Episode 23
“Why! Why did it come to this! J-just because I didn’t pay taxes? Or because I lived in the slums?!”
At the young man’s cry, a strange man stepped forward.
He was the chief heretic inquisitor of the Holy Order.
He stabbed the young man in the stomach with the tip of his spear.
“Hah! Where do you think you’re lying! Are you not a demonkin who spread the plague?!”
“N-no! I’m not!”
“Everyone, watch closely! Now we execute the demonkin! And with the death of the demonkin, the plague that has spread throughout this city shall vanish!”
“Oooooh!”
As the Inquisitor spread both arms and began his speech, the people gathered in the square cheered.
The young man felt a chill watching those citizens.
They all looked delighted. Each and every one of them smiled with bloodshot eyes, gazing at the young man.
Those bizarre expressions looked as if they were possessed by demons.
Eyes in which absolute faith, piled up beyond limit, had transformed into madness.
Watching them, the young man recalled how, not long ago in this very square, he had rejoiced while a complete stranger was executed as a ‘demonkin.’
He had been no different from the people before him now.
“N-no! This… this isn’t right! O Holy Seat of Azellan! Please! Please…! Deliver me from this nightmare!”
The young man shrieked.
He clung to God until the very end, but no hand of salvation reached him.
“Prepare the pyre!”
Oil was poured over logs and straw.
“I’m not a demonkin! I, I’m…!”
“That is for the Holy Seat to judge. If the flames do not catch your body, then I suppose you would not be a demonkin!”
The Inquisitor smirked foully.
It was clearly a mocking expression.
He laughed as he trampled upon the young man, savoring his shrieks, despair, terror, and frustration—all of it.
The Inquisitor opened his mouth, anticipating the screams of the young man soon to be burned.
“Now, carry out the execution by—”
“You devil—!”
“…….”
The cheering crowd fell silent in an instant.
The Inquisitor turned his head and glared at the young man.
Narrowed eyes filled with rage.
The Inquisitor approached the young man.
“Ha! Daring to slander me? To me, the agent of the Holy Seat, of Azellan?”
“T-the Holy Seat doesn’t exist! What kind of god is this! I’ve believed my whole life! Even when abandoned by my parents and forced to beg, I worshipped! I’ve never done evil, so why do I have to die like this!”
“That is precisely why you should have believed in the God of Creation, the father of the Holy Seats, the Holy Seat Azellan.”
“Believing is what got me into this! I believed in the Holy Seat Azellan! I prayed to the Holy Seat Azellan every day! There are people here who know me!”
The young man cried out pathetically.
“You know it’s true! Even if I lived like trash, my faith was deep! There are many who saw me offering prayers in front of the church every day!”
At the young man’s words, the crowd began to show signs of reaction little by little.
They glanced at one another, reconsidering what the young man had said.
Seeing the crowd gathered in the square waver, the Inquisitor slammed the spear he held into the ground.
Thud!
“Those who lend their ears to the voice of demonkin are heretics!”
“…….”
In that instant, silence fell again.
The absolute authority in this place right now was the Inquisitor.
The agent of God who had received the Pope’s command!
There was no one who could defy his words. Should anyone dare act rashly against him…
Blasphemy.
It was tantamount to making an enemy of the entire continent.
That was how much the Holy Order was the ‘ruler’ of the continent.
The Inquisitor looked at the weak humans bowing to his words and felt satisfaction.
“Hah! The Holy Seat exists. Yet you deny the Holy Seat!”
“If the Holy Seat existed, I would be saved! But…!”
Tears streamed from the young man’s eyes.
“What the hell! The Holy Seat… there is no God! You bastards!”
“…No, God exists.”
“There isn’t!”
“No, He exists. You are looking at God right now.”
“…What?”
The Inquisitor curled up the corner of his lips. And he whispered very quietly into the young man’s ear.
“His Holiness the Pope is God, and also the Holy Seat. And I, standing here, am God as well!”
“……!”
The young man stared at the Inquisitor with a blank expression.
A lowly human claimed to be God. The one before him was committing blasphemy itself.
“And you… are a heretic and a demon meeting your end before God! Consider it an honor!”
