Chapter 76: Idol(1)
Chapter 76: Idol(1)
Lina’s party watched as the village chiefs entered the shrine.
They needed to decide whether to storm in now or wait a little longer.
“What’s there to think about? Let’s just go in and kill them all.”
Natasha said something terrifying in her cute voice. She was always so quick to suggest killing someone. It was scary.
Then again, if what those bastards were doing was what we suspected, they deserved to die anyway.
Times like this, I’m glad this is another world.
If this were the modern world, we’d probably have to keep scum like this alive, citing “respect for a criminal’s human rights.”
“What should we do, Lina? Should we charge in?”
When in doubt, asking the regressor was the best option. Lina would know how to handle it.
Just then, a woman’s voice drifted intermittently from the shrine, rendering any decision-making moot.
“Aack! S-spare… spare me. I’ll do… whatever you say… Mommy… I want… why are you doing this… I’m sorry…”
The terrified, fragmented voice of a woman.
I watched in real time as Lina’s eyes turned cold. It was over. There was no way those chief bastards were getting out of this alive.
“We’re going in now.”
At Lina’s words, the entire party nodded.
Lina took the lead, smashing through the shrine door. Natasha, Victoria, and I followed close behind.
The grandmother was taking her sweet time walking up from the rear. So carefree. She did say her knees were bad, so I guess I could understand.
“What! Who’s there? Wait. The, the heroes? What are you heroes doing here…”
“…This is, well, you see.”
The chief’s subordinates began to panic.
There was no need to hear their story.
Inside the shrine stood a bizarre statue of a goat’s head.
And in the corner, a woman who looked like a villager was trembling uncontrollably.
“Surprise inspection, you motherfuckers.”
I could see some of the bastards still darting their eyes around, trying to come up with an excuse.
The chief, however, remained calm even in this situation.
He walked to the front of his men and began to speak with an air of complete nonchalance, as if nothing was wrong.
“Outsiders are forbidden here, heroes. Please leave. And what happens here is a matter for our village, so we would appreciate it if you did not interfere.”
The shameless bastard.
Hearing his words, his subordinates also started shouting that while they were grateful for saving the village, we needed to get out.
Lina met the chief’s gaze with cold eyes and spoke.
“Natasha, could I ask you to take care of the woman over there?”
“Of course.”
“You can’t! Even if you are heroes, this is a village matter! Do not interfere any further. This woman is here of her own free will for the sake of the village.”
The woman was trembling violently. From the looks of it, she hadn’t been treated well.
She was utterly terrified, and her clothes were torn in several places.
It was obvious what had happened between her and these able-bodied men without even having to see it.
“Her own free will? In what universe does that look voluntary?”
The woman’s arms and legs were bound tightly.
Just then, Natasha moved with swift agility and brought the woman over to our side.
Lina raised her sword.
With her beautiful blonde hair and resolute face, Lina looked every bit the part of a hero.
“Hero, our village has its own circumstances. What you are doing now is not a just act for a hero to commit. I will say it again: this is our village’s affair.”
That silver tongue of his. If only I could just rip it out.
At that moment, the woman who had been a hostage cried out.
“Stop lying, you bastards! You… you tricked me. You said if I became a sacrifice… the village would be happy. But what is this? You just kept raping me.”
“That bitch is spouting nonsense!”
“Hero, it’s a misunderstanding! We never did such a thing.”
This was getting tedious.
I pulled a dagger from my coat and threw it at the chief.
I wasn’t an expert with daggers, but I was skilled enough to hit a target at this distance.
The dagger embedded itself in the chief’s chest. Without so much as a scream, the chief looked down at the dagger protruding from his chest.
“Show your true form, you monster.”
The chief let out a hollow laugh and began to transform.
Horns sprouted from his head, and his skin turned a deep green.
Is he some kind of goblin?
“Kerry, get behind me. How did you figure out what he was…?”
“Hiiik? Ch-Chief?”
“A… a monster!”
The startled men tried to flee. The monster-chief’s arms elongated, grabbing them.
Then he snapped their necks, killing them.
“Useless fools.”
Lina stared intently at the scene.
