Aurora and the devil
‘···The devil is coming?’
In a moment of complete unimaginable situation, my mind became rigid.
Aurora, it was a wall that could not be overcome with effort.
Here, Aura was not a state that could be reached simply by gaining enlightenment. Only those who had passed through the hands of the Empire could wield Aura.
Every year the empire selected talented young men and trained them in special institutions in the capital.
Because only ability was considered regardless of origin, nationality, or race, a huge number of people flocked to the empire’s capital every year.
I don’t know for sure, but I heard that only a select few of those who have been selected and trained at the institution can handle Aura.
There was still no public knowledge of what kind of training was provided at the institution or what the principles of Auror were, and Auror was still the exclusive property of the Empire.
Since they are selected without regard to origin or nationality, there are quite a few who return to their home countries rather than the Empire, but it is strange that the Empire still monopolizes the production of Auror Knights.
‘···But the devil pulls out the aura?’
My head was spinning as to what this meant. No matter what assumption I made, everything I knew up until now had changed completely.
The undisclosed process of making Auror Knights, and the demon that causes Auror out of nowhere. The gap between the two is strangely close yet far.
It was a secret that could not be helped, even though scratching it would only reveal a sore spot.
‘There are quite a few cases where wizards attain enlightenment on their own and become initiated. Hans, the panty thief, was like that. On the other hand, knights···.’
My thoughts continued on and on.
Why don’t knights just naturally appear like in a normal fantasy novel? Why aren’t there any who have not been touched by the Empire who can draw Auras?
‘···if.’
Knock knock!
At that moment, my thoughts were broken by a rough knock on the door.
Startled, I grabbed the sword next to me and put on my clothes.
And on top of that, he wore a thick leather vest. Anyway, if he got caught, he would be finished without any excuses. After straightening his appearance and checking in the mirror that there was nothing wrong with him, he opened the door.
At the door, Jace, the bastard son of the inner guard, stood with a sullen expression. He was scrunching up his face as hard as he could, as if he was dissatisfied with coming here.
‘Why is this kid here?’
Maybe it was because I had a devil stuck in my heart, but everything was suspicious.
I glanced at the sword hanging on Jace’s waist, habitually resting my hand on the hilt. Then I glanced around to see if anyone was with me. In the hallway, which was barely wide enough for one person to pass, there was only Jace.
“Sir Ben is calling.”
“why?”
“A commoner is so presumptuous as to ask why.”
At my question, Jayce raised one corner of his mouth and grinned.
I hesitated for a moment because of his rebellious attitude. Since there was no one to see him anyway, I thought I could beat him up a few times to show him some manners…
‘No, I have to buy it now.’
He shook his head slightly. For now, it was best to avoid causing any trouble until the demon was dealt with.
“Okay. Let’s go, Bastard Square.”
Although he was possessed by a demon, he needed to show his character by not yielding to it.
“···I told you not to call me that, you damn commoner!”
Jace, who didn’t like the nickname I gave him, immediately threw a punch with his face crumpled. I reflexively swung my fist, and my fist landed on his nose first, causing Jace’s fist to lose its power.
Jace, who was hit in the nose with a straight punch, fell to the ground, holding his nose.
‘Ignorant bastard.’
If you don’t like a nickname, you can just say so, but I was astonished at the ignorant medieval way of communication where you just start by throwing a punch.
“Oh, sorry.”
“···You damn commoner.”
Jace glared at me, his hands red from the blood, but I wasn’t particularly scared. Even though he was an illegitimate child, Jace, who couldn’t let go of his noble bond, didn’t stab me in the back.
“So where to?”
He reached out to Jace and asked.
Jace, who had blown his nose and wiped the blood off the floor, got up from his seat without even looking at his hand and turned around.
He wiped his embarrassed hands on his pants and followed Jace.
“Aaron! I was just about to bring it to you! Huh? Where are you going?”
Let’s go down, Hannah asked, tilting her head while holding a bread stuffed with meat.
Since I saw the devil’s handprint, I haven’t left my room, so Hannah has been bringing me food to my room herself for the past few days.
