Chapter 562 – 562. Corrupted Priest (3)
Under the dark night sky, two soldiers are guarding the entrance to the silent dungeon where no one will come.
“Ha-am.”
The soldier guarding the entrance to the dungeon on guard duty yawned as he couldn’t stand the drowsiness coming from the continuation of boredom.
“Why are you yawning like that?”
The soldier on duty together frowned at his fellow soldier’s yawn.
As if it’s contagious, it’s as if I’m bored and drowsy.
“Oh~. Take a look. Just standing still, but not yawning, are you exhausted?”
“You moved me. Make it invisible.”
“Is that easy to say?”
The giggling soldier soon leaned his back against the wall and sat down on the floor unable to overcome boredom.
“Hey. What are you going to do when the commander sees you?”
“Oh, don’t come. Don’t come Let’s stay like this for a little while. Aren’t your legs hurting?”
Another soldier frowned as he saw a fellow soldier who collapsed on the floor unable to withstand the fact that he had been standing up non-stop for about two hours.
“But in case the priest or paladin… If you even look…”
If that happens, being disciplined for negligence will include yourself as a joint responsibility.
The two grumbling and chatting soldiers were far from temple people who used divine power, but they were private soldiers hired by the temple to manage the city and its facilities.
The city of Coloras is managed by Bishop Venter, who is currently the manager of the temple in the Coloras branch.
Of course, as it was the job of managing the entire city, there were many people working under him besides those on the temple side, such as priests and paladins.
Only words are different, but Venter was like the highest-ranking lord in the city, and although it was a city on the outskirts of the province, far from the center, Venter’s position and power in this city were firm and powerful.
“No. Would you like to come?”
Despite the words of the soldier who sat down with his butt on the floor, which he was absolutely sure of, the other soldier did not let go of his expression and guard.
As there was already a case of encountering paladins while imprisoning all the villagers suspected of being ‘cults’ in the dungeon, there was plenty of possibility that they would come back several more times in the future.
He sighed and gave up when he saw his colleague who was negligently on duty, thinking only of his present comfort, without considering such things at all.
It is not the first time that he has shown such a negligent attitude.
“By the way… Are we really okay?”
The soldier who was sitting on the floor looked up into the sky and murmured softly.
“What.”
“People who are in prison. Said it was the power of a cult?”
“However.”
“It didn’t look like that at all.”
“…”
To the soldier’s brief muttering, his fellow soldier did not respond.
It was a question that they had in their hearts for a little bit, and not only themselves, but all the soldiers guarding the entrance to this dungeon on shifts must have the same thoughts.
I still can’t forget the images of the prisoners who begged for help and to let them meet their wife and daughter.
Their actions and expressions were so real that it was hard to believe that the forces of the cult were trying to deceive them with false words.
I didn’t doubt the words of Bishop Venter and the Paladins, but I couldn’t help but wonder and doubt that innocent people were being imprisoned and left unattended.
“The corpses… How do I handle it?”
“…”
The other soldier closed his mouth at the murmur of the soldier who was sitting on the floor.
It was something he didn’t even want to think about.
Originally, the order from above was to go into the dungeon regularly once a day, take out the bodies of the dead, burn them, and arrange them.
However, the eyes of the imprisoned people and the emotions contained within them were too burdensome, so the soldiers turned away from them.
The same goes for the sergeant who leads the soldiers.
This city is so peaceful.
In that peace, the soldiers who were not accustomed to people’s hateful emotions or how to deal with corpses had no choice but to hesitate to step into the prison where the decaying smell of corpses vibrated.
“Ha, sir… Please don’t just give orders to deal with during our shift.”
The soldier lowered his head as he sat down on the floor, eager to be included in the next shift’s duties, not his own.
“Now get up. Quite a bit…”
Kwajik!
“Uh… ?”
The fellow soldier, who had moved his gaze to him to force the fallen soldier to stand up, hesitated.
This is because the head of the soldier who was forced to stand up disappeared in an instant.
It looks as if it has been roughly eaten by an animal.
Something pitch-black hit the soldier’s head and quickly disappeared.
The fellow soldier slowly turned his head back as his body trembled with a chill that filled his whole body.
I looked at the entrance to the dungeon where something pitch black had disappeared, but it was so dark I couldn’t see anything.
However, there was definitely something that clearly showed off its existence in that darkness.
Kruck!
“Hee, hee!?”
The reason I couldn’t see anything was because my whole body was pitch black, as if I was synchronizing with the darkness where no light was cast.
It was roaring with a clear substance and was staring directly at itself with its red eyes.
“Sah, live… !”
A fellow soldier who watched the soldier whose head had been eaten in a daze, and intuitively felt that he would fall into the same situation, threw even his own weapon, the spear, on the ground and tried to run away unseemly.
Kwajik!
A fellow soldier ended his life in vain by having his head eaten off by a black beast like other fellow soldiers.
“…”
The one who trudged out of the dungeon was Marius, who had survived alone among the corpses of the villagers piled up like a mountain.
Kiing
To Marius, who finally walked out of that hellish dungeon, the undead Death Hound, who had eaten the heads of two people at once, approached and rubbed his head against his leg.
It’s like a pet dog showing affection to its owner.
“… Okay.”
