Chapter 206: Turns Out Everyone’s Plotting Something (4)

…It’s hard to get a newspaper today.

Everywhere I went, it was all sold out, seriously…

I mean, I get it, but still…

No citizen of the kingdom wouldn’t buy today’s newspaper. That was just how much the article written in it stimulated their dopamine, to the point that they’d buy it without thinking twice.

Of course, Lee Han was no exception. Although in his case, he wasn’t specifically looking for one to stimulate his dopamine but rather because he was one of the people who knew the ‘inside story’ of the article. He figured that he should at least read what was written on it.

The bold—no, overturning tail-cutting article…

“No. ‘Head-cutting’ would be the correct expression here.”

Rustle-!

Lee Han expressed his admiration that wasn’t really one as he read the headlines of the newspaper that highlighted the interview with some people, as well as the events that happened in the Great Temple—the article took up even the next page.

The level of thoroughness that the newspapers went was truly admirable.

[Extremists who dreamed of overthrowing the kingdom? The leader of the extremists, Temple Leader Berhen and Cardinal Dateo are confirmed dead.]

[The atrocities committed by the extremists were aimed at the Academy and Galahad?]

[The royal family is furious! ‘A strong rebuke will fall on the temple!’ What will said strong response from the royal family be?!]

An unprecedented incident that could be described as one that overturned the kingdom upside down in a single night had happened. The entire Southern Continent would probably be in an uproar over the topic for a while and there probably wouldn’t be any peaceful days for the foreseeable future.

However, even in the most dirty mud, flowers still managed to find their way to bloom.

Even while the entire nation was cursing the temple, they still did not spare their sympathy and respect for a certain ‘hero’.

[The bold decision of the leader of the moderates, Cardinal Michael!]

[Cardinal Michael, a candidate for sainthood! A severe response to the extremists who committed heinous acts by drawing his sword.]

[Is it a Holy War? Or a mere hunt for heretics?!]

[Cardinal Michael shedding tears. ‘Those whom I killed with my own hands were once my teachers, fathers, and brothers’.]

Cardinal Michael. He was an old priest who was over ninety years old this year. It would be normal for someone who lived that long to be corrupted, but he was one of the rare people who managed to maintain his integrity.

He was the longest-serving cardinal of the temple, and was also known as the leader of the moderates. Now, he enjoyed the same level of attention as the leaders of the extremists and the heretics who had suddenly risen to stardom through his radical acts of ‘purifying’ them.

Skewering heads and putting them on sticks was already a barbaric and cruel enough act. But, he went even further and burned the bodies of those whose heads he had cut off; an act that went beyond lunacy.

However…

It’s all still reasonable when the context is added into it.

This might sound like the bark of a gnoll, but the so-called Extremist Faction of the temple was a faction that truly had accumulated a lot of [sins]. They were famous for committing radical acts that made even the people who’d usually stand on the temple’s side to unconditionally express their discomfort.

And when the recent incident was investigated more thoroughly, it was revealed that the extremists had done even more numerous bad and dirty things than what was known, including a particular crime that was banned by the previous king: slave trading.

In other words, none of the people who had died were ‘unjustly killed.’

Over a hundred people had committed crimes that would warrant them a death penalty, and the guy called Michael had drawn his sword against those corrupt priests who were going wild in the name of justice.

This was the truth of the ‘Purification Incident’ that the world knew. It was understandable why the people were enthusiastic about Michael.

Not only that.

[Galahad’s bold decision.]

[They are the ones who move for the order of the kingdom! A family of true heroes.]

[What did the Pendragon Royal Family do when Galahad moved?]

…Such provocative articles were also being published by the newspaper.

Articles that praised Galahad while expressing antipathy toward the royal family, a typical tactic to divide people’s opinion.

“Are those people tired of living?”

The articles were ones that would genuinely offend the royal family, and he couldn’t help but let out a dry laugh as he read them.

If that older sister were to see these articles…

“-Why are you looking at such filth?”

Tear-!

…Yep. She’d tear the whole paper apart. Just like that.

Lee Han blinked at the sudden appearance of the silver-haired crown princess who stole his newspaper and tore it to shreds.