It wouldn’t have been strange for her to have butchered the chief long ago, but she remained silent.
It was as if she had questions she wanted to ask.
The chief, still looking as if he couldn’t understand, asked our party.
“How in the world did you know my true identity? I was careful not to leave any trails in front of you…”
“When we went to the dungeon, the Queen Spider wouldn’t shut up about you. So we decided to do a little digging.”
Of course, the truth was I knew the chief was strange from the start thanks to the Goddess’s Eye.
“That damned spider bitch. If she was going to die, she should have just stayed dead. Making things so troublesome.”
“So you two did know each other? What exactly was your relationship? Did you team up, have a little fling, and then break up?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Those bitches were nothing but my leftovers. I just never imagined they’d cause trouble even after death.”
I had a gut feeling that my suspicions were correct.
“…Those female spider monsters were village maidens offered as sacrifices, weren’t they? Just like this woman here.”
“You’re a sharp one.”
The village woman who had been listening to the conversation from the side began to tremble.
“Th-those spider monsters were people who were sacrificed from the village? Then my sister… does that mean my sister became a spider monster? Chief, what kind of bullshit is that… You said if I just sacrificed myself, the village would prosper. That the plague and the famine would disappear!”
“Foolish wench. Ke-ke-kek.”
At his words, the woman shuddered and fainted. Seeing this, Lina spoke.
“Natasha, please evacuate that woman and the grandmother.”
I was a little puzzled.
“Is that really necessary?”
It didn’t seem like the chief could beat Lina anyway.
“It is absolutely necessary. The chief in front of us is nothing special… but the ‘Idol’ behind him is dangerous.”
“…Idol?”
Was she talking about the statue with the goat head and human body behind the chief?
What was the big deal about an idol?
In any case, it couldn’t be anything ordinary. It was rare for Lina to be this tense.
“As expected of the hero, you know much. But as long as Bagnito protects me, not even a hero can lay a finger on me here. O, Bagnito!”
As soon as the chief shouted that strange name, a purple barrier formed around his body.
The goat-headed statue, which had seemed like a simple sculpture, began to radiate an ominous aura.
I used the Goddess’s Eye on the goat-headed statue.
[Name – Idol Bagnito]
[Summary – An idol in the process of achieving divinity through the sacrifice of village maidens. Created through the wicked sorcery of human sacrifice, it is classified as an evil god. Bagnito grants wicked blessings to its idol-worshipping followers.]
Shit.
“An idol isn’t something a mere village chief can create. Who taught you how to make it?”
“Kekek! Bagnito is with me. I have nothing to tell you.”
“Is that so?”
Lina smiled faintly. That confident face of hers was always so reassuring.
She turned her sword away from the chief, who was surrounded by the protective barrier.
Instead, Lina aimed her sword at the statue of Bagnito.
The air around Lina grew heavy.
I had felt this before. It was the same sensation as when Lina broke the barrier the White Witch had cast.
Lina closed her eyes as if to concentrate. Just then, Natasha reappeared.
“Husband, I took the grandmother to safety. Did anything happen?”
“No, Natasha. But it looks like this is about to end.”
“Kekek! What’s ending? You will all die under Bagnito’s curse.”
The chief had barely finished his sentence.
Lina’s sword swung down in a single stroke.
For a moment, the statue of Bagnito created a shield, as if to protect itself.
But in the face of Lina’s sword, the shield was useless.
It seemed to block Lina’s sword for a brief instant, but then the shield shattered.
The statue of Bagnito was cleanly split in half.
“…L-Lord Bagnito?”
At that moment, black smoke began to billow from the idol of Bagnito.
The smoke gathered like a black cloud and rushed toward our party.
The billowing black smoke passed right through us and then calmly exited the shrine.
Am I still alive? That scared the shit out of me. Fuck.
“So the real idol worshipper was someone else. This must be their doing…”
I had flinched when the black smoke rushed at me, but after it hit, it didn’t seem to do anything.
From what Lina said, it seemed the smoke had returned to its true master.
The village chief stared blankly at the broken statue of Bagnito, which was now just a simple pile of rubble.
