Chapter 103
Chapter 103
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 103
Chapter Title: Van Helsing (4)
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I hoisted the man bound by the hook onto the roof in one go.
“Aargh—! Help me! I said, help me!”
He was making a fuss, even though I hadn't even pierced him with the hook. Screaming as if I were torturing him.
“You— you know your sins, don't you?”
“What are you talking about? Shut up and untie me! Do you know who I am?”
“Do you know who I am?”
He thrashed his body as if in a final struggle. It would hurt more if he fell to the ground.
“You colluded with demons and accepted their magi to the very marrow of your bones.”
The aristocratic demeanor Meion Decker once displayed was long gone.
His hair was a disheveled mess, and wherever my spiritual power touched him, magi seeped out, emitting smoke as if his flesh were being seared by fire.
The murmuring below grew louder, and I could feel knights rushing toward the rooftop.
“Grrr—”
Perhaps the pain from the spiritual power was worse than I thought, as a beastly cry escaped him along with the magi.
“As I thought.”
It was just as I predicted. I'd gotten a hint from the fact that those corrupted by magi were antithetical to spiritual power, and I wondered if stimulating them with it would draw the magi out.
When I used just enough spiritual power—not enough to purify the magi, but just enough to provoke it—the magi bared its fangs, as if desperate to devour the spiritual power.
I bound him tighter and stepped out into the open, where the people were watching.
“Look— look up!”
Curious about the commotion inside, the people who had been peeking around screamed at the sight of me on the temple roof.
“Van Helsing—!”
“It's the demon hunter!”
“So the rumors were true!”
The rumors had already spread far and wide. Someone shouted my name, and soon, the name Van Helsing was on everyone's lips.
“But who's the one he captured?”
“Isn't that Meion Decker?”
“Meion Decker, the director of the Lubeck Central Bank!”
Someone recognized Meion Decker, and I smirked as I looked down at him.
“You… you…!”
He seemed to understand the meaning of this situation, gritting his teeth and trying to control his magi, but the spiritual power I was slowly infusing into him kept interfering.
“Van Helsing. So you're Van Helsing. Do you not fear the wrath of the Empire?!”
“I fear not even the reaper of death, but I fear nothing more than you lot, who have sold your souls to magi, deceiving the innocent people!”
Everyone in Lubeck must be hearing Meion Decker's cries of rage and pain, as well as my own theatrically exaggerated lines.
“Seize him!”
“Get him, now!”
And just as the soldiers who had reached the rooftop charged at me—now.
This was the timing I wanted.
I plunged the hook into Meion Decker's body.
“Gyaaaargh—!”
Then I forcefully injected the spiritual power I had been feeding him in moderation.
“Behold! This is the proof that a central noble of the Empire has been tainted by magi!”
“Magi… It's magi! Meion Decker is tainted by magi!”
Just as I wanted, magi began to seep out from all over Meion Decker's body.
He thrashed about, trying to control the magi, but unfortunately for him, I wouldn't allow it.
You must meet your end here as a perfect tool of the demons.
Then, I dropped down onto the head of the false god's statue standing tall in the middle of the square.
“That— that blasphemer! What are the soldiers doing? Seize him at once! Stop him! I said, stop him!”
Those cockroach-like figures who had scurried out from the temple to see the end of this commotion were screaming their heads off about blasphemy.
But that was exactly what I wanted. I raised the stake I had prepared beforehand, one highly concentrated with spiritual power, and delivered my line.
“It is my mission to send you who have sold your souls to magi to your god's side!”
“No… No!”
After seeing this, will the Empire still be able to ignore the magi? And will the Raelian Church be able to deny that one of its faithful followers was involved with it?
If they can do neither, the people will begin to doubt. They will doubt the Emperor who calls himself a god, and they will doubt the Raelian Church, which has now become the state religion of this Empire.
The stake condensed with spiritual power pierced Meion Decker's heart.
“Krrk— You… I'll kill you!”
The stake ran through his heart, pierced the skin of his back, and embedded itself in the statue's head.
“The Empire has become a nation under the care of a living god, yet have not the nobles, who should be setting the best example, become tainted by magi like this?!”
This was probably the most blasphemous act they could imagine.
“Why does the Empire turn a blind eye to the magi? In Granok! And now with Meion Decker! Are you merely condoning it, or are you endorsing it?!”
Heh— what a killer line. The people, who had flinched and were about to flee, stopped in their tracks to listen to my words.
“Now… now, seize that bastard and kill him!”
“My, what a foul mouth. And from a high-ranking priest, no less.”
It seems not everyone here is a complete idiot. Amidst the chaos, they seem to have calculated the future repercussions of this incident.
The problem is, the fallout from this situation alone will be immense. Unless they plan on killing everyone in Lubeck, that is.
For something that happened so suddenly, it was too big of an incident. The nobles' faces turned aghast at an event no one could have foreseen.
Of course. After all, only three people knew what kind of incident I would cause here and who the target would be: me, Hattie Shaw, and the operative who gave me the information.
“You— I won't let you get away with this. This castle I built! This world I made!”
“You should be quiet now.”
With a hammer I had taken out at some point, I smashed the head of Meion Decker, who was writhing and reaching for me as if to kill me.
As the twitching man went limp, magi poured out as if it had been waiting for this moment.
“Run! It's magi! Magi!”
“Run away!”
At someone's shout, the people began to quickly flee the square, gripped by the fear of what might happen if even a trace of that magi touched them.
In the common understanding of the people, there was the fear of becoming a demon if exposed to magi, but there was also the fear of the religion that purified those involved by burning them.
