Chapter 17 - Restoration of Honor
When I went to the church, the priests were in the middle of boarding a carriage guarded by mounted guards. Originally, there were only about fifty priests, but since nearly half of them were participating in the Demon Lord Subjugation Army, they were fundamentally short-handed. It seemed they were heading out to purify the Revenants, leaving only five or six people at the church.
A female priest, holding a white glowing shakujo (T/N: A Buddhist ringed staff, often used in fantasy as a holy staff) in her left hand, was mounted on a white horse.
It was the Headmistress.
She must be seeing them off. The other three teachers were there as well.
Without thinking, I ran toward them.
"Bishop Catherine, are you departing?"
"Oh, it's you girls. Is the rat extermination finished?"
The Headmistress knows that we are working as monster hunters.
"No, today we went to the water source in the Northern Forest."
"Did you meet Paul?"
"Yes, we were able to meet him."
"Then, did you ride the sled?"
Beowulf answered "We did" on behalf of me, as I had momentarily faltered, and the Headmistress replied with a beaming smile, "It was fun, wasn't it?"
"Yes, it was," I replied with a slightly strained smile, as I recalled the Headmistress's alias.
Catherine of Apostasy and Compassion.
She didn't just subjugate the Demon Lord. Starting with the time she out-drank the Kingdom's Corps Commander and left him dead drunk, she is a living legend with no shortage of anecdotes.
That Bishop Catherine was now departing to hunt Revenants.
I wondered if the damage being caused was that severe.
Upon asking, I learned that those capable of using high-level holy magic had all gone to the front lines, leaving none behind in the church. It seems the request was made to the Headmistress out of sheer necessity. It was reportedly in preparation for a situation where they might have to face a large number of enemies at once.
"Well then, I'll be off for a bit."
The heroine departed with a casualness as if she were just going shopping. While the other priests were distributed among the carriages, she took the lead as if commanding the escort guards and rode away.
"Now then, shall we prepare the children's meal?"
The other three teachers, who had seen Bishop Catherine off with a "Please take care," didn't seem worried at all. They returned to the orphanage as if it were business as usual.
While I was stunned by the sheer lightness of the atmosphere, Adolf-san arrived on horseback. Including the escort soldiers, there were six riders.
"Seeing them off? How admirable."
"Please come back as soon as possible."
Beatrix was looking unusually anxious.
"I'll make sure to be back by tomorrow evening."
"I understand."
The way she grabbed the hem of Adolf-san's blue robe made her look like a real granddaughter.
"Well then, I'm off," he said, departing with his five followers. After leaving the town gate, taking the ferry, and reaching the highway on the opposite bank, they turned their horses' heads west and accelerated all at once. They grew distant in the blink of an eye.
After seeing off the two groups, we washed off our sweat at the public bath, finished our meal, and headed to the town guard station.
This was because Adolf-san had told us to stay at the guard station tonight.
During that time, Beatrix seemed to be deep in thought and was quiet, but I refrained from prying by bringing up the Class of 175's code of conduct violations.
When we reached the guard station, we were shown to a meeting room. Paul-san and the Marcelo-san couple were also there.
Like us, they had been told to stay here tonight.
Marcelo-san and his wife had been looking depressed the whole time.
Perhaps feeling awkward, Paul-san immediately came over to us.
Since he seemed to have heard the general circumstances, we were talking about harmless things like today's harvest when Hans-san, Bridget-san, and the apprentice from the workshop entered.
At Hans-san's urging, everyone took a seat at the table, and Bridget-san brought out some wine. It seemed to be imported, as it was completely different from what we usually drink.
"There's something I want to confirm."
Hans-san got straight to the point, prefacing it by saying that Mayor Adolf had told him to ask.
"It's about when you defeated that mage. It might be painful for Marcelo and Angelica, but please speak honestly. First, Marcelo, you said you used magic-sealing magic. Is that correct?"
Since people are usually hesitant to call serious criminals by their names, he was referred to as "the mage" throughout. Marcelo-san nodded at Hans-san's question.
"You sealed the mage's magic?"
"I believe so. He was using magic until then, but suddenly stopped."
"And then he drew his sword and slashed at you?"
"Yes."
Hans-san then turned to Angelica-san and asked.
"What was the situation when Angelica arrived?"
Angelica-san looked slightly upward, appearing to recall that moment as she spoke.
"Yes. My bro... the mage was swinging his sword at Marcelo, who was running away. Marcelo was cornered against the wall, and just as the mage raised his sword high, I saw some kind of light. But since it looked like the mage was about to swing his sword down anyway, I cast Freeze."
Freeze is a basic ice-attribute spell that can be used as an application of the water attribute. It encases the target in ice. However, for something the size of a human, it usually only freezes the surface. But for a high-level mage, the power is tremendous, and it can turn a single human into a block of ice.
"What do you mean, you saw some kind of light?"
