Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 747

◈ 747. There are Ten Sheets

“I am Rembrary.”

Rembrary introduced himself because the Inquisitors just stared at him, even after he greeted them.

Then, he reached out his hand, and the person in front of him grabbed it in a daze.

“Nice to meet you.”

Rembrary shook hands with dignity, pulled his hand back, and requested,

“You all seem to want to talk to me. But I’m not tall enough yet, so my neck hurts if I keep looking up at you. So, I’d appreciate it if you all took a seat.”

The Inquisitors exchanged glances again.

The Inquisitor who shook hands brought a chair and sat down, and the other Inquisitors also brought chairs and sat down.

Once their eye level was somewhat similar, Rembrary said firmly,

“If we had met next year, this wouldn’t have happened. I’m going to be as tall as you all next year.”

Seven years old…? He’ll be eight next year…?

The Inquisitors exchanged glances again. They were completely at a loss as to how to treat a child who had just turned seven.

They were struggling to even follow the child’s train of thought. And now they had to interrogate him!

“Rembrary.”

In any case, they had to do what they had to do. The brown-haired Inquisitor lowered his voice to avoid being swayed by the child’s words and called out to him.

“I have something to ask you.”

“Inquisitor, your voice is very deep. Like a bear.”

The black-haired Inquisitor pinched his thigh to avoid laughing.

The brown-haired Inquisitor’s nickname was actually Bear.

The red-haired Inquisitor, who had brought Rembrary, felt relieved that the child didn’t seem intimidated and slipped out of the room.

The Inquisitor with glasses calmly tried to resume the conversation.

“Rembrary, trainee priest. Can you swear to tell only the truth in the name of Redrin [presumably a deity or sacred figure]?”

“Oh, of course. It’s not even a matter of my honor.”

“Pfft!”

The black-haired Inquisitor couldn’t hold back and burst out air, then quickly composed himself and pinched his thigh again.

As his colleagues seemed to be constantly swayed by the child, the Inquisitor with a large scar on his face broke the silence and stepped forward.

“Don’t say any unnecessary things from now on.”

This Inquisitor’s face scar was from a demon. This Inquisitor hated demons and black magic users very much.

“Okay. But how can I tell what’s an unnecessary story?”

“!”

The Inquisitors’ faces turned pale in an instant.

They aggressively extracted information even from innocent witnesses. This was because witnesses didn’t always tell the truth.

Witnesses often lied or distorted the truth, either intentionally or unconsciously.

These five Inquisitors were experts at intimidating witnesses and making them spit out truthful information.

But no matter how fearsome they were, they couldn’t interrogate a seven-year-old as if he were an adult.

So, they had to interrogate him while suppressing their intensity to some extent, but the child didn’t budge at all with that suppressed intensity, which was frustrating.

“How long do we have to chat? I’m getting a little tired.”

When the child sighed and said that, the Inquisitor with glasses shouted inwardly. *Who* should be saying that!

“I heard you want to hear about what happened at the Great Temple that day. Should I tell you what happened that day?”

Rembrary, who was showing patience in his own way, suggested, and the bear-voiced Inquisitor nodded.

“Yes.”

“It was a nice day, Rydal-”

“No. There’s no need to be that specific.”

“Really?”

“What was the black magic user like?”

“He was covering his face with the hood on his robe. Only his mouth was visible… and he only had one mouth.”

“What about his voice?”

“Among you, it’s most similar to the Inquisitor with glasses.”

As his colleagues stared at him, the Inquisitor with glasses was flustered and shook his head for a moment.

“Not me.”

The black-haired Inquisitor asked again.

“Were there any other distinguishing features?”

“When he first attacked me, I don’t know how he attacked me. I was trying to go down the stairs, but suddenly my body flew away.”

Rembrary pondered over the situation at the time.

“He said to me, ‘A great child like you needs to have his divine power removed in advance.’ Then he raised his hand. When that person raised his hand, I felt something… a strange energy gathering in his hand.”

“Strange energy?”

“It was a completely different energy from the energy that comes from priests. Then, when he reached out his hand towards me, I felt something flying towards me, but Sir Cherub protected me.”

Rembrary widened his eyes and asked,

“Did Sir Cherub come too?”

“No.”

The Inquisitor with glasses deliberately replied coldly as the conversation kept straying.

In fact, Cherub had already been there. And they had already taken a statement from Cherub.

Rembrary and Cherub’s statements differed from the very beginning about what the black magic user had said.

“Sir Cherub is a paladin, after all. He’s really cool.”

“We agreed not to say unnecessary things.”

“But I want to be an Inquisitor later. I think Inquisitors are cool too.”

“…Really? What part?”

* * *

After asking a few more questions, the bear-voiced Inquisitor took Rembrary to his lodgings.

“Is it all over now?”

Rembrary, who was happy to receive the attention of five people at once, asked with regret.

The bear-voiced Inquisitor opened the door and said,

“No.”

In reality, the investigation was repeated several times. Rembrary had only been investigated once.