Then, Hannah brought her own food and ate it with me. When I asked her why she was eating here, Hannah kept saying useless things like, “If you eat alone, you’ll get possessed by the devil!”
Hannah must have blurted out those words without thinking, but she was so startled that she suffered from hiccups for a long time.
“He’s following me.”
“Ah! You’re Aaron’s colleague! Hello! I’m Aaron’s umm… Hannah!”
At the strange part, Ha-na greeted me with a bright smile while speaking vaguely.
“···hmm.”
Jace, who was greeted, lifted his chin and nodded his head.
Jace was already a long-chinned guy, but when he raised his chin, he looked very threatening.
“Here you go! Aaron, eat well and move around. You seem to have gotten a bit haggard lately.”
Hannah looked worried as she handed me a mug of beer and some bread.
“···Hazel?”
Jace looked me up and down with a bewildered expression. When I faced him and playfully shrugged my shoulders, Jace frowned and turned his head away.
“Are you coming in today?”
Hannah asked as she tied the strings of my family vest. When she tapped my chest after tying the knot, I was so nervous that I couldn’t even breathe properly.
“Of course, how much is the daily rent here?”
I tried to smile and answer as if nothing had happened.
“It’s really cheap?! And you get paid even less from Aaron! And that’s not even the cost price! Even the cost price!”
Hannah pouted and snapped, then went into the kitchen.
Hannah seems to have taken a liking to the word ‘cost’ recently, and she always says ‘cost’ when she does something. Yesterday, she made the usual hand gesture and said that 40 Coopers wouldn’t even cover the cost, so it seemed like she didn’t know the true meaning of ‘cost’.
“hmm···.”
“What’s with that expression?”
Jace’s gaze, which seemed to not understand English and looked back and forth between the kitchen where Hannah had entered and me, made me feel uncomfortable for some reason.
“A woman like that and you… hmm… how strange.”
“What’s so strange? Your birth is even stranger.”
“···?”
Jace frowned, as if he didn’t understand what I was saying. I looked at Jace like that and took a big bite of the bread Hannah had given me.
‘Is this the effect of fish bread?’
The meat bread that was tasteless before now tasted quite delicious. The meat fat soaked into the dry bread also had a great flavor. Just the fact that there was no fishy smell was enough to tell that it was a great dish.
“This··· This··· This···!”
When I took my second bite of bread, Jace started shaking and making strange noises. Jace glared at me with his eyes full of energy, then turned around and walked away quickly.
“Hey, are you upset?”
“···.”
Judging by the bright redness of the neck visible from behind, it was clearly dislocated.
‘Don’t get mad at me for teasing you.’
Jace headed to District 1. In fact, District 1 was just a place where the buildings were a bit taller than other districts, and people’s clothes were cleaner. The characteristic medieval street shit smell was still there.
‘You should go to the capital or a city, the smell will be a little less.’
I took another bite of the bread, recalling old memories.
“be careful!”
At that moment, a woman’s voice was heard from above. When I raised my head, a cute woman was holding a round object and sticking her head out. The round object caught my attention more than the refreshing smile on the woman’s face.
‘Fuck.’
I jumped to the side in surprise when I realized what the woman was trying to do. Jace was already far away, and the people walking by had scattered and clung to the building.
And a moment later, a woman on the second floor poured the contents of the chamber pot out the window. A thud, a disgusting sound and a strong smell of excrement filled the air.
‘···Fucking Middle Ages.’
I quickly turned my head to the side. However, I couldn’t avoid the smell.
“Oh, Emma.”
“Jayce! Good morning!”
I couldn’t help but curse at the sight of Jace smiling brightly and greeting the woman who had thrown trash on the street.
This was the difference between zones 1-3 and other zones. The guys in zones 1-3 did not poop on the street, but pooped in a chamber pot at home and then threw it out on the street.
I never understood why people would point fingers at people who shit on the street and call them uncivilized.
‘If you’re going to throw it away, throw it in the toilet.’
Even though they had specially made a separate waterway and even a public toilet, they still sprayed it out the windows. They didn’t seem to care that the streets were filled with the smell of excrement.
