As the thick fog slowly lifted, a silver mask appeared within the black curtain.
The place where he set foot was not the coast, but a cavern of darkness. The red patterns on the altar were glowing faintly.
“You’re back.”
The one wearing a thin, beak-shaped mask raised his head.
“The sacrifice?”
A mask densely engraved with eyes asked.
The silver mask let out a short breath.
“Failure. There was an unforeseen variable. A knight... He had some kind of toy.”
The beaked mask laughed low.
“A knight? That would make fine material.”
“Fine? He even cut through the black curtain.”
The silver mask ground his teeth.
“The flow of black blood was severed because of them, too.”
The eye mask pointed to the altar.
One part of the pattern was empty, like a blank space.
“The flow has been twisted. Proof that the sacrifice’s share was taken.”
A brief silence fell, and then the beaked mask muttered.
“...Then we’ll have to dispose of them.”
The silver mask lowered his head and answered in a low voice.
“Next time, I will personally offer them to the altar.”
But the eye mask raised a hand to stop him.
“No. We withdraw.”
At those words, the silver mask flinched and raised his voice.
“Why withdraw? If we fail this time—”
“The dogs of the false god are moving.”
The eye mask’s voice overlapped and echoed from every direction.
“If we drag this out any longer, we’ll be exposed to them.”
“Damn it... Why are those bastards—”
Just then, countless footsteps thundered from outside the cavern, drawing closer.
The faint light spreading in through the gaps between the rock walls clashed with the aura of the dark red altar and wavered for an instant.
The beaked mask laughed low.
“...We’re already too late.”
A moment of silence passed.
Over the vibration like a heartbeat filling the cavern, the sound of clashing metal rang out, followed by a sharp prayer.
“—We shall drive away the fear of the unknown with infinite courage.”
It was unmistakably the Sacred Text recited by the clergy of the Order.
The beaked mask gripped the black blood crawling up his wrist and muttered low.
“...There is nowhere left to hide. Prepare yourselves.”
Soon after, deep within the cavern, black light and white light collided and spread outward.
***
“We’re finally leaving.”
“You said you’d been stuck here for over a week, right?”
“...Yes.”
The next morning, inspections finally resumed.
A strange mix of relief and fatigue showed on everyone’s faces.
Before leaving, we gathered in the inn’s dining hall for our final meal.
“I heard rumors that light burst out from the beach yesterday. What was that?”
“Light?”
Baldik frowned.
Then Chad lifted his head and muttered.
“Has that guy arrived already?”
At those words, we all turned to look at Chad at once.
Chad seemed to have some idea of what had happened.
“It’s what I mentioned yesterday. They must be from the Order.”
“I was curious—who exactly do you know in the Order?”
Sailun asked, eyes sparkling.
Chad answered casually.
“No one impressive. Just someone I met briefly back when I was a mercenary.”
“When you were a mercenary? Isn’t he a priest?”
“No, he is.”
“...Then how did you meet him when you were a mercenary?”
Chad chuckled and tapped the table with his finger.
“He belongs to Kaltzheim.”
“Ah.”
Sailun immediately nodded.
Kaltzheim. An Order founded after a legendary adventurer who had explored the entire world became a demigod.
Because they regarded adventure and inquiry as the highest virtues, the orthodox Orders did not even acknowledge them as a proper religion.
As a result, to others, they looked half like a group of adventurers.
So if he was from there, it was easy enough to understand how he might have gotten involved with Chad during his mercenary days.
“You have a wider network than I thought.”
The guild branch manager we’d met in Mondark before, and now this priest.
It seemed Chad had wandered here and there more than I expected, building up a surprising number of connections.
“Do I? I think I’m pretty ordinary.”
Chad said with an indifferent expression.
“But are you sure you can be so calm? If they don’t find a black magician—”
“Come on, there are this many witnesses. And he won’t give me that much trouble over something like this. I’ll get cursed out a bit and that’ll be the end of it.”
At that moment.
Bang!
The inn door burst open violently, and a large group of people poured in.
