Clearing the Game at the End of the World - Chapter 71

Chapter 71 – In the Name of Honor (5)

If you asked who the hardest occupation to persuade in GG is, then everyone would agree that the number 1 job would be a mage. These people felt that what they concluded in their minds was more accurate than what they could see immediately in front of them. Because they can bend reality and utilize magic based on their understanding, no explanation is required to grasp how tough it is to convince a mage.

Actually, a mage should really not be so readily swayed. For example, if they were using magic based on the awakening that [water is cold], and someone just walks up to them and uses logic to prove that isn’t true, then the mage gets easily persuaded. That will destroy the image they have in their mind, and they will no longer be able to use that magic. This was why, unlike the general audience’s belief, mages were on the ignorant side and didn’t know much about the world. It was much after to live in their own world in order to protect the images in their mind.

Then what about religious people?

“W—wait! I—I really don’t know why this is happening to me!”

“This disrespectful thing… It has sinned so much that it cannot even fathom the graveness of its own actions.”

“I’ll cut all of your tendons and leave you out to dry on the sunniest place on the roof of the church for a hundred days…”

“Latura, Ro Haram… Forgive me for listening to the words of this sinner…”

‘_F***! Just listen to me! Please!’_

Certainly, the church people were number 0. Once these people were set on something, especially if it was related to their god, then it was impossible to persuade them.

Like the spell that was controlling my tongue right now, the reason why the abilities based on divine power were called divine ‘magic’ was because the basic concept was identical to magic.

In magic’s case, a person reaches an awakening based on their understanding of a subject, and then they gain a belief that ‘I’m right no matter what anyone says!’ and through that belief, they are able to ignore the logic of others and create magic based on their own laws.

And divine magic? From the:

[Understanding – > Belief -> Law’s Creation -> Power Activates] process explained above, the ‘understanding’ part is taken out.

Religion is based on a pure belief that isn’t based on logic and thinking.

The church members do not question ‘why’ this phrase is correct because that’s what they call ‘faith’. You do not question that faith.

It was similar to how the sun rises from the east or stars appear in the night sky. The more people believed in their teachings, their influence on reality became stronger based on their numbers.

‘_They said that they received an oracle. From their perspective, an oracle must be correct, so it must come true in some way or another. The city’s heart being pierced by a dagger is definitely talking about Tobrune, but the back part is hard to interpret. And I just happened to fall into their radars while they were trying to figure it out. Since I can’t deny the oracle, then I just need to change their interpretation of it. And before they start to make another dumb idea, I need to solidify my position!’_

If I just let them talk between themselves, they were just going to decide that I’m the sin itself and just go along with the trial, so I need to use this opportunity to change their view about me.

‘_First, I need to figure out what made them so sure that I was the person in the oracle and am a spy of the mutes. I need to know [what] I have to rebut to in order to actually say something.’_

Professor swallowed spit down his dry throat. There’s still a chance to turn this around!

“Very well. Since the sinner wants to know what their sin is, it’s the job of a church member to tell them what the sin they are here for is.”

Professor quietly listened to the female bishop.

“Last night, there was an incredible tragedy in Tobrune. As you know, this disaster had happened because of the monster that speaks the human tongue and has a sentient mind, the ‘Crimson Mute’. Many had fallen, many citizens suffered, and we who were still too blind to follow the Lord’s words were unable to stop this from happening.”

“Ohh, Latura, Ro Haram.”

“Forgive us, forgive us, forgive us!”

Shaking inside, Professor continued to listen and pretended to act calm. If they realized that the Crimson Mute and Escapee Professor were the same person, it was completely game over. If those words escaped his lips, he needed to get out of there fast.

“When the church realized what was happening and arrived at the Reedflow Tower, the enemies had already been long gone. Before we punished ourselves before Ro Haram, we swore an oath. In order to make sure a tragedy like this never happens ever again, we will track down every single being involved in this and make sure they will never be able to do so ever again.”

The bishop paused for a moment to clasp her hands together and pray as if blaming herself and then returned to talking.

“We have caught everyone related to the mage tower. There were unusual traces on the corpse of the Level 6 Mage, ‘Isaac Mandalius’. Traces that antennae-like objects had burrowed into his cervical vertebrae and head, and it was confirmed that he and his disciples had been conducting an experiment that is too sinful to even dare mention.”

Sift—

From her robe, El Senadis took out a few pieces of paper that were damaged from water but were then dried well enough to read the contents and spread them out in front of Professor.

“From the evidence found on the scene, we found the traces of you very clearly written here.”

‘_W…wait? That’s?’_

Professor didn’t think that he would see this here. That was because Professor was very familiar with the papers that were in the hands of Sedanis.

