362. The Scouts and the Plunderers (7)
Neither the contamination of hellish magic, the sudden attacks of demons, nor the onslaught of twisted trees and wild beasts could stop them. Fabiano was charging through a mountain path that seemed to have been ripped straight out of a section of hell, crushing everything in his way.
“We’re almost there!”
This path. The path from the Dragonspine Mountains to St. Bartholomew Monastery had been a familiar one since childhood, but at this moment, it felt as twisted as a maze. Marco, struggling to keep his bearings, guided Fabiano through it.
He was right. The monastery’s outer walls, appearing as if they had crumbled over time, came into view. The once sturdy city walls were now covered in dried ivy that clung like tentacles, and small demons gathered over fallen corpses, feasting on their flesh.
“Get—out—of—here—!!”
Rage surged in Fabiano’s eyes. He lunged forward like an arrow, roaring. Before the demons could even flinch, Fabiano’s massive fist smashed their heads.
With a sound like a cannon blast, the headless demon staggered and collapsed. Fabiano, panting with fury, flipped over the fallen corpse.
“Victor!!!”
Amid the gruesomely torn flesh, a familiar face appeared. It was Diemonica, who had trained with him. He had stayed behind at the monastery as a precaution.
“I’m sorry……. I’m so sorry……!”
“It’s not your fault, brother.”
“Brother Marco. I ordered this brother to stay at the monastery……!”
Fabiano had been in command of Diemonica during Zephis’s absence. He had told Victor to stay at the monastery, as they couldn’t leave it completely empty, to train and rest.
The fact that he lay here suggested many things. It was a sudden ambush, severe enough that Diemonica had to be deployed. And if the one who struck him down had headed into the monastery, it meant that a force capable of killing Diemonica had swept through its interior.
Thick tears fell from Fabiano’s eyes. He pulled Victor’s rosary from his corpse and made a quick sign of the cross.
“We must go to the Monastery Head…… to the Monastery Head.”
“Yes. Let’s go.”
“The Great Seal has been destroyed, so he must have headed to the Grand Cathedral.”
“That makes sense. It’s the only place within the monastery that can be fortified.”
St. Bartholomew Monastery wasn’t built as a fortress for battle. It was a secret stronghold, a place where the idea of combat within its walls was unthinkable.
Yet, they had still prepared fortified areas within the monastery. Call it paranoid obsession or the prudent measures of an Inquisition Officer, but they had done so.
The Grand Cathedral was one such sanctuary. A sealed sanctuary where hellish magic would be the last to penetrate. They immediately ran toward the Grand Cathedral.
Countless corpses. The bodies of comrades, each one so familiar they could have been named, lay scattered everywhere.
-BOOM!!
At that moment, a massive explosion echoed from within the monastery. Fabiano’s head snapped toward the sound.
“It’s coming from the Grand Cathedral!”
“Let’s go!”
As expected, the final resistance was taking place in the Grand Cathedral. And the presence of resistance suggested survivors.
When they arrived at the shattered steel doors of the Grand Cathedral, they saw a man thrusting a spear through someone’s abdomen.
“Monastery Head!!”
Beorn was collapsing under the assailant’s attack. Around him lay the bodies of brothers who had fallen before him. At Fabiano’s shout, the assailant slowly turned his head.
It was a familiar face.
“Daryan Schryke……!! Why is a knight of Shield’s Cathedral here!!”
“Not anymore.”
-CRACK!
Daryan twisted the spear and pulled it out, growling lowly. Beorn coughed up blood and collapsed to the ground. Fabiano screamed at the sight.
“You moooonster!! How many good people have died by your hands!!”
“……Good people?”
Fabiano’s body froze mid-step. What was it? He felt a kind of premonition. Like a cold scythe resting against his throat.
A premonition of death. His heated mind cooled instantly as he watched the man slowly approach. No longer looking human, his eyes bore only overwhelming ferocity, like those of an apex predator.
“Eighty-seven of those you call ‘good people’ have died by my hand. Not even a hundred. Good people. Good people……! How dare you call yourselves that!”
“How dare you……!”
“Yes, how dare I!! Up until this very moment! I’ve done my best! The number of your priestly fools whose necks I’ve severed hasn’t even reached a hundred! And you? How did you manage to kill so many?”
