“Rihen, let’s go to the Temple of Dawn. I want to receive another blessing from the priest.”
Theo’s words left me speechless for a moment. Because I had personally burned that temple down last night.
Even if we went now, all we would see would be the charred remains and blackened stone pillars. However, the story was that I had been at home with Theo the entire time from last night until this morning. It was only natural that I did not yet know the temple had burned down.
“Sure, all right.”
I had no choice but to nod.
When we arrived at the temple, Theo’s eyes widened at the sight of the fire damage. A faint despair passed over his youthful face. However, that expression did not last long. The temple had certainly burned to the ground, but the people were still there. Large tents had been set up in rows beside the collapsed building, and inside them, people were praying, attending services, and receiving blessings.
Theo seemed deeply moved by the sight.
At that moment, Luna spotted us and waved cheerfully. Then, the moment she saw Theo, her eyes widened.
“They say children really do grow quickly. You’ve grown so much in just a few days that I almost didn’t recognize you!”
That apprentice priest had a subtly eccentric side to her. Theo straightened his posture and answered with composure.
“I was cursed and reverted to a younger age. The curse is being lifted now.”
“Ah, I see.”
Luna nodded, then spoke kindly.
“Should I ask the High Priest what kind of curse it is? There might be a way to lift it more quickly.”
Theo immediately shook his head.
“No. Even now, it doesn’t cause me much inconvenience in daily life. Rihen takes good care of me, so I’m fine. The temple is already in this state, and the High Priest should focus on more important matters.”
It truly was an answer worthy of a hero. I was deeply impressed inwardly.
“Even though the temple burned, the people’s faith did not.”
I spoke while looking at the people praying inside the tents. Luna gazed at them with deep eyes, then nodded.
“Even though the sacred statue was destroyed, the goddess still exists.”
For some reason, those words remained in my heart for a long time.
“But who started the fire?”
At Theo’s question, Luna’s expression visibly darkened.
“A Legion Commander of the Demon King. They say it was probably the Commander of the 13th Legion.”
She continued in a low voice.
“The temple has a rough idea of what the Commanders of the 1st through 12th Legions look like, but no one can figure out anything about this Commander of the 13th Legion. He seems to use an ability that prevents people from perceiving his appearance.”
“The Demon King’s….”
Theo clenched his teeth. Anger clearly appeared in his golden eyes.
“He must have done this to make it easier to offer souls, right? To frighten people and weaken their mental strength. Once their mental strength is worn down, it becomes easier to extract their souls.”
Ah, no, I had not intended anything that far….
“That must be it.”
Luna nodded.
“He is an extremely rational and, at the same time, cruel enemy. The type who avoids meaningless slaughter for the sake of the future. They say he is excessively cautious for a demon.”
At those words, I could not react at all. I wondered if this was what people meant when they said an interpretation was grander than the dream itself.
Luna soon softened her expression and looked around. The people praying beneath the tents, the priests quietly bowing their heads, and the believers standing while holding one another’s hands. She smiled brightly.
“But he was wrong. Look. Their faith is intact, and the people have overcome their fear.”
I quietly swallowed a sigh of relief inwardly. I was truly glad the believers had strong mental fortitude.
It happened then. A sudden commotion arose on one side of the temple. A woman who appeared to be in her mid-thirties, with her hair neatly braided, ran toward Luna with tears in her eyes. Perhaps she was out of breath, because she swallowed her words several times as she sobbed.
“Sylvia? What happened?”
Luna called her name first. Only then did Sylvia pour out her words with a devastated expression.
“Priest, something terrible has happened. My son is missing. He hasn’t come home since yesterday. I heard there have been frequent kidnappings lately, and now something so horrible has happened to my son too….”
Luna’s expression visibly hardened. She tightly held Sylvia’s hands and spoke in a calm voice.
“First, I’ll inform the other priests. Then I’ll ask the Sanctuary Guard to begin a search. If you remember anything, please tell me everything, no matter how insignificant it may seem.”
Her tone was not pressing. However, it was also clear that she had no intention of treating the situation lightly. Sylvia wiped away her tears and nodded.
“The children who were playing with him said that some man asked him to help carry some luggage. He had his hat pulled down low, so they couldn’t see his face properly.”
The moment I heard that, I realized what this was. It was an event I knew. The Sanctuary Guard, a kind of village militia. Sasha, one of its members and a character from the good faction. When playing as her, the first quest given was this very serial kidnapping case.
An organization was behind it, kidnapping easily controlled children and poor people without family ties, then forcing them to manufacture drugs. If they repeated the work, they became addicted to harmful substances, fell ill while coughing up blood, and eventually died. Then the organization would discard the bodies and search for new victims to fill the empty places. They were scum who viewed humans as nothing more than tools.
If it were the souls of people like that….
There probably would not be much of a problem offering them.
***
Their hideout was in the basement of a respectable building disguised as a business. From the outside, nothing appeared to be wrong, but once one descended the hidden staircase, the situation changed.
Soundproofing magic had been cast over the entire basement. Neither crying, screaming, nor even the sound of bones breaking escaped outside. It was a space perfectly suited for imprisoning people.
