Hunting the Head Mod (5)

"Phew... Fuck."

Inside the cathedral's refectory, Colin chewed on a stale, flint-hard crust of bread. The holy knight dragged an exhausted palm down his face and groaned into the empty air. "What in God's name am I even doing..."

A knighthood was supposed to be the ultimate iron rice bowl. Backed by formidable martial prowess, showered with the reverence of commoners, guaranteed wealth and pristine honor—it had once been the single most coveted station in the realm. Or rather, it had been, right up until the higher-ups decided to troll and pick a suicidal fight with the Head Mod.

"I'm sick to death of this garbage." Colin tossed the crust down beside a few pitiful, rock-hard scraps of bread. Because of the cathedral's IP ban, not a single soul within these walls could access the Gallery's dimensional marketplace.

A fellow knight seated nearby muttered self-deprecatingly, "Isn't that just a knight's lot in life? If the brass tells you to jump, you jump."

Yet everyone at the table knew the truth: things had gone wrong. Horribly, catastrophically wrong. This was far past the point of injured knightly pride or a troubled conscience.

"Sure, orders are orders. But this is the Head Mod we're talking about! The Gallery! Does making an enemy out of him make any damn sense?"

They were accustomed to earning the contempt of commoners; that was easily brushed aside. But when their adversary was the Head Mod, the rules of reality changed.

"At this rate, we might never see a can of tuna again..."

A permanent ban. The chilling realization that they might be cut off from the Gallery for the rest of their lives hung over the cafeteria like a shroud. Every face around the table darkened in unison.

After a long silence, a knight who had been sitting with his head buried in his hands spoke up quietly. "It was thanks to the Head Mod that my little girl survived."

"Mm..."

"I owe my life to him, too."

"What in the hell were those Inquisitor bastards thinking, firing arrows into a peaceful crowd...?"

It had all begun when arrows rained down upon the demonstrators. That bloody atrocity had been carried out entirely by the Holy Inquisition. Their reputation had already hit rock bottom, but that slaughter had plunged it straight into the septic tank. Treasonous discontent and anxiety were taking deep root in the knights' hearts.

SLAM!

"Is this where you lots have been idling away?!"

The primary instigator of the entire catastrophe, Archbishop Louis, kicked the cafeteria doors open and strode in, flanked by a squad of Inquisitors.

"..."

An enormous, blubbery mountain of flesh that made one wonder if he could even see his own boots, coupled with a venomous, arrogant demeanor—not a shred of holy dignity remained in the man. The cathedral knights glared at him with thinly veiled contempt.

Wracked by profound doubts and moral exhaustion, the knights had deliberately held back during the protest suppression. Because of their passive resistance, the cathedral's enforcers had been thoroughly dismantled and humiliated by the Gallery Doctors.

"Why in God's name couldn't any of you do your damn jobs properly?!"

To Archbishop Louis, that defeat was an intolerable disgrace.

"Your Grace, with all due respect, your words go too—"

"Go too what?! They are heretics! Heretics! And what did you do about it?"

The Cathedral was supposed to be absolute.

"You stood back and watched from afar like useless cowards!"

His word was supposed to be divine law. If he pointed a finger at an ordinary citizen and declared them possessed by a devil, their life was forfeit on the spot. Was not the office of Archbishop practically akin to God Himself?

"Must this sacred Cathedral stoop so low and grovel before a miserable shut-in loser?!"

Yet those golden days were over. A transcendent power had descended upon the world—one capable of remaking the destiny of mankind with a flick of his finger.

"What did you just say?"

"A shut-in loser?"

The fatal miscalculation was that many of the knights gathered in this room had personally received salvation from the Head Mod. Some had received life-saving modern medicine for their ailing parents. Others had been gifted food rations when their families were on the brink of starvation. He had brought order to the lawless chaos of the Gallery, instituting fair rules and clean management that made browsing the board engaging enough to lose entire days to.

Scrape—

Knights who had remained seated even while being verbally abused now ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rose to their feet as one. Their hands rested heavy against their sword hilts, ready to draw steel at a moment's notice.

"Y-You insolent wretches...!"

Facing their open defiance, Archbishop Louis felt incandescent rage rather than fear. These worms used to tremble and bow their heads at a single whisper from my lips!

It was all because of that bastard, the Head Mod. From the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠moment that creature surfaced, the entire sacred order of the world had collapsed into ruin.

Just as the stifling tension threatened to explode into violence—

A chime echoed from their devices.

"Do not read...?"

Amidst the suffocating tension, Colin accessed the Gallery to check the notice, as if the Head Mod's words held infinitely more weight than anything spewing from the Archbishop's lips. Wondering what outrageous bomb had been dropped this time, he scanned the screen.

"—!"

The moment Colin read the post, his eyes nearly bulged from their sockets.

