Chapter 21
After steadying the swaying curtain, Aquila stepped out into the corridor.
Cahena was already nowhere to be seen.
It seemed she had chased after the guild member carrying the envelope and moved far away by now.
Passing the four small confession booths lined up side by side, Aquila headed deeper into the corridor that led to the confessional chamber.
The path bent to the right.
Before turning the corner, Aquila and Shen pressed themselves tightly against the wall and peeked out, showing only their heads.
The door to the confessional chamber was half open, but Martio and the guild member were nowhere to be seen, as though they had already gone inside.
Aquila regulated his breathing and strained his ears to catch any sound coming from within.
A faint murmur.
He tried to focus on the indistinct noise, but it was so quiet that he could not make out anything at all.
Moreover, there was no sense that they were about to move.
‘Why are they not coming out right away? What are they doing in there?’
Relaxing the frown he had formed in concentration, Aquila turned to look at Shen.
“Let us move closer.”
He motioned with his hand toward Shen, who was leaning so low that he was nearly lying on the floor, and mouthed the words silently.
“Would it not be dangerous if we get any closer?”
“We cannot hear anything from here.”
“Then I will go alone—”
“Let us go.”
Aquila cut him off before Shen could finish and started to move forward first.
But Shen suddenly thrust out an arm in front of him and shook his head.
“…I will take the lead.”
After checking once more to make sure no one was coming out of the confessional chamber, he quietly moved ahead.
Shen’s movements were as light as snow settling on a window frame, and remarkably swift.
Not a single breath escaped him, nor did the slightest sound arise from his feet touching the corridor floor.
The attendant quickly reached the front of the confessional chamber and hid himself behind the half-open door.
Watching him, Aquila swallowed a breath in disbelief.
Did he have any intention at all of hiding his skills?
Even to Aquila’s eyes, Shen’s movements were far from ordinary.
They were not quite on the level of a member of the Guild of Darkness, but they were secretive and covert all the same.
In previous cycles, Aquila had lived as a hunter and prided himself on suppressing his presence, but that was not merely what one could call hiding one’s presence.
‘Did the House Reschenhardt ever train assassins instead of knights?’
He searched his memory, but only a few knights produced by the House Reschenhardt came to mind.
Shaking his head, he lowered his body and approached the confessional chamber.
He moved to Shen’s side and cast a subtle glance at his face.
Unlike his usual expression, the devoted attendant looked extremely serious and silent.
Shen pointed at the doorway several times with his index finger.
“…So you are saying we should put them together in a carriage and send them off?”
Only then did the voices of the conversation, which had been too distant to hear clearly, begin to reach them.
Aquila turned his gaze away from the ash-blond hair and pressed his ear closer to the door.
“That is right. I will retrieve them separately on the way to Belmaburn.”
“Hoh… I am surprised you would set the price so high. Even if the face is passable, I cannot guarantee it will be worth that much.”
The quiet exchange between Martio and the unidentified guild member continued.
It was a stark contrast to the brazen voices they had used out in the corridor.
Aquila narrowed his eyes.
So that was what they were doing. It seemed another deal, different from before, was being struck between them.
“It does not matter what you think. I am buying something you were going to throw away anyway, so I do not see what the problem is.”
“This girl is hardly young. It has already been three years since she underwent her coming-of-age ceremony. What on earth are you planning to use her for…?”
“That is none of your concern. If I recall correctly, the first condition written into the contract was that you do not ask about the purpose.”
The guild member cut Martio off with a warning.
The restless footsteps that had been pacing about inside abruptly stopped.
“…Hm. Hm! I am not particularly curious, so do not misunderstand. I have no intention of digging deeply. I was merely wondering where you intended to take the one I have raised all this time.”
Martio rambled on with a tone that sounded like an excuse.
Aquila pulled his ear away from the door.
‘…So even the children from the orphanage are not enough, and now he intends to sell off Yujelia as well.’
His mind raced, seizing upon several familiar keywords.
Children under the age of twelve who had completed their baptism.
‘Belmaburn. Since he said they are being transported all the way to that city of all places, I can guess what the children are going to be used for.’
In the future, there had been an incident in which monsters appeared in a residential area of Belmaburn and swept through the city.
They were monsters called Wraiths, with completely transparent bodies that looked like ghosts, and they were often found in places where many people had been buried or had died, such as graves or burial grounds.
Those creatures had appeared in Belmaburn’s residential district.
After subjugating the monsters and investigating the surrounding area, ritual tools used for Black Magic were discovered in several homes.
Thus, it was revealed that experiments had been conducted in Belmaburn to sacrifice people and turn them into monsters.
‘The Wraiths that appeared in Belmaburn back then were said to all have bodies as small as those of children.’
Furthermore, the investigation into those experiments uncovered evidence that the Guild of Darkness had been involved in this matter as well.
It was hardly surprising, since they were almost always connected to affairs like this.
‘Every time a new cycle begins, the Guild of Darkness is always the first problem. Just how far does their influence spread?’
Deep fatigue settled into Aquila’s black eyes.
If he allowed the orphans being sent from here to Belmaburn to go unchecked, it was certain that every one of those children would become material for those experiments.
He rubbed his face several times with his palm.
Still, there was an unexpected gain.
The fact that they were still sending children to Belmaburn meant that, at this point in time, the experiments had not yet succeeded.
If he could secure proper evidence now, it might be possible to stop the experiments being conducted in Belmaburn.
If that happened, he could prevent the chain of events that would occur after the experiments succeeded.
