The Sanctuary of Sorrow
The Sanctuary of Sorrow
That persuasion had been built on lies.
Aslan knew full well that a persuasion built on lies would inevitably cause major repercussions later.
But he lied anyway.
Because it was acceptable.
In fact, the whole plan for Ereta wouldn't have held together without lying.
Telling her that the Fire-weaving Spider had wanted to reclaim her and that she hadn't been abandoned simply wouldn't have convinced her.
Telling the truth would only invite her resentment and a desire to one day restore the Fire-weaving Spider to its original place.
He couldn't entrust his back to someone like that. Even temporarily, he couldn't stand back to back with her. Killing her outright would have been faster.
So Aslan had no choice but to build his persuasion on lies.
Killing her outright wasn't an option anyway. She had already died once. She died as a priest and became human.
A human who hadn't yet crossed the line Aslan had drawn.
With his iron rule still intact, Aslan could quickly shake off the unease.
Considering how well it had turned out, he counted it a relief.
Glancing at Ereta, who was bowing her head while gripping two blades, Aslan approached the corpses.
Not the corpses of the giant priest and the monsters, but the soldiers' corpses.
'Horrible.'
Every corpse bore the marks of terrible pain and terror. The twisted expressions, spilled entrails, and torn flesh attested to that.
Scanning the carnage, Aslan searched for insignia on the soldiers' armor and cloaks.
The image of two horns stacked one above the other, and an inverted dish depicting a hill beyond.
As expected, they were house soldiers of the Duchy of Hilsinger.
Aslan let out a sigh, and Angie, who had been eyeing Ereta warily, turned her head to look at Aslan.
At Angie's wary look, Aslan waved a hand to dismiss her gaze.
'It went the way the main quest was supposed to.'
The original main quest flowed like this.
Whatever happened in the Margrave of Saingirus's territory, the protagonist would choose between the Kingdom of Bida or the Baramunz Mountain Kingdom as the next destination and move on.
Upon arrival, soldiers from the respective region would appear to greet the protagonist.
Then the soldiers would suggest joining forces and inform the protagonist about the local situation.
The important part came next. If you delayed too long in that process, a priest would appear and attack the soldiers and the protagonist.
Though there was some randomness involved, the priest who appeared usually belonged to the Order of Cosmic Inevitability.
'A massacre, and far too soon.'
Viewing corpses was never a pleasant experience, even for Aslan after twelve years of wandering. He disliked fighting, and seeing the dead bothered him.
If it were something he could have done anything about, he could at least regret it, but right now there was no time for that.
Aslan had literally arrived at the border of the Kingdom of Bida only to find them all dead.
The priest had appeared even before Aslan arrived.
'The bastard didn't have a single scratch. Must have been an ambush.'
Now his head was crushed by the two-handed axe Aslan had thrown, but until then he had been perfectly fine.
The monsters were the same. It was highly likely the soldiers had been ambushed without a chance to fight back.
From that, two possibilities emerged.
Either intelligence had been leaking and their movements were exposed,
or someone was paying close enough attention to predict the duchy's actions.
'The possibility of a mole is low.'
Aslan dismissed the leak possibility between the two.
If information had leaked, an informant should have been present, but everything Aslan had faced was monsters and the priest.
And if an informant had burrowed deep into the Duchy of Hilsinger's inner circle, these soldiers' deaths would be a trivial loss for the duchy.
If someone inside was collaborating with the priest, they would have attacked the duchy more directly.
He guessed there was some kind of dispute or direct engagement between the Duchy of Hilsinger and the Order of Cosmic Inevitability. But without enough material to judge, Aslan felt the need for concrete information.
Straightening up, Aslan stepped back, intending to bury the soldiers after the investigation was finished.
Stepping back, he passed Ereta and approached the priest's corpse.
The dead priest, his head split wide open, was clutching something like a letter in his hand.
"As I thought."
Ereta and Angie reacted to his brief murmur, but Aslan didn't elaborate, simply picking up the letter. The edge was stained with blood, but the parchment was still legible.
Giving it a light shake and unfolding it, the contents were more or less as he expected.
The parchment, which originally belonged to the Hilsinger soldiers, was inscribed with a request for reinforcements to check the priests heading south to the Sanctuary of Sorrow.
The orders were to minimize contact by moving through the frontier counties, reach Belus Bida, and return with reinforcements.
Aslan read the parchment and let out a sigh.
Belus Bida was far to the northwest from their current position. The soldiers had died without completing their mission.
Moreover, the written contents differed from Aslan's memory.
'Why are they targeting the Sanctuary of Sorrow?'
It was strange.
The Sanctuary of Sorrow belonged to the God of Sorrow and Death, the last major god to survive among the ancient deities.
It always rained and hailed in the vicinity, and the sea routes were so ravaged by storms that ships couldn't possibly pass.
And then there were the rampant monsters. They were mostly wraith-like beings, so the sanctuary and its surrounding areas were shunned even by priests.
Neither frontier counts nor dukes incorporated the Sanctuary of Sorrow into their territories.
Given all that, the fact that priests were heading there didn't make sense.
Such a thing had never happened in the game, so Aslan couldn't even guess the reason.
The game had made it clear that priests never appeared in the Sanctuary of Sorrow, or even the Sorrow Swamp, River, or Bay.
'Things are getting badly tangled.'
Whether it was a consequence of his twelve-year stay, or something that happened when the game became reality, he couldn't tell. He'd have to experience it firsthand to know the details.
Folding the letter and tucking it into his coat, Aslan pondered.
His original destination had been the Barony of Honningal. The rumor was that a Master of the Sword was there.
