Chapter 451
Chapter 451
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 21
Chapter Title: Another Solo Play (10)
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Crunch crunch crunch
The stairs leading underground were as neat and tidy as the temple above. The soft decorations and rounded carvings unique to the Order of Mercy seemed to embody their faith free of malice, while the rose quartz and marble used as materials gleamed warmly in the torchlight.
Shing—
So, the reason I was this tense had nothing to do with darkness or eeriness.
How should I put it? Something more primal than darkness, death, or evil—something that shakes people to their core.
“Aaaaaah—......give us......with love——”
“?!”
Yes, the feeling you get when you come face-to-face with madness.
Piercing through the thick incense smoke came the sound of singing.
“Sha....ring the looooove—with looooove as the giiiift——”
‘A hymn of mercy? Why are they all gathered underground like this?’
I’d expected something damp, sinister, cursed—like the air outside. The temple I’d seen was pumping out so much incense smoke that it barely held back the fog of curses, so it wouldn’t have been a stretch to think the priests here had been tainted and gone insane.
But all I sensed from below was pure divine power. It was so pure and pristine that no one plotting something under a curse could possibly produce it.
So why? Why did it make me so unbearably uneasy?
Click.
Creeeak—
The thick wooden door wasn’t even locked.
“Wiiiith looooove—following Youuuu——”
Shining through the crack in the door was a brilliant light of divinity.
The eerie song of some choir.
And.
Huff—huuuuh—
Huff—huuuuh—
“My loooord.... huuuuh.... huff—huuuuh—”
“What in the world....”
The unforgettable sound of ragged breathing I’d heard just hours ago.
Filling the temple basement were the curse-warped humans I’d seen that morning in the servants’ district homes. Chunks of flesh like melting meat, gasping for breath—the very source of the curse.
“That child is simply lacking in learning, Holy One.”
From amid the endlessly chanting masses of flesh came the bishop’s voice.
In the basement room packed with singing flesh, an elderly priest leaned back in a shabby wooden chair at the center.
His frail body and half-lidded eyes radiated the same serene peace as a lazy afternoon.
“Lacking.... in learning?”
“Sadly, they are all afflicted with frail bodies. Learning to speak or praise must be trials as grueling as carving into bone for them.”
The bishop spoke as if gently chiding me. The warmth in his words only made my grip on my sword tighten further.
“Did you create all these masses of flesh with your own hands?”
“The Goddess said, ‘You shall extend My hand to all pains through your fingertips.’”
“Latura. Could you not set aside your narrow gaze, if only a little?”
Scraaaape—
Rising with the sound of the wooden chair dragging, the bishop clutched his worn prayer book to his chest and walked toward a small altar set up in one corner of the basement as he spoke.
“You saw the temple above and the state of the Holy Ones inside it, did you not? Did they seem fine to you?”
“....”
“Your silence tells me you glimpsed the future I foresaw, however faintly.”
Step. Step.
“It’s been three years since the curse descended on the capital.”
Thud—
“The divine power accumulated over generations didn’t last even a year. The brothers who fought alongside the knights vanished without a trace. The brothers guarding this place died off one by one, and those who survived gradually lost their minds to the creeping curse.”
“....So?”
“As the one responsible for all the brothers and sisters here—and the Holy Ones entrusted to us, however unworthy—I had to find a way.”
The bishop set his prayer book on the altar. He glanced at me once, then gently stroked a lump of flesh stuck to the side of the altar.
“Child. Say ‘ah.’ Ah. Aaaah—”
Huff—huuuuh—huff—huuuuh—
“Huuuuh—ah, aaaah—ah....”
“Good, good. Your breath feels tight, doesn’t it? Try ‘owah’ now.”
Huff—huuuuh—
“Owa....aaaah——”
The creature, lacking eyes, ears, or mouth, awkwardly worked its breathing hole in mimicry of the bishop, who pressed his face close as if nose-to-nose.
“Latura.”
“Owa—ah...”
“Latura.”
“L...owa...”
“Brother. This child has not yet departed. Pray. Latura.”
“L...a....too.... laaa....”
In the end, it uttered a small prayer within its crumbling form.
“Well done. You did so well.”
“La....oo.... phoo—laaa....”
