Chapter 557 – The Cursed Throne
When they were confused. Seong-il quickly dismisses the fantasy and thinks to himself.
‘If you drag out more time here, lies will be caught. I’d rather just give it some thought and end it here.’
“Nameless Paladins! Just as Justice said, you are falling into the ruse of struggle!!”
“…”
“We have come to subdue the red dragon, a follower of struggle, crouching in the Filinore Fortress in the Temple of Justice and the Temple of Hammer and Anvil, respectively!!
“Um…”
The ogres look confused as they look at each other. After seeing the scene, Bruno and Ban seem to have gained confidence and introduce themselves in front of Seong-il.
“I am Bruno, the crusader of the hammer and anvil. Look at this!!”
Bruno, who received divine weapons from the hammer and anvil while being ordered to subdue the dragon and retrieve the fragments a while ago.
When he lifts the young hammer into the air, the thunderbolt peculiar to the hammer and anvil begins to emanate divine thunderbolts from there.
“I’m half. As a paladin in the Temple of Justice…”
Ban sees Bruno and begins to emit divine power with the sacred object he received this time to add strength to his persuasion.
“Really… The trick of the struggle… Kuh!!”
Seeing that scene, the ogres tried to talk about something, but suddenly put their hands on their heads and were in pain.
‘Is it mental magic…?’
Their minds come and go, and even though they see divine powers, they get confused and Seong-il instinctively realizes that they have been subjected to a mind-related curse.
‘Keuk… I couldn’t solve something like that with any spells in the game, but there’s a way…’
The sensation felt in response while thinking about it for a while. Seong-il realizes that he already has something to help him.
‘Ah! Spiritual Ethereal Stone!!’
Seong-il hurriedly opens his inventory in his arms, takes out the Ethereal Stone of Spirit, and imbues it with his will.
『Ugh…!!』
Then, an intense wave of energy emitted from the stone. Stone supports the will of Seongil and creates a strong mental defense against ogres. Then, the ogres’ expressions of pain began to unravel.
“Umm… I… What the hell…?”
‘There’s definitely something.’
Seong-il tries to use a mental barrier on himself just in case. Then, interestingly, his sensor detects an ominous divinity around the ogre.
“…Is it a curse? Using divinity?”
Otherwise, Seong-il could not have pierced his own transcendent reaction and manipulated others around him, so Seong-il judges that the current situation is a kind of curse from the god of struggle.
“Jjiik! Is it a curse word?”
“Huh? Huh…”
Suddenly, the hamster sticks out her face from Sena’s chest and asks Seong-il a question.
Seong-il honestly explains to him what he felt and what he inferred.
“Ah… I think I understand. It’s like the curse of struggle… But… Jjiik…”
“The Curse of Strife?”
“Yes. The god of strife is infamous for using all sorts of cowardly tactics to win wars, not befitting his name! Worst of all is the curse that deceives his enemies…”
The hamster calmly begins to explain the curse of struggle, and Seong-il, who has heard all of this, is convinced that the current situation is because of the curse.
“The ogres in front of me seem to be paladins from the Temple of Justice.
“Aha!! Is that so? If that’s the case, there must be a holy shrine of struggle around here. They must have been hit directly by the evil power emanating from it! Jjiik!”
“Relic? How do you know that?”
As soon as Seong-il hears the story, he is puzzled by the hamster’s confident reasoning.
Then, seeing that expression, the hamster crawled up to Sena’s head with a triumphant expression, then stood upright on its two legs and took an arrogant pose.
“It’s simple!! Jjiik!! Otherwise, there’s no way our party, blessed by all the gods, wouldn’t have noticed the curse of those ogres!! Only a god can deceive those who have received the power of a god!!”
‘There is a point.’
Although he didn’t like the mess around, Seong-il couldn’t help but admit that the hamster was right.
“You seem to know the curse well… Then do you know how to lift the god’s curse on them?”
“…In principle, it is impossible. Jjiik…”
“Sir…”
Seong-il distorts his face and glares at him at the hamster’s words that it is impossible to lift the curse with all the forms.
And the hamster, who read the emotion intact, is frightened and quickly starts teasing his mouth.
“Hee… Heeik!! It’s not that there is no way to solve it if you can’t do it!! Jjiik!!”
“Oh, yes? How?”
When Seong-il seems to be genuine, the hamster sighs in relief and then raises his dainty hand and rubs his chubby cheek in reply.
“It’s simple. Just get out of the place where the holy relic of the god of struggle is!! Jjiik!! Then you’ll be free from the curse!!!”
“Um… Isn’t that difficult?”
A group of ogres who looked unstable at first glance. There would be no problem when the power of the Ethereal Stone of the Spirit remains, but the power of the stone is not infinite, and the problem may explode again after time, so Seong-il looks embarrassed.
‘Keuk… If the power of the stone is about to run out, should I go back to reality and work to refill the power of the stone?’
‘But, to do such a thing, since this is the front yard of the god of struggle and Kasarak’Tarun, my power might be discovered… Then it would be a hundred percent troublesome.’
Seong-il rubs his forehead in an embarrassing situation and thinks about how to solve it. Seeing this, the hamster suddenly made a triumphant expression and said to Seong-il.
“In principle!! I have to leave this place for almost half a day or more, but!! Jjiik!!”
“…?”
“I have a way!! Jjiik!!”
“Hmm? Yes?”
If there is, Seong-il desperately swallows his words and looks at the hamster.
“Yes! It’s simple!! Exactly!! Our wagon is the answer!! To be precise, the rest room!! Jjiik!!”
“…No way?”
