Episode 162: Sin and Punishment (1)

And thus I clothe my naked villainy with old odd ends stolen forth from holy writ And seem a saint when most I play the devil.

성서에서 훔친 낡은 몇 마디 말로 벌거벗은 악행을 감추니, 악마 같은 짓을 하여도 성자처럼 보이는구나.

-William Shakespeare, from 『Richard Ⅲ』-

* * *

Guilty.

The patriarch of House Indulgentia, an affiliated family of the faithful Quovadis.

A faithful follower of the Rune religion, an ardent preacher, an honorary mayor of the Imperial family, and a benevolent orphanage director who lovingly cares for children with nowhere else to go.

But it was all just a mask, and behind it lurked an ugly demonic face.

Guilty looked down at Geronto’s corpse with a friendly smile.

“Ho-ho-ho-ho, that was a good harpoon.”

His gaze shifted to the four black sacks poking out of Vikir’s cloak.

They belonged to Ephebo, Hebe, Pedo, and Geronto, who wore them over their faces.

Guilty grunted as if he was about to be troubled.

“Are all four of them ruined? I borrowed them from ‘that bitch,’ and I’ll have to give them back someday, but I’m in big trouble, and I wonder what kind of trouble that damned bitch will get into…….”

His gestures and tone were dramatic, as if he were a theater actor on stage alone, delivering a monologue.

Meanwhile.

Dolores, seeing Guilty’s easy-going smile, was enraged and stepped forward.

“You! How dare you wear the mantle of a saint and do such an ugly thing, bringing the demon into the orphanage! What the hell are you thinking!”

“‘Ho, ho, ho! What are you doing? Haven’t you seen for yourself what has been found beneath the grounds of every orphanage, monastery, and hospital under the Quovadis name?”

Dolores shook her head, not understanding Guilty’s words for a moment.

Then she realized. She realized what Guilty was saying.

“Bones! Human skeletons!

That’s right.

Demons do eat humans, but only the fluid ones, the very young ones.

Guilty smirked, his mouth watering.

“I guess humans are best when they’re young. They’re delicious.”

It was a clear provocation.

Dolores stared at Guilty with a mixture of horror and anger.

“Cannibal! Cannibal! Yes, you really are a demon……!”

“I’ve done some cannibalism, so it’s a bit unfair to label me a demon, but I’m not the only one who eats, you know, people in high places.”

“What, what!”

Dolores opens her mouth in disbelief.

But Guilty remained impassive.

“When you’ve been up high and seen all the delicacies, you’re naturally interested in things you’ve never eaten before, and once you introduce them to a few people, they catch on.”

“Bullshit! There’s no way anyone would do that!”

“Ho, ho, ho. Why not, there are so many of you Quovadis alone.”

“……!”

Dolores staggered once, as if genuinely shocked.

Guilty chuckled and continued.

“Well, I understand. I know it’s a shock to you, Saint. Humans often have many faces. A man may be a pious priest in front of you, but you never know what he’s like behind closed doors.”

“Bullshit!”

“Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho. Bullshit. Can you say that you, too, live with one face all the time, that you have never worn a face of shame, that you have never made an ugly face behind the mask of hypocrisy?”

Dolores’s pupils dilate at those words.

I have.

He had done something shameful once recently.

Vikir. A boy from the same academy, in the same club.

He’s older than her, but two grades below her.

Recently, Dolores drank too much while playing a board game and wet Vikir’s pants.

To get out of the situation, she committed the dishonorable act of framing Vikir (albeit unintentionally).

Is that all?

On the small scale, the peeing incident is one example; on the large scale, there are many.

A saint who is supposed to love and embrace all people.

A candidate for householder to live up to family expectations.

A New Order leader who must stand up to the Old Order.

A model student who must be the pride of the school.

A student council president who should set an example for the younger students,

A newspaper editor who should always be fair and just.

.

.

After all, she, too, had many faces, and with them all sorts of anguish, burdens, inferiority complexes, hatred, laziness, and other needs.

So Dolores stood still for a moment, speechless.

Then.

… a tug!

There was a hand on her shoulder.

Rough and crude, but warm.

The Night Hound was standing right next to Dolores.

His gravelly voice tickled her ear.

“We can make mistakes. That’s what makes us human.”

A moment. Dolores felt the pressure that had been pressing down on her entire body release at once.

It wasn’t just the pressure of facing the demon.

It was as if all the pressures she had felt throughout her life as a saint, student council president, and other positions of great responsibility had somehow been lifted.

It was like a small salvation. I felt like I was being comforted.

“……Is that true?”

Dolores asked with a lot of emotion.

Vikir nodded silently.

Of course, it was an act done without much intention.

‘If a person is in a hurry, he might pee.’

Vikir was only referring to drinking and peeing his pants.

But Dolores seemed comforted in more ways than one.

The moment.

“……oops! It can’t be released!

Dolores reached out and cupped his cheek.

