Chapter 146

Deep in the forest, three figures cloaked in thick robes trudged through the muddy ground, heading toward their destination as a light drizzle fell.

Melchior still seemed displeased with what Melissa had done to Camellia, and eventually, he couldn’t hold back his frustration and blurted out.

“Hey, you crazy woman, how could you cast a lust spell on a comrade? What’s wrong with you?”

“Still, it was impressive… If it were me, I wouldn’t have hesitated to pounce. The fact that she resisted it… I have to admit, her patience is something else.”

“That’s not the point! I’m talking about morality here…”

Despite Melissa and Melchior’s banter, Zick remained expressionless and warned them.

“We’ll arrive soon. And since we don’t know what’s ahead, it’s best to keep the jokes to a minimum.”

“Right, no objections here.”

“…By the way, are you really okay with this? You said those things to Ricardo. There’s no turning back now. He’s a valuable asset, after all.”

Melchior scratched his head awkwardly and replied in a sheepish tone.

“That guy’s child was just born. At the very least, he should hear his kid call him ‘dad.’ So it’s fine. The leader knows that, which is why he told us the truth.”

“Right, we’re all in this together, even if we die, right? I suddenly feel emotional and teary-eyed. I want to see my grandkids too.”

“Please, just shut up. The conversation keeps derailing.”

Zick ignored Melissa and Melchior’s antics and pressed forward. Even as the rain soaked his feet, he didn’t care. His hands were already stained from cutting down countless minions of the Black Round Table. What did a little mud matter?

After walking for a while, they finally arrived at a cave glowing with a red light.

“We’re here.”

They entered the cave, layered with forbidden Blood Magic, and were met with a shocking truth.

“Leader, what is this…?”

“What the hell is going on? Explain!”

Inside the cave, there should have been a sealed coffin containing Saintess Media. It was a divine coffin that froze the body’s time while preserving the consciousness of the person inside.

To be precise, the coffin was there, but it was wide open, and Media was nowhere to be found—not even a single bug.

Faced with this shocking truth, Melissa and Melchior were visibly shaken, while Zick remained calm.

“Where’s Media? You look like you know something!”

“Who the hell kidnapped our comrade? Why the hell do you look so calm when your wife’s been taken, you lunatic!”

Even as Melissa and Melchior grabbed him by the collar, Zick’s expression remained serene.

“Calm down.”

“Calm down? How can I—!”

“Melissa, let me ask you. Who could bypass the Blood Magic you set up? Only comrades, a few royals who know about it, and occasionally the Spirit King of Wood who comes to treat her, right?”

“Yes! But… oh.”

It was clear that the Black Round Table, heretics, or other villains would have been caught by the Blood Magic.

“But they could have broken through… No, the Blood Magic barrier was intact. Still, the Black Round Table has members with unique abilities. Someone who could bypass the barrier…”

“True, but remember the nature of this coffin.”

The condition for opening the divine coffin while someone was inside was simple: someone outside had to pull the handle, and the consciousness inside had to allow it.

The fact that she was gone meant she had left on her own.

“What we needed was certainty. Now we can speak with certainty.”

“So Media was the betrayer?”

“Damn it… So Media betrayed us, and we were pointlessly suspecting each other. What kind of nonsense is this…?”

“No, it wasn’t pointless.”

Zick, fiddling with the coffin’s handle, spoke to them.

“As you can see, to open the divine coffin, someone outside had to open it. We just needed certainty about who that person was.”

Melissa’s face turned pale. She seemed to have realized the truth. Unfortunately, Melchior hadn’t caught on yet.

“The betrayer is Media. So someone she conspired with opened it…”

“Recall the conditions of the Blood Magic set up in this cave.”

“Wait, but… no… that’s impossible… So one of the royals is the traitor…?”

“If that were the case, Ricardo would have noticed something. And… who among us has the most suitable ability to be a spy?”

“But if she’s the betrayer… why didn’t the Heavenly Demon Old Man tell Werner and Camellia? He could have said something!”

“Because she was that important to him.”

Zick revealed these shocking facts with terrifying calmness, as if he were talking about someone else’s story.

“I told the Heavenly Demon. I told him I suspected her, and if I confirmed it during this mission, I would deal with her. If I died, I asked him to lead the party in my place.”

“So the Heavenly Demon Old Man went in your place…?”

“He said he would clear his own name and formally apologize if he succeeded.”

Ricardo’s face also turned pale. Uncharacteristically flustered, he asked Zick in a trembling voice.

“Was that certainty you mentioned…?”

“I was certain there was a betrayer, but I wasn’t certain there were two.”

Zick picked up a fallen card and smirked at the joker depicted on it.

“A woman’s acting is both disgusting and terrifying, isn’t it? How could she pull off such a performance…?”

“Wait, if you needed certainty… when did you realize Media was the betrayer?”

“That she belonged to the Black Round Table was 15 years ago, and… that she was plotting something, I knew from the moment we first met.”

Melchior and Melissa nearly fainted at Zick’s calm response. They couldn’t understand how he could marry and have a child with her, knowing she was suspicious.

“Damn it, my brain’s on fire from all this information.”

“Wait, if you knew she was suspicious, why did you marry her? Did you love her that much?”

At Melchior’s question, Zick’s expression finally changed. His cold, emotionless face was now filled with a chilling, ruthless anger.

“…Love Media? Unfortunately, I have no such feelings.”

“Then why did you marry her?”

Zick gripped the hilt of his holy sword, the symbol of his life’s purpose, bestowed upon him by his benefactor.

“To repay a debt.”

“A debt…?”

“Just repaying a debt to my benefactor. And… Werner once told me this: ‘Trash should be taken out by the one who sees it.'”

He acted on that immediately. He had noticed Werner’s love for Media. To prevent Werner from suffering a deeper betrayal, he needed to sever the connection before it grew stronger. Even if it meant mingling with a woman he despised.

At first, the woman who showed interest in him, the wielder of the holy sword, later turned her attention to a boy who could wield ten attributes of magic. It was clear what she would do, how she would betray, and how Werner, who had loved her first, would react.

So he chose to become the trash that stole love. It wasn’t that he particularly cared for Werner. He just didn’t want someone’s first love to end in a nightmare. His own first love had been that precious to him.

He also noticed that Media was targeting the child that would come from Werner and Glacia, who had an excellent bloodline. That’s why he deliberately distanced himself from Werner, so Werner would see him as an outsider rather than family. So that Werner could escape Media’s clutches.

“Similar to why you said harsh words to Ricardo. I didn’t want to drag him into this mud. Though it seems I’ve already stepped into it…”

Zick looked slightly regretful as he headed out of the cave.

“Killing the rat at the bottom of the mud is the older brother’s role. After all, that rat might bite the younger brother’s chest.”