Paladin of the Dead God - Chapter 223



Only Krnovel

Episode 223. The Cremation Ground (1)

After finishing his business in Calurien’s secret laboratory, Isaac completely destroyed the tower.

It had been disguised as a ruin before, but now it was a real ruin. I had no idea that this place might be a future cultural heritage site.

Instead, he pondered how to bring his new vehicle… … no, his comrade Necaruriel, back to the Empire.

“First of all, since Nekaruriel is too long, I guess I should call him Nel.”

It seemed too much to reduce five characters to one, but Nekaruriel, no, Nell, snorted and rubbed his head on Isaac’s shoulder.

Looking at its docile puppy-like appearance, you could tell that even though its intelligence was low, it was definitely tamed.

However, Isaac could not just let it go, saying, ‘My dragon is kind and doesn’t bite,’ so he checked with Calurien one more time.

“If you tell them not to eat people, are you sure they won’t?”

[Just think of it as being similar to a dog. It will respect what you say, but it doesn’t have to be absolutely right. You can think, ‘If you bite that, the owner will feel bad, right? But since you made me mad, I’ll bite you just once.’ Just try to keep it away from humans as much as possible.]

Isaac was anxious, but decided to accept it for now.

It would be a good idea to just make up a reasonable excuse and bring him along, but if you go to a crowded place, some crazy guy might try to prove his bravery. It seemed better to just let him wander around the area until it was definitely safe and call him when needed.

Crossing the sea on the Nell would have been tempting, but Aidan was waiting on the shore right now.

But Aidan wasn’t the only one waiting for Isaac to head to the shore.

“Son-in-law, it’s been a while.”

Dietrich Brandt greeted him at the campfire with Aidan.

“My daughter told me to check if you have another woman attached to you… … There’s no woman, so what is that? Could it be a dragon?”

Isaac felt a chill run down his spine, more so than when he had fought Calurien.

***

Of course, it was Dietrich’s joke to check if there was a woman or not. Dietrich had come out to greet Isaac when he found out that he had returned from the Holy Land, but he had heard that Isaac had gone to the North Sea instead of going straight to the Empire, so he had followed him here.

Thanks to this, Isaac ended up on Dietrich’s ship instead of the Salt Council’s ship.

Dietrich’s ship was large enough to fit a duke’s warship, so even Nell, who was over 10 meters long from head to tail, could fit on the stern.

Dietrich seemed to have heard a lot about Isaac in the Kingdom of Elril, so he asked only a few questions and did not ask any more. In fact, he seemed more interested in the real translucent dragon than in the metaphysical principles of Urbanus and the secrets of the world.

“You came all the way here to tame that dragon?”

“Isn’t there a law that says that beasts cannot return to the law of light?”

Isaac lied shamelessly, and Nell licked Isaac’s head in response. Because of his size, Dietrich thought it was a dragon sucking Isaac, but he was relieved to see Isaac’s desperate calm.

“Hmm, well. I heard that you even educate and bring along the Princess of the Red Grail, so it wouldn’t be strange. There’s nothing more auspicious than a beast like a dragon bowing to a holy Grail knight, so I wonder if the religious order will like it.”

“Yes.”

Isaac was worried, but it seemed like there was no need to worry too much. Of course, that is, if Nell didn’t eat people in the square.

“But what brings you here? I thought you would be busy preparing for the Dawn Army.”

If it was just a meeting, it would have been okay to send an errand boy or Isolde. There was no reason for the Duke, who was already very busy, to come out and meet Isaac in person.

“Well, for now, I’ve left the urgent matters to Isolde and my wife. I originally left the management of the territory to my wife, and Isolde has a lot of outside activities, so she’s not lacking anything. But I thought it would be better to tell you directly about the situation in the empire, so I came.”

“What’s the situation in the Empire? What’s happening?”

Dietrich answered, gazing somewhat displeased at the southern horizon.

“The dawn army has begun.”

Isaac was surprised, but he understood.

According to the original history, the dawn army would have started around winter. However, the flow of history he changed brought the dawn army forward.

