Chapter 85
Chapter: 85
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>Translator: penny
>Chapter: 85
>Chapter Title: Bruno Green (3)
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Bruno Green's words were utterly shocking.
“I can hear the voice of the one who just spoke to Your Highness. That must be the [Red] that Arenza speaks of.”
Was he seriously talking about the Demon King right now? For real?
Seongjin froze in shock, but the Demon King recovered first and snapped irritably.
[What? What did you just call me? Who’s Red!?]
“Then, could you tell me your name?”
[How dare a pathetic human like you ask for this great Demon King’s true name?]
“Yes, my apologies. Mr. Red.”
[No, I said I’m not Red!]
It was real!
Bruno Green was actually conversing with the Demon King!
Amid the confusion, Seongjin first checked that no one was nearby. Fortunately, Masain, who had stepped away around the time the conversation turned to the knights’ return, hadn’t come back yet.
Seongjin lowered his voice and cautiously asked the captain.
“…Since when?”
“Ever since I came to in the imperial palace. Strange voices started coming from thin air.”
“Nothing like that before?”
“No. There’s a slight blank in my memory, but I can say for certain that I’ve never had an experience like this.”
That left only one possible cause.
‘…The soul crystal!’
The Demon King confirmed Seongjin’s guess.
[That’s right. There’s a pretty intact soul crystal left in that guy’s head. It seems to be functioning properly too. So, the ‘ability’ he’s talking about must mean channeling.]
That made sense.
“Is what this guy’s saying true?”
Seongjin double-checked with Bruno, but this time his reaction was a bit off.
“Pardon? What did you just say? I didn’t hear you.”
“……”
Did he not hear everything?
“He says you’re channeling……”
The captain nodded.
“Channeling… Ah, Arenza’s agent said the same thing. That what I’m doing is the most basic level of channeling.”
“Then, the ‘ability’ external agents need is channeling?”
“Yes. To be precise, all of Arenza’s agents are channeling ability users. Internal agents just have spiritual powers on top of that.”
Strictly speaking, spiritual powers were like a side technique wielded by advanced channeling users. In the end, both abilities stemmed from the same root.
“That’s why Arenza can only be an elite few. Channeling users aren’t that common to begin with.”
[But they’ve got enough to form an organization? Then why have we never seen those guys even once before?]
When the Demon King asked him directly, a proper answer came back this time.
“That’s not impossible either. Apparently, Arenza’s agents originally can’t come near the Pearl Palace.”
Not just priests—even spiritual ability users were barred!
Through further back-and-forth testing, Seongjin managed to grasp the scope of Bruno’s ability in some detail.
For starters, he clearly heard the thoughts the Demon King directed straight at him. He even properly detected the occasional thought waves the Demon King blasted out wildly in agitation.
But he couldn’t hear at all when the Demon King whispered thoughts secretly inside Seongjin’s head. The same went for what Seongjin said to the Demon King.
[It makes sense when you think about it. For someone to detect thoughts through channeling, you first have to project the thought waves outside the soul. But our conversations are on another level. Thoughts are transmitted directly from souls that are touching. It’s true soul-to-soul communication!]
The Demon King said it with some strange note of pride.
‘Wow, that somehow pisses me off.’
[…Cold bastard.]
In any case, Seongjin felt a headache coming on from this sudden mess.
Just look at what happened a few days ago. When the Demon King first tried talking to the soul orb, hadn’t he flown into a rage just like this?
-Why the hell are you calling me Red?
Seongjin had only just learned of Arenza’s existence, but they already knew the Demon King inside and out—even giving him a friendly nickname like Red.
Expecting them to be unconditionally friendly to Seongjin and the Demon King just because they were under the Holy Emperor was a bit naive, wasn’t it?
“How did you get in touch with Arenza? What did they say about Red… this guy?”
When Seongjin asked, sensing Bruno had gotten some info on the Demon King from Arenza, the captain briefly explained what had happened.
