Chapter 40
“AGHHH!!!”
Gunter’s axe tore straight through the big man’s shoulder.
“Khaha! Too weak, are you? If you want to excite me, bring someone stronger!”
Covered in the enemy’s blood, the way he swung his axe was terrifying enough for the attackers.
Even more so because the opponent was an ordinary person who’d never even seen real combat.
“Khahahaha!”
Not only me, but Gunter was also a renowned fighter.
No wonder he’d been nicknamed the Butcher.
There was no one here who could stop his axe.
Of course, there wasn’t anyone who could stop me either.
I didn’t even need to take out Hephaistos’ hammer.
The Dragon Slayer drove his blade through the apostate’s neck, and then cut the leg of another man who rushed at us with a sword.
Thuk!
“Ugh…”
The blade pierced the enemy’s heart.
Magic rained down on me while I was fighting.
“Death Falls!”
Blue liquid poured onto the spot where I’d been standing.
My body tingled where it touched.
“The god’s power will slay you!”
The priest who saw me drenched in blue water shouted triumphantly.
“That poison is pretty nasty.”
The man I had just killed turned blue in an instant, and the corpse began to rot.
It was clearly a potent poison.
However—
[You resist poison.]
Unfortunately for him, it didn’t work on me.
“Powerful, but the wrong spell choice.”
I glared at the priest.
“Guh….”
Maybe he thought the poison didn’t work because of some difference in level — his body trembled when our eyes met.
After tossing the limp corpse aside, he stepped toward me and fired magic.
Ice spears flew toward my body.
Pabababat!
“Doesn’t that do anything?”
None of the sharp ice spears touched me; they flew through the air and missed.
I grabbed his collar.
Then I put my fingers into his mouth where he was about to bite his own teeth.
“You can’t commit suicide.”
A common trick.
Hide poison in the teeth to prevent information leaking.
I removed his means of suicide from his mouth and said, brushing my hands off.
“Now — let’s have a little chat.”
“Guh….”
There were so many things I wanted to ask.
“Is all this your doing?”
I pointed at the altar set up near the harbor, the sacrificial items littering the beach, and the people watching us with various forms of horror.
“The gods will punish you!”
He cried out that the gods would punish us, his voice trembling in fear.
God’s punishment.
He probably didn’t know that I was the person in this world who feared divine punishment the least.
“A god, huh… Which god do you worship?”
“Yo—Jormungandr will punish you all!”
A lie.
Even though he tried to stare at me with unwavering eyes, instinct told me he wasn’t telling the truth.
“Don’t give me that obvious lie.”
I pressed my hand to the tattoo near his eye.
“You really believe in this, right? Azur, isn’t it?”
“Jormungandr will—”
“The sea god Azur. You have the tail of a god from the ruined world so clearly tattooed on you—why would you lie about it?”
He kept denying it, trying to play innocent.
Fine. If he insisted on that, then—
I told Gunter, who had finished off the last big man, “Gunter, tie this one up.”
“Understood.”
“How dare you! I am Jormungandr’s priest! You insult my god if you— Ugh!”
Of course, Gunter wasn’t one to be intimidated.
While Gunter was holding the man’s mouth shut, I took out the Truth Ink from Kybisis.
A holy item that perceives truth and falsehood in all words and writing.
I dropped a single drop on his forehead.
“Now, I’ll ask again. Who do you worship?”
“You fool. Asking a question with an answer already decided. Yes — I worship Jormungandr!”
He shouted, veins standing out in his eyes.
But contrary to his boast, the mark on his forehead began to blacken.
“It works.”
It was functioning correctly.
“Next question — are you performing human sacrifices?”
“Yes.”
The ink darkened again.
‘Insane.’
There was no trace of remorse about sacrificing people.
He seemed to accept it as natural.
The stench of fanaticism twisted my jaw.
‘As I thought, apostates are like this.’
They have no qualms about sacrificing others for their purposes.
I forced down the urge to vomit and continued my questioning.
“Is your purpose to unseal Azur from the otherworld god?”
“Blasphemy! You mock our piety!”
This time the ink turned clearly red.
I slapped his cheek.
Smack!
“Ugh!”
“From now on answer only yes or no. If you say useless things there will be punishment.”
“Bastard….”
Smack!
“Ugh!”
“You are only permitted yes or no.”
His eyes were full of hostility.
“Is the human sacrifice being done to kill Jormungandr?”
“Arrogant! Our faith is for Jormungandr— Ugh!”
Smack!
No need to get the answer; the ink had turned red.
It confirmed that their aim was to slay Jormungandr and summon the otherworldly god Azur.
But two questions remained.
“Besides the god, do you have other helpers?”
“…….”
He sealed his lips.
It looked like he was trying not to answer.
‘That’s not going to work.’
The truth ink on his forehead was still red.
He was thinking something obvious.
