The Nameless Order had Adriana.
Riverierre Lanze had her, to be exact.
He’s trying to make a comeback, first by having Olivia testify for him, and second by using her as a figurehead for the empire he envisioned.
Riverierre Lanze originally intended for Olivia to be the next Commander of the Knights Templar. Even then, he probably already had a plan for his holy empire in mind.
Due to the unforeseeable situation of his dismissal, Riverierre Lanze’s plans were thrown in disarray and his solution was to create a secret religious society.
Regardless of the truth, Riverierre’s forced resignation sparked a backlash in the religious community, and as a result, he had gained influence within it, and it was only growing.
Adriana’s departure from the Temple had been detrimental to her safety.
Riverierre Lanze will try to lure Olivia away using her.
And Olivia wouldn’t be able to resist making a deal for Adriana’s life.
Unlike in the finals against Lydia Schmidt, there was no option to withdraw.
As long as Adriana was held hostage, Olivia would be a puppet of Riverierre Lanze.
The sun had set and it’s already night.
In Eleris’ shop, I looked at Lydia Schmidt who was tied up and shaking her head.
Today, in the finals, Lydia Schmidt suddenly used the dangerous power of Berserk.
She kept trying to convince Olivia to return to her faith. But in the end, Olivia withdrew.
As far as I’m concerned, it was a half-assed plan.
On top of that, Lydia Schmidt kept telling Olivia that something worse would happen to her.
I had thought it was just the ramblings of a madman.
She’d been trying to warn Olivia that Adriana would get hurt if she didn’t come back quietly.
Lydia thought Olivia would give in to her because they were close
She didn’t want Adriana, a member of the same Five Great Churches, to get hurt, so she tried to convince Olivia to return with unconventional methods, but that didn’t work.
So she settled for trying to kill me.
Perhaps because I wasn’t a member of the Great Churches, and because she thought that I was the one who corrupted Olivia.
She decided that she would rather have me dead than Adriana.
Hence the bizarre events that happened today.
Adriana was in danger.
I had to do something as soon as possible.
“Where is Riverierre Lanze?”
“….”
It’s too late for the revolutionary forces, but the Nameless Order, formed in the wake of Riverierre Lanze’s fall from grace, was not yet large.
If we don’t crush it at this stage, it will spiral out of control.
Lydia Schmidt believed that I was a very dangerous and evil being whom she couldn’t fully fathom.
She thought that I would kill Riverierre Lanze so she thought she couldn’t tell me.
But if she won’t talk, there was a way to force her to.
Tears filled Lydia Schmidt’s eyes.
“Please… Please….”
She began to sob, unable to ask to be freed, unable to say she couldn’t talk.
“Just… kill me….”
She would rather die. She knew that we couldn’t just simply kill her peacefully, but nonetheless in her eyes, her best option right then was to beg for death, hoping that we would be merciful and just kill her.
“Please, please… death, a clean death… Please….”
Revealing the location of Riverierre would be a great betrayal, and she could not bear to do so.
But becoming a vampire was also unthinkable.
That’s why Lydia Schmidt begged us, the supposed villains, to just kill her. I squatted in front of Lydia Schmidt, who was begging for her death while in chains.
“Why are you crying?”
I brought my hand to Lydia Schmidt’s sobbing cheek and gently wiped away her tears.
“Why is this a betrayal? I don’t understand.”
“….”
“I am the Champion of Towan, and as such, my every action should represent the will of Towan above all else. Aren’t my actions more in line with the will of gods than those of the power-mad Riverierre Lanze, who was ousted from his position as Commander of the Knights Templar and created a secret society within the Five Great Churches.”
“Hmph, hmph… Ugh…”
Lydia Schmidt’s frown deepened at my sophistry.
“The gods are omnipotent.”
“If I was as evil as you think I am, then Tiamata shouldn’t be in my possession. But even if I actually was, and a great hero comes along and takes it from my corpse, it would all have been Towan’s plan. Aren’t I right?”
“Because the gods are omnipotent.”
“So, whatever happens to me, that is just a part of the plan of such an omnipotent being. And at least my every action right now is more in tune with the will of the gods than it is with the will of someone like Riverierre Lanze. Isn’t that right?”
“So if my will is the will of Towan, then that means that I am in the right.”
“The Nameless Order is heretical.”
“Therefore, it must disappear.”
“Come on, senior. Don’t cry. It’s nothing to cry about, not at all.”
“You’re so blind to the will of the gods.”
“You’re cooperating with the Champion of Towan, not some mysterious, evil, strange entity. How is that a betrayal?”
I held Lydia Schmidt’s face with my hands and smiled at her. The despair in her eyes was palpable.