Tears of joy welled in the bishop’s eyes as he turned to me.
“This is the answer I found. Holy One Hyde.”
“Th-this is....”
“At first, it was from a desire for atonement. When the first person to seek refuge in the temple lost their form and became a source of curse, I realized my own failings and planned to end my life here underground with them.”
“But when only that brother in that state and I remained in this vast underground prison, I heard it. Amid the prayers of atonement and ragged breaths filling this basement shrine, two prayer voices were suddenly lingering.”
“It can’t be, it can’t be! Holy mercy, oh, the touch of the most compassionate One!”
The elderly bishop’s voice boomed through the basement.
“It was enlightenment! The moment the blind one finally understood the compassionate Goddess’s will! ‘Extend your hand to all who suffer! You are the fingertips of My mercy; as you walk the path, I shall provide the answer!!’ It was the answer the Goddess gave us as we withered away! Clearer than any oracle! The one true path!”
Whoooosh—
As the bishop raised his hand, divinity flowed from the chanting flesh and gathered at his fingertips.
‘Blind faith.... Even such belief can generate faith.’
Bodies meant for mass-producing life force for the curse, now chanting hymns in the temple basement to mass-produce divine power.
Unlike the Haila priest I’d met in the cave barrier, the state of the clergy here was fine for this very reason. The Haila priest had squeezed her own divine power to care for people, but these priests cared for people using the divine power provided by the temple.
More precisely, they had protected the temple to this day by harnessing the divine power of the cursed choir filling the vast temple basement.
Conflict clouded my sword hand.
‘If blind faith dwells in those incapable of thought, is it faith or brainwashing?’
‘Did the bishop save those broken by the curse, or exploit them?’
“They are no sources of curse! They are simply brothers who have escaped human desires and emotions to reach true purity! ‘Pure Forms’ ideally transformed by the hand of God! The purest, most blind faith! The truest form of belief!”
“Pure Forms. Is that what you call them?”
“Brother. Noble knight. Open your eyes! This is no form born of that misguided emperor—it is the path the Goddess provided to save the descendants of faith!”
And in that instant, as my eyes turned to the corner of the basement filled with singing flesh, the trembling in my sword tip ceased.
“Bishop.”
“Yes. Speak, Holy One Hyde.”
“You said the temple’s divine power ran out about a year ago, so these ‘Pure Forms’ here must have been the civilians in the temple at that time.”
“Mercy does not cast out those who do not leave of their own accord.”
“Thanks to the ‘divine power’ they produce, you’ve barely pushed back the curse fog and protected people like this.”
“Indeed.”
“....Then.”
Ssssh—
“Why is the trace I’ve been looking for here?”
“....Holy One.”
“Amelda hasn’t been tainted by the curse enough to end up like that yet!”
At the tip of my raised sword, buried among the ‘Pure Forms,’ was a scrap of clothing. The clothes Amelda had been wearing when she followed the bishop.
“With such magnificent ‘Pure Forms,’ do you plan to turn everyone here into that? The temple’s patients will be next soon enough, and then you’ll drag in everyone still outside?”
Reacting to the name ‘Amelda,’ one lump of flesh atop those clothes tilted toward me. Unlike its contents, the neat underground shrine had one corner deliberately crumbled, and purple mist flowing in from that broken corner was settling over what had once been ‘Amelda.’
“Sucking life force as a source of curse! Collecting divine power as a source of divinity! What’s the difference between what that emperor did to them and what you’ve done!”
“....Latura.”
The bishop’s moist eyelids slowly lifted.
“Holy One.... Your eyes are too blind to accept the Goddess’s will. All this is to protect the temple.”
“Did the Goddess teach you to turn people into this abomination!”
“Nothing has changed. Only their form; their lives and faith remain the same. Mercy rejects no hand.”
“These ‘Pure Forms’ worship not the Goddess—but you!”
Otherwise, their divine power wouldn’t gather in the bishop’s hand.
The bishop gazed lovingly at his fingertips, where the ‘blindness’ of what must have been tens of thousands of Pure Forms converged, and smiled.
“As I am the Goddess’s vessel, that poses no issue.”
With a halo, the bishop’s body rose, and a fierce divine aura swept through the basement.
“You’re mad.”
The bishop’s widely opened eyes were a deeper purple than the curse fog.
