Chapter 147: Baldy’s Last Case (3)

Once I stepped into the underground prison, things became easier.

“What? A new jailer…?”

[Sleep]

“H-Hold on, what are you…”

[Sleep, Sleep, Sleep]

“Wh-who…!”

[Sleep]

“Phew…!”

Nonetheless, forced sleep holy magic was certainly one that would go down as one of the greatest spells in the history of the Church. Clevens thought this to himself as he barricaded the entrance to the underground prison with furniture. These reliable friends would hold off even holy knights for about 10 minutes.

“Well then, shall we get started for real?”

Clevens’ footsteps echoed through the underground prison.

Finding the place where the Holy Sword was purified wasn’t difficult. There was no way the Church would leave such a historically significant place unattended. All he had to do was look for the cleanest spot in the prison.

Yes, just like this.

The most secluded corner of the underground prison.

A square space, without even a speck of dust, let alone moss, unlike the other areas.

In this space, roughly 13.2 square meters in size, a secret is surely hidden. A secret that ties together Irene, the Demon King, the vice-captain, and the goddess.

Clevens pried through the iron bars and entered.

Sadly, nothing immediately catches his eye. It was a moment when he regrets not bringing pointy ears along.

*If that guy was here, he’d have taken one look and pinpointed it.*

*No choice, I guess I’ll have to get my pants dirty.*

Grumbling to himself, he gets down on all fours. He crawls around, examining the walls and floor. Still finding nothing, he starts feeling the walls with his hands.

“Gotcha, you little rascal.”

Clevens’s fingers trace a faint crack in the wall, something impossible to spot under normal circumstances due to the shadows. He grins and slides his finger along it.

And then,

*Click-*

A sound that rang even more clearly in the silence.

But its effect was by no means quiet.

*Rumble-*

With a distant sound, the wall rolls upwards. And beyond the rolled-up wall, a staircase.

It led further down into the underground once more.

It wasn’t a good sign. After all, deep underground spaces are difficult to escape from.

Plus, a strange anxiety has been tickling his instincts since a while ago. A feeling of being led somewhere, into a trap. There’s no basis for it, but it’s hard to ignore

But turning back now would feel unsettling too, wouldn’t it.

Clevens forces down his unease and descends the stairs. While listening to the rolled-up wall closing behind him.

[Light]

Déjà vu, an uninvited guest that arrives the moment he reaches his destination.

Round glass bottles and gleaming metal objects,

Walls and floors whiter than freshly washed priestly robes,

And devices of bizarre shapes and unknown purposes.

It’s the same as Alain’s cottage.

It was also proof that Clevens had come to the right place.

He floated the light he had conjured with holy magic beneath the ceiling. He cautiously takes a step forward while looking around.

First discovery,

This place had clearly been abandoned a long time ago. The thickness of the dust piled on the devices proved it. It must have been empty ever since Hairston died.

And second discovery,

“Ugh… The hell is that smell, it’s worse than a shit house…”

A foul stench fills the space. And the source of that stench was the bottles placed in the corner. The bottles were filled with a black liquid, something he had absolutely no desire to open.

Lastly, third discovery,

Hairston definitely spent his later years here.

Books and bedding scattered in the corner. A scene far removed from neatness or cleanliness.

*It seems like Hairston wasn’t exactly a neat freak,* Clevens thought to himself as he approached Hairston’s bedding.

Tragically, the books couldn’t be read. Not because of ignorance, but inability. No matter how skilled Clevens might be, he couldn’t read books with every page blackened.

Yet, traces of Hairston’s life remained, and traces of living tend to say a lot.

Unorganized liquor bottles rolling about, disheveled bedding, and traces of self-harm left on the priest’s robe.

They were evidence of guilt. Though what that guilt stemmed from, he couldn’t tell.

And the way the bedding was disheveled, the arrangement of the objects, they formed a path of Hairston’s movements.

Where Hairston got up from bed, and where he moved to.

Clevens’ steps retraced the path Hairston had likely taken.

Past the strange metal pipe where water flowed from,

Past the closet where a rotting priest’s robe hung,

To the desk where a bizarre machine sat.

It’s an unusually square-shaped object. At its end were small squares arranged in a row, with only the leftmost square bearing a deep wine stain. Evidence that Hairston had pressed that spot.

Clevens took a deep breath for a moment and then pressed that square firmly

*Click- Whirr-*

[My name is Hairston Greenwood, the seventh Pope of the Church.]

And then, a drunken voice began to peel the secret.

***

Discovering this place was a matter of chance.

I was 17, a hot-blooded deacon, searching for a place where I could avoid the stern eyes of the priests. A place where I could seduce innocent nuns, or hide food during fasting periods.

It was my foolishness that led that search to the underground prison. I’d thought that even the most fastidious priest wouldn’t bother looking as far as the underground prison…

So, on a moonless night, I snuck into the underground prison…

And discovered this place.

…Along with the diary of the first Pope.

The contents written in that diary were shocking.

The truth was that two hundred years ago, what Alain killed wasn’t the Demon King, but the goddess

That the Goddess’s soul had been forged into the holy sword, and her flesh banished to another world, each sealed away separately.

And that in that process, the Seven Heroes had sacrificed hundreds of thousands of lives…

The first Pope had meticulously recorded the process of that sacrifice in his diary. He transcribed every bit of that cruelty into words. The diary’s last sentence was as follows:

[Did we really have to do it? All those lives… those pitiful people…]

It was a record of regret.

I still clearly remember the moment I closed that book.

My limbs trembled from the shock, and my mind went completely blank, unable to think of anything. And then, it was the moment I finally sank to the floor.

*Help me*, a young girl’s voice rang out.

I screamed and bolted out of the place.

