Chapter 611
For some reason I couldn't fathom, Rowan was waiting for me in person.
What was going on?
Had the Popes deceived me?
Was there a reason for them to do so?
In a situation where the answer was uncertain, Rowan knelt before me.
"It is an immense honor to see you again, Your Majesty the Demon King."
That gesture signified complete submission.
"Why are you here? I clearly remember searching for you, but I don't recall telling you to come here. We're meeting for the first time, aren't we?"
"…I know everything that happens within the Five Great Religions."
Ah.
So that's what it was.
The Imperial Capital had its own unique environment.
Whether it was the Five Great Religions of the Imperial Capital.
Or the Holy Knights within the Imperial Capital.
At some point, it had ceased to belong to the Commander or the Popes.
Eleion Bolton didn't know, the Popes didn't know, Bertus didn't know.
And I hadn't known either.
"From the beginning, I should have met you, not the Popes, to absorb the Five Great Religions."
"It seems that way."
I had just met the right person to hand over the Five Great Religions to me.
"Those who share my intentions are all prepared to support you, Your Majesty."
Despite knowing there were many factions within the Order that supported me, including the Popes and the Commander of the Holy Knights, they were unaware that these factions had been sidelined for a long time after unifying.
The elite directly under the Holy Knights' Commander, who tried to suppress Rowan, wouldn't belong to Rowan.
But that was all.
The number of people the Commander could control by his own will was limited.
The remaining Holy Knights who followed the Commander were stationed at the allied forces' base.
The factions of the Imperial Capital were not the Popes', but Rowan's.
So now, the Holy Knights hadn't returned to their base, but were actually in enemy territory.
Rowan was able to handle not only the Hero Religion and the Demon God Cult but also the Five Great Religions within the Imperial Capital.
"It's an irresistible offer, I admit. But why should I join hands with you, who clearly don't seem to be in your right mind?"
It was evident from the conversation that Rowan wasn't a normal person.
"Do you think the Popes are sane?"
"They might not be, but they seem better than you."
No matter how sweet the promised fruits were, I couldn't help but be hesitant.
I had only come to stop the madness.
Rowan cautiously looked up at me.
It was a gaze that was difficult to endure.
It was a gaze that dared to look at me, feeling embarrassed even to do so, yet wanting to make eye contact and converse with me – that intention was clearly visible.
An awe that made my insides churn.
It was already uncomfortable knowing it was directed at me.
"Which is crazier: someone who uses heretics to incite a riot, or someone who plans to kill all heretics? Both are insane, but I don't know which is more so."
However, Rowan's words were more shocking than his gaze.
"…What?"
The former was Rowan.
Then, who was the latter?
"Didn't the Popes tell you?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Didn't they mention the heretic purification?"
Heretic purification.
The chilling phrase made me feel as if my entire body was freezing.
"You don't really think that the five Popes only intended to observe after figuring out the scale of the heretics, do you?"
"Yes."
That's what had been said.
'Now' was a time when heretics could not be killed indiscriminately.
That statement ultimately implied that, when the time came when they could be killed indiscriminately, they would be killed without hesitation.
And through Rowan, they had been assessing the scale and leaders of the heretics.
They had initially attempted to control them because extermination was impossible.
And after all these events, they would have tried to eliminate them completely.
"Why try to put wine that's not even as good as vinegar into an old leather wineskin when they say new wine should be put into new wineskins?"
Rowan had almost been forced to perform penance.
And now, Rowan was talking to me about penance.
"Don't tell me you did all this to save the heretics?"
"I wish for the empire's downfall. And for the Demon King to become the ruler of the new era."
"…"
"Saving millions of heretics is just a byproduct of the Demon King's reign."
Rowan smiled with a peculiar expression.
It was a very awkward and bizarre smile.
"And no matter how skilled I am at killing and torturing people, it's sad when more than ten million people die, isn't it?"
"…"
"Such things shouldn't happen."
The heretic inquisitor said that a heretic's life was still a life.
It had an extremely unpleasant resonance, like a serial killer talking about the dignity of life.
And that unpleasantness came from the fact that Rowan's words were not wrong.
There was nothing more disgusting than a wrong being saying the right thing.
"Did the popes really try to kill all the heretics? And they thought the order would be safe after doing that?"
"Do you think it's impossible?"
"…What?"
"Isn't it a good thing for the empire if the number of refugees, who are not even worth as much as maggots, decreases?"
I couldn't help but widen my eyes at the chilling possibility.
"Do you think it's impossible to blame the incident in the basement of the Holy Knights for the heretics' actions and kill them?"
"…"
"It's a matter of whether they can handle it or not. If they want to, they can obviously do it, you know."
The incident at the Holy Knights was my doing.
But did the popes try to frame the heretics for it instead of finding the culprit?
"Could it be that the policy was set up that way from the beginning?"
"…They ordered me to investigate in that direction."
