The Pantheon Beneath the Stone
The stone door, carved from a single massive slab of rock, was not something a human could open by strength alone. It was meant to keep intruders out — for all practical purposes, it was just a wall of stone.
And yet Suetleug heard it, unmistakably.
The sound of the stone door grinding and shifting!
"Uuugh...!"
Johan's forearms bulged, and the enormous stone wall began to roll slowly aside. Suetleug could not close his gaping mouth.
"Good heavens — God above...!"
A miracle so great it made even a mage like Suetleug think of the divine!
Johan sweated through the effort and threw the door wide open.
"Luckily it opened. Lucky for us, I suppose."
"......"
"Lord Suetleug? Snap out of it."
"......"
Once he came to his senses, Suetleug began issuing orders at once.
"Make sure the mercenaries can't follow us in. The fewer eyes the better — we'll take only my slaves inside."
"Will that be safe? I could go in alone, if you'd prefer."
"No. That would weigh on my conscience far too heavily. My body is mine to protect. And... don't worry about secrets. These ones' mouths are... special."
Johan had already suspected that the slaves Suetleug kept were subjected to some kind of procedure. He decided to ask about it later and said quietly,
"Just how unsavory are you planning for this to be?"
"Unsavory enough that no mercenary should ever see it. In return, I swear on the name of the Ipael River that I will repay you properly."
"I've always been fond of the Ipael River."
Johan and Suetleug exchanged knowing smiles. Pagan temple or otherwise, both men lived by the same principle: if something was useful, you took it. No questions asked.
-We'll keep anyone from getting in, sir.
-Good. Whatever bastard comes... even if it's Stephan himself, let no one through.
-? I already said we'd keep them out, sir.
-...An excellent attitude, Sir Gerwolf. You are a good knight.
-Thank you, sir.
"A colonnade...!"
Johan and Suetleug passed through the passage behind the stone wall and found themselves marveling at the vast corridor spreading before their eyes. To think a structure this well-built lay hidden inside a remote mountain cliff.
Alongside the colonnade stood statues unlike anything they had ever seen. Suetleug touched each one in turn as he spoke.
"A pantheon. In the days of the Ancient Empire, people worshipped many gods. Fascinating, isn't it?"
"People can believe in whatever they like, can't they?"
"...Your reactions are so dull they're not even entertaining. In any case, it seems they hid here to offer their prayers. Look. Isn't it beautiful? This god was likely a war god."
"Or perhaps the god of some drunken sot..."
Suetleug's face twisted. Coming from Johan, the observation was starting to make the statue actually look the part.
"By the way, Lord Suetleug."
"What is it?"
"Don't you think the goblins' strange behavior might have something to do with this pagan temple?"
"It may well — but isn't it far too quiet for that? I sense no sign of human presence. Perhaps there's no connection after all."
-Grrr.
Karamap let out a low growl. In step with that growl, three figures emerged from the darkness ahead, their footsteps echoing. The fanatics, dressed in unfamiliar clerical robes, carried torches in their hands.
"Gahk!"
"In-intruders!!"
It was the fanatics, more than Johan and Suetleug, who seemed to panic. From their perspective, they had stepped out without a care in the world only to run into armed invaders.
"How in the world did you get in here?!"
Suetleug, hearing their reaction, found himself sympathizing despite everything. Honestly, had Suetleug been in their position, he would have thought the same.
A masterfully hidden secret door. Under normal circumstances, opening it would have taken days — by which point those inside would have noticed and then some.
"...I understand your shock. Attack!"
But whether or not the enemy was surprised, if the enemy was flustered, you struck. Besides, whoever lingered in a pagan pantheon like this was hardly going to be innocent.
"How dare the fallen show their faces!"
The fanatics raged and drew shortswords from their belts. Feeling a sinister power stirring in the wavering shadows, Suetleug cried out in an alarmed voice.
"Careful! These ones carry the aura of sorcery!"
The slaves Suetleug commanded lacked Johan's raw strength, but they were superb swordsmen. The instant their blades crossed with a fanatic's, they broke the man's balance and went for his vitals.
The fanatics, by contrast, seemed unremarkable at swordsmanship. Once the blades met, they couldn't respond and floundered. But as Suetleug had said, they carried the aura of sorcery.
With a dull thunk, a slave's blade sheared through a fanatic's neck — and the man did not fall. A shadow raced along the fanatic's body in an instant, coiling around the severed wound and binding it shut so tightly that no blood could escape.
Bloodshot veins flared in the fanatic's eyes, and his face darkened.
"I will not d—"
While the slave hesitated, caught off guard, Johan's mace came flying in and sent the fanatic's head flying clean off his shoulders.
"......"
"Doesn't he come back to life?! No, apparently not. Then die!"
"Wait—!"
Johan crushed the skull of another frozen fanatic just as thoroughly. Whatever magic was at work, it let them fight through wounds as serious as a severed neck — so taking off the head entirely was the sure cure.
"They're not trolls, you know. No need to go that far!"
"Oh, they aren't? You could have said so earlier."
"■■■! ■■!"
Once the fanatics' throats were firmly cut, goblins appeared at the far end of the corridor. Clad in metal armor and wielding spears, they cut a fairly convincing figure.
So there was a connection after all.
-Grrr!
Johan raised his mace — the one steeped in goblin blood over the course of this very purge. The goblins, sensing its ominous aura, flinched.
"Come."
With that word, Johan became an avatar of violence and crashed into the goblins.
How in the world did the purge force get in?!
The sorcerer had finished preparing his escape, his face a mask of confusion.
Every fanatic in this hidden temple was thrown into disarray — and that included their leader, the sorcerer himself. A sudden ambush, a chaotic melee... anyone would have braced for the worst. The intruders were few, but there had been no way of knowing how few.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"We must get out of here."
