Chapter 64: The Cleanup (3)
Chapter 64: The Cleanup (3)
"I cannot determine who cast the spell, but I have gained a rough understanding of its structure. Please wait a moment."
Just as the woman had done before, she laid her hand upon the jewel. Incomprehensible words followed.
The meaning remained elusive, but as she murmured, the wall gradually grew blurrier.
Proof that she had grasped the structure, in other words.
It was a relief that she hadn't been making empty promises, but... one thing puzzled him. Was it possible for a sorcerer to extend their reach, even partially, into the domain of magic?
'She doesn't seem like an ordinary sorcerer, though...'
Hadn't they said her talent was exceptional? He hadn't expected the scope of that talent to exceed his expectations, but...
Well, whatever.
"You may enter now."
It was a benefit, so there was nothing to complain about.
The sorcerer stepped aside, and Deon stood before the wall.
......Now that he was actually about to enter, he felt deeply unsettled. It wasn't going to suddenly harden up or something, was it?
He cautiously extended a hand. The moment his fingertips made contact, the wall rippled once more.
'Ugh, I really don't like the texture either.'
Beside him, Rien volunteered to go in first, but backing down now would ruin his dignity. She was a face he might have to see constantly going forward; he couldn't exactly avoid her every time.
In the end, he squeezed his eyes shut and pushed his body into the wall.
* * *
"Fire!!"
"Eek! Why is the kn-knight order...!"
It was chaos itself.
The members tasked with causing a ruckus inside clenched their fists at the sight of the people rushing out.
Small children, the elderly, a person missing one leg, a person who couldn't see...
All of them were people forced to live with insurmountable disadvantages, even among the poor.
Only then did the members understand why the poor had been so entranced by this cult-like religion. No, it was more accurate to say they had been made to be entranced.
The poor weren't stupid; they were merely uneducated.
Clette gave a hollow laugh.
'Cause a ruckus... he said.......'
The moment he confirmed their faces, he knew it instinctively. They wouldn't back down easily.
To cause a ruckus severe enough to drive them out, they would have to make an example of someone by killing them. At the very least, they'd have to take off a limb or two.
The guards they'd killed on the way in weren't enough. They had to touch the poor.
'But who?'
A child? An elderly person? Someone missing a leg? A blind person?
"Put out the fire!"
"Stop the knight order too! We have to protect this place!"
Desperate movements. Having been poor himself, he understood all too well why they were acting this way.
They weren't walking a path to certain death out of stupidity.
This was their last hope. A hope so precious that if it ended, they might as well be dead.
In the first place, to the poor, a life was worth less than a stone rolling in the gutter, so throwing it away wasn't that difficult.
For the sake of their 'salvation.'
"Please leave this place. Sirs!"
"Oh dear, please...!"
His jaw tightened.
The Lofty Knight Order was, true to its name, a pack of murderers. They had killed countless people, and among them were the elderly and children.
They annihilated the enemy as a matter of course, and once an order was given, they killed whatever it was.
'If only the order had been to kill them all.......'
They would have taken their drugs and swept the place clean at once. If these people could at least be considered enemies, there would have been no hesitation.
But this time, the order wasn't to kill but to cause a ruckus, and the people in front of them were not enemies.
And so, they couldn't help but be shaken.
The Lofty Knight Order was only a pack of murderers when they were on their drugs. Off them, they were nothing but weak humans, flailing in the grip of guilt.
That was precisely why they usually tried even harder to act cheerful, but...
"Geeeet oooout!!"
"......!"
"Siia!"
...It was hard to act cheerful even in a situation like this.
At the dull impact he felt at his waist, Clette looked down blankly.
A small girl was clinging to him, screaming and crying as if trying to block his way.
"Get out, please get out, please...!"
"Siia! It's dangerous! Come here, quick!"
A boy called to her from a distance. At the urgent shout, Clette snapped back to his senses.
Now that the child had laid hands on a knight carrying out his duty, he couldn't let her go unpunished. The overall atmosphere hinged on such small things. So, he would make an example of this child....
"......Damnation."
He cursed under his breath.
'Commander, it seems you misjudged things this time.'
Her judgment had been wrong.
The members who grew up in poverty shouldn't have come here. They should have sent the others instead.
If it were people who couldn't understand the poor, they might have felt guilt too, but the depth of it would have been relatively shallow.
It was a moment where the real culprit was elsewhere, and only the innocent suffered.
* * *
Ah. Aah. Ah.
Siia's hands trembled violently.
There was smoke. Proof that a fire had started. On top of that, some knight order had stormed in, killed the guards, and was threatening the poor to drive them out.
Siia, and the rest of the poor, could feel it.
If they were driven out now, this place would be ruined. More than just ruined. It might never recover.
"Siia, let's run for now. It looks like they're just letting people go if they run away."
Beside her, Paul seemed to be saying something, but she couldn't hear it.
To Siia, this place was sacred ground. A place like a dream world, filled only with kind people bearing no malice or wickedness.
A place malice shouldn't, couldn't, defile.
That was why only here, she had been able to lower her solid walls and feel at ease, but...
"Wh... why......."
Malice had invaded. Bad people had stormed in and were trampling the sacred ground. Acrid smoke filled the air, and through one of the building's windows, a red fire demon flickered in glimpses.
The moment the poor, grasping the situation, blocked the knight order's path and began to beg, she sprang forward recklessly.
She didn't pick a specific target. She just charged at any of the 'bad people' she could see.
'No, no......!'
Life had finally become bearable; it had finally felt like living.
"Geeeet oooout!!"
"Siia!"