"That was me. I used Holy Lance. As you know, Holy is completely harmless to humans. However, it emits a strong light into the eyes, so it acts as a blindfold. I used it so he wouldn't swing his sword down."
It was Marcelo-san who answered.
What Marcelo-san used was the intermediate magic version of Holy. With the intermediate spell Holy, by chanting "Holy [Something]," one can change the shape of the light into various forms resembling that "something."
Holy is effective against monsters, but it has no effect at all on animals or humans, even if they are the most wicked of villains. As Marcelo-san said, it just flashes for a moment. However, that moment is crucial. Chanting Holy in an emergency to stop an opponent's movement is considered one of the self-defense techniques for priests... wait, something is strange, isn't it?
Hans-san nodded with a "hmmm" and asked Angelica-san why she used Freeze.
"Freeze can encase a person in ice in an instant, but it's said that it doesn't cause instant death. If thawed quickly, it would only knock them unconscious... and they would be alive..."
Angelica-san broke down in tears, unable to continue. Marcelo-san put his arm around her shoulders as if to protect her.
After waiting for Angelica-san to calm down, Hans-san then asked the others in the room if there was anything they didn't understand.
"May I?" the apprentice raised his hand.
"I'd like to confirm, but Marcelo-san and Angelica-san were able to use multiple types of high-level magic, correct?"
The two nodded.
The reason it was in the past tense was likely because Marcelo-san had returned to secular life after the incident and could no longer use high-level holy magic. High-level holy magic can only be used by priests who serve the Goddess. It can be said to be a difference in the depth of faith.
"It's about when Marcelo-san used Holy. The mage, who had raised his sword, tried to swing it down as it was. Is this also correct?"
Angelica-san nodded.
"Who confirmed that the mage was dead, and by what method? What happened to the remains after that?"
"I confirmed the pulse. The remains... since he was a serious criminal who destroyed church facilities, we cremated the remains and buried the ashes in the cemetery."
Marcelo-san answered.
Serious criminals are not buried as corpses. It's to distinguish them. However, once they are burned to ash, all sins are forgiven and they can be buried.
The apprentice nodded three times.
"Did you figure something out?"
When Hans-san asked the apprentice, he stood up, replying, "To some extent."
The apprentice said, "Shall we do an experiment?" and called Hans-san and me over alternately, giving us whispered instructions.
"Marcelo-san, Angelica-san. Please remember clearly the situation before Angelica-san cast Freeze. Then, Angelica-san, please stay here, and Marcelo-san, please crouch down here. Yes, like that."
I didn't really understand, but following the apprentice's instructions, Hans-san, the Marcelo couple, and I took our positions.
Marcelo-san crouched at the back of the room, and Hans-san stood in front of him. I was behind Marcelo-san, and Angelica-san was near the entrance looking this way.
"Now, Marcelo-san and Angelica-san, please watch Hans-san closely."
The apprentice said so and clapped his hands.
Hans-san suddenly drew the sword at his waist and raised it. Seeing that, I cast the Holy spell I had secretly chanted toward Hans-san's face.
A flash of light.
Just as Hans-san turned his face away with a grunt, the apprentice clapped his hands again. Then, he said in a loud voice, "That's enough."
"Do you understand?"
In short, it was a reproduction of when Marcelo-san cast Holy at the mage.
Hans-san turned his face away even from a basic Holy, but the mage didn't turn away even from an intermediate one.
That was the sense of wrongness I had felt.
According to the apprentice, humans reflexively avert their eyes when suddenly bathed in light, but it seems Revenants do not. It's probably because their eyes are literally dead.
The mage did not die because of Angelica-san's Freeze. He was murdered by someone and subsequently manipulated as a Revenant to run amok at the church. And then, he was released by the Holy Lance that Marcelo-san cast. If the magic Marcelo-san had cast was Purification, he would have returned to the earth at that point. In the case of Holy, it seems he just returned to being a mere corpse. Marcelo-san and Angelica-san didn't realize that.
The corpse was burned to ash, and the soul went to the Goddess's side.
At the very least, the Marcelo couple didn't have to worry about having killed the mage.
"Now, the question is who did such a roundabout thing and for what purpose."
Everyone here must have been convinced that the person behind the anomalies occurring in the Nakanohara district knows.
Hans-san stood up.
"We might find out even tonight. Marcelo, Angelica, take off the rings. If it comes to that, we'll avenge Albert."
Albert was the mage's name. Forbidden magic is prohibited by the church, but it does not violate national law. Even if he was involved in forbidden magic and desired to become a Revenant himself, he was not a criminal. On the contrary, he was a victim. His honor had been restored.
I heard later that Albert-san had opened a magic tool shop after being discharged from the military due to a leg injury sustained in the war. Until then, he had apparently been active as a mage soldier in the guard unit, a colleague of Hans-san.