Chapter 18
Chapter 18
Saint, You’re So Vulgar! – Chapter 18
Heretics and witches.
Words that could never be glossed over lightly.
Especially when looking back on the horrific deeds they had committed throughout history.
Even though a god had created the world, they were the ones who worshipped something evil.
They could be seen as something not human, using faith as an excuse to harm, torture, and devour the Parent God's children.
How long had they existed?
No one could pinpoint the exact moment, but scholars agreed it was "from the creation."
And not without reasonthe first kingdom, now shrouded in faded records, where the saintess of today had been queen and high priestess in the era of birth. From that time onward, they had been the church's enemies.
They were like cockroaches.
No matter how many you killed and exterminated, they crawled out from somewhere again.
As if it were the natural order, they sowed chaos in the world with their insolent appearances.
And there was a peak to their depravity.
It was when the heretics' saintessesthe "witches"appeared.
The aforementioned first kingdom. If those witches were responsible for ending the era of birth, one could grasp just how terrifying they were.
"At first, it was suspicion. We were patrolling the continent for heretic hunts as always, and we discovered a massive underground tomb. Strange, right? Those bastards, who always formed strict pyramid structures, over five hundred of them gathered together."
Halia smiled coldly as she continued.
"Too many to call it mere prosperity. Establishing a base goes against their very nature. But they did it anyway. It was odd. So odd I couldn't stand it! So we charged in. And that's when we found that!"
She pointed to the corrupted entity she had brought.
"Recognize it?"
Asher narrowed his eyes at her words and examined the corrupted entity again.
Moments later, his eyes widened as if they might tear.
"...Stigma?"
"Oh! Versia! As expected, you're the first to notice!"
Halia beamed.
But Asher's expression grew even more grave.
He could tell at a glance that it was different from other corrupted entities because he had faced them before.
He could compare it to all the ones he'd dealt with up to now.
'Corrupted entities can't maintain their form even after death.'
There was only one case where that was possible: when a stigma dwelled within the corrupted entity.
He had realized it late due to the shock.
In the meantime, Halia spoke.
"That's right! A stigma! A fragment of the power granted by the heretics' god!"
The Parent God influenced this land through oracles.
The heretics' god was different. It bestowed its power directly upon individuals to incite chaos firsthand.
At the pinnacle of that power was divine authority, and the beings who received it were the witches.
The stigma was the witches' symbol.
Asher immediately grasped how serious this situation was.
The appearance of a witch signaled the heretics' uprising.
It meant hundreds of heretics banding together across the land, churning out one vile thing after another.
In other words,
"Great chaos, or war, is coming!"
Innocent people would become sacrifices to that corruption or die to their madness.
Not just AsherJudith and Lubena had realized it too, their faces hardening as they glared at the corrupted entity.
Lubena was the one who spoke.
Her voice was trembling terribly.
"S-so... what are we supposed to do...?"
It wasn't a resolute statement born of duty.
Her face had gone deathly pale, to a pitiful degree.
Asher's brow furrowed.
Meanwhile, Halia continued, "Mm! Good question!"
"First..."
Her words went on.
Asher's heart pounded with anxiety.
* * *
The meeting ended along with various announcements.
Asher crossed the cathedral in hurried strides, his impatience driving him.
He was looking for Versia.
They needed to discuss this situation together.
He dragged her out from where she was lounging in the barracks, then brought her to the private garden and told her everything.
Her response was this.
"Ah, I wondered why I hadn't seen Lady Halia for a whileshe was out playing hunter again?"
"This isn't the time for such carefree talk!"
Thud!
Asher slammed the table.
His intensely serious expression showed just how gravely he viewed the matter.
But Versia, facing him, merely propped her chin on her hand with her legs crossed.
There was no sense of crisis in her smiling face.
"Knight."
"Yes!"
"Should we calm down first?"
"Calm down in this situation...!"
"What can we do if not?"
"...Pardon?"
"What can you do right now?"
Asher flinched, his shoulders shrinking back a little.
Not out of fear, but from the chill in her demeanor.
But that vanished in an instant, washed away.
"Now, let's think about it slowly."
Versia pulled her chair closer.
She wrapped her arm around Asher's shoulders and patted them lightly.
Oddly, in that moment, Asher felt relieved.
He briefly wondered why he'd shrunk back, but it didn't linger.
Versia began to speak.
"Until we're ready, we're on standby, right?"
"Yes..."
"First, the saintesses need to go on undercover missions across the continent. But since we don't know what might happen, pairs are the rule. We'll prioritize investigating areas where heretic clusters are suspected."
