The Priest of Corruption

Warm Welcome.

“When!-Is he!-Coming!”

The purple-haired woman ran frantically in place, her teeth chattering. The man breathed a deep sigh as he ran his hands over his face.

“Now I’m really curious. He’s coming here, right? At least before I go crazy listening to that whimpering.”

The woman wrapped in a black robe buried her body deeper in the chair and nodded.

“He’ll be here soon. I’m checking the route periodically.”

“That’s! That’s! True! True! Right!”

The woman sitting in the chair pushed the purple-haired woman and spoke.

“Yeah, it’s true, so can you go over there and play alone? I have to take a break and go get ready again.”

“I’m! Working! Too! You’re not the only one working! But he’s coming, right? Here to Eradico!”

“It’s true that he’s coming here. Why can’t you trust people?”

“I do! I do!”

The lady with purple hair said, her sparkling eyes the same color as her hair.

“But! If! If he doesn’t come here, you’re going to die! I’m going to chop you up and kill you myself!”

***

After washing my body thoroughly in the bath and returning to the first floor, Dachia was asking Sajita about this and that. While Sajita was eating, he politely answered all Dachia’s questions. I sat next to Dachia and ordered food for myself. Come to think of it, I had been running wild on an empty stomach since dawn, so this was my first meal of the day.

Dachia stared at me as I sat down.

“Did you get behind the ears?”

“I washed very well.”

There was an edge in her voice. I noticed the likely cause, but I decided to solve my doubts first.

“So, did you decide to hire this mercenary?”

“Yes. We reached an agreement on the pay.”

It was a very short answer. Dachia kept constantly displaying that she was hugely dissatisfied with me now.

‘Kill!’

Mother complained that she was a troublesome woman. Honestly, that level of annoyance was nothing compared to when Mother threw a tantr…
I quickly stopped those blasphemous thoughts. Of course, Mother’s annoyance was adorable. I smiled at Dachia.

“Is it because I was left alone without a word?”

She squinted her big golden eyes and looked at me as if it was even more annoying that I knew what I’d done.

“You know very well why. I certainly thought that we had built a stronger bond through the honest conversation we had last night, but I guess that was my misunderstanding. Priest Marnak went alone without any ‘consultation’ with Carmen or me.”

Her point was certainly correct.

“Princess.”

“Yes.”

Dachia answered my call as if I should try hard to refute it. I looked into her eyes.

“Have you ever killed someone yourself, Princess?”

Her voice deflated.

“No…”

“That’s why I went alone. I decided this was something that might have to be dealt with harshly. As you can see, there was bloodshed.”

Dachia sorted out her thoughts for a moment, then spoke again.

“Still, couldn’t you have told us in advance? I slept soundly without knowing anything. It wasn’t until after breakfast we realized you left.”

That was why I went alone. But just then, the owner put the hot food in front of me. I bowed my head lightly, thanking him, and turned to Dachia.
“Next time, I will tell you in advance.”

I had too many things that I could use to refute her words, but I didn’t come down to quarrel with her now. I came to eat, and Dachia beamed at my declaration of surrender.

“Then let’s call it even with what I did yesterday.”

I tore into the warm bread.

“I’m really glad that we can call it even.”

As I was munching on the bread that I couldn’t taste, Dachia’s eyes shone brightly at me.

“But what the hell happened? No matter how much I asked Sajita over there, he said you would answer everything so that he won’t tell me anything.”

Sajita, who had been quietly eating, glanced at me and concentrated on his meal again. It was clear that he thought it was too sensitive to talk about. Just when I was about to start explaining, Carmen ran in.

“Princess Dachia! Marnak went alone to negotiate with the mercenaries!”

Carmen then looked at my face, his expression growing bewildered.

“I was going to help, but you already returned, huh?”

He slumped down in the seat next to Sajita with a look of disappointment.
“If I had known that you had already come back, I wouldn’t have run off in a hurry. But who is this…?”

I answered as I cut the ham into bite-sized pieces.

“This is a newly mercenary for the princess. Introduce yourselves.”
Sajita bowed his head.

“I am Sajita Porgon, the son of Gilta Porgon.”

“Porgon?”

“I guess you won’t know even if I explain it. It’s already a ruined family.”

Carmen nodded and replied politely.

“I am Carmen Baltas, son of Ensis Baltas. Please take good care of me.”

“Yes.”

Carmen, after talking to Sajita, asked me.

“So, what happened?”

Thanks to Carmen’s arrival, I was saved from the trouble of explaining it twice. I explained to them the whole story. The fact that the Red Bears came to this village in search of Dachia and the fact that Sajita was their leader, and that it was Ilech that ordered them.

After hearing the story, Dachia regarded Sajita warily.

“You…I can trust you, right?”

Sajita hesitated to explain everything to Dachia but eventually gave up and asked me for help with his eyes. Watching him, I grinned. I met him not long ago, but he’d been a very consistent man thus far.

“You can trust him. As I said, he’s been abandoned by the other mercenaries.”

