The Life of a Wise Cult Leader - Chapter 57

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

Fire

“That’s really the end of it! Really, I’m telling the truth…”

The marquis confessed everything in a stream. I straightened my bent posture. The marquis was trembling beneath my feet with his large frame.

An ordinary person might have felt pity for him if I hadn’t possessed this body and come to this place.

Or perhaps they would have mercifully extracted information from him through gentle persuasion rather than torture.

But if I had done that here, I would have died first. I had obtained the position of ‘Saint’, but I was aware this was only due to the ‘Widow’s’ generous permission.

Since I was in a situation where I’d be strangled by a rope the moment the widow let go…

Mercy was something to be shown only to my trustworthy believers.

I activated the Scales skill that I hadn’t used in a while. Light appeared behind me in the dark space.

The marquis, who had been lying prostrate, flinched in surprise and raised his head.

[Would you like to use ‘Scales’ on user Marzes Bernator?]

‘y’

[God’s scales are tilting.]

[Alderion’s judgment contents compilation complete]

[View]

-Murder 121 times

-Incitement to murder 93 times

-Aiding and abetting murder 401 times

-Soul annihilation 98 times

-Evidence of other world entity invasion confirmed.

He was more of a serious criminal than I thought. Well, considering he roamed battlefields like his own home, the numbers actually seemed small. Though once I grasped the weight of each individual number, it didn’t feel small at all.

‘What does this “evidence of other world entity invasion confirmed” marking mean, like with Alderion?’

Anyway, it’s not immediately important, so let’s move on.

The soul annihilation must be from feeding victims’ souls to the demon sword. I remember a special skill unlocked at 100 times…

Just two more deaths and it would unlock. Good thing I found this beforehand.

Should I let Alderion try holding the demon sword? Since he’s half non-human anyway, maybe he won’t be dominated by it.

Alderion is fundamentally a good person, so it might be fine. The demon sword explosively draws out one’s inherent nature.

I briefly entertained other thoughts before speaking.

“You have committed a total of 121 murders and 93 incitements to murder. You raised the plausible cause of ‘protecting the homeland,’ but… what you actually protected wasn’t the homeland, but your own interests. You craved the flesh and blood of innocents, wielding your sword solely for yourself, didn’t you?”

The marquis’s eyes widened.

“No! I, I wasn’t lusting for power… That was, it was all for my departed comrades! I just wanted to give them the honorable death they desired, the glorious end they wished for…!”

“Was it really for your comrades?”

I straightened my back to look down at the marquis, then crouched down again. The marquis’s head came within reach of my hands.

“Didn’t you use your comrades’ deaths as an excuse to justify your own desires? In the end, what did you grasp in your hands – was it honor, or blood-stained power?”

“I, I…”

“I can understand that the demon sword would have shaken your mind and stimulated your instincts. Do you know that the essence of the demon sword isn’t a simple curse? It merely amplifies the heart of whoever holds it. The good become more good, the evil become more evil.”

I drew upon my purification power. Then I waved my hand in the air as if playing. The dust floating in the space became particles of light and disappeared.

“The good use that power to achieve good, the evil use that power to choose evil. In the end, what choice you made is something not the demon sword, but… your own heart knows best.”

“No… No! I, I… It was because of that sword… It’s not my fault…!”

“Everything you did while holding that sword was merely the result of desires and intentions that were inside you from the beginning.”

I straightened my back. I wouldn’t use punishment. The marquis wouldn’t be able to leave this place on his own feet anyway.

‘Well, it’s not really content I can say to the marquis…’

In some ways, I was also trying to seize power simply to survive. And that was purely for my own survival, making it even more selfish.

Playing with people’s hearts, gaining one-sided trust. Judging and punishing people without qualification like this… these were things completely forbidden to me.

‘If paradise or the abyss really exist, I’ll definitely fall into the abyss.’

That would be good news for the marquis before me. If I died, he’d eventually meet me in the abyss too.

Of course, being the abyss, our existence would be torn apart and crumble to nothing…

“Now it’s time to take responsibility for the results you created… for the life you’ve lived.”

I stepped back. Kalebrin hesitantly came forward. That’s when it happened.

“Wait a moment~”

Yelena slipped between the marquis and me. I looked down at Yelena. I could see her golden crown.

“From here on seems like my domain. Even though I’m attached as security, my main job is ‘Inquisitor’… I can’t just stand by and watch a heretic who was swayed by a demon sword, can I?”

“You’re saying Yelena will handle it?”

“Yes… Well, wouldn’t it be a little unseemly for a saint to do such things?”

Yelena acted as if she would somehow prevent me from killing him.

‘If I hand him over, it’ll leave a trail. I need to kill him here to avoid future trouble.’

