Ch.98Report on the Downfall of Kindness (8)

The old brother jumped up and grabbed Kain.

His eyes bulged with a gleaming intensity, and the veins on his hands protruded visibly, yet he couldn’t bring himself to speak.

“What frightens you so much, Brother?”

Kain asked.

“As a clergyman, what besides God should you fear? You tried to protect us from ‘that thing,’ but now you’re pretending not to know anything.”

The brother’s hands trembled violently before finally releasing Kain’s collar.

“It’s better not to know. There are too many things in this world better left unknown. This village is one of them.”

“Then all the more reason you should tell us.” Maria pressed him.

“Brother, we are not sheep but shepherds. Shepherds who must drive away wolves with a staff in one hand and a sword in the other.

Sheep may not need to know certain things, but shepherds do. Didn’t you write that in your treatise ‘The Mindset of the Clergy’?”

“But even shepherds must flee before lions.”

“Isn’t it better to shout warnings while running away than to be killed without even knowing what’s coming? Just as fleeing isn’t always shameful.”

The brother hung his head. He returned to his chair and sat down weakly.

Lily, who had been watching the window, waved to a thin man outside. The thin man waved back in response.

“I lacked courage.” The old brother covered his head with his hands.

“Sister Maria. I learned here that even running away requires courage…”

* * * * *

More than ten years ago, Brother Henry had been researching a new heretical religion.

While previous heresies had distorted and twisted the teachings of the “Prophet of Life and Death,” this new heresy was of an entirely different nature.

They claimed they weren’t “heretics” but the “fundamentalists.”

They asserted that the Prophet of Life and Death was false, that the Two-headed Eagle was merely a mutant eagle that appeared by chance, and that the only thing truly worth believing in and following was the Life Tree.

Of course, this made no sense. The lineage of the Life Tree Order was believed to have been broken long ago, though no one knew exactly when.

Therefore, Henry believed these people were merely appropriating past glory for themselves.

But as he listened to their claims, Henry naturally fell into temptation.

‘What exactly was the Life Tree?’

There was an abundance of research material on the Life Tree Order. However, most of these materials were written by the Empire and the Church, describing it merely as “a barbaric, primitive, and violent religion that offered human sacrifices to pray for blessings.”

But if it had been simply that kind of religion, it couldn’t explain how it had wielded influence all the way to the distant pagan lands before the Prophet of Life and Death and the Empire appeared.

Henry searched for very old documents, even gaining permission to enter the imperial archives of the Empire.

The previous Emperor Alexios I was more generous than expected.

He couldn’t enter places containing confidential information, such as where imperial and military orders were stored.

Instead, the only place Henry could search was the “ancient archives.”

Among items so worn they could barely be distinguished as parchment fragments or twisted dust, Henry found a clue.

“It was here. That longhouse was originally a sacred site of the Life Tree Order. If my guess is correct, festivals praying for abundance were held there.”

“By festivals, you mean…”

Henry answered Kain’s question.

“On the night of the new moon, after everyone ate, drank, and became intoxicated, men and women would remove their clothes and roll around together… Then they would capture the most beautiful man and woman alive, tear them apart, bury them underground, and plant a sapling above them.”

Lily frowned in disgust. Kain struggled to remain calm. Brother Henry continued, stammering.

“That was their custom. A ritual to pray for abundance… A woman everyone wanted to plant their seed in and a man every woman wanted to receive seed from…

They believed that by sending them back to nature’s embrace, nature would give more in return. Like a cat leaving a dead mouse as a gift at its owner’s doorstep.

Even those facing death considered it honorable. They believed they would live forever, breathing within nature’s embrace.

That’s why they planted trees above them. Trees live longer than humans, and sometimes survive until the end of the world…”

Kain remembered the grotesque pattern on the wall. A human screaming with a dislocated jaw.

“That pattern…”

“There was no such pattern when I came here.”

Brother Henry trembled slightly. He glanced fearfully at the door.

Kain was about to reassure him there was nothing to worry about when he noticed a shadow seeping under the door crack.

Water could do that. Water or blood or alcohol could flow through door cracks. But shadows couldn’t. They shouldn’t.

Following Kain’s gaze, Maria snapped her fingers.

Holy fire flowed across the floor of the hut.

Maria recited a prayer with her eyes closed. Heatless flames flowed from her hands like sweat, illuminating the floor.

The hesitating shadow could no longer withstand it and fled.

The brother closed his eyes. His body went completely limp.

“It noticed.”

“Who do you mean?”

Instead of answering, the brother rose from his seat. He was no longer trembling.

Like someone who had cut off their own path of return, like someone who had abandoned their last hope, his face showed resignation and anger.

The brother flung open the closet and took out blessed candles. He placed them on the floor like pieces on a game board and lit them.

“You may withdraw your fire. It must be tiring for you.”

Maria extinguished the sacred fire. The candles would take over that role for a while.

Exhausted, Maria sat down on the bed. Brother Henry looked toward the doorway with resentment.

“There was nothing like this when I arrived. Only Roberta and the bandits who had submitted to her. I had already spoken with the lord of this place, Count Bördem.

At first, there was no problem.

Roberta said she wanted to create a village for criminals here, and I came for my research. We could fill each other’s needs.

Roberta and her group brought me what I lacked in my daily life, and I taught them about living like humans and about faith and love.

Surprisingly, they had no idea why people should help each other.

The only form of communication they knew was violence. No one had taught them otherwise. Not their parents. Not the world…

So Roberta and I taught them. But… things started to take a strange turn.”

