Chapter 611
For some reason, Rowen was waiting for me in person.
what’s going on
Have the Popes tricked me?
Is there a reason for that?
In a situation where the answer is not clear, Rowen kneels to me.
“It is an infinite honor to see you again, Demon King.”
It contained the meaning of complete submission.
“Why are you here? I was definitely looking for you, but I definitely don’t remember asking you to come here. Is this our first meeting?”
“… … I know everything that happens in the main church.”
ah.
Was it like that
The ecliptic has its own environment.
Whether it’s the five major denominations within the ecliptic.
Whether it’s the Templars within the ecliptic.
From a certain point on, it became neither the leader nor the Popes.
Ileion Bolton didn’t know that, the Popes didn’t know, and Bertus didn’t know that either.
I didn’t know either.
“I guess I had to meet you, not the popes, to join the main church in the first place.”
“That’s it.”
I just met the right person to hand over the main church to me.
“All those who agree with me are ready to support the Demon King.”
The Popes, as well as the Templar Commander, knew that there were many forces supporting me within the Church, but they had no idea that they had been ostracizing them for a long time after they grouped together.
The elites directly under the leader of the Knights Templar who tried to purify Rowen would not belong to Rowen.
But that was only about it.
There were only a handful of people that the leader could directly handle according to his will.
The rest of the Paladins following the leader are all at the Allied Garrison.
The powers of the Church of the Empire were not the Pope’s, but Rowen’s.
So now, the Knights Templar had not returned to their base, but in fact returned to the enemy territory.
Rowen was able to deal with pagans such as the Cult of the Braves and the Cult of the Demon Gods, as well as the main cult within the imperial capital.
“It is a proposition that cannot but be tempted. But why do I have to hold your hand, who is obviously insane?”
You can tell that Rowen is a spoiled person without having to have a long conversation.
“Do you think popes are sane?”
“I may not be crazy, but I think I’m better than you.”
No matter how sweet fruit is promised, there is no choice but to be reluctant.
I’m just here to stop the madness.
Rowen looks up cautiously.
It was an unbearable gaze.
It’s embarrassing to even dare to look up at me, but it was the look in his eyes that read the thought that he literally ‘dared’ to look up at me because he wanted to make eye contact and talk.
A sense of awe to the point of tingling in the stomach.
Just the fact that it was directed at me made me feel uncomfortable.
“Comparing the man who uses the infidels to cause a riot to the man who thinks of killing all the infidels, who is more insane? It’s true that they’re both crazy, but I’m not sure which one is more crazy.”
However, the words that came out of Rowen’s mouth were more shocking than the look in Rowen’s eyes.
“… … what?”
The former is Rowan.
And what about the latter?
“Didn’t the popes tell you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t I tell you about pagan cleansing?”
pagan cleansing.
I felt like my whole body froze at that eerie word.
“You really didn’t think that the five popes would watch the pagans just to get an idea of the size of them, right?”
okay.
I said so.
‘Now’ is an era where pagans cannot be killed recklessly.
In the end, it was a sound that read the psychology that he would kill as many times as he wanted in an era where he could be killed carelessly.
And through Rowen, he was able to grasp the size and leaders of the pagans.
In the first place, eradication was impossible, so I tried to control it.
And after all this has passed, I would have tried to get rid of it all.
“They say that new wine must be put in new wineskins, but why do you want to put wine that is less than vinegar in old leather wineskins?”
Rowen was about to be purged.
Such Rowen was now telling me about the purge.
“Are you saying you did this to save the cultists?”
“I want the empire to be destroyed. And I hope that the Demon King will become the master of the new era.”
“… … .”
“The fact that tens of millions of pagans are saved by the demon king is like a by-product of that.”
Rowen smiles curiously.
It was something very awkward and bizarre.
“And no matter how good I am at killing and torturing people, it’s sad when tens of millions of people die.”
“… … .”
“That shouldn’t be the case, right?”
The life of a heretic is also a life after all, says the Heretic Questioner.
It had a very unpleasant resonance, like a serial killer talking about the sanctity of life.
And the unpleasantness comes from the fact that Rowen isn’t wrong.
There is nothing more disgusting than the wrong being saying the right thing.
“Did the popes really try to kill all the infidels? Do you think that the church can be safe even after doing such a thing?”
“Do you think you can’t?”
“… … what?”
“Isn’t it good for an empire if the number of refugees who can’t even be a food worm decreases?”
I couldn’t help but open my eyes at the terrifying possibility.
“Do you think it would be impossible to put the heathen to blame for the incident that took place underground of the Templars and kill them?”
“… … .”
“It’s a matter of whether you can afford it or not. You know what you can do if you try.”
My work at the Templars was what I did.
But are the popes not looking for the culprit, but trying to disguise it as an infidel?
“No way, was it decided that way from the beginning?”
“… … They asked me to investigate in that direction.”
Popes wanted to control the pagans. That’s why I used Rowan.
That is why this strange structure, in fact, behind the pagans was the Five Great Main Churches.