The bear-voiced Inquisitor closed the door and left as Rembrary went into the room.

Niran, who was lying on one bed, suddenly sat up.

Rembrary jumped onto the bed on the opposite side of Niran.

“Did you come back?”

“Yeah.”

“How was it? What did they ask you?”

“This and that.”

“Weren’t you scared?”

“We just had a conversation.”

Looking at Rembrary’s calm expression, Niran thought that the Inquisitors probably didn’t act scary because the other party was a child.

If not, there was no way a child could come back so brightly after being interrogated by the notorious Inquisitors.

“What were you doing, Niran?”

“I was just resting here.”

“When do we eat?”

“It’ll probably be another hour or two.”

Niran’s face turned pale at the thought of eating among the Inquisitors. Would he even be able to digest it?

On the other hand, Rembrary was curious about what the food here would taste like and wanted to run to the cafeteria right away.

But waiting aimlessly for two hours was too boring.

Rembrary rolled around on the bed and then spoke to Niran out of boredom.

“Niran.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you see the red line drawn in the hallway?”

“I saw it.”

“I’m thinking of going in there later when I have time.”

“What?”

Niran was about to tell Rembrary ‘You can’t go in there.’

Then Niran stopped talking. The deadline of ‘one month from now’ flashed in his head.

“Do you want to go with me?”

The child asked.

The time of ‘one month’ kept passing through Niran’s head. He needed money.

Abandoning the secular world was not easy. Especially when there were family members there.

“No, you go alone.”

Niran replied as nonchalantly as possible while lying on the bed.

“I heard a little while ago that there’s treasure in there.”

Rembrary wasn’t interested in treasure. There was already a lot of treasure in Rembrary’s house.

“Then I won’t go.”

“There are also many strange things inside.”

Rembrary hugged the pillow and looked at Niran through the lace.

Niran was still lying down, so his face couldn’t be seen. Rembrary checked the time and got up.

“Then I’ll go!”

“Will you?”

Rembrary went down to the opposite side of the bed, squatted there, and wrote a note.

-Niran said there are many strange things to see if you go inside the hallway with the red line. I’m going to go look around.

Rembrary realized that Niran was trying to put himself in danger by saying that there was treasure or strange things inside.

This was an opportunity for Niran to harm Rembrary. But it was also an opportunity for Rembrary to confirm whether Niran was really a ‘bad priest.’

If he was a ‘bad priest,’ there would be something dangerous inside the red line.

If he was a ‘bad priest,’ Rembrary could tell this story later when the Prime Minister or his family came to visit.

Rembrary put the note slightly under the blanket and quickly went outside.

“I’ll be back!”

As Rembrary left, Niran, who had been lying on the bed, slowly raised his upper body.

He tiptoed to the door, opened it, and peeked out into the hallway.

The child ran to the end of the hallway and disappeared around the corner.

Niran closed the door and went to the spot where Rembrary had been hiding.

‘What was he doing here?’

He looked around and lifted the blanket.

Finding the note inside, Niran scoffed in disbelief. He tore the paper to shreds.

* * *

At that time, as Rembrary was heading somewhere.

The Inquisitor with glasses who had interrogated Rembrary went to the Inquisitorial Chief and reported that it was too difficult to investigate the child.

“Since he’s such a young child, I don’t know where to draw the line in the investigation. I don’t think I should treat him too scarily, but when I was moderately scary, the child…”

“The child?”

“The child wasn’t afraid of us at all.”

Recalling the child waving his hand, telling him not to be sad before parting, the Inquisitor sighed involuntarily.

But the Inquisitorial Chief noticed that the corners of the subordinate’s mouth, who was complaining, were slightly raised.

As their eyes met, the Inquisitor added as if making an excuse.

“The child said he wanted to be an Inquisitor. That we were cool.”

Inquisitors were shunned even among priests.

Even though Inquisitors were just doing their jobs, priests whispered that they were people who liked to inflict pain on others.

Whenever that happened, the Inquisitors wanted to ask back if they loved paperwork and desk work so much that they were in that position.

“It seems like you like the child.”

“No, I don’t.”

“…”

“Actually, that’s right. He was a more sociable child than I thought.”

The Chief smiled and got up.

“Then I’ll go check it out.”

But when the Chief went to the room to find the child, the child was gone, and only the guardian priest who was supposed to be with him was there. The guardian priest quickly got up from reading a book.

“Where’s Rembrary?”

When the Inquisitor with glasses asked, the guardian priest replied with a puzzled expression.

“He went out to play?”

The Chief returned to his office.

“Since he’ll be staying here for a few days anyway, I’ll meet with Rembrary this evening or tomorrow morning.”

But when he went inside the room, one of the Inquisitors was standing in front of the desk with a pale face.

“What’s wrong?”

When the Chief asked, the Inquisitor handed over the paper he was holding.

“Chief, please take a look at this.”

-Niran said there are many strange things to see if you go inside the hallway with the red line. I’m going to go look around. Rembrary.

The Chief and the Inquisitor with glasses’ mouths dropped open.