Chapter 4
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: The Traitor's List
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The corridor fell eerily silent in an instant, like a vacuum had sucked out all sound.
A chilling pressure bore down from behind me.
I crushed Mirabel's note in my pocket until my fingertips turned white.
Just the slightest lapse in tension, and it felt like my true thoughts would spill out.
"Ian, my brother. Was my question too difficult?"
Damian's approaching voice was chillingly smooth.
It was an artificial, unpleasant elegance, like a sharpened blade wrapped in silk.
Hoo. I swallowed a short breath.
One step back here, and my head would roll.
A status window floated above his head, glowing with a pale light.
Favorability: -10.
Cautious, but not outright hostile.
Proof that our conversation with Mirabel hadn't reached his ears.
"Hoo..."
A thin sigh of relief twisted into a bitter smile on my lips.
I slowly turned my body and bowed politely.
"I never expected to encounter the Director of Camp 1 here. To think you'd grace such a humble chapel with your presence."
"Humble? Isn't this a place blessed by the Mother's mercy? A sanctuary any believer can enter. Of course, it's not exactly suited for us heretic interrogators."
Damian stroked his chin with long fingers and turned his head.
His eyes obsessively scanned the statue of the Mother, shrouded in darkness inside the prayer room I'd just left.
"What were you discussing so intently with the priest from the Empire? Quite the novel sight—a heretic interrogator making confession to a priest."
"It was a more productive conversation than mere confession."
I met Damian's gaze head-on without flinching.
"As you know, Director, Interrogator Vargas's crude methods won't break the Saintess. No, she'd shatter like glass before confessing a word."
"And?"
"I needed the priests' hypocritical 'words' instead of brute force. Types like Saintess Elena must be pried open through cracks in the mind, not the flesh."
I deliberately lowered my voice a tone.
"Plant false hope, then rip it away to sow confusion. The massive sense of loss when even that sliver of possibility is butchered in the final moment... Isn't that the most reliable torture tool?"
For a split second, Damian's eyebrow twitched upward.
Proof that my answer had precisely struck his twisted pragmatism.
"Mimic the priests' tongue to plant hope, then shatter it until she spills the truth of her own accord... Quite an intriguing hypothesis."
"As expected of you, Director. You grasped my intent in an instant."
I flashed a sly grin and drove the wedge home.
"For someone like me, who must revive a fallen house, I can't waste time on inefficient methods like swinging whips like the others. I just wanted to prove my own 'efficiency' and catch your eye."
The word 'efficiency' hung in the air, shattering the silence with Damian's low chuckle.
That laugh carried an unsettling chill.
He placed a hand on my shoulder.
His slender fingers felt like a serpent's tail coiling to strangle.
"Efficiency... I like that. Your ruthless results-oriented thinking, and the audacity to use even a priest of the sanctuary for it."
His grip tightened.
"But remember this, Ian, my brother. Efficiency only has value when proven by solid 'results.'"
Damian gazed down at me with cold eyes, murmuring lowly.
"If you fail..."
A cruel curve hooked his lips.
"Then your worthless life will be the most inefficient thing to expend."
"I'll keep that in mind, Director Damian."
I replied without a flicker in my expression.
Only then did Damian withdraw his hand, seemingly satisfied.
"Good. Then by tomorrow, wring a confession from the Saintess's lips—at least one name of a church spy. I want to see just how impressive your method is, proven by results."
"...Tomorrow?"
The tighter-than-expected deadline slipped out unbidden.
Damian halted and slowly turned his head.
A weary chill settled in his eyes.
"Too short a deadline? Well, can't be helped. You're dismissed. Starting tomorrow, I'll handle the Saintess's interrogation myself."
"...!"
Him stepping in meant Elena's doom.
In the original story, Damian was the type to shatter a person's ego and body alike as mere consumables for efficient torture.
After passing through Vargas and falling into his hands, Elena lingered in a living corpse state until her execution.
Absolutely, that cannot happen.
I quelled the burning tension inside and opened my mouth calmly.
"No such thing. Why would the Director need to dirty his own hands?"
"Is that so?"
His curt, indifferent reply sent my heart plummeting.
A vicious self-loathing surged as I realized I had to spew cruelty to sate this monster's tastes.
But I couldn't stop.