“What are you talking about!”
“Don’t play dumb!! Hypocrites! If you truly don’t know, then fine. It’s your own stupidity! The number of truly good people who died in the war you proclaimed as a holy crusade was nearly ten thousand!!”
-BOOM!
Daryan stomped the ground violently. The earth trembled as if groaning. A sensation, as if a demon, dragon, or angel—something beyond human—was rampaging, enveloped the surroundings. Even the hellish magic that had been burning the forest moments ago seemed to lose its momentum.
“Those who begged for their lives died. Those who claimed their innocence died too! The good villagers who confessed to stealing a single piece of bread from their neighbor—all of them died!”
A child playing tag with friends while their parents were in the fields was hung on a pole. The parents, screaming at the sight, were hung on the same pole. The reason was simple. Their lord was the Emperor’s minion, and the lord had provided humans for consumption.
If they hadn’t provided them? If they had refused the lord’s orders? The entire village would have perished. Daryan knew this. He knew those who had to commit minimal evil to prevent greater tragedies.
People like himself.
It was an era where if someone didn’t die, everyone would have to. An era where everyone lived—or had to live—that way. Amid the growing madness of the Emperor and his inner circle, Daryan worked tirelessly to save as many as he could.
And all his efforts burned under the boots of the crusaders.
“Why didn’t you save them? Did you hate them that much? Was there no place for them in your hypocritical world? Was heaven too full? Then you should have killed yourselves and fallen to hell! If heaven truly exists, it should have been for those innocent villagers!!”
Fabiano stared at Daryan, who was erupting with rage. Then he looked at the burning monastery, the fallen corpses, and the demons perched like crows, pecking at the flesh.
And he looked at his own blood-stained hands and the old sword he held. The rosary wrapped around his hand…
The rosaries ripped from the necks of fallen brothers on the way.
Are we exploring faith, or exploiting it through faith?
Fabiano looked up at the enraged madman. Daryan was waiting for his answer.
“Righteous and faithful, deliver us from evil.”
“…What?”
“Did you speak of the minimum of evil, Daryan Schryke? Did you affirm the minimum of evil to prevent a greater tragedy? Look at what you’ve done. No, look at what you did. Affirm the Emperor and control him? Kill the minimum number of people to save the maximum?”
Fabiano drew his longsword and carefully aimed it at Daryan. His stance was firm, not a single tremble in the blade.
“The reason the Empire burned and the Imperial Palace fell was because we abandoned that one evil! The reason the Temple of the Gods fell silent and Hell manifested was because we abandoned that one evil! The minimum of evil? I have lived through the horrors created by that minimum of evil!”
If you let one demon worshipper escape, a village turns into Hell.
If you abandon one village, a territory turns into Hell.
One by one, one by one! Fabiano gritted his teeth. Each one added up, and the world sank deeper into the mire. He knew it, and Diemonica, who had stepped into the worst of horrors, knew it too.
“Even that minimum of evil is too much, Daryan Schryke. Civilian massacres, arson in monasteries, murder of priests, blasphemy, demon worship, collusion with demons, plunder, and assassination. For all the atrocities you have committed, this court sentences you to death.”
“You have no right to judge me! No one does! No one has the right to judge others based on religion and faith!”
“Religious tribunal jurisdiction, immediate execution of heretics, authority to command exorcism forces, and proxy authority for church sacraments. By the authority granted by the Temple of the Gods…”
Fabiano nodded to the priests preparing for battle.
“We will destroy evil and establish good. Pray, to any god, with any words. Earnestly.”
As soon as the short prayer ended, Fabiano and the Inquisition Officers lunged at Daryan. The battle began.
* * *
“Did you kill him?”
“I failed due to my lack of ability.”
“Failed…?”
Zephis, who was listening to the story, couldn’t help but tilt his head. Daryan and the monks. It was a battle where one of them had to die. There was no reason or intention to let the other live.
But Fabiano shook his head and continued.
* * *
-Wham!!
The first priest who rushed forward had his chest explode. It happened the moment the spear struck his chest.
It wasn’t a penetration, but an explosion. It was a precise strike, so powerful and perfectly timed that it was impossible to gauge its strength.
