The Curse of the Heathen Shrine
It was an age overrun with superstition and rumor. People wanted something to believe in, something to lean on — and a young count who appeared like a comet in the midst of a spreading curse fit that bill perfectly.
The rumors swelled from the claim that Johan had received the Order's recognition and blessing, all the way up to whispers that he was a descendant of Saint Julianus himself.
Considering that the honorable knight Saint Julianus had lived and died a virgin, it was an utterly preposterous rumor.
Those mercenary bastards clearly never studied a lick of theology.
Then again, the thought of mercenaries studying theology would have been the funnier sight...
Though the rumor was inflating and spreading, Johan saw no reason to stop it. It was ridiculous, yes — but it was useful.
The fact of the matter was that an outsider seizing command from a mercenary company's captain was, on its face, a precarious thing.
It wasn't a question of noble birth or rank. No mercenaries in history had ever stood by quietly while an outsider took command.
Yet thanks to this rumor, no trouble arose at all. The centurions, apparently starting to believe it themselves, began bowing and scraping without being asked.
"...My lord Count. Might you have brought holy water with you?"
The funniest moment of all came when a priest traveling with the mercenaries sought him out in secret and asked, in complete earnestness.
Johan bit his lip hard before he could answer.
"No. I merely prepared clean water. If there is a miracle in it, is that not because God granted it?"
"Ohhh... of course...! Then that would be the truest holy water of all!"
"Er... yes... I suppose you could put it that way."
"Just as I thought!"
Watching the priest hurry away, giddy as though he'd received his answer, Johan had no choice but to click his tongue.
"My lord Count."
"How many times have I told you — if you're neither sick nor cursed, you have no reason to grab my hand?"
"N-no, that's not it."
The centurion wore an embarrassed expression.
The mercenaries of centurion or decurion rank had been using their positions to press close to Johan.
Unlike merely drinking the water — wouldn't holding his hand directly work even better?
"I have something to report about the curse."
"Oh. Go on."
Johan accepted readily. The soldiers were recovering little by little, and he had already resolved to look into the curse's origins.
A man of centurion rank would have been privy to the company's large and small affairs. If the captain was hiding something, he might well be able to tell Johan about it.
"There is a reason why we have all recovered, but those led by the captain himself have not."
"And what is that reason?"
"Because over their lifetimes they have piled up sins far too great to be washed away by your prayers, my lord."
"......"
Johan found himself at a loss for words. But the centurion continued in a voice of dead seriousness.
"If we are to stop the curse from spreading any further, we must kill the captain, burn the body, and bury the remains."
"!"
Within a mercenary company, a captain's authority was absolute. No one ever laid a hand on it, and the captain in turn defended his own authority without compromise.
For the centurions to gather like this and speak of killing him was an absurdity beyond all reason.
Yet fear of curses and superstition sometimes made the absurd possible. Judging by the centurion's expression, he had already settled matters with the others.
Dearsam would weep tears of blood if he knew.
Rebellion inside the company. For a captain, the greatest humiliation imaginable.
"If you are reluctant to dirty your own hands, my lord, we will step forward ourselves. If you would simply wait outside the camp..."
"Calm yourself. We don't even know what manner of curse this is yet. Killing can wait — it won't be too late later."
Johan reined the centurion in. If the man ran wild at this point, it would cause Johan trouble too.
Should a rumor somehow spread that Johan had murdered a mercenary captain and seized his company, that would be a nuisance indeed. Keeping the captain alive and using him was far more convenient.
"...Yes. My apologies."
They must want him dead very badly indeed.
Johan coaxed the centurion into pouring out everything that had happened, and as he listened, his expression grew steadily stranger.
...Come to think of it, I can see why they'd believe they were cursed.
They had looted temples, smashed holy icons, killed those who resisted, seized their property...
Honestly, Johan could understand why the mercenaries were so sensitive about curses. Everything they'd done was precisely the sort of thing that invited them.
Wait. Didn't the envoys catch the curse too?
