36.
From what I had seen at the hunting festival, the duke seemed to have a fair hand in this matter as well, so perhaps…….
“So she says. What do you think?”
The commander twisted into a smile as if he found it laughable, then turned slightly and looked behind him.
“Is it true that Your Grace gave the order?”
My mouth fell open despite myself.
Someone had drawn back the curtain at the rear and was walking forward.
It was Duke Gladineer.
“Baroness.”
In that instant, all manner of thoughts flashed through my mind,
but he greeted me with a calm, composed face that gave no clue whatsoever as to what he was thinking.
“……Your Grace.”
The duke turned his head toward the commander.
“There is no doubt. She is someone I know.”
“Oh? Are you truly admitting that you sent someone privately to investigate without even informing the temple?”
The duke’s gaze slowly returned to me.
“Baroness, you answer.”
“…….”
“What are you to me, that I would give you such an order?”
As though I had been waiting for that very question, I dropped to one knee and answered without hesitation.
“Anastasia Roxan, as Your Grace’s direct subordinate, carries out your command.”
A faint smile appeared on the duke’s face, which had been quiet all along.
I looked at it for a moment, then lowered my eyes.
In the end, things had turned out exactly as he wanted, but strangely enough, I did not feel bad.
* * *
“He has taken the antidote, so he should be fine now.”
Jaka was asleep.
“Thank you. There won’t be any side effects later, will there?”
“If he has not been taking it continuously, there should be no need to worry.”
“I see.”
The paladin who had brought us before the commander hesitated for a moment, then looked me up and down with eyes full of doubt.
“But are you really all right?”
“Ah. Me? I’m fine.”
“…….”
“Still, just in case, if you were to give me one more antidote, I’d gratefully take……”
“If you say you are fine, then that is enough.”
Someone who looked like a priest had already examined me and said there was nothing wrong, but honestly, I had been feeling uneasy about it too.
However, it seemed he had no intention of wasting a precious antidote merely to ease that unease.
Just then, several subordinates came to the paladin carrying a large box filled with piles of documents.
Seeing the clear burn marks on it, it was definitely the evidence Jaka and I had struggled so hard to save.
I quietly craned my neck and peered inside.
The situation had been so urgent then that I hadn’t even properly checked…….
A broad back moved in and blocked my view.
When I raised my head, the paladin was staring at me with a sharp look.
What? Why? Am I not allowed to look?
Since I had been caught, I decided to brazen it out.
“I’m on your side.”
“And what does that have to do with this?”
“If it hadn’t been for me, all of it would have burned up, wouldn’t it?”
“Thank you.”
“…….”
Earlier, instead of stabbing me with his sword right away, he had kindly asked whether I was a heretic, and when I said I wasn’t, he brought me to the commander.
And now, all of a sudden, he was pretending to be strict!
Then something occurred to me.
“Come to think of it. Do you know me?”
“You are the baroness, are you not?”
“You looked like you recognized me the moment you saw me. Isn’t that why you spared me for the time being?”
“We are at least capable of distinguishing civilians. We do not kill just anyone merely because they are in the same space as heretics.”
The paladin replied as if offended. But his eyes, which were slyly shifting to the side, told the truth.
He definitely knew me.
But not directly. I was certain we had never met.
And yet, even knowing me, he had not hated or condemned me, but had instead cut me some slack?
In that case, there was really only one connection I could predict.
Prien Izanar.
“Is it Sir Izanar?”
“…….”
While he flinched and searched for what to say, I stealthily stole another glance into the box he had been blocking.
‘Huh?’
And I noticed a strangely familiar pattern stamped at the end of a document.
‘A document? No. That’s…….’
A letter.
“Tsk, you of all people should know better. Why are you doing this?”
The paladin belatedly noticed and handed the box off entirely to another subordinate.
“I have finished checking it, so take it straight to the commander and report.”
‘Where have I seen that pattern before?’
It felt as though I was on the verge of remembering, but it would not come to me at all.
Was it some family’s crest? If not that, then some organization’s…….
“By the way, I don’t see him. Did he go somewhere else?”
“Pardon?”
“Sir Izanar, I mean.”
“Ah…….”
The paladin’s gaze swept over me meaningfully.
