Chapter 95
Chapter 95
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 95
Chapter Title: Feared Martyrdom
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The fact that the monster was dead was undeniable.
The Pope of the Sun was certain of it, and the abyss and shadows that had filled the barrier were gone. Denying it at this point would have been the strange thing to do.
But no one knew *how* it had died.
Stella, Selene, and Floretta didn’t even want to imagine it. Yet the situation kept dragging their thoughts in that direction.
The massive explosion they’d heard at the end. The monster dispatched by some unknown method. The abyss pit that had vanished completely. The man who hadn’t shown himself for over an hour.
What if—and truly just what if, nothing more than a hypothesis—but what if he had sacrificed his own life to slay the monster? What if he had offered himself up and met the same end as that thing?
It would merely mean the victim of the monster had shifted from the Pope of the Moon to him.
Once the ominous thoughts took root, they spiraled endlessly. In Floretta’s mind, scenarios of his heroic sacrifice were already piling up by the dozens.
He had done everything he could but sensed he couldn’t defeat the monster, so he sacrificed himself to take it down and got caught in the explosion, becoming a martyr.
Or he slew the monster and was on his way back when that filthy, grotesque thing detonated itself in refusal to die alone, claiming his life in the blast.
Floretta’s face grew paler by the second as these imaginings consumed her. The Pope of the Sun’s troubled expression made the other two’s faces darken in turn.
After a long stretch of grim ruminations, Floretta finally forced her mouth open.
“……What if he became a martyr?”
“Pardon?”
“Your Holiness, what do you mean……?”
Stella and Selene gasped in unison as the word “martyr” slipped from Floretta’s lips.
“The explosion that shook the barrier at the end. What if he caused it on purpose, or…… couldn’t dodge it in time and got swept up? Either way, what if he sacrificed his life alongside that monster?”
“…….”
“…….”
The two wanted to say there was no way and to relax.
But they had no proof to back it up. There was no evidence he was dead, but none he was alive either. No—circumstantial evidence leaned more toward death.
And in situations like this, negative thoughts always hit harder than positive ones. Especially for someone as sensitive as Floretta.
“If that’s what happened…… if it is……”
“Your Holiness, please calm down. There’s still no proof our guest is dead. We just wait here. He’ll definitely come back.”
Stella cautiously spoke up, unable to bear watching Floretta’s face drain from white to blue.
Stella didn’t believe he was dead. She thought some issue had just delayed his return, and Selene felt the same.
His demeanor when he’d plunged into the abyss. It hadn’t been the attitude of someone going to die. Both were confident in reading people’s emotions, so their certainty held weight.
No matter how brightly one pretended on the surface, when death loomed close, anyone with something to lose would show a hint of darkness.
But he hadn’t shown a trace of gloom, even right up until he reached the barrier.
‘The Heresy Arbiter probably thinks the same, but the Pope of the Sun……’
The problem was that such certainty amounted to mere personal conjecture for the Pope of the Sun.
It wasn’t nearly enough to convince someone already trapped in negative fantasies. “You can tell by his face”—they couldn’t use something like that as evidence.
Especially not when the person in question was spiraling into panic like this. Floretta already seemed convinced in her head that he was gone.
“Aaah…… how…… how could this……”
With things heading this way, Stella and Selene were growing anxious too. Floretta’s delusions weren’t entirely baseless, after all.
No one here knew what that underground explosion had been, and they couldn’t rule out the chance he’d been caught in it.
On top of that, the time that had passed only fueled the possibility of his death.
The monster died just over an hour after he went down there, but another hour-plus had gone by with no sign of him? Something was seriously wrong.
Accounting for the time it took to reach the monster, taking this long to come back was odd.
Missing, status unknown. The most dreadful words.
Stella and Selene, as Heresy Arbiter and Heresy Inquisitor who had sent many battle nuns to such fates, knew the horrific pain those words carried all too well.
Stella, especially, felt it deeper after hearing about Lucia recently. She had realized that “missing” might hold a sliver of hope.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
A voice came from behind—cold, yet laced with unease.
She turned her head with a creak. There stood the Pope of the Moon, eyes red and puffy as if she’d come straight from sobbing her heart out.
Her hands clasped in front of her lower abdomen trembled faintly, and her wide eyes quivered. She wore an expression of utter disbelief at what she’d just heard.
She’d had no choice but to play the cold and ruthless role, but the old Luna had been affectionate and tender, much like her little sister. In some ways, even more so than Floretta.
For such a person to hear that someone else had sacrificed themselves in her place—it was obvious what reaction that would provoke.
“What you just said…… is it true, Floretta?”
“Sister……”
Floretta unwittingly let “sister” slip out, then flinched. Every time she’d called the Pope of the Moon “Luna” or “sister” before, it had been met with curses and violence.
Her body remembered the old days, making her shrink back in fear that violence might fly again—even as her mind knew things could go back to how they were.
Luna seemed startled too. She paused at the word “sister,” then steeled her expression and walked forward.
The two popes faced each other. Their gazes met. Luna hesitated a long while, perhaps due to her past actions, before finally grasping Floretta’s hands tightly.
“Yes. My little sister.”
“……Sister.”
In that instant, tears welled in Floretta’s eyes.
She tried to hold them back, but after imagining his possible martyrdom, hearing the words she’d longed for most—it was impossible.
“Sniff…… Sister, sister…… Hic……”
“Don’t cry. Tell me. Okay? Floretta. He became a martyr?”
“H-He…… sniff……”
Despite Luna’s desperate efforts to soothe her, Floretta only sobbed harder. She couldn’t get a word out.
“Hic…… Monster, th-the…… monster…… Hic……”
“Heresy Arbiter, Heresy Inquisitor. You two explain. What happened?”
Stella and Selene exchanged glances, then Selene stepped forward, deeming formality best.
Selene recounted everything.
The explosion that rocked the barrier. The empty space where it had vanished. The hour that passed with no sign of him.
And finally, the Pope of the Sun voicing her fear that he might have been caught in the blast. Luna listened to it all impassively.
“And then Your Holiness arrived here.”
“……I see.”
Luna bit her lip. A chill ran down Stella and Selene’s spines at the pope’s slowly shifting expression.
*‘Why the hell didn’t they give me an inventory?’*
I’d swept every item in the new area into one spot, scoured every nook and cranny for monsters, slain them all, grabbed the loot, and trudged groaning back to the boss room.
Sure, I looked a bit ragged, but it was unavoidable if I wanted all the items. Leaving behind hard-earned loot for appearances’ sake would be insane.
*‘Still, with all I gained, I can put up with it.’*
Tons of experience points, holy catalysts for the popes, and the good news of boss defeated. Plenty of gains to make it worthwhile.
At minimum, my level had jumped over 10. I’d crammed a week’s worth of grinding into that one hour.
Nothing more to get here. Arms full of items, I craned my neck forward, wobbled over, and stepped onto the central magic circle in the boss room. It began to glow.
A pillar of light shot toward the ceiling, and I felt my body teleporting somewhere.
I closed my eyes, then opened them to a cool breeze moments later. Amid the pile of items, I glimpsed the Pope of the Sun, Pope of the Moon, Heresy Arbiter, and Heresy Inquisitor.
Seeing the popes embracing, it looked like the Pope of the Moon had come here. I’d expected the Pope of the Sun to go to her—honestly, a bit surprising.
Still loaded with items, I approached the four.
“A bit la—”
Then I saw what was happening ahead, and my face twisted into the exact expression of that black guy who came home with pizza to a burning room as everything tumbled from my hands.