Man, it was hard to buy that newspaper…

“…I was still reading it, you know?”

“Why are you dirtying your eyes like that? Throw them all away. All of them are filled with false propaganda.”

“Hmm.”

Lee Han scratched his cheek. Her tone and eyes were sharper and colder than usual. It didn’t need a genius to tell that she was mad.

“What’s going on, Elder Sister? Why did you come to such a shabby place?”

Well, so what if she was mad? That didn’t stop Lee Han from asking that blunt question, as if her title of the crown princess was nothing to fret about.

Why does she even bother coming all the way here?

“Hmph, your tone is quite disrespectful. You should’ve felt elated to the point you’d cry after seeing this lady coming all the way here, you know?”

“Sure.”

“…You disrespectful guy!”

Tak!

Isis fan went straight towards Lee Han.

Crack-!

However, the thing that broke wasn’t his head, but her wrist.

“Your wrist is broken, Elder Sister. Are you okay?”

“Hmm… This is a ‘clone’ for undercover work. It seems it still needs more polishing.”

“…You really have so many random things with you.”

…Fortunately, it didn’t seem like her main body had arrived.

You know, now that I think about it, she’s quite talented, isn’t she?

Lee Han expressed his admiration silently.

“Those maggots from the temple, using maggot-like tricks! They’re dirtier than real maggots!”

“Ahem.”

Isis, who’d usually still use polite words even when cursing, used the word ‘maggot’ three times in a row. From that alone, Lee Han could tell that she didn’t only find them unpleasant, she also found them as the worst kind of enemy.

“However, though it was radical, I can’t deny that it was a sure-fire method. The Saint Plan, wasn’t it? Not only did they get to put the blame of all the tricks they did to make that absurd plan come true on the extremists, they also handed down such harsh punishments that I can’t even have the right to scold them. And that isn’t all. With them giving credit to Galahad, they created a very thin bond between Galahad and the temple. Galahad must’ve found this unpleasant, but the people will think otherwise. They will start to have expectations like, ‘Does Galahad finally believe in the temple too?’. Killing ‘only’ ‘hundreds of pests’ and achieving this effect is a stroke of brilliance.”

“Pests? You aren’t treating them like a human being, Elder Sister?”

“According to my separate investigations, the crimes committed by the priests belonging to the Extremist Faction included ‘murder’, ‘fraud’, ‘kidnapping’, and ‘torture’ of believers. What should I call them if not pests?”

“…Magic Freaks?”

“I am really curious about just what kind of people mages are in your head…”

In any case, Lee Han understood why Isis did not treat those dead people as human beings. After all, It was clear that they were beings that were worse than animals.

“The only people who died unjustly among the pests would be the temple leader and the dead cardinal. While yes, they were the leaders of the Extremist Faction, they were nothing more than petty criminals who embezzled money…”

“T-That’s still a crime, isn’t it?”

“According to the law of the kingdom, petty criminals like them will only be sentenced to [40 years of hard labor].”

“…”

Actually, dying is probably a more comfortable option for these guys.

The more he listened, the more he felt bewildered. It was clear that what the temple had done was beyond crazy, but no one could openly criticize them. After all, the ones they used to cut off their tails were actually ‘unrecyclable trash.’

“What’s even more ridiculous is that most of the moderates are clean people, and in the case of Cardinal Michael, he received bribes in the name of support, but that kind of crime is nothing in the grand scheme of things. So there’s nothing for us to find fault with! Haa!”

“…Wow.”

He knew that couldn’t be the case, but he couldn’t help but to admire them a little.

Just what the heck are those guys?

Why are they so thorough?

They were even more thorough than any enemy he had faced so far—the Templar Knights, the sultan, and the Magic Tower.

“But still, we caught the templars red-handed this time around. The important priests also died. Wouldn’t this mean they lost a lot of strength from this incident?”

“That’s true, but their ‘gain’ was much more than what they lost. If anything, they have more power than ever before.”

“?”

“It’s ‘trust’.”

“??”

“They proved to the world that they are a clean organization by executing their brothers and sisters. By weeding out even the templars…they proved that they know how to reflect on themselves.”

