Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 762

762. Complete Banditry

A peculiar man was gazing at the cards, his back hunched over.

Each time the breeze stirred, the stranger’s pink hair fluttered like vibrant feathers.

The man, who had been studying the cards intently, lifted his gaze to meet Rembrary’s.

“Why are you playing by yourself?”

“I need to flip one more card,” Rembrary replied. The man then squatted down and casually flipped another card.

“Like this?”

“Yes.”

Rembrary promptly flipped the card the man had turned over back to its original position.

“Why are you playing alone?” the man repeated. Rembrary thought the man’s hair resembled the plumage of a flamingo.

“Redrin won’t play with me.”

Rembrary answered, tugging gently on the man’s hair.

“What about your other friends?” the man asked, tilting his head in the direction Rembrary was pulling.

“I only have Redrin as a friend.”

“They’re in the temple. The little humans. The human children dressed just like you.”

“Those babies aren’t my friends.”

As Rembrary finished speaking, the man was about to reply when the sound of a bell began to echo throughout the building.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

The short, rapid ringing of the bell, emanating from multiple locations, sounded ominous.

Rembrary whirled around.

“Come this way!”

“Let’s go inside!”

“Kids! Get over here!”

The training priests were rushing out to the playground to gather the children.

The children who struggled to run were being scooped up and carried inside the building by the larger apprentice priests.

Rembrary frantically tried to gather his cards, but the flat cards, scattered across the smooth marble floor, proved difficult to pick up as quickly as he wanted.

“I’ll take care of them. You go.”

The pink-haired man deftly picked up a card and handed it to Rembrary.

“Who are you, Pink Person?”

“I’m a tourist.”

The man smiled and flipped another card, handing it to Rembrary.

“I’m thinking of coming back later. I’ll return the cards to you here next time.”

“Okay.”

Rembrary took only two cards and quickly ran toward the main building.

As he ran, he glanced back to see that both the card and the man had vanished.

“Rembrary! This way!”

Licheur called out.

Rembrary sprinted toward Licheur.

“Let’s go inside.”

The place Licheur led him to was the auditorium where everyone gathered to sing hymns. All the other apprentice priests were assembled there as well.

The large auditorium was quickly filled with children.

Rembrary looked down at the two cards the man had given him. They were the Devil card and the Friendship card.

“What’s that?”

A tall blonde boy approached and asked.

“Cards.”

Rembrary answered, examining the cards from different angles before slipping them into his pocket.

As he did, he noticed Rider at the front, staring at him.

When their eyes met, Rider quickly averted his gaze.

“He’s a coward.”

The tall blonde muttered sullenly.

“Who?”

“Rider. He’s nice, but he’s a coward.”

The tall blonde paused, seeming to want to say something more.

“Hey, Kentry! That bell, they say it rings when someone invades.”

But as the black-haired child who followed him approached, the tall blonde immediately turned away.

“Invades?”

The tall blonde asked.

The children around them all looked at the black-haired child.

“I don’t know either. But they say it rings automatically when something very dangerous and evil invades. It doesn’t ring like that for just one or two monsters.”

At the black-haired child’s words, the children began to whisper amongst themselves.

Rembrary slightly opened his pocket and peeked inside. He could see the Devil card.

[Why is a demon approaching my child?]

Redrin, who had been quietly observing the scene, looked at Lumena and posed the question.

* * *

“Until now, one training priest has been responsible for thirty children. From now on, we will add one assistant training priest to classes with children under the age of 15, so that two priests will oversee thirty children,” Heather declared to the assembled common priests and staff, his face grim.

He passed the hastily prepared documents related to the matter to the person nearest to him.

“What invaded earlier, Heather?”

A brown-haired priest raised his hand and asked.

“It appears they invaded and left immediately after hearing the warning bell. There have been no reports of anyone being caught or harmed,” a holy knight in charge of the temple’s security answered in his stead.

“This is a large temple, but it’s mostly full of children. An invasion even to a place like this…”

A common priest muttered in a disheartened voice.

It wasn’t that it was acceptable to invade the Grand Temple or the Inquisition, of course.

But relatively speaking, this temple didn’t play a significant role except for housing the most apprentice priests.

Everyone was perplexed that danger had brushed past such an ordinary place.

