Chapter 5
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 5
Chapter Title: The Confession
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Thud.
The dry bundle of paper dropped right in front of her knees, filling Elena's vision completely.
The oppressively dank air crushed her lungs, but it paled in comparison to the weight of the parchment laid out before her eyes.
The moment she picked up the paper with trembling hands and confirmed the names scrawled there, Elena gasped.
Four names, branded into the page like stigmas.
"Th-this is..."
Her voice scattered weakly into the chill of the interrogation room.
Ian looked down at her coldly and spoke.
"This is the list of heretics you must confess to today."
The names on the list belonged to complete strangers she'd never even laid eyes on.
But Ian's proposal was crystal clear.
If she wanted to live, she had to frame them as heretics and lead the charge in their execution.
She lifted her head, steadying her gaze.
Ian's impassive eyes showed not a shred of guilt.
"This is the surest, most efficient way to survive, Saintess."
His low, even voice slithered into her ear with chilling smoothness.
"Wouldn't it be a far better deal to sell out a few names and ease your immediate suffering than to stay silent, hoping someone sees your innocence?"
"But these people... they have nothing to do with me. They're innocents."
Her voice quivered faintly, her grip tightening on the paper.
"I can't drag them into hell just because I'm wronged."
Elena swallowed dryly and met his eyes head-on.
It was the last scrap of resolve she could muster.
But he merely sneered and roughly seized her chin, forcing it up.
"And has that nobility of yours unlocked the shackles on your wrists? The innocents you're so desperate to protect are turning a blind eye to your plight. They're offering you up as a sacrifice to buy their own peace."
Ian's slender fingers trailed coldly across her cheek.
A chill bloomed wherever they touched, but there was nowhere to escape.
"Why... why are you doing this to me? What have I ever done to you... Just kill me instead. I'd rather die than bear false witness like this."
"No, that won't do at all. If things stay like this, your head will roll before I can even use you. You need to stay alive, no matter what."
A man who sought to bloom his ambitions on the manure of her tragedy.
Elena closed her eyes in despair, realizing she was nothing more than a pathetic pawn dancing on the board of malice.
The cold silence filled the interrogation room.
Then Ian's tone shifted oddly.
"Rest assured, though. I've only included trash here that even you would despise if you knew their true colors. If you don't speak up, they'll use your death as a stepping stone for even greater evils. So in a way, this is justice served."
"...Lies."
This man was sowing sweet poison to break her down.
She repeated it to herself.
But Elena's eyes trembled mercilessly all the same.
"You're lying to shake me. That can't be true...! Do you think I'd fall for it?"
She tried to steady her shaking voice for a rebuttal.
But forgotten memories flashed before her like a lantern slide.
Those at the church's highest seats, preaching love only with their lips.
The insatiable greed and sly coldness that flickered beyond their gazes.
And the ugly rumors about the church she'd heard wandering the continent.
'What if they're truly wicked, just as he said? Would uttering their names really be such a grave sin?'
Temptation washed over her for a moment, but Elena shook it off.
Justice didn't bloom from such ugly threats and deceptions.
The instant she took the hand of one evil to fight another, she'd become no different from them—a filthy wretch.
"No, you're wrong. Justice doesn't work like this."
She wrenched his hand away with the last of her strength.
"So take your cowardly offer and shove it. You and they... you're all the same kind of monsters at heart."
His face hardened for a split second at her firm refusal.
As he opened his mouth to say more, she noticed it.
His palm twitching ever so slightly.
A strange vibration, like he was being chased by something—or anxious about the outcome right before his eyes.
He bit his lip and yanked her close again with force.
"Eek...!"
From a distance where their breaths mingled, he jammed a desperate, scream-like plea into her ear.
"Please, snap out of it! What do you even gain by saving them?! Sell their names! It's the only way you survive!"
Gone was the previous vileness—only raw desperation, begging for one life.
Elena stared at him blankly, eyes wide in shock.
How much time passed?
Clack—clack—.
Regular footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor.
Only then did Ian shove her away in startled panic, his face snapping back to that cold demonic mask.
As she watched a sinister smile repaint his features grotesquely, Elena felt her heart freeze with terror and confusion.
What was that look in his eyes, that tremor just now?
The heavy iron door swung open, tearing through the pitch-black darkness as a figure stepped inside.
Inquisitor Director Damian.
I forcibly suppressed my trembling breath.
Terror grazed the nape of my neck at the thought that Elena might have glimpsed my momentary sincerity.
But my lips instinctively curled into a vile smirk.
"Brother Ian. Is everything ready? I've come to see if your famed 'efficiency' lives up to the rumors."
Damian wore a faint smile of satisfaction, but his eyes gleamed sharply, like a beast spotting prey.
"Just finished preparing, Director. Perfect timing."
Damian nodded and glanced indifferently at Elena.
"Well then, Saintess. Are those tightly sealed lips finally ready to spit out the truth? Tell us who aided your fall from grace."
