Beoncheonhoe (1)
The holy land of the Order of the Supreme God, the Rosellia Great Temple located at its very heart.
It had already been more than two months since Heinrich had come here, but his daily routine remained unchanged even today.
Creeeeak—
“Hup!”
With a sound like metal twisting, the lump of metal connected to the chains defied gravity.
“Whoo—”
Clatter— Clang!
The ton-class mass of metal attached to the vicious-looking exercise machine, through its periodic back-and-forth motion, was steadily tearing apart the muscles of the insolent human who dared to use it.
Then, at one moment.
Fwoooosh—
“Huh?”
Like a blocked dam bursting, divine power erupted from his body.
《The individual has met the conditions and attained enlightenment. Acquired the special skill 「Blessing: Iron Body」.》
At the same time, the metal he had been struggling to lift shot upward in an instant.
Heinrich remained frozen in that posture for a moment, then closed his eyes and gauged the divine power he could feel within his body.
‘...I finally reached it! High priest-level divine power!’
He could feel that the divine power that had stopped growing as if it had reached its limit had finally crossed a threshold and advanced.
This, too, must have been thanks to the 「Blessing: Iron Body」 he had just acquired.
Overjoyed, he hurriedly let down the chains.
Clatterrr— Kwaang!
At that instant, the mass of metal, unable to overcome gravity, violently met the earth, but that was no longer any concern of his.
‘To think I’d really break through my limits by exercising.’
Of course, he had not spent all this time at the Great Temple doing only physical training.
Education in theology, doctrine, history, and the like was basic, and on top of that came training as a paladin—various martial arts, horsemanship, etiquette, holy arts, and more.
At least the training that used the body had been easy enough to follow, perhaps thanks to 「Martial Bones」, but he had struggled quite a bit in the other fields.
Still, one way or another, he had managed to meet the standards.
Even so, his divine power had remained stagnant, still short of the high priest level, and he had been worrying over it when the senior paladin helping with his training offered a solution as if it were nothing.
‘Just work your body to the bone. Like a madman. Your recovery is fast? Then work it twice as hard. If that still doesn’t do it, work it several times harder and that’ll solve it.’
It was truly a solution treated as if it were nothing at all!
Of course, when one examined it, his prescription was reasonable.
After all, the condition for possessing high priest-level divine power was “to have at least one 「Blessing」.”
And the blessing easiest for paladins like them to obtain was none other than the “Blessing of the Iron Body.”
Those walking the path of a priest would likely grow through blessings of a different type.
Still, now that he had overcome the stagnation of his divine power, he would grow steadily again until he reached bishop-level divine power.
That was his greatest advantage, after all.
Heinrich hurriedly tidied up the exercise equipment and headed to where the paladins were.
Now that he had formally gained the qualifications to become a paladin, he intended to discuss what would follow.
As he quickened his steps—
“Hmm-hmm-hmm~♪”
The sound of humming rang out from a garden along the way.
‘Humming here? Don’t tell me...’
When he carefully moved closer, the person he had expected was crouching there, staring at the flower bed.
‘The Saintess of the Order of the Supreme God, Liesta Saint Hatianus.’
Her soft silver hair swayed and shimmered, and her golden eyes, as if they held stars within them, sparkled as she looked at the flowers.
With that fresh smile on her face, she looked no different from any other eighteen-year-old girl.
‘If you ignore that halo.’
That is, if one excluded the ring of light that still glowed of its own accord around her head.
That powerful trace of a blessing was no different from proof that she was a Saintess.
“Ahem, greetings, Saintess. But why are you here alone in a place like this?”
Since he had already run into her, it would be awkward to pretend not to see her and pass by, so he gave a light cough and spoke to the Saintess.
As if she had already sensed his presence, the Saintess turned her head with a bright smile and returned his greeting.
“Hello, Sir Heinrich! I was watching a ladybug. It was so wriggly and cute that I lost track of time!”
...Apparently, she had been looking not at flowers, but at an insect.
He was not yet a knight, so it was too early for her to call him “sir,” but no matter how many times he corrected her, nothing changed, so he decided to let it slide.
There was one fact that had startled him while he spent over two months at the Rosellia Great Temple.
At first, this Saintess had felt distant, but in truth, she was remarkably easygoing and loved wandering here and there whenever she had free time.
She treated anyone who was a believer of the same Order of the Supreme God kindly and did not hesitate to help.
A lively, eccentric girl loved by everyone in the Great Temple for her gentle nature.
Her faith was as strong as the divine power she held, so she had a tendency to be especially friendly toward those who were devout, like herself.
Because of that, she had been the first to approach Heinrich, who had manifested powerful divine power from the time of the baptism ceremony, and had shown him goodwill.
“By the way, congratulations, Sir Heinrich! You’ve finally obtained a blessing, haven’t you? I knew someone like you would accomplish it quickly!”
Perhaps because she was indeed the Saintess, she somehow knew that fact and clapped her hands, rejoicing as if it were her own achievement.
“Thank you. I was able to reach this point thanks to the help of many people.”
