Chapter 85 - Me Too...

"Artificial sun... You've brought quite an interesting piece of news."

A man who looked as if the expression "neatness" had been directly transferred to a real person looked at those sprawled before him with a kind smile.

A cruelly misshapen structure, crushed and interconnected in a horrifyingly brutal form.

Looking at something so disgusting that just seeing it made one want to vomit, he smiled brightly.

"That's good. I never liked someone without ability holding it from the start."

He adjusted his slightly disheveled glasses.

Looking at the structure that was still alive despite being crushed into a mucus-like state, he said, "Then let's retrieve it. If we have that, the hope we're trying to continue will keep going on."

"Yes."

Smiling again at those bowing politely, he waved his hand and said, "Haha. There's no need to be so formal. It rather makes me uncomfortable."

"...Understood."

"Then let's prepare."

At those words, hundreds of black mages in the vicinity simultaneously stood up.

Ignoring this, he calmly smiled while looking at the still living ornament.

***

Inside the church that had dyed everything pure white as if it couldn't tolerate any darkness, Archbishop Mikhail spoke in an excited voice to those bowing their heads while wearing veils, "Those who know what they shouldn't know...! I've truly found some interesting people. It's been so long since an anomalous change occurred... What a truly interesting situation."

At those words, the veiled figures each made mechanical doll-like laughing sounds, repeating dry laughter.

Watching this scene, Archbishop Mikhail smiled as if quite satisfied, then headed towards the center of the church and said, "Though this situation is quite welcome as it's happened after such a long time, for the greater cause and natural order, we need to return all of this to its original state."

Voices agreeing with this were heard from all around.

Archbishop Mikhail lightly waved his hand as if to calm them and said, "Then let's now return everything. The distorted things to their original places, and let those that need to advance be able to advance."

With those words, he approached those miserably bound in front and repeatedly stabbed daggers into their hearts so they could feel maximum pain, saying, "Until the day all can receive salvation."

With those words, the veiled figures simultaneously began to pray.

For the goddess who no longer existed, they recited prayers, each chanting their wishes and joy, repeatedly continuing meaningless prayers to justify their sins and actions.

***

"I heard rumors that a high-ranking executive from the black mage side and Archbishop Mikhail from the church side are moving."

I nodded as I listened to Liana's report to me and asked back, "When are they expected to arrive?"

"They'll likely arrive within 3 days at the earliest, and within a week at the latest, I think."

That was faster than expected.

Seeing the high-ranking officials of the black mages and church, who were extremely slow to act, taking immediate action, it seemed the bait I threw was quite important, so I said to Liana with great satisfaction, "Then can you briefly explain about those two?"

"Yes. First, regarding the high-ranking executive from the black mage side..."

The black mage side's high-ranking executive, Ileon.

According to Liana, he has a hobby of torturing humans as horribly as possible, then decorating with them.

"The peculiar thing is that all the decorations Ileon makes are alive."

"... Alive?"

"Yes. He has a sick hobby of crushing humans, combining them together, then using potions to keep them alive continuously."

I naturally frowned at that disgusting behavior.

All sorts of crazy bastards exist.

As I was thinking I couldn't understand, Liana continued with an explanation about Archbishop Mikhail, "As you know, Archbishop Mikhail is one of those who conspired with Grand Duchess Elisia to make Dasoon a hero."

I nodded since I had already heard that much.

Liana looked at me like that, sighed, then handed me one document.

"He has various sick hobbies, but well, saying things like killing people is enlightenment or the natural order is one of Archbishop Mikhail's biggest sick hobbies."

"He's insane."

"Yes. In some ways, he's worse than Ileon. At least Ileon doesn't go around wrapping his actions in 'good intentions and good deeds'."

In other words, it seemed Archbishop Mikhail called all the evil deeds he committed good intentions.

"Moreover, he tells his followers that they must spread good deeds too... Um, this is getting too deep, so I'll stop the explanation here."

Liana seemed to have a lot to explain, so she closed her mouth and shook her head.

I agreed with those words and asked one question, "So how strong are those two?"

