Paladin of the Dead God - Chapter 271



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Subject Here – Episode 271. Forbidden Knowledge (1)

Horma muttered absentmindedly, ‘Emperor.’

The people nearby pretended not to hear, but Cardinal Rohen was not the only one.

“The heretic Baltsemer, Your Holiness.”

After the appearance of the lighthouse keeper, the only ones who remained steadfast were priests from the Watchers’ Council, including Rohen. It was unknown how much these people, who had met and conversed with angels in the past, knew about this situation.

But they succeeded in toying with both the church and the empire.

Finally, by dedicating the empire to heaven.

The lighthouse keeper appeared after hundreds of years and all he did was break the emperor’s horn and burn a bishop. It was a small thing compared to the awesome feats that the angels could accomplish. But even that simple act showed where the true power of the empire lies.

The Pope felt creeped out.

The only difference was their position, and before the authority of heaven there was no difference between a pope and an emperor. The only difference was whether they were dressed in splendid clothes or whether they were rags and covered in filth.

It was something that could easily be changed by a celestial whim.

“Your Holiness.”

At that moment, Baltsemer, who had been kneeling, opened his mouth in front of the Pope.

“I confess my sins of pride. Burn my body, but spare my innocent soldiers and use them for something valuable.”

“Oh, how dare you open your mouth before His Holiness the Pope gives you permission?”

The knight who had brought Baltsemer in stuttered and pressed down on his neck, feeling a hint of guilt. Baltsemer’s face fell to the ground, but he did not resist or get angry.

All we had to do was wait for the Pope’s decision.

But the Pope also did not know what to do with Baltsemer.

The lighthouse keeper only excommunicated him, but did not kill the emperor. In fact, he deliberately kept him alive. But how could he dare to touch him? No, was it even right to kill this man in the first place?

If defeating Baltzemer had been his miracle, and if it had been the knights he commanded, he would have ordered them to be burned immediately.

But in this situation, the Pope’s feelings toward the Emperor were surprisingly ‘sympathetic’.

His gaze, which had been wandering through the air, finally stopped.

The Pope was unable to make any judgments. He postponed his choice, not even knowing what the right answer was.

“… … Lock the heretic Baltzemer in the dungeon.”

“Yes? But… … .”

“He may be tainted by another faith or doctrine. There may be another evil being involved behind this apostasy, so we will investigate him gradually to confirm.”

The people seemed bewildered by the statement that they would not burn Baltsemer immediately. They wanted to burn the emperor as soon as possible to escape their anxiety. However, the Pope turned away without further explanation.

Now there was no one left to question or oppose the Pope’s words, except the Council of Watchmen.

The Pope simply saw the obedient people as a flock of sheep within a fence.

And he himself was just a sheep wearing a crown.

***

As the sun set and darkness fell, Lichtheim was enveloped in a deathly silence.

No one spoke of the glory or joy of the angel. The appearance of the lighthouse keeper was a glorious experience for the priests, but they felt the heat before the warmth of the flame.

A painful and frightening heat.

The heat instantly threw the empire’s strongest man into the abyss.

Subject Here – Only when night fell did the people realize that a new era had arrived, one they had never experienced in their lives. It meant a new era without an emperor, where the sect ruled the empire alone.

With the Treaty of Licht broken, the Emperor’s lands, the Emperor’s forces, and the Emperor’s properties were now all property of the Cult.

In that silence and darkness, a soldier quietly left the barracks.

He silently went to the corpse lying in the middle of the plain. It was Dietrich’s corpse.

The beasts had fled in surprise at the lighthouse keeper’s appearance, and the corpse was clean with no signs of damage.

The moment the soldier was about to touch Dietrich’s body, a sword suddenly shot out from under the horse’s corpse. However, the soldier also reacted quickly and pushed the sword away with the edge of his hand.

The attacker, who saw the hand engulfed in black energy, opened his mouth as if he was suspicious.

“Baschel?”

“Isaac.”

The man in the soldier’s uniform was Baschlaf Norton, the first knight of the Imperial Guard. He too had rolled around in the Imperial Army camp where chaos had broken out, as his uniform was covered in blood.

Isaac glared at his opponent without putting his sword away, even though he knew it was Vashel.

“What are you doing here?”

“You can’t tell just by looking at it, but I came to collect the body… … I have a lot of connections with Duke Brandt. I’m not the type of person to just leave it to rot like this. Aren’t you the same?”

That was it. Until he sensed someone approaching and hid himself.

Isaac glared at Bashuul for a moment, then put his sword away.

The two of them focused on collecting Dietrich’s body for a while in silence. They wrapped the body in a cloak instead of a shroud and buried it under a tree that would serve as a marker. They dug up the area where the body had been as if it had been dragged by an animal, and then sprinkled more horse blood.

It’s not an easy task to do in the middle of the night with no sound, but Isaac and Baschl did it without much trouble.

After a while, the two, now covered in mud, fell into silence in the forest where Isaac had been hiding during the day.

‘Dietrich… … .’

Isaac realized that he had never once called Dietrich by the warm terms of father or father-in-law. In fact, it was inevitable, because the two were only in a relationship of mutual benefit. If Isaac had a personal connection, it was with Isolde, not Dietrich.

