Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 750

Niran screamed, feeling as though a nail was being hammered into his forehead. Though it wasn’t hot, sweat streamed down his neck, forehead, and back.

The Chief frowned and removed his hand from Niran’s forehead.

The pain vanished instantly. Niran quickly shook his head and pulled his neck back. He saw that the Chief’s hands were empty.

He couldn’t believe it. The Chief had stabbed his forehead with his fingers as if they were weapons. Niran’s legs trembled.

There must be a large hole in his forehead by now, with blood gushing out.

“You can’t do this! I’m not a black magician or a heretic!”

Niran shouted, enraged.

“Still not willing to talk?”

The Chief Inquisitor ignored his protests and asked, sounding bored.

Niran suddenly noticed that there wasn’t a single drop of blood on the Chief’s hand, even though he had clearly felt the pain of his forehead being pierced.

“Oh, are you unable to answer because you’re worried about a big wound on your forehead?”

Noticing this, the Chief held out his palm in front of Niran’s eyes.

“Don’t worry. You’re not wounded. My ability only inflicts pain without causing any injuries.”

“!”

Niran’s pupils darted around rapidly.

The Inquisitor behind him brought a mirror and held it up in front of Niran. His forehead was indeed perfectly fine.

“Hmm. Still don’t want to talk.”

The Chief gestured for the mirror to be taken away, then wearily reached out his hand again.

“Then I’ll continue.”

Before his hand could touch Niran’s forehead.

“I just, I just wanted to play a little prank!”

Niran couldn’t endure it any longer and confessed.

“A prank? On a seven-year-old?”

The Chief scoffed and withdrew his hand.

“Yes, yes. But I didn’t do anything harmful to him. Why would I hold a grudge against that kid? I just did what those people wanted in exchange for money.”

Niran even shed tears, feeling wronged.

He knew that lying to Rembrary was wrong, but he didn’t think it warranted such a harsh interrogation.

“I didn’t summon any monsters, and I don’t know how to summon them. I’m a priest like you. I can use divine power. I didn’t try to kill the child, and I didn’t hurt him.”

Niran continued to plead.

“Oh, really?”

The Chief glanced at his watch and responded casually.

“But you made the child go to a dangerous place. You clearly explained that he shouldn’t go in there, yet he was attacked by a monster. Isn’t that too much of a coincidence?”

Niran thought it was coincidental, which made him feel even more wronged.

How could he have known that a monster would appear in the basement of the Inquisition? Even the people who lived here didn’t know!

“It’s true that I slightly coaxed the child. But it was your guards who locked the child in the prison and left him alone, not me!”

* * *

Late in the evening, as the Chief was organizing the information he had extracted from Niran, a guard knocked and entered to report.

“I briefly described the monster the child mentioned to the guards and prisoners in the basement and asked if they had seen it.”

“Did anyone see it?”

“Two black magicians said they had. But when I asked them for details about the monster’s appearance, their stories started to contradict each other. After a little probing, they immediately started saying nonsense. Both of them were just bluffing.”

The guard watched as the Chief quickly recorded his words in a notebook, then cautiously asked.

“Chief, is it possible that the child saw something that wasn’t there because he was scared?”

The temporary prison was cleverly designed to make people feel fear.

Creepy weapons were embedded in the walls here and there, and the only light came from the bars above the door. The room was filled with the chilling smell of iron.

It was a room that made even grown adults tremble with fear. Moreover, the child said he was going to take a nap.

He might have been hallucinating or having a nightmare while sleeping.

“That’s possible. Niran himself doesn’t seem to have any direct connection to black magic.”

As the Chief put down his pen, the guard’s face darkened with guilt.

If the child had seen something that wasn’t there, it was because he had left the child alone.

Even if the child said he was going to sleep, he should have stayed with the child in the prison.

“But he confessed that he received a request to harm the child. He said he received a large sum of money from a nobleman in exchange. He didn’t say who the nobleman was, though.”

The Chief added, watching the guard’s reaction.

“A priest did that?!”

The guard shouted. It was wrong to ask someone to harass an adult, but it was even more wrong to ask someone to harass a seven-year-old.

That was not something a human should do. Then the guard’s eyes widened.

“Didn’t someone make a similar request at the Grand Temple?”

“Yes. It’s presumed that the black magician who infiltrated the Grand Temple’s residence also received a request to eliminate Rembrary’s divine power. The person who hired that black magician and the person who hired Priest Niran might be the same person.”

“!”

“If that’s the case, we might be able to find out who the black magician who infiltrated the Grand Temple was, what kind of demon he made a deal with, and what his purpose was if we catch the nobleman behind it all.”

The Chief paused for a moment, lost in thought, then called the Inquisitor with glasses and the Inquisitor with the bear-like voice and gave them instructions.

