Chapter 257
Chapter 257
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 257
Chapter Title: The Method of Distinguishing Good and Evil (5)
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The Street of Ten Thousand Gods. In every major civilized city of this era, there was one such place—a so-called "Cathedral District." Churches of various denominations lined the streets, with the most revered church in the nation positioned deepest within.
In Paltennoia, that was the Church of Shild. Passing the temples of lesser gods clustered near the entrance, larger churches gradually appeared, and at the very back stood the massive Church of Shild.
Known as the Cathedral of Ashes. In Paltennoia, where even midday brought no sunlight, this temple embodied the will to honor the sun from the earth's surface. Sunlight filtering dimly through the overcast sky scattered in ashen hues upon the white marble.
Fernandez strode briskly up the grand staircase. Each step was densely inscribed with verses from Shild's scriptures. Soon, a massive door finished in brass came into view.
-Creeeak.
The latchless door swung open lightly. It was a temple where stained glass mimicking the scriptures cast multicolored light. As the door opened, a chime rang out, and soon a monk in priestly robes appeared from afar.
"Excuse me, but today is a day of fasting."
"I am not here as a parishioner, so worry not."
-Clink.
Fernandez drew a rosary from his bosom and held it up. Seeing the relic emblazoned with Beitasser's emblem, the monk's face stiffened.
"Brother, official visits should go through the diocese. What rudeness is this?"
"Time presses, so I came directly. I seek an audience with the Diocesan Archbishop."
"The Bishop is currently absent. Make an appointment and return later."
"I smell alcohol."
"...What?"
Fernandez took a large step forward, and the monk recoiled.
"Wh-what are you doing?"
"Alcohol. Not the sacramental wine... distilled spirits. High proof. Whiskey?"
"...What nonsense! Leave at once!"
Fernandez seized the monk's hand and growled.
"Is this happening throughout the entire diocese?"
"Al-alcohol? Just one drink! Yes! I had one! What's the sin in resting on a fast day? The Lord never commanded abstinence from wine!"
"But drugs are another matter. This smell... not just alcohol."
The senses of a Religiosa Demonica could distinguish one person's scent amid dozens. Even more precisely if already familiar. And Fernandez was deeply versed in pharmacology.
"Deris herb. Not some grass tossed into distilled spirits. Drinking drug-laced booze in broad daylight. Are you in your right mind?"
"Slander! And by what authority—"
"I am an Inquisitor of Beitasser and a Rank 2 Inquisitor of Religiosa Demonica. Even by branch alone, I match a Diocesan Archbishop, a right guaranteed by the Holy Pantheon of Good Gods. Priest of Shild. State your rank and name."
"...Brother. Jean Versong."
"Brother Jean Versong. I must meet the Diocesan Archbishop directly, transcending church hierarchies. Where is he now?"
Overwhelmed by Fernandez's presence, the priest stammered. He soon shook his head in resignation and led the way.
* * *
The cathedral's inner chambers. In the bishop's room, adorned with grand statues and ornate candelabras, thick smoke wafted. Before even grasping the door handle, Fernandez wrinkled his nose.
A mix of various drug scents. Just inhaling the vapors made his nostrils tingle sweetly. Potent narcotics.
"Hm? Who's there?"
Amid the hazy narcotic fumes sat an old man puffing a hookah. His eyes were glazed, his robes half-undone. Purple silk, distinctive of a Diocesan Archbishop, lay strewn about.
"B-Bishop. A priest of Beitasser requests entry."
"Hm? A brother from Beitasser? Oh dear, such a sight!"
The bishop staggered to rise but toppled over, crying "Oof!" Fernandez approached silently and met his gaze.
"What is this you're doing, Bishop?"
"That's what I should ask you. Do you know this is rude?"
Suddenly, sharp light gleamed in the bishop's eyes as he snapped. A reaction blending narcotic-induced neurosis and mania. With dilated pupils, he hummed.
"Barging into a diocesan bishop without notice! Even an emperor couldn't do this!"
"An emperor couldn't. But I can."
Fernandez sighed shortly and flicked his hand. Before the bishop could react, the air cleared instantly. The herbs smoldering in the hookah hissed and extinguished.
Fernandez drew a canteen from his belt and splashed the bishop's face. With a splutter, the bishop shook his head.
When the bishop opened his eyes again, reason had returned. He looked decades older in that brief moment.
"You've learned magic. An Inquisitor of Beitasser... from Religiosa Enmagicka?"
"Demonica."
"Or a relic, perhaps."
The bishop sighed briefly and slumped into his seat. Demonica bodies were canonically impervious to mana, so no need to correct the misunderstanding. As Fernandez stood blankly, the bishop smiled bitterly.
"A holy relic, no doubt. One potent enough to restore reason—yes, useful for Demonica. I can guess why you've sought this old man..."
"This will be quick."
-Scrape.
Fernandez pulled up a chair and sat. He spun his greatsword and plunged it into the floor. The solid stone yielded effortlessly as the blade sank deep with a heavy thud.
-Clink. The rosary on its short chain slid down atop it. Gazing at the rosary's flickering shadow in the candlelight, the bishop clicked his tongue.
"Confession?"
"I hold the authority of sacramental absolution. Sinner, begin your defense."
"A few years ago, perhaps not—but our church won't recognize your jurisdiction. Still... better this way."
The bishop closed his eyes and knelt properly. Water dripped from his hair as his wrinkled face twisted.
"It started three months ago. The drugs and drink."
"What happened?"
"So much... truly, so much."
