Chapter 698 – 698. The Monster’s Warning (3)
“How the hell did this happen!?”
The place where many priests and paladins secretly gathered was the mansion of a high-ranking priest located in Erenium.
The position of a high-ranking priest in the Temple of Vesta has a fairly high level of power and honor, and in other kingdoms, it is also a position that is treated like an aristocrat.
The high-ranking priest’s mansion, which boasts a fairly large scale, was currently being used as a place for clandestine discussions between secretly formed factions of priests.
A priest who attended the secret talk asked.
“What the hell is High Priest Velas…”
They had only one thing in common.
It was said that they were the ones who received and ate all kinds of rice cakes under the command of High Priest Velas.
High Priest Velas suddenly said that he would lay down not only the position of candidate for pope, but also all the positions and powers of the temple he had, and then disappeared.
The priests who had heard of his whims were in a very confused state, unable to grasp the cause and whereabouts of him.
He is an ambitious man who has used any means necessary to one day claim the position of pope.
However, since he suddenly gave up everything he had and disappeared in this way, it is natural for those who were full of dirty profits under his position and power to be embarrassed.
“We… What should I do now?”
Another priest said with an uneasy expression on his face.
The reason they have been able to fill their pockets comfortably and satiated so far is because high priest Bellas, who is being discussed as the next pope candidate, was in front of them.
It was possible to continue such an irrational life without receiving any immunity while committing illegal things because there was a person in power who could cover up all the evil deeds.
But now that such things could not be expected, some priests were afraid that what they had been doing would be exposed.
Most of them were young priests who had recently joined this faction.
“Joy. What are you so afraid of?”
However, after the high priest Velas, the high ranking priest who had been a member of this faction for a long time was passed over as if it were no big deal.
“Until now, no one has ever been punished, even if they have been suspected. It will be so in the future.”
It’s a lie.
Originally, whenever these suspicions were received, this faction has been maintained by blaming all the sins on the low-level priest who belonged to the faction and cutting off the tail.
However, the low-level priests who had just joined the faction did not notice the truth hidden by the high-ranking priests.
They are sacrifices
‘If things go wrong, I’ll have to put all the blame on them again.’
In order for them to survive, the high-ranking priests who belong to the head of this faction cut their tails once again and were thinking about how to survive.
And it was the same that annoying troubles arose for them as well.
‘Shit… What should I do now?’
Rather than why High Priest Velas had disappeared, they were too foolish to think about how to deal with illegal activities in the future.
Corruption and evil deeds that had been going on for a long time now became a matter of course for them, and from now on, as they always have, they were annoyed at not being able to fill their pockets.
So, the importance of the incident, the priority is not properly judged and distinguished.
Even the consequences of that would be completely unexpected.
Eventually, the monster finally came to judge them.
“Wait a minute! You must not enter this place!”
An urgent servant’s voice was heard, and all the priests who were having a confidential conversation stared at the door.
“Who…”
Quaang!
The moment he frowned at the existence of an uninvited guest pushing into the mansion despite the servant’s dissuade, the uninvited guest himself appeared.
Not in the usual way, but in a violent way of kicking down the door and breaking it down.
“Who are you!”
One of the priests, startled, noticed the person who showed up from the entrance where the door had been torn off, and gave a blank expression for a moment.
“… Female?”
Wearing a rapier around her waist, she was a woman with a slim figure and a beautiful off-white complexion.
And it is a woman’s face that is definitely imprinted in the memory of some priests.
“I-that woman… !?”
This time, she is the woman who entered the main school of the Temple of Vesta with Eleanor and Eun-hyeon.
She is also Eun-hyeon’s other wife, and she is the adventurer who made the greatest contribution to the Necromancer raid incident.
The priests instinctively trembled at her, well aware of the prowess she had displayed on the battlefield.
Most of them were young priests who had been put into the battlefield.
Erin took a quick glance at the room where the secret conversation had taken place and immediately began to act.
Leaning forward as she leaned her upper body down, Erin’s body curved like a flexible bow and bounced back with a terrifying elasticity, as if it exploded the leg power she had stored in her legs.
Erin, who flew through the air for a moment, landed in the center of the table where many priests who participated in the secret conversation were sitting.
Cooong!
“Ah.”
The wooden table on which Erin landed effortlessly collapsed without being able to withstand Erin’s accelerated feet.
Erin didn’t like that.
‘What. Why are you so weak Like this… It looks like the table broke because I’m heavy.’
For a moment, even as her table collapsed, Erin bent her legs and jumped up to begin her second leap.
From the time she was at the entrance, the place where her Erin’s gaze was directed straight was the owner of the mansion who provided the place for this secret conversation.
Upon meeting Erin’s gaze, her high-ranking priest flinched at her.
She then hurriedly gave her orders to her own escorts, who were guarding her room.
“No, stop it!”
It was the adventurers who were hired by him to escort him that moved after hearing the order of the higher priest.
As expected, to use privately hired adventurers as escorts rather than paladins who were no different from his own subordinates in such a position was as bad as his back.
In just a few seconds, the adventurers swung their swords at Erin, who had reached the top priest’s nose.
Recognizing the blades flying in to cut him, Erin thought.
‘It’s slow. And you’re embarrassed.’
Impatience was felt on the blades of her bewildered adventurers at her own surprise.
It was because they could not have imagined that Erin would have covered a distance of several tens of meters and appeared in front of their employer during that brief moment of being one step behind.
Far from aiming for the vital spot, Erin avoided the sword attack that he could see clearly with his own eyes by tilting his body sideways.
And he twisted his twisted body with force.
