#088

‘Sacrifice?’

Is he talking about the Gray Saintess, Adelaide?

Does Andrea remember the ‘Die Heretic!’ incident? How much? How? In what version?

‘…He must be remembering it distortedly.’

He’s not under the influence of just any Othergod, but the ‘Distorted One.’

My mind raced.

‘It was Andrea who hid Adelaide.’

Up to this point, it was something I had expected since Andrea was a ‘servant of the Distorted One.’

‘But the reason he hid her was to prevent Adelaide’s sacrifice?’

Why?

I couldn’t understand.

Wasn’t Andrea a fanatic who killed all the sick for the sake of Order? Why would he try to prevent a sacrifice? For a fanatic, sacrificing oneself for Order is an incredibly glorious thing.

‘…Wait, was killing the sick not for the sake of Order in the first place?’

The Distorted One is drawn to intense desires. This is because when such desires are thwarted, they can reap a greater ‘disappointment.’

However, pure faith alone cannot be distorted. Those with deep faith will not be disappointed in their god, no matter what happens.

‘I thought Andrea committed those acts because his desire to be chosen by god was twisted in a bad direction….’

What if it was actually because he couldn’t bear to see Adelaide suffer anymore?

‘…It wasn’t just a coincidence that Andrea was the bishop of the orphanage.’

I had only watched him for a single day, but it was easy to see that Andrea cared deeply for the children. He remembered not only their names but even the specific reasons he had scolded them before. Of course, for that very reason, the children were terrified of Bishop Andrea….

‘…When we played the Mugunghwa flower game, he was happy because it was the first time the children weren’t afraid of him.’

How much more must he have cherished Adelaide?

Sixteen is too young to endure such hardships, and if Andrea had watched over Adelaide since she was even younger….

‘Adelaide—no, Alicia—not suffering must have been Andrea’s most intense desire.’

And the Distorted One would have goaded Andrea, claiming he could make that desire come true….

Once my thoughts were organized, I realized exactly where I had fucked up. The moment I looked closely at the children’s name tags, I was already fucked. When I asked the kids about the friend who left the orphanage, I had completely sealed my fate.

‘Dammit, they should have written this in the setting guide!’

If I had known, I would never have let it show that I was looking for Adelaide in front of Andrea!

“You seem quite surprised.”

“My, my reliquary, why….”

I fumbled at my chest where the reliquary had been, pretending to be flustered. The Sacred Relic given by the Saintess was well-hidden inside my clothes. If I gripped it and called for Loclem, the Saintess would come. But….

‘…Can’t I persuade him?’

Regardless, Andrea cherishes Adelaide.

The problem is that he’s being manipulated by the Distorted One because of those feelings.

‘If I call the Saintess, he’ll be condemned immediately.’

Thinking that, I couldn’t bring myself to speak.

Of course, if Andrea tried to attack me, I would immediately shout Loclem’s name and the Saintess’s full name.

‘But right now, I’m not in a situation where I feel my life is threatened, right?’

I didn’t want to provoke Andrea while knowing nothing about Adelaide’s current situation.

‘If I were the Contractor of the Distorted One….’

I would have twisted Andrea’s perception so that when a moment of crisis arrived, he would feel the need to kill ‘Adelaide.’

‘And I would have set it so that the distortion breaks the moment Adelaide dies.’

Then, the moment Andrea realized what he had done, he would be consumed by despair and take his own life.

Cutting off the trail by having a Unit commit suicide before being caught by the Order Sect is the absolute basic.

Furthermore, if playing as the Distorted One, one could gather Adelaide’s ‘sense of betrayal,’ Andrea’s ‘despair,’ and the ‘misery’ of the Order side for failing to save Adelaide all through this one ‘distortion,’ making it a huge gain in terms of points.

‘…I’m glad I’ve played as the Distorted One several times.’

If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have imagined such a horrific scenario even in my dreams.

‘Still, if it gets dangerous, I’ll call the Saintess immediately.’

After all, my life is the most precious thing.

I quickly organized my thoughts and gripped the Sacred Relic tightly.

Andrea looked down at me with pity.

“You seem to know nothing. I suppose that’s only natural. You were used. How pitiful….”

…Used?

Me?

I was momentarily stunned.

‘He didn’t suspect that I was a player?’

“What did Athanas tell you? When he asked you to find a black-haired girl at the orphanage.”

‘Only Athanas is suspected?’

“He surely didn’t tell you the truth. Did he perhaps say he was that girl’s brother or a relative? That is a lie. Fabio, you have been deceived by that man.”

There was a sense of urgency in Andrea’s voice.

“Athanas…. He is a mad murderer who believes himself to be a savior. A cold-blooded man who would do anything to achieve his goals. The love he whispered to you is all a lie. Fabio, you may not want to believe it, but everything I say is the truth.”

‘What is happening?’

“You must trust me, Fabio.”

‘…Is he trying to save Fabio from Athanas’s clutches right now?’

Once I realized what misunderstanding Andrea was under, I was speechless.

No, you’re the one being deceived by a weirdo.

“…Even if you tell me to trust you, I’m too bewildered. Athanas is a murderer? How could a murderer roam freely through the Capital Church? Could it be that you are mistaken about something, Bishop?”

“Will you believe me if I show you evidence?”

‘What kind of distorted evidence is he going to show me?’

After some thought, I gave a small nod.

‘For now, he doesn’t seem to have any intention of harming me….’

I decided to play along with this misunderstanding to gather as much information as possible.

It was the moment I thought that.

Swoosh!

A snake slithered out from Andrea’s sleeve.

I froze in place, startled.

Perhaps because I was so shocked, my body stiffened and wouldn’t move.

‘…No, there’s no way my eyes wouldn’t even move just because I’m surprised!’

