Chapter 74 :

Chapter 74 - Miracle

Was he being punished?

For the sin of ignoring Plin’s wishes and closing his eyes before the deaths of many people.

Or was it the sin of using a shallow trick to hide his faint faith?

Tollin slowly opened his mouth as he looked up at Jack’s indifferent face, while Jack personally dragged him away with the temple knights.

“Do you really believe the young duke ran away?”

Jack glanced down at him, confirmed once more that they had put a little distance between themselves and the temple knights, then spoke quietly.

“We can find out what happened after we find the young duke. It will not be too late then.”

“How foolish. Do you really think they will find Lord Plin?”

At Tollin’s sarcasm, Jack narrowed his eyes.

“From the very beginning, we were played by the temple. The children disappearing, Lord Plin disappearing, all of it was the temple’s doing.”

He did not bother saying aloud how far he expected the mastermind behind it all to extend.

Because there was nothing good about Jack, who could not disobey even a single order from the temple priests, knowing it.

Tollin felt Jack’s arm, which was holding his own, twitch for a moment.

But that was all.

Jack did not stop walking after the temple knights.

“......You lied, didn’t you? I have never heard of any rings that the heads of Feedus wore on their bodies whenever they performed the ritual.”

“It was only a device prepared for the worst situation. Since we had dragged the young duke into this, I thought the temple might target him. It was not needless worry.”

“If you say anything more irreverent than that, I can no longer overlook it.”

At Jack’s appearance as he spoke as if he were suffering, Tollin felt a faint hope.

Jack, too, was a vassal who had watched the child from the moment the young duke was born.

There was no way he would be pleased to simply stand by and watch Plin die.

Just a little, if only he could create the slightest opening.......

It might not be too late now.

They might still be able to save Plin.

Tollin tensed his whole body so that the moment Jack’s strength loosened, he could pull out the dagger inside his clothes.

It was small, but it was a weapon coated with poison.

There were many priests around them.

Though he could not compare to knights, Tollin had also learned the basics of martial arts as a noble.

If luck was on his side, he might be able to seize one priest and turn the path around.

“Your eyes were closed from the beginning. If you truly do not want to become a sinner, give me one last chance. Perhaps we may be able to save the other children as well.”

Jack tightly shut his eyes.

Tollin desperately hoped that what appeared before those closed eyes was not god.

Before long, when Jack opened his eyes, firm resolve was lodged in them.

For a moment, the strength in his hand seemed to loosen.

And the next moment,

Crack.

“Kuaaaaaagh!!!”

At the terrifying pain that made him feel as though he would lose consciousness, Tollin screamed without realizing it.

“If they are people upon whom god has bestowed punishment......there must surely be a reason for it. Blocking the judgment of sinners is also a sin, after all.......”

He muttered as he took the dagger from Tollin’s clothes while Tollin could not even open his eyes properly from the pain.

Jack’s decision was by no means favorable to Tollin.

Even in the midst of that, at Jack’s kindness in dislocating his shoulder far too cleanly, a powerless laugh escaped Tollin’s mouth.

Jack’s steps did not stop.

“We will arrive soon. Sinner Tollin can wait here for his disposal.”

A temple knight who had glanced back at the commotion the two had caused delivered the words without sincerity, then turned his body forward again.

With even his final hope broken, Tollin lowered his head like a flower whose vitality had been snapped.

But salvation always tended to come from an unexpected direction.

“Who the hell are you?”

Wrapped in helplessness, Tollin slowly raised his head at the rough voice striking his ears.

A man was standing in front of the tower.

And very boldly at that.

Beside the man with black hair and yellow eyes stood a priest wearing a slightly worn priest’s robe, and a young child was hanging from the man’s shoulder.

Tollin blankly stared at the somewhat strange combination of the three.

As if he did not care at all about the sight of more than a dozen knights dragging one man away, he indifferently looked at the priest beside him.

“I am Gael, a priest from Komiel Village. I came after finding a ‘special’ child, to entrust the handling of the matter.”

The priest named Gael spoke in a voice completely drained of spirit.

At his answer, Tollin saw one of the priests walking ahead become visibly flustered.

After going through several procedures, the knight finally permitted entry.

What is happening?

Unable to adapt to the sudden situation, Tollin blankly watched the scene.

In one way, it was laughable.

The tower he had tried so hard to enter could be entered with just a few words from one priest.

Within Abiran, the name of God was this absolute.

But what happened the next moment was enough to erase even his cynicism.

“Wait. Only the priest and the child may enter.”

The man guarding the tower blocked the black-haired man’s path.

“What?”

At the black-haired man’s sudden informal speech, the knight panicked and stammered.

“I’m asking why I can’t go in. I’m the guardian.”

“Originally, only the temple’s priests may enter inside.”

Firmly angered by his argumentative attitude, the knight glared at him threateningly and answered.

“Do not say pointless things and just let him in. If you want to live!”

The man in the worn priest’s robe pleaded quickly like someone overcome with fear, but the knight only frowned instead.

“That is not possible. The only ones who may enter are the priest and the designated people.......”

“Then I did something useless.”

What cut off the knight’s words was the mutter of the black-haired man beside him.

And the next moment, Ratel’s fist landed precisely in the philtrum of the man guarding the tower.

At the vicious sound of bone striking bone, the man collapsed without even being able to scream.

The first to react to the sudden violence was the priest named Gael, who had been standing beside the man.

“Y-you crazy bastard. It’s done now. Just let me go.”

The priest was trembling as he begged.

The black-haired man stared down at him for a moment, then soon planted a punch into the priest’s solar plexus as well.

With a dull sound, the priest also collapsed.

