Chapter 24
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 24
Chapter Title: Pig Hunt (1)
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When a person gets startled,
I mean, really, really startled,
they can only manage one single phrase.
"...Does this make any sense?"
My mind refused to accept it.
I'd clearly seen it with my own two eyes and heard it with my own two ears just moments ago, yet I couldn't believe it.
Lately, sure, there've been a lot of shocking things, but nothing like this.
What the hell was this situation?
What language had just come out of my mouth?
Had I been drinking today?
To check if this was a dream, I slowly shifted my gaze from the hand that had touched the pig.
- Sssrrk.
A fading golden energy trickled from my fingertips.
This was divine power.
No doubt about it.
It was definitely the same energy I'd seen undulating behind the Saintess four days ago.
Divine power was a force that only 'humans' blessed by God's love could wield.
A power exclusive to humans, and divine power so potent it was visible to the naked eye.
And then, the pig-like squeal that had burst from my mouth just now.
In that instant, an utterly blasphemous hypothesis flashed through my mind.
An incredibly, incredibly blasphemous one.
"No way."
I looked at the pig again.
A small baby pig, decently cute despite being covered in wounds, with big round eyes.
The perfect size for a pet.
"You don't mean..."
- Oink! Oink oink oink oink!
The piglet nodded its head frantically.
As if it understood my words.
I focused my entire mind once more and listened to its cries.
And then,
- Central Officer! It's me, Saintess Erzena! Me!
I heard a human voice.
In the voice of the Holy Church's Saintess, no less.
"My God."
The hairs all over my body stood on end.
A single truth slammed into my head.
"The Saintess is a sow—"
The moment I nearly blurted out something that would get me buried if overheard from outside,
- Grab.
Someone seized the back of my neck.
"Huh?"
It was the village boy, Sota.
His purple eyes, revealed after tossing off his straw hat, trembled with shock and alarm.
"Sota?"
"What the hell are you?"
A woman's voice emerged from the boy's body, utterly mismatched.
Before I could react to the dissonance, he hurled me backward.
- Crash!
"Guh!"
What kind of kid had strength like that? I tumbled across the wagon floor in an instant.
The boy muttered, unable to hide his panic.
"How did you figure it out? What are you?"
"S-Sota. What the hell is going...?"
"Damn it, one of the Church bastards? Have they already taken the border?"
Words no village boy would ever say.
Church bastards?
Especially not that kind of terminology.
Which means Sota isn't just some ordinary boy.
The moment I heard that, I realized my guess was spot on.
That pig was the Saintess.
Erzena Selaph, the tomboy Saintess I knew.
A Saintess turned into a pig.
What kind of absurd situation was this?
Even if my mind rejected it, my instincts as an examiner kicked into hyper-alert mode.
The Saintess transformed into a pig and imprisoned?
And that wasn't all.
Sota standing before me was suspicious too.
A boy's body with a woman's voice, strength surpassing an adult man's.
Something pretending to be a boy, holding the pig-turned Saintess captive, trying to cross the border...
The implications, crammed into one sentence, spelled danger beyond imagination.
"...Kidnapping?"
My instincts screamed.
This was an emergency of the highest order.
"Central Officer? Central Officer?"
Someone shook me awake.
"Pull yourself together! Central Officer!"
"Ugh... Th-this officer is... fine..."
With great effort, I answered, and only then did the hands shaking me mercilessly stop.
"He's awake! Gustatory Officer, towel—quick!"
"H-Here!"
A familiar voice, and someone pressed a cloth to my face.
"Olfactory Officer? Everyone?"
I slowly opened my eyes.
I lay sprawled in the middle of the empty examination grounds.
The five sense officers and attendants surrounded me, looking down with worried eyes.
"My God, what happened to you!? Did you fall somewhere?"
"Huh? What are you talking about? More importantly... ugh!"
My head throbbed.
A sharp headache hit, as if I'd smashed into something hard.
"Weren't you all... at the office...? Ngh."
Olfactory Officer inhaled deeply a few times before replying.
"We smelled your blood and came running. But what happened? Why are you collapsed here?"
"I... was collapsed?"
In that instant, I remembered what had just occurred.
- Central Officer! It's me, Saintess Erzena! Me!
I shot to my feet and shouted.
"That wagon from earlier!"
"Whoa whoa, don't jump up like that!"
"This isn't the time! Where's the wagon I was inspecting!?"
I frantically scanned around, but only the empty grounds and the officers met my eyes.
How much time had passed?
"How long was I out here?"
"A-about three minutes, I think. We ran over as soon as we caught the scent..."
Three minutes.
Good.
Not too late yet.
I shoved Olfactory Officer aside and said,
"Listen up, everyone! This is an ultra-emergency! The Saintess ri—cough!"
Blood sprayed with the cough.
I spat it out, and a tooth clattered loose.
That damn kid—how hard had she kicked my jaw?
Gustatory Officer freaked out at my state.
"Aaaah, Central Officer! Blood, you're bleeding! Please, just sit down first!"
