Clearing the Game at the End of the World Chapter 451

Chapter. 21. Another Solo Play (10)

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Cha-bak-cha-bak-cha-bak

The stairs leading down to the basement were as neat as the temple above them. The soft decoration and round work unique to the Mercy Church seemed to represent their non-hostile religion, and the rose quartz and marble used as materials even gave a warm feeling when illuminated by the light of the torch.

Sreung –

So the reason I’m so nervous isn’t because of darkness or gloom.

What should I say? Something that fundamentally makes people tremble more than things like darkness, death, or evil.

『Aaaah-…give me….-with love—』

“?!”

okay. This must be the feeling a person facing the unknown feels.

What broke through the foggy ancestral rites was the sound of singing.

『Sa….Share Saaaa- Saalmeeuul Gifmeuro-』

‘Is it a hymn of mercy? ‘Why are they gathered underground like this?’

I expected something as cursed as the dark, evil air outside. The temple I saw was barely able to block the fog of the curse by burning ceremonial offerings to the point where I could not see, so it would not have made much sense for the priests here to have gone crazy due to the curse.

But all I could feel down there was pure divine power. It is too pure and pure to be tainted by a curse and have someone plotting something, and only the divine power can be felt.

But why? Why do I feel so strangely anxious?

Sweet.

The

thick wooden door wasn’t even locked.

『Self-loving – Soneultaraaa—』

What shines through the crack in the door is the bright light of divinity.

The strange singing voice of a choir somewhere.

and.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

in

on in on in

indulgence

.

The temple’s basement was filled with humans who had been deformed by the curse they had seen in the houses of the city in the morning. A breathing, heavy source of curse that looks like a piece of melted meat.

“That child just lacks learning yet, saint.”

The bishop’s voice was heard among the meat singing endlessly.

An old priest leaning back on a shabby wooden chair in the center of a basement full of singing meat.

His aging body and half-opened eyes had a peacefulness like a languid afternoon.

“Learning… is not enough?”

“Unfortunately, these people are physically unwell. “Wouldn’t learning to speak or praise be like a painful ordeal for them?”

A bishop who speaks as if he were scolding me. The warmth that permeated those words added even more strength to the hand holding the sword.

“You made all these pieces of meat with your own hands?”

“The Goddess says, You will reach out to all pain through the tips of my fingers.”

“Latura. “Can you please stop your narrow-minded view a little?” The bishop got

up

with the sound of a wooden chair being dragged, walked towards a small altar in a corner of the basement, holding in his arms a church that was as old as the chair, and spoke.

“The saint also came to see the temple up there and the condition of the saints within it. “Did they look okay?”

“….”

“Seeing as you didn’t say anything, it seems like you saw a glimpse of the future that I saw.”

Jerk. Jerk.

“It’s been three years since a curse fell on the entire capital.”

Chin –

“The divinity accumulated over generations did not last less than a year. The brothers who were with the knights have disappeared and there is no news of them. The brothers who guarded this place died one by one, and the surviving brothers were going crazy from the curse that was slowly seeping in.”

“….so?”

“It may be insufficient, but as a person responsible for all the brothers and sisters here and the believers who have entrusted us here… I had to find a way.”

The bishop laid down his cavalry on the altar. Then he looked at me once, gently stroked the piece of meat stuck to the side of the altar, and spoke.

“Hey. Ah, try saying that. ah. iced coffee-.”

Fu-Huu-Fu-Fu-Woo-

“Huhua-Ah-Ah ….”

“Yes, I’m frustrated. “Aww, try it.”

Phuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

me me your your way to

me

.

“Aww- ah…”

“Latura.”

“D…Aww…”

“Brother. The child hasn’t left yet. Pray. Ratura.”

“D…Ah…Tueu…. Raaa….”

In the end, I ended up putting a small prayer into my collapsed body.

“Good job. “You did such a good job.”

“Ra…uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu her of hers… its heroi….”

The bishop looked back at me with her eyes filled with tears of joy.

“This is the answer I found. Saint Hyde.”

“What is this….”

“At first, it was a feeling of atonement. “For the first time, among those who entrusted themselves to the temple, one who lost his form and became the source of a curse came out, and I felt acutely aware of my shortcomings and planned to end my life here underground with them.”