****
“Brother Hauld. Did you not sense something off?”
“Brother Naseira. Did you perhaps not see where the bishop went?”
Something was wrong. Paladin Prauk was gripped by that strange sensation.
“Brother Prauk. Haven’t you been wandering outside the temple too often lately?”
“The bishop is closer to the Goddess’s will than we are, so he must be all the busier for it.”
He asked the other brothers and sisters out of unease, but they all dismissed it as his nerves being on edge.
‘Perhaps. I really have been tainted by the curse.’
Over the past three years, he had witnessed firsthand how the capital’s curse twisted people. Even knights with iron wills and tempered souls, and mages who poured their inner worlds into the world, warped and went mad. Perhaps he too was being swayed by that purple fog, nurturing needless suspicions.
“Hmm....”
Though he handled most of the bishop’s orders to venture outside the temple. It was only natural for the one blessed with the strongest grace to stand at the most perilous front. For him, hailed as the strongest paladin here, to be the first invaded by the curse would be an inexcusable shame.
“Latura. O mercy, guide this unworthy soul.”
Prauk rebuked his own lack of faith and knelt. Like brothers of other faiths, he intended to pray here until his resolve returned firm.
And in that moment, as his knee touched the floor.
....Thud.
...-Thud.
“This is....”
Very faint, but unmistakable. A sensation like something resounding, transmitted through his knee to the floor.
“The underground shrine.”
He knew what lay within. Over the past three years, it was where they had salted the remains of those who died or weakened from various causes. Priests and paladins who fell guarding the temple, patients too frail to prevent turning into curse vessels—they had all been granted ‘mercy’ in time, given funerals in the Order’s way.
On this cursed land, casually burning or burying corpses could spawn ghosts or undead, so they had no choice but to gather remains in the underground shrine.
Why the commotion from below on a day with neither dead nor dying?
“....”
None among those nearby had vanished. Except for the bishop, who had disappeared with the rescued civilians.
Come to think of it, he hadn’t visited the underground shrine once since the curse spread through the capital. Even salted in the Order’s way, it was filled with curse-tainted remains, so no one but the bishop who led the funerals and the brothers accompanying him could enter.
Prauk rose and headed toward the entrance hidden behind a slab.
Clank.
“....Delma. Brother Hauld.”
As he reached for the concealed slab, two paladins blocked his path.
“Step back, Brother Prauk.”
“The bishop is inside.”
“You’re caught in needless suspicion. It hasn’t even been an hour since you returned from the outer fog, has it?”
“If I am wrong, I shall kneel and repent before the Goddess’s image later. But now, I must see the bishop below.”
....Clank!
A shortsword and shield. And a spear blocked his way.
His brothers in faith had drawn weapons against him.
Just for trying to enter the underground shrine within the temple.
The temple where he was born and raised.
A place he had visited countless times before the curse spread.
A part of the temple, no less—why?
“Don’t lead us into temptation, Brother Prauk.”
“Brother.”
“You’re bewitched by the curse’s whispers!”
“Brother!”
“Step back! Even if you’re the strongest among us brothers, we cannot tolerate such rashness!”
Boom—
Suddenly, a clearer resonance spread through the floor.
His brothers’ weapons now aimed at him.
“....Brothers.”
Prauk gripped his mace.
He prayed it was an illusion. That the purple glow in his brothers’ eyes was his curse-induced delusion.
“....The sin of harming the Goddess’s fingertips shall be repented over a lifetime.”
“We too. Shall harm the Goddess’s most diligent fingertips.”
Even in the face of imminent battle, the priests did not tend to the patients around them.
They saw only blocking him as their sacred duty.
Everyone left in the temple, excluding those guarding outside—eight paladins, fifteen priests—all advanced on him.
Just for saying he wanted to see the underground shrine.
Just for saying he wanted to check a place holding only the remains of the departed.
Was his suspicion excessive?
Were they all illusions born of the curse?
Or....
“....Latura, El-Samia.”
“Latura, El-Samia.”
“Latura, El-Samia.”
“Latura, El-Samia.”
Those chanting the same prayer clashed.
Amid roars and prayers, the clamor of metal and divinity colliding.
The purple fog wrapped the temple, as if mocking the scene.
****