The corners of Zero's lips curled up after hearing Cale say that they would talk once they returned.
"The reaction is going to be no joke when we return to Precinct 9."
Fourth Imperial Prince Noi gulped after hearing that.
The large explosion that had made them see red… All around them was purified thanks to that explosion.
It was large enough that they should have seen the explosion even in Precinct 9.
'Even Precinct 8 or Precinct 10 might have seen it as well.'
That was how large the explosion had been.
'How will this incident be relayed to the Imperial Palace?'
He thought that this incident would have an extremely large impact. He could not even fathom what might happen from here.
Things that were beyond the limits of his thoughts kept happening.
And the person standing at the center of the incident was chuckling while looking at Zero.
It was as if he heard something really interesting.
"What reaction?"
"…Huh?"
Zero felt an unexplainable ominous feeling from Cale's tone.
The corners of Cale's lips curled up.
"Do you think that all of you here will be able to see that reaction?"
Zero looked around at that moment.
Chief Eaen… She motioned with her hand and all of the scouts were pointing their weapons at the candidates and their helpers.
The Purifier's people were warily looking at the candidates and their helpers as well.
"Ah, but there is no need to worry."
The Purifier smiled.
"You will return alive. It will be comfortable too."
Sssssssss— sss—
A breeze blew by.
Gold dust gathered around Eruhaben. They were so beautiful that it was weird to call them dust.
The golden light that rose up between the white sand and the blue sky that was becoming brighter with the rising sun was extremely radiant.
Oooooong– oooooong–
A large-scale teleportation magic circle was completed.
"This area really was purified. It is very easy to use mana."
Eruhaben nonchalantly mentioned his observation about using magic in this purified area before adding on.
"If areas like this increase-"
He felt a cold gaze at that moment. He made eye contact with Choi Han. Choi Han had subconsciously glared at Eruhaben but quickly turned away as if he was shocked with himself.
'I guess if areas like this increase, Cale will definitely faint.'
It would be a blessing if he only fainted.
He would cough up blood as he lost consciousness.
"Ahem. Anyways, the teleportation is prepared."
Cale walked on top of the teleportation magic circle and motioned to the people around him.
"Alright, let's all head back to the Lord's Castle."
He observed Choi Han dragging Mineh and the helper over and gently clapped as if he remembered something.
"Ah!"
Everybody focused on him. Of course, they had already been focused on him prior to that as well.
"By the way, they are dead."
Some of the candidates and helpers looked confused.
Most of the reconnaissance team members had the same confused looks on their faces.
Only Chief Eaen and a few others groaned.
Mary, Choi Han, and Eruhaben were calm.
"…W, what do you mean by that?"
Fourth Imperial Prince Noi subconsciously stuttered as he asked Cale. He had a thought as he said that.
'Is it okay to speak informally to him?'
He thought that he should speak respectfully to this extremely powerful so-called Purifier. He had an ominous feeling that getting on this guy's bad side might lead to death.
"What do I mean?"
Cale lightly responded.
Cale nicely informed the people who would have to come with him regardless of their wishes.
His hand pointed to First young lady Mineh, the Blood Cultist, the Dragon Aphei… Along with a few other candidates.
"The people I pointed at are dead from here on."
The last person Cale pointed at was First Imperial Prince Sanders. Cale could see his pupils shaking.
The First Imperial Prince started to speak.
"If I die, the Huayans-"
"Stop."
The First Imperial Prince closed his mouth.
He felt a mysterious sense of pressure from the Purifier. He could feel an unavoidable aura of dominance suppressing him from the Purifier's gaze.
Cale turned away from Sanders who had stopped talking.
'It'll get complicated if the First Imperial Prince explains everything here.'
It was because Zero was here.
Cale put on quite a warm smile on his face. Raon would say it felt even fishier with him smiling like this but there was nobody here to say something like that.
"Now then, let's all head back."
Paaaat!
A gold light flashed once above the white desert before the teleportation magic circle and the people standing on top of it disappeared.
* * *
Fourth Imperial Prince Noi. This was the first time he experienced proper magic. This was his first teleportation with magic rather than black magic.
He closed his eyes because the radiant gold light flashed in front of his eyes before opening them back.
'Mm.'
He felt as if he was floating for a moment before his feet soon touched something.
He opened his eyes.
'!'
He then subconsciously flinched and looked around.
"W, what the?!"