I was somehow relieved to hear that the Night Hound was okay.

Even surprised myself.

Dolores realized how much she had been leaning on the Night Hound, and she braced herself.

“I’m a saint, and a candidate for the head of the Quovadis family. I’m supposed to be someone’s shoulder to lean on, not the other way around!

But even with these resolutions, she couldn’t help but stare at the broad back of the night hound.

…… Meanwhile.

Guilty narrowed his eyes and looked at Vikir.

The Saint of the Quovadis was a woman of great potential and talent, but she was still so young and inexperienced that she could be roasted with just three tongues.

However, the unexpected arrival of an unplanned visitor interrupted the plans to shake the saint’s mentality.

Guilty looked at Vikir with a smirk on his lips, but eyes that weren’t smiling.

“Who the hell are you anyway, the one who’s been raiding the branches of my organization lately? You must be the one Ephebo said he owed me the other day.”

“Why do you keep asking me questions when you know the answer?”

Guilty smirked at Vikir’s growling reply.

“Okay. I’m tired of this middle-aged actor’s face anyway. I wanted another young, pretty face. I have a hobby of collecting really pretty faces when I see them. Like yours.”

With his unique ability to relate to faces and masks, Guilty was able to see through the face of Vikir’s plague doctor mask.

Hearing this, Dolores looked back at Vikir, her eyes slightly wide.

‘……Mr. Night Hound is handsome, unexpectedly.’

She can’t see Vikir’s face behind his mask, so she can only guess based on Guilty’s words.

‘Is this the kind of beauty that even the demon covets?’

Dolores knows that she shouldn’t be doing this, but she can’t help but be tempted by Guilty’s words.

Meanwhile. Guilty continued to babble.

“Ho-ho-ho-ho! I’ve always wanted the skin of your face, St. Dolores, and now I’ve got an even prettier face, so what the hell. Two new faces will be added to my collection today……!?”

But he couldn’t get the line out.

“Gap.”

Vikir’s voice cut short.

Tsk-tsk.

Guilty’s head snapped in two in a single blow.

“… …?”

Guilty’s skull split in two on both the left and right sides.

Vikir landed lightly on the back of Guilty, who was spewing black blood.

Brawl. A series of extremely honed footwork, sword strikes, and leading swords.

As Vikir pushed himself up onto the steep railing.

…Thud!

Guilty plummeted down the railing, falling to his death.

Seeing this, Dolores wore a dazed expression.

“?”

This is how it ends?

It was an incredibly futile end for a final boss.

……In fact, rather than Guilty dying in vain, it was more likely that Vikir hadn’t been able to fully reveal his true abilities until now, but Dolores wasn’t going to know that.

And.

“Of course this is not the end.”

Vikir warned Dolores.

“Be prepared. The ‘real’ stuff is coming.”

And as if to prove Vikir’s point, Guilty picked himself up off the floor.

His mouth split in two as he spoke.

[What… …is that?]

Guilty’s eyes were red and bloodshot, as if they didn’t belong to a normal living being.

He could smell Vikir now.

The scent of a demon hunter, as only a demon could feel.

It was a scent that had remained hidden beneath the mask and black robes.

Vikir was beginning to show his true colors.

Tsutsutsutsutsuts……

Black and red auras swirled ferociously around Vikir’s entire body.

At the same time as the hidden power and aura exploded, the soul of the hound that had raced across countless battlefields bared its teeth.

Naturally, the smell of the countless drops of blood on its teeth also began to emanate.

Demon blood. And the most recent of them all.

It belonged to Andromalius the 10th!

The dying breath of a Demon of the highest order left a deep mark on Vikir’s soul, a mark that would become his karma for life, making his soul and body even more fierce and hardy.

And there was no way Guilty could not smell it.

Finally, the smile completely disappeared from his lips.

[Could it be that Andromalius has been… …out of touch lately……?]

Vikir didn’t answer.

Instead, he exploded his hidden aura even more strongly, and as he did so, the scent of Andromalius’ blood grew stronger.

Realizing that Andromalius had been killed by Vikir in front of him, Guilty let out a pitiful sigh.

[Oooooh! It would take the combined power of ten Demon Kings to open the gate to the Demon Realm, and now that… …one is gone, the burden on the remaining nine will only increase! Andromalius, you fool!]

Guilty’s appearance began to change as his voice grew more and more distorted.

[Unforgivable! The Great Work… …has been put off for another decade!]

Wailing, wailing, wailing.

The voice was so terrible that it made one’s stomach churn and vomit just to hear it.

Puddeudeudeuk!

It was then that Guilty shed his human cloak and began to reveal the true nature of his existence in the Demon Realm.

“Huh?”

Dolores gulped and stepped back.

But.

“…….”

Vikir hadn’t taken a step back, watching it all with a nonchalant demeanor.

‘Finally.’

‘Dantalian’, the ninth of the ten corpses!

This was the opponent Vikir had been searching for.