"Yes, exactly. I'm glad you understand, but..."
"Yeah, I understand it better than you do, Knight."
Doubt flickered in Asher's eyes.
Versia chuckled and said,
"What you're worried about is this, right? Why send out saintessesa valuable resourceto the front lines. Why make them go undercover without army protection."
"That's right, but..."
Halia's orders were strange and dangerous in that regard.
Saintesses were irreplaceable resources.
In a crisis like this, they should be guarded even more strictly in secure locations, not sent wandering outside.
To that, Versia gave an answer Asher hadn't even considered.
"To be precise, what Lady Halia needs aren't the saintesses."
"Pardon?"
"It's the other resource stuck right next to the saintesses."
In that moment, Asher let out a sigh.
"...Ah!"
"1st Class Knights. High-value assets like you, Knight."
"High-value...?"
"High-value, of course. Even counting every branch across the continent, there are fewer than fifteen of the absolute elite knights. The church's ultimate weapons, one-man armies."
Asher, who had no immunity to praise directed at himself, forgot his earlier fluster and flushed red.
He tried to suppress his rising grin and mumbled in a crawling voice,
"I-it's not quite that much, though..."
"It is that much. No need to be shy. Anyway, back to the point: 1st Class Knights. We need to drag out every elite one in a situation like this, but oops?"
Versia tilted her head and flashed a sly smile.
Asher averted his eyes for no reason.
"These useless saintesses are using these precious 1st Class Knights as attendants?"
"That's not the way to put it..."
"It's the truth, though. Take Lubenashe bosses around that great Sir Hyzenberg, calling him bald or whatever, using him as a pack mule. And Judith drags hers off for live experiments..."
"What?!?!"
"...Ah, was that not something I should say? It's a secret?"
"Wait! Live experiments? What the he"
"Well, she got his permission, so let's move on. Anyway, Lady Halia is the one using hers most properly... Wait, no, since Lady Halia herself is a 1st Class Knight, does that put her out of the combat pool?"
It felt like he'd heard something he shouldn't have.
Asher recalled who Judith's guard was.
And it was someone he knew.
-Oh! Cadets! Eat up while you're growing!
His senior had cheered him on back when he was still a cadet, even sneaking him bread behind the instructors' backsa true saint of a man.
Suddenly, he wondered if that "permission" from his senior had been forced.
Come to think of it, he hadn't seen that senior in over three years. Was he even alive?
Was it still the same person he remembered?
Just then, Versia snapped him out of his thoughts.
"Anyway, that's how it is. The emergence of a witch is an issue big enough to summon every 1st Class Knight, so excluding them under the pretext of saintess protection would be a waste, right?"
"Ah, y-yes...!"
"And above all, it's hard for the saintesses to be in real danger. They go in pairs, after all. With two 1st Class Knights attached, it's unlikely anything major happens, don't you think?"
"Well, that's true, but we..."
"If worst comes to worst, just wipe them out with combat prayer. As for me... your body's sturdy to begin with, so you'll live."
Versia said this while stroking Asher's hair.
Only then did Asher realize why Versia could remain so calm.
Her insight was extraordinary.
As he admired her, Asher gave an awkward smile.
'No, actually, that's a relief.'
Asher didn't want to run from the witch threat just because their bodies had swapped.
As a holy knight at heart, he wanted to face the danger head-on and be of help.
As she said, if need be, he could use combat prayer.
As long as no allies were nearby, he was confident he could win somehow.
With his head finally cooling, Asher spoke sheepishly.
"Understood. S-sorry for getting excited..."
"Oh, female sea"
"Ack!"
"Just trying to help you relax."
"Don't lie! I'm not falling for it anymore! And stop touching my hair! How long are you going to pet me?!"
"It's mine. And right now, it's my body, you say? Then I can too..."
"Aaaah!!! I haven't said anything yet! Hey! Hands off! I warned you!!!"
In the end, it followed the same pattern.
Versia wrapped up the conversation with her teasing.
Asher grabbed Versia's wrist as it tried to slip into his pants, and when she showed no sign of stopping, he bit it hard in desperation.
His frantic resistance succeeded.
Of course, only in stopping her hand.
"So, what about our issue? Did we get past it without getting caught?"
"Don't even ask! My heart nearly stopped..."
Was it because the tension had eased? He'd blurted out something unnecessary.
Pfft...!
Versia burst out laughing.
"Fe-male... heh! Sea cu!"
"Hmph mmmph...!"
Asher hated Versia.