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“You-you bastard! I am the Pope of this empire! I am the agent of the emperor who united the empire!” Helmut shouted.
“Yes, there was once a time when I really liked that slogan. Perhaps it was your passion and blind loyalty that Master appreciated so much… but I wanted to make my youngest son the next Pope after coming to the conclusion that you had no hope,” Imil shrugged his shoulders.
Only then did Helmut remember that Imil Ilde’s youngest son used to be a member of the Order of the White Crow. Helmut had allowed him to become a Templar at an earnest request; however, he ended up getting killed by Juan, the devil of Tantil who had just appeared around that time.
“I would have killed you and handed over the position of the Pope to my youngest son a long time ago if it hadn’t been for the fake emperor who suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Originally, I had thought you were the one who killed my son after figuring out my intentions. Things may have been very different from now if that was the case.”
“You… you really think I’m going to collapse so easily to…”
“What do you mean collapse? Both you and I are nothing more than puppets controlled by the master. In the first place, without Master, you could not have had the power of His Majesty. Oh, of course… It was only thanks to you that I was able to convince Dismas and Gerard. I do appreciate you for that.”
Imil smiled and looked at Helmut, who was lying on his stomach.
“It’s the same for me, since I’m about to go down as well, but I don’t feel too bad about it after seeing you like this.”
Helmut let out a roar and jumped at Imil, but Imil simply took a step back to dodge him. Helmut stumbled and broke his remaining arm, which looked like a lump of charcoal. After screaming in pain for a long time, Helmut groaned and then opened his mouth.
“You… you bastard… what happened to Lenly?”
Ivy, who had been eavesdropping on the conversation, gasped upon hearing Lenly’s name.
Imil’s eyes briefly turned toward the door of the room, before once again turning to Helmut.
Helmut gasped for air and continued to speak.
“I saw Lenly before I held Telgramm in my hand. Lenly was protecting Dismas from that female knight’s attack—I saw it through the vision shared between me and Dismas. Why was Captain Lenly Loen of the Imperial Guards trying to protect Dismas? Was he also a part of this dirty plan to destroy me?”
“Hah, you’re hilarious,” Imil snorted, dumbfounded. “A dirty plan to destroy you? Damn, your ego is on an entirely different level. But you’re somewhat right. Lenly is also a member of Aruntal, but you’re nothing more than a Pope who doesn’t even belong to Aruntal.”
Helmut gritted his teeth and glared at Imil.
“Then Ivy… Ivy, that bitch must also be a member of Aruntal. You bunch of assholes have been trying to screw me up all along. The fake emperor, Nienna, and Hela were all on your side from the very beginning!”
Imil made a dumbfounded expression, not even bothering to answer Helmut.
Meanwhile, Helmut continued to shout at Imil in anger.
“How?! How can you do this to me! You know how hard I tried to fulfill His Majesty’s will! But how can you help that bitch ruin me like this!?”
“This is just ridiculous. Did you really think that you could even reach the level of His Majesty’s foot? How did you think that such a trivial man like yourself could fulfill such a noble will? You were nothing more than a stepping stone. But now that I think about it, you couldn’t even play that part properly.”
Imil snapped back in annoyance, but soon sighed.
“I’d rather talk to the wall than talk to you. I’m not doing this anymore.”
Imil turned his back.
Helmut continued to shout vulgar curses at his back while throwing up blood and suffering from pain. His joints were not moving properly, and all his entire muscles were twitching. When he felt the movement of his ruined intestines from his stomach, Helmut realized just how old he was. This was a sensation that he had never felt ever since he experimented on the Templars as his test subjects.
The fear of death suddenly surged into Helmut’s mind.
‘Have I always had so many wrinkles?’
Helmut suddenly felt an even more intense sense of loss than when he lost the emperor’s Grace. The drooping skin, the wrinkles, and the black age spots all over his face made him feel devastated.
Then Helmut belatedly shouted in a frightened voice.
“Wait! The magician! Let me speak to the magician!”
Imil stopped walking and looked back.
“He said that the future of humankind is in my hands! That’s why I agreed to a plan to assassinate His Majesty—because humankind can only shine under the leadership of an emperor who is eternal! What happened to that plan and that will?” Helmut asked in a desperate voice.
“Oh, that plan is still solid.”
Helmut lay flat on his stomach and begged with a distorted smile upon hearing Imil’s answer.
“I-I can still go on! If I can meet the magician again to persuade him, I might be able to…!”
