#045

I gripped the wall and stretched my neck out as far as I could to peer below.

It felt as if a pitch-black darkness had opened its maw.

‘Holy shit, this is terrifying.’

I felt as though the moment I took a single step, some formless monster would suddenly snatch my ankle and drag me down the stairs.

‘Of course, this isn’t a horror game, so that won’t happen, but…’

I’ll be honest.

I’m a total coward.

I can’t play horror games, and I absolutely never watch horror movies.

How did I handle Die Heretic!?

That’s because Athanas is damn strong.

Ghosts that explode when you swing a Divine Hammer aren’t scary.

What’s scary is the moment you have to flee helplessly.

I stared down the dark stairs and pondered.

‘…Do I really need to check for myself?’

Of course, if I didn’t check, I’d keep worrying about whether [Regression] existed or not.

But not everything needs to be seen with one’s own eyes to be confirmed.

Humans possess intelligence, after all.

‘Let’s think logically.’

The sight I’d likely see if I went down there right now would probably be…

“…Do you have business down here?”

“Hieeeek!”

Someone suddenly spoke to me from behind, making me jump out of my skin.

The problem was that, until that very moment, I had been maintaining a posture with a very unstable center of gravity.

‘Shit!’

The moment I lost my footing, a vision flashed through my mind: the bright red words “YOU DIED” overlapping a corpse with a broken neck.

‘If I die now, it’ll probably say I’ve achieved about 1% game progress.’

In that instant, with a heart-stopping jolt, my body was pulled backward.

“Are you alright?”

A sigh of relief escaped me as my feet touched the ground.

‘Wow, shit, I’m alive.’

I almost took a dive straight into the afterlife.

Of course, as long as it wasn’t instant death, I would have somehow survived a broken neck thanks to the Blessing of Healing, but…

‘…I think I would’ve regretted it and wished I’d just died instantly.’

Just imagining the sight of receiving the Blessing of Healing on a broken neck made the hairs on my body stand on end.

“My apologies. It seems I startled you quite a bit.”

Only then did I realize—though he was the cause of the accident—that I hadn’t even thanked the person who saved my life, so I turned my head.

But the moment I saw his face, I forgot everything I was about to say.

“…Ah.”

“Ah?”

I bit my tongue to barely prevent a slip of the tongue. Instead, I screamed internally.

‘Athanas!!’

It’s Athanas!

The protagonist of Die Heretic!, Heretic Inquisitor Athanas!!

He looked younger than he did in the game, but there was no way I wouldn’t recognize him.

He’s the protagonist of a game I’ve cleared five times.

How could I forget that handsome face that adorns the game’s packaging!

Of course, for most of the playtime in Die Heretic!, you’re staring at the back of his head instead of his handsome face, but his appearance in the occasional cutscenes is truly unforgettable.

Especially the cutscenes that play after killing a boss.

Black hair, drenched in blood, clings to his straight forehead. The light shining from above casts deep shadows across his face. Blood and dust cannot completely hide his refined features. He looks exhausted. Athanas stands over a gruesome corpse, covered in blood.

He is a knight who has cut the throat of a monster, but he doesn’t look like a hero.

There is no trace of the smile intoxicated by the joy of victory that a hero might wear. Rather, he looks like a penitent ascetic. It feels as if what is soaking his body is not blood, but materialized sin.

Drenched in blood, Athanas offers a prayer over the enemy’s carcass.

And when he finishes his prayer and opens his eyes, those deep blue pupils seem to stare at the player through the screen…

Those eyes were looking at me right now.

‘Why is Athanas here?’

My heart raced.

Did he come to find [Regression]?

Or had he already obtained [Regression] and was monitoring players who might come looking for Hidden Pieces?

Or perhaps…

I took a long breath.

‘Calm down.’

No matter how many complex possibilities I weighed, there was only one reaction I could possibly have.

‘I am Fabio.’