The papers were Isaac’s research documents that he had sprayed into the air himself in order to reveal the crimes in the tower.

[What are you going to do now? Can you escape on your own? Do you need my help? These guys are a piece of cake if I come out.]

‘_Can you even come out without the bloodlust?’_

[Not yet. Physically, all of the infective agents in your body need to be activated, and mentally, you need to get knocked out or hand me the steering wheel. For the mute blood problem… Don’t you think it’ll be fine if you run outside of the city as fast as possible? Tobrune’s part of the front lines now. There’s probably going to be at least one or two mutes hanging around the place. There should be just enough time to figure it out before you get sucked to death.]

‘…_No, it’s too dangerous. And it’s not completely over yet.’_

The most important point at the moment. I just confirmed it with this, but these guys don’t know that I’m the same person as the Crimson Mute.

‘_If they figured out my existence through the research documents, then it’s certain. The documents have everything about me, from how I was caught to what experiments were done on me. Seeing that they’re trying to find me under the identity ‘Escapee Professor’ they should also know that the mage confirmed that I was a human. Okay, the biggest problem is solved now!’_

If they were suspicious of me under the identity of a test subject rather than the Crimson Mute, then there was something I assumed was happening.

‘_Of course, for now, I need to act flustered.’_

He needed to carefully structure the conversation and guide it to his advantage. Like building a house of cards, he needed to trick the enemy only using the truth.

“Th—that can’t me—!”

When the bishop saw Professor visibly shaken, she spoke in an elevated tone.

“We do not know if that foolish Isaac and his disciples were working with the mutes. They had died to the mute’s attack, but it was natural for them to get betrayed if they had taken the monster’s side. Even if they hadn’t, since he was already infected with their blood, it was eventually going to arrive at the same result, like that mutilated something that was burrowed inside Isaac’s body. Those who had already paid with their life no longer matter. Those that are important are those who are still alive. Like yourself!”

Professor widened his eyes in fear and desperately spoke back.

“Th—that can’t be! You would know better than that if you had seen the documents! I was merely their test subject! I was a victim! I was an innocent citizen!”

Even speaking, he could feel his words slur from the sticky feeling in his mouth. Since everything he had said was the truth, it must have passed the filter.

‘_Good. I’ve led it all this way. Now I just need to act like I’m the victim—’_

“Victim, you say. Innocent citizen, you say… That’s true. To be exact, you ‘were’ an innocent citizen. Then, Professor, I’ll ask you a question.”

With her reply, I felt the aura pressing me down become even stronger. The truth spell. She had applied even more divine power into her spell just before she asked the question so that his mouth would be sealed if it was not the truth.

“Professor. If you were a mere ‘test subject’ that had suffered from the mages, how did you escape from Touran, which was dominated by the monsters? A person that isn’t a strong warrior or a high-level mage but just a poor test subject?”

‘_Let’s go! She took the bait! I knew she would try and take it this way if I pretended to be the victim!’_

If they tracked my past traces, then they would have known that there was an empty term between me becoming a test subject in Touran and then getting caught by the guards in Tobrune. Then it was natural to be suspicious. What did this poor man, who was being used as a test subject of a mage, do for that span of time? Since they had gone through the torturous pain of getting his limbs cut off every single day, did he gain a hatred towards mankind? Maybe after being submerged in such a highly infective monster’s blood, did he finally turn into a monster himself?

‘_This is it. This is the turning point!’_

After taking a deep breath, Professor started to mouth out the words he repeated and reviewed multiple times in his mind. A sorrowful, sad expression. As if he was a man that had his entire life stolen from him.

“I see… You know everything.”

Professor dropped his head down helplessly and bit his lips tightly. It’s probably better to shake his body like he is very emotional right now.

‘_Sad thoughts, sad thoughts! I’m the tragic main character, like Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. He was facing the harsh truth and accepting the price he needed to pay!’_

– Jokass : Yo, he’s up to something again.

– Noru_is_druig : It’s scary this guy is starting a caravan now. If a guy like this comes in and lets loose, I think I might use up all my money before I even knew what was happening.

– takealook : a tongue toned to survive the harsh Wastelands….

– Soygaybar : Man’s really a professor for ‘How to Con 101’

Driip—

Drop, D—drop!

Even with the external distraction, Professor had succeeded in imagining himself as the tragic main character, and large tears started to fall out of his eyes.

“Yes… Everything’s true. I’m a monster. After the mages abandoned me in Touran, I was unable to gain treatment for my infection, and in the end… became a monster.”

Seeing Professor bow down on the floor and cry as he confessed his sins, Senadis, and the other priests and paladins smiled in satisfaction. The criminal they caught was finally confessing his own sins.

“Then, have you heard the voice that the monsters call the ‘Queen’?”