"That's not important right now!"
"Okay, just calm do—"
I brushed off the hands trying to soothe me.
And shouted loud enough for everyone to hear clearly.
"The Saintess has turned into a sow!"
Silence.
"..."
"..."
"..."
My voice echoed across the open grounds.
- Sow....... sow......
For the first time, contempt, shock, and confusion flashed across the officers' faces all at once.
Expressions they'd never shown me before, now all directed my way.
After a long silence, Olfactory Officer spoke first.
"...Hey, Gustatory. Go lay out a blanket in the conference room. Central Officer needs rest. He's talking nonsense."
That opened the floodgates.
"You must still be in a lot of pain."
"You've been under a ton of stress lately."
"Poor Central Officer..."
Pitying voices.
They all whispered like they were dealing with someone unwell.
Flustered, I yelled,
"No, it's true! I'm serious! Erzena turned into a pig—oinking and all!"
"In this day and age, even as a joke, that gets you arrested, Central Officer."
"Is this workplace sexual harassment? Is it? Did I just get sexually harassed?"
"Whoa... Never pegged you for that kind of guy."
Next came voices of contempt and disappointment.
No one believed me.
In my frustration, I bellowed,
"You idiots, it's true!!!"
I could barely believe it myself, but it was true.
That was when,
"Huh? Hold on."
Olfactory Officer suddenly lowered his head and began sniffing intently.
"This smell... I know it."
He circled behind me and inhaled near the back of my neck.
He tilted his head oddly and said,
"William Kafka?"
A name I'd never heard.
"Who's that?"
"The man we processed for exit yesterday. Have you met him by any chance?"
"No. What'd he look like?"
Olfactory Officer dredged up his memory.
"Well-dressed in a jacket, with a dagger at his side—an old retired mercenary type. He looked like..."
And he mentioned the most striking feature.
"He had purple eyes."
The moment I heard that, Sota came to mind.
Purple eyes were rare. The kind you might see once in a lifetime.
A natural eye color that barely existed.
No way two people with eyes like that pass through the southern border in one day.
And Sota wasn't a real boy anyway. Woman's voice, inhuman strength for a kid.
The puzzle pieces were falling into place.
Body transformation akin to shapeshifting, Saintess mutated into an animal, right when the Immigration Control Office is swamped...
This wasn't mere coincidence.
Not a simple ransom kidnapping either.
That kind would surrender the moment they're caught. They wouldn't time it so perfectly for peak chaos.
Something bigger. Something massive.
With conviction, I told the officers,
"Everyone. The Saintess... she seems to have been kidnapped by an unknown force."
I spilled everything that had happened.
The chained pig and its divine power, the boy with purple eyes.
After hearing the full story, my subordinates gasped in shock.
"Son of a— Is this for real? Then that Kafka guy...!"
"The Saintess really..."
"A pig Saintess? Does that even make sense?"
Now they were starting to believe me.
When have I ever lied to you bastards?
Then, Tactile Officer raised her hand.
"But why should we help with that?"
"Pardon?"
"The Saintess was the one who tried to bury you, Central Officer. Why help a wench like that?"
A sharp retort.
Evidently, resentment toward the Holy Church ran deeper than I'd thought—no one contradicted her.
"I say we report to the Border Guard and upper management, then focus on trial prep."
"Harsh as it sounds, we don't have the bandwidth to get involved that deep, Central Officer."
Even Olfactory Officer chimed in.
I appreciated them getting heated for my sake, but now wasn't the time.
I shook my head.
"As you all know, the affidavits in the [Evidence Locker] alone won't guarantee victory in court."
"..."
"The opposition is armed with authority and power. Without a killer ace, we'll get steamrolled."
No response.
They knew it was true—troubled expressions appeared.
"But right now, I think I've found it. The strongest card I can play."
The officers instantly grasped what I meant.
They stared at me like I'd lost my mind.
"Central Officer. D-don't tell me..."
Tactile Officer asked in a trembling voice at the outlandish idea.
"Yes. Exactly."
Bullseye.
I nodded firmly.
"We rescue the Saintess, and in return, make her our witness."
My father used to say,
'Merchants have no crises.'
Only safe opportunities and gambles worth taking.
And this situation? It was a gamble.
One that could flip the board entirely.
Uneasy glances passed among my direct subordinates.
But faint hope glimmered too.
A subtle 'What if?'
I seized the moment.
"Effective immediately, all Immigration Control Office operations are suspended. We declare an ultra-emergency. All examiners and attendants will now move under my command."
Strength filled my voice.
If there's hope, if there's a chance,
"A kidnapping occurred at the border, and the examiner who noticed was assaulted. This falls under our jurisdiction, so we'll proceed with a capture operation."
we absolutely cannot let it slip away.
"By the name of Operation,"
"Pig Hunt."
Sitting idle meant defeat in court anyway.
But success? Guaranteed victory.
Just pull the Saintess to our side, and trial or whatever—we win it all.
It was a gamble worth taking.