Chapter 454

‘Two masters and two saint candidates. With that much combat power joining in, we should be able to win somehow, right?’

Having made her judgment, Hersh leaped up onto the wall of the alley and looked toward the hideout where Ha-shal-leur and his group were waiting.

And then she saw it.

‘…Huh?’

A scene she hadn’t anticipated at all.

Hersh’s pupils shook violently.

– Whoosh!

Their hideout was engulfed in flames, burning fiercely.

‘Oh no, they’ve already been discovered…!’

Hersh took a short breath and stared intently at the hideout.

Beams of pure white light and purple divine light flashed, crossing each other, while something resembling a whirlwind roared and flew off somewhere.

Paladins and priests, presumably sent by Rübitz, were surrounding them and engaging in combat.

Though it was hard to see clearly due to the divine light, a young man wielding a greatsword was also jumping around, swinging his sword wildly.

‘So that’s where all the paladins went.’

Hersh’s expression twisted in dismay.

From the looks of the battle, they weren’t exactly losing, but with the paladins and priests determined to hold their ground, it seemed impossible to break through.

Seeing the numerous Grimnir Church members around the hideout, it was clear that she couldn’t even approach the battle, let alone intervene.

‘Are we screwed…?’

She could feel it instinctively.

By the time her companions managed to defeat all those church members, Ha-shal-leur would already be a corpse.

‘Ah… damn it. What should I do? The only option left is…!’

Biting her nails, Hersh watched the battle with an anxious expression, then finally gave up on delivering the message and turned to run.

Toward Ha-shal-leur’s battlefield, which she had been trying to avoid just moments ago.

If she couldn’t expect support from them, the only option left was to somehow help Ha-shal-leur herself.

‘That’s right. Think positively, Hersh. If I save that woman’s life, she’ll treat me well out of gratitude, right? …Right?’

Suppressing the urge to flee toward the city walls, the half-fairy sprinted through the dawn streets.

—

‘I must be insane…’

Returning to the cathedral, Hersh let out a sigh and crouched low, scanning her surroundings.

Sneaking back into the cathedral by climbing over the wall was all too easy.

Most of the priests seemed to have rushed to the burning house, leaving only a few behind.

The problem was what came after entering.

Hersh’s upper body was drenched in cold sweat. Her spine tingled, and her fingertips prickled.

The ominous feeling from the basement was now ten times stronger than before. She regretted entering within ten seconds.

‘Calm down… calm down, Hersh. You haven’t been caught yet.’

Hersh clutched her trembling chest, took a deep breath, and steadied herself.

‘That’s right, it’ll be fine. I’m not going in there anyway.’

From the start, she had no intention of returning to the basement entrance she had fled from.

Going in there would only make her another target to be beaten. In about five seconds, she’d go from being a half-fairy to a half-fairy roast.

Her goal wasn’t a double suicide but to create chaos with a surprise attack and seize an opportunity for victory.

She had a plan of her own.

‘The place where they took the poor must be underground. If they didn’t kill and bury them. The prayer room was a trap, but… behind it. There seemed to be space behind it, so they probably piled them up there.’

Hersh, hiding in the shadows and silencing even her breath, crawled around the cathedral like a cat.

‘They said they took hundreds of poor people. But that entrance was too narrow and long. They could’ve forced them in, but… since the entrance is on the first floor, they could only transport them at night to avoid outsiders’ eyes. Moving hundreds of poor people who could barely stand would be too inconvenient. So… there’s a high chance of another entrance. An entrance to quickly push the poor inside.’

The Dream Paradise Society had done the same.

A narrow entrance was suitable for a secret passage, but it was terribly inconvenient for hiding a large number of people.

Based on experience and intuition, Hersh wandered the cathedral, persistently searching for a place with a strong ominous feeling.

And she found it.

‘This has to be it…!’

A food storage room attached to one side of the cathedral.

A chilling ominous feeling was oozing out from it.

Hersh checked through the window to see if there were any guards inside, then carefully infiltrated the storage room.

‘Only two priests. Lucky. They must’ve sent all their important forces to the battle.’

Crawling across the beams toward the priests, Hersh dropped down like a black lightning bolt as soon as she reached above them.

– Thud!

A satisfying squelch.

