The Paramere Search Operation (20)
The Paramere Search Operation (20)
Movement in Paramer.
The rotten monsters were beginning to stir.
The news spread widely through some of the search parties who had returned by carriage. But the Empire did not act easily.
They only repeated that they did not know what kind of threat was inside, and that they could not move the army until it was confirmed.
The search parties spoke with fervor, but it was useless.
"I'm telling you, there is a priest trapped in there alone right now!"
"We cannot sacrifice countless people for the sake of one person."
"No...! Before that, I'm telling you there's something inside! Rotten monsters! Living things that cannot be killed!"
"Not a single one of the Imperial knights and wizards we sent has returned, and only the priests and mercenaries came back..."
The Imperial official smiled thinly.
"This requires further investigation. We ask for your understanding."
...So they weren't gaining any credibility at all?
Rosemary gritted her teeth. She immediately turned her steps toward the church. The Empire was stupid. It couldn't be trusted. Without knowing what the situation actually was, they were only thinking that Paramer, now that the black fog had lifted, could be easily subdued at any time.
Without even knowing what was really inside!
"...Rosemary?"
Rosemary arrived at the church headquarters before the news of the search party's return could spread. Dust clung all over her body. Her eyes, from lack of proper sleep, were sunken.
"...Divine Judge!"
A cough burst out. Rosemary forced herself to hold her breath. Every moment was urgent. Time had already been delayed as much as it could be.
Fifteen days to get free of the Empire's wrangling. Ten days to hurry to the church headquarters.
Twenty-five days in total. That was how long he had been enduring alone inside that hellish Paramer.
"Gather the archbishops right now!"
"What are you talking about?"
"Inquisitor Zahard is in danger!"
"...Inquisitor Zahard?"
Dimona grabbed her by the shoulders. She immediately signaled Radatok with her eyes.
Radatok drew the curtains at once. He locked every door and cast a Sacred Barrier in every corner of the room.
"What happened in there?"
Rosemary felt the grip digging into her shoulders. Dimona normally seemed like a competent and cute girl, but inside she was a monster.
The expression of Divine Judge Dimona, who stood shoulder to shoulder with the archbishops of the past, had hardened coldly.
"Tell me everything. One thing at a time. Without hiding a single thing."
. . .
"Honestly, I don't understand... Why do we have to suffer like this?"
One who did not understand.
"Shouldn't you obviously sacrifice yourself for us?! Priest! A single life of ours is far more important than ten lives of the lower classes!"
Openly trash.
"A servant tore into another servant. So I killed them both for now. You never know, right? When they might turn around and bite me."
A psychopath.
I slurped them all down.
Mm! Delicious!
Flora covered her mouth. She eventually went to a corner and vomited.
"Are humans... are humans nothing but trash?!"
"This place is a real find!"
Meanwhile, I was getting extremely full. My Status Window was growing at a rapid pace.
Even though I hadn't absorbed half of them yet, Sacred Power was brimming throughout my entire body. You could call it a state of Sacred Power saturation.
The Church of Naga.
The reason Naga's Sacred Power, known as Shadow Sacred Power, had once been condemned as the power of fanatics was simple. Blood and flesh. It could build strength from wicked things born of darkness.
On the surface, they were no different from devil worshipers. But to put it bluntly, Naga's power could be called the true "darkness" itself, born of chaos.
The two faces of humanity. The wickedness that any human is bound to harbor at least once.
It was a power diametrically opposed to Ra's teachings, which shone upon all with the bright sun. No wonder the two were enemies.
Shall I scrape up the rest too! After that, I'd need to diligently level up my skills with the Sacred Power I'd stockpiled!
"That's too... too..."
Tears welled in Flora's eyes. She screamed.
"That's too... peaceful an end! They should suffer more! No matter how much of a Savior you are, this is too unfair!"
"This isn't the end, you know?"
"...Huh? B-but they're dead, aren't they? You said they'd enter rest?"
"Who said that? When they're twisted like this, even the reapers hate them."
In the game, most of these refugees could be saved. But even if they were saved, it didn't mean they lived happy lives.
As a side effect of their time as wraiths, they developed a taste for human flesh. Most of them enjoyed cannibalism and were later hunted down by monster hunters.
