Episode 165

4.

There was no dramatic, novel-like twist where he lost his senses, only to awaken as a beast pinning the saintess beneath him.

"Whoa, what is that?"

"It's holy power."

"Damn, it's so warm and gentle."

"I will wipe every last bit of dirt away."

"Ah, there too! Wow, it even feels refreshing. Think I could learn this?"

"It would not be easy. You would be giving form to holy power itself. An understanding of mana might make it possible, but you would also need a certain reserve of holy power."

"Yeah, count me out then."

The sensation of pure white holy power emanating from her small, delicate hands was so pleasant that he had no room for any other thoughts.

If he had to make a comparison, it was like soaking in a warm bath after rolling through a mud pit, his body sticky and heavy.

No, it was even better than that.

It felt as if his very body was being purified.

Before such sacredness, how could a petty emotion like lust even dare to rear its head?

Feeling like a new man, he put on the robe and stepped out of the abandoned Temple.

At the same time, he ran into a problem.

"Where are we?"

Which way were they supposed to go?

A single glance confirmed they were in a remote mountain range. He suspected it might be the Forbidden Mountains in the continent's north, but even if he was right, that was still a problem.

No accurate records existed of just how far the mountain range blanketing the northern continent actually extended.

If they were near the entrance, that would be great, but if they were deep inside, they might have to exchange warm greetings with countless monsters along the way.

He glanced over at the saintess, thinking this was an even harder problem than figuring out how to deal with the pope.

Fortunately, the saintess knew the answer.

"If we walk a little farther, we'll reach the entrance to the Forbidden Mountains. This Temple was built long ago, back when monsters hadn't yet begun to descend from the mountains."

He followed behind her as she took the lead.

"Good. For a second there, I thought I'd come all this way to reform a damn Temple just to start fighting monsters right off the bat. Got worked up over nothing."

His heart had genuinely dropped.

The thought of the pope alone was enough to give him a splitting headache; was he really supposed to waste time on monsters before he even got started?

"If the powers that be had any conscience, they wouldn't put me through this."

He let out a sigh of relief.

Thirty minutes later, that sigh of relief turned into a plain old sigh.

* * *

"My life… of course it would turn out like this."

He drove his sword into the belly of a giant spider, twisting his body to avoid the sticky fluid that gushed out as he lamented his fate.

"You said it was close."

"If we walk for about four more hours, we'll get there."

"Four hours? At this pace?"

Instead of answering, the saintess turned her head away, and he clicked his tongue.

It wasn't as if the saintess had done anything wrong.

The one at fault was the god who had dropped him here and dragged the saintess along for the ride.

Besides, it wasn't as if she had lied or said anything incorrect.

The mountain range was so vast that it covered more than 20% of the entire continent.

There were even rumors of dragons living deep within. If you could reach civilization in five hours on foot, then calling this area the "entrance" was, technically, accurate.

"No wonder people stopped coming to the Temple."

In a way, he might have already known.

Even if it was the Forbidden Mountains where dragons supposedly lived, there were still hunters who targeted all sorts of valuable resources from monsters and untouched lands.

And those people would have just passed by a Temple they found that had been standing there for thousands of years?

The only reason no one had ventured inside was because it was simply too far to be worth the trouble.

Still, it wasn't all bad.

Since this was, in fact, the entrance, the monsters weren't high-level. He could actually fight them instead of being forced to flee for his life.

He cut down monsters and pushed forward, keeping the saintess safely behind him.

Of course, this was only possible because he was who he was now, and because he had arrived wearing the bound item, Gnawing Soul.

[The effect of Soul Unleashed has been deactivated.]

[The debuff Soul's Rest has been applied.]

[Due to the side effect of Soul Unleashed: Stage 3, you cannot use Soul Unleashed for 90 minutes.]

"Mm."

In other words, without the effects of Soul Unleashed, the entrance to the Forbidden Mountains was by no means an easy place for a level 16 Kim Buja equipped with only his bound item.

"Let's run."

"Pardon?"

He didn't hesitate, making the decision and acting on it in the same breath.

Seeing him suddenly take off at a run, the saintess hurriedly chased after him.

5.

The people of the continent had been shaken when they saw the saintess's video.

It was inevitable.

The saintess was the daughter of God, God's avatar, and God's representative.

However, as time passed, those thoughts and feelings gradually faded.

It was for the same reason that the rumors of the Empire's fall and the imperial princess's descent into black magic had become accepted as truth.

"Did you hear? They say the saintess was in league with the princess."

"The reason the princess could wield black magic was because the saintess, who had blessed her, turned a blind eye."

"I heard the saintess was the one who suggested black magic in the first place."

"Gods, how did it come to this? Even the saintess…"

"With all these horrible things happening across the continent, it has to be because of the saintess, right? Of course God would be furious."

"Ugh, I just hope God's wrath calms down soon."

The saintess's video had spread across the entire continent, but only once.

Meanwhile, the narrative spun by the pope and the Allied Forces had been spreading for months.

A mirage-like video they had seen once versus rumors they had heard from multiple people in person.

People believed the latter.

On top of that, the phenomenon they had witnessed in the video was something they were experiencing for the first time in their lives.

"I heard what we saw was black magic too."

