Chapter 158: Familiar Faces (2)
Tsutsutsutsutsuts...
Efebo's face melted away at a tremendous rate, and he dissolved into the water.
Sticky oil floats on top of the murky water, and the smell of rotting meat fills the air.
Meanwhile, Vikir and Dolores had already seen Ephebo's face before it melted.
It was a face that looked familiar to both of them.
"...Mozgus?"
Vikir muttered as he picked up a black sack floating in the water.
A bald head without eyebrows, bulging eyes, a bulbous nose, and tightly clenched lips.
The face I had seen a moment ago was unmistakably Mozgus's.
A paladin of the Quovadis, a pious priest who carried a thick Bible and led the charge against heresy.
If fate holds true, when the era of destruction arrives, the person who will have to go to the front lines and fight against demons, why are there corpses lying around here?
Vikir's brow furrowed in unresolved mystery.
'Mozgus was a human before he was turned, surely, and he was a hero who was cohabited with a thousand demons during the Age of Destruction, so how can...'
Vikir's question was answered by Dolores.
"This is not Mr. Mozgus."
Dolores looked at what was left of Ephebo's body and shook her head.
"Mr. Mozgus had a twin brother, who, unlike us, belonged to the Old Order."
Mozgus's older brother.
He, too, was a paladin, with a body like an iron wall and powerful divine powers.
However, he had long ago retreated to the depths of an Old Order monastery for retirement training and has not been seen by anyone since.
...As far as the world is concerned, the story goes.
"So you didn't disappear because of your hermit training, but because your body was taken over by a demon."
Vikir swallowed hard, and Dolores furrowed her brow in concern.
"There are quite a few people in the Quovadis who are currently in the Closed Training, but... it can't be true, can it?"
"I can't guarantee anything."
That wasn't the only problem now.
Vikir remembered that the Baskervilles' second son, Set, was also in the closed training.
If the Baskervilles and the Quovadis were already in such a state, then any of the world's most recognizable powerhouses who were in closed training, or who had been missing for long periods of time, were also in danger.
Vikir turned and looked down at the headless body of Ephebo.
My ninth of ten.
He must have the power to turn others into demons and control them, while at the same time stealing their faces.
Most likely, Guilty's face had been stolen from someone else, too.
'By the way, how come Guilty's face resembles an actor who retired a long time ago?'
It's not hard to see why the actor retired and why we haven't heard much about him.
Vikir also knew of a powerful man who had recently disappeared from the scene, claiming to be retiring.
'When will you enter the academy? Let's match it with me. I think I'll probably enroll 1-2 years early. It would be so fun if we went to first grade together... ... .'
It's a tough relationship that started when they were 8 years old. If it were up to me, we would have entered the academy together.
Morg Camus.
Seeing that face in her mind made Vikir feel uncomfortable for some reason.
She had been searching for Vikir ever since he disappeared in the depths of the Black Mountains with the Enemy.
All the while Vikir had been training in Balak's village for the past two years.
But one day, Camus suddenly left the academy and transferred to a dark hall, and since then, she has disappeared from the world, claiming to be practicing in the closet.
Even Vikir was not entirely sure why.
" ...We'll worry about that later. For now, it's time to stick to the hunt.'
Vikir clicked his tongue behind his mask.
Most of his troubles and worries would be solved once he succeeded in killing the demon.
Yuck.
Vikir took the black leather sack that Ephebo was wearing over his face and stuffed it into his pocket.
It was an artifact that emitted a similar kind of magic to Beelzebub's, but its concentration was relatively weak compared to Beelzebub's, about 25%.
'But if we can get the skins of Hebe, Pedo, and Geronto, that's a different story.'
Vikir was thinking to himself.
"Uh, excuse me, Night Hound."
Dolores hesitantly called out to Vikir.
When Vikir turned her head, she opened her mouth with a look of sadness, confusion, doubt, and trust.
"If this is what's going on inside the Faithful Quovadis,... what am I supposed to believe from now on?"
Quovadis had always believed in absolute goodness.
