That was blood. When the Count coughed, she saw liquid coming out of his mouth.
The only possibility other than blood was vomit or spit, but it didn't even make a sound to be called vomit, and there was no color or substance to speak of, and there was no way he would spit that much, so in the end, all that was left was...
'Is it the Demon King's curse? Or were you attacked because your identity was discovered?'
The interior didn't look very chaotic, so it didn't seem like there was an attack. Was he trying to end the incident as quietly as possible, as if nothing happened, to avoid confusion?
The Demon King's curse. Or his identity was discovered.
The former was not good, but the latter was worse. If the two overlap, it was literally the worst.
Without worrying about which one was true, Lien assumed the worst.
'When it comes to protecting your lord, you must always assume the worst.'
So, the Count infiltrated inside and faced the risk of death when his identity was discovered. He barely escaped, but was injured in the process, and to make matters worse, the Demon King's curse had also flared up.
And because he mistook me for a pursuer, he had to run again before he could catch his breath.
'What did you do when you went back inside?'
Satisfactory evidence may not have been obtained.
'Oh my god, you can't give up until you get to that point. As expected, the Count...'
She hastily suppressed the feelings that were about to get stronger. She must not lose her composure.
What mattered now was how she dealt with it.
Should she go pick up the Count, whose condition and situation were both presumed to be bad, or should she wait outside?
'If I go in, he might get confused.'
In that case, things would get more complicated.
But what if the Count was in a truly critical situation? So what if he needed some help?
'...Shit.'
She let out a long, silent sigh and covered her head. She was terrible at making choices like this.
That's why she was extremely satisfied with her job as a knight where she only had to listen to orders, but she never thought she'd face such an ordeal. Lien, who was at the crossroads of making the choice of a lifetime, was unable to make a decision and was hesitating, when a voice she had heard before was heard in her ears, which had become sensitive due to nervousness.
"Call the guard captain right now."
"Huh? What are you saying all of a sudden..."
"Suddenly?"
"..."
It was a voice she was sure she'd heard before, but it was unfamiliar. Was this not the person she was thinking of?
No. The voice definitely belonged to the woman who smiled brightly at the entrance and chased her out. It's just that the atmosphere was so different that she wondered if it was the same person.
A voice that dripped with chills like that.
When the other person also fell silent, as if embarrassed, the woman's cold voice continued.
"An intruder came in. You didn't even know it yet."
"...!"
"If your opponent was a hero, you wouldn't have any heads left by now. You would have been replaced for the crime of incompetence. Consider yourself lucky."
A hero! Lien was quietly shocked.
The prediction was correct. The Count's identity was revealed.
What followed was even more shocking.
"For now, I've dealt with him on my own, so don't make a fuss and call the security commander. We need to discuss strengthening security."
She handled it! That means the Count...!
There was no reason to think further or hesitate. Lien turned around and started running towards the place where Deon had disappeared.
'Count!!'
She hadn't even remembered that the woman just said 'hero' instead of 'Deon Hardt,' and that there wasn't just one 'hero'.
Wow!
Because she disappeared so quickly, Lien, not knowing for sure which window Deon went through, noisily crashed through a random window.
And disaster struck the Salvation Church.
***
Of course, the Salvation Church had a prayer room. It was a space where guards were placed to prevent anyone from entering without permission, except at certain times.
Of course, only ordinary people couldn't enter without permission, and the hero Cruel was an exception.
Tuk.
A small but foreign sound spread in a space filled with silence and no one around.
Cruel, a man with black hair, looked around in a familiar manner. Inorganic green eyes scanned the interior.
A space exactly like the blueprint.
Cruel quietly lowered his eyes, remembering the paper in his arms.
I'm sorry Deon, but this game was unfair to begin with. Cruel started with a blueprint, but Deon did not.
'This is a blueprint. So try to finish this game as safely as possible. Surely you can do that, right?'
'...'
As safely as possible.
He couldn't understand what those words meant. Cruel just kept his mouth shut and lowered his head.
But.
Could Deon really understand the one-sided outcome of this one-sided game?
He might go wild. He may raise suspicions and try to argue with him in front of the Duke. If that happened...
'...'
Cruel, with his mouth set as if remembering something, strode forward. Without hesitation, he headed to the window and then reached for the lock.
The hand that seemed to hesitate for a moment, unable to reach it and hovering around it, soon began to skillfully release it.
"What are you doing?"
"..."
All action stopped for an instant. The hand that touched the lock fell off.
Saerin glanced at the completely dismantled lock and opened her mouth again, looking at Cruel's back.
His body, which had been tense because he thought it was an unfamiliar intruder, had not yet relaxed, and a stiff voice came out.
"No, you don't have to answer. It's obvious even if I don't hear it. Did you come in through the window? I'm sure all the windows in this building were locked, so I don't know how you came in..."
She glared at him with pointed eyes.
If it weren't that she was serving the same master, she would have called security a long time ago.
"I know your purpose. What you're after and where it is."
"..."
"Of course, I have no intention of helping you."
Saerin was smart. As soon as she understood the whole situation, she realized her master's intention.
He wouldn't bother to ask Cruel to do something that would have been easily resolved if he gave him an order. That would mean he would test him.
