◈ 537. [Side Story] Red Priests (4)
First of all, I took Hannibal out of the barracks to separate him from the other men.
Squatting down in front of Hannibal, I put my forehead on my aching forehead and asked.
“You said you were fifteen when I hired you.”
Then Hannibal, who was looking at me hesitantly, said in a crawling voice.
“At that time, I lied about my age… Kelly Bay-sama knew right away the day she accepted me as an assistant.”
I immediately opened the door and yelled at Kelly Bay in the barracks.
“Kelly Bay! Why didn’t you tell me!”
“Ah? You should have filtered out the age! hey! And tell me how many times! Are dwarves digging burrows since they were babies? It’s strange that you want to wait until you come of age!”
Oh, anyway, this barbarism… … romance… Anyway, it’s like a fantasy world!
After pulling my hair out, I sighed and asked Hannibal.
“So how old are you?”
“… Now I’m only fourteen. I was thirteen when you hired me.”
Kwakwawang!
I felt like lightning strikes behind me.
heat… three years old? Thirteen Years Old?
I… Violation of child labor laws? The evil boss, or the evil lord?!
“Aagh! I am… I’m a mean adult who recklessly rolls children on the front line… … !”
As he rolled on the floor in agony, the men who came back from inside the barracks spoke alternately.
“No, so the only one who cares about that is the lord?”
“We grew up stealing and stealing and fighting since we were kids!”
“Everybody suck! Kids can’t fight for their lives! Kids should play as much as they want!”
I slammed the door in anger.
Hannibal, who was more helpless and twisted his body, looked at me.
“… Anyway, when I was living in that nursery school. I secretly heard something from the director.”
“which?”
“I am the child of the princess of the Western Mist Kingdom… … .”
Hannibal looked towards the closed door.
“And my father keeps sending child support to the orphanage.”
“… .”
“And a few years ago, assassins from the Mist Kingdom came to kill me at the orphanage, and I barely escaped… .”
How did it flow after that and how did it come to this point?
“okay. I get it roughly.”
I put Hannibal in the restaurant attached to the barracks.
“I am resting here for now. I’ll go clean things up with Janice.”
And I ran into the barracks.
In the barracks, besides the old men, other men who were curious about what was going on came out in droves and surrounded Janice in the corner of the hallway. I pressed my throbbing forehead with both hands.
“Okay Janice… Let’s start with cross-validation.”
When we compared the name of the nursery school Hannibal had mentioned and the age of Hannibal, it was confirmed that the personal information matched that of Janice’s son.
“Ahhhh… .”
Janice sighed and wiped her forehead again and again. I asked cautiously.
“Does it look like your son?”
“… I don’t know where to start talking about this.”
Janice covered her face with both hands and muttered softly.
“That child is my son, but… He is not my son.”
“… ?”
There is silence for a moment.
The next moment, the men around them all started beating Janice.
“You stupid child! A child like my father!”
“Now, even with my son right in front of me, I’m so stupid!”
“We got it wrong… Miss Janice! You should be more scolded!”
“It’s not enough to put the child in an orphanage for the rest of his life, so what?! A son, but not a son?!”
“Hey, you naughty bastard! Hey hey hey!”
After Janice beat the fan until she declared surrender.
I growled ferociously at this man who was making a groaning noise.
“Now, give me a convincing explanation. If I didn’t, I might not be able to survive from the guys here… … .”
“… .”
Janice closed her eyes tight with a bruised face. And he slowly opened his mouth.
***
17 years ago.
Fuck!
A fist full of holy power crushed a person’s head like a watermelon.
The head belonged to the knight commander of this small city kingdom. And the place where the head exploded was right in the king’s bedroom.
“Ahhhhh!”
the king screamed.
He was in a panic. It was because this assassin who suddenly came in the middle of the night had beaten all his escorts to death with only his bare fists.
“My life please! Let me save your life!”
“… .”
“I’ll give you any amount of money! There are also a lot of riches! I’ll give you anything, anything! therefore… .”
The king begged, but the muscular assassin standing in front of him just looked down at the king in silence.
Sabak Sabak.
Then, a female assassin dressed in the same outfit approached with light footsteps beside the muscular assassin.
“your majesty. How many times have we not told you? I have no interest in riches… … .”
When the female assassin removed the veil covering her face, a beautiful face familiar even to the king was revealed.
It was the priest-Saint Rosetta who was dispatched here to propagate the Goddess Church.
“Lady Rosetta!”
The king hurriedly knelt beneath Rosetta.
“That’s right. Because of my execution of members of your religion last week? I’ll apologize right now If necessary, I will apologize at the kingdom level. so… .”
“You thought about that from the beginning, didn’t you?”
Rosetta smiled brightly.
“If you had stopped the persecution of the Goddess Church long ago, the situation would not have reached this far.”
“I was wrong. I was short on thoughts. I will proclaim freedom of religion even now. so… !”
“It’s late. Because His Majesty’s cousin promised to convert the kingdom’s state religion to the goddess religion.”
Rosetta slowly released the whip from her waist and gripped it.
“so… There is no need to negotiate with Your Majesty any longer. If Your Majesty disappears, your cousin will take over this country.”
“That guy… ! He said he sold me out… … !”
Rosetta slowly approached the king. The king, crawling on the floor and stepping back, shouted.
“Aren’t you priests of God! Do you think your god will forgive you for doing this!”