“No! The Blessing of the Iron Body isn’t something you can obtain with someone else’s help. It’s proof that you surpassed your own limits through training, so take pride in yourself!”
It seemed she had also recognized at a glance what blessing he had obtained.
It was likely the influence of the blessing contained in those sparkling golden eyes.
After they had chatted for a short while like that, smiling all the while, she suddenly paused and looked up at the sky.
“Ah! The afternoon service! How did it get so late! Then I’ll be going now. May the protection of the Supreme God always be with you, sir.”
She seemed to gauge the time for a moment, then brushed herself off, stood up, gave her farewell, and vanished into the temple like the wind.
“...Mm, she is very... energetic today as well.”
Perhaps “frantic” would be the more appropriate expression.
In a way, she might seem careless, but of course, she did not show that side to everyone.
‘She never compromises with evil.’
She showed friendliness to those who followed the Supreme God, and even toward those who did not, she made efforts to embrace them.
But toward those stained by evil, she had not the slightest tolerance.
And there was one matter that such a Saintess had recently become fixated on...
It was none other than “Hans, the descendant of the Immortal King.”
‘At this point, that obsession is getting frightening.’
From what he had heard, she offered prayers several times a day and worked to track down “Hans.”
Of course, since he did not even exist in this world, there was no way she could find him, but her refusal to give up had already become such a routine that it was now part of her daily life.
He could only feel sorry for the ones who were discovered in the aftermath of that blessing that traced demons and were subjugated as collateral damage.
Though if they were detected by the Saintess, whose primary target was the descendant of the Immortal King, it meant they must have been in the middle of performing some wicked ritual, so they had brought it upon themselves.
‘Actually, I can understand why she acts that way.’
Since Heinrich had received education in history, he had come to understand what kind of existence the Immortal King was, and so he could sympathize with her feelings.
The first Immortal King had suddenly appeared about a thousand years ago.
Countless people had been sacrificed by him as he turned half the continent into a land of death, and only after the Order and innumerable other forces joined hands were they barely able to defeat him and regain peace.
But several hundred years later.
Perhaps because they had failed to properly finish off the first Immortal King, the “Heart of the Immortal King,” which contained his power, somehow fell into the hands of a dark mage...
And thus, the second Immortal King was born.
The second Immortal King, born after being devoured by the heart he inherited, once again brought chaos to the continent, and in the aftermath, the great empire located in the west collapsed and split into several kingdoms as it was now.
Still, perhaps because it was the second time.
The death squad that aimed for the Immortal King tried to deal with the heart thoroughly so that the same thing would never happen again.
But that, too, ended in failure.
They succeeded in splitting the heart apart, but the creature squeezed out the last of its power and scattered it across the continent so that it could not be sealed.
That had been only a few hundred years ago.
‘And two of those pieces ended up in Hans’s hands. If he finds just the last fragment, the third Immortal King will be revived, so the Order has no choice but to be desperate.’
Each time an Immortal King incident occurred, it was the Order of the Supreme God that had stood at the very front line.
It was only natural that the Saintess, who had learned from childhood of their history of sacrifice, would harbor hostility toward the Immortal King.
All the more so because she had a tendency to regard fellow believers as family.
‘It would be nice if everyone could just get along. That friend is more tenderhearted and kind than people think, but they just don’t realize it.’
Yes, Hans, who would become the Immortal King of this generation, did not desire anything like the destruction of the continent.
Even at this very moment, he was hard at work fighting an organization of evil for the public good.
***
Kooong!
“Krgh...”
Park Gwangcheon, an executive of Beoncheonhoe dressed in a suit, blocked Hahoe Mask’s attack and looked around.
He had confidently led his forces and laid a trap, yet his entire plan had collapsed because of only two foes.
‘Damn it, this is all because that bastard didn’t bring back proper information! He completely misjudged the enemy’s strength!’
He thought of the man with the indistinct impression and seethed with rage.
The decisive reason things had gone wrong was a vampire who had suddenly interfered, but he had no leisure to consider that.
No matter what excuses he made, failure was failure.
‘What’s already gone wrong can’t be helped. Then at least I need to handle the aftermath properly...’
He was still fighting desperately against Hahoe Mask with the subordinates who remained, but by now it was meaningless.
No matter how he looked at it, it felt as though the enemy was deliberately holding back in order to capture them.
‘At first, he didn’t seem to care whether we lived or died, but now that he has room to spare, does he plan to interrogate us and dig out information?’
Park Gwangcheon looked over his fallen subordinates.
More than half were corpses, but most of those who had fallen recently were not dead, merely subdued.
‘This is... over. There’s no hope anymore.’
The commotion coming from the vampires’ side had also quieted down at some point, so it seemed the situation there was already finished.
And the fact that it was this quiet was by no means a positive sign for him.
It meant they had been so incompetent that a single enemy had taken them all out.
‘If I delay any longer, the vampire over there will join this side too. I’ll salvage as much as I can now and escape, even if I’m the only one.’
Beoncheonhoe’s barrier and Hahoe Mask’s barrier had been layered over each other, but with his unique skill, 「Spatial Manipulation」, he could escape this place.