She might have been kind to him, but unfortunately, she was wary of Cruel.
"The Duke may be planning to test you. I intend to faithfully follow his wishes. He would have handed over the really necessary information to you long ago, so there is no need for me to help."
"..."
"I was being as considerate as I could just by not calling the security right away, so please do your business quietly and leave without making any fuss. Oh, and make sure to lock that window again."
She heard that Deon Hardt received the same mission.
If Cruel, a sturdy warrior type, was able to invade, Deon Hardt, who was more agile, would be even harder to catch.
Considering that the other person was a hero, it was natural, but Saerin left the room quickly because she had no intention of accepting it with her eyes open.
In the quiet space again, Cruel glanced at the door she left through and then turned his back. He didn't even look at the lock on the window. He jumped up onto the stage, examined the floor carefully, and then quickly pulled back the purple curtain behind him. A pure white wall was revealed.
'...This prayer room won the most in the design award.'
Was it an illusion?
The Duke gave him a blueprint, but it is not complete. It was an omitted blueprint that did not indicate anything like a secret space.
The Duke only provided the bare minimum of information and did not provide any support whatsoever.
Well, it may be a 'test'.
In any case, if it was not here, he'd have to go back to the beginning and investigate again. Just when Cruel thought that and turned around to let go of the curtain
Thud.
He heard the window opening.
He quickly caught the sound and hid behind the curtain, and almost at the same time, someone entered.
***
The place I entered was a fairly sacred-looking room.
Long wooden chairs lined up. There was a podium in front, and even the expensive-looking marble floor and clean white walls made it hard to believe that it was located in a slum. Additionally, the purple curtains hung mysteriously in harmony with the background, so what I felt was a strange sense of sacredness and mystery.
'It looks like a prayer room...'
The room was bigger than I thought. I looked around slowly and then headed to the platform that stood out the most.
As I was trying to climb up the chest-high platform with my hands, I found a staircase in the corner and calmly walked up it instead. My body was precious.
'It's not as big of a deal as I thought.'
I quickly lost interest and this time I focused on the strangely hung curtains.
I understood the hanging of curtains around the window, but it was a bit surprising that the curtains were also hanging on the wall behind the podium, which shouldn't have any windows. Of course, if there were nothing but white walls, it would be boring and wouldn't be able to create the current mysterious atmosphere, but this was still a slum, right?
It seemed a bit out of place to follow the aristocratic way of thinking of putting curtains on bare walls as decoration.
'Or is there really a window behind this?'
First of all, all you can see behind the curtains was the wall.
I gently grabbed the curtain. I meant to pull them aside, but unfortunately, my actions did not achieve their purpose.
Because I heard several footsteps outside the door.
What should I do?! Where do I hide? The damn homing instinct reacted at times like this. In a hurry, I left the curtain right next to me and went down to the platform and hid behind the curtain next to the window I came in through.
It was about three seconds later that I realized my foolish behavior.
'...What did I just do?'
I felt like I wanted to bang my head against the wall. But then the door flew open and I had to stop and hold my breath.
About twenty people could be seen through the gap in the curtain. There were also familiar faces mixed in between them.
There was clearly the girl named Sheia who was talking to me and the boy named Paul who had glared at me.
Does that mean this is the prayer room?
"Now, let's pray for salvation today too."
Each person sat on a wooden chair, and a man in priestly clothing who brought them in went up to the stage and opened a book.
It was a book with a fairly luxurious cover.
'What the hell is there in that text? It's so varied.'
The guy started reading the book. The content, like other religious texts, was so specious and boring that my expectations of what it would contain were meaningless.
'...And it's long.'
It doesn't have to be so long. Aren't those people over there who closed their eyes to pray actually sleeping, not praying?
...I think that guy over there just dropped his head? Was it really true?
How many times did I yawn silently? My legs began to feel unbearably numb and I when thought it was really dangerous, and the priest finally finished speaking.
The guy closed the book and smiled.
"So, another devout believer came in today? Most of you probably already know this, but I'll explain briefly for the newly added believer."
"...?"
"From today, rather than ending with this simple prayer, I will tell you more about true 'salvation'."
Salvation? If it is salvation, it is salvation. How can I explain it in more detail?
I instinctively sensed that this was going to be very important, so I pricked up my ears.
The guy's speech, which seemed like he was going to explain briefly, was longer than I thought. It was even possible to summarize it!
In the end, he just wanted to say, 'salvation is real.' Even Remember's harsh words disguised as nagging would be shorter than this!
"You will hear the explanation separately in a room that only devout believers can enter."
Oh, what the priest just said wasn't what he said. These were the words spoken by the woman who opened the door and came in at just the right time, as if by design.
My eyes widened for a moment at the appearance of a few familiar faces.
'...It's a familiar face. She's the woman from a little while ago, right?'
The woman who took off the hood of my robe.
Even though she came in like this, no one stopped her, not even the priest who was speaking, so it seems that she was in a higher position than I thought.
As she sped up her steps and climbed onto the platform, the priest quietly retreated. It was a natural replacement.
The woman placed her hand on the wall between the curtains behind the podium.
It was an action so natural that one was not conscious of it, but the result was anything but natural.
'Uh? Huh? Wait a minute, what is that?!'