“but. “When my brother and I were the only ones left in this large dungeon, I heard that two prayer sounds were already lingering in this underground temple filled with only prayers of atonement and heavy breathing.”

“I can’t believe it! Divine Mercy, O Hand of the Most Compassionate!”

The old bishop’s voice rang loudly through the basement.

“It was an epiphany! This was the moment when the blind man finally realized the actions of the benevolent Goddess! Reach out your hand to all who suffer! You are the fingertips of mercy on my behalf. If you walk on the path, I will give you the answer!! That was the answer given by the goddess to us who were dying! A clearer answer than any other oracle! “The only way!”

Huuuung –

When the bishop raised his hand, divinity flowed out from the piece of meat that was chanting and gathered at the tip of his hand.

‘Blindness… Are you saying that faith can be created even from such beliefs?’

The body that was supposed to produce life force for the curse was chanting in the basement of the temple and producing divine power.

This was the reason why the priests here were in good condition, unlike the Hyla priests we met at the cave barrier. The Hyla priest used her personal divine power to care for the people, but the priests here took care of the people with the divine power provided by the temple.

More precisely, the temple has been protected until now by using the sacred power of the cursed choir that fills the vast basement of the temple.

There was conflict in the hand holding the sword.

‘If blindness comes to someone who cannot think, is it faith or brainwashing?’

‘Did the bishop save or use the people who were ruined by the curse?’

“These are not the source of a curse or anything! Rather, they are just brothers who have escaped human desires and emotions and have reached true purity! It is a ‘pure body’ that has been most ideally transformed by the hand of God! The purest and most blind faith! A truly believed form!”

“Pure body. “That’s what you call me.”

“Brother. A proud knight. Please open your eyes! This is the path given by the Goddess to save the descendants of faith that are not in the form of that false emperor!”

And the moment I turned my eyes to the corner of the basement full of singing meat, the tip of the knife stopped trembling.

“Bishop.”

“yes. Please tell me. Saint Hyde.”

“You said that the temple’s sacred power ran out about a year ago, so the ‘pure beings’ here must have been civilians who were in the temple at that time.”

“Mercy does not abandon those who do not leave of their own accord.”

“Thanks to the ‘divine power’ they produced, they managed to push away the fog of curse and protect people like they do now.”

“Of course.”

“….then.”

Seueuugh-

“Why is the trace I was looking for here?”

“…Saints.”

“Amelda wouldn’t have been tainted by the curse yet to the point where she would end up like that!”

Where I pointed with the tip of my sword, there was a piece of clothing buried among the ‘pure bodies’. The clothes Amelda was wearing when she followed the bishop.

“Because you are such a great ‘pure body’, are you planning to change everyone here like that? “The patients in the temple will soon end up like that, so should we even capture the people still left outside?”

Perhaps reacting to the name ‘Amelda’, one of the pieces of meat piled on top of the clothes leaned towards us. Unlike what was inside, the neat underground temple had only one corner broken, as if someone had done it on purpose, and a purple mist flowing from the broken corner was settling on the piece of meat that was ‘Amelda’.

“Sucking out life force as a source of curse! Collect divine power as a source of divinity! “What is the difference between what that emperor did to them and what you did?”

“…Ratura.”

The bishop’s moist eyelids quietly lifted.

“You saint… you are too blind to accept the will of the goddess. “It’s all to protect the temple.”

“Did the goddess teach people to be made like this?”

“Nothing has changed. Only the form has changed, but the life and faith remain the same. “Mercy does not shy away from anyone’s hand.”

“What this ‘pure body’ believes in… is not the goddess, but you!”

Otherwise, their divine power would not have gathered into the bishop’s hand.

The bishop smiled benevolently as he looked at his fingertips, where tens of thousands of pure ‘blind people’ had gathered.

“I am the servant of the goddess, so there is no problem with that either.”

The bishop’s body rose with a halo, and a strong divine energy rushed into the basement.

“You’re crazy.”

The bishop’s widened eyes were a darker shade of purple than the fog of curse.

****

“Brother Hauld. “I didn’t notice anything strange.”

“Brother Naseira. “Maybe you didn’t see where the bishop went.”

