Sweet, yet nauseating.
A sticky smell clung to the inside of my lungs.
Instinctively, I knew.
That something was happening.
&
The deeper we went, the more the shape of the passage changed.
It was not a cleanly dug path.
The walls,
the ceiling,
and the floor were all rugged and uneven.
Rather than a passage made by human hands,
it was closer to a path forcibly carved through an existing cave.
Traces of the cultists arbitrarily altering a natural cave.
The stone walls were damp.
The ground beneath our feet was slippery.
In the darkness, the sound of water droplets falling reverberated a beat too slow.
Even that sound was unpleasant.
It was in that moment, as we went deeper inside,
that a sound came from afar.
A murmur.
At first, it sounded like wind leaking through a crack.
But after taking a few more steps,
it was unmistakably a human voice.
It was like a prayer,
yet also like an incantation.
But it was not sacred in the slightest.
Rather than a voice desperately pleading for something,
it was a sound like a faith already rotten being chewed over inside one’s mouth.
Those sounds spread and trailed along the walls.
The moment we turned a corner,
a light flickered in the distance.
We all held our breath at the same time.
Swallowing even the sound of our footsteps,
we pressed more carefully against the corner.
And the moment we turned our gazes to check the inside,
a vast cavern unfolded before our eyes.
Inside, around thirty people were gathered.
All had their hands raised toward the altar,
and while their posture was similar to prayer, it was absolutely not the same.
What filled their fingertips was not piety, but obsession.
What filled their eyes was not faith, but a broken obsession.
Madness.
That was the first word that came to mind.
Unfocused pupils.
Faces glistening, drenched in sweat.
Beneath the flickering torches, their expressions were less like people,
and more like insects swarming toward a flame.
Our gazes naturally turned toward the altar.
On the altar, a man and a woman were bound.
They had been stripped naked.
Their mouths were tightly gagged,
and their bodies trembled without rest.
From the horror confronting them.
And between them,
stood a figure draped in a black robe.
In the bastard’s hand was a dagger,
and the tip of the blade glinted grimly in the torchlight.
His lips moved without cease,
and the sound of his muttering spread cloyingly through the entire cavern.
A ritual offering a sacrifice, no matter who looked.
The moment he saw that sight,
Ian moved at once.
“Two knights, to the sides. I take the front. Eileen, here.”
And turning slightly, he directed his gaze toward me.
“And Leon. You stay here, protect Eileen, and block the entrance.”
Turning his gaze forward again, Ian walked ahead and spoke.
“Kill a few, capture the rest. That one on the altar is to be captured alive, no matter what.”
The two knights nodded and instantly sprang to either side.
Even so, almost no footstep could be heard.
In an instant, they dug in toward the rear of the cavern and cut off the escape route.
Ian had no intention of moving stealthily; he simply drew his sword openly and walked.
Srring.
Naturally, the bastard in the robe on the altar saw Ian.
“Wh-what! Who are you!”
The moment he saw Ian wearing armor, the bastard shouted.
“An evil that disturbs the sacred ritual!”
At that shout, the gazes inside the cavern turned as one.
As expected, they were not normal.
There was no one frightened,
and no one filled with anger.
Their pupils were unfocused and hazy,
yet strangely gleamed.
As if intoxicated by something,
or as if they had already lost themselves.
Soon, the bastards drew their respective weapons from within their clothes.
Rusted blades,
short clubs,
and pieces of iron that could have been picked up from anywhere.
Ian tilted his head slightly as he watched them.
“Now.”
The tip of his sword pointed toward the ground.
“Kneel. All of you.”
He slowly shifted his steps.
“Those who can’t kneel, come to me.”
The corner of his mouth twisted ever so slightly.
“I’ll cut you down personally.”
Even so, the cultists shrieked and rushed in.
“Die!”
“Demon!”
Ian shrugged his shoulders briefly.
An expression that said, as expected, they do not listen.
And without hesitation, he swung his sword at the one in the very front.
Shhk!
The leg of the man charging in the front was severed in a clean cut,
and his body, losing its balance, collapsed forward.
Thud!
“K-Kuaaack!”
A scream tore through the cavern.
The man’s pupils shook as his face contorted in agony,
then returned to their place as if a fog had lifted.
The madness drained away,
and terror filled its place.
“Hmm. Some kind of narcotic?”
Ian looked down at the cultist before him and muttered lowly.
Yet despite that scream, those rushing in remained relentless.
Neither the scream,
nor the blood,
nor the sight of their comrade collapsing seemed to reach them.
“This is troublesome.”
Ian sheathed his sword.
And the next moment,
he slammed his fist into the face of a charging cultist.
Crack!
“Kkheok!”
The female cultist’s body flipped over and crashed into the ground.
Kwoong!
At that impact, dust sprang low from the cavern floor.
She convulsed with her eyes rolled back, then went completely limp.
Starting with that, his fists began to move rapidly.
Meanwhile.
Eileen, who had been watching the scene, took a step closer to me.
