Chapter 120
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 120
Chapter Title: New Employee
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I had thought that Sir Lumen—no, that the heroes—harbored some twisted convictions somewhere along the line, but that didn't mean I wanted him dead. After all, he was one of the pillars propping up the empire, and hadn't he come here to do exactly what I needed?
But Jeanne could only watch blankly as Lumen—the protagonist of the Demon Realm conquest and the hero of reversal—died right before her eyes.
'Light...'
The black-haired man who had suddenly appeared. Based on the prior intel she'd heard about this dungeon, he was presumably its master. Her gaze was completely stolen by the holy relic in his hand, shining brilliantly.
It wasn't brighter or warmer than when she'd occasionally seen it used by the disciples of Glory back in her days living in the capital... but how to put it? It emitted a far purer light.
And just moments ago... the power that had gently caressed the injured and exhausted demons, healing them in an instant... just like her own miracles as a saintess.
[You shall walk together on the path where Glory leads.]
And in that instant, seeing that light, the contents of the revelation suddenly resurfaced in her mind. The revelation given to her as a saintess—that she would walk alongside on the path of Glory.
"Is this... enough with this?"
"Probably fine. No matter how superior their regeneration is, it's nothing compared to the destructive flames wielded by their master."
A horrific scream echoed out before cutting off abruptly. Eugene, who had cranked the incinerator to maximum output and didn't dare peek inside, let out a sigh of relief and approached the woman kneeling there in a daze.
...For some reason, this odd woman who had just opposed that hero and even protected Rio.
"Who... are you? Why did you fight that hero just now...?"
"......"
Jeanne stared blankly at the man holding the holy relic, and without thinking, a certain thought crossed her mind.
That the 'Glory' pointed to by the revelation... might not be the heroic Glory she'd believed in, but some other being.
The battle raging outside was also reaching its final stages. The core forces—the 5-star heroes—had barely been taken down through the combined assaults of our 5-star employees, with me pouring in points mercilessly. The 4-star heroes had been handled by our 4-star staff.
And the remaining 3-star heroes...
"Hah...! Hah...! Is Sir Lumen still not done?"
"No way something happened to Sir Lumen and the Saintess...! Why did the blessings cut off?"
Fundamentally, humans were frailer than demons. Not just in basic physical specs, but they lacked the racial traits demons possessed. The only reason humans could stand against demons was the unfair power of holy relics.
But... on this battlefield right now, the demons wielded even more unreasonable power than the heroes.
"What the hell is that outfit?! It looks just like that holy relic the temple was researching the other day...!"
"Attacks aren't landing at all!"
Clothes impervious to any attack. The outfits every demon was wearing without exception protected them from fatal wounds and shielded them from Pandora's Curse being sprayed indiscriminately without distinguishing friend from foe, even after they'd taken down 4-star heroes without tiring.
"Ah, no...!!"
And on top of that, Dry's support, who had focused on the outer field instead of Lumen's fight. With all the elves and Lil stacking buffs on Dry, he recreated the majesty he'd shown sweeping away demons in the forest before.
In the end, even the last hero fell, and the demons raised victory cheers.
"Woo-hooooo!!!"
"Praise the Master!!"
The hard-won victory. Many kin had perished, all the curse vials were shattered, most of the expensive summoned beasts bought with massive sums were destroyed or dead, and the forest on the outskirts of the ruins had been obliterated entirely...
The losses weren't light...
"...Phew."
But they had won. Survived again. Even against the top forces on the human side, the 5-star hero.
Relief washed over him, and he felt like throwing a festival, but first he calmed down, cleared the traces of battle, treated the wounded, and sorted the spoils.
Honestly, considering the magic tools, potions, and beasts used, it was a serious deficit... but since they'd saved their lives, it was still a net gain.
And the surviving heroes who weren't killed were all thrown into prison. Now they had uses like nutrient absorption for Dry, essence absorption for Lil, blood absorption for Erzsebet, so for most enemies, incapacitating and imprisoning them was more profitable than killing.
After roughly handling that, the most important issue remained...
"What’s the saintess doing?"
"She's behaving without resistance. Even answered the interrogation obediently."
"Phew......"
The woman who had saved Rio, and for some reason even briefly turned hostile against the hero of Glory. The woman who had surrendered meekly after Lumen fell turned out to be the one and only saintess in the Holy Empire.