“But you are out of the plan now. That was actually decided a long time ago. We are already ready to greet the new emperor. It’s better for you to die now rather than later.”
Then, Imil ignored Helmut and walked on.
Seeing this, Helmut, who had been lying on his stomach, immediately ran toward Imil with an angry shout.
Although Imil wasn’t weak enough to be attacked by an old man with no arms, he sighed and briefly muttered.
“Igel, Ioshiff.”
Swoosh!
Two people suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The two people were wearing black robes and quickly passed by the Pope’s left and right like the wind at the same time.
Without even being able to realize what was going on, Helmut fell down to the floor with a loud thud. Then, Helmut, who was trying to raise himself up while screaming and rolling around the floor, felt an intense pain coming from his lower body.
When he slowly looked down at his legs, he realized that even the remainder of his legs were cut off all the way up to his thighs—and one more body part other than his legs was also rolling on the floor.
“Ugh, Ahhhhhhh! Aghhhh!”
At the same time, the man and woman with white hair both looked at each other with displeased expressions as they listened to Helmut’s screams.
“Hey sis, that was unnecessarily cruel of you.”
“I didn't do that because I wanted to. I just didn’t expect him to keep it on his left side. Ugh, my sword is dirty now.”
“Well, most men keep it on the left.”
“That’s something I didn’t want to know about.”
The man sighed and approached Helmut, who was still screaming. Right when he lifted his sword to finish Helmut off, Imil stopped him.
“Just leave him, Igel. I want this pig to drown in his own blood and die alone.”
“Then we’ll have to get out of here now. I think he’s going to die quite soon.”
‘Die? Me?’
Helmut gasped for air and tried to move, but all he could manage was wriggling like a bug.
Imil frowned at the pathetic sight of Helmut crying and moved on. Helmut’s current state was an overly ugly sight for someone who was said to be the Pope of the empire.
Meanwhile, Helmut, who once again tried to stand up, slipped on his own blood and hit his face against the floor.
Crack!
With a terrible sound, Helmut’s body lost all its strength. His face fell into a shallow pool of blood and the stagnant blood entered his nose and mouth. While it was a shallow puddle of blood that was only as deep as a finger joint, Helmut couldn’t lift his head up.
‘This is ridiculous. This is how I will die? By falling into a puddle of my own blood—a puddle the size of a small dish, struggling like a trivial worm?’
***
“It’s beer!”
The soldiers hurriedly shared their glasses when they found a beer barrel that someone had thrown away in the barn. The inside of the barn was damp and muddy with feces due to the rain that had continued for several days.
The beer also smelled strange, but to the starved soldiers, it tasted sweeter than ever. The soldiers rushed to pour beer into their glasses and proposed a toast.
“For Greg, Olie, and Heartmal.”
“Don’t forget about Dowd. That punk… he only volunteered because of me…”
“Let’s give up a glass for all the idiots who died because of all the bloody gods.”
The soldiers murmured and raised a gloomy toast. When one soldier shouted for a toast, everyone emptied their glass all at once. Then they shared another glass of beer to wait for the next soldier to shout for a toast. The soldiers were getting drunk fast, but none of them forgot to mourn their fallen comrades.
“Hey, Priest! Say something, man! It’s your turn!”
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Someone shouted at a man when it was finally his turn. The man, who was just emptying his glass with a blank mind, suddenly came to his senses.
This was not the tower housing Telgramm. All of his arms and legs were still intact.
Only then did Helmut slowly look around as he came to his senses. He was in a dirty and damp barn that smelled of poop.
‘I remember.’
It was the time when he was on his way to overthrow Ainheryar, the god of beasts. The soldiers were attacked by a group of Beastmen. The troops were defeated and only a few of the defeated soldiers managed to escape. Even the soldiers in front of Helmut right now died less than a week after this feast.
In the end, Helmut was the only one who survived.
“Hey, are you serious? There’s beer right in front of you, but you can’t drink it because you can’t raise a toast? Come on, Priestman. You used to talk a lot. What’s the matter?”
Helmut hesitated when the soldiers urged him, but soon raised his glass and opened his mouth.
“Long live His Majesty.”
Everyone repeated Helmut’s toast in a loud voice. Finally, there was no one else left to raise a toast, and so the soldiers began to drink as they willed.
At that moment, a person started talking to Helmut.
“Hey, mister Priest.”
