Chapter 1
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: The Fallen Saintess
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As I opened my eyes, a dank underground chamber came into view.
The sound of dripping water from somewhere shattered the silence, while the pungent stench of fish and rotting mold assaulted my lungs.
'...Where the hell is this?'
As sensation gradually returned, the first thing I felt was the heavy texture of leather.
A handle slick from years of use.
And at its end, the cold metallic clink.
It was a whip.
My field of vision was oppressively narrow and dim.
But even in that murky darkness, one woman's presence stood out sharply.
The scrape of chains accompanied her slender body, suspended in midair.
Silver hair that once radiated unparalleled nobility now matted with blood and dirt, dragging across the floor. Between the shreds of her torn clothes, her pale skin was marred by hideous red and purple bruises.
In that instant, alien memories flooded my mind, jumbling everything together.
Holy Kingdom Luminas. Camp 1 underground interrogation room.
And... [Hymn of Ruin].
"Ha..."
A hollow laugh escaped me before I knew it.
Three years after discharge, I'd once tried drowning the bitterness of civilian life in the despair of that novel.
Of course, seeing the heroine slaughtered in the ending made me realize that was a mistake.
Memories from last night flashed by like a montage—the keyboard battle with that damn author right after the finale.
[Me: No, even if it's fiction, isn't beating her down without any buildup just too much?]
[Author: If you're that pissed, why don't you go save her yourself?]
That sarcasm had become reality.
Of all places, smack in the middle of the novel's mid-game episode where the First Saintess Elena is betrayed by her trusted comrades, dragged underground, and stripped of her humanity in the most horrific way.
The absurd false charge of stealing the holy relic Tears of Saint Jerome and smuggling it to the Empire.
The Church, needing an excuse to replace Elena as her influence grew, branded her an imperial spy and was pressuring her to confess a fabricated list of accomplices supposedly hiding within the Church.
They called it a confession, but it was really just the Church using her unyielding nobility as a sacrifice to fabricate excuses for purging their rivals.
'Of all the timings...'
My mind reeled for a moment, but I straightened my shoulders and fixed my gaze.
It was the survival instinct deeply etched into my body forcing my reason back under control.
Then, a rough shout slammed into my eardrums.
"Hey, newbie! What the hell are you doing?!"
To my side stood a bloated man like a wild boar, spittle flying as he glared at me.
A stranger, but I knew his name.
Senior Interrogator Vargas.
One of the scum of this underground prison, a master at dressing sadism up as holy purification.
"I get it, first day on the job and you're nervous. But if you're just gonna stand there gawking like an idiot, get out. We don't need guys in the Heretic Interrogation Office who make staring at the saintess's pretty face a hobby."
Vargas cackled and shoved my shoulder roughly.
The fishy reek of booze and cigarettes wafting from his mouth stirred unpleasant echoes from the edges of my memories.
A chill rage welled up inside me.
Instinctively, I scanned Vargas's weak points—his nape—and the positions of the torture tools in his grip.
This body's muscle mass was pathetic at first glance.
But vital points on the human body don't change.
Dozens of ways to topple this careless pig flashed through my mind right then.
"What? What's with that look, you little shit?! "
Vargas, irked by my attitude, raised his hand.
'Raising his hand so casually... must've lived his life looking down on everyone.'
Before his hand could reach my cheek, my arm reacted with unnatural sharpness, seizing his wrist.
"..."
Vargas's eyes widened in shock.
His piggish arm froze midair. No—it was pinned in my grip, unable to budge.
"Interrogator Vargas."
Instead of twisting his wrist, I held it steady and murmured low.
"Your voice is too loud. Mixing vulgar noise into this sacred interrogation chamber goes against papal protocol, doesn't it?"
"L-Let go! You crazy bastard...!"
"Judging by the saintess's state, you've been more focused on defiling her body than actual interrogation."
I gently pushed his seized wrist away and stepped closer.
Driving a gaze honed ice-cold from countless brushes with death straight into his eyes.
"What Senior Interrogator Vargas has been doing—is it what His Holiness the Pope desires? Extracting the saintess's confession, or satisfying your base urges?"
"W-What did you say?"
"Why'd you stop swinging that whip? What if a mere scrap of leather finishes her off? Can you take responsibility for that?"
Vargas swallowed dryly, cowed by the eerie aura in my gaze.
He'd always lived with his head bowed to superiors, so this must've thrown him.
The flimsy authority he'd built crushing the weak in the Heretic Interrogation Office crumbled the moment his momentum faltered, no better than paper.
His trembling finger jabbed at the emblem on my chest.
"Y-You... you're really Ian? That parachute newbie who just showed up today...?"
"For now, I'm a heretic interrogator like you. I've held back until now, but I can't stand by and watch this inefficient interrogation style any longer."