“We are the shadows of the goddess. In order for His light to shine, it takes people like us who have blood on their hands.”
It was only then that the king remembered the names of the opponents in front of him – the Goddess Church Heretic Inquisitors.
A bloody executioner who dyes his black priestly clothes red with the blood of his opponents.
red priests.
“Ei-i-i-ik! What kind of a saint is you! You are a witch!”
“It’s a phrase you hear often.”
“You will all go to Hell!”
“This is what I hoped for.”
Rosetta whispered, easily passing the king’s last shrieking scream.
“In that hell, the evil things that disobeyed the word of God… I can kill you once again.”
Right after that, Rosetta’s whip was mercilessly thrust into the king’s body.
***
At the end of the situation, at the top of the mountain near the city kingdom.
“… .”
Rosetta was looking down at the chaotic city with a cold face.
The king was assassinated, his cousin ascended the new throne, and he proclaimed the Goddess religion as the new state religion.
In other words – I decided to accept the influence of the Everblack Empire.
The empire did not go to war with this small country. Instead, the relatively ‘peaceful’ method of assassinating the king and propagating the religion brought the country into his sphere of influence.
There were many ways to put the other country into the belly without forcibly subjugating it within the border. this was just one of them.
“… after.”
Rosetta let out a short sigh,
“Why are you sighing, sister?”
A muscular young man approached from behind Rosetta, tidying up her hair.
It was the heretic inquisitor, Zenith, the assassin who destroyed the royal palace with Rosetta a while ago.
Janice tidied up her clothes with a youthful and cool face.
An unbelievable cold and cool energy was flowing along the young man’s face, which was unbelievable that he was an assassin who had brandished his fists like crazy in the palace a while ago.
Rosetta glanced back at her stepsister and adjusted her glasses.
“Janice, is this the right thing to do?”
“… Are you shaking again? Calm down, sister.”
Janice glared at her sister with a cold gaze.
“Aren’t we fighting a holy war?”
“Aren’t you representing the war of the empire?”
“It’s just that we understand each other. Empires expand their influence, and we crush countries that persecute their followers.”
Zenith looked down expressionlessly at the burning city-kingdom. However, in the young man’s eyes, pride and fanaticism that could not be hidden were seething.
“Everything for the light of the goddess.”
“… .”
Rosetta, who was staring at her younger sister, shook her head.
“I don’t know. I didn’t become a priest for this.”
“Why do you keep doing this? The best Heretic Questioner of the Church?”
“How did we, the church’s internal purifier, end up going outside the church like this? Was it because of missionary work, assassination, and political maneuvering?”
Rosetta let out a long sigh.
“I wanted to heal people and hear thanks, like the other saints of the church, rather than killing people and hearing insults.”
“That youngest saintess whom my sister praises often… Like Marherita?”
“okay.”
When the word came out, as if she was jealous of the other saints in her heart, Rosetta recited.
“He was all rough and healed people in the slums. People are admiring the young saintess and voluntarily take refuge in our church.”
Rosetta silently looked down at the city-state they had replaced the throne.
“This kind of violence is not the only answer… .”
Then Janice snorted.
“Arthur. A life befitting a snake for a snake, and a life befitting a bird for a bird. And we are snakes, sister.”
snake-.
At those words, Rosetta felt the blood in her whole body go cold. The vain aspirations of dreaming of a different life for a while quickly evaporated and disappeared.
“… okay. You’re right, we are shadows. Because they are red priests.”
Rosetta nodded and patted Janice on the back.
“Zenith, don’t be shaken like that in the future, and our Heretic Questioner… … Remain as a pillar of the Knights Templar.”
“Of course I will.”
Janice lifted her cold lips and smiled.
“That way your sister won’t be shaken.”
“… .”
“What’s your next mission, sister?”
“It’s your solo mission this time.”
Rosetta took out the next mission order from her pocket and gave it to Janice.
“It is a place called the Western Mist Kingdom. It’s worse than this mission. It is an extremely exclusive country that is wary of other religions as well as other races, ethnic cultures.”
Rosetta continued to speak to Janice, who was reading the order.
“You will enter the country as a diplomat of the Everblack Empire. Little by little, build a base for propagation and create four sides among high-ranking officials. and… .”
“You mean to assassinate the leader like this time?”
“… okay.”
“It is as always. I will do my best.”
Taking the order in her bosom, Janice nodded and disappeared as if she were melting into the darkness.
“This mission will take some time. See you next time, sister.”
“… .”
“Everything for the light of the goddess.”
“Let’s meet again in the shadows, my brother.”
Janice disappeared into the darkness. Rosetta watched the place where the darkness had disappeared.
The two never knew.
To think that it would take 17 long years to reunite again.
***
“… So why are you telling this story?”
today.
The men who listened to Janice’s flashbacks all booed.
“Are you going to say nonsense about being a cold-looking, cold-looking guy 17 years ago?”
“Who do you think you believe? Uncle Jessie must have been a man with a shaggy beard and a bad body from the start!”
“Rather than that, when will the story of Hannibal come out!”
“I asked how you abandoned your son, and someone said you want to hear about him when he’s doing well?!”
“This man asked for this bread, and he is the one who will start farming wheat!”
With a woo-woo sound, all sorts of rubbish poured down on Zenith.
“Ah, that story comes right after this! So listen carefully! And!”
Janice gritted her teeth and screamed desperately.
“I can’t take care of myself right now, but when I was young, I was really good!”
It was a really dumb statement.