“Emma, do you want to have dinner together later? I made a reservation at the Blue Snail over there.”
“Okay! Then shall we see each other later?”
‘Ask a girl who just took a shit on you on a date…’
I looked at Jace’s hunched face and put the remaining bread in my mouth. I chewed it roughly and then downed it with my beer.
‘···Uncivilized medieval bastards.’
I muttered something that had become a habit, to the smell of shit that I could never get used to.
Jace, who was soon to become the father of a third illegitimate child, stopped in front of the synagogue in District 1.
There was a small fence around the synagogue, and it was wide enough to fit two houses. The synagogue was twice as tall as the building next to it, and the white stone building gave the onlookers a sense of the power of the religious order.
Jace bowed slightly, resting his fist on his forehead in front of the synagogue.
‘···You called me to the synagogue?’
With a feeling of pity for the thief, I looked at Jace’s neck, who was bowing his head for no reason, and stroked the handle of my sword.
Could it be that Jayce has an ulterior motive? Could it be that he lured me here because he had a grudge against me for giving me a few petty beatings? As these thoughts continued, cold sweat broke out on the hand holding the hilt of his sword.
Because of the request, the words of the priest who had acted together came to mind.
[The devil is cunning and sly and always whispers lies, so it is not easy to reveal its true nature. The only way to find out is to burn it. Oh! Of course, there is also a way to check the chest area. But in principle, you have to burn it. You can fall for the devil’s low and sweet whispers.]
It was something said by a priest who was quite well known at the time. So, it was impossible to recognize the devil just by his appearance among people in such remote places.
‘The only way to determine the devil is to burn him or check his handprint.’
When I fought the devil, my leather armor was torn, but my heart was intact. That’s why I checked the devil’s handprint only after taking a bath, so no one saw it for sure.
I tried hard to remain calm and quell my overheated fantasies.
‘If you run away from here, it will be more suspicious.’
I took a deep breath and calmed my pounding heart.
I gathered my thoughts and raised my head to see Jace staring at me. He smiled nonchalantly as he looked into my cloudy blue eyes.
“Oh, I’ve been having a hard time lately. I had some counseling.”
There was only one choice, so there was no need to hesitate.
I rather outpaced the guy.
I grabbed the shiny doorknob and pushed it. I was worried that sparks might fly like the barrier I saw in the old movies, but I was able to enter without any problems.
‘···I never thought the day would come when I would have to worry from the devil’s perspective.’
The interior of the synagogue was so extravagant that it was hard to believe it was in the outskirts. The sunlight streaming in through the tinted windows beautifully split and colored the white synagogue, and the floor was paved with marble of even size.
“Welcome.”
A monk with a rounded head greeted me. He smiled brightly, as if he thought I had come to pay him, and took out a dark brown pouch from his waistband.
‘Don’t you start with saying good things?’
I was dumbfounded by the sight of him collecting money.
“I came because Sir Ben called me.”
I looked at the monk, curled my right hand so that the palm was facing forward, and placed it on my forehead.
“Ah, you are the person the priest was talking about.”
The monk, who had a look of disappointment on his face for a moment, quickly changed his expression and struck his forehead with his fist.
“You can come this way.”
The monk walked without making a sound. I took a deep breath for a moment and followed him.
‘There’s only one door. What about the back door?’
I followed the monk and checked the escape route. Inside the synagogue, there was a long corridor, and there was a wooden door next to it. I lightly licked my finger to check if there was any wind.
‘There’s a back door inside.’
Before the monk turned to the side, the wind was blowing, so I was sure that there was a back door inside and that it would be open.
The monk stopped in front of an unusually large wooden door. He knocked politely on the door with the back of his hand.
“Yes, please come in.”
A gentle voice was heard from within. The monk stepped aside.
after···.
He took a deep breath, pretended to hold his waist, placed his left hand on the hilt of his sword, and slowly pushed the door open.
Not knowing what would happen, I imagined the worst. I pushed open the door and stepped back slightly. There was no attack as I had expected.
The room was neat and quite fancy.
