Recorded Secrets
The next morning.
Urutun Village.
Inside one of the medical tents that had been raised for the wounded.
"...So it truly was that way."
"Yes."
One Holy Knight, two priests busily taking notes, and Juhan lying on a cot occupied the space.
"I never imagined it... All I could do was barely escape with my life."
"......"
The Holy Knight was Radro. He watched Juhan with a heavy expression as he listened to the man's account.
"Even if he never thought much of me, I believed I could persuade him if I just showed him my sincerity... But then, cough!"
"Easy now. Take your time. Spare yourself."
Radro hurriedly soothed him. Juhan gave a small nod of understanding and continued.
"I never dreamed Hadley was one of the cultists..."
Juhan was carefully editing everything he had witnessed of Hadley's actions for Radro and the priests—how the man had lured him into a trap, and how, upon discovering that the supposedly dead Juhan had returned alive, he had dropped the mask and tried to kill him outright.
"......"
Radro said nothing for a long while after hearing it all. The depth of the shock was easy enough to guess. The idea that a cultist had been operating under the title of Holy Knight was that devastating.
Grief, emptiness, rage—his face was a tangle of every emotion at once.
At last he spoke again.
"I intend to file a formal report with the Holy Kingdom."
"......"
"The mere fact that Holy Knight Hadley—no, that Hadley—was a cultist will throw the entire Kingdom into chaos."
It was only natural. Hadley had been a reasonably well-known Holy Knight within the Holy Kingdom. Learning that such a man had been a cultist was the kind of revelation that could shake the nation to its foundations.
"A full-scale investigation will no doubt begin."
Radro's voice was heavy, as though he could already see the turmoil that was about to erupt inside the Holy Kingdom.
"Who contacted Hadley. Whether there are any other traitors. Everything."
Juhan simply nodded in silence.
After a moment of quiet, Radro glanced at the documents the priests were recording, then looked back at Juhan.
"Of course, your achievements throughout all of this will be recorded in full as well, Sir Juhan."
"...Excuse me?"
"It is shameful. That we failed to recognize a cultist standing right before our eyes... and that we even briefly suspected you."
Juhan wore an awkward expression for a moment. There was nothing useful he could say. If that was how Radro chose to see it, Juhan had no reason to argue.
In Radro's eyes, at least, Juhan looked like the hero who had saved the Holy Kingdom.
Radro studied him, then asked carefully, almost without expectation.
"One more thing, Sir Juhan."
"Yes?"
"Have you, by any chance, seen Executor Antara?"
"......"
At the question about Executor Antara, Juhan pretended to think for a moment before answering.
"...I'm not sure. I was a little busy just trying to stay alive."
"I see."
Radro let out a quiet sigh and pressed a hand to his forehead as if the headache were physical.
"Still, it's a relief the wounds missed anything vital. The priests say that with enough rest you should recover soon."
"Yes."
While they were speaking, another Holy Knight stepped into the tent.
"Radro, a moment..."
"What is it?"
The newcomer shot a cautious glance at Juhan and tried to signal that they should speak privately, but Radro simply waved him on.
"Just say it. It's fine."
"...Even so."
"It's fine. I'll take full responsibility."
Radro only urged him to speak.
Just how much does he trust me?
Juhan thought.
The Holy Knight hesitated a second longer, then said,
"There's no trace. Not that there was ever going to be anything left to find."
"So you still haven't found any sign of Executor Antara."
"Right. We turned the whole area upside down like we were hunting rats."
Juhan listened in silence.
"It's hard to believe he was taken so cleanly he never even had a chance to fight back. That's why we kept searching for any sign of a battle, but..."
The Holy Knight's meaning was simple: no matter how thoroughly they searched, they could find neither the Executor nor any evidence of combat.
Radro answered,
"He isn't the sort of man who would simply vanish without a word."
"Exactly. That's the problem."