Damian's words were gentle, but they carried a pressure that could freeze the air itself.
Any normal person would blurt out nonsense under that aura.
"..."
But all that returned was oppressive silence.
Elena stared at the floor, chewing her lips until they bled.
One minute.
No, a minute that felt like hours dragged on.
Damian's smile slowly faded.
He snapped his fingers languidly, and heretic interrogators waiting in the shadows stepped forward with harsh clangs of metal.
"Disappointing. So your boasted efficiency is even worse than Vargas's whip after all."
"D-Director. Just a bit more time...!"
I feigned panic and tried to block him.
But Damian merely flicked his hand without a word.
Crack!
"Guh...!"
An invisible force slammed into my solar plexus.
My body flew back, crashing into the interrogation room wall.
A sickening shift of bones in my back, and the metallic tang of blood rising in my throat.
"Brother Ian. You're capable, but I won't tolerate you crossing the line."
Damian turned his back coldly.
I clawed at the floor, desperately reaching out.
My mouth filled with blood, I clung pathetically to his leg.
"Please... just one more chance... I'll prove my method works... Cough!"
A groveling mess, coughing up blood-flecked pleas.
That grated on Damian's nerves.
"Didn't I tell you not to cross the line?"
Damian swung his hand mercilessly, and wounds began blooming across my body.
Each brutal kick from his shoe to my side elicited dull thuds and groans mingled with blood spilling from my lips.
The dignity of the heretic interrogator who'd threatened Elena moments ago was long gone.
But backing down here meant true defeat, so I clung to Damian desperately.
My wretched struggle dragged on for what felt like ages.
Thud—!
Kicked by Damian, I rolled once and my gaze naturally fell on Elena.
And I felt my breath catch.
Her eyes, which should have burned with sharp hatred toward me, were instead shaking with raw pity and pain.
Her gaze darted endlessly between the paper in her trembling hands and the wounds etched across my body.
'No way...'
I could sense it instinctively.
Elena was torn between the saintly convictions she'd guarded more dearly than her life and the demon dying before her eyes.
And suddenly, she seized the temptation that demon had offered without hesitation.
She chose to believe the lie that the names on the list were villains.
That way, she'd have justification to open her lips and save this pathetic man before her.
It was a gambler's scream from someone who couldn't turn a blind eye to death unfolding right there.
'No. Please... don't open your mouth.'
The sight of the purest saint's soul being sold for the life of a fraud like me.
I couldn't bear to watch that success, so I squeezed my eyes shut.
But reality was ruthlessly cruel.
As Damian's shoes crossed the threshold and the final verdict loomed.
A heartbroken voice sliced through the interrogation room.
"...Cardinal Lorenz."
Time seemed to freeze.
Damian halted and slowly turned.
Through it all, Elena was looking at me.
Not with eyes of resentment.
They were the eyes of a girl abandoned in a pit of despair, selling her soul to cling to the last warmth.
She bowed her head, her voice trembling as she recited the list.
"Jerome... Senior Priest."
Her voice was soaked, like a corpse dredged from a swamp.
It wasn't a confession—it was atonement.
Not for her own survival, but for choosing to believe the devil's lie to save me, broken by my own ambitions—a confession of sin.
"Vice-Priest Benedict... and Nun Superior Anna. That's all."
The only sounds in the room were Elena's stifled sobs and Damian's satisfied exhale.
Damian slowly turned and looked down at me sprawled on the floor.
The curve of his lips was grotesquely deep.
"Brother Ian, impressive. Did you even predict the saintess would open her mouth to save you?"
Pure admiration laced his excited voice.
In his mind, 'Ian' had perfectly shattered her soul using her pity as a tool.
"..."
It wasn't my intent, but the result matched his words.
In the end, I had no reply.
"Well, looks like we've got plenty of work ahead. I'll head out first, Ian. Have a pleasant night."
Damian left the room with the flushed face of an artist admiring his masterpiece.
The door shut, and cold silence enveloped the interrogation room once more.
Elena finally broke, collapsing to the floor in tears she'd held back.
Sobbing with heaving shoulders, she slowly lifted her head to look at me.
Her eyes held no pity now.
Only the venomous betrayal and loathing left after everything she believed was butchered.
"You..."
Her voice slashed at me like a blade.
"Did you trick me again? Was all that blood, those shattered bones... just another act to pry my lips open?"
"Lady Elena, that's not—"
"Don't utter my name with that filthy mouth!"
Her scream shattered against the narrow walls of the interrogation room.
She'd thought she'd sold her soul to save me, but seeing Damian praise me made her realize she'd been played like a fool.
"You're a devil. No, a monster uglier than any devil. Even my emotions were just tools to you. Are you... satisfied now?"
I had no defense to offer.
Her resentful gaze stabbed deeper into my bruised chest.
I couldn't stand there any longer.
"I'm... sorry."
Leaving behind a cowardly apology that would never reach her, I dragged my battered body from the interrogation room like a fleeing rat.