The moment I tried to scream and ask what he had done, I realized my tongue was also frozen and wouldn’t move.

‘What the fuck?’

It feels like two of my trump cards just vanished at once.

‘I think I’m fucked.’

“I’ve simply stopped your movements for a moment. It won’t harm your body, so do not worry.”

No, does the Sacred Relic not consider this a threat? How is this not an attack? Isn’t this incredibly dangerous? There are so many things you can do once someone can’t move. You could kill someone just by pushing their face into a bowl of water.

‘…Was the Sacred Relic a fake?’

Come to think of it, I had never tested whether the Sacred Relic actually worked.

I just trusted it because the Saintess gave it to me.

‘But what if she just gave me a fake because she thought, “What Sacred Relic would a goblin bastard need”?’

Is this how it feels when you go skydiving and the parachute doesn’t open?

I felt my life flashing before my eyes.

I remembered the moment Athanas looked at me with pity, asking if I really trusted that one thing.

‘You stupid bastard!’

My life was on the line, so why didn’t I test it beforehand!

I should have tested what kind of attacks it reacts to and what its limits were!

‘No, maybe it didn’t recognize it as an attack because my HP isn’t dropping, and it might activate if Andrea actually does something.’

I tried my best to fuel a circuit of hope.

Above all, Andrea isn’t trying to harm me right now, he’s trying to persuade me, right?

‘Though I’m incredibly worried about what kind of evidence he intends to show me after making me unable to move….’

The purple snake coiled around Andrea’s arm.

“This reliquary is under the Blessing of Valentine.”

Valentine? That… god of love hotels?

What kind of blessing could a god who presides over romantic escapades possibly give?

“It is a blessing that allows one to always know the location of the person holding this reliquary.”

‘A location-tracking blessing.’

But isn’t that a blessing more suited for military operations than for lovers?

Why does the god of lovers have such a blessing? It seems like a total waste.

“Furthermore, it can detect a lover’s crisis. This means that if you are seriously injured, Athanas will know.”

‘…And?’

Andrea’s lips curled into a twisted smile.

“If you are in danger of dying and yet Athanas does not come for you… would that not be the clearest evidence that you were being used?”

‘Excuse me?’

I think there’s a serious flaw in that proof.

Shouldn’t I be alive first if I’m to change my mind after seeing the evidence or whatever?

But since my tongue wouldn’t move, I couldn’t even point out such a basic mistake.

‘Is he actually insane!’

Why is his logic suddenly jumping to this?

I simply cannot understand.

No, what I truly cannot understand is myself, for believing that a guy whose brain was mortgaged to an Othergod would act predictably.

Am I an idiot?

I knew that the Distorted One loves it most when things deviate from expectations!

‘Dammit!’

I’m screwed!

Athanas! Save me!

* * *

Athanas felt like he was going crazy.

Why, just why was he so defenseless?

He had been so sharply guarded when he was the ‘Athanas’ who was the Savior of Order….

‘…When I say there is Regression, he fears me, and when I pretend there isn’t, he worries about me.’

The fact that he worried about him was fine.

But the way he tried to take risks himself instead of trusting the unreliable ‘Athanas’ was truly driving him mad.

‘What risks could there possibly be?’

When he saw Fabio saying that, Athanas wanted to snap back that there were countless ways to neutralize that Sacred Relic.

However, since the question of how he knew would follow, Athanas could say nothing. Athanas let out a long sigh.

‘Trusting that one thing….’

To go meet a vassal of an Othergod.

When he first heard that story, his heart had truly sunk.

Athanas could only rewind time by one hour.

This meant that if he realized Fabio had died later than that, there was nothing he could do.

‘…In the worst-case scenario, at least one of the two must survive?’

Athanas fiddled with the pinky finger of his left hand.

Because of those words, he had intentionally given no explanation when handing over the reliquary.

He figured that if he told Fabio it could track his location, Fabio would intentionally throw the reliquary far away the moment he felt danger.

‘To prevent me from coming to rescue him….’

Athanas stayed awake all night, like someone standing guard.

Even though he knew that if something happened, he would feel a burning pain in the severed pinky finger inside the reliquary and wake up immediately, he was too anxious to sleep.

What if he woke up and rushed there, only to find the reliquary lying alone at the signal’s location? And what if the terrible burning pain continued….

Just imagining such a situation made the blood in his entire body feel as if it were freezing.

‘…Is he still studying that guy’s Doctrine?’

Athanas checked Fabio’s location every ten minutes.

The location didn’t move much from the office of the orphanage.

‘The sun is starting to rise.’

There was still over an hour until sunrise, but the sky was already stained with the dim light of dawn. Athanas stared blankly at the sky, then checked the signal again.

‘…He’s moving.’

The location hadn’t changed much, but the altitude was changing. It seemed he was going down to a lower floor.

‘Is he returning to his room because the lesson ended?’

But instead of leaving the orphanage, Fabio went down one more floor.

Athanas tensed up.

‘The basement?’

What business did he have in the basement?

Was there any reason to go to the building’s basement to study Doctrine?

The more he thought about it, the more his imagination drifted toward the worst possibilities.

‘…Rather than staying like this, it would be better to go right now and check what he’s doing.’

Then he could use Regression to make it as if it never happened.

The moment he thought that, an intense burning pain flared in his pinky finger.

Before he even realized what it meant, his body moved first.

‘…Fabio!’

* * *

It felt like his heart was going to burst. Athanas didn’t even think to catch his breath as he sprinted down. He couldn’t even consider whether there were any traps. The terrible burning pain continued to grate on his nerves.

“Fabio!”

Instead of answering, Fabio coughed up a mouthful of blood. A short, pained groan escaped him.

“What did you….”

“This is unexpected. I truly didn’t think you would come to save him.”

Chapter 89