Conciliation
As soon as the sword left my hand, Jing swept my legs and sent me crashing to the ground. Before I could even recover from the impact, he pinned me down from behind. The price for the giant Orc's sudden outburst was steep. My jaw, which had slammed into the ground as I fell, hurt like hell.
"You, what the hell do you think you're—!"
Jing, who had been growling menacingly while looking back and forth between me and the sword I had thrown, slowly trailed off. Because the crack left by Sierra's Sword was slowly widening.
"Jing, inside... a person is coming out," Lia muttered blankly.
It was just as she said. The black mist peeled away like a lifting veil, revealing a human figure inside. He was curled into a tight ball, shivering violently—a truly pathetic sight.
With the priest from the original novel finally making his appearance, I had to fight to keep the corners of my mouth from twitching upward. Smiling while watching someone writhe in agony like a living corpse would have been more than enough to arouse suspicion.
"P-please, spare me. Save me, save me."
He could only repeat those pleas, unable to even lift his head properly. Jing let go of me and approached the priest.
"Hey, are you alright?"
"P-please, save me."
Even when Jing spoke to him, the priest remained completely out of it. Having no choice, Jing set his sword down and gently grabbed the priest's shoulders.
"Aaaaargh!"
In that instant, the thin priest violently slapped Jing's arm away. It was hard to believe such strength could come from such a frail, small body. Of course, he was pinned down again in the blink of an eye anyway.
"Priest, calm down. No one here is going to hurt you," Lia said, slightly miffed that Jing had been attacked while trying to help.
But the priest continued to struggle as if he couldn't hear a single word. Letting out a low grunt, Jing finally raised his fist.
Thwack!
"Ack...!"
With a clean, solid impact, the priest collapsed, clutching his solar plexus.
"Can you hear me a bit better now?"
It was a blow heavy enough to knock someone conscious and then immediately back out again. Yet, Jing asked with an air of genuine concern for the priest's mental state.
"Ugh... what in the world..."
But the shock therapy was highly effective. Something other than a plea for his life finally spilled from his lips. The priest turned his head to look around, though he didn't seem to actually register his surroundings.
"You're safe now, so ease your mind," Jing said.
At Jing's words, the priest stopped shaking his head convulsively and focused his eyes on him. The priest's face contorted. It looked like he was about to cry, yet the corners of his mouth were clearly turned up in a smile.
"Th-thank you. Thank you for saving me," he whispered to the very man who had just punched him in the solar plexus.
"Good. I'm glad you've come to your senses. It might be difficult, but you must answer my questions carefully from now on," Jing said with a look of pity.
I couldn't shake the feeling that he was starting to take after Ratel a bit too much, but I simply watched the scene unfold. Jing picked up Sierra's Sword from the ground. Even after spitting out one person, the sword no longer thrashed about trying to consume anyone. Ratel must have been quite a satisfying meal.
"You know exactly what this is, don't you?"
The priest, who had barely regained his composure, gasped and shrank back as Jing thrust Sierra's Sword toward his face.
"Th-that is the holy relic of Sierra the Great. I know nothing else besides that!"
"That priest named Blat seemed to care an awful lot about the Orcs living here."
"Living here?"
Only then did the skinny priest look around. Discovering the Orcs strewn about like discarded rags, he gasped and pressed his hands against the ground.
"Hieee!"
When he spotted me standing still and looking down at him, he looked ready to faint all over again. Jing looked down at the faint-hearted priest and whispered softly.
"They aren't dead. They've only lost consciousness for a moment. So, think carefully before you answer this time. Unless you want to be left behind here alone to end up in their bellies."
He was delivering the most polite threat I had ever heard in my life. Shivering, the skinny priest clenched his fists and bowed his head.
"I merely let the holy relic have its way. If it is the will of God, there is nothing to be done."
At this staggering display of blind faith, Jing let out a sigh, as if he had expected nothing less.
"How can you be so sure that it is truly God's will, Priest?" Lia, who had been watching silently, finally spoke up. "How can you be so certain that sword is truly Sierra's holy relic?"