I am Fabio, a former serf who was wondering what was on the floor below and got startled when someone spoke to him.

Serfs are forbidden from many things. They can’t catch wild animals in the forest, and they can’t cut wood outside designated areas.

Therefore, it is very natural for a serf to tremble in fear, terrified that he might have accidentally committed a forbidden act.

“Th-thank you for saving me. You saved my life.”

“You look quite pale…”

“I’m fine! I-I’m just naturally timid. O-once, I encountered a wild boar in the field, and my heart pounded for almost two days. Haha, I’ve always been like this. You don’t need to worry about it.”

“…Shall I take you to a healing priest?”

“Ah, no!!”

I rejected it in horror, then a beat later remembered that only heretic bastards outside the Order would be averse to a ‘healing priest,’ so I added: “I-I mean, how could I! How could I bother them with such a trivial matter! I’ll be fine in just a moment. This happens often! By the time I see a healing priest, I’ll be so perfectly fine it’ll be embarrassing!”

Fortunately, looking a bit stupid wasn’t a character break for ‘Fabio.’

While pretending to gauge the superior’s expression, I checked Athanas’s attire.

‘Where is he stationed now? Is he already a Heretic Inquisitor?’

Athanas was wearing light armor, with only a breastplate over his uniform, so I couldn’t tell his affiliation from that alone.

‘I played the game so much, yet none of it is helping.’

In Die Heretic!, no one had the luxury to get new clothes tailored, so they wore whatever fit and instead used capes to indicate their affiliation and rank. Naturally, that method of identification was useless at this point.

“I understand. Then I shall stay by your side until you feel better.”

“I’m already fine! You don’t have to worry more—”

Athanas spoke as he wrapped his hand around the back of mine.

“You are breaking out in a cold sweat. Your pulse is still fast.”

‘That’s because you suddenly grabbed my hand, you jerk.’

“I-I’ll really be fine if I rest a bit more.”

I gently slid my hand out of Athanas’s grip and tucked it against my side as if crossing my arms.

‘First, let’s take a deep breath.’

I had been too flustered by seeing Athanas.

But I couldn’t calm down quickly.

And for good reason—it was Athanas!

How could I be composed when the protagonist of a game I’ve played for over 200 hours is breathing and living right before my eyes!

This wasn’t the excitement of a fanboy meeting a game protagonist.

It was quite the opposite.

Why would the game be titled Heretic Slayer instead of Inquisitor?

In Die Heretic!, those suspected of being heretics aren’t sent to trial; they are killed.

This is because, in a chaotic situation swarming with plague, there is no luxury to hold trials.

A heretic trial? How many people would have to get involved and argue over the words of a single heretic? If you just kill them, the Lord will handle it fairly.

Thus, the Heretic Inquisitor in Die Heretic! signified a indiscriminate killer permitted by the Lord.

Athanas was a magnificent Heretic Inquisitor.

‘And I’m a heretic bastard.’

Of course, I’m a heretic whom the Saintess said ‘may live,’ but a heretic is still a heretic.

‘How many heretics did Athanas kill, ignoring even the Gray Saintess’s dissuasion?’

My head knew that Athanas wasn’t a ‘Heretic Crusher’ yet, but my body didn’t.

“Here, it would be best to drink some water.”

Athanas took a leather canteen from his waist, poured water into a pewter cup, and handed it to me.

I looked down at the cup, which was about half full of water.

‘Water handed to me by Athanas…’

In the game, there is a scene where he pours water like this for a priest suffering from thirst.

It was an era where uncontaminated water was extremely precious, and the priest, whose hands were shaking, couldn’t even drink it and ended up spilling it.

Athanas didn’t reprimand him; he poured it again and slowly tilted the cup to the priest’s lips.

However, because the priest’s body was undergoing mutations due to the plague, he actually had an adverse reaction to the water purified by divine power.

Seeing that, Athanas…

‘…Drew his sword without a change in expression and slit his throat.’