“You evil m—”
The Inquisitor quickly grabbed a torch and laughed so hard his mouth seemed to tear to his ears.
“Glory to the Holy Seat Azellan…!”
He threw the torch onto the pile of firewood beneath the young man.
Fwoooosh!
The young man burst into flames, and those who witnessed it cheered.
They rejoiced that the demonkin who had spread the plague tormenting them was dead.
They were changing into something no less than demons themselves.
A slave merchant watching that scene from afar laughed.
“Haha! This is fun! Another demonkin dead! Does that mean all the trash here has been taken care of now?”
At the slave merchant’s words, a colleague beside him asked.
“But was he really a demonkin?”
“Who cares? No matter who dies, it’s good entertainment! As long as we pay our dues, we’ll never die. Hell, we’d even turn a blind eye to demon worship right in front of us if there’s a lump of gold!”
The pot-bellied slave merchant said, gulping down liquor.
“Besides, we’re not even demi-humans!”
He looked at the cage made from a modified cart and giggled.
Inside were humans.
Some bled like tattered rags all over, sobbing; others were physically unhurt but broken in spirit, blankly staring up at the sky.
There was no hope in their eyes.
They were all branded as heretics, tortured, and sold as slaves.
The man giggled with an unpleasant expression, looking at the most impressive slave girl among them.
She had a slender body and dusky skin. Far too beautiful to be called a mere girl, her hair was silvery-white, her eyes a shade close to crimson.
Every feature stood out, but the most striking impression among them was her ears. Thin, elongated ears.
Proof that she was not human, but a demi-human.
A Dark Elf.
A descendant who worships darkness and inherits the blood of demonkin!
The slave merchant was in a state of having struck it rich after picking up a Dark Elf near death in the forest not long ago.
“Haha! What would the Inquisitor say if he saw this one? Kill her for being demonkin?”
“Nah, probably ask to borrow her for a night?”
“Haha! No way. I can’t give up such a precious product, can I?”
The men laughed and exchanged vicious jokes.
The imprisoned Dark Elf, Saelreot, looked at the slave merchants before turning her gaze to the young man being burned.
The young man was already dead.
Saelreot stared at him with an expression as cold as ice, void of emotion.
She let out a small sigh, turned her gaze, and glanced at the crowd.
“The demonkin is dead!”
“The plague is vanishing!”
“Church of Azellan! Blessings of the Holy Seat Azellan!”
Watching the cheering crowd, the Inquisitor pulled a small bottle from his breast.
“This is a medicine that can cure the plague! An item personally made by His Holiness Pope Pallis of the Holy Order! His grace shall be upon you!”
“Ooooooh!”
“One gold per bottle! It is holy water, a lifeline that can save your lives! Surely you don’t intend to die from the devil’s curse because you’re stingy about money? Which is more important? Money, or faith?”
“Faith!”
“Ooh! Your Holiness!”
“I shall buy!”
The crowd flocked to the Inquisitor, and soldiers raised their shields to hold them back.
“Take their money and give them one bottle each!”
The Inquisitor shouted as if he were a saint, and the crowd cheered.
Drunk on the atmosphere, everyone eagerly offered up money to buy the bottles the Inquisitor held out.
Saelreot, watching them, hugged her knees and buried her face.
A small flicker of hatred was blooming in her eyes.
“Fools.”
Fools.
That word suited them perfectly. No, that expression was almost generous.
Saelreot thought so.
It was the evaluation of humans delivered by Saelreot Hanes, daughter of the Demon King Kalib Hanes who had once swept the continent in terror fifty years ago.
***
The more chaotic the times, the more countless stories humans create.
When those stories spread and spread, they become ‘rumors.’
Because for them, fallen into despair, it is a light of hope, a lifeline, a way to find amusement.
Therefore, groundless stories are made, inflated, and carried by word of mouth to every corner of the continent.
In this era of plague, there were currently four most famous stories.
First, the fall of the Ronia royal family.
The incident of Elron von Ronia, king of the Kingdom of Ronia, falling to ‘dementia.’
The causes given were that he had gone mad from the shock of losing a hundred-thousand-strong army he had sent to conquer the Frozen Land ten years ago, or alternatively, that he was feigning madness to evade responsibility.