A faint anxiety was written on Lia's face as she pressed the priest. Already fragile, the thin priest shrank back, clearly overwhelmed by Lia's cornering pressure.
"No, this is indeed Sierra's holy relic. It has to be."
"But you know as well as I do, don't you? Holy relics are supposed to be kept in the outer regions under the protection of the imperial family. Isn't it harder to believe that a sword hidden in a place like this is truly Sierra's relic? If that isn't the real relic of Sierra the Great, then you are committing a grave sin right now, Priest."
Under Lia's relentless, passionate interrogation, his expression grew increasingly troubled. Yet, a stubborn refusal to interfere with the sword of Sierra the Great still lingered within him. Then again, if he didn't possess that level of obstinacy, he wouldn't have fed humans to the sword in the first place.
There was nothing quite like fear when it came to persuading someone. And as for the fear that temple priests would dread the most...
"Squeak. If that woman is right, you will be abandoned by God."
His bloodless face turned toward me.
"You'll end up just like me. You might have been worshiping an unclean entity as your god."
He seemed less shocked by the appearance of a well-spoken Orc than by the horrifying realization that he might end up in the exact same boat as one.
"We aren't asking for much. We are simply asking you to question it. Is this truly God's will, or is it a matter involving the interference of something unclean?"
Sensing his hesitation, Lia quickly pressed her advantage. He looked back and forth between Jing, Lia, and me as we stood over him, before finally hanging his head low.
"I... I don't know much either."
It was a passive stance, revealing only enough to avoid getting himself into trouble, but that didn't matter. Once a dam cracked, it was bound to crumble completely.
"I-I haven't been at the Rimis Temple for very long. So I don't know the details. It's not something every priest in the temple is privy to, either."
"Then how does a bumb—er, a young priest like you know about it?" Jing asked, softening his choice of words as much as possible.
"Squeak. He probably wandered around the temple late at night and saw something he shouldn't have."
The thin priest looked at me in sheer astonishment. "No... how did you know that?"
"Squeak. It's obvious."
Because it was written in the book. There was no need to waste time on such questions. There were far more important things he needed to spit out.
"Squeak. Tell us something more practical instead of that useless drivel. Do you have any memories of after you were consumed by the sword?"
At my sudden question, his face turned ashen once more.
"In... inside, inside there... I was nothing."
Jing frowned at his incoherent response. "What do you mean by that? You were nothing?"
"I can only describe it as being nothing. I couldn't tell if it was dark or light, or if my eyes were open or closed. I drifted for a very long time, unable to know if my body even existed or if I was just a floating consciousness. No, I don't even know if I was drifting or simply standing still."
As he spoke, his emaciated body looked so frail it seemed as if it might shatter at any moment.
"Th-then, suddenly, there came a moment when I felt my body. No, actually, I don't know if it was my body or my consciousness. It was just that a pain like my entire being was being torn to shreds began. When I finally came to, I was trapped in that empty space again, just like in the beginning. Strangely, once the pain subsided, the terror of non-existence returned. And then, as if mocking me, the agony returned once more."
As he struggled to breathe under the weight of those memories, Lia offered him a waterskin. The priest looked up at Lia briefly, then shook his head, declining the offer. He managed to continue, looking as though he might retch at any second.
"It was... a different kind of pain than before. It felt as though I was being torn apart starting from the very edges of my body. There is no other way to describe it."
The priest blankly rubbed his fingertips together, as if checking to make sure his body was still whole. Having unburdened himself of an experience unimaginable through mere words, he seemed desperate to detach himself from those agonizing memories.
"Squeak. If you had been left in there until your body was completely torn apart, a fully formed Orc would have been born."
When I muttered this, all three pairs of eyes snapped to me. I shrugged.
"Squeak. One human per Orc. Am I wrong?"
It was a fact they all technically knew by now, yet the cave fell so silent that only the occasional whistling of the wind could be heard. The thoroughly depleted priest nodded weakly.