Again, the muscles and tendons in Daryan’s arm writhed like snakes. The spearhead swayed like a wave, then surged like flames. Each time, a priest was sent flying, crashing, crumbling, and scattering.
“Daryaaaaan!!”
Fabiano screamed and charged. His brothers were dying. By that overwhelming, irrational force.
Diemonica’s body was not made for humans but for hunting demons. It was sturdy and precise enough to face enemies larger, stronger, and more terrifying than himself.
He had never lost to a human. Not because humans were weak, but because this body, constructed solely for holy war, was that exceptional. He never took pride in it, but he never thought he would lose to a human-sized being either.
But those brothers. Diemonica, constructed by the divine, and the heretics who had trained their whole lives, fell one by one. So clearly, it could almost be called honest.
“Lord! Here I am. Send me!!”
Fabiano shouted, breathing heavily. His arm came down like a guillotine toward Daryan.
-Crash!!
The sound of Daryan’s spear meeting Fabiano’s sword was like a cannon blast. The two were pushed back by the impact and glared at each other.
Their beliefs and their anger took shape in their weapons, shooting toward each other.
-Crash! Bang!!
Diemonica and the heretics, who had followed Fabiano to this place, ready to die, did not fall meaninglessly. Even as they died from Daryan’s strikes, they tried to leave at least a small wound on his body.
As a result, Daryan was now battered and bruised. No matter how exceptional a human is, there are limits. One hand can never defeat ten. Even if you break through and win, you can’t come out unscathed.
The wounds pile up. Blood flows, and bodily functions decline. It had to be so. But Daryan, with strikes as fierce as the beginning, or even fiercer, knocked down and repelled the next opponent.
Fabiano’s body began to be pushed back. His arms were numb, and his head was dizzy. It was as if some unholy force had taken hold of his body.
But he couldn’t give up.
‘We are the light.’
He prayed as he swung his spear. The scripture verses he had recited hundreds, thousands of times, floated through his mind. As naturally as breathing.
Vaitas is the god of war, the god of soldiers. And soldiers exist to protect civilization.
In any civilized society, the symbol of a soldier is a shield. It means they are not trained for war, but to prepare for war. To protect the people.
To protect the fragile flesh of civilization from the grasp of enemies, they become shields, stepping forward, regardless of the scars on their own bodies.
That is the teaching of Vaitas. And that is the belief of the Inquisition Office.
-Whoosh!
Flames erupted from Fabiano’s body. White flames flowed through his muscles, infusing him with new strength.
The three elements of holy magic: prayer, invocation, and miracle. The divine flowing through Diemonica’s body was a miracle in itself, his conviction became an invocation, and his words became a prayer—
-Crash!
Fabiano’s body, which had been pushed back, took a step forward again. As the attacks grew denser, Daryan gritted his teeth and shouted.
“Hypocrites of the Temple of the Gods!! When you captured and killed the innocent with your own hands! When I asked why!! You remained silent!! Now, now you show me your existence, for what reason!!”
Daryan’s eyes blazed as he swung his spear. Faster and faster, now almost invisible. Fabiano, with his newfound energy, barely managed to block the attacks.
At that moment.
-Whizz!
A sound tore through the air. Fabiano tilted his head back, barely dodging the object flying toward the back of his head. The object was caught in Daryan’s outstretched hand.
In a sensation as if time had slowed, the gazes of the two quickly fell on the object. It was a crossbow. With a finger pierced through it.
“Carllomano Pavilosssss!!”
“Haha, Sir Schryke! You can’t die in a place like this! If you want to save this girl, follow me!!”
As soon as he heard those words, Fabiano hurriedly rushed forward. He couldn’t let him escape! But the sudden change in posture left him exposed. Daryan roughly struck Fabiano’s body, sending him flying, and then ran.
The surviving Inquisition Officers rushed to stop him. But like a wolf cutting through a flock of sheep, Daryan slipped through all the attacks and escaped. Fabiano, panting, could only watch Daryan’s back as he ran, kneeling on one knee.
![[TS] Obsessed Gamer: The Ultimate Return](https://i3.wp.com/novelhitam.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/TS-Obsessed-Gamer-The-Ultimate-Return2.png?resize=85,105 "[TS] Obsessed Gamer: The Ultimate Return")
