The Life of a Wise Cult Leader - Chapter 83

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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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Fire

“We will dispatch the Ascetic to Centa. In situations where the nation’s fate hangs in the balance like this, we must help each other survive.”

The leaders of each country smiled warmly at each other and shook hands.

At first, Centa vehemently opposed the news of troops entering, but they agreed when they heard I would be coming along.

From their perspective, they probably thought, ‘Huh? Someone who knew this would happen is sending troops? This must really be an army coming to help us!’

And since I had mentioned it beforehand, and had been earnestly helping people in various ways… there was a fair amount of trust built up.

Just a few weeks ago, Centa and the Empire were actively engaged in disputes near the border. But as soon as I returned to the Empire, the conflicts disappeared, so from their perspective, I must look like a naive envoy trying to pursue the path of peace.

But unfortunately! I’m just a bat-like bastard who’s neither on Centa’s side nor the Empire’s side!

While I was waiting in the temple looking at my status window, someone opened the door and entered.

“Ascetic, please finish preparations for deployment to Centa within 12 hours.”

One of the Lion Heart Knights, I suppose. Hmm, the mark is a bit different though. A rose?

“Yes. Of course.”

First, I should go home and bring Ife… then head to Centa together with Kalebrin.

Curse attributes aren’t particularly useful against undead mobs, but relying on Yelena alone to protect me makes me nervous.

I’m always the type who puts my own body first.

Now that I’ve contracted with Ife, I don’t have to worry as much about things like separation of soul and body, but I still hate getting hurt. It’s good to have many people for protection.

‘If I bring Cardil again this time, he’ll be pissed off, right?’

I decided to leave Cardil behind obediently. He should be grateful to me!

*

The soldier had no particular thoughts until it was time to deploy for this expedition.

‘I’ll make good money.’

The state provided equipment and even arranged transportation there, so as a mercenary, there was nothing to refuse.

Moreover, these days some Saint or whatever was making a fuss about peace agreements, and with the conflict with the Empire coming to an end, the only way for mercenaries to survive was monster subjugation battles.

Even after arriving at the subjugation front lines, it was relatively peaceful. Compared to the constant small battles with the Empire every day, defeating undead with the distributed supplies was easy.

“Haha, looks like we can finish this job faster than expected and head back?”

“For all the grand talk, it’s not much.”

They just had to equip the supplies distributed by the country and cut down those slow-moving things with swords or cold weapons – it really wasn’t much.

“These guys can’t even get close to us!”

“Still, be careful since it’s over if you get wounded or bitten.”

“Come on, who’s going to get hurt by things like these? Most of the guys here have been to the front lines a few times at least.”

“Hmm… That’s true.”

“They said a Saint was dispatched from the neighboring country, but there was no need for that!”

“The country just made a big fuss over nothing again…”

They skillfully wielded cold weapons and slaughtered the human-like forms.

Those with severed necks or half their torsos missing disappeared like ash.

A strong wind blew. The clear sky began to cloud over. For some reason, the undead walking toward them seemed to have gotten slightly faster.

The wind lifted the ash scattered on the ground into the air. Ash accumulated on their hair and equipment.

Even though they had gotten faster, it was still just a quick walk, so they mechanically cut down the undead and turned them to ash.

The youngest among the soldiers brushed his hair back and said.

“I heard the adjacent front line is in chaos?”

Dust stuck to his brushing hand. Mercenaries answered from here and there.

“Chaos?”

“They can’t even stop things like this and there’s chaos? Hahaha, they can’t call themselves mercenaries anywhere!”

“Something happened. Not these guys, but different ones invaded or something…”

“Ah, was that it? Then chaos makes sense. But what we heard about was just these walking corpses, wasn’t it?”

He stabbed with his sword at a corpse crawling with both arms severed.

“I don’t know~ I didn’t hear that far. But if different ones invaded, it wouldn’t be things like these.”

“Geez, kid. I know that too.”

“The Saint is coming!”

The mercenary captain’s shout could be heard from far away. The Saint was coming along with the supply carriage.

“Ugh… Of all places, they come to the safest spot.”

“The higher-ups probably wanted to show off.”

They were still thinking complacently at that point.

“Hm? What’s that?”

“What?”

The veteran mercenary approached the bubbling earth.

“It might be dangerous, so don’t go?”

“Reconnaissance is also our job, so I need to go investigate and record it.”

“Your professional spirit is quite thorough.”

“That’s how you survive long in this business.”

The veteran mercenary chuckled and poked the earth with his sword. The bubbling ground offered no resistance as the sword went halfway in.

“What is this?”

“Maybe it’s a sinkhole or something?”

The youngest positioned himself as if guarding the veteran mercenary and easily took down approaching undead.

“No… I don’t think that’s it.”

Rumble rumble rumble…

An ominous sound came from somewhere. The veteran mercenary tried to quickly get away from that spot, but it was already too late.

“Dezmon-“

Before the youngest mercenary could call his name, his legs were stuck in the ground and he disappeared downward with a swoosh.

“What the, what is…”

The commander rushed over here in a hurry.

“Get away from there immediately!”

Though he was in charge of the youngest among the mercenaries, he wasn’t lacking in skill, so he quickly pulled back his body at that sound.

