Chapter 43

The underground sewer was deeper than any ordinary basement.

The only light came from bioluminescent moss, casting a pale green glow.

The deity of the Radiant Church is metaphorically compared to the sun or light, thus a place where light does not reach indicates a location devoid of the deity’s gaze.

Here in this sewer, bandit royals, nobles, and swordsmen from the capital’s underbelly ran rampant, while infiltrators conspired in the maze of darkness.

“Uh, uh?”

“Oh my.”

“O Light.”

Suddenly, brilliant sunlight poured into the sewer.

From the crumbling ceiling, a cascade of stone dust, brick fragments, and large and small boulders tumbled down.

“Gah!”

One infiltrator was crushed and vanished beneath a massive amount of rubble.

“Kyaah!”

I staggered back, deflecting the falling bricks above Rudi’s head.

“Your Highness! Are you alright?”

“Lady Trentia. Step back. It may collapse further!”

Lady Trentia retreated, blocking the falling bricks with her body.

The strange insects and infiltrators clinging to her plate armor had all turned into chunks of meat.

“Your Highness. What just happened?”

Lady Trentia, who had pressed closely beside me, asked.

“A miracle has occurred in response to the prayers of devout believers.”

With tears of joy, she knelt on the spot and prayed.

Sererassie sighed with an expression of displeasure, her brow furrowed.

“That deity is so indifferent. To shove the truth I must pursue onto the author.”

Rudi, who was not a mana user, looked entranced, his expression swept away by the radiance.

“Lord Valen. Get some light on you.”

As soon as he touched the light, the scars and the taint of corruption began to fade, disappearing with a feeling like Hwanhan.

In the center of the beam of light stood Matheos.

“Let me be Your fire, Your hammer.”

His curly light brown hair turned black, darker and glossier than ebony from the roots.

His deep, kind brown eyes transformed into a hard, determined black.

His height, already similar to mine, had grown another half inch, causing his priestly robes, which had fit perfectly moments before, to reveal his wrists and ankles.

His impression, which once evoked the image of a sincere and kind dove, was now changing.

The firmness reflected in his black eyes no longer reminded me of a dove, but rather of a hawk.

As I watched him, I silently marveled and cheered.

The Black Saint, La Matheos Tumor.

His mere existence in the capital was a boost to Jeilliris’s legitimacy.

I pushed him forward in time.

Surely the deity would not abandon the future saint to die in such a sewer.

“Blasphemer.”

Matheos spoke as if reading my mind.

Even his mere syllables caused the lower-tier infiltrators nearby to tremble and writhe in agony.

In the sewer across from us, infiltrator priests, aiding the consciousness, were already fleeing, or else unable to muster the courage to escape, suffering instead.

I thought I caught a glimpse of yellow eyes behind one of their masks.

It was surely one of the royals.

“Damn it!”

Ssss!

Just as I cursed, the smell of burning flesh filled the air.

As our wounds were purified and healed, the bodies of the lower-tier infiltrators ignited.

“Gahhh!”

“Why?!”

Leaving them screaming behind, Matheos approached an old friend.

A massive, vomit-colored slime with sixty vertices also began to burn before the light surrounding Matheos.

However, Dismas stood his ground, despite his pain.

“You must know that we have failed once before?”

“We started with good intentions. We followed a good process. The results were disastrous, but…”

“You were right there beside me. You saw everything. You witnessed those young nobles burning the relief shelter! Would you say that was also a trial of our faith by the light?”

With each word Dismas spoke, sharp spider legs protruded from his back.

“That was not a mistake of the light, but of us. If the proper outcomes did not come about, then it means the process was flawed. We should have realized that they lived a life as prone to compromise with evil as they were to have good natures. Mere relief was not enough. Guidance and self-reliance needed to happen simultaneously.”

“Why has our goodness not been rewarded! Why did the light not shine upon that street! The lack of light has led me here!”

Eight eyes began to sprout from his forehead.

“That is not the case, Dismas. It is not. The one lacking is not the light, but us.”

Matheos gazed at him with a pained yet resolute expression.

As his gaze met with Dismas’s, white flames ignited wherever they touched.

The flames burned the vomit-colored variant slime’s body and freed those who had been sacrificed.

The wound of a child, whose tendons had been severed to prevent escape, healed, and the tainted mind of the infiltrators was purged in one fell swoop.