“Thankfully, they don’t seem to be coming this way.”
“Still, we mustn’t let our guard down.”
I surveyed the entrance,
where we had come in.
“They could come from behind. Come this way.”
Eileen nodded,
but her gaze was already sweeping the surroundings.
The cavern in uproar.
The black-robed figure thrashing about on the altar.
The deep shadows draped along the walls.
Her eyes stopped at one point.
“Leon.”
Her voice lowered.
“Here.”
Where she pointed, there was a door.
As if it had been there from the start,
a door so naturally embedded into the wall.
Covered halfway by shadows, one could easily pass it by as part of the stone wall at a glance.
I immediately approached and grabbed the handle.
It didn’t move.
In the back, the cultists were still shrieking.
But seeing how it was still quiet in front of the door, I knew there was no one there.
I took my stance.
Just like when Ian opened the warehouse door,
I just needed to split the door gap.
But easier said than done.
I didn’t have the confidence to swing my sword as nonchalantly as Ian and cut only the lock precisely.
Too much force and the door would break,
the wrong angle and the blade would get stuck.
Splitting this narrow gap required not brute strength, but the feeling in the wrist and the sword tip.
Yet I swung my sword with utter confidence.
From top to bottom.
Shhk!
Screw the gap and all that; I just sliced the door in half.
Like I cared whether the door broke or not.
I kicked the remaining door aside cleanly with my foot.
Though there was no sound, I entered first just in case.
Fortunately, no presence was felt inside.
It was dark inside.
At first, nothing could be seen.
A small room untouched by light.
But the moment I stepped inside, my brow contorted violently.
Eileen was the same.
Because of the smell.
It was not a simple stench.
This was.
The smell of rotting blood.
The smell of old flesh decaying.
The smell of filth and fear soaked into the damp stone walls.
And as a very faint bit of light seeped in and my eyes began to adjust, I could start to see, though dimly.
The problem was that it wasn’t just a few corpses.
The moment Eileen saw it, she shouted at Ian, who was subduing the cultists in the center of the cavern.
“Kill them all!”
Her voice was agitated.
Even she, who usually rarely showed emotion, was seized by an anger she could not possibly endure.
And it was understandable.
Those leaning against the wall.
Those carelessly discarded on the floor.
Those half-covered by scraps of cloth, as if someone had tried to hide them and failed.
Each and every one was in a horrific state.
Things that should never be done to a living person
remained intact upon the dead bodies.
And what made me let go of the last thread of my reason,
was that I could see a small body that still appeared to be a child.
Furthermore, the child’s age looked similar to Risel’s.
I, too, could endure no longer.
“All of them... must die.”
I immediately turned around and, the moment I left that room, walked toward those being captured, then broke into a run.
Swish!
The situation was already under control,
and Ian and the knights had subdued all the cultists and bound them with rope.
I intended to kill every single one of those bound things.
Without hesitation, I swung my sword at the nearest bastard.
Shhk!
Clang!
Sparks flew.
Ian’s sword had blocked mine.
I glared at Ian and spoke coldly.
“Step aside.”
“No.”
Ian’s voice was calm.
“You must kill all of them.”
“I am not killing them.”
“They are not human. If you see inside there...”
I bit down hard on my lips.
Ian’s gaze went to the room behind me, then back to me.
He probably knew what I meant.
Even so, he did not waver in the slightest.
“It is Prince Baron’s order.”
Those words split the air inside the cave.
“Our orders are to investigate whether these are connected to the old dynasty. It was not an order to kill everyone here.”
“But—!”
“Enough.”
Ian’s eyes changed.
The appearance that had been cracking jokes moments ago,
and the face that had called me a friend, both vanished.
What stood there was Prince Baron’s sword.
“Dare not judge Prince Baron’s orders by your own standards.”
His stance, our blades still crossed, lowered.
A posture from which he could attack.
At the same time, Ian’s guard knights moved quietly.
Their sword tips turned ever so slightly toward me.
I bit my lip hard.
If I pushed further here, it would become a fight.
I had no choice but to retreat.
When I took a step back,
Ian finally sheathed his sword.
And he tapped my shoulder lightly.
“I’m not unaware of how you feel.”
His voice had returned somewhat.
“But what we must do ends right here. Don’t think beyond that.”
A brief silence.
Ian added,
“That is the world of this place.”
I did not answer.
When I turned my gaze, Eileen was visible.
She, too, was biting her lip.
Her gaze went to the bound cultists,
then turned back toward the corpses inside the door.
Eileen’s fingertips were pale white.
She was furious,
but holding it in.
“Alright.”
At Eileen’s words, I too fully retreated and sheathed my sword.
“Let’s start by confirming the connection to the old dynasty.”
Thus, we discovered another room in the back.
Inside the room were a desk, books, and a narrow passage leading to an escape route.
Inside, we found mostly doctrinal writings and records.
Old paper.
Phrases written in red ink.
A grotesque sun emblem.
While Ian and the knights interrogated the cultists,
Eileen and I investigated this place.