“…Yes. I can still hear the voice right now in my head! It–the voice, argh! That voice tries to control me and steal my body! But I’m not a monster. I’m a human! Even though my body was taken over by them! My heart, my soul is still human!”

The bishop’s satisfied face, who was just about to start the ‘purification’, suddenly was blurred with confusion as she heard Professor’s desperate cries.

“I—I don’t understand. You have said you heard the voice of the ‘Queen’ and even heard it right now. Can you swear that all of the claims you have made until now are the truth!”

“I swear, of course, I do! I swear with the honor of Ro Haram! I have not spoken a single lie!”

He could feel his tongue get a little sore, but the truth spell still had not stopped his mouth.

‘_That’s only natural, ‘cause it’s all true!’_

The Queen’s voice? Yes, I heard it. At the beginning of the infection.

He definitely heard it saying come to me~ or something along those lines.

The voice in my head? I’m listening to it right now. It’s called Hyde, and he’s waiting 24/7 to get a chance to take over my body. I did answer it right after talking about the Queen, but I never said the voice was the ‘Queen’s’ voice.

I can only speak the truth? Well, you should have chosen some better questions when using a lousy spell like that. If what I was able to speak was controlled, then all I needed to do was change what I ‘was not’ saying. I took out the subject, but I never lied. That subject can be filled inside the priests’ minds anyway.

‘_In the modern world, you can’t figure out the truth just by checking the facts. Pieces of the facts can be put together to create a wonderful lie.’_

Professor laughed to himself internally as he carefully chose his next words.

This was step one. I announced that I was not under the command of the Queen. Since they have the truth spell activated and everything, they confirmed this was true.

“O…kay then. So you were infected by a monster and got your body stolen by the Queen but regained it through your own willpower? The infection that no one had won until now? Are you saying that you defeated the infection that not even Ro Haram’s priests could win with just your sheer willpower?!”

Hm. This was related to the power of the church. I need to shrink back down here. It’s best to agree about the church’s authority but it also shows that he indeed had an undefeatable will.

Professor was no longer bowing his head down on the floor. With eyes still wet with tears, he stared straight at the bishop’s eyes and spoke.

“I wanted to die a human. I do not know how it was possible, either. To say that this was just by sheer willpower is difficult since the mages had already messed with this body too much. I believe that the drugs used on me in the experiments might have done something according to my will.”

This was also not a lie. I blocked off Hyde’s attacks with my willpower, and before that, the mages had used drugs and ‘wound healing’ to suppress the infection.

Murmur murmur—

Whisper whisper—

“If that was what happened… is that man really the enemy of the church? Or is he a poor soul that managed to escape the grasp of the Queen?”

“Don’t you dare say such a sinful thing! Didn’t you hear about the oracle?! It said that there was definitely an enemy within Tobrune! Do you doubt Ro Haram’s word?!”

“Ahem… Latura, Ro Haram.”

“Latura, Ro Haram.”

The more Professor spoke, the more the priests around him were shaken.

“Stop, stop! Quiet down! We’re still in the middle of the trial!”

Even the bishop’s voice, which was calm until now, was raised when the others started to waver. After thinking for a moment, the bishop then turned to the side and spoke.

“…. Paladin Ashwell. Bring Sinner Jekers to the court.”

Not long after, the paladin brought a man covered with torture marks and kneeled him down next to Professor.

“Ughhhh, huhhhh… S—Selector, sir?”

‘_W—why is this guy here…?’_

A familiar face. This was the man from the three sloppy thieves that told him about the Savior’s Order. What’s he doing here?

“Professor. Do you know this man?”

“….Yes. He was a thief I met on my way to Tobrune.”

“Correct. To be exact, he ‘was’ a thief that then proceeded to go around the city and mentioned the ‘Savior’s Order’, predicting the Crimson Mute’s attack. One of the church members caught this man, and after learning everything through some ‘procedures’, he is now a sinner waiting to be executed. This sinner had mentioned a scarred, barefooted man walking from Touran to Tobrune. According to Sinner Jekers, the man had said he was the Crimson Mute and introduced himself as a Selector. What do you think of this?”

“……”

‘_Damn it! I didn’t think this was going to happen!’_

If he opened his mouth carelessly, then he was going to trigger the truth spell. Time, I need to buy time…!

“Heh, heheheheh… Stupid church people… you guys are now done for, done for, I tell you!”

Just then, the thief that was twitching on the floor, Jekers, opened his mouth.

He looked much different from before. With his bloody hands with fingernails and toenails all gone and burn scars scattered throughout his body, the man laughed, already half out of his mind.

“You idiot church people… To think that you captured this man without even a single restraint! This man is the Crimson Mute that destroyed the mage tower in a single night! Ohhhh! Great Selector sir! You have come all this way to save me! You don’t have to act anymore! Now then, go on and use that strength to kill all of these hypocrites!”