This was a prison.
This was definitely a prison.
It was an extremely thoroughly prepared prison to imprison heinous criminals.
"…How interesting."
Zero looked around the cell that had no light other than from a torch.
They were not currently inside the prison.
However, the prison was located right in front of them.
"There is such an underground prison inside the Lord's Castle?"
Nobody responded to his question.
Chief Eaen stealthily peeked toward Cale.
'…This is located in the lowest level of the basement in the Lord's Castle.'
It was quite large and had a unique structure that made it impossible to call it a normal prison.
First of all, the sizes of the prison's cells were all different. Large, small… There were all sorts of sizes.
Furthermore, there was a large area that all of the cells faced.
Most importantly, it was extremely clean. Although this whole prison was empty, there was not a speck of dust.
'Originally, this place, mm.'
Chief Eaen clenched her eyes shut.
"Chief."
She heard the Purifier's voice at that moment. She made eye contact with Cale. Of course, she could not look into his eyes.
'…I ran my mouth as I pleased.'
She had exaggerated as she talked about the Purifier and his identity as she and Marquis Helson tried to change the western part of the Empire.
She had not thought much of it while doing it, but looking at the Purifier or the Dragon behind him made her feel uncomfortable thinking about what she had done.
Although they were on the same boat now, these people were the ones who held the key.
"Chief."
Eaen responded after Cale called her in a gentle voice once again.
"Yes sir."
"There seem to be a lot of people who are curious about this place so please give an explanation."
'Mm.'
Eaen held back a groan as she looked around. The people from Precinct 9 knew where this was and clenched their eyes shut. The candidates and their helpers looked as if they had no idea at all.
"This place-, is a treatment center."
Although it looked like a prison, it was a treatment center.
There had been numerous beds here although they were all cleared right now.
"The people who were infected with dead mana stayed in this place."
Eaen closed her mouth after saying that but the others could figure out the rest even without being told.
Zero opened his mouth.
"Isn't it a rule in the edge region to leave behind the people infected by dead mana?"
It had not been this way from the beginning.
However, at some point, the Empire and many places around the world started to throw away the people who looked as if they could not overcome the dead mana infection.
It was because they were not helpful at all.
Furthermore, people were worried that they would get injured and infected with dead mana as well while dealing with these infected people as they released dead mana while dying and flailing in pain.
The trend was to avoid them.
No, it was to throw them away.
The people in charge preferred for them to build the wall higher than to waste time saving these infected people.
Chief Eaen sharply glared at Zero.
"…Why is it any of your business whether we follow the rule or not?"
"It is none of my business. I just found it to be surprising."
Eaen kept her mouth shut and did not respond.
Of the ten precincts on the western border, Precinct 9 had the highest chances of being infected.
Nonetheless, the largest number of troops resided here.
In addition, a lot of people trusted and followed the Marquis. People continued to volunteer as scouts despite knowing that they might die.
The reason was because the Marquis had created this prison-like treatment center.
'The Marquis-nim avoided the eyes of the Empire to build this treatment center.'
This treatment center was the best the Marquis could do with the lacking support from the central parts of the Empire.
However, this healing center was completely empty right now.
Some of the patients who had been here were moved to warm places in the Lord's Castle.
There was only one thing that could mean.
'…We will no longer care what the Imperial Palace or the House of Huayans thinks of us.'
Eaen's gaze softened.
The Purifier and his group… She looked at those people.
Creeeeeak.
She heard a door open at that moment.
The deepest part of the basement in the Lord's Castle…
The door to this place opened.
"They're here."
Cale looked at the door.
'I'm pretty sure it is Marquis Helson.'
He was the only person who would really come here.
Raon probably realized that they had arrived and informed the Marquis.
Creeeeeack, clunk.
The door opened.
The Marquis and some others walked in.
'Mm.'
Cale's pupils started to shake.
– Human! I'm here too!
He heard the invisible Raon's voice but Cale could not pay any attention.
– These people showed up so I brought them with me! Sui Khan just smiled when I asked if I could take them with me. That is why I thought it was him saying yes and brought them here!
'Shit.'
Cale's pupils started to shake even more.
Marquis Helson started to speak with a stiff expression on his face despite Cale's reaction.
"Oh esteemed Purifier."
His tone now sounded respectful as if he was speaking to someone honorable.
However, his voice got buried.
"We greet the purifier!"
"We greet the purifier!"
