Sleep peacefully.
Clack. Clack.
The lower access route to the reformatory, which I had ordered cleaned in advance.
As I descended the stairs leading underground, I brushed off my dust-covered uniform.
"Ugh, seriously filthy as hell."
It had already been fifteen days since I'd been imprisoned here.
My hair was greasy, my eyes burned,
and dried blood had caked all over my body, leaving me looking absolutely terrible.
"You know you're incredibly dirty right now, Young Master?"
"I know. Then maybe stand a little farther away."
I said that to Arin as she spoke to me, but it was useless.
"Hehe, you stink!"
Apparently finding my appearance amusing, Arin only clung tighter to my arm.
'I feel like I'm dying, so what's got her so happy?'
Her carefree expression, as if she were out on a picnic, naturally drained the energy from me.
"When we get back, I'm going to spend the entire day washing."
"Will one day even be enough?"
"If not, I'll just sleep in the bathtub overnight."
The ease of someone strolling through his own home instead of enemy territory.
After descending the stairs for quite a while like that, a long straight corridor finally revealed itself.
. Grrrrr…!
Crunch! Crunch!
The Grave Hounds I had sent ahead were chewing on human skulls.
Around them, men in black robes staggered around in miserable condition.
"Ghk, what the hell is this…!"
"Save me…!"
The owners of the groans echoing everywhere were the necromancers who had researched the test subjects here.
People who had only ever conducted experiments and research had failed to stop the undead army that descended from above.
"No way, this is impossible!"
One necromancer shook his head as if completely insane.
"How can there be this many undead… without any corpses…?!"
Slash!
There was no reason to explain it to them, nor any time for that.
I swung my sword horizontally and severed the heads of the horrified necromancers.
"If there are no corpses, you can't even think of using necromancy? Idiots."
I said that while looking ahead.
"Hey, Priest! There are survivors everywhere, at least a few of them need to be interrogated—!"
I raised my voice, but soon stopped mid-sentence and sighed.
"Haah… seriously, that bastard."
Walking silently through the reformatory corridor, Garrison had already moved far ahead.
No, that wasn't even the problem.
"Ghk, ghhk…!"
"Huuuhhh…"
Along his path, the walls, ceiling, and floor were stuffed with necromancer corpses.
"So he's saying he doesn't need information. He's just going to slaughter every last one of them."
"If it weren't for Arin, he probably would've dragged me off and beaten me to death too."
Recalling the explosive standoff from earlier, I wet my dried lips.
"Arin."
"Yes!"
I asked the Arin who answered my call,
"The reason your friends called for me. Do you know it?"
'Friends.'
The "friends" this girl referred to were probably the test subjects underground in the reformatory.
The cult had likely used them to create and process holy blood.
Human experimentation driven purely by efficiency, with no regard for human morality.
At this point, it was hard to tell whether this was a holy cult or a group of insane scientists wearing human skin.
'Well, I'm still not as furious as that guy in the cult, though.'
I thought that while looking at Garrison walking ahead.
Creak!
His clenched fist trembled violently.
The fact that the cult had secretly been conducting human experiments—and in cooperation with the Empire's necromancers at that—filled him with rage.
"It's not the first time the reformatory's done disgusting things behind the scenes, is it?"
I said that toward Garrison's back, but he didn't answer.
"Well, I guess it's different since back then it wasn't necromancers, just priests?"
"Shut up."
Whether I cared or not,
Garrison's icy voice cut off my rambling.
"You and these vermin are ultimately the same kind of necromancer, aren't you?"
The moment Garrison said that to me—
"We're here!"
Along with Arin's voice, the end of the long corridor finally came into view.
"This is insane. They built something like this in the meantime…"
I muttered while staring at the massive iron door at the end of the corridor.
It had been eight years since I escaped the reformatory.
During that time, their laboratory had become larger and far more elaborate.
Rumble…!
Garrison's arm pushed open the massive iron door.
Gurgle, gurgle.
Squish, squish.
The moment we stepped into the deeper level where the test subjects lived, a thick scent of blood rose up.
Unmistakably the smell of human blood.
"Wait for me, Archimond."
After confirming it, Garrison spoke to me.
"Once I finish dealing with all of these things, you're next."
But instead of replying to him, I raised my hand and stopped him.
"Sorry, but I don't think it's that simple."
The moment I answered Garrison—
Grrrrr…
A beastly growl echoed low through the chamber.
Screeeech…!
The cry of something thin and shrill.
Grrk! Grrrkk?!
And alongside it, bubbling voices as if prayers themselves had drowned in something.
"This is…!"
Garrison ground his teeth as he looked at the thing slowly approaching.
"This… this is Resentment? The being the cult created?"
Then a roar echoed toward Garrison.
— KRRRROOOOOAAARRR —!
The form of a centipede made entirely from human legs.
Its spine lined with teeth, dozens of faces attached across its body.
And overflowing from its entire form was an endless amount of magic power.
"Chimera…"
I spoke the name of the monster from myth.
"They created it using humans as materials, then modified it into an undead."
Pshhk! Pshhk!
Blood extraction devices embedded throughout the area,
and test tubes connected to them, filled with crimson liquid.
Garrison and I instantly recognized what it was.
"Holy blood…"
"And they reconstructed its internal structure, turning it into a factory that produces holy blood."
Filling the cylindrical mass of flesh were necromantic formulas used by necromancers.
Curses designed to forcibly move stitched-together organs and body parts.
"The corpse of Helian that was transferred to the Empire was probably in a similar state."
I recalled her end—
a woman who became a monster herself after going mad over holy blood.
It made me sick to my stomach.
"There's no need to see any more."
While I continued thinking that,
Garrison poured strength into his clenched fist.
Rumbleeeee…!
