Human Bombs
Have you ever seen a dead body go pop and explode? I just did.
“Aaaagh!” “Agh!” “Weck—! Uuuk!”
The corpse burst apart, spraying chunks of flesh in every direction. The team members who had been standing too close were completely drenched. But that wasn’t the real problem.
“Everyone, fall back! Over here, quickly!”
I threw up a barrier of divine power in a rush. When the heretic’s body detonated, the vile energy of the Evil God that had been sealed inside it erupted outward. Anyone touched by that miasma wouldn’t simply lose their mind—far worse would happen.
“Aaaaaagh!!!!”
Those who had only been lightly splattered were lucky. The ones closest to the blast, soaked in blood and viscera, had no chance to escape. Before I could even reach them, their bodies were already being corroded by the murky energy.
“I’ll help—”
“Stay back! It’s contagious!”
“Ugh!”
I shouted at the teammate who tried to approach the suffering victims. Getting close would only mean sharing the same fate.
“Why are they in so much pain? A little blood shouldn’t cause this…”
“They were used as living bombs, plain and simple.”
“Living bombs?”
“Think of it as a lethal toxin hidden inside the body. Something was used as a trigger to make them explode. And this is what happens when it goes off.”
Completely saturated with corruption, their bodies were being eaten away from the inside. One wrong move and they could lose their lives.
“That bastard! Using people like this?!”
Even though these assassins had tried to kill us, I couldn’t help but feel rage at the sight of bodies turned into walking explosives. They were still people, after all. Treating them as nothing more than bombs was enough to make anyone furious.
“So this is why heretics are so despised.”
Ordinary folk never truly understood why priests reacted so violently to heretics. They knew heretics committed atrocities, but without the details, it was easy to dismiss them as “just bad people.”
“They’re not even human anymore.”
“And in the end, the one who allowed this is Prince Loras.”
Grind—!
I advanced while purifying the contaminated area. The toxic miasma leaking from the ruptured corpse was already rotting the surrounding plants. It was fortunate we were inside the Labyrinth. If this had happened outside, the land would have needed prolonged purification before it could be used again.
“Hang in there, Priest!”
Everyone stayed huddled together, quietly waiting for the purification to finish. They all knew how much strain I was under.
And finally—
“Done!”
I managed to cleanse the area around the fallen teammates. The problem was that I couldn’t heal them all at once. Three people had been caught in the trap. Considering the circumstances, we were lucky it was only three. If the explosion had gone off at a worse time, the entire team could have been contaminated. I didn’t even want to imagine what would have happened then. There was no way I could have saved everyone alone.
“I can’t treat them completely right now.”
One priest alone was impossible. But if several priests worked together, the situation could change.
“For now, what I can do is…”
Instead of purging the corruption already inside their bodies, I focused on containing the energy trying to escape outward. That way, we could at least move the unconscious victims without spreading the contamination further.
“This should keep anyone nearby safe.”
“Honestly, the fact that they’re still breathing is a miracle. We all know it’s thanks to you, Priest. We’re always grateful. So please, don’t make that face.”
This was the first time I had failed to properly protect my teammates. My eyes must have been trembling with guilt.
“Just keeping them alive is more than enough to be thankful for. Anywhere else, they would’ve died for certain.”
“Thanks to you, they’re not even in pain right now. They just passed out.”
Instead of blaming me, the team tried to comfort me. That only made me more determined. Was I really incapable of healing them?
“If I pour everything I have into treatment and nothing else, I might be able to save them.”
“That would be reckless. We haven’t even escaped the Labyrinth yet.”
“He’s right. Stick to the original plan.”
“Your judgment was correct from the start, Priest.”
Their support hardened my wavering resolve.
“Then we’ll proceed as planned.”
I couldn’t show hesitation when they trusted me this much. That would only disappoint them. Seeing me steady myself, the team finally relaxed and began voicing their anger toward Prince Loras. We hadn’t interrogated the assassins yet, but everyone knew who was behind this.
