Chapter 82: The Unholy Ones

Four types of monsters appear in the underground tomb.

Zombies from the 1st floor.

Skeletons on the 2nd floor.

Wraiths, ethereal-type monsters, appear on the 3rd floor.

On the 4th floor, ghouls savor the flesh and blood of the living.

Ordinary adventurers don’t enter the underground tomb.

Mainly priests, monks, or those with means to attack ethereal beings enter.

As a result, the underground tomb became one of the least popular entrances.

In places with few people, the malice of the labyrinth boils over.

A basement where light doesn’t shine.

Heretics have settled in and turned this place into a den of ghosts.

Wraiths that should be on the 3rd floor roam the 1st floor.

Skeletons that used to crawl out from the 2nd floor now mingle with zombies on the 1st floor, holding a bloody feast.

This is hell.

This is the end of the human world.

That’s what I thought.

“Holy Light.”

Light shines.

A ray of light descends on the dark and damp labyrinth, bringing purification.

Evil spirits hiding in the darkness are washed away.

The Saint’s light illuminated the labyrinth.

The goddess’s radiance shines upon us.

The filthy malice that had accumulated and stagnated was cleanly burned away.

“What is this…”

The scene could be described as the descent of the goddess.

I saw it for the first time.

It was a kind of miracle to see monsters erased by ‘Holy Light’, the weakest exorcism spell that simply illuminates the labyrinth with holy light.

“There are too many smelly things.”

Monsters swept away.

Not even ectoplasm remained in their place.

They were completely erased from this world as if they had never existed.

It didn’t matter whether this was enlightenment or simply exorcism leading to annihilation.

The Saint, who tore apart the monster wave laid out by the heretics with a single breath, approached the trembling heretics with a broad smile.

“Is this all the mischief you’ve prepared? Is there no more? More. Please entertain me more. Is this really all? It’s obvious. So obvious. Your tricks are so obvious now that it’s funny. Dirty and ugly seeds of evil. Go ahead and cry out to your god.”

The Saint’s expression distorts.

What dwells in her two eyes is intense sadism and a cruelly beautiful light.

The Bible in her hand is raised.

“Repent in death.”

“Kyaaaaaah!!!!”

It was brought down towards the heretic’s head.

Bang.

“Unholy ones.”

One heretic died.

A trembling heretic tried to escape, but Raphael blocks his path.

“Saint. May I make him repent?”

“Go ahead, Raphael.”

“Hahahahaha!!! Believe in the goddess in your next life!”

The giant barbarian priest swung his greatsword while laughing.

Splat-!

The sight of the fleeing heretic being split in half from the crown of his head was almost pleasant. It was like killing an insect.

“Hahahahaha! The expression is exquisite.”

“It seems your strength has improved, brother.”

“It’s thanks to the goddess’s grace. Hahahahaha! Paramel-kun can do it too!”

“Haha.. I’m physically weak…”

Laughter spreads. The labyrinth that was full of fear, terror, pain, and hatred was now filled with mockery and joy.

“My, what a heartwarming scene. Don’t you think?”

“Huh? Ah. Yes.”

I couldn’t sympathize with Rosie’s words at all, but I pretended to agree for now.

In a one-eyed village, you have to pretend to be one-eyed to avoid being hated.

“Then please collect the heretic remains.”

“Understood.”

I picked up the heretic corpses scattered on the floor.

One had its head smashed by the Saint’s Bible hammer, and the other was split in two as if Solomon had visited, so I put on gloves to avoid getting blood on me and put them in my inventory.

Inside the pitch-black robes were people just like us.

I’m not sure how they came to worship an evil god, but now they were just corpses that couldn’t speak.

“Let’s go down. It seems the 1st floor has been cleared.”

“Yes, Saint.”

The cleaning of the 1st floor was finished. Rosie closed her eyes and prayed before entering the transfer stone.

This place is now clean.

Because we finished cleaning both monsters and heretics.

We went down to the 2nd floor.

“Are there heretics on the 2nd floor too?”

“Sniff sniff. More than on the 1st floor.”

“Let’s sweep them all away before they escape downwards.”

Fria and Raphael rushed ahead towards the heretics again.

Quick and decisive. When Raphael finds heretics by smell, they rush in with the Saint to smash their heads and leave only corpses.

Then I pick them up and put them in my inventory. This process was repeated.

We continued like that, cleaning heretics without stopping as we descended to the 3rd floor, and decided to take a short break in front of the 4th floor.

It was our first break after 7 hours of entering the labyrinth.

‘It’s hard…’

I’m not fighting, but just following these people is difficult.

It usually takes about 7 hours just to clear through to the 4th floor, but we’ve come down from the 1st to 3rd floor in 7 hours, cleaning everything thoroughly, so you can imagine how fast we’ve been moving without me having to say it.

We really ran without rest.

Stabbing fleeing heretics in the back, finding those in hiding and smashing their heads.

A repetition of killing and killing again.

I even started to feel like my vision was turning red.

‘What kind of stamina do they have? They’re killing heretics and the monsters they summon without resting for even a minute or second.’

Moreover, Torturer Sasaro and Recorder Paramel didn’t even fight. The same goes for Rosie, who was in charge of guarding me.

Just the Saint and Raphael moving is enough to finish cleaning the labyrinth.