She grabbed onto a man in a white knight's uniform and refused to let go.
"Get out, please get out, please...!"
"Siia! It's dangerous! Come here, quick!!"
It was no use. No matter how much they shouted, it wouldn't reach Siia.
"That stupid girl......!"
Unable to contain his anxiety, Paul gnawed at his fingernails. Even in his distraction, his mind was deducing the identity of the people before him.
Knights in white uniforms.
Among the countless knight orders, there was only one that he knew of that used white as its formal uniform.
The Lofty Knight Order.
If so, the one who had sent them here was.......
'The Vampire Earl!'
Right, Deon Hart.
Dazedly, he ground his teeth. Why would such a high and mighty person deliberately take an interest in a place like this?
Because the Salvation Church was a cult?
He wasn't an idiot; he knew the Salvation Church wasn't as normal a place as it liked to seem.
But what did that matter? The poor were people who had to worry about their next meal every single day. To them, the Salvation Church, which gave out bread and water, was truly 'salvation' itself.
It could be wicked cult disguised as salvation for all he cared. It could have its own suspicious ulterior motives. Whatever it was, it would be less agonizing than starving to death.
So, if the Salvation Church fell, he would take revenge.
The target, naturally—
'Deon Hart is the Emperor's sword. Then this move right now must be the Emperor's order too.'
——The Emperor.
Was it an intended result, or an unexpected reaction?
At this very moment, the tip of someone's blade was aimed at the Emperor.
* * *
The sensation of his whole body being crushed by something squishy felt like passing through a very soft pudding.
After uselessly patting himself down here and there, Deon lifted his head and could only stare blankly for a moment at the scenery before him.
"What's this? This is exactly the same as that place just now?"
No, it was slightly different.
In that chapel earlier, the chairs had been wooden, but here, the chairs were a pale purple. And there was some door in the corner too.
But everything else was identical. The white walls, the mysteriously draped purple cloths....
"It's the same."
"No, it's different."
Two familiar voices came from behind him. They had come in. Instead of pointlessly looking back or making small talk, he scanned the room and asked again.
"Different, you say?"
"Yes. Do you see this line?"
Following Ran's finger with his eyes, he saw a faint line. The one carved into the floor spread across the entire room in a fixed, regular pattern.
A shape that anyone could see was likely a medium for sorcery.
"An array is carved throughout the entire room. I suspect it's related to that door over there......."
The door in the corner.
As soon as Deon's gaze reached it, Rien went straight over and grabbed the handle. Contrary to expectation, the door opened readily, and at the landscape visible beyond it, he found himself momentarily speechless.
"What... the......."
He saw lush green trees. Not just one. A great many.
Yes, beyond the door was nothing less than a forest.
"It's magic disguised as sorcery, just as before. They've fused another space onto this one, so if you open the door in any way other than the specific method, it will connect to the outside."
"And if you open it using the specific method, it connects to the interior?"
"Correct. To be precise, you don't even open the door; simply performing a specific action inside this room triggers the transfer. When leaving, you just open the door normally and walk out......."
She had already analyzed it that far? And it wasn't even sorcery; she was fast.
"How long will it take?"
"Magic is an unfamiliar domain to me as well... I believe it will take at least ten minutes."
At least ten minutes. That was far too long. Of course, he should be grateful there was a way at all, but... his heart was in a terrible hurry.
Someone entering in the meantime wasn't the problem. They wouldn't be able to come in many at once, so subduing them would be easy.
But what if someone was already inside that room? What if they were packing up their things, preparing to escape through another passage?
If they escaped safely, then fine, but if Cruel ended up catching the bastard in the process, the whole plan was completely screwed.
"Damn."
There was no other way. Was waiting all he could do? Was that really it? Truly?
In his anxiety, he didn't even notice that he had been pacing in circles around the space.
He only realized it when Ran, unable to watch any longer, spoke up.
"Please calm yourself. Nothing will be solved by being so agitated."
He froze.
Had he been that agitated? Well, but, it wasn't like he could control it at will, could he?
Still, for the sake of his dignity, he did stop... no, he thought he'd stopped, but why was he walking again?
After pausing only briefly, he had somehow begun circling the space once more. This time in the opposite direction.
The moment he realized this and stopped in his tracks, the scenery changed before he could even think to do anything.
"......Shit?"
"......."
"No, I was just surprised— I mean."
Why the hell are you here?!
After only a split second of shock at the instant change of scenery, he froze solid, face-to-face with Cruel, who was holding a torch in a room piled high with documents.
* * *
From the moment news arrived that ominous smoke was rising somewhere in the building and that intruders had launched an attack, Saelin, the de facto manager of the Salvation Church, quietly took a step back.
It was Deon Hart.
Those surrounding the building and those raising hell inside were likely none other than the infamous Lofty Knight Order.
There was no need to think of anyone else.
Other than Cruel, Deon Hart was the only one assigned to the task of purging the Salvation Church.
'He's a military officer, but perhaps he is a commander after all.'
He had set a fire to drive out the civilians and was picking out those deeply connected to the operation.
Those with something to hide would try to push through the crowd and head somewhere, so it was a decent enough tactic. But unfortunately, Saelin's intellect was far superior to his estimate.
She was a commoner by birth, and a subordinate of the Duke of Illustar.
How could the brain of a common woman who had risen to become a duke's subordinate possibly be ordinary?
The moment she realized this incident was connected to 'Deon Hart', she smoothly withdrew. She didn't run anywhere to retrieve documents, nor did she fumble about in panic. Without a sound, holding her breath, she quietly—
——Abandoned the Salvation Church.