Seong-il senses something in the hamster’s words. After reading that expression, the hamster eagerly explains the relics of his church with a very proud expression.
“That’s right!! The break room is a kind of sanctuary and subspace!! The space created by the god of knowledge is a separate space from the outside, so even the curse of struggle won’t work there!! Jjiik!!”
“Like…”
A solution that fits Seongil’s heart. He puts on a satisfied expression because it was a method that was not particularly difficult.
“Hey.”
I’ll figure out a solution too. Seong-il approaches Ogre without hesitation and shares what he has learned.
“Curse of struggle…”
Maybe it’s because his mind has cleared up quite a bit, the ogre whose eyes have lost the turbid madness quietly talks to himself as if he’s guessing something.
“Yes. That’s why I’m going to take you to the portable sanctuary now. Although I’m forcibly maintaining your spirits with the sanctuary I received from the god I serve, in essence, this is a realm ruled by the followers of struggle. When will the power of this sanctuary be destroyed? I don’t know if it will.”
To make the ogres understand, Seong-il takes out the Ethereal Stone of Spirit, which he doesn’t normally show, and shows it to them.
When a purple jewel with mysterious power floats in front of his eyes, the ogre feels strongly that his words are sincere, even though he has no knowledge in magic.
It’s no wonder that the power flowing from that jewel was gently stabilizing his mind.
“…I will go there.”
The ogre frowned and spoke in anguish, as if the headache had returned.
“I’m sorry, but it’s not like that.”
“Hmm?”
In the midst of almost finishing the work, when Bruno interrupts the work out of nowhere, Seong-il frowns and looks at him.
However, Bruno ignores Seongil’s disgruntled gaze and tells the ogre.
“Disarm. You must be tormented by unknown urges. Wouldn’t we even look like monsters? I don’t want to sacrifice the safety of my comrades.”
“…”
After hearing Bruno’s words, the ogre still looked confused, but he put his weapon down on the floor, as if he had finally made up his mind.
“Yes, priests of the hammer and anvil. In fact, you show us your divine power and realize the truth, but in my eyes you still look like orcs.”
‘As expected… It was something like that.’
A situation where each other looks like a monster to each other. For this reason, Seong-il uses telekinesis to gather the quickly dropped weapons in one place in case they change their minds.
『Edward’s guest is coming. Stay undetected in stealth mode. When we enter, we put wide-area hiding on the carriage.”
“All right. Master.”
Seong-il sees the bizarre-looking Edward, and fears that the ogres may run amok, he orders Edward to hide away remotely.
In the meantime, the party quickly takes the ogre to the carriage guarded by Gaaz.
“Attack?”
Orc corpses scattered around the wagon. Some of them do magic damage. Some were not only cut with cold weapons, but even burned to death after being hit directly by a laser-like attack.
“That’s right. Since you were away, they came as if they had been waiting.”
“You should have called backup.”
“It’s okay. It wasn’t difficult to subdue it with just me and your household. In addition, your household said that their spirits are connected to you, so they can call them whenever they want in an emergency. That’s why I didn’t call them.”
“Aha.”
Gaaz’ explanation is convincing. In the meantime, the party takes the ogre, who is a big mess, and takes it to the wagon.
“…They?”
Suddenly, a group of ogres rushes behind the group, and a strange emotion rises on Gaaz’s face, who always has a calm expression.
“Cursed Paladins. For now, please don’t ask. Do we have headaches too?”
“…I see”
However, when Bruno answers with a tired sigh, he obediently nods his head and steps back to give way.
“But… Can people this big fit in the wagon?”
“It works!! Even if you look at it like this, it’s a carriage with the great magic of space, so you can overcome any number of restrictions like that.”
“Ah…”
The confident hamster’s words put the party at ease and let the ogre into the carriage.
And when you enter through the side door attached to the inside, a bizarre change begins to occur in the appearance of the ogres.
“Kuk… Turn it off…!!”
The ogres kneel down out of nowhere and start holding their heads with both hands. Shortly thereafter, their outer skin crumbles and transforms into an ominous aura.
“Big…”
‘Oh… Was he a real paladin?’
Surprisingly, the transformed identities are the Paladins of Justice. When the curse is lifted and the ogres are transformed into six paladins, Seong-il and everyone in the party are amazed.
“…Sir Luzan?”
And a word of astonishment came out of Ban’s mouth as he calmly looked at it.
‘Oh, was that Luzan? Why, after killing that paladin in the original work, the main character suffers from extreme guilt…’
Surprisingly, Seong-il realizes that the paladin in front of him is ‘Sir Luzan’, a swordsmanship teacher and friend of his adoptive parents, who stayed at the starting point of the first episode, ‘Mag’s Castle’, and loved Ban.
‘Fuck… Since such an important person is expressed as if a ‘Paladin’ was killed in the game, users think the event is out of the blue!! Developer bastards!!’
Holy Day, when the blood of the Shinigami awakens and haunts half in a dream. He realizes why the Shinigami’s soul fragment showed this scene and tormented Ban.
‘…Virtually. He must have been traumatized because he killed his childhood friend and teacher with his own hands. The blood of the Shinigami persistently attacked that weakness and cracked Ban’s faith.’
Seong-il thinks that if he encounters such a problem while carrying out his God-given mission, he too may doubt God a little.
‘Anyway, I succeeded in messing with the paladin corruption-related quests that occur inevitably. Actually… There’s no benefit to me, but… I feel more at ease.’
Seong-il feels relieved even though there is no reward when he manages to prevent an event that must occur in reality.
The time when I was content and giggling inside. An alarm rings familiar to Seongil’s ears.
『Hidden mission cleared successfully.』
