Ch.366Chapter 366 – Gema Harbor (3)

“What’s going on?”

I approached Beatrice directly and asked.

In response, Beatrice grimaced as she put the black knight’s helmet back on him.

“The helmet… it’s better not to look.”

I had a bad feeling.

The saying “a wise person stays away from danger” came to mind, and I considered backing off as Beatrice suggested.

But curiosity, along with the need to see what was happening, won over.

Quickly gathering my resolve, I said to Beatrice:

“…Show me.”

When I spoke quietly, Beatrice seemed to be deliberating internally.

Then, with a deep sigh, she said:

“Only you and Sia can see. Young lady of the merchant group, please keep the children from getting curious.”

“Understood.”

Eve must have sensed something unpleasant too, as she stepped back slightly.

Sia and I exchanged tense looks before quietly approaching Beatrice.

Beatrice turned her head slightly and lifted the knight’s helmet.

The first things I noticed were holes.

The entire face was perforated with holes, with particularly large ones where the eyes should be.

There were no lips where the mouth should be.

As a result, the teeth were completely exposed.

Looking closer, inside the eye areas were things that looked like fish eggs.

These white eggs with black dots kept growing larger and smaller, wriggling continuously like larvae.

Then, all the squirming black dots suddenly converged toward me.

It was as if they were looking at me.

“Holy shit!”

I backed away as I realized what those egg clusters really were.

They weren’t eggs.

They were eyes.

Eyes of various sizes filled the two eye holes completely.

And the other holes on the face began opening and closing repeatedly.

A sound like wind whistled through them.

I immediately realized what those holes were.

I could understand why Beatrice was so horrified.

Then I felt a slight weight on my shoulder along with a warm sensation.

“Take a deep breath.”

At Sia’s words, I quietly took a deep breath.

I could feel my startled heart beginning to calm.

“Well done.”

Sia then took over from Beatrice and lowered the black knight’s helmet, making that horrific face disappear back inside.

Beatrice quietly took out something like a long stick from inside her clothes and put it in her mouth.

While I was watching, wondering if it was some kind of cigarette substitute, she put it back and looked at Sia.

“You’re surprisingly unfazed, seeing something like that.”

“I suppose I’ve built up a tolerance from seeing plenty of horrible things. Being old has its occasional benefits.”

Sia answered with a bitter expression.

Then she rummaged through her clothes and took out what looked like two small pills.

“Both of you, eat these. They’re candies. I told Sera that the medicine was too bitter, and she made these. They’re sweet.”

“……”

It felt somewhat like a grandmother handing out candy to children.

Still, I didn’t point that out, and Beatrice and I silently took a candy each and popped them into our mouths.

There was a slightly sweet and sour taste, and my mind felt a bit more at ease.

“Since they’re sweet, I’ve been saving them to eat little by little. Good timing.”

“…Keep them safe. Don’t eat too many at once.”

“I know.”

Sia answered with a smile.

“More importantly, what the hell is that thing? Are the others like that too?”

“…I’ll check.”

“I’ll check. You two stay here and calm down.”

Saying she was the right person for the job, Sia passed by Beatrice and me to check the other black knights.

A moment later, after examining all the knights, Sia said grimly:

“One of them is a bit different. But the eyes are similar in all three.”

“What’s the difference?”

“One has many ears instead of a single nose. And both ears were human.”

As Sia finished speaking, there was a crunching sound in my mouth.

I must have unconsciously bitten the candy to pieces.

“The helmet.”

“Why on earth would the Order do something like this?”

At my question, Beatrice fell into thought.

As Beatrice struggled to answer, Sia quietly said:

“I don’t understand the complexities, so let’s think simply.”

“How?”

“For example, having many eyes might allow one to see many things at once, or having many ears might allow one to hear multiple sounds simultaneously.”

Sia looked at each of us as she spoke.

“Perhaps they maximized these knights’ sensory abilities this way, making their bodies more suitable for combat?”

“If you call that suitable for combat, then whoever came up with this idea should end up looking like that themselves.”