Two blades flew past the cheeks and shoulders with a narrow margin, and Erin’s round kick, loaded with centrifugal force, neatly pierced the adventurer’s temple.
Fuck!
“Keugh!?”
The adventurer, who let out a short moan at the heavy blow that hit his temple directly, suffered a concussion and stumbled.
And at the same time, he corrected the posture he had executed the roundabout kick and dug into the arms of the adventurer on the other side.
“Her… ?”
Erin’s surprise attack happened in the blink of an eye.
The adventurer gave her a blank expression, not even noticing Erin’s palm that was now close to her abdomen.
The technique of approaching her at high speed using the elasticity of her body, the speed of recognizing an attack, and the sense and reflexes to deal with it without panicking.
Everything is different from them.
The adventurer instinctively felt it.
Even though they themselves are veterans who have built up a career of silver rank so far by eating life-and-death battles like a meal.
With her blue hair flowing and her piercing eyes radiating, this woman simply rises above her own standards.
The moment the adventurer was unknowingly admiring Erin’s evasion and counterattack.
Erin released her magical powers that she had stored in the palm of her hand, which she brought to her adventurer’s abdomen, and exploded.
[Juhyeonseong Polar Plain]
[Hwajeopbalgyeong (胡蝶發勁)]
Caang!
The magical shockwave that shatters the metal armor protecting the vital points of her abdomen transforms into a heavy blow, inflicting great damage on the inside of the adventurer.
“Cuck!”
The adventurer’s body, which had risen into the air as if it had been thrown out, was slammed into the wall of the room.
“Ugh!? Uweac… !”
The adventurer, who suffered additional damage from bleeding from his mouth due to serious internal injuries, was also in a state where he could no longer fight.
As each of them wiped out the two veteran adventurers they had hired with a single blow, the adventurers hired as escorts tensed up and pointed their weapons at Erin.
It was an instinctive recognition that the other person was not just a woman, but an unusual person.
“What, what are you doing! Get that woman down quickly!”
However, the employer, the high-ranking priest, panicked at the sudden intrusion of Erinn and was busy urging the adventurers.
‘That’s easy…’
‘It’s like a beggar. Really.’
Contrary to her employer’s urging, the adventurers did not readily swing their weapons at Erin.
Her skill at neatly subduing two of her own comrades is, no matter how lowly, unmatched by their peers.
At least among the veterans who are about to be judged by the gold rank, they are veteran silver rank adventurers, or they are already at the level of the gold rank or higher.
It is none other than the adventurers themselves who get into trouble for taking a hasty step forward.
Erin, who was under the gaze of the adventurers who were full of her wariness and tension, took another leap toward her high priest without hesitation.
“Stop! Me! Protect me!”
“Ah-oh! Fuck, for real!”
The adventurer swung her weapon at Erin, screaming that all a piggy bastard could do was hold back the urge to protest to her employer that all she had to do was give her orders.
Her heavy battle ax slashed the charging Erin’s head straight down to split her head in half.
The violence, with its terrifying weight, had the offensive power to rip out parts of her body just by touching it, but Erin stared at the adventurer’s rugged forearm holding the battle axe without hesitation.
In an instant, she burrowed into her adventurer’s arms, grabbed the wrist of the hand that wielded her battle axe, and at the same time clamped it tightly, striking her fist at her elbow.
Wooddeuk
“Ah!”
Her joints shattered and the splintered adventurer grabbed her elbow, which had missed her battle axe, and let her scream out.
Even so, Erin immediately turned her head to look at the other adventurers.
“… !”
The adventurers who met Erin’s gaze all trembled at her, dropped the weapons she was holding, and lifted her hands up.
She was completely willing to surrender, recognizing that she could not stand against her, feeling the power she had shown her and the powerful magic flowing through her body.
It would be fortunate if she gave up on her contract with her employer and ended up paying a penalty and suffering a loss. Adventurers also wanted to avoid fatal damage as it was a job to earn a living using their own bodies, which were no different from property.
Confirming that her adventurers had announced her intention to surrender, Erin immediately moved her steps toward her high priest.
“Oh, don’t come… !”
The figure of her sitting on the floor and stepping backwards did not show the dignity of a high-ranking priest.
His face was stained with fear, and nothing came out of his trembling mouth to avert this situation.
“I… Knowing who you are, such disrespect… !”
“Yes? Oh, I don’t know. Who are you.”
Erin was confident.
It seemed that her attitude was so natural that she made all the priests in the room of the mansion shut up.
Before long, her higher priest, who had a dazed expression on her face, regained her senses and glared at her Erin.
“I, if you harm me, I will not stand still in the temple!”
“Wouldn’t it be a big deal?”
“What… ?”
Erin remembered something of hers and she immediately pulled her crumpled paper out of her skirt pocket.
“Uh, uh… It doesn’t look good…”
Carefully not tearing the embarrassingly crumpled paper, she drew it and tossed it towards her higher priest.
Her high priest’s eyes widened as he saw the contents of her paper falling in front of her on her wind.
“This is an appointment letter… !?”
It was a letter of appointment issued by the Heretic Inquisition of the Temple of Vesta, stating that Erin, who had this letter of appointment, was appointed as the Heretic Inquisitor of the Temple of Vesta for a temporary period.
Not only the top priests who confirmed the contents, but all the priests present were shocked.
It is an unprecedented case since the history of the temple that a person with the status of a foreigner, not a priest or paladin belonging to the temple, was appointed to the position of Heretic Questioner with authority equal to that of a high-ranking priest.
In other words, the high-ranking priest realized that the woman named Erin in front of her was an investigator who had come to arrest them all in her capacity as a heretic inquisitor.
