Chapter 21
“That is all I know.”
After finishing his confession, Deacon Silvio tightly shut his eyes.
“Huh, everything went just as the young master expected.”
Randolph let out a hollow laugh, as if he couldn’t believe it.
When he first heard Isaac’s story, he thought it was absurd.
But this was the moment when a seal of truth was stamped on all of it.
A connection between the Old Church and the cult.
Caught in the middle of it were Nias, Randolph, and Kyle.
The bishop created villains in order to expand the Old Church’s influence in Goethe.
And to raise those villains, he used tithes received from Goethe.
Of course, the bishop and his associates didn’t forget to take their own share.
The deacon, trembling and bleeding before them, had created a new doctrine based on theology learned from the Old Church, and incited vagrants and beggars to form a new sect.
“The worst… confession I’ve ever heard.”
Randolph commented in disbelief.
Silence fell over the prison.
And as it lingered, all eyes naturally turned to one person.
It was Isaac.
“What will you do?”
Carlson asked.
“Tomorrow, the deacon and Schiller will go to the cathedral. We’ll settle things there.”
“Then, our work here is done for now?”
“Not necessarily. Sir Randolph, Carlson. Are you free tonight?”
“Excuse me?”
Randolph and Carlson looked at Isaac with puzzled eyes.
They had just begun to relax, having secured the deacon’s confession.
“I think we’ll need to prepare for some visitors.”
It was only natural.
The bishop wouldn’t stay idle now that his tail had been stepped on.
Isaac looked calmly at the deacon.
“Don’t think this means you’ve won. Though I was momentarily deceived by the count’s vile scheme and interrupted a holy mission, Goethe will pay dearly for this! The bishop will surely see to it that the count is severely—!”
“It’s not ‘Count,’ it’s ‘Young Master Isaac.’”
Carlson corrected the deacon’s misunderstanding with a disinterested voice.
“…?”
“…?”
“I’m the one who planned all this. So if you’re looking to demand retribution, you’d better come to me. Not that it’ll do you any good. Now, let’s talk—just for a moment.”
Isaac gestured to Randolph and Carlson and left the interrogation room.
The deacon could only stare blankly at the backs of the three men.
***
Late at night.
The moon was hidden behind thick clouds and refused to reveal itself.
“Have you heard of the man-eating pig farm in the southwest of Bernshi?”
“I’ve heard that story more than ten times now.”
“Oh, really?”
“I’m going to take a piss.”
“Don’t wander off. Come right back.”
One of the guards waved his hand and walked into a dark alley.
But even after a long time passed, the guard who had gone to relieve himself didn’t return.
“Is that bastard drinking somewhere on his own again? Hey, Vernon!”
The guard at the entrance moved toward the direction his colleague had gone.
But before he could take even three steps, everything went dark.
Five shadows suddenly appeared over the fallen guard.
They were completely covered in black cloth from head to mouth, nearly invisible in the night.
After exchanging glances, they entered the detention facility.
“Guh—”
A dagger lodged itself in the neck of a guard who had been rolling dice alone.
Crunch—
The guard stationed at the entrance to the second basement level had his neck twisted in an impossible direction.
The five shadows moved efficiently, checking the identities of the prisoners behind the bars.
At the far end of the second basement level of the detention facility.
The interrogation room door was open.
The deacon, limp and slumped, was tied to a chair.
One of his eyes was so swollen he couldn’t see.
One of the five shadows entered the room and tried to stab a dagger into the deacon’s neck.
Squelch!
But before the dagger could land, the shadow felt a sudden heat in his side.
There was no pain.
An Arming Sword, which crushed bone and muscle, had pierced him and then cleanly decapitated him.
The remaining four shadows didn’t panic.
They immediately sensed presence and rushed toward the blind spots on both sides of the entrance in pairs.
Waiting in the blind spots were Carlson and Randolph, who had already taken down one enemy.
Randolph deflected the stabbing swords of the two attackers and severed the shoulder blade of one.
“Grrk.”
The groan was weak compared to the size of the injury.
Suddenly, the injured shadow ran out of the interrogation room.
“Ralph!”
“I’m on it!”
Ralph replied to Carlson’s shout.
Not a single one could be allowed to escape.
That was Isaac’s order.
They must not be allowed to report back to the bishop.
It had to be handled swiftly and decisively.
Clang—
Aura erupted from Randolph’s Arming Sword and broke the attacker’s sword.
“Gah—”
The Arming Sword pierced the attacker’s throat.
Randolph kicked the shadow’s body away to retrieve his sword and chased after the one who fled.
Carlson, while fending off two shadows, moved to stand in front of the deacon.
He had taken position so that the shadows couldn’t reach the deacon.
Two stabbing swords and one Arming Sword clashed and sparked.
Carlson had the upper hand in swordsmanship, but unlike Randolph, he couldn’t overwhelm them with sheer power or aura.
The tense standoff ended due to one unexpected variable.
“Move!”
The deacon, thinking they had come to rescue him, stood up from the chair and pushed Carlson.
“Ugh, why would you…”
But it was a misunderstanding.
The shadow drove a dagger into the deacon’s chest.
Carlson regained his balance and tried to cut the attacker, but the shadow used the deacon as a shield and pointed a dagger at Carlson’s neck.
While Carlson hesitated.
The shadow slashed the deacon’s throat.
“Ghhk, ghkk—”
The deacon clutched his neck with a shocked expression, choking on his own blood.
Blood poured endlessly between his fingers.
While Carlson checked the deacon’s condition, the two shadows ran out of the interrogation room.
After confirming the deacon’s death, Carlson chased after them.
Silence returned to the second basement prison.
Screech—
A metal hinge groaned.