Maybe because they’re Platinum Badge level monsters, they erased monsters as naturally as breathing and then ruthlessly smashed heretics’ skulls.

Without any difficulty. They’re handling the situation with just physical attacks, without even using exorcism spells except when dealing with monster waves. As if they have no time to waste in the upper floors, they were relentless.

Above all, what’s questionable is that Bible the Saint is swinging.

Is that really a book? What kind of book is it made of?

“What are you looking at so intently?”

“Ah, I was just curious about the Saint’s Bible.”

“Ah. You’re curious about the contents of the Bible. Here, this is a miniature Bible. Would you like to read it?”

“Ah, that’s not what I meant.”

Rosie took out a mini Bible the size of a notebook from between her large breasts and handed it to me.

I wasn’t curious about the contents, but I took it anyway since it was warm.

“Aha. You’re curious about what the Saint’s Bible is made of?”

“Ah, yes. It doesn’t even get soaked in blood. It looks extremely sturdy.”

“Of course it does. That’s a holy relic.”

“What?”

A holy relic? Isn’t that a treasure of the religious order?

Is it okay to smash heretics’ heads with a holy relic of the order?

Or rather, should it be smashed with a holy relic?

It was a story I couldn’t follow with my sensibilities.

At that moment, the old Torturer Sasaro spoke while sipping water.

“It’s the object on which the goddess’s words were first recorded. Probably… seems to have been taken without the Pope’s knowledge.”

“Pffft. Cough! Cough!! What? No, is the Saint allowed to do that?”

It’s shocking. No, what kind of position does the Saint have in the order?

From what I’ve heard about her usual behavior, she goes around causing trouble here and there, and now she’s taken a holy relic of the order and is using it so recklessly.

I coughed involuntarily in surprise. As I kept coughing for a while, the Saint, who had wiped off blood, came over and said. She must have been listening to our conversation.

“Hehe. It feels like I’m correcting heretics when I hit them with this.”

“Huh.”

The Saint smiling and saying she stole a holy relic from the Pope just for the satisfaction of hitting with it.

“Won’t this cause big trouble?”

“Oh, I’ll just get disciplined a bit. It’s not the first or second time.”

I was at a loss for words.

To think the Saint, who should set an example by following regulations, is like this.

“Shall we eat?”

I took out sandwiches from my inventory and distributed them to the group. I decided to quickly change the subject because I had nothing to say.

Right, this is my job. Providing convenience and picking up corpses. Let’s not question unnecessary things or show excessive interest. It only gives me a headache.

“By the way, how is it?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“I mean, aren’t you having a hard time or anything? People are dying right in front of you. You seem too calm, Porter-ssi. Are you used to this kind of thing?”

“Uh. Hmm.”

As I was eating a sandwich, the Saint asked casually. Normally, one would find it a bit horrifying or think it’s too cruel.

But.

“I almost died twice because of these bastards. If anything, it’s satisfying.”

Both when I was attacked once at night.

And when I almost died because of the Watcher these bastards summoned in the middle of the city.

I’m pretending to be calm in front of others, but these incidents have deeply rooted a hatred for heretics in my heart.

Because I really almost died. It hurt too.

“Is that so? Hehehe. It seems your sensibilities match ours quite well. Have you ever thought about joining the order?”

“Ah, that’s a bit…”

“I see.”

“If you join the order, we could treat you quite well.”

“Yeah. It’d be reassuring if you joined. Don’t you want to?”

“Haha.. My wish is to live as an ordinary adventurer.”

“Hehe. Is that so? That’s a shame.”

I’m already in a state where I can’t live as an ordinary adventurer, but I don’t want to go as far as joining the order.

“Well then, shall we go down to the next floor?”

“Yes.”

The end of the upper floors.

The 4th floor of the underground tomb.

It was smooth up to the 3rd floor.

“This is blatantly aimed at us.”

“Oh my…”

The 4th floor was a bit different.

“These are… adventurers, aren’t they…”

“Their heads are missing. We can’t revive them either.”

“…”

What we found as soon as we came down to the 4th floor were adventurers hanging on the wall with their heads cut off.

Heretics who had written unholy letters all over the walls with their blood.

They weren’t visible. However, intense hatred could be felt.

“Have you purified it?”

“Yes… This is quite something.”

“Hey, porter. No problems with your eyes?”

“Huh? Uh. Yes. Is this something I shouldn’t look at?”

“Precisely. It’s a curse. They’ve engraved curses densely on the 4th floor walls with human blood. To cause mental disorders no matter where you look.”

“Looks like they laid out the curse and escaped themselves. Those damn trash.”

“How many people were sacrificed…”

How many people would have to be killed to obtain this much blood?

“This…. isn’t enough with just adventurers’ blood…”

At that moment, Recorder Paramel suggested a new opinion.

“These bastards… It seems they killed each other and revived themselves to gather blood..”

It looks like they performed human sacrifices. Moreover, since heretics can be revived inside the labyrinth, it seems they gathered materials by dying and coming back to life.

“Sasaro.”

“Yes, Saint.”

“Don’t you feel something from over there?”

“It’s intense poison energy. It seems they’ve pulled up something from the underground city to the 4th floor, Saint.”

A monster from the 5th floor had come up to the 4th floor.

“It won’t be in a normal state.”

Moreover, it was in an altered state through some special method.