‘Mister Priest’ was Helmut’s nickname. It was a nickname given to him by his colleagues, since Helmut praised the emperor every single time he opened his mouth. In an era when gods were despised by humans, being called “Priest” was never a good thing.
But Helmut didn’t think bad of the nickname; he felt like he was serving the emperor as his closest aide.
“You say long live His Majesty all the time. So how long do you want him to live?”
This was a question the soldiers wouldn’t normally ask, but at the moment, they were all drunk and willing to chat about anything.
“Ten thousand years—so basically forever,” Helmut answered.
“Hah, you want His Majesty to live for ten thousand years? I mean, it would be nice, but is that even possible? His Majesty himself said he is a human. I don’t think he would be a human being if he could live until he became ten thousand years old.”
“Nothing is impossible for His Majesty. Anything is possible if HIs Majesty decides to do it.”
“Haha, what are you saying? Anything is possible if His Majesty decides to do it? That’s a little… god-like.”
“You’re right. His Majesty is the god of humans.”
The barn fell silent for a moment.
The soldier who had asked the question was squinting while looking at Helmut.
Before he knew it, all the soldiers in the barn were looking at Helmut. Everyone here had lost a family member or someone precious to the gods.
The soldiers patted Helmut on the chest and started speaking in a tone that seemed like they were picking a fight.
“His Majesty is the best of all human beings. It is true that he is so strong that even gods are no match for him, but calling him a god is kind of messed up. We’re doing this crap to escape the domination of gods , but you’re saying that we are being ruled by a god once again?”
“But not all gods are…”
Helmut couldn’t finish his words. The soldier punched Helmut, while the rest of the soldiers joined in as well; some of the soldiers tried to stop the fight, while the others began to kick Helmut.
All Helmut could do was roll around in a pile of feces and get beaten helplessly.
“Stop!”
At that moment, the soldiers immediately stopped upon hearing a loud voice. Someone had opened the door to the bar.
A man with shining blond hair like the golden sun entered the barn. As soon as the soldiers recognized the man’s face, they quickly prostrated themselves.
There was only one man that looked like the emperor and had blonde hair.
It was Gerard Gain, the eldest son of the emperor.
“I heard that there were fallen soldiers, so I came to see you all. While I compliment all of you for fighting so bravely, I didn’t expect you all to be drinking and even beating up your own comrade.”
The soldiers looked at each other with perplexed expressions. They all felt more sober than ever.
Gerard approached Helmut, who was still lying on the ground, and reached out his hand to help him up.
Helmut hesitantly opened his mouth.
“Your hand will get dirty, Your Highness.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Gerard raised Helmut up from the dirty ground and then asked the other soldiers.
“Why were you beating this man up? Did he break any rules? As far as I know, private scuffles between soldiers are prohibited.”
The soldiers only looked at each other and did not open their mouths. There was no way they could say in front of the emperor’s own son that they were not happy with Helmut’s wish for the emperor to live forever.
As the soldiers remained silent, Gerard turned to Helmut.
“You tell me first. They will speak up if they feel anything you say is unfair.”
Helmut hesitated for a while, but soon spoke about what happened.
For a moment, Gerard had a dumbfounded expression, but soon became angry. He even placed his hand on the handle of his sword at one point of the story. As the conversation dragged on, Gerard opened his mouth with a serious look.
“This is a serious matter. Are there many soldiers in the military who think like you?”
“I understand that there are more than just a few. Your Highness, if you would just listen to me for a little longer…”
“What you’re saying goes against His Majesty’s will. But I’m worried that there are a lot of people who think like you. Come with me—I don’t think this matter can be solved by simply punishing you. I’ll have to listen to your story in more detail to prepare counter arguments and to persuade you.”
Gerard went out of the barn after speaking.
While Helmut was discouraged, the other soldiers were laughing and glaring at him from behind.
The figure of Gerard began to grow far away as he walked on.
When Helmut hurriedly opened the door of the barn to catch up with him, a sudden terrible smell of blood assaulted him. It was the disgusting smell of stale blood.
Helmut tried to cover his nose to avoid the stench, but he belatedly realized that he had no arms to do so. He tried to scream, but he could only hear the sound of blood bubbling. The only thing that entered his nose was blood no matter how hard he tried to breathe.
None of his limbs could move according to his will. Helmut felt like he had become a worm-like young boy, once again crawling in a mining cave like a long time ago.
Soon, Helmut stopped twitching.