Misanthropy (1)
Dawn, with the moon hanging at its zenith. A dark figure scaled the high wall in one fluid sweep.
Leisurely clearing the pointed iron spikes, he dropped soundlessly to the ground and hurried into the shadows of the moonlight.
In the deep darkness, only the glint of his eyes and the blood-soaked sleeve of his robe gave off any light.
He eased open a creaking door and slipped inside, then pulled a gleaming cross from within his clothes and hung it around his neck. Next came a pair of spectacles.
Only then did he look like an ordinary priest.
The priest checked the bloodstained part of his sleeve and pinched the fabric shut in his fist to hide it.
"Good evening, Father. Are you just returning?"
"Yes, that's right."
"Father, it seems you forgot to turn off the light in your room."
"Did I? Thank you."
Straiding confidently across the chapel, the priest acknowledged the greetings of the curates and nuns as he made his way toward his room.
At the end of the corridor, a bright light was leaking through the gap beneath his old door.
"······."
As he remembered it, he had definitely turned the light off before leaving.
Mindful of his own footsteps, the priest tried to catch any hint of movement within, but could detect no sign of anyone. As quietly as he could, he slid his key into the lock.
He slipped the hidden blade from his sleeve between his fingers and flung the door wide open—
"Enjoy the hunt?"
"······."
At the calm voice drifting from within, the priest felt all the tension drain out of him at once.
A figure clad head to toe in black, hood drawn low, was lounging comfortably on the bed.
Someone he knew well—a colleague from the same line of work.
The priest glanced nervously up and down the corridor in case anyone was watching, then stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
"You have quite a talent for startling people."
"Startled you? That wasn't the intent."
Of course it wasn't.
If this person had wanted to startle him, the light would have been off and he would have been coiled silently in the dark, a blade pressed to his throat the instant the door swung open.
The priest fished an apple out of a sack sitting in the corner of the room and tossed it onto the bed.
Catching it with a flick of his jaw, the figure bit into the apple with a crunch, and for a brief moment the short green hair beneath the hood could be seen swaying.
"When on earth did you arrive? Knocking on the front door would have been far more courteous."
"I imitated you."
"I am an ordinary priest."
"Right. Ordinary as an ordinary priest can be. One who wanders about carelessly getting blood on his clothes."
"······."
Admitting that this was someone he could never hide anything from, the priest finally released the sleeve he'd been clutching so tightly.
When the blood-soaked hem came into view, a smile of satisfaction tugged at the corner of the apple-munching mouth.
"What business brings you here?"
"Answer my question first."
"What question?"
"I asked whether the hunt was enjoyable."
"Ah······."
The hunt.
In this particular case, the word choice had not been especially apt. It had been a simple job—nothing more than quietly driving a blade into the nape of a wheezing old man who could have dropped dead at any moment.
"You bagged quite the big game. Was it a commission?"
"······."
"Or did he simply prove an inconvenience to you personally?"
"Yes. That's right."
Though this particular prey had been the leader of a rather sizable pack. Which meant the fallout from the hunt would be considerable as well.
It was entirely possible that the death god before him was the fallout.
Wound tight with tension, the priest took a half step back. If it came to a fight, he had no chance of winning whatsoever. But he could at least make the attempt.
"Rest easy. I'm not here to take you in."
"······."
"On second thought—don't rest easy. It's checkmate either way, boy."
"Excuse me?"
"You've strangled yourself with your own two hands. That's the message I came to deliver. I have no intention of sticking my head any further into your affairs, so don't come looking for me asking for help."
"······."
Wasn't planning to ask anyway.
The priest watched the dark figure stretch and rise from the bed with an expression of sheer disbelief.
Just then came a heavy pounding on the door. The priest flicked a glance toward it, and when his eyes returned, the dark figure had already vanished from the bed. Only the window—which had been shut fast until a moment ago—stood open, letting the cold night air pour in.
The priest sighed, closed the window, and opened the door. That man was always disappearing like this, without a sound or a trace.
"Father, I thought you might be about to sleep, so I came to tidy your bedding."
"Thank you. Please, come in."
After letting the young nun into the room, the priest drew out a chair and sat, sinking briefly into troubled thought.
I strangled myself with my own hands? Impossible. Everything is under my control. All of it—every piece—is part of a perfect plan to ward off the disaster creeping steadily closer.
He repeated the words to himself, then clicked his tongue. Damn it. A mistake?
It rankled. The person he'd just met appeared perhaps once in a decade—an assassin whispered to be among the finest in the world, one who had carved through the necks of countless corrupt officials. If someone like that had gone out of their way to deliver a warning and then vanished into thin air, his plan hadn't merely gone askew. He had, without question, poked a hornet's nest.
Fidgeting with his bloodied sleeve, the priest cast about for a way to release this festering irritation. As his thoughts rolled this way and that, his gaze landed on the nun diligently working to smooth the blankets on the bed.
"Sister."
"Yes?"
"Pass word to the Inquisitors. Tell them there's a woman among the staff at Lyuba Tavern hiding a demon child."
"A-a demon child?"
"Yes. Perhaps even a demon harboring dangerous, subversive beliefs."
"Oh, that's terrible! I'll inform the Inquisitors at once!"
The nun huffed out an indignant breath and sprinted from the room, burning with righteous fury.
That ought to be enough for a little stress relief. The priest lay down on the bed with a satisfied smile. The neatly smoothed blankets crumpled in an instant.
"Ah! It's the ninja priest!!!"
Act like we've never met, my ass. You insufferable little bastard.
My head, already aching with exhaustion, grew dizzy all over again.