Enjoying the sensation of the blade piercing through one priest’s crown, Hersh threw a dagger toward the other.

“Guh…?! Ul, Ultoris præsídĭum!”

The priest, startled by the sudden attack, hastily activated a reflection spell.

But that was a mistake.

He should’ve deployed a barrier spell instead.

Hersh, rushing toward the priest, turned her head to dodge the reflected dagger and pulled out a wire from her sleeve.

Killing a panicked mage wasn’t that hard.

Before the priest, who had aimed his arm at her, could cast the next spell, a sharp silver thread wrapped around his neck.

“Guh…!”

That was the end.

As Hersh pulled both ends of the wire, the priest’s head was cleanly severed.

“Phew…”

Having killed the two priests, Hersh exhaled the breath she had been holding and retrieved her dagger and wire from the priest’s corpse.

‘This must be the place.’

Her conviction grew stronger.

There was no reason for the church’s priests to guard a simple food storage room unless it was important.

Hersh scanned the storage room with sharp eyes, looking for a secret entrance.

– Rumble…

It was definitely connected to the underground, as a faint vibration constantly shook the ground while she moved around the storage room.

‘…What the hell is happening down there?’

Hersh swallowed dryly and frowned.

If the vibrations were reaching here, the underground must be shaking like an earthquake.

She had no desire to be in the middle of that, even if she died and came back to life.

It didn’t take long for her to find the entrance.

Disguised as a pile of food supplies, it was wide enough for about seven people to pass through at once.

After taking another deep breath, Hersh gripped her dagger and stepped through the entrance, heading inside.

**And then she saw it.**

—

Walking down the corridor leading underground, Hersh.

The first thing she felt was a horrific stench.

The smell of the dying and the dead.

Mixed with the body odor of the poor, it created an unbearably rotten stench.

It was a familiar smell, but it was always horrifying.

Hersh instinctively pulled up her mask slightly.

Not that it made the smell any less.

The next thing she felt was sound.

“Ughhh…”

“Groaaah…”

Feeble groans tickled her ears.

Hersh, convinced that the poor were already as good as dead, continued down the corridor and finally reached a vast plaza.

“Ha…”

What unfolded before her was a scene that made her groan involuntarily.

On a strangely glowing altar.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of poor people were piled up.

Eyes unfocused, mouths agape.

They were literally living corpses, with no trace of consciousness left.

Some had already died, groaning in this state.

‘Ugh. They’re really doing some crazy stuff here.’

Hersh couldn’t fathom what purpose they had in gathering the poor like this.

She wasn’t a mage, after all.

But even to her, this scene was excessively evil and inhumane.

‘Not that I have room to talk, but… isn’t this something a church order protecting the Holy Kingdom shouldn’t be doing?’

Hersh, enduring the stench, approached the poor and examined them closely.

Each one was emaciated, with a strange tattoo on their forehead.

‘What’s this?’

A pattern of three overlapping triangles.

A symbol representing the Soul Extraction Technique, called Valknut, but to her, it was just an incomprehensible tattoo.

She could only guess it was something magical.

‘These half-corpses can be left alone for now…’

Hersh put down the poor person she was observing and looked toward the corridor on the other side of the plaza.

‘If I keep walking that way, I’ll probably reach that prayer room…’

But her feet wouldn’t move.

Originally, she had planned to approach from the rear and cause chaos, but it didn’t seem like the right situation.

– Crash!

An enormous roar echoed from beyond.

It was as if a storm had been brought to the heart of the underground, with noise and vibrations.

‘…I’ll die if I go there.’

What she had imagined was joining a battle with a few mages and one swordsman, not jumping into the middle of a natural disaster.

Though her destination was right before her eyes, Hersh stopped, unable to go further.

It wasn’t a matter of mindset; there was simply no point in going forward.

Even if she entered there, nothing would change.

What she witnessed next was something strange.

“Kkkkkk!”

A desperate scream erupted from among the poor, who had only been groaning weakly.

“Huh?”

Instinctively looking in that direction, Hersh saw something she couldn’t comprehend with her knowledge.

One of the poor, lying down, was convulsing violently and screaming.

The tattoo on his forehead emitted a sinister purple light.

“Gkkkk…”

The scream didn’t last long.

