The Fanatic Hero (3)

“I want to die...”

Darian had lost everything.

His family, his money, his home.

Magical beasts had carved agony into his flesh, while cruel people had carved torment into his spirit. His existence had dwindled into nothing more than a foul, stagnant gutter. From the moment ruin claimed him, every hue and contour of the world had bled into absolute, suffocating pitch-black.

“I’m... so hungry.”

Even stripped of his humanity, hunger still clawed mercilessly at his stomach. As if his soul were being pried away from his failing flesh, his awareness drifted hazily on the threshold of oblivion. Everything before him looked sodden, decayed, and hopelessly dark.

Unable to secure even the barest necessities of human survival, he was sprawled across the city square like a discarded heap of refuse when it happened.

“Excuse me. Here, take this.”

Thud.

A can of tuna was set gently upon the cobblestones before him.

Miraculously, the can was not black.

It radiated an impossibly luminous, vivid hue, gleaming like a flawless gemstone plucked from a fairy tale.

“Ah...”

Was he dreaming?

Right then, a heavy coat was draped over his shivering shoulders. The garment was the same. Even at a dazed glance, a deeply comforting, warmly saturated warmth emanated from the cloth, filling his darkened vision with vibrant life.

“How...?”

Ever since he had lost everything, reality had been painted in desolate monochrome. How could this can of tuna and this coat possess such pristine, untainted color?

Darian slowly lifted his head, and in that fleeting instant, he found the answer to his question.

“J-Juddak-nim?”

A figure standing before him radiated dazzling, celestial brilliance from every pore. Looking down at him with the sunlight crowning his silhouette, the man was as radiant as a living god.

It was beyond dispute. Just as one awakens to absolute, unvarnished truth, every single cell in Darian's body screamed in sacred revelation that the sublime presence before him was Juddak.

“What do you mean, Juddak?”

Yet Juddak denied it, as though gently admonishing him that the appointed hour had not yet arrived.

“Ah.”

Darian understood immediately and offered a humble, reverent nod.

“Forgive me. Starvation must have clouded my senses. I spoke out of turn.”

Clutching the precious gift, Darian scrambled awkwardly to his feet. The world around them remained drowned in bleak blackness. Yet with Juddak as the radiant center of creation, every shade and tint blossomed with the dazzling splendor of paradise.

“My name is Darian Zallot.”

“Um... I’m Malphite.”

“Malphite...”

In Darian’s newly restored world, Juddak was God.

And God’s sacred name was Malphite.

“I shall never forget.”

Longing for the dawn when they would reunite, Darian was destitute no longer. His hollow gaze was replaced by clear, vibrant eyes shimmering with unyielding purpose as he looked upon Juddak and forged an eternal vow. He prayed with every fiber of his soul that one day, his Lord would deem him worthy to be used as an instrument of His divine will.

The Pope’s limp corpse tumbled from the high altar, crashing heavily onto the stone below.

Darian watched the body fall as if glaring at a vile, unspeakable abomination, then thrust the Holy Sword toward the heavens.

“Glory be to Juddak-nim!”

The sacred blade still emitted not a single flicker of divine light. Yet everyone present was so thoroughly paralyzed by absolute shock that nobody was in any state to notice.

The entire Gallery plunged into pure, unadulterated chaos.

The Cathedral guards stationed around the dais were the first to shake off their stupor. Drawing their steel, they surged toward Darian, the assassin who had struck down their supreme pontiff, but—

There was no justification.

The guards froze in their tracks, unable to lay a finger on Darian. A Hero was the living vessel of the gods, their closest emissary in the mortal realm. Every action taken by an authentic Hero was inherently absolved of mortal crime and imbued with absolute divine righteousness. Since the Cathedral itself had just certified him before the masses, seizing him would expose their own holy doctrine as a glaring contradiction.

“Y-You...!”

One of the bishops petrified beside the Pope’s bleeding remains trembled violently, white-hot fury and betrayal twisting his features. Darian was no genuine Hero; he was merely a puppet, a counterfeit manufactured by their own hands. Yet the bishop could not utter the command to arrest him. The very second that order crossed his lips, the Cathedral’s web of deceit would shatter in front of the entire world.

At that moment, the bishop’s frantic gaze collided with Darian’s cold face.

“...!”

Darian was smiling. It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was an expression overflowing with pure, chilling madness.

Only then did the bishop realize they had been outmaneuvered from the very start. Darian had anticipated this stage, biding his time solely for this single, calculated stroke. He had trapped them in an inescapable checkmate—an impossible dilemma from which no defense existed.