But in the end, the Popes were just controlling the pagans because they couldn’t kill them, and they were determined to do so whenever they could.
Regardless of the facts, the popes wanted to make this a pagan crime.
But Rowen knew almost everything about the heretics in the refugee camp. Even if he caught and tortured the cultists he couldn’t identify, he would have no choice but to know that they weren’t the criminals. He could make it a fake criminal, but he knew he couldn’t be a real criminal.
And he regarded the Empire as the culprit and tried to approach him.
There, Ileion Boelton ordered her to stop the investigation, but Rowen didn’t listen.
It is clear that the popes are preparing to one day kill all infidels.
Of course, that won’t happen right away.
The popes hid that intention from me. You know, of course, that I’m going to be sensitive to comments about pagan cleansing and all.
They are great people who will swallow it if it is sweet and spit it out if it is used.
Isn’t the reason why they are attached to me because public opinion within the church is flowing in favor of me?
Is Rowen crazy?
Or are the Popes crazy?
both would be crazy
However, it became clear whose hand to hold.
* * *
The atmosphere in the imperial capital was fierce and disturbing. It was because of the recent riots and the massacre of the guards.
Smoke from burning corpses rose here and there, and the guards roaming the refugee camp were not their usual guards.
Their place was filled by silent guards, who walked the streets in silence, wearing helmets that covered their faces.
Now that hatred and anger toward the guards were rampant, no one dared to touch the guards who roamed alone.
It was because everyone saw that the observers in the silence were something different from the simple guards.
Some bizarre beings who seem to be human but not human roam the refugee camp.
They used extreme measures at the slightest sign of violence.
It seemed that a machine that did not respond to anyone’s words or anyone’s cries was roaming the streets.
The guards now controlling the refugee camp said nothing and gave no warning.
If there was a sign of disquiet while walking slowly down the street, he headed straight for immediate execution and slowly disappeared.
The anti-human appearance made people feel extreme fear.
After a few days like that.
Each of the four men who pursued Rowen’s death remained at the Temple in that ominous atmosphere.
After learning the shocking truth, each of us needed time to organize our thoughts. And Ludwig got the hope that he might be able to get his arm back through the chimera procedure, but he knew that it might rather threaten his life, so he was agonizing over the choice every day.
And the sudden uproar that took place in the imperial capital, and because of that, they had to spend several days of silence inside the temple.
But it can’t be like that forever.
Ellen called Heinrich, Louise, and Ludwig together.
“I think we have to decide what to do now.”
Ultimately, the underlying problem remains unresolved.
Who the hell killed Rowen?
The Emperor said it was not the Empire’s fault that Rowen was killed.
“It is unlikely that what Bertus said then was a lie. Since they showed us the appearance of the laboratory, if it was the Empire that killed Rowen, there would be no reason to hide it.”
“I guess so.”
Louise nodded as if agreeing with Ellen’s words.
He revealed a bigger and more important secret than killing Rowen. Strictly speaking, the death of a priest is a very minor thing compared to what is happening in that laboratory.
Had he killed Rowen, he would have said he had no choice but to do so.
He couldn’t have lied without reason, so logically, the fact that the Empire didn’t kill Rowen was likely true in itself.
What Dettomorian said.
He said he would find out if he found Ashir, but what he found out was that Rowen’s death and the Empire were not involved.
However, the fact that he also learned something remains unchanged.
One of the powerful dragon forces was able to be eliminated.
“It would not have been wrong to say that Rowen approached Ludwig in order to investigate the Temple in the first place.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then the Empire has a reason to kill Rowen. Because I told you something you shouldn’t know. But the empire is irrelevant, and there seems to be no reason to lie under the circumstances… … .”
It wasn’t a mob raid in the first place.
The Empire had a reason to try to kill Rowen, but the Empire did not kill Rowen.
So the situation itself was in a labyrinth.
“Were you really killed by the cultists?”
It was a question raised by Heinrich.
Since Rowen was the Heretic Inquisitor in the first place, it is clear that if the cultists knew of Rowen’s existence, they would always have had no choice but to kill him.
“He didn’t die while chasing down the case, and there’s a good chance that he was retaliated against for the karma accumulated so far.”
Ellen affirmed Heinrich’s words as if she couldn’t deny the possibility.
“But it’s not enough to say that the refugee camp is now dangerous… … .”
It is a place where a large-scale riot broke out, but it was put to rest by massacre. That’s why the refugee camp area was a place where there was nothing good about entering the refugee camp.
massacre.
It was literally like lightning.
Everyone in this room knew that even the army being built to end the gate crisis was committed to killing people.
No one knows that too many things are being justified in the name of the gate crisis.
But even if it’s not dangerous, it doesn’t matter.
If it’s the cultists who killed Rowen, we don’t even know where they are.
“But in the first place… … . You know what happened at the Templar Graveyard.”
Ludwig, who had been silent, opened his mouth.
“What happened there… … . Is what the Empire did right?”
“uh.”
“hmm.”
“… … !”
Only then did everyone realize that they hadn’t thought of the first thing they should think about in the midst of the shocking truth.