A story that foreigners might laugh off, but not the subjects of the Kingdom of Ronia.
Because the absolute authority had shut himself away, and those next in power had begun flaunting their strength against one another, throwing the political situation into chaos.
The split within the Ronian royal family for the throne had begun.
The second prince, Eron Ronia, pointed his sword at the first prince, Ash Ronia, and full-scale civil war began.
The kingdom split into West Ronia and East Ronia instantly, producing countless sacrifices.
Furthermore, as rumors circulated that the first prince Ash, who ruled Eastern Ronia, had summoned demonkin and driven the king of Ronia mad, Western Ronia received massive support from the Holy Order, called the ruler of the continent.
Consequently, Eastern Ronia was gradually encroached upon and cornered by Western Ronia, and rumors circulated that the first prince Ash, in a last desperate struggle, had again summoned demonkin to spread the plague.
Therefore, rumors spread across the continent that if only the first prince died, this era of plague would end.
Second, the Angel of Death.
The rumor that a reaper born from the shadow of the Demon King, who died mourning humanity, had spread the plague across the continent.
That reaper took the form of a very beautiful woman, and with a single gesture of her hand, whether a small village or a great city, it would instantly be dyed with plague and death.
But a contrary story also circulated.
A bizarre rumor that the Angel of Death made the plague retreat.
Whatever the truth, the Holy Order named the Angel of Death the Shadow of the Demon King and attempted to subjugate her, but no one had yet succeeded in capturing the Angel of Death.
Third, the panacea potion.
It was one of the hopeful rumors that had begun circulating recently.
The rumor was that this potion was made with painstaking effort by a great archmage from legend, capable of curing any disease or wound so long as one wasn’t dead, and even capable of curing the currently spreading plague.
Fourth, the birth of a newborn empire.
The story that an empire was born on a small, remote island at the northern end of the continent of Briton, a place called the Frozen Land.
That empire was said to possess tremendous ‘wealth’ and formidable ‘military might.’
An absurd rumor claimed that its order of knights, composed of individuals with supernatural abilities called ‘Divine Artifacts’ that one could only possess if chosen by the Holy Seat, numbered nearly a hundred.
Above all, their civilization was highly advanced, their streets said to be littered with handicrafts made by dwarves, and magical houses existed where warm flora and fauna could grow even in the cold climate.
It was also said there was no discrimination by status, and even slaves were emancipated to live as free people.
Above all, the monarch ruling them was not human, but an absolute being called the ‘Holy Seat.’
But among the rumors floating about the continent, it was the least credible.
The Frozen Land was a region where extreme, wicked cold flowed, making it difficult for life to survive.
Only ferocious monsters with thick hides, or perhaps the Nord tribe, lived there.
Therefore, everyone who heard such rumors sneered.
An empire in the Frozen Land? And wealth and military might? Nearly a hundred Divine Artifact users? Advanced civilization? A Holy Seat?
All nonsense.
There couldn’t be a nation there, and wealth could not possibly accumulate in a forsaken land with no outside contact.
Especially the idea of nearly a hundred Divine Artifact users was absurd.
The continent’s known Divine Artifact users numbered roughly ten thousand, and unofficially slightly over fifty thousand.
Even the Holy Order, called the ruler of the continent, had only slightly over three hundred.
It was impossible for a hundred Divine Artifact users to be gathered in the useless Frozen Land.
Thus, advanced civilization and the Holy Seat were considered nothing more than illusions.
Everyone laughed and dismissed it as nonsense.
The first became mere fodder to pass the time, the second a drinking topic, and the third and fourth became jokes traded back and forth.
……
…‥
..
…However, humans drawn to the fourth story gradually began to increase.
Those chased from the continent, or abandoned, those turned into slaves, or lost souls called heretics, gathered at the end of the north, the Frozen Land, seeking hope.
Even so, because they had dismissed it as a false rumor, they had gathered also to indulge in sweet dreams while foreseeing a miserable end.
But….
They did not die.
The moment they set foot in the Frozen Land, they were dragged away by an unidentified group and forced to their knees before someone.
And they saw.
“…D…devil?”
It was the first impression of the ‘Holy Seat’ that the humans who had fled the continent saw for the first time.