As if pouring out all the life left in him, the poor man who had been screaming soon went limp.

Hersh ran over to check his condition.

‘He’s dead. And even more emaciated than before…’

It was as if his life force had been completely drained.

Hersh had a gut feeling. The corpses of the poor, which had looked like they died of starvation, had actually all died in this manner.

Then what was the reason? Why had they gathered thousands of poor people, tattooed them with strange symbols, and killed them in such a bizarre way?

‘Sacrifices… no, something like magic stones? So people can be used like this too.’

Even without much magical knowledge, anyone who saw this scene could guess.

They were extracting some kind of life force or energy from these people and using it for their own power.

‘This is it…!’

A smile spread across Hersh’s lips.

Though she didn’t dare enter that prayer room, she had found a decisive way to help Ha-shal-leur without going in.

‘If they’re extracting power from living poor people…’

The dagger in her right hand gleamed sharply.

‘Then all I have to do is kill them all before they can do that, right?’

It was a simple solution.

Having reached her conclusion, Hersh began pulling out all the daggers she had and started granting peace to the poor on the altar.

There was no hesitation.

She believed that dying instantly from a dagger was a better death than having their life force drained.

And so, when the number of living poor had dwindled to less than thirty.

– Crash!

The magical power that had been extracting their souls and converting them into mana, the Eternal Spring, reached its limit and shattered.

The mana light illuminating the altar scattered like a splash of water and faded.

Rübitz’s exclamation of shock came right after.

—

=========[ Ha-shal-leur ]=========

The dragon whirlwind gradually slowed and began to disperse.

I laughed as I felt the wind pressure I had been wielding with my body weaken.

I didn’t have Rübitz’s clairvoyance, so I couldn’t know exactly what Hersh had done.

I could only guess.

The weather manipulation power, which had been consuming an enormous amount of mana, began to crumble, and just moments ago, Rübitz had responded to my attack by increasing his flight altitude instead of teleporting.

What did that mean?

It meant he couldn’t afford to waste mana like that anymore!

“Kkkk…! This can’t be. The heavenly authority is dispersing…!”

Indeed, Rübitz seemed to be struggling just to maintain his power, his face pale with shock.

“That’s right. It’s disappearing cleanly. Just like your remaining lifespan!”

Feeling unparalleled joy, I made my final leap toward him.

The rock that had served as my stepping stone shattered into pieces, and my body soared toward him without any resistance.

“This can’t be…! This can’t be! Sapientiális claustra (Barrier of Wisdom)-!”

Rübitz screamed and activated a barrier spell.

Right. That damn spatial teleportation was no longer an option, just a simple mana barrier.

He couldn’t afford the mana cost of teleportation anymore!

“Do you think that’ll work-!”

Like a meteor shooting upward, a blue flash soared into the sky.

A purple sphere mixed with mana and divine light.

Durandal collided with his barrier, scattering a brilliant light.

– Crash!

The blade of the sword shattered the flow of mana.

The hero’s feat crushed the Barrier of Divine Light.

The Barrier of Wisdom shattered like glass.

“Kkkkkk!”

A scream echoed. Blood scattered. A severed leg fell with him.

Durandal’s blade pierced his leg and completely destroyed the flight spell on his body.

– Rumble…

Like a bird that had lost its wings, Rübitz fell, and the weakening dragon whirlwind dissipated like a breeze.

Broken rocks rained down, shaking the ground.

—

What followed was a typical battle between a swordsman and a priest.

Both were severely injured, but the swordsman had the overwhelming advantage.

His strength came from the endless surge of mana.

With that source gone, Rübitz was just a slightly stronger high priest and a moderately skilled mage.

He endured his injuries with healing miracles and desperately poured out all the remaining mana in his body to cast attack spells, but that was his limit.

If it had been a bombardment from two hundred mages, it might have been different, but dodging attacks from just one guy wasn’t that hard.

I blocked lightning strikes with Ryu-rik’s hide and dodged ice spears by running.

I kicked through waves of rocks and shattered beams of light with my sword, and finally—

“Finally got you, you bastard-!”

Reaching him at last, I swung my sword with my exhausted body and severed Rübitz’s limbs in one strike.

With a pig-like scream, Rübitz, now just a head and torso, crashed onto the ruins.

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