Heavily armed mercenaries, and among them, the robes of priests.
The atmosphere in the dining hall froze in an instant.
Silence fell, and dark gazes fixed on us.
Just as the mood was about to turn ugly,
“Oh, Maltis! You’re here.”
Chad was the first to calmly wave and greet them.
At those words, the small priest standing at the very front let out a deep sigh and clutched his head.
“Chad... I told you, please stop making trouble.”
With that one remark, the heavy tension instantly shifted into something else.
The gazes of the mercenaries and priests all focused on Chad at once.
Chad sat perched on his chair as if nothing were wrong and raised the cup in his hand.
“Why so serious? Has everyone eaten?”
“Haa...”
The priest called Maltis let out a long sigh and approached us.
‘Is that the acquaintance Chad mentioned earlier?’
Judging from the situation, it seemed right. But the atmosphere was strange.
Rather than close acquaintances, it felt more like Chad caused trouble and Mr. Maltis cleaned up after him.
It was like a parent dragging around a troublesome child.
Creak.
Mr. Maltis pulled out a chair and sat at our table.
He immediately gave a nod to the group that had come with him.
Creak, creak—
The heavily armed mercenaries and priests scattered to other tables and began placing orders as if they had been customers all along.
The tension that had filled the dining hall slowly eased, and an odd calm settled over the place along with a strange silence.
“Good morning. I am Maltis, captain of the Steps of Enlightenment of the Kaltzheim Order.”
Steps of Enlightenment? It was a name I had never heard before in my life.
He soon added with something like a smile.
“Ah, you may also comfortably call us heretic inquisitors.”
As soon as he said that, the air that had just loosened tightened again.
This man... was a heretic inquisitor?
The image I had imagined of a heretic inquisitor was someone like a torture-loving, deranged madman.
But the person sitting before me was far from that image.
First of all, his build looked even smaller than mine, and I might still have some growing left to do.
As for his face, aside from not wearing glasses, he had an impression closer to that of a model student you could find anywhere.
Because of the gap between that appearance and the title of “heretic inquisitor,” I was momentarily at a loss for words.
As if he did not care about the atmosphere at all, he continued calmly.
“Well, I’m sure you’ve all suffered a great deal because of Chad.”
“Ah... yes.”
A strange sense of kinship spread among us, as if we understood one another without words.
The tension resting on the table slowly began to loosen as well.
“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Chad tilted his head in confusion.
Then, just as he seemed to realize something and was about to turn his gaze toward us for no reason—
Slide.
Mr. Maltis quietly pushed a plate of food in front of Chad.
“Oh, this is good.”
Chad quickly turned his gaze and fixed it on the plate.
The way he stuffed his mouth full of food was utterly nonchalant.
And the way Mr. Maltis handled that entire process without the slightest concern was...
As if this sort of situation was not his first time, he looked very used to dealing with Chad.
After watching that, we also introduced ourselves one by one.
“I’m Liv.”
“Liv......”
Maltis repeated my name and frowned slightly.
Then, as if something had come to mind, he sank into thought for a moment before narrowing his eyes.
“Ah! Have you perhaps been to the Black Forest?”
“H-how did you know?”
I asked back without thinking and straightened my back in an instant.
The fact that a heretic inquisitor knew about that place I had visited made me uneasy.
“I remember seeing it in a report before. I think Brayville submitted it... What a connection.”
“Brayville...”
It was a familiar name.
A person who had certainly remained in my memory. He was a priest belonging to the Kaltzheim Order.
“...What happened to the Black Forest?”
I asked without realizing it.
I had tried to forget it, but the truth was, a part of me had always wondered.
I had barely managed to escape from that place, but at the end I had heard something strange.
More than anything, something undeniably ominous had been happening there.
“The Black Forest... In some ways, it is not very different from this matter.”
“This matter?”
“The summoning ritual taking place on Kron Island.”
“What?”
For a moment, my mind went blank.
Something like that had been happening without me knowing?
Thinking it over carefully, I remembered that suspicious silver mask talking about sacrifices.
Had that been related to the ritual?