Lily made a hand signal.

‘Surrounded’ ‘Reinforcements’

It was a signal that villagers were beginning to gather here. Kain made the same signal to Maria. Lily took out two imperial swords and Kain’s staff from her bundle.

“So. What happened?”

Kain asked, adjusting his grip on the sword and staff. The brother moistened his throat and continued.

“Roberta and I discussed many things. We spent more time together, and neither of us found it strange… even the bandits didn’t. We had a significant age difference after all.

After discussing how to handle village affairs, conversations about my research would follow. About my research on the Life Tree Order.

‘You must help me,’ Roberta confided one night.

‘Fighting the Demon King, I’ve seen too many terrible things. Things I never knew existed in this world, standing under the same sky as us…

And now hearing about it, this Life Tree Order you speak of seems quite connected to the Demon King.’

The Demon King was a difficult matter. No one knew why he appeared, where he came from, or what his exact purpose was.

I thought perhaps… ‘Roberta and I might become people who could uncover the Demon King’s identity.’

I told her everything I knew. But…”

The noise grew louder. The sound of people gathering. The sound of them quietly exchanging words. The clanking of metal.

Though very faint, Kain’s ears, trained through years of experience, heard it as clearly as spoken words.

“But. As we talked, something… something was strange. Roberta… she knew.”

“Knew what?”

Instead of answering, the brother rose from his seat. He was no longer trembling.

Like someone who had cut off their own path of return, like someone who had abandoned their last hope, his face showed resignation and anger.

“Everything I told her, she already ‘knew.’ The questions she asked me seemed like she was checking how much I knew, and confirming whether what she knew was correct.

I’ve taught students too. When talking with them, I can tell whether a student is pretending not to know or pretending to know…

But Roberta’s words went beyond that category. She stepped into the realm of possibilities, saying things like ‘What if we did this?’ Ah, I should have known that was the beginning of corruption…

One who peeps at someone undressing will eventually open that door and enter…

At some point, I thought it was too dangerous. But Roberta wouldn’t let me go.

Sometimes she was explicit, sometimes threatening. She deliberately made me drink too much, deliberately wore thin clothes… sometimes she shouted and threw hunting knives at the wall.

I yelled that I couldn’t continue like this. ‘What you’re doing is crossing the line. This is blasphemous!’

I can’t forget Roberta’s expression.

‘After stepping in together, now you want to back out? No. That’s not possible. If you won’t speak willingly, there are many ways to force it out. Noble one.’

And then she forcibly…”

The brother hung his head. Kain waited patiently. A small sob. Humiliation, resentment, and anger at his own weakness. The veins in the brother’s neck protruded.

“…I don’t know how long it continued. When I came to my senses, I was tied up, and around me were patterns drawn with animal blood.

What appeared to be animal genitals were tied to the ends of a pentagram. Roberta… holding a dagger. Naked.

I cried out that this was wrong. That God would not forgive this. But Roberta mocked me.

‘Do you know? The God who created everything in the world created evil with His own hands.

People suffering from evil begged for evil to be removed, but God couldn’t kill His own child.

So He blocked His ears to both the cries of evil and the cries of good. That’s what I became certain of while fighting the Demon King.

God exists, Brother. He’s always been with us. Watching. Peeping. Finding it amusing.

I wonder… how much can God endure me… how much will He tolerate the desecration of His prophet… I wonder. He won’t act in vain.

I’ve already taken you, and as long as what came from your body is in mine, you are completely mine.’

She muttered such unpleasant and eerie words. My body truly wouldn’t listen to me. Until she cut my stomach like clay with her sharp dagger.

Strangely, it didn’t hurt at all. Not a drop of blood flowed. Instead, blood flowed from the animal genitals that had clearly been cut off…

‘Don’t worry. This is the second time I’m doing this.’

And then she took out my heart.

In Roberta’s hands, it wriggled and beat.

‘It’s healthy.’ She was happy like a midwife holding a newborn. She dragged me… took me to the forest behind, and as if my heart were a flowerpot, she stuck a finger-sized sapling into it…

Then the tree grew. As my heart beat. With each beat, the tree grew larger with a thump, thump.

‘I did it. What he did, I did it too! I can become like him!’

I howled and screamed at her. Roberta transplanted the tree from my heart into a hole she had already dug.

From the tree, my face appeared, like rising from water, like emerging from behind a curtain… it made sounds just like me, screamed and cried like me, and then burst into laughter.

It laughed until its jaw dislocated…”

Lily covered her mouth, and Maria, pale as a sheet, stammered.

“…Brother. Brother Henry. What on earth are you saying…”

“Don’t you understand even now, Maria?” Brother Henry shed tears.

“Roberta is a witch. A very powerful witch. After living in hiding from the world’s persecution, she decided to create her own world.

This Berta Village is the world she created. Everyone in this village, including me, has had their heart taken by her.”

“Why… for what purpose…”

Lily mumbled in disbelief. Henry, struggling to speak clearly, provided the answer.

“To create a world where sinners are forgiven. Where no one sins again. Where everyone is kind to everyone and happy.

‘Rather than going to hell with the body that caused sin, it’s better to cut it off and go to heaven…’

For that, time is needed to cleanse evil deeds. An infinitely long time.

So she bound our lives to trees. To live as long as trees, not to die until we do good deeds.”

Shadows covered the hut like a flock of crows rising from the forest.

The villagers walked out from the other side.

Every one of them looked kind and friendly.