As Jekers spoke, he looked at me with eyes full of longing for revenge,

‘_Yes! Thanks, Jekers!’_

And I reacted with a flustered and embarrassed expression to Jekers’ statement.

“Ah, a—about that…”

After murmuring for a moment, Professor turned to the paladin that brought in Jekers.

“Uh, Paladin sir? I’m sorry, but may you swing at my arm?”

“…What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I have something I want to prove in front of Ro Haram. You just need to swing hard, but not enough to break my arm.”

The paladin seemed confused by my weird request.

“….Bishop?”

“Do as he says. He said he wanted to prove something.”

But as soon as he gained permission from the bishop, the paladin swung his armored arm down.

Bam!

Craaaack!

A light swing. And like I expected, my arm bends in a weird direction, pain surging through. A knight’s arm with a metal gauntlet like that on it was basically a metal bat. Although my body was now strong enough for daily usage, it still wasn’t strong enough to withstand an impact like that one.

“Paladin Ashwell!”

“T—that’s not it, Bishop! I’m positive I didn’t swing that hard…”

Professor stuck out his dangling arm towards the bishop as he spoke.

“This is the reason why I had to tell such a terrible lie to the thieves. My body is incredibly weak. Although it heals faster because of the monster’s blood, it is weak to impacts and wounds, unlike its deceiving exterior. So I lied. I am the Selector of your church, I am not your enemy, and so on.”

Modern news-making tactics. If there was a way to make an excuse, then divert the people’s attention with an even bigger event and quickly get it over with. It was just a lousy excuse that had its plotholes—

“T—that’s not true! That can’t be! That man is definitely a Selector of the Savior’s Order….!”

“Ashwell, put the sinner back in prison.”

“N—no! It can’t be! Selector sir! Selector sirrrrrrrr!!!!”

I just showed them my arm breaking like a twig, so it’s hard for them to doubt my claim. Since they already confirmed that I’m not the Crimson Mute, the questioning using Jekers was most likely the bishop’s final card. But thanks to that, I just further proved that a weak person like me couldn’t be the Crimson Mute.

‘_Things would have been different if Jekers started to talk about the ruckus I caused in front of the thieves. Which is why I made an even bigger scene to quickly end the situation.’_

Thanks to the truth spell, Jekers’ testimony, and a little showmanship, I proved that I was not the same person as the Crimson Mute and was an innocent person with a body of a monster but did not follow the Queen’s orders. Good! It’s perfect! Honestly, if I just needed to convince them without the truth spell, they might have still been suspicious of me, but now they have to believe me!

After being lost in thought for a moment, El Senadis looked at Professor with a softened expression as she spoke.

“I see. There seems to have been a misunderstanding. You were a faithful believer still holding onto your will as a human through many hardships.”

‘_She accepted it! My impression went from a sinner into a [believer]!’_

But unlike what she was saying, Senadis’ next action just accelerated the approaching end of Professor’s life.

“……. Paladin Drantis, come forward.”

To her command, a paladin that was especially large walked out into the middle of the circle.

“Professor, your faith has been proved in front of Ro Haram. However, it is true that the Lord has predicted the dangers you bring upon, and although you claim you have escaped the grasp of the Queen, it is more than possible for you to turn back and take their side to become a spy. If you are truly on the side of humanity, you must end your journey here.”

Shling—

Just as she finished talking, the paladin pulled out a large claymore. A massive sword forged from saint metal. By cutting my head off in a single swoop instead of crushing it in with a mace, they were showing their respect for my death.

‘_This is the final hurdle. The Oracle. To them, the oracle has to be true. Even if the interpretation is wrong, to maintain the believers’ faith, they need to make the false interpretation happen.’_

Just before the claymore that shadowed over Professor’s head dropped down, he hurriedly opened his mouth once more.

“The sin that has settled into Tobrune isn’t me, but the Savior’s Order! Although I do not follow the orders of the Queen, I can know to a certain extent what they want and how they are going to move! Please spare me! If you do, I’m positive that I’ll be a help to humanity!”

It was the thought that popped into his head the second he heard the oracle. The dagger pierced into the heart of the city was referring to Tobrune. And single the sin wasn’t me, that meant there was definitely something left in the city…

‘_It looks like the Light’s Order thinks that the Savior’s Order is just another cult, but this is the proper interpretation! Ro Haram! If you’re listening, you better save me! I just saved these guys from going down the wrong route!’_

In the vision of Professor, who was looking up at the massive statue to pray, was the bishop stopping the paladin from finishing his action. The faint emotions that flashed on her face were excitement and expectation. A sort of expectation when you gained an incredible tool you did not expect to find.