Therefore, they would never forget what they saw today. Some would spread the word by mouth, others through communication devices, relaying the scene the rulers had shown them.
A most desirable situation.
***
The impact of that one event was immense. The murder of a noble in broad daylight.
At the temple of the Raelian Church, the statue of their god was shattered, and the murdered noble was said to have harbored magi.
And the one who killed him was none other than the much-rumored Van Helsing.
The rumors spread rapidly across the continent.
Upon hearing the news, the Empire immediately put a bounty on Van Helsing's head. A staggering three hundred thousand gold.
Since the Empire's founding, bounties had been placed on countless people.
However, Van Helsing was the first to have such a high bounty placed on him at once.
- Congratulations, Mr. Public Enemy Number One of the Empire.
“I suppose it's deserved, considering how openly I blasphemed their god.”
- God, my ass. It was so satisfying. Rumor has it the Bishop of Lubeck was summoned to the capital. Not confirmed, though.
“They're merciless.”
- Merciless is right. The Empire is most concerned with its image right now, and you just smeared a giant pile of shit all over it.
Usually, when the state issued a bounty, it was for a few thousand or, at most, under a hundred thousand gold.
Therefore, Van Helsing's three-hundred-thousand-gold bounty was highly unusual, demonstrating the Empire's resolve to capture and kill him at all costs.
“For the record, my goal is to be number one on the Empire's bounty list.”
- You sure have a strange passion. Number one was that chieftain of the Heracles Clan, right? Ten million gold.
For the record, I was the one who put that ten-million-gold bounty on him. An act I now regret.
“Well… yes. How's the Empire?”
- Just as we expected. It's been turned completely upside down. The incident is too big to just ignore.
“Rumors travel across the continent in the blink of an eye, after all.”
The Holy Kingdom saw the incident and immediately declared them heretics, putting pressure on the Empire. And on the Raelian Church as well.
They said that if the Raelian Church was a true religion that cared for the people, it should set aside its conflicts and take a firm stance against the magi for the people's sake.
However, the Raelian Church remained silent. It's unclear whether they simply couldn't answer or if they were responding with silence because they deny all gods except their own.
The Empire merely responded that it would handle its internal affairs on its own.
- Just like you said, this incident has thrown the continent's political situation into complete chaos. Honestly, it's become impossible to predict anything now.
“It will probably get even messier.”
It's been true since ancient times. Ah, not here, but on Earth. The best way to unify the inside is to create an enemy on the outside.
“And war will come soon, too. Because the easiest way for the Empire to consolidate its internal power is to start a war.”
- … That is the easiest way.
It's not just about consolidation; they also gain coercive power. Over the nobles and the people.
Human rights will surely be stripped away, and some might even be dragged off as test subjects. Then they'll tell the bereaved families.
That they fought more fiercely than anyone in battle and died an honorable death protecting their comrades.
It's only a matter of now or later, but the end the Empire desires will ultimately be the same.
- So, did you escape Lubeck?
She was probably asking because I had requested she spread a rumor that Van Helsing had escaped Lubeck and gone to the Ashar Desert.
“No. Not yet.”
- What? Don't tell me.
“There are quite a few of the devil's minions here. As a demon hunter, I can't just pass them by, can I?”
Thanks to the few incidents I'd caused, the city of Lubeck's image was already plummeting, but I wasn't kind enough to care about that.
The Meion Decker incident was certainly impactful, but the impact I had in mind didn't end there. There was one more to come.
“Isn't that right, Lord Emile Arnaud?”
Lord Emile Arnaud, his mouth gagged, met my gaze with eyes full of fear, but there was no one around to help him.
Those tainted with magi already had stakes in their hearts, and the others were unconscious. He was the only one awake.
Moreover, this wasn't just the lord's office or bedroom in the castle.
It was a cellar beneath a cellar, reached through a secret passage in the lord's office.
The place where the collected magi of the Seven Deadly Sins was stored.
“A cellar beneath a cellar. How cute. I wonder if you were trying to hide it from my eyes.”
A look of resignation began to creep into the lord's eyes.
And in the center of that cellar, I gripped the hammer Dwalin had made for me and poured my spiritual power into it.
Little by little, without stopping. The spiritual power, sprouting from the hammer like the roots of a tree from its trunk, writhed and expanded its reach.
I closed my eyes and spread the burgeoning spiritual power in all directions.
Since I still had great difficulty controlling or manipulating the spiritual power, I let it move by following the magi, which was its opposite. Wider, wider.
I embedded the roots of spiritual power in every place where the magi of the Seven Deadly Sins was present.
And then, I detonated the spiritual power in a sudden burst.
Rumble—
The entirety of Lubeck shook violently.
“It's coming.”
I had already created a path. A path for the finale.
Grabbing Lord Emile Arnaud by the scruff of his neck, I climbed to the highest spire of the lord's castle.
Rumble—
Through the hole I'd made in the floor, the magi of the Seven Deadly Sins erupted from the castle.
I generated my spiritual power, spreading it wide like a giant umbrella, and the magi flowed along its membrane, covering the skies of Lubeck.
It was as if a colossal dark cloud had enveloped the entire city.
“My role is to send you to the god who will judge you.”
Emile Arnaud screamed as the stake pierced his heart, but it didn't change the fact that this was the end for him.
The entire city erupted in chaos, and lights began to flicker on one by one in the sleeping city. Everyone must be watching this spectacle.
And when the clamor reached its peak, I used my spiritual power to instantly purify the magi.
Leaving not a single speck of it behind.
“This is a warning. A warning to all of you.”