Ch.459Suppression

Time is fair to everyone.

There are occasional exceptions, but for most people, it flows equally.

While Lacy and her group were searching for Nashiriya and destroying the Church of Grimnir, others weren’t just sitting around.

The evidence was unfolding here, in Arad.

“Church of Astraea, stop your oppressive rule! Have you forgotten the mercy the gods spoke of?”

“Give me back my husband! Give him back!”

“What right do you have to claim justice, you murderers obsessed with burning people!”

Hundreds of citizens gathered in the square, wielding torches and pitchforks, shouting demands.

They called for the resignation of the Church of Astraea, which had maintained order in Arad through excessive punishment.

It was an unprecedented mass protest by ordinary believers in the history of the Holy State.

—-

This protest was triggered by a single manifesto.

Lacy’s secret manifesto blamed the corrupt cardinals and churches for the Holy State’s problems and urged people to worship the gods, not the priests.

That manifesto delivered the final blow to the already cracking trust in the churches, which had been slowly fracturing due to expanding criminal organizations and priests growing distant from common people’s lives.

The people of the Holy State, raised to believe that obedience to the church was the highest virtue.

Having thrown off the blindfold of blind faith, they began to express all the discontent they had unknowingly accumulated.

If it had stopped there, it might have ended as simply a public call for the church to reform itself.

If only someone who desired discord and chaos hadn’t slightly modified the manifesto’s content before distributing it.

“He couldn’t sign his name to a manifesto criticizing the cardinals… but this is practically begging to be exploited.”

Valkers raised the corner of his mouth as he enjoyed the sound of protesters marching with torches.

All he had done was add a couple of lines to the original manifesto.

“Rise up, people of the Holy State! For true faith, to reclaim your human lives, raise your voices against the corrupt churches! All you have to lose are the chains of oppression and control, and what you’ll gain is a country of genuine faith! …Hehe. Truly excellent writing.”

Eljur recited the content of the modified manifesto with a laugh, feeling utterly satisfied.

His painted cheeks flushed red with delight.

Valkers of Discord. His actions certainly lived up to his name.

With just two additional lines, he had created decisive discord between the churches and the people of the Holy State.

It might have been just a protest by some Holy State citizens… but her eyes were dreamily unfocused, as if certain of the tragedy that would unfold.

“It’s not a lie. Heaven is waiting for them!”

Valkers also laughed loudly as he exhaled Mana Herb smoke.

It was hard to contain his laughter because it was so obvious how the churches, especially the Church of Astraea, would respond to the protesters.

—-

The protests by Holy State citizens were triggered by the growing threat of criminal organizations and the corruption of the churches.

But ironically, the first protest broke out in Arad, a clean city where crime and corruption had no foothold.

In a way, it made perfect sense.

There’s a saying that fish can’t live in water that’s too clean.

Arad was exactly like that.

People can tolerate the corruption of others, but they cannot endure chains that oppress themselves.

The Church of Astraea’s methods—burning all sinners at the stake to create a crime-free city and strictly controlling residents for perfect security—seemed like tyranny worse than the threat of criminal organizations to the citizens of Arad.

Perhaps this was especially true because, having lived only in Arad, they had never directly experienced the threat of criminal organizations.

Whatever the reason, they took to the streets, denouncing the injustices they had experienced and heading toward the Church of Astraea’s cathedral.

They believed that if they gathered and raised their voices together, the church leadership would listen to their laments.

But.

Unfortunately for them… Wilhelm the Iron-Blooded, the archbishop of the Church of Astraea who managed Arad, was not someone who would be moved by such lamentations.

With a very calm attitude, he gathered all the paladins inside the cathedral, then stepped in front of the protesters and advised them just once to disperse immediately.

Naturally, the protesters refused. It was to be expected.

If they were going to comply and disperse at a single command to stop their disorderly riot and return to their livelihoods, they wouldn’t have come out to protest in the first place.

Wilhelm, who had been looking at the protesters with emotionless eyes, closed his eyes briefly, made the sign of the cross, and then rebuked them with a hardened face.