As my hand trembled, ripples formed in the water.

“…Shall I help you drink?”

“Ah, no! I’m fine!”

‘Shit, this is a test.’

It was clearly a test targeting the player.

Anyone who had played Heretic Slayer couldn’t help but react to this situation.

‘There’s no way coincidences would overlap this much.’

Elamin, who said no to everything I asked but immediately took me to the ‘Branch Office,’ the setting of Chapter 1, as soon as I mentioned reading a book.

Athanas, the protagonist of this work, who spoke to me the moment I contemplated searching for the [Hidden Piece] in the basement.

And now, even recreating a scene from the game by pouring water from a canteen…

‘…Someone must be observing me and assigning a score.’

Every action I took was likely increasing the score for the ‘has memories’ side.

I brought the cup to my lips.

The water wetting my lips was lukewarm. Fortunately, no adverse reaction occurred in my body.

Which was obvious, but…

‘By the way, water stored at room temperature in a leather canteen must have a massive bacterial count.’

Of course, there were no weaklings in the Middle Ages who would get a stomachache from this amount of water.

They’d all be dead already.

‘Medieval Land, where the weak cannot survive…’

Thinking such useless thoughts seemed to calm me down a bit.

‘Right, if it’s a test, that means there’s someone watching this situation, right?’

I actually felt a sense of relief.

If all of this was a test, then no matter if he was the Heretic Butcher, he wouldn’t suddenly kill me. They must have put some minimum safety measures in place.

‘Maybe this Athanas is just cooperating with the test without knowing anything.’

Since it was said there are several converted players, the Saintess would know what kind of person Athanas from Die Heretic! is.

This Athanas might have just been instructed by the Saintess to act this way, while he himself has no memory of Die Heretic! at all.

‘Then he’s probably never even imagined that Order could collapse.’

He might even be a rookie who has never killed a single person with his own hands.

‘…Not that it makes me any less scared.’

Even if he hasn’t killed yet, that doesn’t change the fact that he has a talent for being a slayer, does it?

Athanas is a tenacious bastard who endured until the end in situations where other Heretic Inquisitors couldn’t hold out, eventually becoming the Heretic Crusher.

I wanted to get out of this spot as quickly as possible.

For that to happen, this test needs to end quickly…

‘Fine, so what if I’m caught having the memories of a player.’

Actually, the assumption that someone like me could keep a secret from the Order was nonsense to begin with.

While I was grateful to the Order for accepting me so generously, I was also a bit anxious.

Because I wondered if they could actually defeat the Othergods by being this lax.

‘Usually, there’s only one reason why overwhelmingly strong bastards lose.’

It’s because they let their guard down.

How many people have failed while acting with the arrogance of the strong?

‘On the contrary, knowing the Order is this thorough makes me feel relieved.’

If they interrogate me about why I didn’t confess everything from the start, I’ll just prostrate myself and beg, saying I was too scared.

Well… I’ll be reprimanded, but they’ll still let me live. After all, it wasn’t just anyone, but the Saintess herself who vowed to save me…

‘So how does this test end?’

It seems enough circumstantial evidence has already been gathered.

Are they waiting until I show a more definitive reaction?

‘Maybe if I confess first…’

No, if I did that, it would mean I realized immediately that this was a test.

I didn’t want to be seen as a quick-witted guy.

When an extra is too quick-witted, their lifespan tends to shorten.

‘Ignorance shall protect me…’

I chewed over that piece of advice, which had now become my motto.

‘I’ll just keep flinching whenever they test me, and then when the apostles appear, I’ll pretend to realize the truth late and beg for forgiveness.’

Now, what comes after pouring water? What will they test me with?

I sipped the lukewarm water and looked at Athanas.

“…Have you seen my face somewhere before?”

For a moment, I almost spat out the water I was holding.

I coughed for a long while before I could finally compose myself.

‘He’s asking that directly?’

46 – #046