Beatrice said incredulously.

“…But thinking simply, it makes sense. Human vision and hearing have clear limitations, so they might have increased those limits this way.”

Still, Beatrice quietly assessed it as the height of crudeness.

Then, displaying a magic circle in front of her, she said:

“…They’ve enhanced their strength and bone density beyond normal limits. Most people wouldn’t stand a chance against them. …And in exchange for just that much power, their lifespan is only about three months at most.”

Three months.

I couldn’t comprehend how much they must have tampered with the human body to reduce the lifespan so drastically.

But if they were terminal cases, it somewhat explained what happened earlier.

“Were the people they kept in cages earlier intended as materials to create these black knights?”

“That’s the only explanation that makes sense.”

Beatrice added that we’d need to hear the details from the villagers.

But even creating them like this must have required considerable effort.

The fact that the Order was capturing people from the Holy Kingdom meant they were consuming their own resources.

Yet they still did it.

This meant either they needed these black knights for the long term, or they needed large numbers at once.

“What exactly are those Order bastards trying to do?”

“I don’t know.”

Sia, who had been quietly lost in thought, answered.

“Powerful soldiers are needed everywhere, but I don’t understand why they’d create them this way. Perhaps they’re preparing for war.”

Sia looked at me and said in a low voice:

“But the idea of manipulating people’s bodies like this for that purpose is something I think even the demons, whom the gods defined as evil, wouldn’t conceive.”

Sia said slowly.

+

After Sia finished speaking, with our minds calmed and our disgust somewhat reduced, we continued investigating the black knights.

While Beatrice used magic to examine the black knights’ armor and bodies, I inspected the giants with Sia.

“These ones are a mess inside their armor too.”

“Indeed they are.”

Sia agreed with me.

Like the black knights, the giants were wearing armor, so there wasn’t much unusual to see at first glance. But looking inside the armor revealed swollen skin with thick, rope-like things writhing within.

‘…Did they put the knights’ armor on humans who became the materials?’

The armor the giants were wearing was that of the Emiris Order’s knights.

The quality was good enough that despite the muscles bulging inside, the original shape was still recognizable.

But at the same time, that meant the swollen muscles completely filled the inside of the armor.

So they must look just as horrific as the knights from earlier.

Still, compared to those guys, they were somewhat more bearable.

At least their eyes, nose, and mouth were properly attached.

‘I don’t want to get used to this sort of thing.’

Looking at the grotesque giants, bitter thoughts washed over me.

Because of the black knights, my tolerance for seeing horrific things had increased dramatically.

It felt like I’d lost something precious, and it made me feel bad.

‘Let me look more closely.’

I examined the torn armor more carefully.

As I looked at each one, I discovered a giant that was slightly different from the others.

‘That’s…’

The armor itself wasn’t much different from the other giants.

But there was something like a rosary hanging from what appeared to be shoulder armor.

It was an Emiris Order rosary.

‘…Did they mark a special one separately?’

I decided to retrieve it just in case.

If I showed it to Kara, Diana, or Kurs, they might know what it meant.

“Kei, have you figured anything out?”

“Nothing except that the muscles seem to have suddenly swollen from within.”

Sia nodded at my words.

“I feel the same. More precisely, it feels like the muscles have been extremely stretched rather than swollen.”

Sia added that it was remarkable they could move in such a state.

“But that’s all. They didn’t seem to feel the need to process these ones any further. Perhaps this level was sufficient to reach the specifications they wanted.”

“Do you have any idea why they did this?”

“Of course not. By their standards, maybe this was enough for the small body.”

Sia said quietly.

As I was talking with Sia about the giants, Beatrice, who had been continuously examining the black knights with magic, looked at me and said:

“Togu, why don’t you go hear from the villagers about what happened?”

“I was just about to do that.”

There wasn’t much more I could do here investigating these horrific victims.

It was time to investigate elsewhere.

By now, Chris and Sera should have finished their emergency treatment.

I should be able to talk to the villagers who had calmed down somewhat.

Beatrice continued:

“Go ahead. I’ll investigate a bit more.”