Even the Carlsen he ate was like that. Originally, there was no major incident like ‘Carlsen’s failure to ascend’ as in history, but ‘Carlsen’s disappearance’ itself was enough to light a fire under the Dawn Army.

‘The Code of Light and the Undead Cult originally joined hands to make Kalsen a god. But since that failed, does that mean the alliance is over?’

“Your Majesty the Emperor may not have gathered enough troops yet?”

Isaac proposed the reconstruction of the ‘Baekje Kingdom’ to provide sufficient troops, knights, and morale. However, Ellil has only just found a point of agreement and is gathering troops, and I don’t know what happened to the world’s furnace. I heard that another envoy was dispatched there, but I haven’t heard any news.

“Yes. I heard that His Majesty is just now gathering his knights and organizing his supply lines. The Golden Idol Caravan has been putting a damper on it, but they are said to be responsible for most of the supplies.”

The Golden Idol Top does business with the Undead Church, but they are not big customers. The Undead Church does not need ‘necessities’.

What the Immortal Order usually needs are luxury items, works of art, or good weapons, but these do not amount to much money compared to their size.

“Then what do you mean when you say that the dawn army has begun?”

“Some fanatics are spontaneously forming armies and going out on expeditions. That’s why His Majesty the Emperor is getting impatient. He wants to see you as soon as possible.”

***

No matter what Isaac does, the Dawn Army rises.

This is because it is not something that Isaac alone can stop, but rather the trend of the times, the spirit of the times, and the direction of history that everyone longs for.

Therefore, it was not strange that there were people who were swept away by the ‘inevitable flow of the times’.

The port city where Isaac and Dietrich arrived, Siracusa, was one of many such places.

“The coming of the millennial kingdom is imminent! Repent!”

Isaac looked down, horrified at the sound of the boat approaching the dock.

A group of priests were marching, stripped naked, whipping their backs with whips. At the front was a priest holding a large symbol of the Code of Light as big as his torso, repeatedly reciting the scriptures of the Code while cursing.

Dietrich smiled bitterly at the sight.

“The atmosphere here is a mess too. We’ll just finish resupplying and leave right away.”

“… … It’s not a big deal. But isn’t this place quite far from the Holy Land?”

Siraxa was a port city located in the southern part of a large peninsula that jutted out to the west of the empire. If you open the map, it was a long, winding route, but if you went up the river, you could get to the capital faster than by land. If you only look at the distance on the map, it seems quite close because there is the Black Empire territory across the sea, but the physical barrier of the sea is much harder for ordinary people to overcome.

In the end, this place, which was the complete opposite of the battlefield, was now displaying extremely fanatic behavior.

“That may be why it’s like that. I heard that the residents of the border area are quite nervous about Yeomyeong-gun. If you’re thinking of getting off, don’t go too far away, or you might get caught up in trouble.”

Even without Dietrich’s warning, Isaac considered just getting off the ship.

I knew that this world was originally like this, but I didn’t want to be swept up in religious madness and darkness myself.

But as I looked at the smoke rising from all over the pier, some scenes suddenly flashed through my mind.

‘Probably… … Damn it.’

Isaac didn’t want to go down any further, but he had no choice but to step forward. If he didn’t know, then he wouldn’t know, but even if he did know, he didn’t want to ignore it. Besides, if it was something that Isaac could solve, then it was something that he couldn’t solve.

This was the first time I felt uncomfortable with the knowledge in a game.

As we followed the procession to the square, the expected sight was revealed. Several pyres were erected throughout the square. And on each of these pyres stood a stake on which a victim had already been hung, or was soon to be hung.

“Burn the contractor with holy fire!”

In the middle of the square, another victim was set on fire. The woman hanging on the stake screamed and struggled, but the executioner with the torch continued to shove the fire into the stake without hesitation.

“Ahhhhhhh!”

The oil-soaked flames and firewood burned in an instant, eating away at the woman’s flesh and bones. It was a gruesome scene of a witch hunt, but what was different from reality was what happened next. The woman’s screams, which should have been shriveled up as her skin turned black, continued to erupt without stopping.

“Oh, the flesh of the evil contractor burns! It is purified into ash! The Code of Light embraces the wicked one’s vices with light and heat!”