The bishop trailed off, delving deeper into the past.
* * *
Every incident begins with a small spark. The event that struck the Shild Diocese of Paltennoia was no different.
"The emperor requested a meeting. Nightly strange nightmares—perhaps a portent, he thought."
"What nightmares?"
"An odd dream. A pure white centipede descending from the sky, embracing people. Terrifying and bizarre, amid indescribable halos. Yet strangely soothing, he said."
Fernandez's face hardened. A white centipede?
"We deemed it anxiety from shifting international tensions and waning royal authority. Seemed more a matter for physicians than me. He said he'd already consulted them."
"The imperial physicians."
"He raged that their potions were useless. The emperor seemed deep in alcoholism. No drugs, but flushed face, yellowed eyes from drink."
The bishop shook his head and continued calmly.
"I offered simple blessings and sent him off. He returned every three days, temper sharpening. 'Useless,' he'd say. Then one day, pale as a ghost in pristine attire, he declared he needed no more help."
"He overcame it himself?"
"Overcame? No, not overcome. Infected, more like. He said he no longer needed my aid."
Recalling that moment, the emperor's demeanor was unmistakably off. An ineffable aura, beyond a ruler's natural dignity.
An eerie otherness. Alien to humanity. In the devout old bishop's heart rose suspicion: 'Possessed by a demon.'
"Why not request the Inquisition?"
"The emperor reads minds. The instant I saw his face, he saw my heart. He whispered to me."
[Try harder.]
With a sly grin, the emperor left. Naturally, the bishop dispatched messengers. By every means possible.
To Shild's Papal Court, Beitasser's Papal Court, the Council Hall, and the Inquisition.
"But such reports..."
"Yes! They never reached anyone! I learned that later!"
The bishop bellowed, veins bulging. His eyes brimmed with injustice, sorrow, pain, and madness intertwined.
"A week, a fortnight, a full month passed—no reply. I kept sending them. All possible messengers. Even selected the most trusted, dispatched spies via merchants. But no replies!"
Abandoned?
The Shild Diocese of Paltennoia was among the church's largest and most prestigious. As its Diocesan Bishop and an electoral cardinal, he couldn't be discarded by the church itself.
Then what? Caution due to the emperor? Meanwhile, bizarre phenomena mounted.
Swarms of street rats occasionally caused chaos.
Freshly harvested grains rotted entirely, swarming with flies.
A strange new plague shut down an entire district.
Sewer workers reported frequent fatal slips, short-staffed.
Then, a month and a half later, the emperor returned.
[Follow me.]
The emperor's face was now utterly pallid. Beyond drunken sickness, corpse-like. Waxen features twitched into a smirk as he escorted the bishop somewhere.
Not the palace. Blindfolded and led about, the bishop arrived at an unfamiliar cavern. The blindfold came off. What he saw...
"That blood... those chunks of flesh... how to describe it? How to speak it rightly?"
"Hell."
"Yes. It was hell... hell rampant on earth..."
Blood and flesh strewn everywhere. Like fish on a market stall. Truly "strewn." Pallid, waxen people moved among them, recording or tinkering.
Once past the visual shock, one thought struck him: "Laboratory." Like a mad artist's crude atelier of magic.
On ceilings, floors, pillars—writhing things hung.
"Lord, if only not... but they were human, I fear."
The emperor grinned radiantly at the despairing bishop. He flicked a red tongue and whispered: You will be the last.
But all who met you went before. Behold the path ahead. They are your future.
"Those specimens?"
"Yes. My most trusted messengers and spies. Why no external contact? Simple! The emperor used them all... for some experiment. How long? How many died inside? Hm?"
The bishop cried out in fury, then bowed in resignation.
Afterward, he secluded himself, meeting no one. Anyone he contacted, even trivially, vanished by next day.
His fault. So the bishop thought. My fault. My folly.
"So you too shall end that way. Oh Lord... Lord..."
The bishop fumbled for a fallen bottle on the table. Mostly spilled, little left, yet he licked the rim desperately.
Fernandez slowly snatched the bottle away.
"Ah?"
"Though blocked, even the small flowers under the hedge stretch toward the light."
"...Thus in wind and service there is no high or low, only fullness. Moreover..."
"Moreover, the Lord's grace is like sunlight, shining on high mountains and vast fields alike."
"...Therefore, in the Lord's bosom we are all precious lambs, and Lord Shild is our good shepherd."
Fernandez set the bottle upright and rose. He yanked the sword from the floor with a spin; the bishop flinched.
"By the authority of the Holy Pantheon of Good Gods, I judge you innocent, Bishop of Shild."
"I am the sinner. My inadequacy and arrogance birthed countless victims."
"How can the victim plead sinner before the perpetrator? Only one. If there's a guilty party, it's not you."
"What will you do? The emperor will come for you."
"Let him."
Pondering infiltration, if they struck first—it was ideal. Fernandez turned and grasped the prayer room door.
A frantic voice called from behind.
"You'll be killed! He's no mere fallen noble. The emperor... is a demon!"
"And I am Religiosa Demonica—a demon hunter."
-Creeeak.
The rusty hinges creaked as the door shut. Then Feizashi whispered.
-Cute.
'Indeed. As a senior in the trade, I must set an example.'
Smallest an emperor, greatest a demon... perhaps a high demon equivalent lurked.
As a demon hunter. No—as an ancient precursor to demon sorcerers—he would confront it.
Hearing Feizashi's scoff, Fernandez strode out and flung open the cathedral doors.
The ashen sky sprawled over the city before him.