Chapter 126 :

Chapter 126 - Glory and Murder

Lia, who had sunk down on the spot, blankly stared at the sword that had fallen to the ground and the half-broken boat.

She could not understand what had happened.

The black shape that had stretched out from the sword, Jing and the three knights who had been seized and dragged in by that black shape, the screams—everything had happened far too quickly.

Only the torn sail and the broken mast proved that the terrible incident that had just occurred was reality.

Lia gropingly reached out and grabbed the half-broken boat.

Broken fragments fell with a clatter.

“W-what happened......”

Over Lia, who could not even dare to move and could not continue speaking, a thin shadow fell.

“What? Have you finally calmed down now?”

Suppressing the trembling of her entire body, Lia raised her head and looked up at the shriveled man.

“W-what, what is this......”

At Lia’s shaking voice, the priest took his eyes off Sierra’s sword and looked at Lia.

Only then did he widen his eyes as if he had just realized that Lia remained.

Soon, a relieved smile spread across his face.

“You were lucky. At least not all of them were devoured.”

Having received confirmation that what she had seen was not an illusion, Lia hurriedly grabbed the hem of his robe.

“What do I have to do to make it spit them back out? Do I just have to break the sword?”

At Lia’s urgent question, the priest frowned and shook off her hand.

“Break the sword? Do not speak recklessly. And a sacrifice that has once been eaten never returns.”

Lia’s hand groped through empty air.

“Th-then what about Jing......”

“He is obviously dead. Perhaps because you came from a countryside village, you do not seem to be very bright.”

The priest, who answered as if annoyed, let out a deep sigh and pointed at the sword lying on the ground with his finger.

“Do not worry too much. That man named Jing merely followed God’s will.”

At the words “God’s will”, Lia’s body flinched.

Right, if it was God’s will, then it could not be helped.

Was God’s will the death of an innocent person?

Resignation and doubt repeated a fierce battle inside Lia’s head.

The priest was not considerate enough to wait for that confusion of hers to resolve.

“Do not sit there stupidly. Hurry up and lift the holy relic.”

Startled by the sudden order, Lia looked at the skinny priest.

At that reaction, the priest narrowed his eyes.

“Did you think I had forgotten even the fact that you tried to run away with that old man? Surely you did not think you would receive no punishment after daring to refuse an order?”

Only then did Lia realize why the priest had smiled so happily when he discovered that she had survived.

“Hurry up and carry that, then follow me. Since all the temple knights died, I happened to need a porter.”

At his command, as he tightly pulled his thick priestly robes around himself, Lia picked up the sword with trembling hands.

Because Lia, who had lost both the boat and her companion, had nothing else she could do.

The metal in her hand was cold, but Lia instead gripped the sword tightly.

* * *

The skinny priest did not know how to do many things.

No, to be more precise, there was only one thing he knew how to do.

Giving orders immediately whenever something was needed.

But everything had been a misconception.

Now that the three had disappeared and she was left alone, Lia faced the objective fact that the three she had believed in so much were nothing more than three criminals.

The skinny priest carefully observed Lia as she drooped her shoulders like that and blankly stared at the fire.

It was because of the anxiety that she might act without regard for anything, like that old man who had been devoured.

However, the priest concluded that his worry had been unnecessary and that this one was merely a fairly obedient and ordinary person.

That mad old man had insisted she was an unrelated woman, but there was no way that was true.

This one, too, was undoubtedly a companion who had won the Lucha tournament with them.

Then, naturally, that meant she was also perfect as food for the holy relic that could run wild again at any time.

Having judged that far, the priest smiled crookedly and opened his mouth.

“You are also one of those who won the Lucha tournament, are you not?”

“.......”

Lia hesitated to answer because she could not decide what she should say.

“Are you trying to lie in front of me right now?”

When the priest hardened his expression, Lia somehow felt as if she had committed a grave sin and hurriedly nodded.

“Y-yes, that is right.”

When one grew tired while walking, one had to rest, and when it became cold, one had to rest somewhere warm.

Like that, Lia lit a fire as the skinny priest ordered, gathered leaves to make a place where he could sit, and then, again according to his order, quietly waited for his next command while holding Sierra’s sword tightly in her arms.

When she obediently listened to his orders, her heart felt strangely at ease.

Deep inside her hazy consciousness, which was not working properly, something sent a small warning that something was wrong.

But when she followed the priest’s words, strangely enough, her guilt blurred, and she felt the illusion that her heart was becoming peaceful.

Staring at the burning campfire, Lia thought blankly.

‘What happens now?’

Jing had told her to save Ran and Ratel, but still.

The boat was not in a state where it could cross the river, and in the first place, she did not have the courage to turn a priest of the temple into her enemy by herself.

Winning in Lucha and leaving the village while dreaming of adventure all felt like a dream.

Thinking about it, before meeting those three, this had been natural.

‘Originally, it had been natural for me to dream useless dreams every day and spend each day doing whatever I was at least capable of doing.’

It seemed that living with the three outsiders had broken her sense of reality.

Because when she was with those three, an absurd elation had filled her, as if she could simply run forward while looking only ahead.

Things that could be called groundless hope, as if somehow everything would work out even if she did something a little reckless.

At that, a satisfied smile spread across the priest’s face.

“How fortunate. You still have use left.”

Lia thought that disgusting smile was unpleasant, but simply nodded obediently.

“When we return to the temple, you can stay there for the time being. The holy relic may seek sacrifices again. Then, at that time as well, you only need to remain obedient like now and fulfill your role. I do not know what nonsense that mad old man said, but there is no death more glorious than a death to carry out God’s will.”

