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Chapter 80
Carlton spat out the blood that pooled in his mouth. Surrounding him were Morrison’s men–once a part of his party–collapsed and prone.
He felt somewhat uneasy ever since he had been asked by Morrison to help move the cargo. However, he was displeased by the revelation that his alone time with Luisen would soon come to an end; the mercenary ignored that feeling without further contemplation. He shouldn’t have ignored it.
At first, the cargo transportation process progressed normally. Gradually, the uneasy feeling built up within him. He felt anxious since the young lord wasn’t in his view. Luisen was the type of person to trip while walking on a flat surface; honestly, Carlton should be by his side. Unable to endure this anxiety, he thought he should go off to find his companion when Morrison’s men suddenly pulled out knives and ambushed him.
Only then did he realize what had been tugging at his mind for the entire time: he was feeling the consequences of another’s wariness and vigilance.
Carlton took out his sword and responded in kind. Morrison’s men had all been well trained; their individual swordsmanship skills were incredible, and they moved in sync, as if they had fought together more than once or twice. These were highly trained elite soldiers that one could take into any territory.
However, unfortunately, their opponent was Carlton. The mercenary had strength beyond all logic and was particularly adept at dueling. He knocked down Morrison’s men in an instant. He grabbed one fallen man by his hair, “Who are you people? Who sent you?”
Of course, there was no answer; Carlton wasn’t really expecting one either. He was simply nervous and needed to verbally release his agitation; the thought of Luisen and Morrison alone together made his heart feel like it would explode. The mercenary roughly tossed the man’s head aside and ran up to the deck.
The people, startled by the mercenary’s terrifying bloodlust, parted naturally to create a path. Carlton searched for Luisen on the boat.
‘Where is the Duke?’
Nothing. Luisen was nowhere to be seen.
‘Where is he? Where did they go?’
‘There’s no way I’d miss him; why can’t I see him?’
Morrison couldn’t be found either. He probably disappeared somewhere with the young lord.
‘I let my guard down.’
He had considered Morrison suspicious for a while now; strangely, he even felt repulsed by and disliked the man. Carlton trusted his intuition. Normally, he wouldn’t have let his guard down around that man. In a normal situation, he would have found out who that man was and stayed by Luisen’s side.
However, this time, he ignored his intuition and did not listen to the warnings that his instincts were blaring. He was being complacent–completely unlike him.
‘Why did I do that?’
It’s just…after a while, he had stopped observing his surroundings properly. His keenly sharpened senses dulled; his attention had been wholly focused on Luisen. There must have been more warning signs, but none of them entered his view. His eyes were too busy chasing the young lord’s gaze.
He had spent this entire time with Luisen–laughing, kissing, sneaking out to the deck at night to kiss again. They weren’t doing anything in particular, but the time passed by in an instant. They weren’t bored at all. The mercenary floated like he was walking in the air; he was in ecstasy, like a child who had tasted the sweetness of candy for the first time in his life.
And he was reaping the consequences now. It wasn’t like he had been caught by a complicated scheme or some unfamiliar spell. He had lost Luisen in such an absurdly ridiculous and needless way. He felt a great deal of regret. His normally calm mind, which would be alert even in a life-threatening situation, felt hazy and vacant now. All he could think of was Luisen’s parting wave, saying they’d meet up later.
Neiiighh–!
He heard a familiar horse whinny; Zephys had galloped up to its master.
‘That’s right. I still have you, Zephys.’
Carlton leapt onto the horse’s back. Zephys had been with the young lord; it was a clever fellow, so it must remember where Morrison had taken Luisen.
“Giddy up!” Carlton urged his steed roughly. He heard complaints from various corners, but the crowd–the many people–in this port didn’t even enter his focused view.
He needed to find Luisen as soon as possible. He had to return to the young lord’s side.
*******
The first thing Luisen felt when he had come to his senses was the fact that the hood covering his face had disappeared. The cold air enveloped his entire body. He opened his eyes slightly, but the room was too dark for him to see anything.
‘My clothes are all gone.’
Luisen also noticed that his arms and legs were tied to something resembling a chair.
‘Where am I? How long have I been out?’
Suddenly, an ominous feeling gripped his body; Morrison’s cold expression, which he had seen just before he fainted–came to mind.
“If you’re finished trying to figure out your situation, you should hurry and fully open your eyes.”
That was Morrison’s voice.
‘Oh my god. He was right in front of me.’
Luisen slowly opened his eyes, trying not to show any signs of his surprise. His long eyelashes rose in an elegant parabola, revealing clear blue eyes underneath; he stared straight at Morrison.
“What are you doing?” Luisen asked abruptly. When his status as a fake pilgrim was revealed, the young lord stopped using honorifics. Being polite wasn’t originally part of his temperament, after all. “How did you know I was a fake pilgrim? Did you perhaps know from the very beginning?”