It was the last bastion that had saved his life time and again.
Before activating his unique skill, he drew up his mana one final time.
***
The situation on the vampires’ side had been roughly settled, and Beoncheonhoe’s resistance was now in its final stages.
It was taking time because he was subduing the remaining ones while keeping them alive as much as possible in order to read their memories and extract information, but that would not last much longer either.
As he was steadily cleaning up the battlefield like that, he sensed that the enemy leader was preparing something.
It was far too late for him to try anything now, but just as Hans grew wary, just in case...
“You’ve all done well until now. For Beoncheonhoe! [Die for freedom—!]”
The final sentence, imbued with mana, reverberated through space.
At that instant, the bodies of the Beoncheonhoe members all stiffened at once.
Regardless of whether they had been resisting or had been subdued and lost consciousness.
‘What kind of bullshit is he trying now?’
An obviously abnormal situation.
Hans’s thoughts accelerated.
The surroundings stopped for an instant, and time began to flow slowly.
Sssss...
‘What is this?’
An unidentified flow of mana burrowed into the minds of the living.
It tried to resonate with some energy that had been embedded in their brains.
At the same time, Hans’s eyes, which had no limitation in viewing angle, caught sight of the man glaring at him and grinding his teeth.
And also the sight of his figure beginning to blur gradually.
‘A self-destruction order for his subordinates. Escape for himself.’
He quickly assessed the situation.
He did not know how spatial movement was possible when a barrier was in place, but since this was such a bizarre world, that was a matter to examine later.
Right now, he had to choose.
By deciding his priorities.
Whether to find a way to stop the self-destruction of the group caused by this unidentified flow, or to quickly give up on the small fry and immediately pursue the ringleader fleeing by unknown means.
Neither was very likely.
‘Only a few seconds remain, and the enemy’s method is unknown.’
At the forced choice, irritation surged up in an instant.
In a situation like this, of course...
[Of course, I give up neither!]
Hans, who had swallowed down his negative emotions and awakened to his individuality, was also the incarnation of greed and obsession.
Naturally, he had no intention of letting a single thing slip away!
The resources of every entity were concentrated on Hans.
His thoughts accelerated even further.
Time approached a near standstill.
The black mana split into dozens of strands and headed toward their respective targets.
He hastily left a trace on the ringleader, whose figure was on the verge of vanishing completely.
It was not proper tracking magic, so it would soon be swept away by the flow of space and disappear, but it should buy him at least a few seconds.
The remaining black mana burrowed into the minds of the survivors.
It made contact with something resonating with the flow imposed from outside and grasped the information.
...He could not tell.
A composite technique unique to the Beoncheonhoe.
Hans’s research was still insufficient to fully understand and dispel this intricately tangled thing.
However.
A part of the composite technique.
The “prohibitions” and “curses” mixed throughout it.
To Hans, they were extremely familiar.
After all, they were methods he had been fond of using frequently even recently.
‘This is where I begin.’
「Evil Wisdom」 traced along that familiarity, and 「Forbidden Knowledge」 analyzed it.
In that way, he unraveled the structure of the technique as though pulling up a chain of sweet potato vines, until he reached the final stage.
What lay at the very end was.
‘Death.’
It was something that went beyond familiarity and touched upon Hans’s very essence.
It was something he had experienced, something he had overcome, and something he had finally come to rule.
‘Now!’
He intervened in the formula that was causing the resonance.
Just as forcibly inserting a foreign object into the parts of a precision machine would break it, the formula would run wild and harm the person involved.
If that happened, he would fail.
So instead, he removed part of the machine’s gears.
A fleeting instant that felt like eons passed, and the surrounding noise that had been stretched out without end slowly began returning to normal.
Wooooong—
The formula continued to resonate.
But with an important part missing, it merely spun in place over and over, unable to accomplish its original purpose.
[Keukeuk... Kuhahahaha! I am the one who rules death. Did you think you could flee through death before me!]
Having finished his work, Hans burst into mad laughter on the spot.
Of course, even in the midst of that, he did not forget to move his black mana and knock out the remnants who were staggering about without having lost consciousness.
If they remained awake, there was no telling what else they might try.
[And you will not be able to die so easily.]
He immediately tracked the black mana smeared onto the man right before he vanished, as well as the traces left behind as he slipped out of the barrier.
While he had been focused on dispelling the prohibitions, those traces had already begun to fade.
But unlike at first, the situation had improved.
Because by analyzing the prohibitions in detail, he had grasped the mana pattern of the one who had created the flow.
It was information he could not have discerned when they had merely been fighting.
He predicted the direction from the traces left on the barrier, and estimated the distance from the weakened traces of black mana.
Then, within the range he had narrowed down, he pinpointed the location using the man’s mana pattern.
He did not know how the man had escaped this place.
Judging from the fact that no traces of magic remained on the barrier, there was a high chance it was a unique skill.
But at this point, it no longer mattered either way.
[...Found you.]
Because he could simply search inside his head directly.
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