Chapter 37

“Why would you think something so stupid? Where would I go without you?”

“…Really?”

“Yeah. So don’t worry too much… Huh? Ugh, cough! Ugh!”

“…Anne?”

“Anneuuuu!”

*

037

Stain (Part 2)

*

Heretics cannot be undone.

A soul that has strayed from the path, deviated from providence, can never be saved. Unless Ailim Himself grants a pardon, the sleeping one does not intervene in the trivial affairs of this world.

But His children know. Even if heretics cannot be undone, there is a way to momentarily return light to their doomed fate. A secret to shake off their shackles, even if only for a fleeting moment.

“…Ugh, ugh.”

The young man, still not fully conscious, groaned softly. His voice no longer carried the blasphemy of a heretic or the growl of a beast.

Joseph had returned to being human. At least for now.

“If the situation is resolved, then for a moment.”

“Huh? What’s going on?”

While Verdo pushed Joseph into another intact cell, Anne, confirming that the situation was under control, prepared to leave.

“I have something to check.”

“…Ah, go ahead.”

Verdo was quite perceptive. So was Anne. He knew that her words were, to some extent, considerate of him—

—and that she was too preoccupied with her own business to care. There was more than one prisoner in this reformatory.

Verdo nodded, accepting her “justification.”

The noble Inquisition Judge wouldn’t fuss over a single heretic, allowing her to speak with her brother alone.

…That’s what he decided to think. His mind was too dizzy to process the immediate reality.

Looking through the bars into the cell.

The same shadows cast in the same cell, new yet identical. Verdo couldn’t bring himself to step inside.

It was strange. This space was filled with light, yet the shadows were deep. The brave Inquisition Judge shouldn’t fear a heretic already fallen.

What held him back wasn’t fear, but something else he couldn’t yet define.

“Ugh… ugh…”

How long had he been standing there? With a gloomy groan, Joseph staggered to his feet.

His blurred eyes regained focus, wandering before settling. The black-haired man silently stared at his red-haired younger brother, who looked nothing like him.

It wasn’t hard to grasp the situation. A throbbing head and aching body. The sensation of sinking into a swamp, even in the light.

“Again?”

“Yeah.”

Verdo, who would usually insult, mock, or torture Joseph, did none of those things. He simply stared down at him.

Even with “noble blood,” it was unthinkable to look down on the Crown Prince who would lead the vast empire. Of course, imprisoning the Crown Prince or letting him turn into a monster and run amok were also unthinkable.

Things that shouldn’t happen. But they clearly did.

“…Huh, my beloved brother. Should I thank you?”

“Maybe in the past, but your gratitude, now that you’re fallen, isn’t worth a penny.”

Joseph had been stripped of his soul and free will, becoming a complete heretic. Yet, he maintained a human form because this was a reformatory.

Under Ailim’s influence, Laube’s power was greatly weakened. Even though Joseph had briefly turned into a heretic, the two Inquisition Judges had forced him back into human form. The prison both confined and protected him.

“Oh? Are you worried about me, then?”

“…Why would I worry about a heretic?”

“Right. I’m a heretic.”

At least while human, Joseph had no intention of escaping. Anger, hatred, regret—all had long since eroded with time.

All that remained was a heart twisted beyond recognition. Joseph grinned savagely, his teeth a mix of human and beast.

“And I’m still your brother. My beloved younger brother.”

“…”

“You look like you’re holding in a fart. Seeing that funny face, you must have come to ask me something, like when you were a kid?”

They were brothers. Family. Even as a heretic, that hadn’t changed, and Joseph easily saw through his younger brother’s thoughts.

Struck to the core, Verdo remained silent for a long time. Was this the right choice? An Inquisition Judge listening to a heretic?

But eventually, the red-haired youth, swaying like a candle flame, opened his mouth.

“…You’re right. Brother. I have something to ask.”

“Something to ask? Haha, something to ask? Me?”

Though the man had clearly returned to human form, his laughter carried an ominous echo. Verdo, who would usually draw his sword and tools to “serve” his brother, remained silent.

It wasn’t just because Anne had smashed all his torture tools.

“The noble and devout Inquisition Judge has something to ask the filthy, wretched heretic! Ha! Ask away. Isn’t it a brother’s joy to teach his younger sibling?”

The prisoner’s voice, growling and cackling in the cell, was no longer as warm and trustworthy as before. Too much time had passed, too much had happened.

And so, the question that slipped out carried a hint of personal emotion.

“Why did you become a heretic?”

“What? You should know. Or do you want to hear the story from my mouth?”

“No, I mean, what were you feeling?”

One must not understand heretics. One must not try to empathize with their evil deeds, their sins.