Morrison didn’t respond. Luisen recognized that the silence was a positive sign.
‘So, he knew I was a fake pilgrim from the beginning and thus sent us a commission?’
Luisen recalled that incident where they had mistaken Morrison as someone that was stalking them. Perhaps that wasn’t a misunderstanding–perhaps they were truly being followed. Claiming that Luisen and Carlton looked too lovey-dovey to interfere…was that all an act to seem clumsy and incompetent?!
Luisen clenched his teeth at Morrison’s meticulousness. “Why did you follow us? Why did you keep us at your side, pretending to be our client?” He asked.
This time, Morrison replied, “I saw you for the first time from Mittil’s Church. There was a strong curse aura coming from you people.”
The Church! It started from there?!
“I thought for a moment a demon-worshiper was approaching. But then, he happened to pose as a fake pilgrim using a dead pilgrim’s pass. I was suspicious and suggested we travel together.”
“Curse? Demon-worshiper? I don’t know anything about that. It was wrong for me to pretend to be a pilgrim, but there was a good reason for that.”
“I’ve been observing you all this while. And I’ve come to a conclusion.” Morrison ignored the young lord’s words and continued, “As a heresy inquisitor ordained by the Church, I’ll interrogate you on suspicion of being a heretic cultist.”
“Are you really an inquisitor?” Luisen was greatly surprised. Although he had heard many stories about these inquisitors, one way or another, throughout his life, this was the first time he had ever encountered one.
The inquisitors were exactly as their name suggests: they were priests in charge of interrogating, identifying, and punishing heretics. Their identity and detailed accounts of their activities were treated as top-secret matters; even ordinary priests were ignorant of this information. However, their vicious and cruel attitude toward heretics was famous.
Regardless of their opponents’ high or low status, the inquisitors will catch them at all costs once they’ve been pinpointed as a cultist. And, they were known to torture and torture some more until their captives have confessed. In their process, any lie or murder was tolerated. They only followed one principle.
That is to say, they do anything at all costs to capture and kill their targets.
And now Luisen was misunderstood as a heretic by such a person–a worst-case scenario.
“I think you’re misunderstanding something…” Luisen tried to explain, but Morrison didn’t even listen. Once again, a blue flame burned in Morrison’s eyes. Almost simultaneously, the flames spread around the young lord and surrounded him. The room lit up from the flame’s light.
Luisen gasped; fear flared in his eyes. Bizarre torture tools–things he’d never seen or heard of before–hung on the walls. It made him think of all sorts of terrible torture methods; the young lord flinched, unconsciously conveying his desire to escape.
Thud–
The iron chair didn’t budge one inch. Sweat dripped down like rain; his entire body trembled.
‘Nngh…’
Morrison stood straight and looked down at Luisen with an incomprehensible stare. The solemn atmosphere emanating from the inquisitor overwhelmed the young lord. The situation was grave enough for Luisen to feel hopeless; the blue flames flickered, as if to devour the young lord. Luisen felt miserable–like he had become insignificant and small.
“I won’t have to use those things if you just answer the questions I ask. Now, tell me the truth. This fire will prove the veracity of your words.”
Luisen felt like a dispirited dog with its tail lowered. “I…W-What… Am I supposed to say…”
“Tell me what this is.” Morrison pulled out a small pocket knife. Luisen had picked it up in the depths of the centipede cave–a crude knife made from bone. Back then, Luisen had placed it in his robe’s pouch…when did he take that?
Morrison continued, “You had this on you. It’s a relic used by demon-worshipers.”
“That’s a relic? I can’t believe such a toy-like-thing was a relic…”
“Despite how sloppy it looks…You’d be surprised to find out how many sacrificial bodies this knife has sliced through.”
Sacrifice? Were the women captured in the centipede cave sacrifices? If so, then the altar was set up underground and the huge goat bust painted a convincing picture.
“Where and how did you get this knife?” Morrison asked.
“That….There was a centipede cave in Confosse. I picked it up there.” In order to prove his innocence, Luisen revealed everything he knew about the bizarre incident that had occured in the village near Confosse.
“An altar, huh. It sounds like something those guys would do. Morrison brooded for a moment before asking another question. “Then, the snake monster. How did you know that thing caused the chaos?”
“That’s…!” Luisen was about to answer immediately, but then hesitated for a moment. If he said he saw the answer in the future, would this person believe that? There was a famous story about a saint that made a wish to God and, as a result, returned to the past. If the young lord were to say that something that had happened to a saint had happened to him, he didn’t think that an inquisitor–a deeply religious man–would believe him.
‘If I tell him the truth, he might get even angrier, thinking that I’m trying to deceive him…What should I do?’