The Interrogator (2)
Time had slipped past morning and was quietly bending toward afternoon.
It was then that Kael, secretary to the Pope, came looking for Nian, the Church's Interrogator, who had been drilling his subordinates alongside them — bearing with him the command of the one who executed the will of God.
Its contents were as follows.
Proceed at once to the domain of the Ducal House of Burrow in the Soladin Kingdom and investigate the region.
Comb the area thoroughly for anything unusual, and should you find anyone affiliated with the Church of the Chief God — or anyone who appears to possess an immense quantity of Divinity — bring them back to the Holy Land by any means necessary.
The orders handed down to Nian were riddled with ambiguities, but Nian did not wonder at any of them.
If a command had been issued, then surely there was good reason for it. All that he and his subordinates were required to do was carry out what had been set before them.
Barely an hour had passed since the order arrived before Nian took his men to the Church's teleportation circle.
So that they might transport themselves instantly to the church located within Burrow Territory.
"Hm? My apologies, Interrogator. Something appears to be wrong on the Burrow end of the array."
"Then send us to the closest available location."
"Of course. Understood. We'll prepare it right aw—... huh? No. What is this?"
The process did not go smoothly.
As if someone had arranged it in advance, every teleportation circle in the vicinity of Burrow Territory had gone completely dead.
This must be connected to whatever the Pope issued his urgent command for. Something has indeed gone wrong in Burrow Territory, it seems.
After squandering a considerable amount of time in this fashion, the place Nian finally managed to reach lay far enough from Burrow Territory that a carriage would need a good two hours to close the remaining distance.
So the Pope issues an emergency command, and we lose hours to pointless delays.
Ordinarily everyone would wait to shake off the lingering disorientation of teleportation before moving, but given the circumstances, there was no time for that.
"I will proceed ahead to Burrow Territory. Follow me the moment you have finished preparations."
Having entrusted the cleanup to a reliable subordinate, Nian immediately cast holy magic upon himself — and then reinforced his own body with the spear arts handed down since their creation by Ruel, the great holy knight once hailed as the Hero of old.
By the time every one of those preparations was complete, Nian's body had already left the realm of ordinary humanity far behind. His speed as he kicked off the earth and tore forward was on par with a warhorse running at full gallop.
How long did he sprint like a madman before he reached a village?
Arriving there, Nian understood what had gone wrong in Burrow Territory.
The village was saturated with the ominous, revolting aura of an Evil God.
Given that there's even a sacrificial magic circle at the village's outskirts, the Evil God's influence on this region can't be a recent development. This has been festering for some time.
And since all the villagers are lying collapsed... the circle must have activated and then failed.
Hmm. This is happening in the heart of a Duke's domain, and yet not a single soul noticed. Which means the threat lurking here is tied to Tariki, the Evil God of Darkness.
Judging by the scale of the incident, I'd have to say the Apostle of an Evil God has moved.
Nian, who as an Interrogator had often faced the revolting creatures that served the Evil Gods, arrived at that answer from mere scraps of information — and yet his expression was far from good.
If the one lurking at the center of Burrow Territory is an Evil God's Apostle, and it is growing its power there even now, then I and my men are not enough.
At minimum this warrants dispatching the Church's knight orders — and in the worst case, it may demand the full strength of the Church of the Chief God itself.
If all of us set foot in such a place together, every last one of us could die.
That would be unacceptable. Someone must survive to report what we've found.
I'll leave my subordinates orders to stand by here.
And instruct them that if I have not returned within half a day, they are to report the entire matter to the Church.
With every task thus settled, Nian set his feet moving toward Burrow Territory once more.
As he ran on without rest, Nian caught notice of something strange.
If the situation were normal, the closer I drew to the center of Burrow Territory, the thicker the Evil God's aura should become.
As one approaches the place where an Evil God's Apostle dwells, the God's revolting stench is supposed to grow stronger.
And yet that was not the case now. Bizarrely, the deeper he moved toward the center, the more the aura thinned and faded.
What in the world is happening at the heart of Burrow Territory?
The very moment the desperately running Nian found himself wrestling with that question —
the Evil God's aura vanished without a trace.
And something else filled the place where that revolting presence had dwelt.
It was an aura Nian had felt once, long in the past.
In the days when he had only just been granted the rank of Interrogator.
The aura he had felt from the sacred image he confronted at the induction ceremony presided over personally by the Pope.
The Divinity of the great Master — so warm, so tender, that tears had spilled from his eyes unbidden.
From the instant he sensed it, Nian drove his legs forward at full power, thinking nothing of what lay behind him.
Because he wanted, even one heartbeat sooner, to stand before the one who resided in Burrow Territory.
Because he wanted to be buried within the ever-deepening Divinity of the Chief God.
Like a man who had lost his mind, he simply ran.
And then, when he arrived at the entrance of the city where the Burrow Estate stood.
Nian knew with certainty that a miracle had unfolded here.
The warm Divinity filling the city to its brim was not a thing that could be explained by any word other than miracle.
But alas — the one who greeted Nian as he suppressed the urge to collapse where he stood, his heart swelling to bursting, and stepped into the city, was not a person connected to the great, the holy, the benevolent Chief God.
"A moment."
The man who blocked his path gave the impression of a statue carved by a master artist stepping straight off its pedestal.
A low, pleading voice. Features so captivating that no eye could help but linger. A handsome man who, even dressed in rags, gave off an impression not of shabbiness but of freedom itself.
Nian knew this man. How could he not, when the man had roamed the length of the continent making his name resound wherever he went?
Apostle of the Art Cult.
Frete.
The very man whose existence had allowed the Art Cult to grow its power despite the Church of the Chief God's efforts to check them.
"Would you kindly identify yourself?"
