The Priest of Corruption

Sajita Porgon.

‘Kill! Kill!’

Hearing Mother’s cheerful voice saying that the guy was completely scared, I swung the Froststeel blade. The sword carved out the throat of the next man who entered to fight.

Thud.

Two already fallen corpses were half-caught in the entrance. A roar sounded outside.

“F-Fuck! What the fuck, dying as soon as they enter! Fuck!”

“Is he a monster?!”

“I-I don’t want to go in! You go in first!”

“Don’t push! Bastard! I’m not going in!”

They were weaker than I expected. I guess I didn’t have to be nervous. I was wary because I thought there would be a certain system for their fighting since they were a fairly large group.

I tapped the large man at my feet.

“If you don’t treat that right now, you’ll die soon. If you tell me who your client is, I’ll give you first aid. If there’s a skilled doctor in town, they might be able to reattach the arm.”

This middle-aged man had fat all over his body and was starting to sag. Judging from his physique, he might have been quite strong in his old days, but now, he was just an ordinary mercenary. Since his arm was cut off, he couldn’t even be considered a threat.

Who I really should be wary of was the leader of this mercenary corps standing a few feet away.

His solid muscles were somewhere in the middle between bulging and agile. He looked at me blankly and couldn’t do anything, but he was ready to fight back if I approached. In addition, that meticulously prepared armor was well-designed and might prove a problem.

“S-Sajita! What are you doing? Hurry up and help me! I’m really going to die!

I didn’t know where the boldness of this one calling me ‘hyung’ went, but the one-armed man looked for his leader. Apparently, this man had no intention of answering my question. There were more mouths out there, so there was no need to keep him alive.

I swung my sword to grant him a swift and painless death.

Clank!

However, my sword bounced off the tip of a spear and didn’t fulfill its purpose. A sharp burst followed. The spear threatened my vital points, wriggling like a snake. I retreated calmly and swung at the spear’s haft. It gently retreated as if it had no intention of targeting me in the first place. Suddenly, the man named Sajita dug between me and the man whose arm had been cut off, wielding a shield in his left hand.

Clank!

It was a heavy collision. I had the upper hand, but I had no choice but to step back again to avoid the sharp spear blade.

“I thought you would stand still.”

The maybe early thirties? The shaggy, platinum-haired man, Sajita, pressed down on his helmet and spoke in a low voice.

“I wanted to, but like it or not, we have been together for 15 years.”

With that short answer, he shouted as loudly as possible.

“Someone, come in and take Pelguin! Right now!”

But no one dared to enter the barracks in response to his call, and they whispered outside.

“S-Sajita wants someone to go in.”

“Fuck! What if I go in and end up like the guys that went in first?! I’m not going in!”

“Don’t push! You bastards! I don’t want to go in either!”

Sajita clenched his teeth and said to me.

“Is it okay if you let this man go?”

I smiled softly and pulled out the Butcher.

“No.”

To show mercy to an enemy that was still alive was extremely foolish. Even more now when I was alone in the enemy camp. I turned on the Butcher’s engine. The metal blades started with a screech.

Whaaaaaaang!

I swung the Butcher at Sajita. He held out his shield with a dreadful calmness. A shield like this would be torn like a piece of paper in front of the Butcher.

Clank, clank, clank, clank!

Contrary to my expectations, the Butcher couldn’t tear Sajita’s shield apart. Was the entire shield made of Froststeel? A simple Froststeel shield could have been ripped apart if I was wielding the Butcher with all my might. However, his mysterious shield technique prevented me from doing so.

Sajita wasn’t satisfied with mere defense. He let the Butcher pass by and aimed the spear at me. This man. He certainly had better skills than me. But it was such a small difference since I had the physical ability to ignore them.

I put one foot forward and forcibly broke the trajectory of the Butcher. It was a crude move, but it contained the power to tear a person apart.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaang!

The Butcher howled for flesh. Sajita let go of the spear and stepped back. And that move saved him. The metal blade rotating at high speed passed him by a hair.

His spear hit the floor. Sajita opened the entrance to the barracks and ran out screaming.

“Everyone, don’t block him and get out of the way!”

I chased him out of the barracks. The mercenaries were densely packed around the barracks. It was necessary to get a head start, and the Butcher was more than enough weapon for that role.

“Get out of here right now!”

Ignoring Sajita’s screams, I swung the Butcher at the nearest mercenary, scattering his intestines across the snow.

I wasn’t satisfied with that. Before the mercenaries could scream, I rushed into their ranks. I wouldn’t let their archers dare to shoot.

Whaaaaaaaaaaang!

The Butcher took blood and flesh and wept with joy. The mercenaries were far weaker than I expected. Seeing the ones next to them torn apart, they chose to run away in confusion rather than take the chance to fight back.

“F-Fuck! Get out of my way! I said get out of my way!”

“I-I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! Fuck!”

Like a wolf jumping into a sheepfold, I tore everything I touched. The white priest’s uniform was once again stained red.

“Move away!”