Out of his sight, I flashed a chilling smile and added,
"Torture that tears the flesh is third-rate work. Alley thugs can do the same. The real art crushes the soul until they break from within."
I hurled the raised whip to the floor with a savage flick.
Thwack!
The dull scrape of leather shattered the interrogation room's silence.
"Give me one hour. I'll make that prideful saintess scream louder than she ever has."
I ground the fallen whip under my bootheel and continued.
"In return, wait outside quietly. Amateurs meddling in a professional's work is something I despise."
I doubled down, feigning madness.
Vargas flushed with wounded pride, lips twitching, but ultimately couldn't match the insanity in my eyes and backed away.
He stormed out, dragging the priests with him in a huff.
"...Fine. If you're that confident, I'll watch. No results, and your head rolls in the plaza tomorrow!"
"I won't disappoint you, Senior Interrogator Vargas."
The heavy iron door slammed shut with a grim clang.
Only then did I exhale the breath I'd been holding.
Cold sweat soaked my nape.
'At least I bought some time.'
The words to chase Vargas out were half-bluff, but half-truth regarding interrogation.
Physical violence is hard to control. Excessive bleeding or shock can silence them forever.
Above all, my past life's experience told me:
True terror starts not from torn flesh, but a single whisper echoing from the unseeable darkness ahead.
I had to produce results the Church would accept without killing her.
In the underground chamber untouched by even pale moonlight, she hung precariously like a shattered glass doll.
Beneath walls etched with noble scriptures from the holy texts, the stench of festering wounds hung thickly.
An utterly unreal scene.
[Emotion] System activated.
The transparent window floating in the air proved this was reality.
Elena's condition, checked via emotions, was predictably dire.
A deep darkness begging only for death.
Even the hatred toward me had crossed its limit, turning indifferent.
"Saintess."
A low, soft voice. But laced with the chill of a sharpened blade.
No reaction to my call. She lacked even the energy to respond to external stimuli.
I picked up a low-grade recovery potion rolling on the floor.
The original Ian would've used it to revive her for repeated torture, but I had different plans.
"Drink this, Saintess."
I roughly gripped her jaw and twisted it toward me.
Without giving her a chance to resist, I poured the cold potion down her parched throat.
"Cough... hack...!"
The sudden stimulus made Elena shudder as she swallowed the liquid.
Moments later, the potion's energy spread, bringing a faint hint of life to her pallid face.
Just forcibly clinging her dying life back, nothing more.
"Kill... me..."
Elena's voice cracked like dry leaves crumbling.
She'd lost even the will to resent, reduced to begging for this hell to end.
I brought my lips close to her ear and whispered in a serpentine purr.
"Death? Saintess, that's an easy mercy brutes like Vargas hand out. In front of me, you'd best abandon such hopes—for both our sakes."
Elena's pupils quivered oddly.
Eyes sensing something wrong, a hell unlike any violence she'd endured now beginning.
"Things will be quite different from now on, Saintess. You'll see for yourself just how easily that nobility you cling to can twist."
I lightly traced her cheek with a finger, adding in chilling gentleness,
"So please endure as long as you can. I'm already looking forward to how sweet the sound of your breaking will be."
"You... ugh... what... exactly..."
Terror overtook her eyes. The expression of one realizing the stranger she'd hoped was salvation was actually an invitation to deeper hell.
Satisfied, I smiled and stood.
Then, from my pocket, I drew a small scalpel and without hesitation sliced deep into my left forearm.
Sssshk!
Sharp pain accompanied spurting red blood. But without a single groan, I let it drip onto her tattered clothes and the filthy floor.
"Now, shall we start the show?"
Clang! Crack!
I kicked a stray empty bucket across the floor. The sharp clash of metal filled the narrow interrogation room like a scream.
In a voice too low for her to hear clearly but rough enough to carry outside, I exhaled ragged breaths and unleashed the roar of a mad interrogator.
"Speak! Spit it out with that filthy mouth! Who are the accomplices you're hiding?!"
Kaaang! Clang!
I snatched a thick chain and slammed it against the stone pillar. Each ear-splitting metallic ring made Elena's body convulse like a seizure.
The creepy whisper from moments ago, combined with the sensation of (my) blood splattering on her, drove her mind to the brink.
"Aaaah! I don't know... I don't know! Please... please stop...!"
Her agonized scream filled the basement.
Beyond the horrific scrape of iron on stone, I fixed her with cold, sunken eyes.
From outside, it would look like a deranged interrogator brutalizing the saintess.
But inside, I had to become her ultimate enemy.
She needed to see me as pure terror instead of trust for this deception to succeed.
Only then could I erase the Church's suspicions completely and seize that one chance to extract her later.
"Good. Let's keep going. Until you feel it in your bones—your precious god has abandoned you."
I flashed her trembling eyes the smile of the world's cruelest heretic interrogator.
The grand deception had begun in earnest.