"...That is correct. The temple knights confirmed it. Though we only recently learned of the correlation between the two."
Watching the priest lay everything bare with a look of utter defeat, Jing spoke quietly. "Did you refrain from requesting reinforcements from elsewhere until their numbers grew this large just to keep this a secret?"
"That is likely true. If rumors spread that Orcs suddenly appeared in the middle of the mountains, it would inevitably draw attention. But the temple knights alone couldn't handle the Orcs once their numbers had grown so large."
"The number of Orcs in these mountains seemed to be around a hundred. Yet, rumors about them only started spreading recently. How is that possible?"
"The rumors only began recently because the Orcs started wandering around during the day. Since they are a bit sluggish in the daylight, some people managed to survive and escape..."
As he rambled on blankly, a sudden spark of awareness seemed to flare in his eyes. He quickly clapped a hand over his mouth. But the words had already escaped, reaching everyone's ears.
"So you preferred it when everyone died at the hands of the Orcs?" The concern on Lia's face slowly curdled into pure disgust.
"...It couldn't have been many. This mountain is exceptionally rugged compared to the others, so few people bother to cross it. At most, it's just travelers going from Lucha Village to Rimis. We usually keep an eye out around this time of year. But for some reason, we didn't receive any advance notice this year..."
"How can you even say that...!" Lia couldn't contain herself and raised her voice at him.
"Squeak. Anyone listening would think those humans only died at the hands of the Orcs." Her voice was quickly drowned out by mine, but the point was made.
"Y-you... what do you mean by that..." The skinny priest stammered, his face turning pale.
"Squeak. If it only came to light because of survivors, then the rumors would have been about Orcs wandering around during the day. Fear of the unknown is a terror shared by all living things, transcending species."
"..."
The skinny priest cast his eyes down, unable to utter a word. Jing looked down at him coldly.
"Did the temple kill the survivors? Choose your next words very carefully. Priest Blat lost his fingers because he ran his mouth."
At the mention of Priest Blat's name, I felt the skinny priest's body stiffen.
"...We had no choice. Priest Blat said that the will of the holy relic is the will of Lord Sierra. He said defying it was no different from defying Lord Sierra himself. That a few minor sacrifices were unavoidable..."
His tedious self-justification and excuses dragged on.
"Squeak. If God's will was so important to you, why did you beg for your life?"
His rambling ground to a halt.
"What?" The priest stared at me as if I were speaking gibberish.
"You screamed for someone to save you the entire time you were in the darkness. You said you didn't want to die. If you truly believed it was God's will, shouldn't you have gladly offered up your life? For that matter, did you even offer your life willingly when you were consumed in the first place? I highly doubt it."
My sarcasm seemed to trigger his memories, and his face flushed with embarrassment and panic. I felt Lia staring at my profile, but I didn't stop.
"You chose your own life over your convictions as a priest."
"N-no! That is only natural for a human being. It doesn't mean I betrayed God's will..."
"Then shouldn't you have been grieving when you realized you survived? Yet you said thank you. You said you were truly grateful to be saved."
"..."
I slowly approached the speechless priest. There was only one way left for him to remain a devout priest.
"Do you still believe that is Sierra's Sword?"
Staring up at me blankly, he slowly shook his head.
"Then, what must be done to destroy it?"
"...The power of the imperial bloodline, Manis, is required."
"And?"
"The... blood of the imperial family is required."
Behind me, I heard Jing and Lia gasp in shock.
"Where can we obtain that?"
At my quiet question, he fumbled through his priestly robes with trembling hands. What he pulled out was a small glass vial filled with a sloshing red liquid. When I held out my hand, the priest placed the vial onto my palm with a violently shaking hand.
Since I had no further business with him, I turned around without hesitation.
"Squeak. So that's how it is."
I directed my words to Jing and Lia, but there was no response. The way they stared blankly at me made it seem as though they were looking at a monster. Of course, I technically was a monster right now, but I had a feeling it wasn't because of my appearance.