Popcorn (2)

Popcorn (2)

Although I don’t know why these approximately 200 elites have gathered at the cathedral.

From the way they’re openly displaying their killing intent, I could tell that they don’t have very good feelings towards the Heaven God Cult.

‘… However, what I don’t understand here is.’

The Heaven God Cult should have already recruited most of the key personnel from the central government and the magic society.

I can’t figure out where such a large force came from.

I expressed my bewilderment at their strange appearance, then shrugged it off.

‘Well, it seems likely that those who have been harmed by the Heaven God Cult have united and come to attack.’

Even if that’s the case, I grabbed some popcorn while thinking that I still don’t know how they found out about this place.

‘Considering how we’ve dealt with the Heaven God Cult so far, it’s more likely that they’ve set a trap and lured these guys in.’

The question is whether they ‘deliberately risked danger’ by revealing their headquarters.

As I was thinking that not a single proper reason was coming to mind.

As I chuckled and ate popcorn, I suddenly remembered what the Caterpillar Archbishop had done.

‘Magic that uses living beings as ingredients’

As that thought came to mind, I wondered if the reason they lured those people like that was.

I crossed my arms, thinking that they might be using those with vast amounts of mana for some kind of magic.

‘If that’s the case, it could be quite interesting.’

Just as I was anticipating what kind of magic might be waiting this time.

Something completely unexpected happened.

‘… They’re openly opening the main gate?’

As I watched, thinking that I never expected them to open the doors wide for enemies full of killing intent, no matter how much of a trap it was.

About 200 people rushed through the main gate as if they had been waiting, entering straight into the cathedral.

‘And they’re blatantly going in like that.’

I chuckled at the sight that somewhat piqued my interest.

After handing all the popcorn to Luna, I continued speaking.

“I plan to infiltrate, so please cast an invisibility spell on me.”

At those words, Luna tilted her head as if she didn’t understand at all and said to me.

[Huh? Can’t we just smash everything? Why do you want to do something like that?]

“Because there are things we can only find out by sneaking in.”

[Luna doesn’t really understand such things.]

I didn’t expect her to understand anyway.

I tucked the meowing Luna into the inside of my coat.

Surrounding myself with the invisibility magic bestowed by Luna, I quickly entered the inner area using space compression magic.

*

‘Rather than a cathedral, it’s more like a huge city.’

However, unlike the feeling of a typical city, it gave off an extremely gloomy and depressing atmosphere.

It felt more appropriate to describe it as a city of demons rather than a city of humans.

As I was moving forward, pondering the strange scenery that reminded me of a slum despite being a cathedral.

I could spot something quite interesting in the distance.

‘A snake emblem.’

The emblem of the Heaven God Cult that they had hidden so carefully in the outside world.

As I was looking at the building with the snake emblem so boldly displayed.

Soft voices began to flow from statues all around.

[It’s almost prayer time. Each group should select a ‘sacrificial lamb’ and place them on the execution platform.]

… Sacrificial lamb? Execution platform?

My interest is piqued as these somewhat out-of-place things suddenly appear.

I watched as people everywhere began to move busily, and I quickly followed them.

What I saw as I tailed them was.

A huge jar filled with countless corpses and a live execution scene where someone was dying in real-time.

‘……’

Is this what hell would look like if it were set in medieval times?

As I observed the strange mixture of prayer sounds, laughter, and agonized screams coming from all around.

I spoke to Luna, whose eyes were shining brightly in my pocket.

“Keep using detection magic just in case.”

[Hmm…! I’ve been doing it for a while now.]

I thought that despite saying a lot of strange things usually, they were surprisingly good at their job.

I slowly moved my steps, changing my position to avoid being noticed by them.

‘… It’s probably better to just observe for now.’

Although it would be possible to destroy everything here right away.

If I do that, it would be impossible to confirm the detailed inside story.

I decided to refrain from destroying anything until I extract as much information as possible, and crossed my arms.

‘Of course, that’s just a figure of speech. I plan to destroy everything immediately if things go wrong.’

This is just a bit of patience for the sake of information.

I was thinking about making decisions based on the situation when I heard wailing sounds from all around.