I can’t hand him over to her.

I took a big step toward her. My shadow fell over her.

Yelena clasped her hands behind her back with her lips slightly curved upward.

“Then will Yelena show us what ‘appropriate responsibility’ Marquis Bernator should bear?”

I smiled back and slightly bowed my head toward her. My long white hair gently brushed against her cheek.

“Right now, right here.”

*

Yelena held her breath and fully received his gaze. She barely maintained her smile.

Her experience of maintaining a smile even in front of her mother was being put to use here. Having been by his side continuously, she thought she had adapted to the subtle atmosphere…

‘Not at all…’

The reason she hadn’t felt intimidated while following him around was simply because he had been considerate. Yelena felt cold sweat running down her back.

“Right now, right here… make him take responsibility…?”

“Yes. We can’t postpone responsibility any further.”

Goosebumps spread all over her body. Marquis Bernator seemed to instinctively realize that clinging to Yelena was his path to survival, and looked up at her.

Marquis Bernator crawled on the floor and grabbed Yelena’s trouser leg.

“Yelena the Inquisitor…! Please, show mercy!”

The ‘marquis’ who always elegantly held his utensils at banquet halls was now at her feet.

‘As the ascetic said… he’s already a murderer who killed over 120 people. Even if we only charge him with incitement to murder, he’d be executed. No matter how much of a banquet hall figure he is. He only got his marquis title through war achievements without any foundation anyway. But still… even so…’

Yelena agonized.

At her feet, the marquis clung like a snake wrapped around her arm. Just looking at this pleading appearance would make anyone feel pity…

But there wasn’t a trace of mercy in the ascetic’s expression as he looked down at him. The same person who would tear off his own flesh for an innocent person suffering was like this…

“Is it a difficult proposal?”

The ascetic asked kindly. He always did. He used a gentle tone even when calmly reciting sins to the marquis.

Her agony ended. Trying to spirit away the marquis was merely her consciousness as an inquisitor and evidence to offer her mother.

It wasn’t worth… making an enemy of the ascetic.

“Yelena! I was, as you heard, controlled by the demon sword… controlled by the demon sword. I don’t understand why I did this either. So I, I won’t ask for leniency. So please put me on ‘official’ trial! Don’t you know how much I’ve devoted myself to the empire! I’m absolutely not a heretic. Absolutely not! If I’m a heretic, huh? It wouldn’t be strange if all imperial citizens living in this empire were found to be heretics!”

He was making such excuses because being found a heretic meant execution by hanging, whether marquis or not.

“…You’re certainly not a heretic.”

At Yelena’s words, the marquis’s expression brightened completely.

“Since you’re not a heretic… there’s nothing I can do. I’m an ‘Inquisitor’…”

“What does that mean…! Even an inquisitor can refer cases to regular trials when someone is found not to be a heretic…!”

The marquis looked at Yelena like a child who had been given candy only to have it taken away.

Yelena had caught people called heretics in her work as an inquisitor and referred them to heretical trials. A few days after the trials ended, their condition was not much different from the marquis’s.

People tortured and stripped of their will to live. Powerlessly, or making final resistance, they climbed onto the podium.

Blood spattering when sharp blades fell on their necks. Or legs dangling as necks were strangled.

Yelena didn’t have tremendous pride in this profession, but that didn’t mean she lacked ethical consciousness. They were people who ‘deserved to die.’

Yelena’s hesitation disappeared. Kalebrin hesitantly emerged from behind.

“Should, should I do it…?”

“No. Even if he’s not a heretic… I’m a ‘judge’ of heretics. It’s better for me to do it than Kalebrin.”

She had no intention of acting ethically at this point.

What she had briefly pondered was…

The contradiction of an ascetic who acted as if they would eliminate all suffering, who behaved with worldly compassion, yet stepped forward to torture and kill people.

And the very act of witnessing all of this process struck her as paradoxical.

But she soon understood. To eliminate all suffering in the world, it was necessary to remove the elements that create suffering.

She was not naive. She knew that people don’t change with just a few words. Sometimes harsh measures are necessary… She knew this. She was an Inquisitor, after all.

Yelena lifted the halberd she had always carried since being assigned as a guard.

“You’re just the same! How can you claim to be any different from me? By what right! What makes you think that mere Saint has the right to judge and kill me!”

“You speak correctly. I have no right to ‘kill’ you. Originally, no one in this world can claim to be qualified to judge others.”

“Then…!”

“However, I am God’s Representative. As one granted Divine Authority, I do possess the authority to judge you.”

Calebrin’s Sorcery struck the Marquis. His body stiffened rigidly. She raised her halberd.

Bringing down the halberd on the rigidly stiffened Marquis was easy.

Thud!

Thump…

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