“All heretics deserve death.”

He had slain the corrupt Pope for daring to revere false gods and heap blasphemy upon the supreme glory of Juddak.

...Wait a second. I’m Juddak.

“Are you kidding me?”

A rabid fanatic I didn’t even know existed had just murdered the head of the imperial church. Right in front of an audience of thousands, he had gutted the Pope and begun loudly chanting my name in worship. A vicious migraine began throbbing behind my temples.

Predictably, the Gallery immediately erupted into rampant conspiracy theories, insisting that I had orchestrated an elaborate psychological black-ops campaign to assassinate the Pope.

The fundamental knot was that the Cathedral had openly certified his authenticity. Pushed past his breaking point by the spiraling disorder, the cornered bishop lost his composure and shrieked.

“Seize him!”

“S-Sir? But...”

You people just told us he’s the Hero.

The guard standing in front of Darian looked so utterly distraught he seemed ready to burst into tears.

“Take me into custody.”

Astonishingly, it was Darian who set the Holy Sword down, stepping calmly toward the trembling soldier. Amidst the bewildered crowd, Darian surrendered entirely of his own accord.

“So that’s how it turns out.”

Darian wasn’t the Hero. In the end, the Cathedral had simply pulled classic Cathedral behavior. In a rare display, the Gallery had reached a definitive consensus on the controversy. The fact that public sentiment was already rock-bottom thanks to the Cathedral’s endless trolling played a massive role.

The problem was that Darian could not dodge execution either. Because the Cathedral had manufactured a false Hero conspiracy, every individual implicated was bound for the execution block. While this purge would effortlessly cleanse the remaining corrupt clerical factions, a Pope was still a Pope. In the end, Darian, who had masqueraded as a fake Hero, was doomed to be put to death.

To halt this, someone of at least the Emperor’s standing would have to intervene with legitimate, overwhelming evidence, but...

“Did they say the Emperor is seven years old?”

The Emperor was an elementary school kid. Nor was there any admissible proof. There seemed to be no path forward to prevent Darian’s death.

Above all else, there was a specific reason public fury against Darian’s impending demise burned so fiercely.

The Cathedral housed numerous clandestine chambers accessible only to high-ranking clergy. In the wake of this catastrophe, the knights' sudden raid brought a putrid mountain of heinous crimes dragging into the daylight. Having reigned as the state religion with millions of faithful followers, the ensuing public betrayal and outrage were monumental. Sentiments had flipped so violently that people were praising Darian as a true hero and demanding his pardon.

The problem was that the surviving faction loyal to the late Pope, panicked by the ruin of their fake Hero scheme, had unilaterally rushed ahead with an immediate public execution. Yet in the uploaded image, Darian showed neither hesitation nor fear. Instead, wearing an expression of serene peace, he was ascending the scaffold of his own free will.

“Hmm. Feels like a waste to just let him die like that.”

Taking a human life was undeniably a grave crime. But what if the creature slain was barely human to begin with? As I stood pondering whether there was any viable path to intervene amidst the boiling outrage—

“Wait, I had this, didn’t I?”

It was the peculiar ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠system prompt granted to me as an achievement reward when I reached Gallery Level 10. Back then, it was an ambiguous, baffling alert that merely prompted me to select an unspecified target. But now, it all finally clicked.

Shhh.

The moment comprehension struck me, hidden script materialized above the interface.

A Gallery Mascot.

In internet forums, the term Galju referred to the central subject whose name constantly flooded the board. Back in my past life, in forums dedicated to a specific figure—like a celebrity fan board—that celebrity was deemed the Galju. While not the actual founder or administrator of the community, they were the absolute sun around which all threads and memes revolved.

Fittingly, Darian’s name was sweeping across the board, occupying every single new thread.

“Still, what does designating him actually do?”

Whether granting this title could save Darian from death was an open question. Right at this moment, Darian’s neck was already resting under the heavy blade of the scaffold.

“Well, only one way to find out.”

I assigned Darian to the empty slot.

At that exact moment—

“Whoa.”

A cascade of system chimes echoed through the Gallery interface as multiple notifications flashed across my view.

Flash—!

For a brief fraction of a second, the entire sky flashed blindingly white.

“Oh...”

From the heart of the Cathedral where Darian stood condemned, a colossal pillar of incandescent light pierced the clouds, roaring straight into the infinite reaches of the sky.