The children were working inside. Sitting on the bare floor without even chairs, they crushed herbs with their small hands, mixed powders, and rolled them into round shapes. The backs of their hands, stained with drugs, were blotchy, and the skin between their fingers was red and raw. They had not been given protective equipment. If they failed to work properly, all that was needed was to threaten them.
Jeff, one of the organization’s members, was in an especially foul mood today. His head felt heavy, and his stomach churned. It was because the drugs he had inhaled that morning had been of worse quality than expected. None of this would have happened if the drugs had been made properly. The direction of his resentment turned toward the children making them.
He glared at one child whose movements were particularly clumsy.
“Hey, are you not going to hurry up?”
The child shrank back in fear, but his hands remained slow.
“Are you fucking insane?”
Jeff raised his hand. Just as he was about to bring it down, someone who had approached without a sound grabbed his wrist. Jeff flinched in surprise and turned his head. A man stood there with a black robe pulled low over his head.
“What the fuck are you?”
Before he could finish speaking, his wrist was twisted. It was monstrous strength. He clearly felt his joint being bent.
“A-Aaaargh!”
Jeff’s scream echoed through the basement. Thanks to the soundproofing magic, the sound lingered only within this place.
“What is it? What’s happening?”
“Jeff?”
The other members who had been scattered around all gathered toward the sound at once. They charged at the intruder with clubs and knives in their hands.
The man did not even draw a weapon. He struck his opponents’ faces with his fists and kicked them in the solar plexus with his long legs. He knocked away incoming blades with his bare hands or caught them in his grip and twisted their direction aside. His movements were fluid and efficient. It felt less like a fight and more like simple cleanup.
The members fell to the floor one after another. The kidnapped people did not fully understand the situation, but at the very least, they instinctively sensed that the man was on their side.
“Haah, what the hell are you…?”
Jeff gritted his teeth and rose. He seized the chair behind him and raised it toward the back of the man’s head.
“Watch out! Behind you-!”
A child who had been clasping both hands together and praying for the man’s safety shouted. As though he had anticipated such an attack from the beginning, the man twisted his body with extreme ease. The chair cut through empty air instead of striking the man’s head, and Jeff was kicked in the abdomen. He was lifted off the ground and slammed back-first into the wall.
“Are you one of those village guard bastards?”
Another member shouted angrily. He was holding a painfully thin boy. The blade of his knife was pointed at the boy’s throat.
“Are you trying to play some pathetic hero? If you do not surrender immediately, this boy dies.”
Even in a situation where everyone swallowed nervously from the tension, the man in the black robe remained relaxed. He spoke for the first time. His languid voice was pleasant to hear.
“Why do you think I would care about the life of a brat like that?”
Those few words sent the member into a panic. The fact that the hostage he had gone to such trouble to seize was completely worthless planted a nauseating fear inside him.
The man lightly waved his hand. With a single gesture, a small crack formed in the air. At first, it looked like a hairline fracture. However, the gap rapidly widened and transformed into the entrance to a bottomless abyss. Something resembling the maw of a starving monster opened wide. Nothing could be seen inside. It was a complete void, without light or dimension.
The dagger fell from the member’s hand. Something like white mist seeped out of his chest as his mind collapsed under the overwhelming fear. It was his soul. The man moved his hand as though pulling the mist toward himself. Without even resisting once, the soul was sucked into the black fissure.
Everyone in that place realized it. That intruder was not human. Because offering souls was an act only demons could perform.
“D-Don’t tell me… a demon?”
“You’re slow to realize it.”
The man whispered mockingly as he threw off his robe. A black uniform, and the red pendant that symbolized a Legion Commander. Even though his face was clearly uncovered, no one could perceive what he looked like. There was only one demon with such a characteristic.
Commander of the 13th Legion of the Demon King’s army.
But… why had the man who destroyed the sacred statue and burned down the temple personally come all the way to the basement of a criminal organization?
“C-Commander, why is a Legion Commander here…?”
“Please spare us, please spare us. If you spare our lives, we’ll do anything. L-Long live the Demon King!”
The eleven members of the organization were already no longer in their right minds. The Legion Commander let their pleas go in one ear and out the other. Their souls were sucked into the wide-open fissure. The ones who had been crying hideously, with tears and snot running down their faces, collapsed pathetically like puppets with their strings cut.
The situation ended in an instant. The Legion Commander turned his head and looked toward the kidnapped victims. Ten children, and two adults who were probably from the slums. Every one of them sat collapsed on the floor, trembling. The bravest girl among them stepped forward.
“Why… why did you come here? For what?”
The Legion Commander did not answer. Instead, he opened the door of the safe in the corner of the basement. He only applied a little force, yet the solid iron door crumpled like paper. Inside, large quantities of dark purplish drugs were piled up.
The things the children had made. The result of destroying their bodies and gnawing away at their souls.
He stood in front of them and made a slight gesture. Then a drawer floated into the air, and the piles of drugs were sucked into it one after another. To others, it looked like advanced storage magic, but in reality, it was the inventory function provided by default in the game.
That action became a clearer answer than words.
Far too naturally, the Legion Commander had not come to rescue the kidnapped people. His objective had been the drugs from the very beginning. Highly addictive substances that clouded the human mind. They had fallen into the hands of a demon Legion Commander.
It was the worst possible outcome.