Chapter 30

“Huh? Anne is going to die? What on earth… Is she sick or something?”

“She’s not sick. It’s just that her body is too fragile to endure this world.”

030

You Will Know (Part 1)

“Anne?”

I was startled by the familiar yet unfamiliar figure that suddenly appeared beyond the horizon.

It couldn’t be helped, as Anne’s appearance was completely different from usual. Instead of her flowing priestly robes, her delicate frame was clad in a silver armor that gleamed eerily in the pouring light.

The Bloody Cross engraved on her chest still retained its vivid color, a sight that evoked nightmares.

At first, I thought the red-haired Inquisition Judge had come to torture me again, and even after realizing it was Anne, the fear didn’t subside. The memory of the moment we reunited came flooding back.

Her icy blue eyes, staring down at me as if I were a stranger—

“Uh… Louis?”

“Ah, yes.”

The cold touch of the iron gauntlet on my shoulder brought me back to my senses. I managed to answer without stuttering or trembling, though I couldn’t hide the fear in my voice.

Anne’s expression darkened as she noticed my unease. But unlike usual, instead of comforting me, she said something else.

“You don’t have to read today.”

In a way, it was good news, but the paranoid thoughts swirling in my head and Anne’s emotionless voice sent chills down my spine.

Anne’s attitude toward me was different from usual. It wasn’t the kind, gentle girl I remembered, but the cold demeanor of an Inquisition Judge.

But I couldn’t keep my emotions in check as neatly as Anne.

“Then…?”

The trembling I could no longer suppress started in my voice and spread throughout my body. Anne looked down at me, shaking, with a hint of pity before quickly suppressing even that.

Her eyes, cold as a winter lake, were unreadable even to me. It felt like she had become a complete stranger.

“I told you. Today, you’ll face the heretic.”

No wonder she was fully armed and unusually sharp today. If it were just a simple meeting, it wouldn’t be like this.

My face paled as I recalled the beastly man. Though he was locked behind silver bars like me, just remembering his words made it clear that if he were ever released, he’d be even more cruel and vicious than the red-haired Inquisition Judge.

I didn’t know if there were other heretics in the reformatory, but they probably weren’t much different. Unless, like me, they were innocent and wrongfully imprisoned.

“Should we at least eat before—”

“No.”

My desperate attempt to buy time was brutally crushed.

“If you eat now, you’ll just throw it all up. Let’s eat when we get back.”

That was scarier than a half-hearted threat. It wasn’t that she would make me vomit, but that it would inevitably happen. I instinctively stepped back, and Anne smiled as she comforted me.

But the stiff smile of an Inquisition Judge was so obviously fake that it offered no comfort at all.

“Don’t worry, Louis. You’re just going to watch. With me here, what heretic could possibly harm you?”

Even her attempt at reassurance was far more aggressive than usual. At this point, I wondered if she had a completely different personality.

The following words also carried a clear commanding tone.

“Now, Louis. Reach your hand through the bars.”

“What?”

“I need to test if you can get out.”

Even if it were a request, I couldn’t refuse, but the pressure I felt was immense. Especially given the content.

The pain of burning my soul was too cruel to forget. As I hesitated, Anne leaned closer to the bars.

Come to think of it, today you’re inside the bars.

“Hurry.”

Her calm, icy gaze was oppressive. But I only flinched a few times, unable to reach out. I couldn’t believe I had jumped into that barrier on the first day.

The fear etched into my mind, not my body. It wasn’t that I wasn’t afraid of Anne, but the overwhelming fear paralyzed my thoughts.

Unable to bear it any longer, Anne reached through the bars and grabbed my right hand.

“…!”

It wasn’t a gentle handhold, but a rough gesture pulling me toward her. My wrist hurt, but that pain was nothing compared to what followed.

Anne forced my fingers open and pulled them beyond the silver bars, into the holy barrier.

“Ahhh!”

As expected, an unbearable, excruciating pain overwhelmed me.