“No, not me! I just decided to live like a proper human being, and now you’re telling me to die? You bastards, let go! I said let go!”

“Daddy! Save me! Daddy!”

“W-what? You’re taking away even newborn babies? This is a joke, right? Tell me it’s a joke!”

From what I could hear, it seems they were in the process of selecting the ‘sacrifices’ mentioned in the earlier broadcast.

I clicked my tongue and rolled my eyes as I watched people of all ages being dragged to the execution platform without discrimination.

‘This feels shitty.’

Even though I’ve seen countless such things before.

As I think about how strangely bad this makes me feel, my fists clench. While I’m wondering why I feel this way,

Luna shook her body in my arms and shouted at me.

[Master! Don’t synchronize with the demonic energy…!]

I came to my senses at those words and asked Luna again about what she had said earlier.

“Assimilated?”

[Yes. Due to the nature of magic, it tends to stick to everything nearby, so you need to be careful because it can change your personality and thoughts negatively.]

Come to think of it, I might have become a bit cruel when fighting those archbishops… Or maybe not.

Honestly admitting that it was my usual behavior based on my true nature, I let out a sigh.

‘Well, it’s probably better to be careful anyway.’

It could be troublesome if I get influenced in the wrong way.

As I was thinking about this and trying to move forward, Luna asks me curiously.

[By the way, aren’t you going to save those people?]

To that, I nodded as if it were obvious and replied.

“Those guys are illusions to begin with. However, seeing how incredibly lifelike they are, they’re probably ‘replaying’ something that actually happened.”

[Oh, you’re right.]

“It’s more impressive that you didn’t notice while using detection magic.”

[… I was looking far, far away, that’s why.]

I chuckled at Luna’s grumbling and then let out a sigh.

‘For now, we’ll just have to keep looking around.’

Someone could be hiding behind the illusions, watching me.

Deciding to keep moving to cover my tracks, I started wandering around here and there.

*

[This place is really strange. Not only are real people talking with illusions, but the illusions are also interacting with objects as if they were real.]

I nodded in agreement with Luna’s words.

As Luna said, this was a rather bizarre place where there was no distinction between illusions and reality.

‘What’s even funnier is.’

Some of these illusions were ‘recreations of past events’.

This resulted in out-of-context illusions being replayed, creating quite confusing scenes.

‘If I were an ordinary person, I would have gone mad after just one day here, it’s so confusing.’

Past, present.

A place where fake and real are mixed.

I sighed, unable to understand why on earth I had created such a place.

‘Anyway, these bastards never seem to create anything normal.’

Thinking that it was fundamentally twisted and quite disgusting, I spoke to Luna.

“Have you found anything?”

[Hmm… nothing. It’s all just full of this stuff.]

“I see.”

Then I suppose there’s no point in looking any further.

I decided to start by analyzing the magic surrounding us, and as I was observing it carefully,

I noticed someone slowly approaching me.

‘Have I been discovered?’

I thought I wouldn’t be detected since I was moving quite stealthily with Luna’s concealment magic.

Contrary to my expectations, they found me very quickly, and as I was preparing to cause some havoc,

The man who approached me coughed up blood and spoke to me.

“… You, are you human?”

Red blood.

I nodded my head while looking at such blood, just in case.

He wiped his blood with trembling hands and continued speaking.

“Thank goodness… Really, thank goodness.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well… I’m saying I’m glad to have found a human to sacrifice instead of me.”

The moment I heard those words, I thought I had found something quite interesting.

As I always did, I activated Point Explosion and said.

“Oh really? Then I’m also plea…”

I was about to say pleased, but.

The human who was shattered into pieces by the Point Explosion.

For some reason, he didn’t recover to his original state, and only the sight of his dead body entered my eyes.

I asked Luna, finding this strange.

“Why isn’t he recovering?”

[Master, this is actually normal.]

“……Ha.”

An utterly futile end.

For the first time, I thought I preferred the archbishops to humans as I relaxed my shoulders.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. The analysis is roughly finished anyway.”

Anyway, since I couldn’t get any more evidence, I decided to act as I always do and pulled out my mace.