When Crown Prince Frederick was banished and the bulk of the imperial garrison evacuated to Kellierton, the Cathedral leadership had concocted a desperate scheme to solidify their control over the city. They had recruited the greatest plague of Adrian—the looters, cutthroats, and highwaymen who preyed upon refugees—and drafted them to replenish their armed forces.

"Your Grace... what is the meaning of this?"

"You brought violent felons into the Holy Inquisition?"

The knights' expressions froze into masks of ice.

To the knights, bandits were every bit as abhorrent as demonic beasts. Preying upon their own kind while humanity teetered on the brink of extinction was the lowest form of depravity. Had not the Cathedral itself branded those savages as heretics who had abandoned their humanity? Yet here was that very same Cathedral, organizing those murderers into an official unit to slaughter innocent citizens.

Schwing—!

Blades cleared their scabbards in terrifying harmony.

"Calm yourselves! Would you draw steel against the holy Church over filthy internet slander?!" Archbishop Louis shrieked, petrified, but the blustering venom in his voice carried no weight anymore.

"Seize them."

The gap between elite, rigorously trained holy knights and a rabble of pillagers dressed in inquisitorial vestments was insurmountable. The knights closed the distance without hesitation, disarming and tackling the panicked Inquisitors to the flagstones. Tearing away their white hoods, they inspected the napes of their necks.

There, burned into the flesh, was an unmistakable brand.

X

"Ha..." A hollow laugh escaped Colin's lips. "It really is the mark of a condemned heretic."

"Gaaah!"

It burned. It stung. Yet it had to be done. My photosynthesis cooldown had finally expired.

"I should've stepped out sooner..."

It was my first venture outside in months. I sat on a bench in the plaza alongside Penny, dutifully soaking in the sunlight. Needless to say, it was excruciating.

"Why must human beings rely on the sun to function?"

"Malphite, you sounded exactly like a vampire just now."

While I was deep in philosophical contemplation about the biological shortcomings of mankind, a notification pinged on the Gallery. Even during a rare stroll, browsing the forum was non-negotiable. I opened the feed, only for a bizarre concept post to slap me in the face.

"What is this nonsense?"

I had clicked out of sheer curiosity, only to find the complete opposite of what the clickbait promised. It was a live report of Archbishop Louis's public execution.

"Wait, that was way faster than I expected."

I figured they might drag him out by tomorrow at the earliest, but the knights had moved with ruthless efficiency. I had noticed the Inquisitors behaving suspiciously erratically during the protests, and when I looked into it, it turned out they were nothing more than a gang of violent criminals recruited as church muscle. The real problem for them was that my administrator system allowed me to trace IP addresses directly from uploaded photos, exposing their deleted posts within seconds.

"Still... straight to execution?"

Employing condemned heretics was an enormous scandal, sure. But Louis was an Archbishop. In an empire currently devoid of cardinals, he was practically second only to the Pope. Could they really send someone of that stature to the block so swiftly?

Another popular post answered my question immediately.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Well, he dug his own grave."

Under normal circumstances, an archbishop might have gotten off with being stripped of his vestments and locked in a dungeon pending trial. But as he was being dragged off in chains, his temper got the better of him, and he blurted out his blasphemous true thoughts for the whole world to hear. From that exact second, his fate was an express ticket straight to the guillotine.

The normalization of the Cathedral, something the citizens of Adrian had only ever dared to imagine in their wildest dreams, was actually beginning to take form. A refreshing wind of reform was sweeping through Adrian at last.

"Good riddance. That fat eyesore was getting on my nerves anyway."

Personally, I believed God existed. I was a transmigrator from another dimension, after all; doubting higher powers would be absurd. The problem was never faith itself, but the corrupt human institutions that claimed to speak in God's name. If these reforms took hold, it would provide immense stability to Adrian.

Just as that thought crossed my mind—

"Uuugh..."

"Hm?"

From right beside the bench where I was practically melting into the slats, a faint groan reached my ears. Turning my head, I spotted a vagrant collapsed on the stone pavers directly beneath the statue of my genderbent alter-ego.

"S-So... hungry..."

It was a boy who looked barely high school age. Whatever misfortune had brought him to this state, he lay shivering violently in threadbare, tattered rags against the bitter chill. After a moment's contemplation, I slipped off the coat I was wearing and laid it over his trembling shoulders.

"Here. Take this."

"Ah..."

While I was at it, I retrieved several cans of tuna from my inventory and set them gently beside his hands. It wasn't like I went outside often enough to need the coat anyway. Besides, if a couple cans of tuna could cultivate a loyal, productive Gonik for the Gallery, wasn't that an absolute win?

The boy, who had been staring in a daze at the tuna cans, suddenly snapped his head upward.

His eyes locked dead onto mine.

"H-Head Mod...?"

"What."

Staring straight into my face, the kid recognized me as the Head Mod in a single breath.