“You’re finally back on the right path. You were just on the wrong path for a while, so it’s not a betrayal.”
I could see the denial in her eyes, but she wanted to believe me so badly.
How the hell was this a betrayal?
I wasn’t just saying it, I actually believed it.
“It’s repentance.”
Repent.
Return to the right path.
Why in the world would it be heretical to break free from the clutches of the false prophet Riverierre and join the Champion of Towan?
The contradiction that the apostle of the Goddess of Purity commands a vampire, which represents the complete opposite, was irrelevant.
Once you accept that it’s all Towan’s will, you can relax.
This was all part of the gods’ plan.
If you accept that.
You won’t become a vampire.
In fact, you can think of it as an honor.
“Is it, really… is it really… like that?”
Lydia Schmidt was sobbing and looking at me, desperate for an answer.
She wasn’t being persuaded.
She was broken.
“Believe me, Senior.”
It wasn’t persuasion.
She had just been broken.
“Trust me, senior.”
I replaced the fanaticism that she was harboring so far, with another.
“Because believing in me is no different than serving the gods.”
Fear drove people crazy.
They were no different from those who were already insane.
As long as she yielded to me, Lydia Schmidt would once more start deluding herself that this was the right path.
All the suspicions and questions she had. All her doubts will be swallowed up in the idea that it was all the will of the gods, because I was the Champion of Towan.
“All of this is… is really the gods’ plan….”
Yes, yes it was.
After all, I was a greater god than all of her gods combined.
So when I said that believing in me was the same as serving the will of the divine, in a way, I was speaking the truth.
I stroked Lydia Schmidt’s hair as she knelt before me, sobbing.
Inwardly, I gritted my teeth.
I had hoped that this festival would be uneventful.
At least for today.
I really did.
But I had to go somewhere now.
In the presence of a crying Lydia Schmidt, I turned my head to look at Eleris.
“Call Sarkegaar and Loyar.”
This was not something I could do alone.
And even if I could, it’s not something I should do alone.
It was not just a matter of the Nameless Order.
The signs of division were everywhere.
But the empire must not fall.
“We’re all going together.”
“Yes.”
For this time, rather than Reinhardt, it was Valier’s turn.
The enemy of humanity must reappear.
In the waiting room for the contestants in the Miss Temple contest.
Ellen was getting the final check on her dress.
“You look great.”
“…I am glad.”
It was getting closer and closer to the start time of the Miss Temple Contest. The pageant was on a different scale and in a different venue compared to the cross-dressing competition.
It was held in a huge concert hall, which was as big as, if not comparable to, the main stadium where the Open Tournament finals were held.
Liana had been looking over Cliffman until now, and then she came over to Ellen.
“By the way, I didn’t see that senior.”
Liana tilted her head as she touched up Ellen’s makeup.
“I’m sure she’s… coming.”
Either she was already there and Ellen didn’t see her, or she was running late. Either way, Ellen was more concerned about something else..
Reinhardt had left the dorm in the morning and hadn’t been seen all day.
When she left, she said goodbye to most of her classmates from Class A, as well as those from Class B. Almost all of them were coming to watch the contest.
But Reinhardt wasn’t there.
“….”
“So, Reinhardt, what’s that asshole been doing all day anyway? I haven’t seen him all day long.”
Liana grumbled.
“Well, it’s his loss if he can’t see you.”
Liana diligently applied Ellen’s makeup, insisting that it’s his loss if he couldn’t get a glance at how beautiful Ellen was.
Ellen tugged at the hem of her dress.
There’s no way he wouldn’t come.
She knew that, and yet….
An odd sense of unease weighed down her heart.
He will surely come.
She had even asked him to come.
There was no way he wouldn’t show up.
Ellen took several deep breaths to calm herself down.
Everyone was summoned.
Eleris, Sarkegaar, and Loyar.
We traveled by a mass teleportation spell used by Eleris.
I was still dressed in my Temple uniform, so I changed into the civilian clothes I had left at Eleris’ house.
-Flash!
The location was the southern outskirts of the capital. It was quite a distance south of the city.
We arrived at a small town in the southern part of the capital.
It wasn’t a town, but rather a very small village of less than twenty households, with only a few farmers living on the outskirts.
It was just one of those neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city, an unremarkable village.
We had just teleported to a hillside on the outskirts of the town that led to the main street.
“Ma-mass… Teleport….”
Lydia Schmidt shuddered in horror at the experience of being teleported.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay…?”
I nodded stiffly at Loyar’s words.
I hadn’t explained the details yet. I had just told them that I needed them for a big fight.
Sarkegaar might not be able to understand why we should risk stopping the beginning of the end of the empire, but even still, he chose to believe in me.
After all, he needed me now more than ever.