The atmosphere inside the tent grew heavy once more. They had no choice but to accept it: an Executor had met some fate that left not even a trace behind.
"We'll have to include it in the report."
"The disappearance of Executor Antara, then?"
"Yes."
"Haa..."
The Holy Knight sighed as if the ground itself might collapse beneath him, then nodded and left the tent.
Radro watched his comrade go, then turned back to Juhan.
"So, Sir Juhan—what do you plan to do now?"
To Juhan's ears it sounded an awful lot like, Come with me to the Holy Kingdom right this minute. Given how deeply he was involved in the whole affair, simply letting him walk away would have been the stranger choice.
Yet because of the mark he carried and the achievements he had earned, they couldn't quite bring themselves to force the issue.
I need to get back to Anton Village first.
Naturally Juhan had no intention of accompanying them to the Holy Kingdom. He still had business to settle.
I picked up another metal plate. I should get it to Carlton as soon as possible.
Finding a way to neutralize the bell and the plates was more important than anything else right now.
"Well... I was planning to return to Anton Village for the time being."
"I see."
Radro nodded, sounding faintly disappointed.
"I had hoped we might travel to the Holy Kingdom together, but if that is your decision, there is little I can do."
"......"
"You would surely receive considerable recognition for what you have accomplished. Are you certain you are all right with this?"
Even as Radro gently tried to tempt him, Juhan only shook his head.
Looks like he doesn't know about the offer to make me a Pilgrimage Knight.
Radro seemed to decide that a man who had behaved as Juhan had would have little interest in rewards. He accepted the refusal on his own and rose to his feet.
"Then I shall take my leave. There is no small amount of work piled up."
"Understood."
"Allow me to thank you once more. Truly, thank you, Sir Juhan."
Radro bowed deeply, then pushed aside the tent flap and stepped outside.
"......"
Juhan watched him go for a moment, then closed his eyes.
I wonder how far he's gotten with the decoding by now. I hope we can wrap this up soon.
He wanted nothing more than to be free of those damned bells and metal plates.
Deep beneath Anton Village, in Carlton's workshop.
"Ugh, this is driving me crazy."
Carlton was still researching the metal plate that suspicious customer of his had brought him.
Stacks of books already surrounded him. He had clearly been digging through volume after volume in an effort to decipher the writing on the plate.
It's not that I haven't made progress—there's just one piece still missing.
That did not mean he had learned almost nothing. He had already finished a fair amount of the translation. Most of the hypotheses were in place; he simply lacked enough comparative material to be certain.
If that guy would just bring me one more plate, I think I could crack it.
So he had thrown himself into the one thing he could do in the meantime: decoding the characters engraved on the metal.
No matter how I look at it, something's off.
The more he translated, the stranger the plate became.
It was almost certainly an object that had originated in the Holy Kingdom. And yet the contents... even after decoding them, he could hardly believe what he was reading.
Carius. Saintess Athena. And... the cultists.
The theory that the plate detected something had been only half right. It was clearly designed to record and preserve information as well.
And the kind of information Carlton believed it held?
Secrets that cannot be brought into the light of day.
The sort of secrets that could never be allowed to leave the Kingdom. How that customer had gotten his hands on such a thing, Carlton had no idea. Perhaps the man was affiliated with the Holy Kingdom after all.
Because the text is so fragmentary, it's driving me up the wall.
The opening and closing sentences of the plate felt unnaturally truncated, as though the middle of something had been cut away.
They probably made several plates and split the record across them.
That, too, was a problem that would solve itself the moment the customer brought another plate.
The additional content Carlton had managed to decipher so far went something like this:
"Hero... Carius... Athena... restraining..."
The Hero Carius had intended to do something, and Saintess Athena had tried to stop him.
What followed was even more absurd.
"Carius... cultists... contact...?"
The plate claimed that the Hero Carius had made contact with the cultists—words so outrageous that even after translating them, Carlton could scarcely bring himself to believe them.