Lia, who had been quietly nodding, flinched.

It could not be said that the unpleasantness of him calling Jing a mad old man, or the fear of death, had no influence.

However, what awakened Lia’s dazed mind was Jing’s final voice.

-Remember that there is no such thing as a glorious death. This is merely......

As if Jing had predicted what the priest would say, his final words put a brake on the priest’s voice entering Lia’s head.

Lia blinked several times.

The priest before her eyes was spouting words about death being glory, but nowhere on Jing’s face, which Lia had seen last, had there been anything like pride.

What remained was only fear, pain, and terror.

-This is nothing more than murder.

With the illusion that Jing’s final words were circling her ears, Lia lowered her head and looked at the sword in her arms.

It felt as if the fog that had filled her head was slowly clearing.

There is no such thing as a glorious death.

Jing had simply been killed, no different from murder.

And this thing in my arms is nothing more than a murder weapon...

Lia raised her head.

What am I doing right now?

Ran and Ratel, Jing and the island, orcs.

At the feeling of her mind suddenly snapping awake, Lia sprang to her feet.

“What is it?”

The skinny man, flustered by Lia’s sudden movement, looked up at her.

“Priest, of course I do not think you would be, but by any chance, are you fast at running?”

At that polite yet outrageously rude question, the priest’s face twisted.

“What nonsense are you......”

“I am quite fast. In fact, I am good at almost anything that involves using my body.”

After being briefly dumbfounded by the sudden self-praise, the priest read something ominous in the eyes of the woman whose twisted face was raising the corners of her mouth.

But by the time he realized that it was the same firm madness he had glimpsed in that insane old man, it was too late.

* * *

The fact that Lia was from the fighting tournament did not threaten the priest in the slightest.

From the moment he began walking the path of a priest, or perhaps from the moment he was born into his family, the only thing left in the world for him to fear had been God.

He knew that Lia would not dare attack him.

That was what he knew.

In other words, it meant he had never even dreamed that the timid-looking woman across the campfire would strike his head and then run off with the sword just like that.

Unable to regain his senses from the intense pain that felt as if a hole had been opened in the back of his head, he pitched forward.

“Kraaagh!!!”

In the chaos, his hand touched the firewood on the ground, and he screamed, pulling his body backward like a frog.

Normally, hands would have reached out from here and there to check his condition with worried voices asking if he was all right, but not this time.

Instead, the sound of footsteps hurriedly growing distant rang in his ears.

“You damned thing! Do you think you can do this and remain safe?!”

Realizing that Lia was running away, the skinny priest let out a roar and followed after her.

However, there was no way that he, whose only intense exercise in his entire life had been walking, could catch up to Lia.

The distance between the two grew wider and wider.

The moment the priest inhaled from the anxiety that he might truly lose both the holy relic and the sacrifice right before his eyes, Lia finally stopped running.

It was not because his threat had worked.

It was because of the long, long river spread out before her.

Only then did the skinny priest realize that the direction Lia had run toward was the riverbank where the front was blocked.

“Look at this foolish thing. Do you intend to fall into the river and die?”

Thinking that he had sweated for nothing, the priest became irritated and slowly slowed his pace.

The boat that irreverent thing had ridden with the unlucky old man had already been half blown away together with the holy relic.

There was no way she could cross the river in a boat with not even a sail left.

Then does that mean she never intended to run away in the first place?

The priest, who felt puzzled by Lia choosing the river when escape routes were open in every direction, soon realized her reckless plan.

Because she hugged the largest piece among the broken boat’s debris to her chest.

“You are not just foolish, but insane. Are you saying you will cross the river with a single wooden plank like that? If you are going to die, leave that thing on your back behind.”

Even at his ridicule, Lia did not put down the thing that had once been the bottom of the boat.

Instead, Lia hugged the wooden plank in her arms tightly and turned back to look at the priest.

The skinny priest, meeting her brown eyes, swallowed dry saliva without realizing it.

It was because he had been overwhelmed by Lia’s spirit, prepared to throw away her life.

Soon after, annoyed at himself for that, the priest forced his mouth open.

“Do you even know what that thing you are carrying is, to dare make such a choice? That is an object left behind by the late Great Emperor Sierra. If it is damaged even slightly, it is not something that can be compensated for with the life of someone like you.”

At the words Great Emperor Sierra, Lia’s complexion, which had flinched, turned pale again.

It was not as though Lia was certain about her actions.

If anything, it was the opposite.

She was right before making a choice that overturned the most fundamental standard deeply rooted in her life.

She could not be certain of a single thing, and in truth, she could not erase the thought that she was doing wrong.

The impulse to listen to the priest even now and beg for forgiveness made her clenched teeth ache.

Lia squeezed her eyes shut.

In the brief darkness that came, what raised her up as she was about to collapse was not the faith she had nurtured for thirty years.

It was the faces of the three strange, dangerous, and kind people.

After ending her short hesitation, Lia opened her eyes.

Lia’s foot kicked off the ground. And then she jumped straight into the river.

“I will remember your face! From now on, it will be difficult for you to live anywhere on Abiran’s land for the rest of your life!”

A curse-like shout rang out, but Lia did not look back.

She had no leisure to listen to that kind of bullshit.

Holding the broken boat plank in her arms, Lia moved both arms and pushed forward.

The sword on her back was heavy, but not as heavy as Jing’s life.

Feeling her water-soaked clothes growing heavy, Lia quietly thought.

When was the last time I swam?