'Why is the saintess here...'
Why had the saintess, said to be holed up only in the imperial capital, come here? Why had they suddenly fought each other...? To get answers to all that, they'd temporarily locked her in a decent cell and continued the interrogation.
She hadn't shown any hostile moves, and since she'd saved Rio, they were treating her fairly humanely, and she was answering questions fluidly.
'To sum it up roughly...'
The saintess, raised only hearing priests' words in the capital, went outside for the first time and found demons weren't the evil beings she'd been told, got shocked and felt guilty, confronted the hero, and he went mad and drew his sword on her... something like that?
'What a mess.'
A 5-star hero, pillar of the empire, swinging at the saintess... total chaos. And during interrogation, a suspicious word came up...
"God..."
Humans who always cried out the will of god and showed excessive hostility toward demons. But the saintess claimed their faith was false.
'The church upper echelons are rotten or something?'
Her argument rested on the fact that though they invoked god's will, they'd never once said it was 'Eukrasia's' will. Hearing that, he recalled the cults he'd seen on Earth.
Why, you always have those corrupt priests babbling about god's will while fabricating it to satisfy their selfish desires. Maybe the church on this continent was doing the same, fabricating false revelations to create public enemies and control the people.
Or maybe the god... no, whatever. No desire to get deeply involved. Curiosity might drag him into something weird.
Already had one headache inserted.
"Hoo......"
He let out a deep sigh and headed to the cell where the saintess was held. There, despite being imprisoned, she maintained her fresh skin and waited obediently.
"Ah. You're here. What’s your decision on what I told you?"
".......You want to be with me?"
"Yes."
This was the problem. The biggest headache right now.
The saintess who suddenly felt guilt or whatever religious conviction and betrayed the hero. She looked at him, surrendered immediately, and out of nowhere said she wanted to be with him.
"Master. We must kill this woman right now."
"Wooing! Wooing!"
"...And why are you two here again. Go away."
He shooed out Erzsebet and Aqua, who were pouting, and continued talking with the saintess still voicing her opinion.
"What do you mean by 'be with me'?"
"Subordinate, comrade... or servant. Whatever term doesn't matter. You... Eugene, was it? I want to join whatever future you're heading toward."
The saintess smiled enigmatically and steadfastly expressed her opinion to Eugene.
'The 'Glory' from the revelation...'
And in her head, she kept thinking only about the revelation.
Ever since being chosen as saintess, everything she'd seen and heard up to now had been lies. The priests' words about demons were wrong, and the 5-star hero she'd believed in showed inexplicable madness the moment she questioned 'god's will'.
In this situation where she couldn't know if all that was true or who their 'god' even was, the only thing she could trust was the 'revelation' directly from the god.
And right before her eyes, the most likely candidate pointed to by that revelation was deep in thought, pondering her proposal.
'And... for some reason, my mind's been clearer since being in this dungeon.'
During her lifetime in the capital, she'd never once doubted the church people's words. She'd never questioned priests who cried god's will but never once invoked Eukrasia's name. Yet here in the dungeon, those memories kept surfacing.
Feeling all that, whether from the revelation or another reason, her instinct told her she had to stay in this dungeon with that man.
That's why, since surrendering to the dungeon master, Jeanne had kept proposing to join him.
'Whether this man is the Glory from the revelation. I'll confirm it with my own two eyes.'
She wouldn't repeat the mistake of blindly judging demons evil based only on priests' words. She'd confirm with her own eyes and follow the path she deemed right.
So that nothing like what happened on the way here—letting innocents die due to prejudices against demons—would ever happen again...
'...Honestly, even without that, I'd be imprisoned for life like this.'
...Of course, alongside such noble convictions, her rash act of impulsively shielding a young demon and confronting the hero without thinking of consequences had left her inescapably captured as a prisoner here, potentially facing a worse fate than being confined in the capital.
'No. If they treat me like a prisoner now, that's lucky. Otherwise, like in that forbidden book I secretly found in the temple, I might get tentacle monsters violating my XX, then XXXXXXX...'
Making wild misunderstandings and delusions on her own, and packaging it all as following the 'revelation', Jeanne stubbornly begged Eugene to take her as a subordinate or comrade, whatever.
After much deliberation on Jeanne's proposal, Eugene finally spoke.
"Are you good at cleaning?"
".....Huh?"