"The sight of the Saintess's hypocritical mask crumbling pathetically will make for quite the spectacle. By tomorrow, I'll twist that arrogant face into despair and lay it at your feet."
Damian stared at me intently for a long moment, then lifted the corner of his mouth after a brief, intrigued silence.
"...I'll be expecting it."
Only when the sound of his shoes fully vanished into the corridor's darkness did I exhale the breath I'd held.
"Hoo..."
My body was drenched in cold sweat.
Damian.
He was a monster.
Just that brief exchange felt like years shaved off my lifespan.
I gripped the note in my pocket tightly once more.
I hadn't fully dispelled his suspicions, but at least I'd bought time to survive the night.
I hurried out of the chapel toward the camp sector.
Crows' piercing gazes stabbed at me from every corner along the way.
In Luminas, secrets didn't exist.
The dread that every step was shadowed by eyes and ears overwhelmed me.
Only after reaching my quarters, locking the door, and barring it did I finally relax.
"Hah, haa..."
I rushed to the washbasin, turned on the cold water, and plunged my face in.
Even the biting chill couldn't dispel the sensation of Damian's serpentine voice lingering by my ear.
With trembling hands, I pulled out the note from my pocket.
Unfolding the neatly creased paper revealed a message scrawled in rough script.
[Tomorrow night, 11 PM. Underground Aqueduct Sector 3.]
A terse, chilling directive.
I swallowed hard and held the note over the candle flame.
Crackle.
Black smoke from the burning paper briefly filled the room.
I scattered the cooled ashes into the air and pulled out my worn notebook from inside my coat.
Now it was time to compile the fake list of heretics Elena would have to confess.
"In the original, Elena never cracked until the end."
Was it to preserve her saintly dignity?
In the end, that dignity held no power.
The church higher-ups exploited her silence like a blank check.
They purged any obstacles in their path under the pretext of 'Saintess collaborators.'
Paradoxically, the silence she desperately guarded became the spark that made this hell even more infernal.
I pressed my pen to a blank page in the notebook.
Scratch, scratch.
For a while, only the sound of nib on paper echoed in the room.
Squeezing every drop from my knowledge of the original, I inscribed the names of the church's most rotten scum.
[Cardinal Lorenz]
[Senior Priest Jerome]
[Vice Priest Benedict]
[Head Nun Anna]
All of them had abused the church's authority to sate their vile desires.
Some turned holy orphanages into hubs for human trafficking.
Others peddled indulgences, sucking the poor dry.
Still others shielded themselves with God's name to prey on young nuns.
Above all, these were the ones who sang hymns loudest from the front row when Elena mounted the scaffold, blessing her death.
"Justice served... What a bitterly ill-fitting phrase."
A sour sneer tugged at my lips.
Framing them as heretics brought me no guilt whatsoever.
But the problem was Elena.
Tomorrow, when Damian opened the interrogation room door, she had to recite this list from her own mouth.
A brutal play that trampled her saintly pride and forced her to see herself as a 'betrayer who sold out her comrades.'
I rationalized it as an essential step to save her.
Yet I couldn't stop the chill settling in my chest.
Even if it was inevitable someday, making it tomorrow was my fault.
I had to take responsibility somehow.
"Dawn already..."
I folded the parchment tightly and tucked it inside my coat.
Suppressing my emotions, I donned my black coat and headed to the underground camp.
Clang-!
The heavy iron door swung open, and I entered the interrogation room where Elena was confined.
Her silhouette amid the shadows looked pitiful, as if it might shatter at any moment.
Seeing her stained with blood and filth, I stripped away another layer of my humanity.
Her shoulders flinched at the sound of my footsteps.
I stood before her and spoke in a voice cold as settled frost.
"Did you get some sleep, Saintess?"
She slowly raised her head.
The moment our terrified eyes met, I pulled a wad of paper from my pocket and tossed it at her feet.
Thud.
The sharp sound of paper hitting the silent interrogation room rang out.
"Read it carefully and etch each name into your mind, one by one."
Elena picked up the paper with trembling hands.
As she scanned the writing, her face drained of color, and she dropped it.
"Wh-what is this..."
A single tear trailed from the corner of Elena's upturned eyes.
Gazing down at her impassively, I added in a commanding tone.
"Those are the heretics you must confess to today."