If the curse was punishment for what they'd done, there was no way the envoys could have escaped it. Johan decided to check on the envoys first.
"I... I'm sorry, my lord."
"It's fine. Lie down."
Dark curses rippled across the envoys' skin. It was little wonder the mercenaries were terrified.
Thr-r-rum—
The numerological talisman vibrated like mad — and Johan hadn't even drawn near the envoys.
He turned his head. Behind the tent where the envoys were staying stood a golden statuette he had never seen before. It might have been a holy icon, but its shape was unmistakably different — obscene, lewd, grotesque.
What the devil. A heathen idol?
"Where did this come from?"
"We received it from the mercenaries, my lord. As an offering for you..."
Johan snorted. Whether the envoys had truly meant to give it to him, or had only intended to pocket it for themselves, was impossible to know. The latter seemed far more likely.
After all, bribing an envoy wouldn't have cost the mercenaries a thing.
As he drew close to the idol, the talisman vibrated harder still. Even to Johan's own eyes, curse pooled thick within it — coiled and ready to gush out and defile anyone the moment it got the chance.
"?"
Even when he cautiously reached out, the curse did not emerge. Apparently something specific had to be done to catch it.
"Dearsam."
Johan went to find the captain, still bedridden. The heathen idol hung from his hand.
"Where did this come from?"
"!"
Dearsam gasped aloud. He had never imagined Johan would come carrying that thing.
"One of my men looted it from..."
"Ah-ah."
Johan raised his sword and tapped it lightly against Dearsam's body. An unmistakable threat.
They were inside the company's own camp, and yet with a blade pressed to their captain's flesh, no one had stepped forward. Dearsam was appalled.
"Wh-what is the meaning of this, my lord Count?"
"Checking how well my sword cuts."
"However exalted your station, you cannot do this. If I so much as call for men right now..."
Dearsam's eyes went wide mid-sentence. A single fact had just crystallized in his mind.
"...Those dirty, dog-hearted bastards betrayed me?!"
"Don't anger yourself too much. It's bad for your health. The curse must have frightened you."
"You curse-deserving wretches! May every curse of heaven above and earth below..."
"Cursing them like that won't accomplish much, so save your breath and make a choice instead. Tell the truth and you live. If the curse lifts and your body recovers, you can lead your company again. But keep spouting nonsense, and I'll have no choice but to test just how well this sword cuts on your throat. Don't try my patience."
"......"
Dearsam broke into a cold sweat, then finally opened his mouth.
"...Keep this secret."
"Of course. If that's truly how you want to die..."
Johan raised the sword. Dearsam shouted desperately.
"I'll talk! I'll talk! My lord Count, I beg your mercy!"
"Good. Things would've been so much easier if you'd started here."
Dearsam poured out the whole story in a rush.
The trouble had begun during their gleeful pillaging across the territory, when they'd discovered a suspicious temple beneath a village.
The Order strictly forbade the looting of such temples and encouraged proper, sanctioned expeditions through official channels — but mercenaries were never going to observe such niceties.
Above all, ruins from the age of the Ancient Empire glittered with treasures beyond all reckoning. Watching riches that could turn a man's entire life around be destroyed and burned by the Order's hands was something no mercenary could bear to see.
The company's captains had entered the temple accompanied only by tight-lipped slaves, swept every last treasure out with them —
"And then this is what followed?"
"...Yes."
After that, the men had begun collapsing one by one. Everyone who had set foot in the temple, without exception.
It went without saying that they couldn't confess to the Order or its priests. One unlucky word and they could be excommunicated — who in their right mind would own up to something like that?
"...The treasures will have to be recovered and returned."
"And who is going to do that?"
"Don't worry. I'll handle it personally."
"...?!"
Dearsam was dumbfounded. It had never even crossed his mind.
The knight meant to walk into a cursed heathen temple himself?
He couldn't decide whether this man was simply too valiant to know fear, or simply hadn't thought it through.
"What, do you object? Still attached to the treasure?"
"N-no, my lord! If you would help us, I will never forget this debt as long as I live. I swear it before God Himself."
