Chapter Seventy-Nine: Eye of Wisdom (Four)
Wow, it’s dark in here!
I can’t see a thing…
“Sword Demon!”
In that instant when my vision plunged into darkness, I felt the hairs on my arms stand on end. The footsteps behind me sent a jolt through my system, and shouting her name was almost an instinctive reaction. The empty echo startled me more than a little. Without thinking, I sidestepped to let the dim path ahead open up. “You go first.”
“……”
In the darkness, Sword Demon Miss didn’t say a word. She just passed by me, giving me a peculiar glance.
“Look for some torches.”
I feigned nonchalance, keeping my face straight. Once I switched places, I lazily followed her, lowering my voice, “It may be a small church, but it looks pretty big from the inside… Be careful; we have no idea what non-human creature might be lurking here.”
“…Mm.”
The response from the female swordsman displayed the same cautiousness; I could tell she was a bit tense too.
A thin stream of orange light filtered through the stained glass windows on either side of the hall, illuminating the dirty, messy church floor. It highlighted the collapsed long candlestick, the warped wooden planks, the dust and moss between the boards, and some cobwebs. The visible area was pitifully small but was the only source of brightness in the hall.
Aside from that, the entire center of the hall was pitch black, as dark as a whisper in the night.
This small church had poor lighting to begin with, and being surrounded by buildings of varying heights, it had turned gloomy even before sunset. The ghostly howling wind blew through the broken windows, combined with the creepy sounds of us stepping on old floorboards, making the atmosphere feel increasingly bizarre, as if something could jump out of the darkness at any moment and sneak up on us.
Luckily, this eerie atmosphere didn’t last long. Sword Demon Miss walked to the wall and grabbed two torches from it. Handing one to me, she fished out a flint from her bag, and after a bit of fiddling, the torch lit up.
Whoosh—
The flickering flame instantly lit up the hall, making my heart feel a little steadier.
I quickly ignited my own torch, and with two fireballs illuminating the place, we could see most of the hall pretty well. It wasn’t that big—maybe a few hundred square feet—but it looked like a hurricane had hit it. Apart from the corpse that was half-slung over the donation box visible from the door, there were scattered benches and a few limp, dried-up bodies lying about, looking even more ghastly now that we were inside.
“There’s nothing here…”
After exploring the hall a bit, Sword Demon Miss checked a few corpses while I gingerly walked along the wall, stepping carefully to see if there were any cellars or hidden doors. However, after a few minutes, all I found was the usual church hall.
“Maybe check under the donation box.”
I casually suggested to Sword Demon Miss. After inspecting the last section of brick wall, I shrugged and started walking toward the center of the hall, carefully sidestepping the corpse at my feet. “Have you seen any knights?”
“None.”
“It looks like they came in through the side door and bypassed here… There’s also a courtyard that connects to the hall… Anything on the podium?”
“Nothing… Just a scepter, a bunch of candles, and a book of revelations, but the pages are all burned away.”
“Oh…”
Creak… Creak…
The sound of my feet stepping on floorboards and scattered copper pieces was especially loud in the eerie silence of the hall. With the light of the flames, I noticed many spots on the floor looked like they had been scorched by high heat, leaving little charred marks. But clearly, no wooden plank had caught fire; otherwise, this place would’ve been reduced to ashes by now.
Rejoining Sword Demon Miss at the far side of the podium, we headed to the deepest part where she had already checked. Still, I felt uneasy—like there could be a hidden door or tunnel, since churches were notorious for such sneaky things.
However, after checking again, we found nothing.
“Whoo—”
I stood on the stone dais, holding my torch and scanning the room one last time to confirm there were no hidden spots left. With a sigh of relief, I turned to Sword Demon, who was fiddling with the corpse by the donation box, and said, “Let’s head to the back and see what we can find.”
Just as I was about to turn away…
“…Wait.”
She suddenly called me back.
“Hmm?”
I turned around.
There she was, crouched by a corpse, holding the torch and leaning in closer to the corpse’s blackened eye sockets, whispering, “There’s something under its body…”
“Wh-what is it?!”
Ah…
My tongue got tied.
Her expression was a bit too unsettling for my taste.
This little one has guts, huh?
Is she really not scared it might just sit up all of a sudden!?
In this scenario, anything could happen!
“Stay away from it…”
I instinctively said, worry creeping in. Still, I cautiously took small steps closer, torch held high, fully alert. I watched as Sword Demon Miss actually reached toward the corpse’s head.
!
Whoa…
That corpse’s face and most of its body were plastered to the donation box, but Sword Demon was prying it away by the gaping eye sockets, yanking its upper half free, ripping it away with strands of gross, rotting flesh sticking to the wood. I could see countless little black bugs scattering from beneath the corpse, scurrying off into the darkness, and quite a few were heading straight for us!
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!”
Moon Step—
Boom!
In an instant reaction, with a thunderous crash, the floorboards cracked beneath my feet as I jumped away, dust swirling around. The loud noise echoed through the empty hall, startling Sword Demon to throw the corpse aside. She seemed to grab something from the donation box before quickly rolling away to evade the duststorm.
Meanwhile, in my panic, I nearly leaped to the ceiling, grabbing onto the stone archway above. My eyes glimmered with blue light—if I hadn’t suddenly realized I was still holding the torch, I might have instinctively unleashed Frost Power!
“Whoo, whoo…”
I breathed heavily, my heart racing.
After a moment, as the dust began to settle, I saw a large patch of floor where I had stomped down, and Sword Demon Miss now stood not far away, quiet as a mouse, staring at me in the flickering firelight. I finally regained my composure.
Oh no…
I almost leveled this place!
…What a joke.
It was just bugs!
“Tsk…”
Noticing my pulse slowly returning to normal, I clicked my tongue and was just about to jump down when suddenly I felt my grip loosen. A dull thud echoed above me as the stone archway I was holding onto snapped—apparently, I had just jabbed my fingers right into it!
The whole stone beam collapsed! It just hit me that I’d somehow managed to puncture five fingers into solid stone, cracking the archway, and down came the broken pillar with me.
“Watch out—”
As I shouted below, I shot out Ice Mist behind me with one hand mid-air, changing my falling direction and avoiding the collapsing stone beam. Once I landed safely, I rolled away and stood up, continuing to back off. The instant I turned, I heard two massive crashes as the fallen beam smashed onto the podium, sending dust flying again.
“Cough, cough…”
I waved my hand in front of my face, quickly backing away.
The church is fine…
Thank goodness, thank goodness—there are plenty of arches like that up there…
One breaking won’t bring it all down…
I backed up to the center of the hall, waiting for the smoke to clear. When I finally came to my senses, Sword Demon Miss had walked over beside me, holding her torch up.
“……”
She didn’t ask anything.
Just stared at me with wide eyes.
“…Did you notice something strange about the corpse just now?”
I looked back at her. In the firelight, my face was serious.
“Mm?”
Sword Demon Miss replied with a question of her own.
“…Never mind.”
I shook my head at her. “I thought I saw the corpse trying to attack you, cough… Be careful. The hallucinations seem to still be lingering…”
“Is that so.”
Sword Demon Miss’ expression turned wary at my words. “I thought you were afraid of bugs.”
“Ha.”
I let out a scoff of disdain. “How could I possibly be scared of such… such little things that you could squash with your backside? It’s just common sense!”
“…Right.”
Sword Demon Miss seemed convinced.
After a moment of contemplation, she suddenly held out something to me. “This was hidden under the corpse.”
“What…”
I focused my gaze on her hand.
…It appeared to be a tattered notebook.