The popes wanted to control the heretics. That's why they used Rowan.
That's why the bizarre structure of the Five Great Religions being the mastermind behind the heretics was established.
But in the end, the popes were only controlling the heretics because they couldn't kill them, and they would have pushed them all away whenever they could.
The popes wanted to make this incident a heretic crime, regardless of the truth.
But Rowan knew almost everything about the heretics in the refugee camp. Even if they captured and tortured the unidentified heretics, they would have known they weren't the culprits. They could have made them fake culprits, but they could never become the real culprits.
And then, she tried to approach the empire as the culprit.
There, Eleion Bolton ordered her to stop the investigation, but Rowan didn't listen.
It was clear that the popes were preparing to kill all the heretics someday.
Of course, it wouldn’t happen immediately.
The Popes had hidden their intentions from me. Of course, they knew I would react sensitively to words like "purifying heretics."
They were opportunists who swallowed the sweet and spat out the bitter.
Their attachment to me was probably because the public opinion within the church was flowing in favor of supporting me.
Had Rowan gone mad?
Or had the Popes gone mad?
Perhaps both were mad.
But now, it was clear whose hand I should take.
——
The atmosphere in the capital was ominous and chaotic, due to the recent riot and the massacre by the guards.
Smoke from burning corpses billowed everywhere, and the guards patrolling the refugee camp were not the usual ones.
Silent guards wearing helmets that hid their faces filled the streets, walking wordlessly.
In this atmosphere of hatred and rage towards the guards, no one dared to lay a hand on the solitary guards.
Everyone had seen that these silent watchers were a different caliber from ordinary guards.
These strange beings, who seemed human but not quite, roamed the refugee camp.
They used extreme measures at the slightest hint of violence.
It seemed as if unresponsive machines were patrolling the streets, reacting to neither words nor cries.
The guards now controlling the refugee camp gave no words and no warnings.
They slowly walked the streets, meting out summary executions at the first sign of unrest before disappearing leisurely.
People felt extreme terror at their inhuman appearance.
Days passed like this.
The four pursuing Rowan's death remained in the temple amidst the ominous atmosphere.
Each needed time to process the shocking truth they had discovered. Ludwig gained hope that he might regain his arm through the Chimera procedure, but he also knew that it could threaten his life, so he agonized over the decision every day.
The sudden chaos in the capital forced them to spend days of silence within the temple.
But they couldn't do so forever.
Ellen called Heinrich, Louise, and Ludwig together.
"I think we need to decide what to do now."
Ultimately, the fundamental problem remained unsolved.
Who killed Rowan?
The Emperor said that Rowan's death was not the work of the Empire.
"The possibility of Bertus lying about that is low. There was no reason to hide it if the Empire killed Rowan, especially after showing us the laboratory."
"That's true."
Louise nodded in agreement with Ellen's words.
They were shown a secret even bigger and more important than Rowan's death. Strictly speaking, the death of one priestess was trivial compared to what was happening in that laboratory.
If they had killed Rowan, they would have said it was unavoidable.
Since there was no reason to lie, logically speaking, it was highly likely that the Empire did not kill Rowan.
Dettomorian had said that they would know when they found Asher, but all they found out was that Rowan's death was not related to the Empire.
However, that didn't change the fact that they had learned something.
They could rule out one of the most likely factions.
"It's likely that Rowan's approach to Ludwig from the beginning was to investigate the Temple."
"Yes, that seems right."
"Then the Empire would have a reason to kill Rowan, as she discovered something she shouldn't have. But the Empire claims no involvement, and there's no reason for them to lie based on the circumstances…"
The bandits' attack was never the case to begin with.
The faction that had reason to kill Rowan was the Empire, but the Empire hadn't killed her.
Therefore, the situation itself was trapped in a maze.
"Could it have been the heretics who killed her?"
Heinrich raised the question.
Rowan was initially an Inquisitor, so if the heretics knew of her existence, she would have undoubtedly been a target they would want dead.
"It's entirely possible that she wasn't killed while investigating, but was retaliated against for her accumulated deeds."
Ellen affirmed Heinrich's statement, as if unable to deny the possibility.
"But even so, the refugee camp is an understatement for danger…"
A large-scale riot had taken place, and the area had been subdued through a massacre. As a result, the refugee camp was not a place anyone would want to enter.
Massacre.
It was like a bolt from the blue.
Moreover, everyone present knew that the army being created to end the Gate incident was deployed to kill people.
Nobody was unaware that too much was being justified under the pretext of the Gate incident.
But even if it wasn't dangerous, it wouldn't be any different.
If the heretics were the ones who killed Rowan, they still wouldn't know where they were.
"By the way, initially… there was the incident at the Holy Knights' tomb."
Ludwig, who had been silent, finally spoke.
"Was that the Empire's doing?"
"Yeah."
"Hmm."
"…!"
Only then did everyone realize that they had not been considering the most immediate matter amidst the shocking truths.