WHACK—!
“Kgh!”
“Get up, you bastard. It isn’t over yet.”
The bastard was rolling on the ground just because I had kicked him in the abdomen a little.
I lifted the collar of the bastard collapsed on the ground.
CRACK—!
When I struck his face like that, the bastard’s neck bent about eighty degrees.
PATTER—
In the process, several teeth fell from his mouth.
[Ugh...... It is completely swollen.]
“Uhh......”
“Wow~ You look young. Looks nice and firm.”
Of course, this was about all I could do.
‘It isn’t like I know how to torture someone......’
Still, since I was from the Holy Kingdom, I did not know how to torture.
‘Only the specialists did that.’
That was something only the Inquisitors did.
And naturally, Grandpa Harkan and Sir Slan had not shown me something like that, so I did not know how it was done.
So all I did was crush his arms and legs until they were nearly powder, pull out his fingernails and toenails, and pull out his healthy teeth.
“Uhh......”
“Why are you making dying noises? This is better than dying. Right?”
I struck the bastard’s face three or four more times.
That was the end of it.
“Hoo...... He finally fainted.”
I wanted to hit him more, if I followed my heart.
[What? You are not hitting him anymore?]
“I want to hit him more, but.”
There was something more urgent.
“......”
Even looking at it again, the environment was terrible.
“Uhh......?”
Fortunately amid misfortune, the children had problems only with their minds.
It was something that could be handled by erasing a certain amount of memory.
“......”
But deep in their instincts, a very deep trauma had surely formed.
“Fuck.”
As a holy knight, I felt ashamed and sorry.
‘How come the only ones who actually work properly are Grandpa Harkan and Grandpa Slan?’
Chief God...... I think this country is showing signs of ruin.
[Apostle.]
“Yeah?”
[That one is getting up?]
Amazingly, the apostle bastard who had been beaten to a pulp and collapsed was crawling somewhere.
“Wow.”
He was damn stubborn.
“Can’t you just faint nicely?”
“Ack!”
I stomped hard on the waist of the bastard crawling away.
“Do not try any pointless tricks. Stay still.”
I plopped down on top of him.
“Move! You heretic bastard!”
“Bullshit.”
A chair cannot speak.
I drove one small dagger I carried in my clothes into the bastard’s leg.
“Aaaaaagh!”
“What an overreaction.”
It was so thin that it was hard to even call it a dagger.
[That dagger is terribly inefficient.]
“It isn’t like I can bring one of the daggers those bastards had.”
What the evil god worshipers had brought out were miracles of the apostle of War......
No, weapons forged through dark arts.
‘Why call that kind of thing a miracle?’
Dark arts. It had exactly the right ring to it.
“Grrk......!”
Even while foaming at the mouth, the bastard pinned beneath my ass was trying to struggle.
“......”
Should I just kill him now?
‘I still have not beaten him until he wishes he were dead......’
That part was regrettable, but.
“......”
I could not just leave the children there either.
I took the communication orb from inside my clothes.
“Garon.”
[Karix!!]
Ow.
“My ears hurt, brat.”
[Where are you!]
“The situation is over. Twenty-two believers of War captured, ten dead, one apostle of War captured alive.”
[......]
“Crawl here quickly. The children are here. I erased their memories.”
I gathered the light of divine power in my hand.
“Ah.”
What gathered was not pure gold, but blood-red gold.
“Tsk.”
If I shot this into the sky to request support, there would definitely be trouble.
“Ugh......”
[Karix?]
“The barrier here has all been destroyed too, so...... I’ll give you approximate coordinates.”
[It would be better to shoot divine power like you always do......]
I wanted to do that too.
I wanted to send divine power into the sky and fire it up like fireworks.
But red fireworks?
‘Do I want to get caught having contracted with an evil god?’
[Karix?]
I heard Garon’s questioning voice from beyond the communication orb.
“Garon.”
[Yes.]
“I don’t even have the divine power to shoot fireworks into the sky right now.”
My hands and feet were already trembling.
Honestly, it was impressive that I had not fainted yet.
[I understand. Since we can track the divine power of the communication orb anyway, it does not matter, but......]
“Come as quickly as possible.”
Right now, I was using superhuman patience to hold myself back from beating this bastard to death.
On top of that, I was holding back from collapsing too.
[By the way, why did you capture the apostle alive?]
“I have to let him taste suffering worse than death.”
[......You are not an Inquisitor.]
“That is why.”
[A holy knight is not one who kills, but one who...... protects......]
“I’m an apprentice.”
Do not try to sell me medicine.
“If I can save someone even by killing, then I should.”
[......Hoo...... Yes. I will come soon for now.]
The conversation ended there.
“Tsk.”
I gathered divine power in my hand. This time, perhaps because only blood divine power had gathered, I made a purely blood-red dagger.
SQUELCH—
“Aaaaaagh!”
And I drove it straight into his left leg, where there was no dagger.
“Stay still. If you move, I will truly kill you.”
Well, I was going to kill him later anyway.
I stood up.
“Ugh...... ah......”
The still-bound children entered my eyes.
My hands moved as quickly as possible.
One by one, I carefully untied the children bound to the wooden boards.
Slither—
In the process, I caught the children who could not even keep their balance and were about to fall, then held them in my arms one by one.
“Kids.”
“Eh......?”
“Let’s...... go home.”
To the place where you should have been.
To the place where you should be happy.
***
“You came.”
“......What is this?”
“Children.”
The state of the children, who were sleeping soundly, was beyond words.
Perhaps because they had not eaten properly, they were skin and bones.
And because they had cried so much, tear stains filled the area beneath their eyes.
“......I......”