The first time he heard the Demon King’s voice, he’d suspected the crown prince might be possessed by an evil spirit.
But while cautiously observing Seongjin, Arenza had reached out to him through channeling.
“And I got a detailed explanation from them. They said Mr. Red isn’t an evil spirit at all—he’s actually Your Highness’s loyal servant. Completely harmless, so rest easy.”
[What!?]
The Demon King wasn’t one to swallow that lying down.
[Who’s a loyal servant? Who’s harmless? You brain-dead idiots! This body is the master of terrifying hellfire that burns even souls! You’ll have to burn alive bones and all to know my greatness! Aaaargh!]
Kraaaah!
With the Demon King freaking out in his head, Seongjin couldn’t think straight.
Well, harmless and pathetic was true. They really had the Demon King pegged.
“So, if you join Arenza, what would you mainly do? You said external agent?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Bruno Green’s next words were unexpected.
“They want me to stay by Your Highness’s side and act as their link.”
“…With me?”
“That’s right. They said Your Highness and the department you lead will need close cooperation with Arenza in the future.”
“……”
Cooperation? Him and the monster task force?
Suddenly, he recalled what the Holy Emperor had let slip about the monster task force not long ago.
-The monster task force is a little clockwork device that will one day support a pillar of Delkros, Moreth.
It had come up in the gray plague incident, but the nuance was that the real purpose for its founding lay elsewhere.
What exactly was that man expecting from Seongjin and the monster task force?
“The conditions are good, so I’m thinking positively about it. Being knight captain means a lot more pointless paperwork than people think. But with this, I can devote myself fully to personal training, and they’ll pay well just for me to stay by your side as a liaison. What could be better?”
Bruno seemed to have already made up his mind.
“You sure that’s okay? The position of imperial palace knight captain isn’t a light one.”
“Why let a rare ability like this go to waste? Channeling users are valuable.”
Hey, man. No matter how rare, is it better than being captain of the Decaron Knights?
* * *
The gray plague situation had shifted dramatically of late, and the abrupt emergency measures had thrown the imperial capital into considerable disarray.
But the ones most shaken were elsewhere: the brethren of [Sowing], who had been stealthily planting Lofroom eggs and awaiting their bountiful harvest.
The three underground priests, including Clemens, huddled together today as well in one corner of the Heresy Tribunal building, faces clouded with worry.
“Ahh, it feels like being a farmer who watched a year’s crop wash away in a flood.”
The old priest’s expression was grim as he said it.
“Why on earth did this happen? The Holy Emperor, who wouldn’t blink at a few deaths, why now of all times!”
Clemens shook his head from beside him.
“It wasn’t the Holy Emperor who moved. I heard this was purely the Orthodoxy’s own decision.”
“…That Archbishop Wesker!”
The old priest gnashed his teeth.
During the Great Purge, Wesker—then just a high priest—had been at the forefront of cracking down on the underground church, brethren who served the same lord god. And for that merit, she’d risen to archbishop.
Famous for her rocket-like rise, the path she’d blazed was stained with the blood of countless brethren.
“Has she caught on to the [Task]?”
“Doesn’t seem like it. The bishop said she just seemed overly wary of the gray plague.”
Just as these three were disguised as regular priests in the Heresy Tribunal, [Sowing] brethren had infiltrated the Orthodoxy too. The [Bishop] currently directing them was one such brother embedded there.
“But the bishop truly had no idea of Wesker’s moves? How could that be?”
“They say even her close aides had no clue until the emergency measures kicked in. And even after learning of it, there was no way to evacuate the seeds already scattered across the capital.”
“…Bethel.”
The old priest swallowed a groan and made the sign of the cross.
The youngest of the three, a young priest, made the sign too and asked anxiously.
“Bethel. Does that mean not a single preserved seed is left? I heard most of those detained were released safely.”
“Sadly, Prince Moreth got involved there. He picked out just the seeds and handed them over to the capital guard. Now they’re all being transferred here to the Heresy Tribunal, so our plan to spread them as evenly and widely as possible has gone up in smoke.”