But even so, the voice didn’t disappear. Rather than decreasing, it grew louder and more desperate with each passing day.

*Help me, save me, please, help me.*

Not long after, strange nightmares began to visit me. Dreams of the atrocities committed by the Seven Heroes.

Those screams, those pains, those desperations…

My sanity gradually crumbled.

And then, a month later, I ended up asking the voice.

‘What do you want from me.’

And then, the voice answered.

‘Freedom.’

….

The voice belonged to a girl sacrificed by Alain. Used as a material for the Holy Sword, she had been trapped within the sword for over a hundred years.

As a servant of God, how could I possibly ignore her.

I decided to help the girl.

Her first request was to seduce the all-knowing witch. It wasn’t a difficult task. I only had to follow the girl’s words, after all.

I merely took a white fragment from here and spoke as the girl instructed. The all-knowing witch welcomed me with open arms. She rejoiced, saying that she had finally fulfilled her lifelong dream.

Saying something about finally avoiding the price of fate.

I couldn’t understand their words, but it didn’t matter. For my task was seduction, not understanding.

I seduced the all-knowing witch as the girl instructed, and slept with her. And then, I never returned to that place.

The girl’s second request was for me to become the Pope. That, too, I accomplished by simply following the girl’s instructions.

When I came to my senses, I had divine power stronger than almost any other priest in the church, And the girl revealed to me the bishops’ hidden secrets and shameful flaws.

I was able to ascend to the Pope’s seat before even turning thirty.

And then, the girl stopped talking to me. Even though I called her name and searched for her several times, I couldn’t find her. She vanished, as if she’d been my hallucination all along.

In the end, I had no choice but to return to my daily life. Fortunately, thanks to becoming Pope, I wasn’t short on things to do.

But no matter what I did, I could no longer feel joy. It felt as though the very concept of passion had vanished along with the girl.

Life grew dull, and stingy time mercilessly added wrinkles to my body.

And so, 30 years passed.

It happened one day when I had become a full-fledged old man and was searching for a cane.

The girl’s voice reached me once again.

She had two requests.

To lift the curse on the Holy Sword,

And to spread a certain chemical in some backwater place called Ailleyde

The former was quite a troublesome task. Because even the girl knew nothing about the holy sword’s seal. I had to move my residence to Axolotl and spend my days and nights here.

But the latter was simple. Since I only needed to sprinkle the chemicals stored here onto Ailleyde’s land.

I didn’t even have to dirty my own hands. I called a devout priest and had him take care of the task.

…If only I had done it myself, maybe this pain would be a little lighter.

It was two months ago that news of the Ailleyde tragedy reached my ears.

The people… My God, so many people… in such a horrific way…

I immediately tried to find a cure. I rummaged through ancient archives, searching for records of such a disease.

But there was only one record I could find.

Written in the first Pope’s diary, that Alain had spread such a disease to hold back the goddess’s steps. And that there was no such thing as a cure.

Naturally, I asked the girl too. No, I’m still asking even now. But the girl doesn’t give any answer.

Only the holy sword, still bearing its curse, shines coldly.

Was the girl a demon from the start? What exactly was the girl’s purpose? Why did the girl approach me?

…I don’t know.

But tomorrow, when the purification of the Holy Sword is complete, when the girl is finally released, maybe then I’ll know.

Whether what I did was evil or good.

…But even if what I did was good, what about those innocent lives? Those poor people who died of illness in agony?

Must those poor people be sacrificed?

Ah, O God…

***

*Click-*

And then the voice ceased

Clevens stood there dumbly for a moment, unable to say a word. His eyes, fixed on the machine, tremble violently.

After all, even though he had quit being an inquisitor, he was still a man of the cloth. How could he not be shaken by the fact that the head of his religion had committed mass murder.

But he was also a realist.

Quickly regaining his composure, Clevens picked up the machine.

He had to tell the kid about this right away. The price of fate is a lie. It’s nothing more than an epidemic Hairston spread. If so, then that machine…

“I didn’t expect you to arrive this quickly, you know.”

Clevens’s eyes and mace simultaneously turn toward the voice. But his eyes widened greatly, and the mace stopped in midair.

“You can feel proud, Clevens. Even Irene didn’t discover this place. Well, to be precise, she probably didn’t *want* to discover it.”

The deacon, that bumbling deacon who had guided Clevens, walks out from the shadows. The closer he got to Clevens’ light, the more his face changed.

From that of a clumsy boy to that of a frivolous girl.

Clevens’ eyes turned to the girl’s arm, covered in tattoos.

“Betty Ailleyde, or perhaps it’d be more fitting to call you the ‘Forgotten Goddess’? Or maybe, Hairston’s ‘girl’?”

The corner of Betty’s mouth curved upward.

“You’ve found out quite a lot.”

“Not enough. [O Lord!!]”

Suddenly, a beam of light shot forth from Clevens’ hand. It was an intense beam of light that even Clevens himself seemed to be seeing for the first time.

“It does seem like it’s not quite enough.”

But even more so, how could his own body betray him.

The beam of light wrapped around Betty affectionately. When she grabbed it with her hand, it was sucked into her palm as if it had been waiting.

“The Heavenly God is, after all, an artificial god created from my own body. There’s no way I’d be harmed by holy magic…”

But when Betty looked up, Clevens was already gone from that spot.

Hearing the sound of receding footsteps, Betty’s expression hardened.

“How cunning.”

However, her hardened expression doesn’t last. Her narrowed eyes spot a trail of blood on the floor.

Perhaps he got stabbed by the shadow, I thrust out reflexively.

Stroking her chin, she murmured as if intrigued.

“I wonder just how far he can escape…”

And then, Betty melts into the shadows.