The deathhound, which had a large body that a boy or girl in their mid-teens could easily jump over, was an undead and a monster with a brutality that they had never seen before, but Marius didn’t care at all and responded by stroking the deathhound’s head.
It was the first time Marius and Deathhound had seen each other, but it was because of Medea’s help that the two were able to build intimacy without hesitation.
[You accepted it well.]
“… Did it go well?”
[Then. Doesn’t that child consider you his master now?]
In fact, the fact that the death hound with a large body is acting cute to be loved by Marius is proof that he is swearing allegiance to the morale of Mediah, which composes Marius’ body and soul.
“… Ah.”
Marius wiped the blood from his nose with his sleeve.
Having accepted Mediah’s fraud, his own body caused side effects.
However, this was the result he had already assumed since he had heard from Mediah before accepting the power.
Even if his own end and outcome were fixed, it was enough for Marius as long as he could accomplish his own purpose.
[This time, I’ll lend you my power. But next time, will you do it yourself?]
“All right. Thank you for bestowing grace on me. You are my goddess.”
This deathhound was a powerful undead summoned by Mediah himself, and Marius, who had just imprinted the basics of necromancy into his soul, still lacked the ability to directly summon it.
Perhaps if this was over and the summoning was canceled, it would be impossible for Marius to summon the Death Hound unless he developed his capabilities.
“For now…”
Marius reached out his hand toward the corpses of two soldiers whose heads had been eaten.
When she slowly pours the morale she received from Mediah to activate her necromantic technique, her headless corpses begin to react little by little with a loud noise.
Finally, he turned the bodies of the soldiers who stood up on their own two feet into undead.
“Kill them all.”
Marius gave orders to the first Undead and Death Hounds he had created.
He surprised himself by how calm he was, even after uttering the order to kill everyone in the city.
However, he did not deny that this order came from his sincere heart.
He and his villagers had been imprisoned for unreasonable reasons, and all the women in the village had been taken away.
Anger and hatred soared at the fact that this city, Coloras, where these things were happening casually, was so peaceful and quiet.
I want to kill everyone, including Bishop Venter, who manages this city, all the humans who live peacefully without knowing anything in this false peace.
What should I do to do that?
Marius thought.
The first thing to do is to increase the number of undead that will move according to your will.
It is necessary to increase the amount to the maximum in order to deal with the priests and paladins of the temple, who are the natural enemies of the undead.
It is true that Paladins and Priests are the natural enemies of the undead, but it is not the difference that will bring them absolute victory.
If the power of the undead was halved against them, it would be enough to double the size enough to overwhelm the penalty.
Moreover, the level of Paladins and Priests in this city would be average or below.
Marius knew very well about the ecology inside the temple, where high-level priests and paladins were all placed close to the central temple according to the grades they received through competition in the central temple.
It also means that this outskirts rural city, the furthest outskirts of the territory of the Holy Nation, is a ragtag and poor city where priests and paladins who have been pushed out of the competition and who have been culled or who have been demoted come to them.
“Bishop Venter. Wait. I’ll see you soon.”
It won’t take too long, Marius was sure.
◆ ◆ ◆
“Kyaaaaagh!”
“What’s going on!”
It was around late dawn that the temple officials grasped the situation inside the city, after hearing the screams of many people.
Thud! Thud!
The loud sound of drums announcing an emergency that the entire city was in danger was a defense system that had never been used before in this peaceful city.
Soldiers, priests, and paladins who hurriedly armed themselves and came out to the streets of the city full of chaos to grasp the situation were shocked to see the countless undead that began to infest them.
And someone despaired watching the undead crowd.
“Hey, honey… !”
“Father… !”
The inhabitants of this undead city were parents to some soldiers, brothers and sisters to some priests, and wives to some paladins.
He was greatly despaired at the sight of his family attacking living humans by tearing off their limbs and flesh, and wandering around with a hideous look of bones, and they turned into threatening beings, but he hesitated to exclude the undead, who were once family.
That short moment of hesitation and hesitation showed a fatal gap, further increasing the scale of the disaster that hit people.
“Where is Bishop Venter?”
At the center of the massacre of the undead, Marius appeared and asked the priests.
“Devil… !”
However, what returns is the eyes of those who are filled with feelings of contempt, hatred, and hatred for themselves.
Faced with that emotion, Marius rather smiled.
“Is it. Do I look like a demon in your eyes now?”
When he was in the central temple to receive priestly training, when he was arrested by the Paladins because of the cult’s powers, the gaze and emotions that many people sent him were the same.
But unlike then, I don’t feel so unfair now.
He had no choice but to admit that he was no different from a demon who slaughtered countless residents of the city and turned them into undead to attack more residents.
It’s true, but I can’t feel unfair.
“By the way.”
Marius looked at the priests and paladins who were desperately resisting with a cold smile and continued.
“In our eyes, you were demons.”
He framed ridiculous crimes, kidnapped all the women in the village, and left people in prison to starve to death.
“Bishop Venter… No. I want you to go and tell Venter.”
So Marius was willing to accept being like a demon.
“The ‘cult forces’ you mentioned have really appeared.”
The disaster that sold its body and soul to wipe out all these goddamn false believers proudly declared its existence.