The ground caved in deeply.

A perfect circle of darkness, or the countless stars positioned within it.

Eyes, eyes, eyes, eyes? Are they eyes? Eyes looking at me and the massive darkness swallowing and chewing crunch crunch making everything of me disappear and become nutrients hehehehe then that would be glory!

“Ugh, aaaahhh!”

He snapped back to his senses at the sound of screaming.

Soon after, screams began to be heard from everywhere.

“Retreat! Retreat!”

A strange thing emerged from the darkness.

“It’s a demon…”

Height comparable to a large tree. Drooping shoulders. Long arms. Claw-like hands.

Could that be called a head?

Multiple eyes attached to a round skull.

The pitch-black body was so black that you couldn’t tell if it had fur or not.

The commander beside him stood there dazed, muttering something.

Worship the true God worship worship worship kneel you lowly things I’m sorry it’s because I’m foolish and ignorant I’m sorry I was wrong…

The commander became food for that thing, caught by those claw-like black hands without a single resistance.

The neck area split open and stars could be seen stars twinkling twinkling twinkling…

He instantly realized that he shouldn’t look at that thing for too long. And he could also understand why he was staying conscious unlike the others…

The man took out a necklace he had kept in his clothes and gripped it tightly in his hand. His body trembled like an aspen tree.

He could confidently say he had experienced everything since childhood, but this was the first time he’d seen something like that in the world.

He had an intuition. No, something like that shouldn’t exist in this world. Something that shouldn’t exist had come up from the ground.

He gripped his sword handle tightly. Even so, his hand trembled violently. He had learned so harshly that the hand holding a sword must not tremble, yet his hand shook.

Fundamental fear. The fear of death that any living being must have overwhelmed him. The black claw-like hand covered above his head. A shadow fell.

He immediately took out a small dagger from his waist and cut his palm. The sharp pain cleared his mind.

“Aaaahhhhh!”

As if shouting at himself, he yelled loudly and rushed out. And whether it should be called lucky, he succeeded in cutting the monster’s ring finger.

The cutting sensation was softer than expected, like cutting rotten radish. The monster went berserk and screamed.

“Kraaaah!”

The monster writhed for a moment, then golden tears from its face…. Uh, uhhhhhh.

Thud.

It was crushed in a black hand.

*

Thanks to the treaty smoothly concluded through my efforts, the Imperial Army was able to safely land near Senta Northern Capital.

‘Still, it would be troublesome if Senta gets pushed back too much. In the current situation, too much power is concentrated with the Empire. It was unavoidable since I was trying to show my competence, but.’

It became slightly troublesome, but it was a manageable problem.

Since there were no portals installed for long-distance travel between Senta and the Empire, the Imperial Army had to advance on foot to Senta’s northern capital.

Originally, they were troops stationed and fighting near the border, so they wouldn’t be too exhausted, but they would be quite tired. So the Second-in-Command and Third-in-Command of Senta, who had been preparing in advance, would earn the most merit.

The Empire wouldn’t be able to do whatever they wanted with Senta just because they lent a very small hand in this matter.

Now I need to get what’s mine.

‘Hehe… Originally, a Saint is supposed to shine brightest on the battlefield!’

The undead mobs won’t even come near me because of the Purification Relic, so it’s truly a goldmine, a goldmine!

Now I just need to appear at critical moments, stylishly defeat undead, heal people, and say cool things!

‘More importantly, the system has been quiet lately. No, since I returned from the World Tree, it feels like the sensation of something trying to control me has disappeared…’

I don’t know. There’s no point in theorizing with no clues anyway.

I took a carriage to the undead emergence point.

I rode in a carriage carrying military supplies, so I didn’t have to march – how fortunate is that.

The closer we got to the emergence point, the deeper Ife burrowed into my arms.

Being a spirit, it seems to dislike negative energy.

But it can’t be helped! Grow strong! In life, you have to do things you don’t like! Endure it!

“We’ll arrive soon. Please be prepared as we may shake or undead could attack at any time if the perimeter is breached.”

“Of course we won’t let that happen!”

“The ones deployed here are veterans, so the undead won’t even show their noses to the Saint.”

A soldier’s booming voice could be heard from far away. I smiled and replied.

“Of course. I trust everyone here.”

No sooner had I spoken those loving words than the sound of an explosion rang out. Kalebrin, who had been dozing, startled awake at the sound.

“Wh-what was that…!”

“Aaaahhhhh!”

Some ominous sounds were coming.

“Retreat, retreat!”

Rattle.

The carriage shook violently.

“What’s happening?”

The coachman-soldier hastily pulled back the canvas cover.

“It’s, it’s not undead but something huge came out… It’s indiscriminately ki-killing soldiers! The usual methods don’t seem to work-“

Thud!

“Aaaahhhhh!”

The soldier disappeared as if sucked up by something. Yelena and I’s eyes met in the carriage.

Crack.

At that moment, the canvas cover over the carriage disappeared. Bright light poured down on us. The upper part of the canvas had been completely cut away by ‘something’.

‘Oh, this damn…’

I instantly guessed what the ‘huge thing that’s not undead’ the soldier mentioned was.

‘It’s a Taraka.’

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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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