“Haven’t you done enough?”

“I want to record their characteristics in more detail and send it to Asam.”

Beatrice added that the Magic Tower would be able to analyze them more accurately.

Sia nodded as well and said:

“In the meantime, I’ll gather the bodies, including that giant.”

“The bodies?”

Sia nodded.

“No matter what they’ve become, they were originally human, weren’t they? As victims, I’d at least like to pray for their souls.”

I nodded at Sia’s words.

“Then I’ll help too.”

“No. I’ll do it alone… And if it proves too much for me, I’ll ask Kurs for support. Meanwhile, you should hear about what’s been happening in the kingdom.”

Sia added that since the villagers and I were already acquainted, I might be able to gather information more easily.

I nodded and handed over what I had retrieved earlier to Sia.

“What’s this?”

“Just one of them had a rosary hanging from its shoulder. Show it to Kurs if you call him.”

It might be better to show it to Kara or Diana first, but showing it to Kurs first wouldn’t make much difference.

“I will.”

I looked at Sia and Beatrice, we nodded to each other, and then I turned to leave this scene and head toward where the patients were.

Eve, who had been standing near Sera and Chris, quietly approached me.

“Kei, what happened?”

“…I saw something terrible.”

I waved my hand slightly, indicating she shouldn’t ask further.

Eve seemed to catch my meaning and quietly nodded, turning her head away from Beatrice’s direction.

“How’s the treatment going?”

“Christina and Kara are treating patients with holy magic. They’ve mostly finished treating the severely injured, and Sera says if they take the prescribed medicine and rest well, their wounds won’t get worse.”

It seemed Chris had worked quickly while Sia, Beatrice, and I were examining the black knights.

I nodded at Eve’s explanation and turned toward the village chief.

“You have business with the villagers, right?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go together.”

Eve said this while gently taking my hand.

Feeling a bit calmer, I walked slowly toward the village chief.

The chief was talking with his wife and Anna.

Anna noticed me, glanced at Eve holding my hand, and asked with a surprised face:

“My goodness, is she your girlfriend?”

“Yes.”

Eve answered proudly before I could respond.

Anna repeated “my goodness” while covering her mouth with both hands, and Eve, seemingly pleased, pushed her chest out slightly.

Then the village chief quietly said to Eve:

“You’re a pretty young lady.”

“Hey now.”

The chief’s wife immediately chastised him.

The chief clutched his head and crouched down, and his wife looked at me.

“I apologize for his rudeness. He’s not usually like this, but he couldn’t help himself because your lady is so beautiful. Please don’t think badly of him.”

“It’s fine.”

Eve smiled and pressed herself against me.

Feeling Eve’s body heat, I asked the chief’s wife:

“Ma’am, if you don’t mind, there’s something I’d like to ask.”

“I’ll answer anything I can.”

Had she noticed something bad in my voice?

The chief’s wife nodded with a serious expression, unlike before, and added:

“Whatever it is, it won’t be enough to repay our lives. Especially considering the value of our young people’s lives. Please ask anything.”

The chief’s wife was being cooperative.

It would be polite to accept her kindness.

“I’ll ask directly. What happened to you that led to being locked in those cages? And what exactly is happening in the Holy Kingdom?”

I already had some suspicions from examining the black knights.

I was asking to get definitive information.

The chief’s wife’s expression darkened.

“So you really didn’t know.”

Well, if you had known, you wouldn’t have come here, the chief’s wife muttered quietly.

Then she looked at me and began:

“There’s not much to tell. It’s quite simple.”

“What exactly…?”

“A mobilization order was issued.”

“Mobilization?”

“That’s right. By order of the Regent.”

The latter words came from the village chief, who had just recovered enough to stand.

“The Regent issued an order throughout the Holy Kingdom.”

“What kind of order?”

“A damned order. Something about divine revelation or whatever.”

With a somewhat eerie expression, he continued:

“An order was issued that all citizens of the Holy Kingdom must become soldiers of the Holy Kingdom and serve it.”

The village chief’s face darkened.