The Life of a Wise Cult Leader - Chapter 181

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 181

Rather than immediately lashing out and asking why not, I tried to calmly assess him.

“Is there a reason?”

“I don’t know how the Knight Commander’s body was taken, but it surely wasn’t voluntary. Right?”

“Yes.”

“Mine was voluntary. Though it’s closer to being deceived. Like being fooled by a fake contract and stamping and signing it.”

The rigid noble’s characteristic arrogant tone softened as it carried self-reproach.

“I didn’t want to be a burden to the Ascetic, and she saw right through my heart and played her cunning tricks. Personal incompetence is nothing compared to her schemes. What’s truly terrifying is that she’s controlling the giant hand that orchestrated this entire game, even the Ascetic’s execution.”

“…I also know she’s fearsome enough to be omnipotent. Isn’t she someone who not only controls the Empire but also covets other countries? The fact that the Ascetic has been able to live and act as he has until now was only possible because it was all under her protection.”

“You know well, Knight Commander. The Ascetic’s current path to execution is all her doing, and she knows that you would come to find me like this after that incident. So… it would be easier to preserve your life if you withdraw from this matter before your life becomes endangered too.”

“If I wanted to preserve my life, I wouldn’t have investigated this truth in the first place. I’ve learned the truth, and I will no longer be swayed by anyone’s words nor will I run away. And what use is any of that when the world is about to end?”

“I meant to spend time happily with precious people until then. If we’re destined to die anyway, wouldn’t it be better to enjoy life to the end rather than punching at the sky trying to break it until death?”

“So you won’t cooperate in order to enjoy life to the end?”

The lord chuckled.

“No. I’m telling you to at least live comfortably. I’m already past living comfortably. This sinful life, I’ll gladly offer to the Ascetic to regain peace in the afterlife. I truly don’t care what happens to this world, but the Ascetic… my kind and merciful God won’t be able to just stand by and watch. He’ll surely try to save the world. Then isn’t it natural for his humble sinner to follow God’s will?”

Saying this, he turned and took out a bottle of alcohol from the display case.

“Moreover, with these two hands… I committed sins too difficult to speak of with my own mouth. The Ascetic pulled me from that nightmare, showed me light, and forgave my sins. Do you understand why I’m offering my one life? And do you understand my heart in not wanting to drag you, Knight Commander, into this matter?”

He spilled the tea from the teacup onto the floor and poured alcohol. The reddish tea soaked into the carpet, but the large mansion had been unmanaged for so long that it didn’t even show.

“I too have received… certain favors. I understand the above reason, but I don’t understand why that prevents me from participating in this matter.”

“An upright, righteous, and faithful young man. Different from me. I hope you live long. It doesn’t matter much if a sinner pays for their crimes and goes to paradise or the abyss, but if you die, it would quite pain my heart. The Ascetic would feel the same. He’d be sad to lose such excellent talent…”

“I’ll decline your concern. Haven’t you only known me for a short time? And how do you plan to proceed without the information I brought? Such worries help nothing and don’t aid the plan.”

“You’re right. It was an old man’s foolish worry.”

The lord has about a 20-year age difference with me. Not quite an old man, roughly a parent’s age, so my conscience pricked at speaking any harsher.

“However, don’t you think now is too hasty a time? You don’t believe such a shoddy plan can handle that natural disaster of a woman, do you? She’s a woman who uses even the Ascetic like a chess piece. We must never underestimate her.”

“I haven’t underestimated her. I simply wanted to thoroughly know the opponent’s plan and devise a plan that could handle various countermeasures.”

The lord poured alcohol into his own cup as well. Alcohol filled the teacup that had shown its bottom.

He wants to exclude me from this plan. I understood his worries and thoughts to some extent, but I thought they were unreasonable concerns.

I knew well enough that she was like a natural disaster. I also learned from examining this data that she could arbitrarily change chess pieces and use schemes to steal others’ pieces.

However, she controlled my body at most around 3 times, and her interest in me would have disappeared.

Because the Lion Heart Knights lost all power and everything as soon as I took the position of Knight Commander.

‘The Spider’s Eight Legs.’

Rather than the Lion Heart Knights who freely wielded power at the former banquet hall, it’s because she increasingly uses ‘The Spider’s Eight Legs,’ a private organization operated by the Widow personally.

In other words, since she has no interest in me, I’m the one who can simultaneously target her weakness.

Thinking this, I conveyed my words to the lord. After hearing my words, the lord showed a dubious look as if thinking ‘Could that woman really…’

“No matter how much of a genius disaster and natural calamity-like divine woman she is, isn’t she ultimately human? Humans are beings capable of forgetting, and that won’t be an exception for her either. She might have forgotten about me.”