In the center were six long wooden chairs, and on a long table was a long white cloth spread out. On it were various breads and golden cups.
Ben and the pot-bellied man were sitting on chairs.
“Ah, you came.”
Ben, who had found me, smiled brightly. Unlike before, Ben was wearing silver armor, which seemed of inferior quality to the black armor he had worn before. It was a material that seemed like it would pierce if you put force into it with a sword. It wasn’t bad.
Across from Ben was a pot-bellied man with a kind smile, and the gold cape around his neck bore two black lines, the mark of a priest. He looked like he couldn’t breathe due to adult diseases, even without me doing anything about it.
Behind the pot-bellied man stood a woman in thick armor.
As tall as an average man. A cold, expressionless face, short black hair, and a large sword the size of her body hanging on her back.
‘A great sword···.’
It was tricky for most people to use a greatsword. Not only was it long, but the strength itself was beyond the average level for someone to swing such a stupid thing, so they couldn’t even fight with it.
As I was habitually estimating the combined length of the woman’s arm and the length of her greatsword, I almost screamed when I saw the pattern drawn on the center of the woman’s armor.
The woman’s armor was a thick, shining white suit with a hammer design with a sun in the center of it.
The meaning of the pattern was clear.
‘···The Inquisitor.’
The woman was an inquisitor, known as the Pagan’s Nightmare, the Demon Seeker, or the Deputy Judge.
Only then did I notice the ugly mace and black Bible hanging from the woman’s waist.
My eyes met with the woman’s, and I instinctively turned my gaze away. Then the woman strode toward me.
Knock knock.
As the heavy footsteps coming from the thick armor approached, I felt as if someone was squeezing my heart.
‘Did you get caught? No, that can’t be. But, the Inquisitor…’
The woman’s black eyes held no emotion, so I couldn’t read her intentions. I stroked the handle of my sword as I watched the woman approach. Then, my mind became calm.
If the woman had come a little closer, I would have had an advantage. A distance where I could stab her with my sword before she drew her greatsword.
I checked the woman’s exposed neck because she wasn’t wearing a helmet. Various scenarios came to mind and then subsided.
But no matter what choice I made here, it was clear that the ending would not be good. But when the moment came to choose, I would not hesitate.
The woman came right up to me.
I saw my face reflected in the woman’s eyes.
The expression on his face was like that of a child who wet his bed. I forced myself to raise the corners of my mouth. Then, my face changed into that of a great fugitive.
The woman who had come right up to me immediately raised her right hand.
‘No matter how resilient the religious group is, there’s nothing they can do if they cut off his head. After cutting off his head and blocking the door with a woman…’
He gripped the sword handle tightly. If the woman tried to grab the handle of the greatsword or even make a move to draw the mace, he was prepared to immediately decapitate her.
Bam.
The woman brought her fist to my forehead.
The woman’s light actions made the complicated and red-filled thoughts disappear.
“Ohhh… the blessing of the Inquisitor.”
Only after the priest’s muttering did I realize what the woman was trying to do.
I didn’t understand why he was giving a blessing right away without even announcing his name, but I closed my eyes for now.
‘···Have you really become a devil?’
It was disgusting that he had come up with five different ways to kill me just because the Inquisitor approached.
But I couldn’t help it. I promised to do my best to survive. I already had a lot of leashes filled.
‘But… can I be blessed?’
Suddenly, a thought occurred to me. If I had a demon in my body, wouldn’t I be in terrible pain if I received a blessing? But I couldn’t shake off the hand of the heretic inquisitor.
Just in case, I clenched my teeth so as not to scream at the pain that was to come. If it weren’t for the fact that my arm was being cut off, I could probably bear it with a smile.
– How dare you, you dog. Where are you putting your hands?
Then, suddenly, a voice that sounded very angry muttered.
A bright light enveloped the woman’s hands.
-···Ugh.
The voice became quiet, as if it was a man who had just received a massage.
‘···Is this kid really a devil?’
I made eye contact with the woman.
The moment I met the deep, dark eyes of a woman who had no emotions whatsoever, I averted my gaze without realizing it.
My hand was still holding the sword hilt.