“Lady Trentia. Go pull them out.”

I spoke, still trying to recover from the shock of witnessing a royal infiltrator.

The concern of Jeilliris had become a reality, and I had no idea how strong of a backlash it would unleash.

“Pardon?”

“We’ve gone to all this trouble only to let them drown?”

Rudi, Trentia, and I hurriedly ran to rescue those who had fallen from the vomit-colored slime.

Even amidst that, I carefully watched Matheos and Dismas.

The spider eyes and legs of Dismas that had touched Matheos’s light ignited and curled up.

He reached out one hand and took Dismas’s hand.

White flames spread, and Dismas’s hand began to burn away.

“Gah!”

Thick black smoke rose from that hand.

Shaking with agony, Dismas spoke in a hoarse voice.

“Matheos, my brother. I have one last thing to say.”

In his eyes, from which the black smoke escaped, a glimmer of determination seemed to return.

“I will listen.”

Matheos’s previously unyielding gaze softened briefly.

At that moment, I rushed to leap at Dismas’s side, having just tossed a child to Lady Trentia.

“Listen to what?!”

Crack!

With all my might, I seized the sharp spider leg that was quickly thrust out from Dismas’s priestly robe.

Thwunk, thwack, thwunk!

Only after seizing it did I realize it had numerous protruding spikes on its hard exoskeleton.

Still not relenting, I drew my dagger from my waist and stabbed Dismas in the neck.

Normally, without a mana blade, it wouldn’t have penetrated, but he had become sufficiently weakened with so much black smoke having escaped from his body that my Sword Expert strength could pierce through.

“Eh.”

Matheos looked at me in astonishment.

Seeing the spider leg I had grabbed, his expression momentarily shifted to a mixture of self-reproach and rage.

‘Memories remain unchanged; only perspectives differ.’

It seemed he recalled my words.

In that moment, I quickly kicked towards the red heart-shaped horn Dismas was summoning, sending it flying towards Sererassie, who stood behind.

I was sure Matheos would never have seen that swift motion.

It was time to fall.

Splash!

Gripping tightly to the spider leg protruding from Dismas’s back and plunging my dagger into his neck, I fell together with him into the sewer intersection.

* * *

“Lord Valen! Please don’t do that again! With the saint here, why would you take action yourself?!”

Rudi snapped at me as I lay under a blanket.

I raised both hands above my head, bowing repeatedly.

Having emerged atop the collapsed sewer intersection, we faced countless crowds.

The constable and soldiers who arrived breathlessly controlled the surroundings, while members of the Black Iron Order sent by Jeilliris leaped into the sewer pathways to capture fleeing infiltrators, and priests and holy knights kneeled before Matheos.

“I have seen the Pillar of Light.”

“O Noble One.”

“Everyone, pay your respects! He is both the promise of the Lord and His Voice.”

With his curly black hair, resolute black eyes, radiant stigmata on his forehead, the fire of God, and the hammer of God, still possessing a hint of youthful charm, stood Matheos Tumor.

He was a gracious figure who would, in the future, incinerate all local infiltrators in the name of God on behalf of Jeilliris.

As the postulants who had only watched him from a distance until now approached, bowing their heads, he appeared somewhat flustered and floundered awkwardly.

Then, momentarily glancing my way, he nodded with a face hinting at a resolve.

I couldn’t tell if it meant he was thankful for preventing himself from becoming a friend’s murderer, or if it was a lesson that he couldn’t coexist with infiltrators who plotted betrayal until the last moment.

Perhaps it was both, or neither.

I caught a glimpse of Matheos’s back disappearing into the central church, surrounded by high priests, and muttered softly.

“The reason I stepped in myself was to place a debt on the saint. There were also two items I had to smuggle out.”

Lady Trentia walked alongside, dragging Dismas’s mutated corpse.

She exchanged words with the senior knights of the Black Iron Order and the Silver Knight Order, and soon nodded with satisfaction, handing Dismas’s mutated body to the senior knight of the Black Iron Order.

“I’ll go in first. There are so many priests around, it’s tiring to the eyes. You work hard now.”

“Sure, sister. ‘Be careful’ going in.”

Sererassie smiled, placing a fist-sized bundle wrapped in cloth into her robe’s inner pocket.

It glimmered with a reddish hue, reminiscent of a garnet.