Garon slowly knelt toward the children lying asleep.
“......am sorry.”
Of course he did.
Because Garon had not known anything.
Because the one who had to protect them had failed to protect them.
Because he had failed to fulfill his duty.
“Haa. Hey, you.”
“Ack!”
I kicked the ass of the bastard who was shedding tears like that.
“You are not the one who made them like this.”
He had not ignored injustice.
He had not harmed anyone.
He had merely been stupid. He had merely been deceived. The enemies had merely been cunning.
“You know it is not your fault.”
[Are you in any position to say that? You grabbed that child named Lina and said you were sorry over and over.]
Shut up.
[My apostle...... I thought you had gotten a little better...... and now look how blasphemous you are again.]
Thinking about it, the one who should be apologizing for everything was this bastard.
“Take the children and go. I have more business here.”
“What business?”
At those words, I tilted my head and pointed at the apostle of War lying in tatters on the ground.
“No wonder you suddenly told me to bring recovery potions you would use.”
“I trust you brought plenty. We need to pour them on the children too.”
“We are already doing that.”
Really?
Then, well.
I should not refuse this potion and pour it over myself.
I poured the potion over my head.
“You brought the good stuff.”
Considering my divine power, which had been reduced to about the size of a fingernail, rose to about a ladle’s worth.
“So why the apostle of War?”
“I have something to discuss with him in depth.”
“......Do not kill him. We must keep him alive if we are to root out even the Evil God of War.”
Normally, that was the principle.
“I will try, at least.”
But I had no intention of doing that.
“Well, still, know this.”
“Hmm?”
Garon smiled faintly and said,“This is the monster forest...... and who knows? Perhaps after interrogating him to some degree, a monster ate him while you were bringing him back.”
......?
“Well then.”
Garon and the Fifth Holy Knight Order began carrying the children away one by one on their backs.
“Move quickly! Before night falls!”
I was staring blankly at that sight.
“What are you doing, Karix? Are you not going to interrogate him?”
“Puhaha!”
“......Why are you laughing?”
“No, because......”
It was funny. Honestly, this situation.
“You are not Garon, are you?”
“I am.”
“Sure, sure...... well.”
I lightly placed my arm on Garon’s shoulder.
“Then, well, there is nothing I can do. I had no idea the monster would be strong enough to kill even a hostage. Right?”
It felt like I had come to understand the person named Garon a little better.
“Karix.”
“What?”
“Still, I am your superior......”
Mm, correction.
I still did not understand him.
“Grr......”
Even in the middle of that, the bastard was wriggling.
“What are you doing?”
I might have to acknowledge that one point of his, at least.
That stubbornness.
“It cannot......”
“Not end like this?”
“Kgh!”
I sat straight down on the back of the crawling bastard.
“It truly is amusing.”
You could have used such stubbornness somewhere good.
“Huh.”
In the hand of the crawling bastard was a bottle of medicine.
“......”
The aura I felt from it was that of the Sun.
The aura that all monsters would fear.
“What a stubborn bastard.”
I had no choice but to agree with Garon’s words.
Despite having daggers embedded in both legs, despite every bone in his body being broken, despite his face already being so twisted it was hard to view it as human.
He was still moving for the sake of war.
“No! Give it back! Give it back, I said!”
“Is this monster here the one you bastards were going to use?”
They had joined hands with the Sun to forcibly wake a monster that would not move despite countless disturbances, as though hibernating......
‘Mm?’
That was strange.
War and the Sun joined hands for such a paltry reason?
In the first place, the Twelve Evil Gods were dregs born from the fight between the Evil Gods of Pride, Wrath, and Greed.
‘But they joined hands?’
There was no way those three sins, especially the sin of Pride, would allow such a thing.
Of course, it was not as if there had been no cases in history where they joined hands.
However, the only time they joined hands was when the Evil God of Incitement stood between them.
Without such incitement, two evil gods who were nothing but arrogant cooperated? So suddenly?
“......”
Something was wrong.
“Tell me honestly.”
In the first place, even if there were hundreds of monsters, there was no way the holy knights would lose to them.
If those things could easily defeat holy knights, then the Sun would have swallowed the world long ago.
Besides, this cooperation brought no benefit at all to the Sun either.
In the first place, the Sun could simply have controlled the monsters and used all the people of Rakar as sacrifices.
‘It is not as if there is no precedent for that.’
Yet they suddenly came up with this strategy?
“Kgh!”
“Why did you bastards suddenly join hands?”
It smelled far too rotten.
‘What is it because of?’
“Existence!”
However, the words that came from the apostle’s mouth were different from what I had been thinking.
[Hmm? Existence? Muon?]
Kalla drew closer to the apostle with doubt.
[You. What do you mean by that? Muon came back to life? That bastard?]
Kalla grabbed and shook the apostle.
Of course, she could not grab him in the first place, nor could she shake him.
“You, explain in detail.”
“The...... the power of the monsters has grown even stronger! Strong enough that even the Apostle of the Sun was killed by a monster in one blow!”
In other words, brainwashing monsters had become even more difficult than before.
That was why the Sun had joined hands with War.
They needed more sacrifices to brainwash the monsters, but the Sun had no way to secretly obtain those sacrifices.
[Monsters? What does that have to do with that bastard Muon?]
Kalla glared at the bastard, her eyes blazing blue.
“......”
In the ancient era, monsters had been called by another name.
“This is insane.”
A monster made by mixing all kinds of beings in the world into one thing.
A chimera.
[......Apostle. I am asking just in case.]
A composite of all beings, where all manner of blood had mixed and impure blood gathered in one place.
Another name.
[Are monsters apostles of Existence?]
Apostles of Existence.