And what? Death is the end?
That wasn't true either.
"What do you think happens when a soul that's been twisted by ten years of suffering dies?"
"D-doesn't it enter rest?"
"No. A twisted soul is the easiest kind of soul to drag out of the underworld, you know? You know undead, right? The things that can't die or live, screaming for someone to kill them."
"...Y-you can't mean."
"When they die, most of them become things like that. They turn into undead. If they're completely purified, they vanish without leaving even a soul behind, and even if they escape because the purification was incomplete, they can't return to the underworld. They wander until they become undead again."
A horrifying cycle.
A punishment that even villains who had openly committed evil deeds did not suffer.
"They're ones who'll be in pain whether they live or die. Most of the ones who just died are probably just getting ready to become undead, you know? They say every breathing moment is agony for lower undead. It'd be far worse than starvation."
"H-how do you know that?"
"The cute, pretty, kind Naga teaches me."
-Hahh... wh-when you... say it like that...
Flora tilted her head.
"B-but in the first place, Savior, you're originally a priest of the Sun God! So how can you wield Naga's power?!"
"Is there a law saying you can't wield two at once?"
"N-no... that's not... not it... but still, something's strange..."
"A genius like me can do anything."
"A g-genius?"
"Yeah. I can even do this. Ebi."
I wove shadow snakes together and flicked them at Flora. Flora screamed and rolled on the floor.
"Aack! S-snakes?! L-let go! Let me go!! I said let go!!! Th-they're... crawling into... strange places... ah... ahh... hahh...!"
"Don't force them into strange places."
I could see her subtly tempting me. She was outright lifting her hips and twitching.
What am I supposed to do with this masochist?
First, let's swallow the rest too. I turned my head toward the wraiths. The ghosts, who were refugees and barely alive because they couldn't die, were clinging to me little by little.
"Please... please have mercy... Priest..."
"I don't want to be hungry anymore... ahh..."
"Please free us from this terrible pain..."
Now, even without exchanging words, they were all going along with me. They must have desired death more than pain.
It was thanks to my hard work sending the wraiths to rest all this time. What a windfall.
Shall I eat the rest too, then? Thanks for the mea—
"Priest."
I stopped my hand. I glanced at the one who had called me in a stiff tone.
His build was somewhat large. Much larger than me. He must have been a giant of a man in life. Half of his body was covered in blotches. But the rest was not.
A man similar to the first wraith I had devoured. I knew that face. He was a fairly important NPC among these refugees.
The lord of Paramer.
The lord, 'Fer Bach'.
"I have been watching what you've been doing."
"Should I have sent you to rest first?"
"...Your eyes are cold. Do you see us as sinners?"
"Well. I'm not sure."
Fer Bach looked at me. His eyes were sunken. His body, worn by long starvation, gave off a reek of rot.
But even so, Fer Bach still seemed to have his wits about him. He did not complain of hunger, and the words he spoke were measured.
Still a leader in his own way. So he was different from the others, was he.
I pushed the wraiths aside. I sat in front of Fer Bach. The man had no strength to refuse me anyway. Nor did he have the strength to persuade the other wraiths who had lost their reason.
He was just talking.
That was the last thing Fer Bach could do. There was no particular need to hide what I was thinking.
"The Clock Tower was the symbol of the city of Paramer."
"I've heard it so much my ears are calloused."
"Maintaining the Clock Tower required the hands of children."
"Hey. That's not it. Let's be honest. It was because the labor costs were cheapest, right? Slave children are very cheap, for one thing."
"It was an unavoidable choice for the sake of Paramer's tradition."
"It was tyranny by the upper classes trying to put even one more coin in their pockets. You should speak straight."
"......"
Fer Bach stared at me blankly.
"Are you saying that if you had been in my position, Priest, you would have made a different choice?"
"No? I’d probably have done something similar."
"...Excuse me?"
"But at least, even if it meant earning a little less money, I wouldn't have used children."
"That is a thought befitting a priest."
"What are you talking about? I'm the same as everyone else. What matters is the people beside me; I don't care whether strangers drop dead or not. If they insist on blocking my path, I'm the type to rip their heads off instead."