Dachia glanced between us.

“I’ll trust you in consideration of Priest Marnak, but I hope we don’t have any problems.”

Sajita replied with a relieved look.

“Yes.”

Carmen smiled softly, refreshing the atmosphere.

“I am very happy to have another reliable companion.”

Carmen didn’t raise any objection to me doing the work alone or bringing Sajita with me, and he seemed to believe that I took good care of it.

“Then I’ll have to go back to the village smithy first. I was picking up arrowheads and heard the news on the way and came running. It’s already late, so why don’t we set off early tomorrow morning?”

We agreed to Carmen’s suggestion, took a good day off, and set off again in the morning.

***

Dachia stared at the pile of firewood with a more serious face than ever. She cast a spell in a low voice as mana fluctuated and responded to her spell. A small spark lit up the firewood. Quickly the spark grew out of control and exploded.

Pop!

Watching her from afar, Carmen tapped Sajita on the shoulder.

“Let’s go pick up firewood again.”

They had let go of formalities over the past few days due to Sajita’s unique sociability. Sajita nodded.

“Okay.”

While the two of them went back to pick up more firewood, I moved on to do my part in appeasing the gloomy Dachia. She squatted and looked at the wreckage of the explosion.

“I thought it was going to work this time…”

“Isn’t the size of the explosion smaller than it was a few days ago? If the size of the explosion continues to decrease like this, I’m sure it will normally ignite sooner or later.”

“To think I’m a wizard who can’t light a single fire…”

Dachia was a wizard, but she wasn’t very good at magic. To be precise, she wasn’t very accustomed to using magic. She was far more proficient with a sword. This was the case since she had deliberately turned away from magic to cultivate herself as a noblewoman.

Dachia started practicing magic again when I, who didn’t know anything about it, asked her a few days ago if she could help us prepare for encampment with an illusion. So, after the catastrophe on the first day, she tried to do magic repeatedly but only grew more frustrated with it.

Thanks to that, it became my job to appease Dachia after her failures.

Still, if it was a small explosion like this, it was a huge improvement compared to the first day. It had almost started a forest fire.

‘Kill! Kill!’

I gently patted Mother, who teased her that a wizard who couldn’t even light a campfire was here, before appeasing Dachia again.

“Princess. Everyone was inexperienced once.”

Dachia answered in a gloomy voice.

“I was good with magic as a child, you know? I haven’t used it on purpose, but I never dreamed it was this serious. Really.”

Indeed, I’d never seen a wizard in this serious of a state before. It should be as natural as breathing for them to deal with magic. But my honest sentiment was that I truly admired her persistence in ignoring magic until she reached this state. Did a wizard have to go this far to be educated?

“It will get better.”

Dachia slowly raised her head and looked into my eyes.

“It really will, right?”

“Yes.”

She got up and began to prepare the camp. We had to work hard to get firewood twice every time because of Dachia, but considering the amount of gold I weighed, I could think of it as cute.

We told her repeatedly that she didn’t need to help and that it was okay for her to rest, but Dachia said that would never happen as we were all traveling together, and she made herself busy every time to help us prepare for camp. She was also quite skilled, except as a wizard.

As Dachia and I were preparing the camp, Sajita and Carmen came in with new loads of dry wood. With a fire lit, Sajita sat down and started preparing dinner.

Of course, I couldn’t cook because of my ruined taste buds, and Dachia and Carmen weren’t very good at it either. Maybe it was because of his long mercenary life, but Sajita was very good at cooking, unlike us, so naturally, he was in charge of our meals.

While we were sitting around the bonfire and eating what Sajita cooked, Dachia said.

“Are we arriving at Eradico tomorrow?”

I nodded.

“Yeah, I guess we’ll be able to soak ourselves in warm water tomorrow night.”

‘Kill!’

Mother hummed happily, saying that bathing in hot water was always welcome. Carmen smiled.

“But we don’t know when Ilech will target Princess Dachia, so we shouldn’t let our guard down.”

But upon leaving town for Eradico, there were no further ambushes from Ilech. I was sure it’d be much easier to deal with us while camping out here than in the city.

Attacking the nobility within the city was no different than a head-on assault against the lord who ruled there. Of course, to appease the lord, one would have to pay the price commensurate with the honor they lost. Of course, even if the price was paid, whether the lord accepted the price and resolved their rage was another matter.

The reason Dachia talked about taking a good rest was that she was aware of this situation. Still, as Carmen said, we shouldn’t let our guards down too much.

***

The next day, we were greeted warmly when we arrived at the gates of Eradico. Not exactly us, but me. The guard, who came out flying after checking my uniform inside the fur coat, said with a bright smile.

“Priest! You must be a priest!”

I nodded with a puzzled look on my brow.

“Yes. I am a priest.”

The guard clung to me.

“Priest! I’m begging you; please go to the Trumpeter of Rest who won’t obey even the lord’s words and tell him to stop raising the dead. We’ll give you a big reward!”