Rudi’s mouth dropped open.

“Lord Valen. What is that…?”

“Yeah. That’s it.”

“And Lady Trentia…?”

“We can’t just do all the hard work and have the saint awaken to resolve everything for us. I have to bring something back.”

Rudi looked bewildered, with his green eyes wide, as if unsure of what to say.

“You really are bringing everything you can.”

“Of course.”

This was all for me and Jeilliris to live well together.

“We should head back quickly.”

“Is there something urgent?”

“I also need to report to the sovereign, and if we delay longer here, we might be the ones stuck with the sewer restoration costs.”

“Pardon? But it’s the light that…”

“The administrative officer believes in the light, but administration does not.”

Rudi clicked his tongue.

“You worry about those things, huh?”

“Lady Trentia. Hurry up!”

* * *

“I hear that Duke Valen caused the sewer explosion.”

“Do you know what was happening down there?”

“I don’t know. I’d assume they were certainly concocting some filthy and messy scheme? Maybe secretly selling drugs, buying or selling people, or hiding corpses.”

“With infiltrators discovered inside and the saint having defeated them, it really seems….”

“I doubt even the bandits would have dared touch the corruption. So did the sovereign let them live?”

“We don’t know, do we? They might have thought it was sufficient to leave the purification to the saint and merely kept them captive.”

“More than anything, it is fortunate that the saint has come to be. How many decades has it been?”

“To think he was born just a year after Jeilliris ascended to the throne… It’s as if the light is blessing the sovereign.”

“Hey! You! No matter what, to bless a murderer who has killed his father, mother, and siblings? Rather, he must have been sent as a warning! Have you perhaps received money?”

“No, what sort of nonsense is that?”

My vacation ended with such rumors spreading throughout the capital.

Dressed in my white uniform, I made my way to the audience chamber to report back.

Towering columns over 25 meters high lined the room, with marble and colorful crystals laid upon the floor.

The audience chamber ceiling was a deep azure, adorned with thousands of glass-lantern-covered candles.

Gazing at the flickering flames felt akin to gazing into the night sky.

Seated on a high podium was Jeilliris, looking down at me with a sadistic smile.

Her black dress embellished with gold embroidery matched the ambiance of the audience chamber perfectly.

“You’ve done a great deed.”

“I did not anticipate it would grow this substantial.”

“Originally, I wished for the infiltrators to draw attention. That way, we could organize the slums and pleasure districts under the pretense of eradicating them and impose order in the capital. But now, the people of the capital are all busy talking about the saint.”

“Your Majesty, I did not expect that a single postulant would suddenly receive stigmas.”

Jeilliris nodded in agreement.

“Yes, I too did not foresee such an event. I cannot hold you responsible.”

Moreover, she began to speak after a pause, “It is indeed true that you have merits in discovering the infiltrators’ lair as well. Especially since you were on vacation, you should receive a generous reward.”

An attendant approached me, fastening a red sash adorned with gold embroidery.

“Your Majesty. What is this?”

The red sash symbolized rights over military authority or weaponry.

“I grant you a hundred gold coins and the right to use magical artifacts, as well as permission to employ those magical artifacts. I have heard you suffered a deep wound on your thigh. Equip yourself with good armor and ensure that such things don’t happen again.”

“The lord’s grace is boundless.”

For a moment, I contemplated Rudi’s magic rifle.

He would likely have been informed by Lady Trentia.

While I had given him the rifle to provide a means to resist the infiltrators, I had no excuse if someone asked where I had managed to obtain it despite being securely stored in the magic tower. At least now it seemed to have settled down.

It was a relief.

As I exhaled a sigh of relief, Jeilliris gestured, shifting the topic.

Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack, the joints of her finger rings encased in a glove moved like a wave.

“The rumors are spreading that you are an infiltrator. Do you know of this?”

“It is all due to my lack of virtue.”

“You are quite aware of that.”

Hmm, I had no words.

“It is not a bad thing for discussions about royals and infiltrators to arise. It serves as an excellent reason to keep an eye on them, who might mutate without their own awareness at any moment.”

The attendant approached once more.

He held a thick folder of documents.

“I intend to eliminate this long and tedious line of bloodline here and now.”

“What should I begin with?”

“Gather all the illegitimate children along with your sister. I plan to move once I’ve severed all the variables.”