“Ahhhhhh! Please, please kill me, kill me!”

The unusual flames had burned away all the flesh, leaving only bones. However, even as flames burned from the charred eyes and mouth of the skeleton, the woman’s screams did not stop.

Isaac could easily guess the woman’s identity.

“You are a life insurance policyholder.”

Dietrich, who had followed behind, muttered as he watched the scene.

Such ‘contractors’ were burning all over the square. Thanks to this, the burning did not end easily, and the screams did not stop. The miraculously created holy fire was causing pain even to the souls of the undead, whose bodies had already burned away and could not feel pain.

“… … This must be the rear of the rear, how did you find so many life insurance policyholders?”

“Probably the ones who went to confession. They asked to break their death contracts, and then they were driven mad and became ‘exemplars’ like this… … Above all, since it’s the Black Empire territory just across the sea from here, there are quite a few people who come and go.”

The Undead Order does not need food, except in some cases where they need living slaves. This means that most of the farmland is uncultivated. There were quite a few people who crossed the border to take advantage of the Black Empire’s abundant fishing grounds, mountains, and mines.

Instead of immediately turning those captured into zombies, the Immortal Cult enrolls them in death insurance. They believe that this will be more useful in the long run, as they are constantly suffering from a population shortage.

“Siraxa is relatively docile. I heard that in the southern part of the empire, they dig cremation pits and throw people into them. It’s like hell, seeing hundreds of people who signed up for life insurance struggling inside, their bones left behind.”

Isaac was getting angry. Of course, such an act might raise faith and bring about unity. However, it is difficult to know whether a person has life insurance unless he confesses it himself.

It’s the same as witch hunting. If you drop someone in water and they float, they’re a witch, and if they sink and die, they’re innocent.

Even if there were innocent people among those who were burned, would the priests really be held responsible? It is clear that they will just pass it over by saying, “It’s about the holy fire.”

One of the reasons why corrupt priests do this is to ‘purify the property of evil apostates from the church.’

There were also soldiers and knights walking around the square. They seemed to be monitoring the church’s sanctions rather than trying to stop them, and to make sure they were being carried out properly and that no one was rebelling.

And at their head the priest went about shouting with a red face.

“Repent! The coming of the Millennium is imminent! The walking corpses of the Undead Cult are invading to take your paradise! Join the Crusade of Dawn, led by His Holiness Pope Horma Khmuel!”

It was the ‘dawn procession of fanatics’ that Isaac had already heard of.

Dietrich said that such processions were taking place all over the Empire, but it seemed that the Order was encouraging them rather than discouraging them.

“As you can see, some ‘extreme priests’ in the church are also fanning the flames. Among them, a priest named Siero or something is said to be leading the largest group.”

Dietrich shuddered as if he was going crazy.

“I don’t understand why those fanatics and ignorant people with no Paladins and only a few priests are rushing into the Black Empire. They say that if you go in with sincere faith, a miracle will occur and you will defeat the heretics, but do you think you can go to war with such complacent thoughts? If it was going to be resolved that way, it would have been resolved long ago during the last Dawn Army. Do you think that miracles didn’t happen during the last Dawn Army?”

That is, religious fanaticism is sweeping the bottom of society.

As social discontent, fear of the afterlife, and the desire for proof of faith explode, these very events are now occurring across the Empire.

Isaac frowned at the foolishness, but then a stinging sensation suddenly occurred and he stopped himself.

‘… … I’ve become a noble too.’

Most of the people he hung out with for a while were from the upper class of society: nobles, knights, and priests. So he forgot for a moment what kind of life the lower class people lived.

Even in Soerl, there were people who abandoned their faith and starved to death because there was nothing to eat, and even the priests in the monastery survived on a few potatoes each day.

These were the aspects that he had forgotten as he began to rise through the ranks as a Knight of the Holy Grail.

Of course, those who are currently swept up in madness cannot be excluded from the influence of religious fanaticism, but in the end, it is also because society does not take responsibility for them. There is only one way for them to escape from the painful world they are in.

To die gloriously and go to heaven.

At least the afterlife will be better than the earth.

And the dawn army is a direct ticket to heaven.