Truth Ink doesn’t only react to words; it reads the meaning behind actions too.
That’s why it’s called truth ink.
It reveals the truth the marked person holds.
It made me realize why the item was S-rank.
Red.
“Is that helper Thor?”
“The gods will punish you.”
Instead of answering, the man babbled something irrelevant and shuddered.
Blood dripped from his mouth.
His face began to turn ashen.
‘Is there still poison left?’
No.
It wasn’t poison.
At that moment, the red whale-tail mark on his forehead began to glow.
The light spread across his body; the glowing areas started to transform grotesquely.
Horns sprouted from his head, and scales grew on his skin.
The strangely altered body swelled.
“Gunter! Let go of him and fall back!”
As soon as I shouted that, Gunter released the arm he had bound, and the thing—no longer human—got its skull crushed by Gunter’s hammer.
Squelch!
“Ugh!”
That was the last cry of the final one.
I kicked the crushed corpse with the hammer still on it.
The body flew up and exploded in midair.
Boom!
The explosion scattered the poison that had been coursing through the corpse onto the altar.
“Was that a suicide explosion?”
“Looks like they didn’t want to tell who was behind it, even in death.”
But I saw something.
Before transforming, the ink on his head had turned red.
He had chosen suicide to hide what he knew, and the ink’s reaction had indicated falsehood.
‘If Thor is truly an accomplice…’
It would make sense that in my past life Thor had a pretext to slay Jormungandr at the right time.
The photographs I saw had been unusually clear and seemed meticulously arranged.
‘This is troublesome.’
The biggest problem was that a god of humanity used apostates for his own gain.
It meant they were worse than I had thought.
I didn’t have solid proof, but the possibility alone was cause for serious thought.
“My questions felt like koans.”
“Did they?”
“Well, did you find anything? The priest seemed to deny most questions. Didn’t get any reliable info.”
I hadn’t planned to get proper answers from him anyway.
This was just a procedure to check the authenticity of the news I had seen in my past life.
“Was the human sacrifice really to summon an otherworld god?”
“Yes. That’s certain.”
“And the fact there may be a mastermind… you know something?”
“No, I just asked to be sure. It’s a shame I didn’t get answers.”
I looked at the priest, now a bloody ruin.
“What do we do now?”
Gunter asked, and I turned my head.
“W—he just—turned into a monster….”
“Wasn’t human…?”
“Did you see that just now?”
“Ahhh, my god….”
There were citizens watching us with fear and hostility.
They trembled and some fainted from shock.
Those who had believed the priest and the human sacrifices.
Even if they were deceived, that didn’t absolve them.
The problem was—
‘It’s not my place to judge their crimes.’
Ordinary people have lawful judicial procedures for punishment.
We couldn’t impose the standards of awakened ones on civilians.
As long as they didn’t try to kill us.
After seeing that scene, they wouldn’t dare attack us.
“What was that just now?”
Gunter, still with startled eyes, asked me.
“It was definitely a demon. I’ve never seen a demon up close, but it matched the descriptions passed down.”
“Similar.”
“Are all the apostates like that?”
“Probably not. It’s only connected to the blessing given by the otherworld god.”
Gunter fell silent.
“A god’s blessing turning people like that… it’s like the gods who created guilds.”
His words brought back my last memories from my previous life.
Apostles who believed in their gods gradually transformed under their touch.
Some lost themselves like puppets, some lost their bodies, some became demons.
The horrific scenes I’d seen in my previous life overlapped in my mind.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
I never wanted to see that again.
At least—
I didn’t want to experience gods lying and betraying and turning away because of their fate.
This wasn’t for some greater good.
I simply hated gods who lied and turned a blind eye while holding people’s fates.
“Dojin, you okay? Why are you sweating so much…?”
When I opened my eyes to Gunter’s voice, he was checking on me.
During that moment with my eyes closed, sweat had poured down my whole body like rain.
I was drenched.
“…I’m fine. I just had an old memory flash.”
Focus.
Now is the time to prevent Jormungandr’s death and use him for that purpose.
‘Get a grip.’
I steadied my breath and looked at the people staring at us with fear and hatred from the altar.
I didn’t care how they saw us.
The only reason I’d helped them was that killing these apostates was necessary to stop Jormungandr’s death.
“Do any of you have a boat you can lend us?”
“…….”
Silence.
They only watched, their faces full of hatred and fear.
“Is there no one to help?”
“Leave!”
An old man shouted at us.
“You shattered our hope! Because of you we—”
Gunter cast him a puzzled look.
“Murderers!”
“Our god will punish you!”
“Die!”
“Call the authorities! Arrest these murderers!”
The voices blaming us grew, laced with fury.
One person started, the voices swelled and rose.
Then—
“We’ll help you!”
A group of people began approaching the altar where Gunter and I stood.
They were the same people who had closed their doors and trembled in the market earlier.