"Then does that mean we're under black magic?"

"No, not that. They say it was some kind of evil sorcery that made it happen."

"What?!"

Once again, the continent's political climate began to tilt toward the Allied Forces.

It was only natural.

They had held the high ground from the start.

If things continued like this, the Empire would lose its chance to rise again.

They had to keep things unstable. They had to drag the Allied Forces down into a mud fight, because only then could they hope to overcome the overwhelming difference in power.

Despite this, the princess made no particular move.

There was no move for her to make.

Teheran Castle was still empty, and the remaining Imperial Knights had scattered to carry out their assigned missions.

This was not the time to act.

'Buja, I miss you.'

She had to wait.

She knew.

She knew it wasn't right to pin everything on just one person.

But she couldn't help it.

Even putting her personal feelings aside, the faint sliver of hope they had now had been created entirely by Kim Buja.

Even if Kim Buja betrayed the Empire, she would not be able to resent him.

That was why the princess waited.

"How are the preparations going?"

"We are gathering forces, Your Highness. More people have joined us than we expected."

Kallis, dressed in shabby clothes as he stood by the princess's side, nodded.

She waited. Without Buja, she had no idea how to proceed with the next phase of their plan, but even so, she did everything she could.

So much time had passed that she was no longer sure whether she was trying to revive the Empire or simply seeking one last act of revenge in a hopeless situation, but her conviction did not waver.

Whenever she felt herself falter, she remembered her parents, who had died in disgrace, the countless Imperial soldiers who had sacrificed their lives, and the innocent Imperial citizens who had died for no other reason than war.

On top of that, thanks to Kim Buja, she now had clear targets for her revenge.

The leaders of the Allied Forces and the pope.

The ones who had thrown the continent into chaos.

She walked one more bitter lap around Teheran Castle.

Her feet felt heavy, reluctant to move on, but no matter how long she waited, the face she longed to see did not appear.

After a long while, with a regretful sigh, Teheran Castle fell silent once more.

* * *

After many twists and turns, Kim Buja and the saintess finally made it out of the mountain range and headed straight for a village.

It wasn't because they were hungry or wanted to wash up.

Just as he had done with the princess, he had fed the saintess all sorts of delicious things through the Gold Shop—enough to win her over completely—right there in the Forbidden Mountains, which was crawling with monsters.

As for washing, the political situation on the continent was so urgent that people didn't have the luxury of worrying about being unwashed for a day or two, so he didn't care much either.

What they needed was information.

"Oh, you wouldn't believe it. Ever since word got out that the saintess was in cahoots with the princess, the Temple has been working tirelessly to treat the plague. They're saying the plague was caused by remnants of the Imperial army and the factions allied with the saintess. The Allied Forces have even stepped in to help, so things should get better soon."

Fortunately, even though it was a small village, it was more than enough to get the information he wanted.

The problem was that the information was a bit different from what he had expected.

"All that work, and we handed it to them on a silver platter."

"I am sorry."

"It's not your fault. This was inevitable."

If Kim Buja had stayed on the continent, things would not have turned out like this.

If he had known the Chapter 2-1 Gold Mission would pop up like that, he would have managed the saintess much more carefully.

His complacent idea of just setting up the situation and coming back later to consolidate it had led directly to the current crisis.

The pope had set the board, and the princess had been played.

The saintess, who had lived her whole life without knowing politics, would have had a hard time dealing with the rapidly changing situation as time dragged on.

Above all, the biggest factor was simply that the saintess had been captured.

The princess and the Imperial forces were still creating incidents that could be seen as plagues and other forms of black magic, but they lacked the justification to pin it all on the pope.

Naturally, that would only dig their own grave.

"Hmm."

What was he supposed to do?

To be honest, even Kim Buja didn't see a clear answer.

He didn't live on the continent full-time. Once a Gold Mission ended, months would pass in reality before he returned. How was he supposed to outplay an old fox who had lived here for decades?

Besides, politics wasn't his thing.

It might be better to leave that field to the princess.

Up until now, the way he had created variables and turned the impossible into possible had always been by focusing on the clear game element: the completion conditions of the Gold Mission.

This time would be no different.

He decided to approach it from the simplest angle.

The continent was like a virtual reality.

A place that was real, yet not real.

A place he could later turn into a second Earth, a resort, something grand like that!

'If it were me…'

He needed a new plan.

He needed a new variable that would throw the enemy off balance again.

After long thought, his gaze landed on the saintess. Then he asked carefully.

"You're not the saintess anymore, right?"

"Excuse me?"

"You got fired from being the saintess."

"That is not true!"

The saintess was willing to change her own convictions for Buja, but this time, she couldn't stop herself from snapping back.

It didn't faze him in the slightest.

A wicked smile was already tugging at the corners of his mouth. In his mind's eye, there was nothing left to stop him.

"Is the title saintess what's important? What matters is that you were chosen by God. The Temple is already rotten to the core. With a single word from the pope, you can be the saintess one day and a ■■ who sold her body and soul to demons by joining the princess the next."

"…That is…"

"God said it, remember? Good and evil are separated by a single sheet of paper. What matters is not leaning too far to either side."

"Yes."

"From today on, we're the Black Magic Cult."

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