“Niran is still refusing to reveal who hired him. We need to interrogate him further, so we’ll keep him here. Priest Mik will take the child to the Florandia Temple in his place. I’ll write a letter of cooperation, so take it with you and explain the situation to the person in charge there.”

“Yes.”

“And Priest Seishil, go to the Grand Temple and inform them of this matter.”

* * *

The mountains visible through the carriage window were turning crimson.

“You’ll catch a cold.”

As Rembrary kept the carriage window wide open, the bear-voiced Inquisitor closed it about two-thirds of the way.

It was already autumn. Half a year had passed since Rembrary became an apprentice priest.

Rembrary realized this as he stepped out of the carriage at the Florandia Temple.

“Time really flies.”

The bear-voiced Inquisitor kept staring at the carriage steps, worried that the child might fall, then looked up, saying, “Huh?”

“Time passes in an instant. I’ve spent half of one of the seven parts of my life here.”

“Huh?”

The bear-voiced Inquisitor didn’t understand Rembrary’s words.

“What did you say?”

Rembrary didn’t repeat himself. Instead, he deliberately pressed down on the stone floor of the Florandia Temple, which he was stepping on for the first time in a while, recalling the day he first came here.

“It’s nostalgic. It’s nostalgic. Six months’ worth of nostalgia is coming over me.”

“?”

The bear-voiced Inquisitor stared blankly at the top of the child’s head as he struggled to use difficult words.

On the way here, he had received news via carrier pigeon that Niran had been found murdered.

He hadn’t been killed by black magic or a monster. It was clear that there was already a spy hidden inside the Inquisition.

Perhaps there was such a spy inside the Florandia Temple as well.

But the Inquisitor couldn’t tell the child such stories.

* * *

Rembrary, having parted ways with the bear-voiced Inquisitor, entered the dormitory he used alone.

‘Redrin, I’m back in the dormitory. It seems like the room has shrunk since I last saw it. I guess I’ve grown taller.’

There were no other classmates in the room. They were probably in the classroom taking classes.

Rembrary lay down on the bed and rolled around before falling asleep.

“Hey! Wake up! Wake up!”

What woke Rembrary from his deep sleep was a loud voice of a child. Moreover, someone kept pushing Rembrary’s arm.

Rembrary opened his eyes and just turned his head back. One of the children who shared the room was standing at the head of Rembrary’s bed, breathing heavily.

“Hey! What are you going to do!”

The child shouted in a loud voice as soon as their eyes met.

When Rembrary turned his head and closed his eyes again, the child snatched Rembrary’s blanket away.

“I said wake up!”

When Rembrary reluctantly turned his head again, the child pointed to his own spot and shouted again.

“Did you steal something from my spot!”

Rembrary stared blankly at the child before placing his hand on the child’s forehead.

“I’m not crazy!”

The child jumped back and shook off Rembrary’s hand.

Rembrary yawned and asked.

“Does the baby think I would want to steal something from him?”

The children who had gathered to watch the commotion didn’t like Rembrary. But when Rembrary asked this question, they all thought, ‘No.’

It wasn’t because they trusted Rembrary. It was because they knew who Rembrary was.

The child who was questioning Rembrary’s face turned red.

“Don’t act smart!”

Rembrary corrected the child for him.

“I’m saying that because the baby is saying ridiculous things. What I want is something the baby can’t provide with his abilities.”

“You’re a bad kid!”

The child shouted. Then, after thinking for a moment, he shouted.

“You’re the one who stole it!”

“What?”

“I had something precious, but it’s gone. But you’re the only one who was sleeping in this room!”

“What precious thing?”

Rembrary just wanted to send this noisy child away quickly and get some sleep.

“It’s a feather.”

But when the child said that, he woke up a little. Rembrary turned to face the child.

The child took a step back, almost involuntarily, as Rembrary stared intently at him.

“What’s so precious about a feather?”

Another child, looking dumbfounded, scoffed from the side.

“It’s a very precious feather. It even shines.”

“Why do you have something like that?”

“Because it’s mine!”

The child shouted at the other child, then, feeling emboldened again, came forward and looked at Rembrary, demanding.

“Give me back mine.”

Rembrary wondered when this child had seen the feather that he only took out when he was alone. But at the same time, he felt a little embarrassed.

Rembrary knew that there were people who stole things. But he had never seen anyone so openly insist that someone else’s belongings were their own.

Moreover, it wasn’t like this child needed food or urgently needed money.

Rembrary’s ‘feather,’ which the child claimed was his, was a decorative item that he couldn’t find any use for, no matter how hard he thought about it.

“Give it to me.”

The child held out his hand. The child knew that Rembrary had a beautiful feather, and Redrin was the only one who knew that Rembrary had that feather.

The child seemed to be thinking of insisting that it was his no matter what, even if Rembrary didn’t give him the feather.