"Since information on high-ranking officials is all treated as confidential, it's difficult to confirm detailed information, but in terms of swordsmanship, we estimate they're at least high-grade Sword Expert or above."

The word "above" meant there was a possibility they were top-grade Expert level.

Realizing the enemies were stronger than I had expected, I fell into thought.

Then I should prepare separately too.

If the words "high-grade or above" were true, I wouldn’t be able to kill those guys with just simple explosions.

It would be good to adopt other methods as well, I was thinking when suddenly one interesting thought occurred to me.

But there's still a lot to do with this, so I'll continue thinking about it later.

Deciding to ponder how to deal with them for now, I brushed up my hair.

"Since they're quite strong individuals, my personal recommendation is to detonate a bomb, then pretend not to know and hide in the mansion for a while."

Liana, who recommended that it would be good to hide in the mansion until I became strong enough, glanced at me and asked a question, "But you're not going to do that, are you?"

"Of course not."

"So I prepared other methods too."

Liana showed a reaction as if she had expected this, then raised her finger and said, "First, using Sir Loraine's power."

At those words, I shook my head.

If I asked Loraine for help, it might be easily resolved for now, but there was a high chance things would get quite complicated afterwards.

First of all, there's a high chance they'll realize I'm involved.

It might be okay if only the black mages found out.

But if the church also learned of this fact, there was an extremely high chance the Carsaril family would suffer damage.

So I decided to avoid asking Loraine for help as much as possible, deciding to pretend not to know.

So I'll just detonate the bomb and…

I was thinking it would be better to run away immediately when Liana presented me with a new method.

"Second, sowing discord between the two."

At the word discord, I silently stared at Liana, and Liana smiled brightly at me and said, "It's a method inspired by watching Lord Damian's usual actions. How about making the black mages and church kill each other by sowing discord between them?"

It was quite a good method, but it seemed quite difficult at first glance, so I asked if it was possible.

"Of course, there's a high chance of failure, but... thanks to Lord Damian continuously causing trouble, there seems to be a possibility of digging into and entering the solid gap."

I silently looked at her, meaning to give a more detailed explanation.

Liana handed me a new document and said, "We can't know what their ultimate goal is for now. But judging by how those who shouldn't be entangled have become entangled, there's a high chance it won't end well."

"I suppose so."

"And that's a part that both the black mages and church groups understand exactly."

So when they reached the final conclusion, there was a high chance they'd fight greatly for their own interests, but since I've been smashing all the core bases of the black mage forces, from the black mages' perspective, there was a high chance they'd be quite irritated by the church which had suffered relatively less damage.

"So in other words, if we use this to sow discord between them, there's a possibility they'll clash with each other."

Hearing those words, I pondered for a moment then nodded and said, "That's good."

"Yes. But what's worrying is how they've made their contract. If there's a clause prohibiting conflict itself, there's a high chance they won't take any action even if conflict escalates greatly."

That meant we need to extract information.

I called Poppy, who was sitting on the floor trembling with fear, and said, "Poppy, do you know anything?"

"I-I don't know."

"Haven't you heard anything like 'You must not attack the church'?"

"I've heard we shouldn't attack if possible."

Judging by the word "if possible", it seems there's no clause prohibiting conflict.

When I conveyed this fact to Liana, Liana nodded, deciding to proceed with this.

***

After about a week had passed like that, the black mage side forces and church side forces all arrived in the North.

To be honest, unlike my expectation that those two groups would cause trouble as soon as they entered the North, they just quietly observed the situation, which made me think they might be wandering around unable to find the exact enemy.

Poppy is an unknown being I created, after all.

To be precise, she was one of the black mages who had clung to the black mage side.

But since she had been completely transformed into a proxy using Liana and Siren, from their perspective, they probably couldn't even guess what Poppy's identity was.

Well anyway, now that all preparations are almost complete…

I decided to go visit Elisia after a long time and was about to get up when… 

"D-Damian! Can't you take me with you?"

Ruen made a completely unexpected suggestion and clung to me.