“Have we, like the corrupt lords of foreign countries, taken your property and left you to starve? No. We have released the church’s resources to ensure you are well-fed and cared for.”

The paladins of Astraea, wearing armor and helmets, began walking out of the cathedral.

“Have we, like nobles drunk on authority, taken your lives for unreasonable reasons? No. We have healed the injured and sick, and protected you from the threats of violence and monsters.”

The startled protesters looked around and murmured.

“Have we ever falsely accused and punished the innocent? I swear by Lady Astraea, none of those we punished were without sin.”

The paladins, wrapped in golden holy light, surrounded the entire square where the protesters had gathered.

“Yet, you come before us, demanding the freedom for sinners to go unpunished, the right to deny order and indulge in licentiousness. And you do this in front of Lady Astraea’s temple, of all places.”

When Archbishop Wilhelm raised his right hand, the paladins simultaneously drew their swords and spears.

“This is the utmost blasphemy. An unforgivable sin. I advise you one last time. Leave the ringleaders and disperse.”

At that moment, someone threw a torch at Wilhelm.

Turning his head to avoid the torch, Wilhelm raised his right hand, pointed at the protesters, and gave his final order to the paladins.

“Suppress them. They are no longer citizens of the city, but merely rioters disrupting order.”

It was the moment when the blade of the scales, devoid of any mercy, came down with absolute severity.

That day, 90% of the protesters were slaughtered.

And that was not the end, but just the beginning.

The deaths of hundreds brought the anger of thousands, and what had been a simple protest escalated into a large-scale riot that swept the entire city.

Of course, if it had been just a civilian uprising, everything would have ended with another suppression by the Church of Astraea.

However…

When the Church of Kranus remaining in Arad joined the civilian uprising, things began to spiral out of control.

The archbishop of the Church of Kranus still remembered the true intentions of the cardinal who had ended his life by suicide.

The belief of Cardinal Erich, who had tried to restore the purity of the Holy State through war.

Therefore, without any hesitation, they joined the civilian militia and began to fight against the paladins of the Church of Astraea.

The civilian militia wasn’t particularly pleased with the joining of the Church of Kranus, one of the 11 main churches, but they couldn’t stand against the paladins of Astraea without their power, so they formed a united front with the Kranus believers.

It was no longer just a riot, but a fight close to war.

=======[ Haschal ]=======

“What… is all this…?”

Lacy put down the crusader’s report with a blank expression after receiving news about Arad.

The report, delayed by a week due to heavy snow.

It contained information that Lacy couldn’t have even imagined.

—-

Lacy had been creating and gathering people who demanded church self-reform, then infiltrating special crusaders to control them and prevent rash actions.

So that someday, when enough forces had gathered, they could all rise up simultaneously to reform the current system of the Holy State.

Although it had fizzled out due to the events in the capital and the collapse of the Church of Grimnir, it was theoretically a flawless, orthodox strategy.

The only problem she hadn’t anticipated was…

Perhaps she hadn’t considered the possibility of the manifesto being tampered with, and that the Holy State citizens were more proactive than she had thought.

According to the crusader’s letter, the scale of the anti-church gathering in Arad had expanded within just a few days to a level that a single infiltration agent couldn’t control.

Someone had manipulated Lacy’s manifesto to incite more active participation.

To make matters worse, the expanded gathering gradually became more extreme, with the mainstream adopting an armed struggle position that corrupt churches and priests must be cut out for reform.

The crusader tried to control them somehow but was almost eliminated after being branded as a gray element.

The crusaders judged that there must be someone behind all this and were tracking the culprit’s whereabouts, but they hadn’t yet discovered their identity.

– The extremists within the organization argued that Arad should be reformed even if it meant armed demonstrations, and most members agreed. We are now on the verge of a clash with the Church of Astraea.

His report ended there.

—-

I bit through the cigarette I was smoking and let out a deep sigh.

Considering the letter was delayed by a week… I should assume the clash had already happened.

It was too late to stop it.

What a damn world.

I’ve never missed communication devices as much as today.