"What? You there! What's your name?"
Apparently they'd heard my shout. The Inquisitors were already leveling their gazes at me like spears and striding closer.
Things were going spectacularly wrong.
"Ahahaha. This child is, well, a little mentally unwell."
"What's that supposed to mean, Boss?"
"Run quietly out the back door······."
The Master stepped in front of me and murmured under his breath. He was apparently trying to buy me time.
Frankly, being written off as a lunatic stung more than anything, but given the circumstances, I decided to let it slide.
Scooping up Tia—still rolling her bleary, half-asleep eyes—I hurried toward the back door.
"Ah······"
Just then, the back door swung open, and men in similar leather garb appeared on the other side. Their bulk was the sort that demanded a bowed head just to pass, and I was, quite simply, overwhelmed.
More Inquisitors······. My escape route was sealed.
"You. What's your name?"
"······."
"I asked your name."
At some point the Inquisitors had circled around me like a threat. The Master, Irina, and Sasha could only watch anxiously from behind.
I let out a long sigh and slowly surveyed the faces of these so-called Inquisitors. Looking them over properly, every last one of them was remarkably young. I'd assumed Inquisitors would be elites who had spent long years in theological study, but no—these were about as intimidating as a neighborhood watch made up of strays. It seemed the author of this novel had held some rather ugly prejudices about the Inquisition.
I set Tia down and clasped my hands tightly together.
"What is your business here?"
"As we said. We received a report that a woman named Yulia is hiding a demon child. So state your name, and quickly—wench."
"Wench······."
This bastard was poking at my nerves, ever so subtly. It's not "wench," you pig-headed oaf, it's barmaid. Every fiber of me wanted to grab this irritating redheaded freckled girl by the hair and give it a good yank, but I still retained enough rationality to hold back. And more than anything, I knew that unless I settled this quickly, the whole tavern would suffer for it.
"I'm Yulia."
"······!"
There were a hundred ways they could have found out my name anyway, so I might as well say it outright. Any longer and I was liable to lose what little composure my sleep deprivation had left me, and plant my fist square on the crown of that freckled head that so desperately needed it.
"Then what about this child?"
"She's a demon. So what? What of it?"
"Mweh?"
I yanked Tia's hat straight off, and the black horns sprang into view. Struggling would only have gotten her hat torn off the hard way, so I figured I might as well do it myself.
Startled, Tia tried to cover her horns with her own hands. Apparently she remembered being told never to show them to anyone.
I took her hands and gently moved them away.
"Th-those are horns?"
"Tia was a demon this whole time? What in the······?"
Murmurs rippled through the onlookers. The eyes that had watched me with worry mere moments before were now all drowned in shock and fear.
That alone told me plenty about what demons meant to these people. The war had ended fifty years ago, but the wounds those demons had raked across the world were still vivid.
Yes—to most people, demons were beings that deserved nothing but hatred.
"Ha. And you hid her all this time. Hand her over. Now."
"Why should I?"
"Demons cannot be trusted. Therefore I will carry out the heresy interrogation. Cooperate, or we take you along with her. So understand that clearly."
"······."
Oh, how magnanimous. Ridiculous. What could the heresy interrogation of these snot-nosed children possibly amount to? I should count myself lucky they weren't running witch trials—walk barefoot over a red-hot iron plate, die innocent, survive guilty, that sort of farce.
"Heresy interrogation? Look at her. She's this small. What heresy could she possibly have committed?"
"That we cannot know. Some demons are said to use illusions. There's no proving she's truly a child."
"You've decided to pin it on her no matter what, haven't you? As far as I know, demons have legal rights too. Do you really think you can just drag her off like this?"
"If she wants her rights recognized here, she can show a citizen card."
"······."
My mouth snapped shut. That damned citizen card. Whether in novels or in reality, the hatred toward the undocumented was utterly nauseating.
"You lot. You're not actually church-licensed Inquisitors, are you?"
"We are, so cut the nonsense, wench."
"······."
The freckled girl—a face that looked like it was built for exactly two beef patties—drew a single sheet of paper from her coat and held it up. The luxurious ornamentation, with Hangul inscribed in formal archaic script, was so surreal I had to fight back laughter.
I couldn't read the whole document, but the moment I confirmed three words—Holy See, Heresy Interrogation, Authorization—I had to let my eyes drift out of focus. They hurt so badly I thought they might fall right out of my skull.
"Need any further explanation?"
"······."
The freckled girl held out her hand, palm up, as if demanding an object. And that hand was reaching, unmistakably, toward mine—the one clasped tightly around Tia's.
These people were, without a doubt, nothing more than thugs. The problem was that these thugs had the Church at their back and were swinging the hammer in its name.
Now it truly was a dead end.
The hand holding Tia's had gone damp with sweat.
How did it come to this······. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, the moment I collected my pay, I was going to borrow money from Irina and leave this place behind.
So why—why of all days—did it have to fall apart today?
Chewing my lip raw, I looked down at Tia. Confused, her eyes darted between me and the Inquisitors, and in them sat a flicker of fear. She couldn't have understood any of it—the heresy interrogation, the church authorization, none of it—but instinctively, she had sensed that something was going terribly wrong.
Catching Tia's gaze, I slowly, gently stroked her head. Between the unruly strands of hair, my fingers caught on something hard and sharp. It seemed bigger again than it had been yesterday.
Sensing my unease, Tia's face began to drain white. She soon looked ready to cry, shaking her head back and forth in small, desperate denial.
But I said nothing. I simply kept stroking her hair, over and over.
My decision was made.