Boom. Boom. Boom!
Approximately three people quickly knelt down on the stone ground.
They did it without any hesitation.
They then put both hands on the ground and bowed their heads.
"We witnessed a great and mighty sight!"
There was no way Cale would not know who they were.
It was those bastards.
It was those people from the church!
The Fire of Purification!
'I did tell them to contact the capital, but…'
He had asked the team leader to inform the Bishop about the things that were about to happen.
He was dealing with the results of it now.
"Everybody saw it, sir! We saw that destructive and violent yet pure, beautiful, and radiant power of the god that took away my sight and my soul!"
Cale recalled the identity of this person who just shouted.
'…That bastard was standing next to priest Durst, right?'
When they had traveled through the dimension to get here, they had seen old priest Durst. This punk had been standing next to him. Cale recalled that he had a pretty high position in the church.
The two people next to him seemed similar.
They looked like people who would have the same level of influence as Durst.
"Seriously, I lament the fact that I could not see the fire in its entirety because of the tears in my eyes! Ah, ahh-"
Then they started crying.
All three of them.
'This is driving me nuts.'
At this moment, Cale thought that it would be good if someone like Clopeh was in this church.
Although that bastard had a screw loose, he did his work well and was tactful.
– H, human! They remind me of Clopeh Sekka!
'…Do they?'
Raon's comment made Cale contemplate whether he was considering Clopeh in too good of a light just now.
However, he could not just continue to watch this situation unfold.
Eruhaben's shoulders were moving up and down as he did his best to hold back his laughter. The rejuvenated ancient Dragon smiled a lot more these days.
"…I should have those face-to-face talks first."
He soon started his conversations with First Imperial Prince Sanders, Fourth Imperial Prince Noi, and Zero. Eruhaben and Chief Eaen split up the rest of the people.
Cale asked each of them a question during his conversation with them.
"Alright, I don't think we have a relationship where we would have deep conversations with one another."
Cale had already chosen a path anyway.
"Sanders."
He asked the First Imperial Prince during their conversation.
"You've thought about smacking the Huayans patriarch in the back of the head, right? In fact, you've had that thought quite often, right?"
The First Imperial Prince's pupils started shaking.
Cale had a short conversation with him starting with that question before meeting with Fourth Imperial Prince Noi.
He then asked.
"Do you want to live or do you want to die?"
Cale continued the conversation with the Fourth Imperial Prince while seeing him curl up in fear before finally meeting Zero and asking.
"Hey, Agent of Destruction. Do you want to help destroy the House of Huayans and the Imperial Palace?"
Zero's bloodshot eyes opened wide before the corners of his lips curled up.
Cale slowly looked away after seeing a look that seemed to come straight out of a horror movie.
Cale heard two things after finishing his conversation with Zero as well.
"Mm. Imperial Princess Olivia has woken up and is recovering."
The Second Imperial Princess had survived.
"The Huayans patriarch is heading to Precinct 9 in order to assess the situation. Did I hear correctly, Marquis-nim?"
"That is correct, oh esteemed Purifier."
He had thought that the Huayans patriarch and the Imperial family would step up to figure out the situation once an undesirable situation occurred.
However, he had not imagined the Huayans patriarch to personally step up.
'Hmm.
Does that mean there really is something behind this selection for the throne?'
Tap. Tap.
Cale tapped the table for a bit before opening his mouth.
"Hey. Blood Cult."
Cale was in the middle of his last conversation.
"...."
"Man, your mouth sure is heavy."
The crazed believer's lips were very heavy. The interrogation did not shed any blood as Ron and Beacrox were not here, but it was impossible to do anything to this guy because he acted as if he didn't care if he died.
"I guess I have no choice, sir."
The Marquis flinched after seeing Cale look at him.
The Purifier was smiling.
"Please take good care of the patriarch when he gets here tomorrow."
"…Then…?"
"I plan on going to destroy the Huayans Estate a bit tomorrow."
Marquis Helson subconsciously asked back.
"Excuse me?"
The silent Blood Cultist's pupils shook as well.
Cale was nice and repeated himself. He was a bit more detailed this time.
"I'm going to use the opening I have with the Huayans patriarch being here to go to the capital and destroy the Huayans Estate and land a serious blow on the family."
"Ah."
Marquis Helson blankly gasped to show his understanding.
—
Translator's Comments
Hulk I mean Cale smash!