“Does Prince Loras think human lives are a joke? How can anyone be this cruel?”
“Honestly, I used to think as long as our princess won the succession, that was enough. Not anymore. She has to win.”
“Exactly. If Prince Loras becomes emperor after this, how do you think he’ll treat people?”
A sense of crisis had taken root. Unlike us from the Holy Empire, they were citizens of the Deltrack Empire. If a tyrant took the throne, the ones who would suffer most were the people. Having witnessed it firsthand, they now understood with painful clarity that Loras must never become emperor. They had paid a steep price for that lesson.
“Now that we know they’re living bombs, what do we do with them?”
The assassins we had knocked out to prevent suicide were surely rigged the same way. If they died, they would explode just like the others.
“They used this method once. They might use it again. We need to figure out how they implanted the bombs inside the body.”
The assassins looked like they would take a long time to die. Sensing the weight behind my words, the team stopped asking what we would do with the unconscious men.
* * *
My decision not to expend all my strength healing them had been the right one. Prince Loras, anticipating the first wave’s failure, kept sending more assassins. Not once a day—multiple times. The next day, and the day after, attacks came whenever we let our guard down.
We had been racing toward the exit using divine power to move faster, but the constant ambushes threw everything into chaos.
No, it wasn’t meaningless. If we had been attacked deeper inside, we would have faced even more assaults before reaching this point.
Every assassin carried a bomb inside their body, making it difficult to deal with them carelessly.
“You’re pushing yourself too hard…”
The team tried their best not to kill the assassins, knowing how much the explosions would burden me. But effort alone couldn’t prevent accidents. Several times, they were counterattacked and injured, forcing me to work even harder.
In the end, I had to tell them to fight with everything they had and that I would handle the explosions somehow.
Of course, I regretted saying that later. I hadn’t realized how exhausting it would be. No—I had expected it, but the reality far exceeded my expectations.
Still, there had been no other choice. The assassins were charging at us with the resolve to die. Asking us to subdue them without killing was unrealistic. No matter how skilled our side was, there were limits.
So what was the conclusion?
“I’m fine. A little rest and I’ll recover.”
In the end, I was shouldering every burden alone. Melody had tried to help, but she was already busy dealing with the heretics. I couldn’t keep relying on her.
I endured stubbornly. The sight of me struggling must have looked pitiful, because many teammates kept asking after my condition.
“We’re almost there. Once we reach the entrance, there will be too many people around. They won’t dare attack openly.”
Unless Prince Loras had completely lost his mind, he wouldn’t risk assaulting us in front of witnesses. In these kinds of operations, eliminating witnesses was standard procedure. Our exhausted group’s goal was the same: reach the populated area and escape these relentless attacks.
I really overdid it this time.
I had told the team I was fine, but the truth was the opposite. I had gotten better at protecting them from the blasts, but the sheer amount of divine power required to suppress the explosions was something even I couldn’t sustain indefinitely. I had always prided myself on having more divine power than most my age, yet pouring it out so recklessly had drained me in an instant.
Having more divine power really is better.
I needed to reflect. I had been arrogant, thinking no one my age surpassed me in divine power. If a small amount of ability used to protect my team could empty my reserves this quickly, then I still had a long way to go. From now on, I would avoid complacency and negligence. Otherwise, I would end up regretting it again later.
“Huu…”
Either Loras had run out of disposable assassins or we were nearing the Labyrinth’s entrance—either way, the attacks finally stopped. I had been worried about what to do with my divine power scraped down to the absolute bottom, but now I could breathe a sigh of relief.
Just as I exhaled and tried to stand on my aching legs—
“Huh—?! No!!!”
Someone’s urgent cry rang out, and in the next instant my body was lifted into the air. It happened so fast that by the time I regained my senses, pain was coursing through every part of me. A bomb had clearly exploded nearby. I couldn’t even open my eyes properly because of the agony, but I understood the situation all too well. I knew exactly what the sticky, unpleasant substance clinging to my body was.