Eileen picked one up.
Written upon it was this.
[The sun has not yet risen.]
Similar phrases continued on other papers.
[We must wait for the true sun.]
[The more sacrifices we offer, the brighter the sun shall shine.]
[The current master of the kingdom is the moon that hides the sun.]
[The moon is darkness, and darkness is evil.]
I read the phrases and furrowed my brows.
“No matter how I look at it... it seems to be speaking of the Solaris family.”
Eileen slowly nodded.
“The old dynasty.”
Cultists.
I had wondered, but they truly were connected to the old dynasty.
“Just how far do their plans reach?”
Eileen’s voice contained genuine shock.
But a different thought occurred to me.
I looked at the cavern again.
The bound cultists.
The subdued robed figure.
The room where the dead had lain.
And Ian.
Prince Baron’s order.
‘Do not kill them.’
Those words stuck in my head.
“Perhaps.”
I slowly opened my mouth.
“Could Prince Baron have known?”
Eileen’s gaze returned to me.
“About this cult.”
For a moment, her eyes wavered.
Then her brow narrowed.
“Then...”
I, too, was reaching the same conclusion.
In my previous life, the cultists had certainly existed.
But they had not been able to move actively.
Occasionally, rumors had been heard, but,
It had never spread so far that it shook the entire kingdom.
At this scale, it should have been different.
Offering sacrifices,
encroaching on fiefs,
gnawing away at the lives of commoners while hiding the name of the old dynasty—
if it was an organization like that,
sooner or later, it should have erupted in a massive incident.
And yet it had not.
Why?
Because someone had stopped it at the right moments.
Without eradicating it completely.
Only to that extent.
“You’re saying... they left them on purpose?”
Aileen’s voice lowered.
“Those things?”
Her gaze returned to the captured cultist.
Aileen’s brow narrowed.
It was an all-too-common method in politics.
Control the direction of anger.
Keep the resentment of the commoners from rising all the way to the royal family,
and make it point toward the evil right in front of them.
And the nobles, too, would lose the leisure to raise their heads against the royal family while dealing with that evil.
“I can understand that. But.”
Her gaze shifted again toward the room with the corpse.
“This isn’t it. There are things you can use, and things you must never touch.”
Just then.
Aileen, who had been speaking, turned her eyes toward empty air.
Her mind began to spin rapidly with tremendous calculations.
The scattered fragments inside her head were beginning to fall into place at a frightening speed.
“Maybe.”
She had realized it.
“Prince Baron may be using the old dynasty.”
I looked at her.
“Using them? They’re enemies.”
“Because they’re enemies.”
Aileen’s voice quickened.
But it did not waver.
“The royal family needs an enemy. Peace has lasted too long. The nobles have begun to see the royal family as negotiation partners rather than something to fear, and they’ve even started voicing opinions on the decisions of the royals. Even our house was like that.”
She laughed hollowly.
“At some point, even His Majesty could no longer recklessly ignore those opinions. Because families like ours can exert pressure.”
The more she spoke, the heavier the air became.
“But if the old dynasty exists, the story changes.”
Aileen’s eyes sank coldly.
“The royal family becomes the shield that holds back the old dynasty. The nobles, even if dissatisfied, find it difficult to shake the royal family, and the commoners come to believe the royal family is protecting them. To Prince Baron, the old dynasty is a very fine stepping stone for becoming king in the future.”
I listened to her in silence.
“He’s probably been doing it for a long time. Investigating the old dynasty, monitoring them, and letting them move only as much as he can control. Not eliminating them completely. Leaving them as an enemy forever.”
Naturally, our gazes turned toward the cultist.
As if they had never meant to get rid of those things.
And in that moment, I felt my shoulder throb.
Because the once-faint outline was becoming clear.
The current dynasty and the old dynasty.
They were not simply enemies trying to kill each other.
One side used its enemy to make the throne more secure,
and the other burrowed into the gap of being used, gnawing away at the roots of the kingdom.
Politics.
Rule.
Justification.
Only now did I truly feel what the politics of proper nobles were.
Not the simple politics of nobles, but the real thing—with the royal family involved.
And now, I was standing at the center of it.
One wrong judgment here, and my life would be gone.
Miss the flow once, and my house would collapse.
Be late once,
and I could vanish without even leaving behind a name, like the child in that room.
That weight
had turned into something called fear.
“Then that means the old dynasty knows too.”
Aileen nodded.
“The old dynasty likely knows as well. That they’re being used. So they, too, must be moving to burrow into that opening.”
Aileen’s gaze moved over the doctrinal text.
“If so, then they’re surely dividing their movements into what is meant to be shown... and what happens where no one can see.”
As she spoke, she stopped.
Another piece had fallen into place.
Watching her look at me with her eyes widened round, I too understood what she was thinking.
The cultists were loud.
Repulsive,
conspicuous,
and they drew anger.
An excellent piece of bait.
Then.
What was the real plan?
We looked at each other,
and spoke at the same time.
“Deharmont.”
“Deharmont.”