I shrugged.
"But still. There are some lines I don't cross. It leaves a bad taste, doesn't it? Grinding up children alive just to maintain one building. That's not something a person should do. Isn't that right?"
"...That is hypocrisy."
"Hypocrisy or whatever, that's what I think. You people actually committed that deed."
"When managing the entire Clock Tower, if we did not use slaves, it required several times more money. With a limited budget, it was impossible..."
"Then you should have just torn it down."
"As I said before, Paramer's tradition..."
"Grinding up children alive to preserve some measly tradition... You shouldn't go around calling yourselves Imperial citizens. It's something only uncivilized primitives would do. How are you any different from devil worshipers making human sacrifices? Just admit it. Admit that you did something no human should do."
Fer Bach let out a sigh. Silence settled.
What broke the stillness was a small laugh.
Fer Bach's shoulders shook. He ran a hand lightly down his face. When his face emerged again, his expression had changed.
A face that looked relieved, as if he had heard the words he had wanted.
"...Everything you say is correct."
"Now you say so?"
"I simply wanted to ask. There was no one left here with whom I could hold a proper conversation. Perhaps I was trying to lessen my guilt. What has become of Paramer? What has become of the outside world?"
"They're all dead. It's been over ten years since that incident. Do you think anyone could still be alive?"
"...Are we dead?"
"You'll die soon."
"What happens when we die? Is that the end?"
"You should pray to your god about that."
"...May I not pray to Naga?"
"Our goddess is too pretty and noble to be shown to trash like you."
-Z-Zahard... hahh... l-love...
Fer Bach rose to his feet. From the corpse of Ian Pamel, dead with a hole through his chest, he took something out and held it.
A book. A single book. Fer Bach turned his head toward me.
"This is a diary written by my ancestor Bach. It is not the false version that was shown to the monster, but the real diary that had been buried in a time capsule. It is something I also learned of only late. I recovered what the monster had been holding here."
Flora cut into the conversation.
"The diary is split into two volumes? Why?"
"The false version is the diary Bach often let the monster see him writing, in case he was ever found out. Hide the real thing behind the fake. It was something his wife, 'Aris', had made him do, as she was the one who had him write the diary. A clever person. But... the fake was not perfect either. Unlike Aris, Bach was a very emotional person."
Bach's diary. I took it. The final letter, in which all the truth was written, was inside it as well.
{Hello... I'm not well. Do you remember me? I'm asking if you remember me. I am ###. The monster who loved you.}
{Why did you say you loved me? You never loved me in the first place. Was it really just that you meant to use me?}
{It's cruel. That I can't leave you even knowing I was deceived. You were all in it together. From beginning to end... you were playing with me.}
{If only I had lived my whole life as a monster, if only I had never met you, I wouldn't have been broken like this.}
{I want to erase time. ###. But I probably can't erase it. I hate you. But I love you. I want to eat you. I'm thirsty.}
{I don't want to eat people. Because you told me not to. But... but then what am I supposed to do?}
{My thoughts tangle. They won't stop. I'm hungry. I'm hungry, ###.}
{Give me... give me an order... Thinking on my own is too hard. I'm tired. I want to close my eyes like this.}
{###...###...###...}
{#..##...I... I...}
{To the Clock Tower...}
{To the place where we... spent time together...}
{...Because you.}
{Because you are there.}
The contents of the letter cut off. It was a story I already knew. Fer Bach smiled weakly.
"Perhaps a demonic nature is a kind of evil passed down through our family line."
"Stop making excuses about family history or whatever, and quietly spill everything before you go."
"Understood. Priest. But may I ask your name...?"
"You don't need to know, do you?"
"...That is also true."
Flora cut in once more.
"What exactly happened here?"
"It began with a monster. In the days when the name Bach was not a surname but simply a name. When a man called Bach served the young lady of a prosperous merchant company... It is a story that began hundreds of years ago."
Fer Bach took the diary back. He flipped it open to a middle section with a tap.
"This is my family's history, which I only learned about late myself. The contents are dreadful, so brace yourself before reading. Bach couldn't hide his emotions even in the false diary. The real one is worse. It was full of passages so brutally candid that even I, his descendant, found them hard to read."