"Naturally you will. Once the curse is lifted, I'll be expecting your loyalty."
Dearsam nodded again and again. If this knight lifted the curse, he would accept even becoming Johan's slave in return. That was how agonizing it was.
"Tell me the temple's location, and the names of everyone who took part."
"Yes, my lord..."
Restoring the mercenary captains was one thing, but more than anything else, the words ruins of the Ancient Empire had ignited Johan's interest.
Treasures of the Ancient Empire!
Certainly, the mercenaries claimed to have swept the place clean — but mercenaries had no eye for such things. They were strangers to magic besides. The odds that they had missed something were very good indeed.
Johan set out with his guards and the picked elite of the Gorgalle company, heading for the camp of another mercenary band camped nearby.
Before Johan could even shout, the Gorgalle mercenaries were bellowing at the top of their lungs.
"You graceless bastards, blind as you are! If you don't clear the way this instant, His Lordship will turn around and leave! If you want your curse lifted, get on your knees — now!"
Thud-thud—
The rumor had evidently spread even this far; the mercenaries dropped to their knees in a panic. The curse must have frightened them badly indeed.
Johan repeated what he had done at the Gorgalle camp. Cleaned the filth, separated the sick from the healthy, treated them...
The rumor had spread so thoroughly that he didn't even need to seize the captain's sword and seal. Without any of that, his word alone carried monstrous authority.
"All done."
After carefully disguising the wagon loaded with treasure, Johan headed for the temple entrance with his guards. A hidden passage lay beneath the ruined village.
"By the way, my lord."
"?"
"What if the curse doesn't lift even after we return all this?"
Goidun asked, wringing his hands with worry. Johan answered simply.
"Then I suppose we'll have to kill every last cursed bastard."
"Just as I thought..."
Goidun nodded solemnly. It had been meant as a joke, but the man took it with such perfect earnestness that Johan was thrown off balance for a moment.
Well... we might actually have to kill them all.
They couldn't sit around waiting forever for the curse to lift. Time waited for no one.
"Raise the torches."
"Yes, my lord. It's... it's eerie down here."
The place the mercenaries had mistaken for a heathen temple appeared to be a burial crypt of the Ancient Empire. Exquisitely crafted narrow passages tangled together in a bewildering maze, lined rank upon rank with skulls and coffins.
But finding the way was not difficult. Johan closed his eyes and concentrated on the flow of magic. The mysticism coursing through the crypt, like the movement of air itself, was all streaming toward a single point.
"M-my lord! M-my lord!"
"?"
"A m-monster! It's a monster!"
One of the mercenaries screamed, sword drawn. But Johan saw nothing. In that instant he moved fast.
Crack!
Johan seized the man and slapped him hard across the face, then bellowed like a wild beast.
"Snap out of it!"
"Ah... ah... aahh."
Whether from the violence or the force behind his voice, the mercenary's clouded eyes cleared to their proper color. Only then did he look around and speak.
"Where did the monster go?"
"You were cursed. What were you thinking just now?"
"...W-well. I was thinking that if there happened to be any decent treasure lying around, I might slip a piece or two into my pocket..."
"I see. No one so much as thinks a greedy thought from here on."
That this man alone had been taken, unlike the others, made it clear: unholy greed was the cause. At Johan's words, the mercenaries nodded, pale with terror.
Even so, a few more fell to the curse afterward, and each time Johan slapped them back to their senses. Thanks to that, the mercenaries gradually recovered their nerve.
"Is that all it takes?"
"My face hurts like hell, but..."
Following the flow of the current, they came upon a vast hall. The mystic force radiating from the heathen idol surged and streamed toward an empty space — a pull like magnets drawing one another close.
Johan carried the idol over himself and set it back in its empty place. Then he returned the other treasures, one by one, in their proper positions.
When all the work was finished, Johan gave the heathen idol a small, courteous nod. It was a matter of customary politeness — something he would never have done as a believer of the Order, but a man with no piety whatsoever could afford the gesture.