A vast and majestic holy power gathered around his mighty fist.
Without needing to see anything else, he had already decided to erase these creatures.
"Cursed life born from necromancy. In the name of Saint Gaul, I shall pierce and shatter these resentful lives—!"
"No."
Garrison looked ready to rush forward and crush the monster's head at any moment.
But I blocked his path and spoke.
"Don't kill it yet."
At that, Garrison's gaze toward me became increasingly vicious.
"Don't kill it?"
As he spoke, Garrison pointed the hand imbued with holy power toward me.
"Have you grown attached to new research material? Or is there something else here you intend to obtain?"
Though Garrison pressed me with suspicion, I shook my head heavily.
"If not, then why?"
Garrison, his expression becoming harder and harder to read, asked me,
"You're trying to stop a monster that spews holy blood. Why?"
Hearing that question, I let out a short sigh and walked toward the creature.
"The nature of holy power is not restoration, but annihilation."
— …
I said that to Garrison.
Without waiting for a rebuttal, I continued speaking.
"It does not guide wandering souls of the living world to where they belong. It erases their very existence."
Holy power was the strength imbued with the will of the cult's chief god, Kersias.
As the deity who governed the sun, his duty was that of a destroyer who erased the corrupted from this world.
"But this soul… is not one that has fallen into corruption."
Its grotesque appearance spewed blood and filth,
yet what filled my eyes as I looked at it was not disgust, but pity.
"You're saying that monster has a soul?"
"Hah, a monster?"
I frowned and shot back at Garrison.
"Which is the real monster? This thing… or your cult that created it?"
"...!"
"Honestly, I can't tell the difference."
My single venom-filled remark.
Leaving behind Garrison, who could no longer continue speaking, I reached out toward the one they called a monster.
Guuuuuhhh…
A bizarre sound, like the groan of a dying patient.
As I stretched my hand toward the suffering creature, I released demonic energy toward its twisted form.
Kiiik?!
As if startled by the unfamiliar aura, it bared its teeth.
Hanging from its long fangs were the corpses of necromancers.
— Do not be afraid.
But at the voice of the dead flowing through my vocal cords, the terrified test subject slowly calmed down.
Kiiiiii…
The monster opened its gigantic maw, spewing holy blood from its mouth.
Splatter! Splatter!
Then it slowly approached me,
pressing its head against the hand I had extended.
"You suffered greatly."
Filth and bodily fluids soaked my clothes, but I paid them little mind.
While gently stroking its agonized body, I spoke quietly.
"Driven by a desire for power, you devoured unwanted lives and forcibly enlarged your body."
A necromancer is a mediator between the world of the living and souls.
Even if someone loses human form,
even if they become a monster that has forgotten how to speak,
a necromancer can still grasp the will of that soul.
— It's alright now. You no longer need to be afraid.
Like soothing a child, I spoke to the twisted faces.
— Now, from this prison… I shall free all of you.
With those words, the hand forming a seal began to move.
I analyzed the formulas engraved into its veins and flesh, then unraveled them in reverse.
— Guide, Klein Leinrant, speaks to the suffering souls.
Crackle—!
The demonic energy rising from its body began to glow, unraveling the formulas binding its entire form.
— Cast off your shackles and rise. Reclaim your freedom… and sleep peacefully.
Kiiiiii…
Death is sometimes compared to rest and sleep.
As the body surrounded by machinery and necromantic formulas was finally freed, the creature's endlessly trembling form gradually began to calm.
Woooooooo…!
The suppressed souls burst forth in haunting cries.
The soul-binding arts maintaining the crudely stitched body lost their power, and the countless souls trapped within it began escaping one after another.
Boom—!
The enormous centipede-like body lost balance and collapsed.
Like a dam bursting, the fallen Chimera's flesh began pouring out the vast amount of holy blood accumulated within its swollen body onto the underground floor of the reformatory.
"Arin."
The reason I had entered the reformatory was to destroy the source producing holy blood.
And to dispose of a body this massive, her power was absolutely necessary.
"Bleegh, that thing tastes awful."
"Force it down. You've got candy waiting when we get back."
"Hmph."
Arin puffed out her cheeks at my words, but regardless, her body slowly spread out and covered the space where Garrison and I stood.
Crunch!
The black shadows surrounding us swallowed the Chimera whole.
Sssssss—!
The unrefined holy blood inside it,
the bones and veins covered in test tubes and machinery—
The shadows extending from Arin's body devoured all of it, turning everything into nourishment for herself.
— Thank you.
A cluster of souls emerged from the twisted Chimera's body.
Even after being trapped inside a monster and consumed for so long, the spirits of the dead had not forgotten gratitude toward me.
— I only hope I was not too late.
Lowering my eyes, I responded to them before slowly surveying the now-empty reformatory.
The judges who imprisoned innocent people for profit.
The Empire's necromancers who drove humans to death for experimentation.
None of them remained in this empty place.
"With this, the cult's holy blood production plan has completely collapsed."
"And since we slaughtered all the researchers too, they'll be suffering headaches for quite a while."
But even that would last, at most, two years.
The experimental data from the reformatory still remained intact.
Soon enough, they would create a second and third Kripel Heretic Reformatory.
"Before that happens, first the cult itself—"
As I turned around while speaking—
Drip. Drip.
At the sound of liquid falling, I unconsciously looked down at the floor beneath me.
"Ah… come on."
Blood soaked the ground beneath me.
The moment I realized it was mine, my vision blurred and my body lost balance.
'Well… no matter how much I've grown, making contracts with forty thousand at once was still a bit too much…'
My thoughts went no further.
My hazy vision gradually faded as consciousness slipped away.
And in that moment, the last thing I saw was Garrison's face staring down at me with a complicated expression.