“Is it that grand?”

“It is. The people might be disappointed by the heresy that some guys in the temple did for a brief moment, but after a while, their disappointment will turn to admiration, and later to respect. After all, they had shown their determination to execute all the templars, cardinals, and even the temple leader in the name of the Light of Brilliance, so…”

In other words, this trust will soon lead to a surge of people’s faith in them.

“…So, you’re telling me they gained a huge gain that money can’t buy?”

“Not even an endless supply of money can give you that kind of trust.”

Trust of the people would soon become money, honor, and glory.

From those, it was obvious what kind of benefits they’d get.

As for the amount, it was impossible to estimate.

The sky was literally the limit.

“What they had lost this time around, I guarantee that in a year, no, even half a year, they will be able to recover everything.”

“Hmm.”

“The momentum of the resurrected temple cannot be broken anymore. If anyone tries to break it, the entire Southern Continent will be furious.”

“…Elder Sister?”

“We lost. The royal family, me, Galahad, Lionel, everyone. Everyone who was keeping their guards up against the temple has lost. The plan we made with so much effort was all ruined overnight. I really want to see the face of the person who planned this damn scheme, I want to kill them!”

“…”

Lee Han stared at her intently.

Now that I see it, she…

He had wondered why she came all the way to this shabby house, even using a clone, from the first time she arrived.

“…Are you really that upset? To the point you are acting like this?”

Even after she vented to him, her anger hadn’t subsided. She was so angry to the point where she couldn’t bear it if she didn’t tell someone.

“If that’s the case, you should go to your family and tell them about it. Why are you coming to me?”

“What family is there for me in the royal family?”

“What about the butler?”

“That guy lacks any empathy whatsoever.”

“Still, it’s not like I’m a bamboo forest or anything…”

“?”

“You know, someone who listens to other people’s secrets, we call them bamboo forests…”

“Haha, I see. Regardless, I only have you.”

…Indeed, he was the only person who’d listen to her vent.

Crack-!

At that moment, the fan she was holding shattered. A rare occurrence. Usually, even when she got angry, she’d express it in a much calmer way. This was the first time he had seen her openly express her anger.

“Are you really that mad?”

“Yes, I am. All the plans I created to attack the temple are useless now. If there’s a good thing from all this, it’s that it wasn’t just me who suffered. Galahad and Lionel as well. Haha.”

“…You have a bad personality, do you know that?”

Even as he responded to her words, he was left amazed. The fact that the strategies and plans of the three most powerful forces in the Southern Continent were overturned in vain was shocking.

Everyone’s plotting something, but things in the world won’t be resolved just like that, huh?

Up until now, Lee Han had only seen the temple as a bunch of lunatics, but now…

They have a competent strategist.

Also…

He’s competent enough who could screw those three factions all at once.

Not only that…

“It seems like this insignificant old man will be elected as the next temple leader.”

Early in the next morning, Lee Han found out that there was another person who had been screwed by them.

“Elder?”

Raphael, the only person he recognized as ‘adult’, let out a weary sigh, and before he could comfort him…

“Moreover, I think the temple will openly give you their thanks, Brother. They will probably bestow you [exemptions] as their thanks to you for catching the heretics.”

“Exemption? What is…”

“It’s a precious thing that was given to only twenty people in the history of the kingdom. Those who received it are often praised as heroes of the temple.”

“!?”

“The moment you receive it, you will go up on stage. You will be the center of attention of the world.”

“…”

“…And this is not what you want right, Brother?”

“…Fuck.”

Since he was in front of an adult, he tried to hold back his curses, but in the end, he couldn’t do it any longer.

That was when he realized.

The strategist whose face he didn’t even know, the competent fuck who managed to screw over the three factions…

I had been playing on the board they made?

Had been using him like a chess piece.

“Ha, damn it!”

Rather than getting angry, he just burst out laughing.

He felt as if he had been knocked out before he even got into the ring.

This wasn’t something he had just realized, but he once again realized that fists couldn’t solve all the problems in the world.

Indeed, there was a reason why the saying, ‘The pen is mightier than the sword,’ existed.