The chief’s form was also reverting from that of a monster back to a human.
Lina asked the chief.
“Who taught you how to make the idol?”
“…”
The chief was aging rapidly before our eyes.
It was as if the life force was draining from his body with every passing second. He was going to die even if we didn’t touch him.
As he was dying, the chief left one last message.
“…I was just told how to save the village by a masked man who was passing by… I really… that’s all… I kn…ow…”
With those words, the chief died. It was a statement I couldn’t make sense of, but Lina looked as if she had gained something from it.
Looks like she has a suspect in mind.
And so, the incident at the shrine was concluded.
Lina’s party told the villagers what had happened at the shrine.
Some wept and begged for forgiveness, admitting their wrongdoing. Others shirked responsibility, claiming they had no choice or didn’t know.
But Lina did extract one promise from them.
That they would never repeat the same mistake. And that they would offer a sincere apology to the village maidens who had been offered as sacrifices.
Lina prepared to leave to continue their journey. There was no way to rest properly in a village that had become so uncomfortable anyway.
Naturally, she didn’t forget to collect the 30 gold the chief had promised. The chief must have been quite wealthy, because we easily found 30 gold when we searched his house.
There seemed to be many other expensive items, but Lina said to leave them for the villagers, so we had no choice.
My purse is getting pretty heavy now. There’s what I’ve saved since the start of the journey, and the others entrust all the lump sums they earn to me.
What should I do with this money? I’ll think about that later.
The villagers waved, seeing Lina’s party off.
“Is it really okay to leave like this? I’m worried we should have punished them more severely.”
“They must have learned something from this incident.”
Well, as long as the tears they were shedding weren’t just an act, that was probably true. I looked back at the people waving at the village entrance.
She was there, too.
The most beautiful woman in the village, with whom I had enjoyed a steamy affair.
Is that man next to her her husband?
She was in her husband’s arms, waving at us.
Please take good care of my child… wait, that’s not it.
I wished for the two of them to live happily together. That was all I could do.
We were leaving the village in the carriage.
With the usually boisterous Natasha being quiet, the carriage felt strangely silent.
“Natasha, why are you so quiet?”
Surprisingly, the first one to notice and show concern was Victoria. Excluding me, of course.
“…I just don’t feel very well.”
“Should we stop and rest at a nearby village, Natasha?”
“No, I’m really fine. It’s just a slight fever…”
Perhaps worried she was contagious, Natasha wasn’t clinging to me.
I placed my hand on Natasha’s forehead. It was burning up.
She wasn’t this bad just a little while ago. It felt like her condition was deteriorating rapidly.
The grandmother must have sensed the gravity of the situation, as she began chanting some strange spell inside the carriage while checking Natasha’s condition.
Everyone was looking at Natasha with worried eyes.
“Natasha, have you by any chance been exposed to some kind of evil energy?”
Evil energy?
That brought something to mind. The black energy that had burst from the idol.
“Yes. It was black smoke that came from the statue Lina destroyed. Natasha was hit by it. But Victoria, Lina, and I were also hit, and we’re fine.”
“Tsk. Just as I thought.”
“…”
“You remember that Natasha has a curse on her, don’t you? We managed to mitigate it once… but the curse was never fully broken. We have to catch that bastard Nassen to completely lift Natasha’s curse.”
I used the Goddess’s Eye to check Natasha’s status.
[Status – Curse of Weakness (Mitigated), Poisoned by Miasma]
“You all have healthy and strong mana, so being hit by that black smoke wasn’t a problem, but Natasha’s case is different. Because of the Curse of Weakness. Any other ordinary person hit by such a potent miasma would have been reduced to bones.”
“…”
A grim atmosphere filled the carriage. But Lina spoke with a calm expression.
“I know a good place that can neutralize the miasma. Natasha is a strong person, so if she rests there for a few days, she’ll recover quickly.”
“Where is it?”
“The Norsia Hot Springs, secretly run by the water spirit, Undine.”
Hot springs!
A hot spring trip with the hero party. I couldn’t help but have some lewd fantasies.
“I truly hope Natasha can make a full recovery there, Lina.”