Bible, holding it with both hands, peered into the hazy dust. He seemed to be checking if the heretic had died from the attack.

The Inquisitor with the dagger protected his colleague with his body. As if he wouldn’t retreat from that spot until the rising snow and dust settled.

“……”

I, holding the gun, silently observed the reactions of the two men. I suddenly thought that whatever had been weighing me down seemed to have disappeared after the Inquisitor’s attack took effect.

But my body still wouldn’t move easily.

While the two Inquisitors waited for the hazy dust to settle, I struggled to twist my body and move my legs by force.

At that moment, the eyes of the Inquisitor peering into the dust widened.

The first to react was the Inquisitor holding the Bible.

“Damn it…!”

The Inquisitor looked into the Bible as if he was about to bury his face in the paper and turned the pages. Even from a distance, his hand movements were so urgent that his anxiety was palpable.

Next, the Inquisitor guarding the front with his dagger showed a reaction. Suddenly stepping back, he lowered his body like someone confronting a threatening beast and extended his dagger forward.

As I struggled to leave my spot, confused about what was happening.

“…!”

A long sword rushed through the billowing snow and dust.

The Inquisitor, who had been on guard, tried to defend hastily, but the blade lightly brushed past his body.

Following that, the Inquisitor turning the Bible pages tried to tear them, but as the light-imbued page was about half torn, the blade rushed toward him.

The long sword, like flowing water or blowing wind, brushed past the bodies of the Inquisitors without a moment’s hesitation. As warm liquid splashed on my face, the Inquisitor holding the dagger collapsed, and the body of the Inquisitor tearing the Bible crumbled.

The dagger and Bible, now devoid of light, rolled in the mud, and still-warm droplets of blood flowed down my face, but I couldn’t turn and run away or wipe off the blood like before.

Honestly, I’m not sure how this happened.

How he survived that attack.

How he could dismember the Inquisitors all at once.

How a living person could smell like a rotting corpse.

And why I couldn’t even control my body.

But one thing was certain.

He survived the attack and killed both Inquisitors, my legs still showed no signs of moving, and all of this happened in less than two minutes.

And two minutes, no matter how I thought about it, was woefully insufficient for Father Rebecca and the Inquisitor reinforcements to arrive.

By the time I realized this, the dust-covered investigator was approaching with a calm gait.

“…Haa.”

Watching his legs appearing intermittently at the edge of my vision, I lowered my head and let out a deep sigh.

“What a fucked-up world.”