The Sanctuary of Sorrow, on the other hand, was to the southeast—close, but not in the direction of Honningal.
In his deliberation, Aslan thought of the Sanctuary of Eternal Night.
The site of his first defeat, and the place where he had parted ways with the Master of the Sword he had been traveling with.
A divine sanctuary, completely destroyed.
That was the problem.
By the flow of the main quest, Aslan inevitably had to visit every sanctuary and every place where a god had died.
And now, for reasons unknown, the priests were approaching the Sanctuary of Sorrow.
This was not a good situation.
There were at least two Sanctuaries of Eternal Night, so that was fine, but the Sanctuary of Sorrow was unique.
If it was destroyed, he'd have to find the God of Sorrow and Death in the underworld, or search for the god's corpse among the divine remains.
In other words, if their goal was to destroy the sanctuary, it could block the main quest entirely, making a bad situation worse.
With twelve years of wandering, the world already bore little resemblance to the game's Geladrion. If the main quest started to deviate as well, Aslan would be helpless.
Ultimately, his options were few. Deciding that preventing trouble was best, Aslan turned his head to look at his companions.
Angie was watching Ereta with wary eyes, while Ereta stared blankly at Aslan with unfocused eyes.
The two—a girl and a young woman—each reacted under his gaze.
Aslan smiled wryly and said,
"It looks like we'll have to change our destination."
*
Rain fell.
As if ready to swallow a person at any moment, the river swelled with the rain and drenched those crossing it.
The soaked monsters screamed and twisted, but the downpour showed no sign of stopping.
Amidst the pelting hail, the thick rain stung even the monsters.
Krrr-ak!
A dog-like monster on four legs, too low to the ground, was eventually swept away by the water and vanished. As its pitiful cries faded along the current, the giant woman leading the way gritted her teeth and shouted,
"Hold on! Just cross the water!"
But even her voice was swallowed by the rain. Vanished. Her meaning, buried in the noise, dissolved into somber groans as several more monsters were swept away.
A blinding downpour where nothing could be seen an inch ahead. The monsters and priests crossed the waters and finally reached land. The ground was so sodden and damp that their ankles sank deep.
Better than being swept away. Even the monsters seemed to think so, whimpering and shaking themselves off as they crawled ashore.
Then a shabby man appeared from behind the monsters and spoke.
"How many were swept away?"
The woman, the priestess of the Ground-Breaking Giant, didn't answer. The rain was too heavy for her to hear.
Eventually, the shabby man approached the giant priestess and tapped her on the arm.
"I asked, how many were swept away!"
"...About ten."
When the giant priestess finally answered, the shabby man rubbed his face and removed his hood. His exposed face was gaunt.
Not just gaunt—there were patches of skin rotting and sloughing away.
He was a priest of one aspect of Cosmic Inevitability—the Poison-spitting Dragon.
The priest of the Poison-spitting Dragon took the lead with a grave expression. The giant priestess, who had been blankly watching him walk ahead, lowered her own hood and followed.
The woman with long curly hair and an angular jaw gritted her teeth and silently gestured to the monsters. The creatures, fresh from the deluge, followed her commands with their bodies hunched tight.
In the distance, the entrance to the sanctuary began to come into view, looking extraordinary even at a glance.
The priest walking at the front frowned with desperation at the sight.
How had it all started? It was definitely the Fire-weaving Spider's mess.
The Fire-weaving Spider had squandered divinity to save its favorite toy.
It wasn't the kind of divinity that could be wasted so simply, but they had no other clues.
Regardless, the result was that the Three Evil Gods were no longer the Three Evil Gods. Naturally, the balance of the entire Cosmic Inevitability collapsed.
If only it had ended there.
The Spider's useless waste diminished the power of all Cosmic Inevitability and drastically lowered the Fire-weaving Spider's own divinity.
It had fallen to a level within reach of other gods' fangs.
And so other gods began visibly targeting Cosmic Inevitability.
Unless they got their hands on a divinity potent enough to suppress all of that, they could genuinely be devoured and vanish.
That was the sole reason they were seeking the Sanctuary of Sorrow.
To steal the divinity slumbering within and restore the order to its original level.
The Poison-spitting Dragon's priest stared gravely at the sanctuary that held the answer.
"...Are you absolutely sure this is the place? Is there really divinity here? The ancient god has been dead for a long time..."
And to the eyes of another, it was a fanciful plan.
The Giant's Priest approached and spoke, while the Poison-spitting Dragon's priest kept his eyes fixed on the sanctuary and asserted,
"Yes, it must be there."
There was no persuasiveness in that certainty. Facing the groundless confidence, the Giant's Priest blocked the rain with a knife-hand and asked,
"Why on earth do you think that? Let me in on it too."
The dragon priest let out a derisive snort at that. As if he could.
...As if he could?
"That's..."
Memories sank. The form of their sinking was like bones depositing in a swamp. Bubbles gurgling up through eye sockets returned as hazy memories.
Within his dead memories, the dragon priest frowned and his mouth gaped open and shut.
Nothing surfaced. Not the reason, not who told him.
He was simply certain, in a vague and murky way. That certainty was something he couldn't refuse.
But why here? As the bubbles rose and created reverberations, a single tear of blood ran from the priest's eye.
"...Anyway, that's how it is. Unless you have another way, just follow quietly. If not, you can interrogate me then!"
At his irritable outburst, the Giant's Priest backed away uncomfortably. The Poison-spitting Dragon's priest was also in a foul mood. And so, without knowing the reason, they entered the Sanctuary of Sorrow.