The old priest sighed at Clemens’s answer.
“…His preparation is not yet complete!”
“Indeed, his preparation is not yet complete.”
The young priest looked baffled at the two’s cryptic exchange.
“…Prince Moreth?”
That good-for-nothing labeled the shame of the Holy Imperial family, how?
As the young priest’s face twisted oddly, Clemens let out a hollow laugh.
“You don’t know? Well, it has been over ten years since then, so it might be unfamiliar to brethren your age.”
Just ten years ago, every brother in the underground church knew Prince Moreth.
On the day he was born, the heads of the four underground churches had unusually gathered in one place to bless his birth: the archbishops of [Searing], [Sowing], [Repentance], and [Rest].
They had offered sacrifices to the lord god together, vying to celebrate his birth.
-Rejoice! The child is the [Prepared One] for the church’s glory!
-Searing kindles flame in the bitter cold, Sowing tills fields in the desert, and Rest breathes life into them!
-Repentance decrees no regrets in his every step!
-Freed from long oppression, the underground church shall flourish once more!
Moreth had been a bastard without a father back then, and as the grandson of mighty Grand Duke Asen, he was hard for the church to approach. So the brethren could only watch the baby from afar and await the glorious day the archbishops foretold.
But a few years later, things started going strangely.
One day, the baby’s father appeared and declared himself the 17th Holy Emperor, and the baby entered the palace as a prince. Naturally, Prince Moreth faded from the church’s sight.
And soon after taking power, the young Holy Emperor began a massive purge of the underground church. Defining them as heretics worshiping demons—the [Church of Darkness]—he carried out a slaughter of brethren not just in Delkros but across the continent.
The underground church took a massive hit from the Holy Emperor’s unexpected actions.
[Sowing] and [Repentance], based abroad, barely survived and kept their lines alive, but [Searing] and [Rest], which had dominated in Delkros, vanished without a trace.
And among the surviving old church brethren back then, strange rumors spread: that the Holy Emperor had rushed the purge because he’d learned in advance that his son was the church’s Prepared One.
“That… doesn’t that seem off? Then Prince Moreth isn’t prepared for the church’s prosperity, but more like……”
At this rate, wasn’t he just the spark that destroyed the underground church?
The young priest hesitated to voice the end of it, but Clemens shook his head.
“How could sinners like us fathom the lord god’s deep designs? Besides, the archbishops’ faith remained unshaken to the end.”
The Holy Emperor had butchered [Rest]’s church most cruelly. And even as her head fell to his blade, [Rest]’s archbishop had reportedly laughed defiantly and shouted her final prophecy.
-His preparation is not yet complete!
“His preparation is not yet complete……”
“Now, we can’t even tell what Prince Moreth was prepared for. But no matter what path he takes, we cannot stand idly by. Because……”
“Repentance decreed no regrets in his every step.”
“……”
A heavy silence fell over the three underground priests.
“…No other way now. We have no choice but to sow as diligently as possible from here on. The Holy Emperor doesn’t seem inclined to move for a while, and the archbishop can’t keep triggering emergency measures indefinitely. If we hurry, we can still make the great harvest.”
After a moment, Clemens spoke with resolve.
“No choice, yeah. By the way, what of that one? The other brother from the forgotten church. Will he cooperate?”
At the old priest’s question, Clemens’s face darkened.
Better to preach to a wall. He’d given lengthy speeches multiple times on the Task’s importance, but Priest Hayes just wore that detached look and repeated the same answer.
-I’m just waiting for that one to command me.
He looked like a condemned man who’d received his execution date, and sometimes it gave Clemens the chills.
“No getting through to him at all.”
“What a shame. I’d hoped some of [Rest]’s legacy was preserved here. It surely would’ve helped our Task greatly.”
The old priest sighed and made the sign of the cross.
“Then let’s forget him. If we stay true to our given duties, the lord god will surely answer someday. Bethel……”