Translator: Nox

48 - Marquis Maron

Episode 48

Enif had a fairly large temple, a cemetery, and an orphanage managed by the Order.

"Your Eminence, please defeat the Demon!"

"Let us pray to God!"

"Please help the Princess and kill the Demon!"

"Showing up late and talking about subjugation…."

The streets were full of people. The people, made uneasy by the news that a Demon had appeared nearby, stopped working and gathered to share news.

Many people cheered for or criticized the Cardinal and the Holy Knights, who were starting much later than Princess Asta.

The Cardinal, moving in the center of the procession under the protection of the Holy Knights, did not look well.

He was a very old priest, and he seemed bothered that people were chanting the Princess's name more than his.

If that was the case, he should have gone out before Asta. A priest's ass shouldn't be heavier than royalty's when a Demon appears.

Thinking that, I urged Reikart.

"Let's go to the cemetery."

The temple doors were closed.

People wanted to go inside and pray, but the remaining priests refused. They said they would offer silent prayers until the Cardinal returned safely after defeating the Demon, telling people that only God could prevent this great omen of misfortune.

We headed to the cemetery instead of the temple because we had information from Rango.

"Rango is amazing at finding things like this, even if he's not good at anything else. Is it because he's an assassin? I want to know the information merchant route he uses."

"If a guy with mediocre skills wants to kill people and sneak away, he definitely needs an escape route like this."

"You don't need it because you're so skilled?"

"I'm not an assassin, Zeus."

Reikart, completely immersed in playing with aliases, called me Zeus so naturally that I felt a surge of confidence, as if I could summon thunder and lightning.

We secretly entered the stone chamber inside the cemetery and lit a torch. Then, we passed through what appeared to be a crematorium and went further inside.

Believers who donated a lot of money were given separate prayer rooms inside the temple, but this place seemed to be for believers who donated moderately.

And further inside, there was a cemetery for dead priests and Holy Knights.

The white walls were filled with phrases detailing how faithful and respectable he had been during his lifetime. As I skimmed through the pious content, I found the name Rango had told me about on one wall and stood in front of it.

"Aquaper."

The name of the person who wrote the list that Rango had stolen from Grandis.

"Here it is."

When we pushed the wall, a narrow staircase appeared.

It was a staircase leading to a prison.

Because top-secret documents were literally top-secret, people thought they would have prepared a lot of security devices and guards in front of them.

There had already been a theft in Grandis, so that should have been even more the case.

But the Cardinal of Enif was a man of unexpectedness.

"We have to go past the dead to get to the place where the criminals are imprisoned. It's nice that there are no guards, but it's creepy."

"It's eerie."

When I rubbed my goosebump-covered arms, Reikart sent me behind him and walked ahead.

He's so reliable at times like this.

While he shone the torch here and there, I clung to his back like a cicada, only peeking out my head.

As we went deeper into the prison, we saw something very familiar.

"Grrr…."

There were The tainted.

Inside the two innermost cells, there was one of The tainted in each, tied up. I didn't know why they were here, whether they had been captured in the Contaminated Zone and dragged here, or whether they had been tainted here.

Standing there blankly in confusion, I realized that the clothes they were wearing looked quite familiar.

It was the one-piece dress and leggings that Holy Knights wore under their armor.

"They're Holy Knights."

When I said that, Reikart nodded.

"Looks like they failed to make Fake Holy Knight."

I didn't know how they did it, but the Order took children born with divine power, raised them as Holy Knights, and then injected Magical Energy into their hearts. I didn't know why they were doing this, but if they failed, it would be like this.

"Grrr…."

Becoming a zombie that suddenly appears in my front yard.

"Bastards."

Reikart cursed.

The guy who grew up as a young master of a noble family didn't usually use vulgar language, unlike my Doraji, but it seemed like he was gradually catching the disease from living as an Omnivore in my house.

While he was furious at the Order's behavior, I was staring intently at the face of the Holy Knight who had become a zombie. The gray eyes had no focus, and the pale skin had no color.

I found a familiar face among them. The appearance of a handsome middle-aged man with stylishly long white hair and a white beard was nowhere to be found.

"Mister."

I laughed and asked.

"What are you doing here?"

He was the commander of the Order's forces that escorted me to the canyon. The Holy Knight who stepped forward and lectured like an old geezer every time the soldiers spat at me and cursed.

The only person who answered me seriously when I was throwing out questions like a madman.

"Hmm."

What should I do?

Should I pretend I don't know? Or should I at least try?

It was difficult to decide easily. I was not a champion of justice, nor was I the protagonist of this world. Even though I had a brief connection with this person, I couldn't forget that he had thrown me into the canyon.

According to the original story, they would be forgotten.

They would be buried as the Order's secret, never revealed to anyone. As an intermediate step in something the Order was trying to achieve, a failed experiment.

On the other hand, I was too much of a conspicuous singularity.

They say that one loach muddies the whole pond. Now that it had come to this, I thought it wouldn't be bad to become an unpredictable loach.

"Get out of the way."

I went inside the door that Reikart had broken and extracted the Magical Energy from the Holy Knight's heart.

Reviving The tainted was as delicate a task as creating a Magic Core. In particular, Fake Holy Knights were more difficult because, unlike ordinary zombies, they were intentionally and slowly tainted by someone.

And it was impossible to leave behind divine power while extracting Magical Energy.

It suddenly occurred to me that when they regained consciousness, they might despair at the fact that they had lost their innate divine power, just as I had felt when I regained consciousness and had my Mana taken away and became powerless.

But who cares? It's better than being a zombie in any way.

"Get the list first. Let's get out of here right away."

"Okay."

Exhausted from extracting Magical Energy from the two Holy Knights imprisoned in the prison, I watched Reikart put several books that appeared to be the list in his arms and hurriedly turned away.

"Ugh…."

The Holy Knights blinked as they regained consciousness. Even as I felt their gaze chasing after me, I never looked back.

"Let's go."

Moving as carefully as possible, we left the cemetery and immediately agreed to leave Enif. It was because we didn't know when the purified Holy Knights would regain consciousness and run out.

The temple was bound to be turned upside down, and I didn't want to be here then either.

We found a baggage cart at the inn and immediately headed for the canyon.

The Demon was subjugated as in the original story.

The only difference from the original story was that the Cardinal, one of only five in the Order, died in the process. As the Cardinal died, almost all of the Holy Knights, priests, and soldiers sent out by the Order also died.

It was the result of recklessly rushing at the Demon in an attempt not to have his credit stolen by Asta.

Instead, most of the people in the rural village of Kasnatura survived. Even though the woman who became a Demon died and the nearby village was devastated, it was truly amazing that there were not hundreds of casualties as in the original story.