When I looked at him with a dubious expression, Maltis instead appeared flustered.
“You didn’t know? We were clearly dispatched after a report came in regarding the matter...”
His gaze slowly turned to Chad.
Chad shook his head violently at me.
“Ahaha, I misspoke. Of course we knew. Hahaha...”
Seeing Chad’s urgent look, I had no choice but to go along with it through gritted teeth.
...I was sure Chad had said he had just made some kind of rough report.
The man who had calmly said, “I’ll get cursed out a bit and that’ll be the end of it,” now seemed to be trying to pull his feet out once the matter had grown serious.
“As I thought. In any case, a summoning ritual is also taking place in that forest. Additional personnel have been dispatched to stop it.”
“Even now?”
I was startled.
Quite some time had passed since then, and it still had not been resolved?
“Yes.”
Mr. Maltis nodded and clenched his teeth.
“It seems those filthy bastards have provided quite a lot of support to that side, so it has been delayed.”
Harsh profanity flowed from the mouth of the heretic inquisitor.
Unlike his gentle appearance, his tone was filled with anger.
‘So he really is a former mercenary.’
While I fell briefly into thought, beyond my hazy vision, I saw a waitress busily carrying food.
“Then the people behind you are also...”
“Yes. They are my subordinates.”
At Maltis’s answer, my head nodded on its own.
On the outside, they were dressed differently, like various mercenaries, but all of them belonged to an official inquisition squad.
Thinking about it, it was only natural.
It would have been even more ridiculous if an inquisition squad went around in flashy uniforms that drew attention.
On top of that, the basic attire of people from the Kaltzheim Order was already closer to that of adventurers or mercenaries.
Even those in the back wearing clothes that looked like priestly robes had sturdy leather armor underneath when I looked closely.
The only thing they had in common was the emblem seen here and there on their equipment: a bird’s wing entwined with a staff.
At a glance, they could easily be mistaken for a mercenary band.
“By the way, it is truly pleasant to meet someone connected to friends of the Order.”
“I wouldn’t really call it a connection...”
I did know a man named Brayville, but in truth, I had even suspected him.
We had not exchanged all that many words, and our relationship was rather ambiguous to call a relationship.
“Even such small ties are precious ties.”
“That’s true. But then, has the summoning ritual on Kron Island ended?”
“Ah, you wouldn’t have seen that.”
Maltis briefly looked as if he had realized his mistake, then lifted the corners of his mouth.
“Hmm... Let us finish our meal first. I’ll tell you as we leave.”
His tone was deliberately calm, but I could feel a strange trace of amusement within it.
What could it be?
***
After finishing our meal, we left the inn under Maltis’s guidance.
Maltis spoke with an extremely excited expression.
“To put it bluntly, the matter on Kron Island has come to an end.”
“Is that so? Then where are we going?”
“...You’ll know soon enough.”
As he smiled and took the lead, the priests and mercenaries who had entered with him earlier naturally followed behind.
It felt less like we were following voluntarily and more like we were being escorted.
After walking for quite some time, the checkpoint came into view.
A strange air hovered over the place, where tense soldiers stood guard, and faint red stains could be seen on each stone pillar.
‘What is... that?’
As we drew closer, I finally realized what it was.
Above the entrance to the checkpoint, hanging from poles, were... severed heads.
Some were already half-melted from being soaked in seawater, while others were so fresh they looked as if they had just been cut off.
Dried blood clung to them, staining them a dark earth color.
Sailun swallowed his breath and his face stiffened.
Even Baldik frowned with a grim expression.
At that moment, Maltis spoke in a calm voice.
“This is the end of those who participated in black magic. Magnificent, isn’t it?”
His voice was flushed with excitement, as if he were showing off his own work.
I silently looked at him.
He did not seem absurd like Chad.
But that did not mean he was sane.
A mad knight who enjoyed battle while tearing into flesh, and an inquisitor who cut off human heads, displayed them, and took pleasure in it.
There was no difference between the two.
‘...This person isn’t sane either.’
Birds of a feather flock together.