Plagues Upon the False Faith
I smashed them down! Thud! “Gaaah…!!” Crunch! “Aaaagh!! My head…!!” I took down the first two that burst out in an instant. The weapon the Divine Spirit had given me was one thing, but I was shocked that I could bring a human head down so mercilessly.
This isn’t how I normally am, right? If it is, using this Grace might feel a little wrong.
That’s a relief, then.
The door exploded open as a hulking figure swung an iron rod with a monstrous roar. Any normal person would have been paralyzed by terror and scrambling to flee, but these fanatics were cut from different cloth. They flinched at first, flailing in confusion, but a few quickly regained their senses and charged.
What about the gray ones?
Once I dealt with the ones radiating black smoke, the gray ones who had been hesitating in the back began to run. Just as the Divine Spirit said, I ignored them and swung my kukri at the black-smoke fanatics charging me. Thanks to the Grace of Herculean Strength, even a graze sent them flying.
Thud!Crunch!Crack!
I was already halfway through. Leaving the runners alone, I scanned the area and realized the numbers weren’t as bad as I’d feared. Two to three hundred at most?
Thinking of two or three hundred people as “not that many” is ridiculous. Does receiving the Grace of Herculean Strength also enlarge your?
Scared? Of what? A few stomps and it’s over.
Every swing dropped another one, so the whole thing felt less like a battle and more like playing a game. It was exactly like a fully-geared max-level character bulldozing through a beginner slime hunting ground in cheat mode.
But is this all the believers they have? Is this cult that weak?
Perfect. Since I’m already here, let’s finish it.
Gripping the blood-dripping kukri, I stepped onto the platform. A third of them had fled, and every single one of the rest lay sprawled across the floor. Leaving the screams echoing behind me, I searched for the cult leader.
He was definitely here a moment ago.
He’s got quite the tail on him.
Beyond the door, stairs led upward. The soundproofing was excellent; halfway up, the noise from the hall vanished as if it had never existed.
This looks like a hotel corridor. They talked about religion and all that, yet they built something like this?
Lavish decorations, even a chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The money the believers had offered was being spent on things like this.
I carefully opened the door at the top of the stairs. The room was decorated like a luxurious hotel suite. On the bed, some pig of a man was thrusting his hips violently. While the believers downstairs were having their skulls cracked open, he was up here doing this.
I walked over and tapped his back. He was so lost in his panting that it took him a long moment to turn around.
“Wh-what the—! You, where did you—”
Instead of answering, I wrapped my forearm around his throat.
“Gack, grrr… Gaaaaah!”
He flailed with everything he had, but he was no match for me after receiving the Grace of Herculean Strength. After only a few seconds he went limp, so I hurled him to the floor.
The woman beneath him had completely unfocused eyes. She must have been drugged; no matter how much I shook her, she didn’t recognize me.
Is it okay to kill this bastard?
It was the first time in my life I had ever wanted to kill someone. The rage was almost impossible to contain.
Catching the cult leader was urgent, but every time I passed a room along the corridor I heard more moaning. In the end I choked three more men before I finally reached the room at the end of the hall. The extravagant decorations made it obvious this was the cult leader’s personal quarters.
The Divine Spirit relayed what it had overheard. No matter how deep you dug, this group was nothing but a pile of horror stories.
When I entered the cult leader’s room, the door on the opposite side stood open. Beyond it was a circular staircase—an emergency exit of sorts.
I must have wasted too much time on the way. He got away.
Through the window I could see a bridge leading to the dock. The cult leader was dragging something behind him as he crossed it. He must have grabbed whatever was valuable and run.
If I head down now, I probably won’t catch him.
The ones from the scriptures, right? I saw the movie.
It was such a spectacular tale that even people who didn’t believe in religion generally knew it.
The fleeing cult leader suddenly stopped, screamed, and staggered backward. Something was crawling onto the bridge in droves.
Frogs?
Fist-sized frogs covered the bridge in seconds. There must have been hundreds—no, thousands. As the cult leader shrieked and thrashed, the believers who had been hiding rushed onto the bridge. They snatched up the frogs and hurled them into the lake, trying to clear a path for their leader.
Should I go down?
A deep buzzing filled the air and the surroundings grew darker. The lights around the dock and bridge had been bright, but now they began to vanish one by one.
Tens of millions of locusts descended on the people atop the bridge.
“Uwaaaaagh!”
“S-save me!”
“Cult Leader! Cult Leadeeeer!!”
They thrashed wildly, trying to tear the locusts from their bodies, and one by one they toppled from the bridge. People flailing after plunging into the lake, people rolling across the ground completely covered in locusts, people screaming as the insects tore at their flesh—the plagues of ancient Egypt I had read about in the scriptures were unfolding in perfect detail.
The cult leader, who had been writhing among his followers, fell from the bridge as well.
I watched him desperately swim toward the dock.
The color of the lake began to change from the edges, and a metallic, fishy stench rose into the air.
Whoa, this is…
Those who noticed the change screamed while drenched in red. Then, one by one, they were dragged down into the pools of blood. The cult leader was no exception.
What? Are you trying to drown them?
It would return to normal after a few days, the Divine Spirit said.
Is it over now?
I searched every room I had passed, but Sera was nowhere to be found. The woman who had been assaulted in the last room looked in terrible shape, so I wrapped her in a bedsheet and carried her out.
Drugs?
My blood boiled. For the sake of momentary pleasure they had turned innocent women into addicts.
I really want to kill these bastards.
That sounds good.
I dragged out the men I had choked unconscious earlier and hurled them into the lake. Returning to the room, I examined the women’s conditions and lowered my head.
If only I had come a little sooner.
If I had searched this floor first, I might have been able to save them.
I told you earlier. Right now, I’m the only one who can help them.
How?
Ah.
Can it cure drug addiction too?
Only after hearing the Divine Spirit’s words did I truly feel the immense power I had received. I placed my hand on the forehead of the woman who looked the worst. Something seemed to flow out of me, and her deathly pale complexion slowly returned to normal.
She’s not waking up?
Is the addiction cured?
I treated the other three women the same way.
Now I just need to find Sera.
What for? I already searched it thoroughly.
The traces of a soul untainted by false faith appear white. Before crossing the lake I had seen white smoke rising from the building as well.
Just as the Divine Spirit said, I sat down in the cult leader’s room and focused. Thinking of Sera, I narrowed my eyes, and white smoke appeared between the walls.
Found it!
When I touched the wall where the smoke rose, I felt a groove.
I slid it sideways and a gap just wide enough for a person appeared. A hidden room.
Inside, Sera lay collapsed in the corner. Her hands and feet were bound and a gag had been forced into her mouth.
Besides Sera, another woman was there. That cult-leader bastard—he must have been planning a threesome.
I needed to untie them and check their conditions, so I carried both girls out into the light.
I froze the moment I saw her face. She was one of the two new members I had been searching for so desperately.
Wait—why is she here?