“…Well, in any case. If you are paying that much, I have no reason to refuse. It is all the better if you take care of the trash disposal yourself.”
Martio sounded displeased, but he did not seem inclined to cancel the deal.
Aquila glanced toward the doorway.
Yujelia was not a child under twelve as they had described earlier, and she was a priestess of the Sun God affiliated with the Grand Temple of Portplum.
Moreover, she had openly declared her intention to accompany Aquila Reschenhardt in front of Ianpel the Saint.
That was something Ianpel would surely remember clearly.
Whatever excuse they planned to use to hand Yujelia over, the place she was being taken to would not be anything normal.
“Then I will assume you agree to the deal and move her to the carriage’s cargo hold rather than a room.”
“Will she not wake up along the way? I was planning to keep watch until dawn—”
“She was given a drug that keeps her unconscious for an entire day. There is no chance she will wake up.”
“Oh, my. That is unfortunate. I was hoping for a chance to discipline her again, like before. That part is a bit disappointing.”
Martio spoke with a voice thick with desire, then clicked his tongue.
“Tsk, tsk. Still, this means you will no longer have the chance to fawn over that noble either, so in truth, you are the one losing out more than I am.”
At the bishop’s continued words, Aquila lifted his head as if to shake off his thoughts.
He then met Shen’s eyes, which were twisted with barely contained fury.
The attendant did not bother to hide his disgust, even though Aquila was watching him.
Before Aquila could say anything, Shen grabbed his hand and pointed toward the end of the corridor, as though urging them to move farther away.
Aquila hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
Shen once again moved without making a sound and led him as far as the angel statue that concealed the hidden passage.
Standing before it, he silently mouthed the words.
“…Shall we kill them?”
“What?”
“Both of them. Shall we kill them?”
Releasing Aquila’s wrist, Shen drew his thumb across his own throat in a slashing gesture.
Aquila was momentarily at a loss for words at the violent motion.
Considering everything, including how Shen had suggested sneaking in through a hidden passage, the attendant was definitely acting strangely today.
At least, compared to how Aquila had seen him until now.
“They were rude to you as well, Young Master, and what they are doing not only to Yujelia but also to the children is despicable…”
Shen glanced toward the corner of the corridor and whispered rapidly in a low voice.
He was clearly furious.
Even if Martio himself did not seem to know the exact purpose, selling children was unquestionably a crime.
However, Aquila could not agree to it immediately.
Not because of the bishop, but because of the guild member from the Guild of Darkness.
Given that he had mentioned Belmaburn, he was likely connected to the experiments to some degree and almost certainly possessed useful information.
So Aquila shook his head, indicating no.
He did not have the luxury to waste time on minor characters who could be disposed of now or later.
Finding a way to prevent the events that would occur in the future took priority.
When Aquila did not show agreement, Shen looked visibly shocked.
“Are you not angry, Young Master? After what they did to Yujelia, to do such things…”
“Of course I am. But, Shen, we came here secretly. More importantly, killing them is not always the best solution. Rather—”
“Kill them? Whom are you talking about?”
Before Aquila could finish trying to calm Shen, another voice cut in between them.
The owner of the familiar voice, Cahena, appeared without the slightest sign of her presence and abruptly stuck her head between them.
“…!”
“Mm—!”
“Oh my.”
Startled, Shen nearly cried out, but Cahena, having anticipated it, raised both hands and covered their mouths.
Both Shen’s and Aquila’s mouths.
Aquila, however, only rolled his eyes with a stiff expression and made no sound at all.
It was not that Cahena’s sudden appearance had not startled him, but after living through multiple cycles, he had developed the habit of forcibly suppressing any noise in any situation.
She looked at Aquila with interest, then broke into a grin.
“Our little young master is the more composed one.”
As Shen clutched his chest and took deep breaths to calm his racing heart, Cahena continued teasing him.
With a sigh, Aquila pulled her hands away.
“You took longer than expected.”
“Oh? I did not expect you to say that first. Well, I am not making excuses, but that fellow went quite far. More importantly, here you are.”
Cahena pulled a thick envelope from her bosom.
It was the same item Martio had handed to the guild member, and it was pristine, without a single crease.
Aquila accepted it and briefly flipped through the documents inside before putting it away.
Even a cursory glance was enough to confirm that it contained information about the Temple of the Sun.
“What about that man earlier? Did you kill him?”
“I handled him just the way you wanted, little young master, yes.”
“The body?”
She stared straight at Aquila’s face, then slowly stroked the hilt of the sword hanging at her waist.
The white-painted handle was remarkably clean.
“I left it nearby for now, but it would be better if you did not see it.”
Aquila glanced sideways toward the end of the corridor leading outside.
Seeing that Shen was looking in the same direction, it seemed she had left the body somewhere out there.
It was obvious that the man would bear the mark of the Guild of Darkness, but it would still be better to confirm it once.
“More importantly, who do we kill next? What should I do now?”
Cahena smiled as she spoke.
Despite the brutal content of her words, her expression was strangely reassuring.
“That is right. While Vice-Captain Cahena was taking her time to the point that you even pointed it out, Young Master, something serious happened.”
“Shen? The Young Master is here. Are you really speaking to me like that?”
“That fool you called stupid was selling the children—”
“I have been hearing whispering for a while now. Even when I tried to ignore it, strange things kept reaching my ears.”
Before Shen could finish, yet another voice intervened.
Not from outside, but from deeper within the corridor.
Light footsteps echoed from the direction of the confessional chamber, and someone appeared.
“So the rats who snuck in without anyone knowing have gathered here.”