It was so obvious it didn’t even need to be a commandment. Would you make excuses for their actions, saying they had no choice? Or pity them and extend a hand? What about the innocent who were trampled and sacrificed?

And so, when his brother became a heretic and was imprisoned, Verdo didn’t try to understand him. He just parroted what everyone else said. That he was a rotten seed of evil, a black-furred beast born from an inverted womb.

But now, Verdo was asking Joseph about his feelings, not to understand the heretic, but to understand the Inquisition Judge.

The foolishness of those who walk into ruin for love.

“How could you throw away everything you’ve built over a lifetime for just one person?”

As his brother had done, as his sister would do.

“You still don’t understand, little brother. You need heartbreak to grow up, but you’re still a boy.”

“I don’t want to hear your old-fashioned lectures.”

“I know. What you really want to know isn’t my story… but your comrade’s, right? The Inquisition Judge who loves a heretic. Heh, heh. It’s ridiculous.”

Verdo didn’t laugh or answer.

“That body, impervious to swords and spears, sure is useful.”

As Joseph rambled, Verdo thought of Anne’s recent behavior.

Doing only the bare minimum, spending the rest of her time in the reformatory. He didn’t know what she did there. Whether she tried to guide the heretics like a faithful believer or had already lost all restraint and rolled around with the disgusting heretics.

But he did know one thing. Even the most oblivious person would notice the pure goodwill in Anne’s gaze when she looked at the heretic.

Perhaps her feelings were comparable to the devotion of a fanatic—

“That’s how you killed people. You know that. Ah, should I say ‘people’?”

—No, that couldn’t be.

No feeling could surpass reverence for a real god.

“The servants and children who didn’t know her were mercifully beheaded.”

“The rest, those who defiled her, had stakes driven through their urethras and anuses.”

“Those who insulted her were meticulously skinned, then smothered in honey and left to rot.”

Verdo believed that.

And so, he couldn’t understand.

“I still remember. Ah— that bastard, who dared to boast about ‘cleaning up the lowly woman unworthy of the noble one,’ I personally stuffed him into a chimney. Ah, of course, I was kind enough to include his family. The pleas and whimpers faded… and like her, their bodies were left too mangled to bury.”

How could one abandon everything for just one?

Even if doing so wouldn’t bring back what was already lost.

Verdo sought an answer from a devil, one who had fallen for love. The answer wasn’t something others could provide, but he didn’t know that. He might never know.

“You want to save her. Why?”

Verdo could see Anne’s future clearly. She would never give up on that “heretic.” Instead of being a merciless judge, she would struggle and flail, eventually joining him on the execution stand.

She should have never yielded the judgment… no, even then, Sister Anne would have left the Order to come.

“Do you love that beautiful girl?”

“No.”

“She was your junior. A fellow believer. Do you pity her?”

“No.”

Neither was a virtue befitting an Inquisition Judge.

And yet, Verdo, a blood-stained slaughterer who made killing heretics his profession and tormenting them his hobby, paid such close attention to Anne and humored her stubbornness for one simple reason.

“Because she’s special.”

Because she was a slaughterer far beyond his own.

“Sister Anne… ha, it’s ridiculous to say this to a girl younger than me, but she is great. And she could become even greater.”

Perhaps she could eradicate all the heretics in the world, every trace of Laube.

If only she weren’t held back by that one bug of a heretic.

“If only we could erase that one ‘stain’ on her.”

She could become truly flawless. Destroying heretics without hesitation.

This wasn’t for Anne, but for the world. Born of noble blood and devoted to faith, Verdo’s way of thinking was that the greater good justified the sacrifice of the individual.

“If I kill that heretic… will she return? As the greatest Inquisition Judge?”

“My dear, foolish little brother. You still don’t understand.”

But in the face of such solemn contemplation, Joseph only laughed frivolously and irreverently.

“Who in this world truly has a heart of steel? The flawless superhuman is just a fantasy you dream of, projecting onto others what you cannot reach.”

“But the Sister Anne I saw…”

“If the White Calamity was truly like that. Have you ever wondered? How could a girl who was nothing become so strong-willed? Do you think she was just born that way?”

Joseph was still suffering from all sorts of pain, but he welcomed it. At least while consumed by agony, no other voices could occupy his mind.

In the throbbing headache, he returned to the past. Not as a prisoner in the reformatory, but as the Crown Prince in a purple-lined cloak. Mistaking the cold touch of the wall against his forehead for the weight of a crown, Joseph sternly rebuked his impudent younger brother.

“Do you not know that the reason one can navigate straight through the vast ocean is because the North Star (Polaris) is fixed in the night sky?”