Lydia Schmidt didn’t know who Loyar and Sarkegaar were, and even so, she’s terrified. She probably thought that they were just as terrifying as Eleris.
The village wasn’t not the goal in the first place.
“Over the hill, over there… There’s an abandoned monastery….”
“So that’s the temporary base of the Nameless Order?”
“Yes.”
It’s a religious secret society, so they wouldn’t be able to assemble in public. That’s why, until they were strong enough, their regular meetings had to be held out of the public eye.
If they got a little bigger, or if they had actually started to make a name for themselves within the religious community, they might have the influence to have a formal gathering, but they haven’t reached that point yet.
It’s about killing the monster before it gets too big to handle.
Lydia Schmidt was afraid of what would happen to her, if she had refused to submit to me, so she finally gave in.
The threat of becoming a vampire thrall.
The justification of following the gods’ will.
I wielded Tiamata, which was helpful for Lydia Schmidt in her attempts to justify herself.
Lydia Schmidt’s fate would be decided, once the affair with the Nameless Order and Riverierre Lanze were over.
“Adriana is being held in that monastery?”
“Yes. I don’t remember the exact room, but… It’s definitely somewhere in there.”
Adriana was the bait to lure Olivia out.
Lydia Schmidt tried to attack me because she thought it would be better for me, a non-believer and the one responsible for Olivia’s fall, to die than for Adriana’s life to be threatened for Olivia’s cooperation.
The entire Nameless Order may not be in an abandoned monastery, but the key members were.
Riverierre Lanze.
First and foremost, I must kill the source of this clusterfuck, Riverierre Lanze.
No matter what.
I didn’t know if that would solve everything. But it was something that needed to be done right then.
“How much manpower do they have?”
“There are always twenty paladins on guard duty coupled with some other personnel….”
“How skilled are they?”
“All of them were participants in the Demon World War… Commander… Ah, no. They’re Riverierre Lanze’s closest aides… who resigned with him when he stepped down as leader….”
Riverierre Lanze’s closest confidants would be the veterans of the Demon World War who had fought alongside him.
There were other members, I was sure of it, but more importantly, there were twenty high-ranking paladins who were war veterans, and Riverierre Lanze himself.
Eleris was a vampire. Going up against the paladins, even if she was a powerful mage, was definitely going to be a challenge.
I didn’t plan to charge at them head on.
“Okay, the plan isn’t that complicated.”
We needed to get Adriana out of there first.
“Sarkegaar, I want you to infiltrate and locate Adriana. If you can sneak her out, bring her back.”
Sarkegaar will use his infiltration skills to locate and rescue Adriana.
“If you can’t bring her back, return. I’ll find a way to get her out later, when you’re disguised as Riverierre.”
I’m sure Lydia Schmidt didn’t understand what the hell I’m talking about, but I didn’t have time to explain.
“If we can get Adriana back safely, Eleris will then tear the monastery apart with a massive destructive spell, hopefully killing them all, but if it doesn’t, then it’ll turn into a battle.”
Securing Adriana was the first priority.
The second, annihilation.
Eleris clenched her fists.
She wasn’t going to say she couldn’t, and she wasn’t in a position to.
Leaving it alone would cost us more down the road.
She would agree that we must act now.
“And while I’m at it, I should show you.”
“What do you mean, show me… What…?”
It’s important for everyone to know who’s responsible for this.
What’s going to happen today was not something that could be hidden.
Fortunately, this area was outside the capital. If there was a disturbance, the imperial family would not be able to respond immediately. Lydia Schmidt was here, but as she was right now, she wouldn’t dare speak of it.
“Let’s make our presence felt.”
The demonic remnants.
We’ll have to make sure that everyone knows that it still exists.
It wasn’t the revolutionary forces, it wasn’t the brewing discontent from the Great Churches. But nevertheless, a public enemy has reemerged, temporarily sealing the divisions of the Empire.
Sarkegaar was baffled.
“Why would we….”
“Wait.”
Sarkegaar was about to ask a question when Loyar suddenly raised a hand to stop him.
Loyar pointed down the hill.
“Someone’s coming.”
There was a road leading into the village.
“Olivia…!”
Lydia Schmidt’s eyes widened, and so did mine.
Olivia was coming.
She must have been lured in with Adriana as bait. An urgent-looking Olivia was running at a frightening pace, heading toward the monastery.
She was tangled up in this mess along with Adriana.
There was no time to lose.
“Sarkegaar, get Adriana out, and that girl as well. Get in there now.”
“…Yes, Your Highness.”
Sarkegaar then transformed into a sparrow and flew across the night sky.
My heart was beating like crazy.
Adriana and Olivia.
Neither of them should have been involved in this fight.
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