The sound came from the prison cell next to the interrogation room, where Isaac had been watching everything unfold.
The deacon had died with his eyes open.
Isaac closed them for him.
They had lost the witness who could prove the bishop’s crimes.
But on the other hand, it was solid proof that everything the deacon had said was true.
They had already secured sufficient physical evidence.
Although it was unfortunate for the deacon, whether he lived or died held its own meaning for Isaac.
‘That doesn’t mean I’m exactly thrilled about this situation, though.’
Witnessing someone’s death is never a pleasant thing.
Isaac might have been able to save the deacon if he had used magic.
But if it became known that he could handle mana, the repercussions would be unpredictable.
Eventually, the truth would come out that he suffered from the same unique constitution as Zeke von Goethe, who burned down the capital.
All the royals and nobles of the kingdom might come to fear or antagonize Goethe.
Unfortunately, the deacon’s life wasn’t valuable enough for Isaac to take that kind of risk.
“Oh, who do we have here?”
A surprising voice broke Isaac’s thoughts.
“Isn’t that Isaac?”
“To think I’d meet you in a place like this, Bishop Levonius.”
Isaac rose to his feet and looked toward the man standing in the doorway of the interrogation room.
The man wore a shabby robe pulled over his head, but even the loose robe couldn’t hide his bulging stomach.
A dignified lower face, a gentle smile worn out of habit.
This was the bishop who orchestrated it all.
“You’re not even surprised to see me. As expected of the margrave’s son, always different from childhood.”
“I’m the one who’s surprised. I didn’t think you’d come in person.”
Even for Isaac, the bishop’s appearance was unexpected.
“I’m surprised too. That Goethe’s meddling would ruin things this badly. They say every effort bears fruit, but it seems my effort was lacking. So I came to put in the work myself—how rewarding it has been.”
The bishop smiled faintly.
Though the expression was unreadable, Isaac understood his intent.
“You look like someone who just found a gold coin on the street.”
“Do I? I raised Deacon Silvio like my own child, ever since he was an orphan. I’m grieving now.”
“Do you feel even the slightest guilt over his death?”
“No, what pains me is his corruption. That he submitted to evil so easily. But he was a grateful fellow. He brought you here, after all.”
“So, you intend to kill me too.”
Isaac said calmly.
“Such fearless eyes. Isaac, do you remember when I baptized you?”
The bishop opened an old book tucked under his arm with one hand.
Isaac recognized it instantly.
‘A grimoire.’
The Old Church of the Empire was in the midst of a full-scale witch hunt.
Thousands of magical artifacts were seized by the papacy during that time.
The grimoire in the bishop’s hand was one of them.
“I don’t remember.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to. You were just an infant. I didn’t take kindly to your birth. A child born between an unbeliever like Goethe and a tribe of heathens.”
The bishop shook his head.
“It’s no wonder you’re cursed. You were born of a union that defied His will.”
“…….”
“Isaac, you were never meant to be born. If you’d been born normally, like your brother, maybe. But as you are now, your existence is proof that the union of Goethe and the tribes defies divine providence.”
“You say such hurtful things so casually. And you’re a bishop.”
“Out of mercy, I’m telling you why you must die. Yours is a soul that cannot be saved.”
“And what good will killing me do?”
“You will die today at the hands of cultists. That will sever the ties to wicked heresy. And this land will be purified.”
“…So that’s what this is.”
Isaac’s gaze turned cold.
Now the final piece of the puzzle fell into place.
The reason the cultists were ordered to sacrifice Isaac.
It wasn’t just a way to agitate the people of the territory.
Most of the cultists, including Nias, were vagabonds.
And most of those vagabonds were from broken tribes on the frontier.
Those tribes had opposed the peace treaty between Goethe and the great tribes and had been subjugated.
If they brutally sacrificed Isaac—
The peace Goethe had finally established with the tribes during the count’s time would be shattered.
‘I thought I volunteered to be bait, but they were targeting me all along.’
Around this time in his previous life.
There had been an assassination attempt on Isaac.
The assassins took their own lives as soon as they failed, leaving no way to trace who was behind it.
Back then, he thought it was simply due to dissatisfaction over the mana explosion, but now the bigger picture was clear.
“You’d best not count on your knights returning. The five sent here were bait from the start. Thirteen holy knights are waiting outside. The kind of men who can’t afford to show their faces in places like this.”
The bishop pulled a wooden stake from a pouch at his waist.
“Barbarians use stakes like these during sacrificial rites. To keep the offerings still, so their many gods can feast upon them. Truly barbaric.”
Whoosh—
In an instant, the stake in the bishop’s hand tore through the air, flying straight toward Isaac.
It aimed precisely for the center of his forehead.
Clink!
But before the spike could reach Isaac, something deflected it off course.
“A grimoire with phase-shifting spells, I presume.”
The spike embedded itself in a random wall.
Though Isaac remained expressionless as he spoke, he was inwardly surprised.
‘As I thought, it’s a grimoire.’
Even a simple phase-shift carried immense power.
The blunt spike had clashed with an ice crystal and still pierced a stone wall.
Isaac wasn’t the only one surprised.
“Why… How can you use ice magic?”
The bishop’s face twisted in shock.
Not only had he used ice magic, but he had also intercepted a flying projectile with perfect accuracy.
It was completely outside the bishop’s expectations.
“Well, maybe I sold my soul to a devil or something.”
The blood of Deacon Silvio, still warm and pooled on the floor, began to rise into the air.
The droplets defied gravity and swirled together.
Crack
And soon formed an ice crystal.
“Out of mercy, let me tell you why you must die, Bishop. The reason is—because it’s still inconvenient for the world to know I can use magic.”
Whoosh—
The ice crystal made of Silvio’s blood flew violently toward the bishop.