“Forgetting where she placed a piece she once used? Not keeping track of what that piece is doing? That meticulous Widow? Indeed, you’re taking her too lightly.”

The lord and I had a slight argument afterward.

My position was ‘the Widow isn’t someone to fear to that extent’ while the lord thought she was ‘an existence that should be feared to that extent.’

Even in the documents investigating the Widow’s background, there were many gaps here and there. She didn’t know all of creation, and there were things that flowed almost by coincidence.

Didn’t she even try to eliminate Kalebrin who was beside the Ascetic?

But from what I heard… it was also Kalebrin who saved the Ascetic who was dying from execution. Even under the Widow’s influence!

If Kalebrin had died then? The Ascetic, whom the Widow treasures and protects, would have died helplessly too.

A simple coincidence of failed assassination. Unless it was an order to fail the assassination from the beginning, it was an incomprehensible result.

However, when she took over the lord’s body and gave orders. Then she certainly told them to kill Kalebrin for sure, and didn’t she rage when they failed to kill him?

According to the lord’s words, seeing that meticulous woman fail at assassination and things flow this way through coincidental overlaps, isn’t she really a woman with many gaps?

So she’ll forget about someone like me and move on to other important matters, and I can use that gap to strike at her weakness. If I strike first at the Demon Realm to discover that plan, I could at least interfere with one move.

But the lord, whether he was scared stiff or what, kept continuing the same argument from earlier.

I brought up the same words with a slightly tired expression.

“So the Widow might not be as meticulous and natural disaster-like as you thought. I’ve already given you plenty of evidence. For example, when my village was massacred. Even when the plague spread…”

“Shh.”

The lord put his index finger to his lips. I was about to get a little angry. So I continued speaking without listening to him.

“So I survived then too, and among the dead were those mixed in who would have been helpful to the Widow later if she had kept them alive…”

“I said be quiet!”

I realized a bit late why the lord was acting this way. Someone with a strange presence in my senses had just opened the mansion’s main gate.

“A guest?”

“Impossible. I haven’t received guests since I ruined the social circle.”

“…”

Below, there are two assassins approaching with trained footwork.

‘Two people. Moving in pairs… surely not a pair from the eight legs. The leg that came to kill Kalebrin was the tail. It might just be simple assassins.’

I drew my sword from its sheath and pushed the lord behind me. The lord muttered in near panic.

“It’s the Widow. The Widow must have noticed. She noticed and is trying to kill us both to silence us. Because that’s the most certain way! And since we were ones the Ascetic cherished in his own way, she’ll behead us both and take only our heads to threaten the Ascetic. Certainly. It’s certain!”

“Did the Widow threaten you like this when you signed the contract?”

“She said if I told the Ascetic about this matter, she’d break all my joints, tear my limbs, gouge out my eyes and put them prettily in a box to present to the Ascetic. She wondered if I could survive through that grace.”

“How terrible. A low-level threat. You fell for that?”

“She showed me someone who had already become like that before me. It was a high-quality wooden box.”

I didn’t add more words. The Widow would have done all sorts of things to obtain ‘consent’ from him by any means necessary.

She would have whispered sweet words, then threatened in a non-threatening way that he couldn’t survive without whatever she provided, gradually tightening the noose around precious people. Since the lord had no precious people, it probably became the Ascetic.

‘The Central Church’s strange oppression and tormenting of the Ascetic was probably for this reason too.’

I had other thoughts while gripping my sword tighter. Without searching below, the assassins boldly climbed the western stairs to this floor.

“They’ve come to kill us all. Because you came to meet me…”

The lord was breathing shortly as if trauma had been triggered, falling into an extreme panic state.

The assassins caught by my senses were stronger than I had thought. Could I handle two while protecting the panicked lord?

It wasn’t impossible, but it wouldn’t be easy. If Cardil had been beside me, I would have given some flesh to take bone… but that wasn’t the case either.

Even now, carrying the lord and escaping through the window would mean we’d been tracked since entering through the main gate. There was nowhere to run.

The lord gasped for breath then came out from behind me, blocking my front with his trembling body.

“What are you doing?”

He had nothing that could be called armament. Only his elongated fingernails, revealing him as a magic addict, looked somewhat threatening.

“I am the Knight Commander. Lord, focus on protecting yourself.”

The assassins rapidly closed the distance. Should I draw largely while cutting through the wall? No, the dust would interfere more with vision. Then…

“I don’t want to commit more sins. Selfishly. If we’re being precise, causing this situation is also my sin, my karma.”

Lord Alderion trembled. And as if declaring to himself, he spoke.

“So even if I die protecting you, I won’t become a burden…”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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