This time, everyone reacted to the major incident of assaulting a priest.

The fastest was Jack.

“Everyone, seize that man! If the situation does not allow it, you may kill him!”

At Jack’s order, the knights of the Feedus family rushed forward, and belatedly, the temple knights also charged at the man.

Tollin blankly watched the black-haired man set down the child who had been hanging from his shoulder onto the floor.

Until now, Tollin could confidently say that he had watched the finest knights in Abiran, excluding the imperial family, from very close by.

The eldest son of the Crisa family into which he had been born, the second son too, well, in other words, everyone except himself boasted outstanding martial skill.

Naturally, there was no need to even mention the Feedus family.

The duke who had left this world had been counted as the strongest knight in Abiran, excluding the imperial family, and fitting their status as the sword of the imperial family, the people gathered in the Feedus family were also the finest knights.

In other words, it meant that he had never imagined, even once in his life, that he would see those so-called knights collapse helplessly against a single person, one by one, sometimes three or four at a time.

“Surround him! Surround that man!”

Along with the panicked shouts of the knights, their orderly movements followed, but their opponent was much faster.

The black-haired man, who instantly escaped their encirclement, drew his sword.

Only then did Tollin realize that he had been facing the knights barehanded, without even a weapon.

“He really is a monster......”

While Jack muttered, there was no longer anyone standing on two feet around the monster in question.

Now the only person who still had both feet properly planted on the ground was Jack.

When Tollin saw the man’s golden eyes turn toward Jack and himself, he swallowed dryly without realizing it.

“Decide quickly whether you’re going to run or attack.”

The man spoke as if annoyed.

“We do not flee before a sinner who defies God's will.”

Jack answered through gritted teeth and drew his sword, and at the same time, he set Tollin down as if throwing him onto the floor.

Tollin, thrown to the floor in an instant, let out a pain-filled groan as his face struck the ground.

“Do not think of running away. You too must pay the price for defying God's will together with that man.”

At the warning directed at him, the man’s gaze seemed to follow for a moment, but he could not be sure.

Because his yellow eyes soon turned toward Jack, who was rushing at him.

Jack’s sword was blocked with almost ridiculous ease.

As if he had expected that much, Jack smoothly changed the direction of his sword and aimed for the man’s leg.

But the man easily stopped that as well.

Jack’s leg moved for his next attack, but there was no third time.

This time, the man dug into Jack’s range.

Jack, flustered by the bold movement, flinched for a single moment.

The winner and loser were decided in an instant.

Thud!!!

With the vicious sound of bone striking bone, Jack toppled forward.

The man’s fist, not his sword, had struck him with enough force to crush Jack’s nose bone.

Jack, who had taken the unexpected attack head-on, let out a groan filled with pain, but the man did not stop.

Unlike with the other knights, his fist struck Jack’s face again and again, and the heavy blows continued until Jack completely lost consciousness and collapsed.

Leaving Jack, who had completely lost his senses, the man straightened his body.

His gaze turned toward Tollin, but he said nothing.

Instead, the man soon turned around, lifted the child he had placed on the floor, and leisurely walked into the tower.

Tollin, who had been blankly staring at Jack collapsed on the floor amid the dust cloud and at the man’s back, blinked his eyes.

And soon, he realized.

By truly absurd odds, a miracle had occurred before his eyes.

* * *

The child slowly came to his senses from the shock of his body and head shaking out of rhythm.

The hand that shook his shoulder without consideration made his head hurt so badly that he could not possibly endure it without opening his eyes.

“If you’re awake, stand properly.”

At the cold voice, the child’s half-open eyes snapped wide open.

Only then did he see who the owner of the hand mercilessly shaking his body was.

At the same time, he realized where he was.

No, to be precise, he could not say exactly where he was.

Because all he could see were stairs stretching long upward and pillars.

More frightening to the child than the fact that he had opened his eyes in a strange place was the red blood dripping from the sword in Ratel’s hand.

This time, I’m really going to die.

The child, who was about to lose consciousness again in a situation where it would have been better to remain unconscious, was shaken awake roughly by Ratel once more.

“If you want to see your parents’ faces again, keep your head straight.”

What he said was unmistakably like a kidnapper, but it was effective all the same.

Because there was nothing better for persuading a frightened child than the faces of the parents waiting for them at home.

After confirming that life had returned to the child’s eyes, Ratel pointed to the space beneath the stairs and continued speaking.

“Go in there and don’t come out. Even if someone tells you to follow them, you must not come out.”

“No one?”

“That’s right, no one.”

“Why?”

At the child’s question, Ratel, who had been moving the unconscious Priest Gael by kicking him with his foot, answered dryly.

“Because that’s safe.”

At Ratel’s firm answer, which omitted everything else, the child hesitated for a moment before opening his mouth.

“Then what if a good person comes? People like that are safe, so can I follow them? Like the priest or uncle Jing........”

When the child asked haltingly, Ratel looked down at the child without saying anything for a moment.

His face was expressionless, but somehow he seemed angry, and the child’s neck shrank back completely.

“The better the person is, the more you shouldn’t.”

He spoke quietly.

Well, this man seems pretty far from a good person too.

When the child nodded at his consistent warning, Ratel dragged the child to the small space beneath the stairs.

“Stay here and think about your parents’ faces. Don’t follow anyone, no matter who comes.”

Because the child wanted to see their mother and father more than anyone else, they obediently went under the stairs where he pointed.

“B-but how long should I wait here?”

He looked down at the child’s clear face as they asked, as if only now thinking of it, then looked up at the stairs stretching high above.

“Until I erase them all and come back.”