But Dietrich’s death came as a strange shock to Isaac.

Maybe it’s because they both loved the same person.

Their kind of love was different, but he loved his daughter, and Isaac loved Isolde. The shock Isaac felt might have been due to a sense of kinship there. And also, Isolde would surely be saddened by this news.

Isaac paid tribute to his dead father-in-law.

But I did not recite the prayer for him who had been abandoned by my faith.

***

After a long moment of silence, Baschl spoke first.

“I heard there was chaos in the east. How did you find out about it and come here?”

Isaac looked at him for a moment and then answered.

“Since they wouldn’t send reinforcements, I tried to get them by kicking their butts.”

“Thanks to you, I had a rough time.”

Isaac recalled the moment the lighthouse keeper appeared.

Even in the scorching heat and blinding light, Isaac staggered forward. It felt like he was voluntarily walking into a pit of fire. Then, all of a sudden, he heard the Emperor’s excommunication. Then, after the lighthouse keeper disappeared, he witnessed a terrible commotion in the Imperial camp.

“I saw Duke Brandt die.”

“… … You saw it? Who killed it?”

Isaac recalled Dietrich escaping the camp with Baltsemer in tow. Not long after, he was shot by an arrow, and then fell from his horse impaled on a spear. The knight who came running deftly pulled the spear out of Dietrich’s back.

Isaac knew who he was.

“Imperial Knight Commander Feltron.”

Subject Here – “Peltron, Peltron… … I always thought that son of a bitch was tough. I thought he was just a guy who kept on snooping around.”

“He even saved my life.”

“You saved me?”

“The moment Duke Brandt was hit by the spear, he tried to run away. Perhaps that was when he showed his momentum. Then he gave me a look and told me not to come out. If he had intended to fight, he would have drawn his sword or informed his soldiers. It was clearly a gesture with intention.”

Baschul said nothing. It seemed that it was a nod from Peltran to save Isaac.

The Grail Knights and all would have been invisible to the Imperial Army, which was gripped by madness and fear. If the battle had taken place there, Isaac would have had to face the entire Order of the Holy Knights of Lichtheim, along with a hundred thousand Imperial troops.

“… … I can’t understand your intentions.”

“I don’t know. But I suspect it might be a different faith. Like yours.”

Basch looked at Isaac with a trembling expression.

“Do I look like a traitor?”

“Even if you weren’t a traitor, you might have gotten caught up in it by accident. You apostatized to the Elil faith and were loyal to the Emperor because you wanted to get revenge on the Denghameng people. This civil war would have been a great opportunity. But the situation has become such a mess.”

“… … .”

“But I don’t think Elril would have sent two knights at a time. I think they were simply spies of the Red Grail planted to spy on the Empire’s situation.”

“… … The Red Grail, that could be it.”

The spies of the Red Grail are everywhere.

Even if they don’t go as far as apostasy, they can easily be overcome by money, temptation, and the desire for longevity. They are probably even in the Church of the Light’s Law. They don’t even know that they are working for the Red Grail.

“But it’s no ordinary thing to have even seduced the Commander of the Imperial Knights. The Imperial Knights have been very good at their assigned tasks. They were even the first to find out that the daughter of the Gulmar Duke had infiltrated the country… … Ah, damn it.”

“Yes. That would be even more so. If he had utilized the Red Grail’s connections, he would have been able to do well in his role as the Commander of the Imperial Knights.”

It has been said that the most painful apostasy comes from the most faithful believers.

The person who can extract and use the most information is also a spy. Now that I think about it, it’s not surprising that the commander of the Imperial Knights could be a double agent.

“It seems His Majesty the Emperor has been taken away, but what happened to the others?”

“… … Captain Ethelheart has died. He is old and has said several times that he would rather die on the battlefield, but he probably didn’t expect to die by the hands of his own comrades. It seems that several of his fellow knights have fled like me. Oh, and Marquis Delia Lyon has been taken away as well. If I’m lucky, I’ll just collect the ransom and send him to the monastery.”

It was a miserable sight of the highest powers that ruled the empire.

Isaac had always been averse to those in power, but he had personal connections with them.

He let out a long sigh and asked Baschul.

“What are you going to do now?”

“I have to go to Lichtheim.”

“Go?”

“I intend to rescue His Majesty the Emperor. If I cannot, I will kill the Pope if I can.”

“Are you thinking of dying?”

“Are you crazy? You have to live to take revenge for a long time. It’s not enough to kill just one Pope. Judging from this incident, the Pope is just a puppet. There are more people who need to be killed.”

It was a sharp insight into the Watchman’s meeting. Isaac thought for a moment and nodded.

“Okay. Let’s go together.”

“What? Are you crazy? Are you trying to kill yourself?”

“I just said I wasn’t going to die. If I said I was going to die, I would have tied you up here and gone alone. I also have business to attend to in Lichtheim.”

Isaac originally came to steal forbidden knowledge from the secret archives of the Lichtheim Censorship Office. In the process, he witnessed a shocking sight, but even though the Emperor had fallen, the Olkan discipline remained intact.

To appease them, a name for the nameless chaos was still needed.

“While I’m doing my job, I’ll also try to rescue His Majesty the Emperor and the Marquis of Lyon. Wouldn’t two be better than one?”