It did not feel unpleasant, so when I merely raised one eyebrow, the paladin cleared his throat and asked.
“Do you wish to see him?”
“Ah, I wasn’t exactly saying I wanted to see—”
“I will guide you, so follow me.”
……No, why had this bastard been telling me to follow him so recklessly since earlier?
Even Duke Gladineer, who came from the military, did not speak in such a manner.
I glanced back at Jaka, who was lying down.
‘The priest did look after him earlier, but……. It might be better to ask Sir Izanar once more.’
In any case, I did not like seeing him lying there like that because of me.
Next time, it seemed it would be good to devise a way to move around after leaving Jaka behind.
After entrusting Jaka to the priest who was tending to the other wounded, I began walking after the paladin.
“Are you not going to tell me where we’re going this time either?”
“Why do you keep asking as though you are afraid, when you were roaming through a heretic den as if it were your own estate?”
“I wasn’t roaming through it. I was sneaking around.”
“…….”
The paladin began descending farther and farther to the lower floors.
The number of people gradually dwindled, and by the time we were finally crossing an empty corridor where only bloodstains were scattered everywhere,
a thread of suspicion flashed through my mind.
‘Don’t tell me their suspicion that I’m a heretic still hasn’t been cleared? Am I walking with my own two feet to be locked up somewhere right now?’
Hovering between a sense of crisis and distaste, I silently glared at the back of the paladin’s head.
Should I make up an excuse that my stomach suddenly hurt and run for it even now?
At that very moment, of all times, the paladin suddenly spoke to me.
“Do you know much about heretics?”
“About as much as anyone else.”
“A typical imperial noble, then.”
I sensed a subtle contempt, but instead, a deflated laugh escaped me.
Calling me a “typical imperial noble”?
No one treated me like an imperial noble, and yet a paladin from the Great Temple himself was treating me as a “typical” imperial noble!
Should I be thanking him for this?
The paladin glanced at my face, and perhaps because it was different from what he had expected, I saw him faintly furrow his brow.
I looked around and asked.
“By the way, weren’t we going to Sir Izanar?”
“Baroness, what do you think is the thing closest to a heretic, while not being one?”
It was a cryptic question, completely out of nowhere.
“Pardon?”
“Sometimes, knowing…… becomes a shackle in and of itself.”
The paladin, who had stopped before the door, looked back at me.
“Because to peer into the darkness, one must enter the darkness.”
Splash.
I flinched at the sound from beneath my feet and looked down.
Blood that had seeped out from inside was pooled thickly in front of the door.
‘……What is this? Wait a second.’
The paladin flung the door open.
As I reflexively raised my head, I saw someone beyond the door, in the darkness.
A faint light, and the owner of a shadow many times larger than it, devouring the room.
The stench of blood rising to the tip of my nose was thick and nauseating.
The paladin stepped completely aside.
At that moment, with a heavy splat, something collapsed at my feet.
It was the corpse of someone who had just died.
A blade at least a handspan longer than an ordinary sword was embedded lengthwise in the man’s body.
A pale, long hand reached out from the darkness and seized the end of the sword.
Hot droplets of blood suddenly splattered across my face.
He had pulled the sword free.
I flinched and blinked.
Gradually, my eyes adjusted to the darkness, and even within that foul blackness, I could make out a figure that seemed to be consumed by red.
He stood precariously, as if leaning on the sword dragging along the floor.
The sleeves and hem of the priestly robe that had always held a faint sheen were soaked through with red.
As if he had taken the full spray of gushing blood right in front of him.
His long silver hair, which had once swayed softly like the Milky Way in the night sky, was disheveled, clotted with dried, hardened blood.
His eyes, redder than blood, stared at me without focus.
I could feel a chilling murderous intent from him, one that did not distinguish friend from foe.
Beside me, where I stood rooted to the spot like an idiot, the paladin’s voice rang out.
“This is Prien Izanar,”
“…….”
“A paladin, and one of only four heresy inquisitors in the Empire.”
His silver hair shone whitely in the darkness.
Paradoxically, that light was surrounded by the most intense darkness.
The possessor of absolute authority to judge heresy and carry out death,
A being in the dark whose true identity no one fully knew.
Prien Izanar—he was a heresy inquisitor.