Even though the Old and New Orders were at odds, it was believed that it was only a temporary quarrel over the sale of indulgences, and that they would eventually be united under the Rune religion.
But the destruction within the family now leads me to believe that is not the fundamental problem.
The demons are behind the Old Order.
Having seen and heard this with her own eyes and ears, Dolores felt that everything she had ever believed in was being denied.
The Quovadis is no longer an absolute.
They are easily corrupted and easily manipulated, no different from any other household.
What does it mean, moreover, for a demon to appear so directly among humans?
"...War! Demon War!
The intelligent Dolores could sense just how much of a storm she was in the middle of.
And how long and hard a battle this mysterious creature, the Night Hound, was fighting.
"I don't know, I don't know what to believe anymore. Maybe there's more than what the eye can see..."
Dolores bowed her head, her voice lacking confidence.
She was beautiful and vulnerable in a way that would have made any man's heart flutter.
But Vikir offered no words of comfort.
"You decide what you believe."
He just walked on, bluntly, straight ahead, as he had always done.
Just as he had always done.
* * *
Vikir left the fourth building and entered the third.
Dolores was following closely behind him, though she didn't seem to notice.
The third building, which housed children aged 13 to 16, and the second building, which housed children aged 8 to 12, were connected in an H-shape like twins.
-The orphanage provides the following rules of conduct for the safety of staff working at night.
The following must never be disclosed to the outside world, and the orphanage will not provide any compensation for accidents caused by violating these items.
The same sign was posted here. The only difference is that the letters are slightly more faded.
And the deeper we went into the building, the thicker the demonic aura became.
A damp, foul odor indicated that something meaty was rotting in large quantities deep within the corridors.
A claustrophobic feeling, like digging down into a narrow, deep hole, a damp, earthen grave, weighed on my lungs along with the stench.
'There's something else in ....'
The Night Hound pushed forward with his keen sense of smell.
Dolores, meanwhile, seemed to have fully understood that the Night Hound hadn't blindly attacked the branches of the Quovadis, but had been acting with reason and principle.
And she had been actively trying to help him ever since.
"First of all, I'll let the higher-ups in the family know about this. I'm sure they'll believe me if they're New Order, not Old Order, especially some of the groups I'm involved with."
"...Do as you please."
With Vikir's permission, Dolores diligently composed the letter.
It was mostly about the existence of Ephebo, the fall of Mozgus, and a request for gratitude to House Indulgentia.
Dolores took a small pigeon from her bosom and tied the letter to her leg.
The addressee was Cardinal Martin Luther, head of the New Order.
If it was an Old Order figure, even his father, Cardinal Humbert, could not be trusted.
"Please hurry up, little one. I apologize for making you work at night."
Hearing the saint's plea, the white pigeon flapped its wings and soared into the sky.
Pow!
A few white feathers fluttered in the darkness.
The pigeon, carrying Dolores' letter, soared into the sky with great speed.
... but.
Puff!
A piercing jab swooped down and split the pigeon's body in two.
Dolores' letter, too, was caught in the aura and crumbled to ash.
"...."
Vikir narrowed his eyes behind his mask. This is because the speed at which the slash flew was unusual.
Sssssss...
The smell of rotting meat mingled with the odor of moss.
Soon, two dark shadows appear in the center of the hallway connecting Buildings 2 and 3.
"Who are you!"
Dolores's expression was alert.
Suddenly, two men appeared in front of Vikir and Dolores.
Tall, lanky men, dressed in sharp suits, with black sacks over their faces.
'Pedo & Hebe'
Pedo & Hebe.
Like Ephebo, these two are Guilty's hounds.
At first glance, they appear to be high-level undead, as they both exude an unusual amount of energy.
... But there was something even more worrying than the powerful auras and odors they were emitting.
"Could those undead be people we knew in life?"
Dolores asked with concern in her voice.
Humans corrupted by the demon himself could not possibly have been ordinary beings in life.
They must have been known to the world in some way.
Vikir replied in a nonchalant tone, his eyes fixed on Pedo, Hebe, and beyond.
"Let's hope it's not ...."
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