Something was wrong. Paladin Frauk was possessed by such a strange sensation.

“Brother Frauch. “I think I’ve been wandering around outside the temple too often lately.”

“The bishop is closer to the will of the goddess than we are, so he must be that much busier.”

Feeling anxious, he asked his other brothers and sisters, but they all just blamed his nervousness.

‘perhaps. I may really have been tainted by the curse.’

Over the past three years, I have clearly witnessed how the curse of the capital changes people. Even knights with strong wills and disciplined souls and wizards who presented their own worlds to the world were twisted and went crazy. Perhaps he, too, was being possessed by that purple fog and developing unnecessary doubts.

“Hmm…”

Even though he is mostly responsible for going outside the temple under the bishop’s orders. It is natural for those who have received strong grace to stand in the most difficult places. He, who is praised as the strongest paladin here, is the first to be invaded by a curse. It is a shameful thing that cannot be excused.

“Latura. Mercy, guide this needy one.”

Frauch fell to his knees, blaming himself for his lack of faith. Like my brothers of other faiths, I planned to pray here until my firm faith returned.

The moment his knees hit the floor.

….thud.

…-thud.

“This is…”

very faintly but clearly. Isn’t the sensation of something ringing coming through my knees touching the floor?

“Is it an underground temple?”

He knew what was inside. This is a place where the remains of those who have died or become weak due to various reasons over the past three years are buried. A place where priests and paladins who died while protecting the temple and patients who were too weak to prevent themselves from becoming cursed were given ‘mercy’ before it was too late and were given funerals in the manner of the church.

I thought that if you burn or bury the body carelessly in this cursed land, you could be reborn as a ghost undead, etc., so the remains were inevitably collected in an underground temple.

Why is there such a commotion underground on a day when there is no one dead or dying?

“….”

None of those felt nearby had disappeared. Except for the bishop who disappeared along with the civilians he saved.

Come to think of it, I haven’t visited the underground temple even once since the curse spread through the capital. Even though the funeral was performed in the religious manner, the place was full of cursed remains, so no one except the bishop leading the funeral and the brothers accompanying him could enter.

Frauch got up and headed to the place where the entrance to the underground was hidden.

Crash.

“…Thelma. Brother Howld.”

As he stretched out his hand toward the flagstone where the entrance was hidden, two paladins blocked his path.

“Step aside, Brother Frauch.”

“The bishop is in there.”

“You are consumed by unnecessary doubts. “Hasn’t it been less than an hour since you came back from the fog outside?”

“If I am at fault, I will later kneel before the statue of the goddess and repent. But now I have to go see the bishop down there.”

….Clap!

Short sword and shield. And a javelin blocked his path.

The brothers in faith drew their weapons against him.

Just because they were trying to head to the underground temple located within the temple.

This is the temple where he was born and raised.

It was a place I visited several times before the curse spread.

That place must also be part of the temple, so why?

“Lead us not into temptation, Brother Frauch.”

“Brother.”

“You are possessed by the whisper of a curse!”

“Brother!”

“Get back! “Even if you are the strongest brother among us, this kind of violence cannot be tolerated!”

Coo-ung.

In an instant, a clearer sound spread through the floor.

The brothers’ weapons were now pointed at him.

“…Brother.”

Frauch took his mace in his hand.

I hope it’s an illusion. I prayed that the young purple aura in the brothers’ eyes was a delusion of him possessed by the curse.

“…I will repent for the sin of hurting the fingertips of the goddess throughout my life.”

“We also. “It will hurt the goddess’s most diligent fingertips.”

Even when a big fight was about to break out, the priests did not take care of the patients around them.

The only thing he sees as his mission is to stop himself.

Except for those who were out guarding the outside of the temple, everyone left here. Eight paladins, priests, and fifteen people were all coming toward him.

All I said was that I needed to see the underground temple.

He said he would check the place where there were only the remains of those who left first.

Are his suspicions excessive?

Is this all an illusion created by a curse?

Or…

“….Ratura el-Samia.”

“Latura el-Samia.”

“Latura el-Samia.”

“Latura el-Samia.”

Those who said the same prayer clashed.

Shouts and Prayers In the roar of metal and divinity meeting.

The purple fog enveloped the temple as if mocking its appearance.

****