Sajita jabbed at my side. I grabbed the upper body of the mercenary that I’d just cut apart to block. The spear blade lodged in his corpse. Letting go, I swung the Butcher. It ground through the corpse, and the spear haft to reach Sajita.

He dropped the spear again this time. I was truly amazed at his skill in thoroughly defending himself. It had been a long time since I’d seen someone at this level.

Sajita shouted, picking up a new spear among the corpses.

“Pelguin is in my barracks! Get him while I’m dealing with that priest! You bastards!”

Clank!

The blade of his spear struck precisely in the Butcher’s side. This time, I didn’t force the exchange and threw him back. Instead, I ran closer to Sajita and swung my left fist. It was a blow aimed at his jaw, but he checked the path and pushed his iron-padded shoulder to block it.

Bang!

The iron plate on his shoulder collapsed, and Sajita flew through the air and crashed into the snowfield. I raised the Butcher again, and Sajita jumped up and shouted.

“Shoot!”

‘Kill!!!’

Mother’s sharp warning rang in my ears. Were the archers really here? It’d be troublesome if the arrows got stuck in my joints. As Sajita and I ran wild, I noticed no one was standing around me. Thanks to that, I was the perfect target to shoot.

But the arrows did not fly.

‘Kill…?’

I heard Mother’s very bewildered voice. Sajita’s complexion grew even redder.

“These damn bastards! Seriously!”

He was abandoned. The mercenaries around me had already gathered anything with value and ran off. Perhaps the archers had followed.

I revved the Butcher’s engine and grinned.

“Are you going to do more?”

Sajita, silently looking at my face, threw his spear down and sighed.

“I’ll surrender, and I’ll tell you everything. Just let me live.”

***

I accepted Sajita’s surrender. As soon as I did, he showed me he had no intention of antagonizing me and walked straight into his barracks. He checked on the condition of the man whose arm had been cut off.

“He’s already dead.”

I stood a little further away and asked.

“Have you changed your mind?”

He closed the eyes of the corpse and shook his head.

“No. I wanted to grab him one day and beat him to death, but it’s strange now that he’s dead. Is it okay if I bury him?”

“I don’t care if you bury him, but I want you to answer my questions first.”

“Yes.”

He revealed everything, but the only information I could get was that the organization pursuing Dachia was Ilech. I couldn’t tell whether Ilech wanted Dachia or if someone had commissioned Ilech. After all, this mercenary group was only subcontracted to them.

Sajita, after telling me everything, buried the bodies of the dead mercenaries one by one, and I followed him with a shovel in hand.

“You don’t have to help.”

I replied with a smile.

“Together, it will be over sooner.”

Sajita, muttering, ‘Together…’ began to shovel again. Finally, after we were done, he asked me.

“Is it okay if I go?”

To be honest, I seriously thought about whether it would be better to kill him after hearing all this information, but I made up my mind after seeing him sort things out on his own.

“Do you not hate me?”

Sajita looked at my face and smiled.

“If I say I do, will you kill me?”

I smiled.

“Do I really need to keep someone who hates me alive?”

“You’re right.”

Sajita opened and closed his mouth a few times as if he wanted to say something but swallowed it repeatedly. I stood quietly and waited for his answer.

“I’m not good at talking, so it’s not easy to explain, but since being a mercenary is basically a job of killing, if things go wrong, I often end up working the next day with the people who broke my colleague’s head the day before. Of course, I’m not naive enough to be friends with them, but I don’t want to kill them either.”

Running his hands through his shaggy hair repeatedly, he let out a sad laugh.

“So, I don’t hate you. It’s just a bit sad that things happened like this. Besides, we were a mercenary group that would fall apart anyway.”

“What are you going to do next?”

“I don’t know. I’m alone for the first time in 15 years, so I’m at a loss. Well, the only thing I know how to do is to fight, so I guess I’ll end up working as a mercenary again.”

“Then why don’t you take this opportunity to meet a new employer who gives you a lot of money?”

“Yes?”

The way he asked back with surprise looked uncharacteristically naive.

***

‘Kill!’

Following Mother’s advice not to forget to harvest the corpses, I told Sajita that I would pray for the dead briefly and then harvest their divinity.

[Divinity: 2023]

***

When I opened the inn door, I saw Dachia muttering with her half-open eyes. It was a little late for breakfast, but seeing that Carmen was nowhere to be seen, it seemed as if he had breakfast alone first, and Dachia woke up late and was eating now. As she chewed her bread with a blank face, her eyes widened when she saw me.

It was understandable since my uniform returned to pure white under Maintenance’s protection, but my head and face were covered with blood.

“Mmmp!”

Dachia was about to shout something, but the bread she had eaten got stuck in her throat. She coughed for a while, then gulped down some water.

“W-What the hell are you doing here with blood all over your face?!”

“Can I take a bath first and explain the details of the situation after? I’ve solved the problem.”

She looked at me a moment longer and nodded.

“Yes. But who is the person behind you…?”

I smiled, pointing to Sajita, who stood awkwardly behind me like a stranger’s cat.

“Princess, do you have any plans to hire a mercenary who can fight?”