"B-but did you not say Lord Nahra would protect this place?"
Nahra, the god of shadow and blood. One of the gods dating back to the Ancient Empire, he was now forbidden in nearly every land. The Church disliked rival deities enough as it was, and Nahra's doctrines were excessively cruel and barbaric on top of it.
"He IS protecting us!"
"Protecting us? Then how did the purge force get in here?!"
"The gods are capricious at times. Shut up and follow me!"
The sorcerer glared at Jirbo with irritation. If it weren't for the man's pedigree, he'd have cut him loose long ago. But of everyone in this temple, this Jirbo was the most useful.
An illegitimate son of House Abner, no less!
Illegitimate sons were treated worse than the second sons beneath them. Stoking the resentment of a man filled with grievance and easing him into a cult had not been difficult.
What Jirbo himself possessed was worthless — but his value lay in the access he gave to other nobles. He couldn't be discarded yet.
"Even if the purge force follows us, they won't make it in here. I've unleashed the shadow beasts. That too is a kind of revelation granted by Lord Nahra. Move!"
"Y-yes, my lord."
Jirbo made ready to follow the sorcerer, though his expression was sour.
There will be purge troopers waiting outside too...
When the sorcerer had been recruiting him, it had all sounded tempting — but now that things had come to this, the sorcerer suddenly looked far less trustworthy. What if he stepped outside and caught a stray arrow from some blind fool?
It might be better to reveal his identity and simply surrender.
Crack!
"!"
Whether he sensed the thought or not, the sorcerer lashed out with his whip. A black whip that writhed as if it were alive. Wherever it passed, the ground blackened and festered.
"Didn't I tell you to move?"
"I said I'd — I said I'd come!"
"And yet here you stand."
With a low growl, Johan stepped through the doorway. Painted head to toe in the blood of his enemies, twin eyes burning with a ferocious fire.
Having butchered goblins at will and followed Karamap's lead toward the sorcerer's hidden chamber, Johan came face to face with a monster unlike anything he had ever seen in his life.
A four-legged beast that looked as if it had been doused in pitch-black shadow!
Yet looking closer, its form resembled a goblin in places. He couldn't tell what had been done to it, but one glance was enough to feel the wickedness radiating from it.
"Give Johan the silver sword!"
Suetleug barked sharply. A slave hurriedly drew a sword and hurled it over — a blade plated with silver.
For the wicked, silver was always the answer.
Johan caught the sword and swung it savagely, slicing through the creature's torso.
Scccchhh!
The blood that poured from its body hissed with a foul sound and scorched the ground. Johan clicked his tongue at the silver sword's durability, which was already creaking.
"What kind of flimsy weapon is this...!"
"What are you on about?! That's plenty sturdy! What are you waiting for — help Johan!"
"Stay back! Better I fight it alone."
Fighting a monster alongside people whose swordplay he had never drilled against was, if anything, a hindrance.
Can I bludgeon it to death with something else? Grabbing and tearing it feels a bit much...
The shadow beast's greatest advantage was that its nature was unknowable. Whether beating it would work, whether touching it was even safe...
That uncertainty was what stayed Johan's charge.
Perhaps sensing his hesitation, the creature grew fiercer by the moment. At the sight, Johan made his decision.
I'll use the Seal Retriever.
Against an unknown opponent, the attack he trusted most was, as ever, the Seal Retriever.
Suetleug was hardly someone he couldn't trust, and no one he feared would expose him. Above all, the two of them now held far too many of each other's secrets.
Facing the monster as it whipped its long forelegs like a lash, Johan flung the silver sword at it with all his might.
"What are you—?!"
Thud!
In time with the monster's scream, Johan charged forward. A longsword had somehow already appeared in his hand — the famed blade of the Ancient Empire, the Seal Retriever.
Once, twice, three times—
Every time the blade flashed, the monster's torso convulsed and vomited blood. The silver sword buried in its body gleamed brighter still, dealing the beast further harm.
Thump!
Johan spat. He could see the Seal Retriever shedding the monster's filthy blood as if repelling it, coming clean.
Suetleug spoke.
"...I swear, on the name of the Ipael River, to remain silent about what I have just seen."
"There's no need for oaths, my lord. I believe you."
"......"
At Johan's words, Suetleug nearly lost his composure, forgetting his age entirely. This young knight had a gift for moving people in the strangest of moments.
He had no idea what kind of sword that blade was, but the fact that Johan had never once drawn it until now surely meant there was a story behind it.
And yet he'd brought it out without a flicker of hesitation...
"So what exactly is this thing for, then?"
"I don't know everything just because I'm me. He's done something to goblins, it seems... but hurry! We must not let the sorcerer escape."
"■■..."
The moment the sorcerer laid eyes on Johan, he began chanting some strange incantation. In that instant, Johan's Seal Retriever flashed — and took the sorcerer's head.
The shadows and spells that had been shielding the sorcerer's body were torn away in a single stroke, sending him to his death.
"Well done!"
Suetleug marveled. There was never anything to gain from a long conversation with a sorcerer — though every time he met one, he somehow ended up hearing those words anyway.
Those who wielded magic dealt in the deepest secrets and mysteries. The voice of one who knew the truths of the world could not help but carry more weight than any common man's.
And Johan had simply lopped his head off, as if he couldn't care less. A decisiveness so clean it was almost exhilarating.
"I — I am the son of Count Abner! I demand a lawful trial. Touch me, and House Abner will never forgive you!"
"?!"
"...Kill him."
Suetleug gave the order without a moment's hesitation. At once, the slaves who had followed behind swung their swords. In the blink of an eye, the noble's bastard son collapsed into a lump of bleeding flesh.
"Fine, the sorcerer, I understand — but why that one?"
"Because he saw your sword."