As soon as Anne let go, I quickly pulled my arm back into the cell. The pain vanished as if it had never been, but my brain screamed as if my fingers had been burned to ash.

Even as I glared at her with tear-filled eyes, Anne didn’t seem to care.

“You…!”

“Not yet, it seems.”

Muttering something incomprehensible, Anne began fumbling in the air. To an outsider, it might look like she was just waving her hands aimlessly, but I recognized the motion.

There was something there, some kind of mechanism invisible to my eyes. The reformatory, which appeared as nothing but a white horizon, was far more intricately designed than it seemed.

I couldn’t even see a ‘path’ to begin with. Even if I could get past the silver bars, escaping the reformatory would be impossible. The thought made me gloomy.

I hadn’t given up on escaping, but I hadn’t really expected to succeed either. Still…

“Then I’ll just have to bring you here.”

Before I could ask what she meant, the space around us rippled.

I knew the space here was fluid, but… there was a big difference between knowing and experiencing it firsthand. The indescribable sight left me speechless.

Most of the space was painted with white emptiness and light, making it even more disorienting. Something was changing, but I couldn’t tell what. The horizon seemed to come closer, but when I rubbed my eyes, it was still far away.

But while the process was unclear, the result was obvious. Like a reflection in a mirror, or a pair of identical twins, another cell appeared before me.

The burly man, who had been asleep moments ago, slowly opened his eyes.

“What the hell.”

His rough, unpleasant voice, unapologetically expressing his own discomfort, came from the beast-like man.

His presence alone seemed to taint the space. The light was still intense, but it no longer hurt my eyes. Strangely, I felt a surge of energy.

Anne stood in the narrow corridor between the two cells. Without me noticing, she now held a mace in her hand.

It wasn’t as large as I expected, but the head of the iron mace emitted a dazzling light. Even more blinding and painful than the light filling this space. My eyes stung, and I instinctively looked away.

The man across from me, who had seemed fearless, also turned his head to avoid the light.

“You… I don’t recognize you. You’re not my brother, so what do you want with me?”

Though his voice was still growling like a beast, it was noticeably subdued. And Anne’s response completely defied my expectations.

“Shut up, heretic. I never gave you permission to speak.”

Her gaze and voice were colder than I’d ever seen. In the next moment, Anne swung the mace.

I thought she was just swinging it in the air to intimidate, but I was wrong. The mace, which had seemed like an ordinary weapon, made a clicking sound, and the iron head separated from the handle.

It wasn’t a typical mace with a fixed head, but a flail, with the iron head connected by a chain. As Anne swung it, the chain rattled and the iron head, still glowing, flew through the air.

It precisely struck the man’s upper body through the gap in the silver bars.

Thud!

The sickening sound of flesh being torn. The man’s upper body exploded upon impact.

I couldn’t even scream at the sudden bloodbath. But what was truly grotesque and horrifying came next. The shattered body didn’t bleed a single drop.

Like a child playing with clay, the scattered pieces of flesh crawled back toward the man. Some pieces burned away in the purifying light, shrinking or disappearing, but the gaps were filled from within.

A few beats later, I finally caught my breath and let out a faint whimper.

“This… this is…”

Regeneration beyond comprehension. No, it was more than that.

The man’s shattered body had nothing inside. No blood, no fluids, no organs.

Except for a heart as hard as stone, there was nothing.

My initial impression of the man as resembling a pagan idol was, in a way, accurate.

That thing wasn’t human. It spoke and breathed like a human, but there wasn’t a single human part inside. It was just an incredibly lifelike clay doll.

The sound it made when shattered was closer to mud splattering than flesh being crushed, and the process of its body reforming looked more like reassembly than regeneration.

“Now do you understand, Louis?”

Anne spoke calmly, without a hint of surprise, her voice dripping with disgust.

“That’s a heretic.”

Heretics are not human.

A phrase I’d forgotten where I’d heard it before lodged itself deeper in my mind than ever.