"Good day to you. I am Nian, an Interrogator of the Church of the Chief God. Apostle of the Goddess who governs beauty and art."
Even when Nian drew the cross of the Church of the Chief God from within his coat and held it up, Frete's wariness did not loosen in the slightest.
"From the aura you carry, you seem to be someone of rather high station. What business brings you here?"
"I received orders to seek out anomalies in this place."
"Then you may simply turn around and go home. Every problem has already been resolved."
At Frete's words, one of Nian's eyebrows lowered.
He did not doubt that the problem had been resolved. With a miracle dwelling in this city, how could the Evil God's scheme not have collapsed?
What Nian took issue with was something else entirely.
"You say the Apostle of the Art Cult resolved the problem?"
Frete had said he resolved the problem.
That he himself had personally halted the Evil God's scheme.
It was nonsense.
With the Divinity of the great Chief God dwelling in this city, the Apostle of a mere Art Cult dared to declare a falsehood!
"Yes. Thanks to the Goddess's guidance, you see."
He means to steal credit for what a servant of the Chief God accomplished?!
"You resolved it alone? Without companions?"
"Is there some problem with that?"
"I sense the Divinity of the great Chief God in this city."
"Ha. What nonsense. That is the result of the Goddess spreading a miracle across the land."
At Frete's shameless answer, Nian ground his teeth inwardly.
His opponent was a bad one.
The man before him had achieved countless great feats under the Goddess's guidance, and was in effect the living symbol of the Art Cult itself.
He was not someone a mere Interrogator like Nian could afford to antagonize.
"Aaah. If it is truly the case that you were alone, I imagine putting this city back in order would be quite the arduous task."
Nian forced a smile and spoke, hiding the fury boiling up within him — but Frete shook his head before the words had even finished leaving his mouth.
"Your assistance is unnecessary. The Art Cult's people will be arriving shortly."
"Still—"
"Know your place and withdraw. Or what — do you mean to steal our achievements yet again?"
When Frete jabbed at the misdeeds committed by a member of the Church of the Chief God years ago, Nian pressed his mouth firmly shut.
The suspicion was more than sufficient.
That the scale of the incident was beyond anything Frete could have handled alone.
That the Divinity of the Chief God could be felt in the city.
There were several other suspicious traces as well, but he could not press the man on them.
The lack of hard evidence was one problem.
The considerable influence of the Art Cult was another problem.
And above all, the greatest problem of all was that Frete's renown and strength both exceeded Nian's own.
"...I shall direct a few inquiries through the Church at a later date."
"Of course. By all means."
After offering Frete a courteous bow and slipping back out beyond the city, Nian drove a dagger into his own shoulder.
To punish himself for his own incompetence — and to offer penance to the Chief God.
And to carve this humiliation into his very flesh.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
<Er... lass. Do not brood so. The work itself went well, did it not?>
'Grandpa.'
<Hm? Yes?>
'Shut up. Unless you want to end up looking like that.'
Where my glance pointed sat the Face-Connoisseur Fox, undergoing punishment.
Bound tight in the clothes that the soldiers of the Artea Family had only just stripped off after finishing their training, it was dying in real time.
"K-kill... me... instead..."
For all that the Face-Connoisseur Fox couldn't resist beautiful things, it despised ugly things with equal and opposite passion.
There was even an in-game event where it chased you out of a forest purely because it couldn't stand breathing the same air as you.
Having sealed a creature like that inside a concentrate of pure ugliness, that place must have been a hell even worse than hell for the fox.
But I have no intention of letting it out.
The grudge of being dragged until my dignity was trampled into the dirt and then sold off to a disgusting pervert is not something that gets settled with only this much.
<M-my apologies. I'll hold my tongue.>
Perhaps Grandpa realized that if he poked the wrong nerve, he'd be stuffed into the storage jar next, because he clammed up in a hurry.
Haaah. Selling my dignity to that masochist pervert fox was already an enormous decision on my part, and now I have to get taxidermied for posterity on top of it?!
Isn't this just a bit too much?!
Yes, fine, it's true that I chose it!
But at that moment there was no other option, was there?!
It was everyone gets fucked over versus dark history gets immortalized. Who in their right mind picks everyone gets fucked over in that matchup?!
Hey! You useless Chief God, you bastard!
Let's be honest here!
You planned this, didn't you!
You set the Interrogator in motion specifically to screw me over!
There's no way the timing lines up this perfectly otherwise!
Waaaaaargh!
Just you wait!
You pathetic, useless, incompetent, masochist, sadist, pedophile, perverted trash Chief God!
Someday I will spread the truth of your nature across this entire continent, I swear iiiiit!
You have succeeded in collapsing the Evil God's plan!
You have succeeded in saving the citizens of Burrow Territory!
You have succeeded in neutralizing the Apostle of the Evil God!
Thanks to your feat, Tariki has expended the greater portion of his power!
A feat so wondrous it has reached the ears of the gods themselves!
Calculation complete.
Quest rewards will now be granted.
What is this. You think you can smooth over my grudge with some cheap little reward?!
Ha! It's far too late for that, it won't work!
No matter what you hand over, my screwed-over situation doesn't change!
This is mutual assured destruction!
As long as my dignity lies in the gutter, you'll pay a price to match—
Skill Mastery of the Shield has been granted!
...Huh? Isn't this the skill that rapidly boosts your shield-type proficiency?
It's practically a near-endgame skill — notoriously hard to acquire! And you're just handing it over?!
No. No. Calm down.
You think I'd be satisfied with this?
Leave it like this, and the same thing will just happen all over again next time!
So this time, I absolutely must issue a warning to that useless pervert Chief God!—
...I suppose I could hear you out. Just a little.