“Could black mages have made a contract with a powerful demon?”

“Did you meet with Lumena’s highest-ranking priest, Heather? What did they say about that continent?”

“Have the demons gathered their strength again? It’s been quite a while since they’ve been quiet.”

The conference room fell silent, then erupted into noise once more.

Heather’s head began to ache more and more as people chattered.

Seeing Heather’s expression, the secretary quickly clapped his hands.

“Just a moment!”

At the sound of clapping, the priests quieted down, and Heather lowered his hand from his temple and urged them on.

“We need more common priests to serve as assistant priests, so more people will continue to arrive. It might be a bit chaotic, but I hope you will all do your best.”

“Yes.”

“And one more thing.”

“?”

“It has not been confirmed that Rembrary possesses high-ranking priest abilities. But rumors continue to spread that Rembrary has such abilities. Even the children are being swept up in it. Who is spreading these rumors?”

Heather’s last question was delivered in a sharp tone.

The priests all quietly looked at each other.

“I hope you will keep a lid on things so that such nonsense doesn’t spread.”

Heather didn’t bother to conceal his anger.

As the priests all departed, Heather sighed and slowly rose.

The highest-ranking priest had instructed him to hide the fact that Rembrary was loved by God.

He was also trying to conceal the child’s exceptional abilities, following the highest-ranking priest’s wishes.

The child had dangerous enemies in the secular world, so it was better to remain discreet until he could protect himself.

But no matter how much he tried to hide it, the child’s reputation continued to grow.

Heather was actually hesitant. Wouldn’t it be better to openly acknowledge the child and keep him close, like Lumena’s highest-ranking priest?

* * *

Heather attempted to increase the number of common priests to care for the children more efficiently, but this ultimately only increased the workload of the existing priests and staff.

“There have been many monster invasions here and there these days, so there are many people hiring priests.”

“There are so many priests dispatched that we don’t have any extra here either.”

“Even the royal family is asking us to assign priests to patrols, and the lords are requesting that we increase the number of priests residing in their castles. There are too few priests.”

As the Florandia Temple housed many apprentice priests, it required a large number of new common priests to care for those children.

However, in this emergency situation, finding a priest was as difficult as plucking a star from the sky.

Those who had just become priests were inexperienced, so they couldn’t be put in charge of training priests, and even if there were suitable priests with experience, their identities had to be thoroughly checked to ensure they were safe.

The staff and existing priests were all so busy that they had to cut their sleeping time by an hour each day.

In the midst of all this, another incident occurred.

“Heather! Heather!”

“What’s going on?”

“Inquisitor Sediter had a carriage accident and can’t come!”

Inquisitor Sediter, whom Heather had specially invited from the Inquisition to identify Rembrary’s secular enemies, was unable to come due to a carriage accident.

“A carriage accident all of a sudden?”

Heather asked, a little suspicious because of the timing.

“The carriage wheels suddenly came off on a mountain road, and the carriage rolled off a cliff.”

“What?!”

Heather was startled by the severity of the accident and jumped up.

“How is he? Is he okay?”

“Fortunately, the cliff wasn’t deep, so he didn’t die. But the injuries are so severe… it’s hard for him to travel all the way here. He arrived in the Florandia territory, but he’s almost in the outer regions.”

Heather sank back down into his chair.

“That’s suspicious. Is there any possibility that someone deliberately removed the carriage wheels?”

Checking the carriage wheels was a basic precaution.

“The lord also sent people to investigate, but the carriage was so badly damaged that it’s hard to know.”

Heather clenched his fist and slammed it on the desk.

“Still, rest assured that the lord is taking all the carriage wreckage and arresting and investigating the coachman.”

* * *

The lord’s efforts surprisingly paid off.

They discovered that someone had loosened the wheels when the carriage stopped at a village inn earlier.

The lord was so pleased with his achievement that he even held a small feast.

The lord sent a message to the Florandia Temple, triumphantly informing them to come and see that he had caught the culprit.

But when Heather visited the lord’s castle, the culprit was dead in prison, having hanged himself.

“No, where did that guy get the rope!”

The lord exclaimed in surprise, but the dead culprit couldn’t answer.

When Heather returned to the temple, the second-in-command, High Priest Gaiger, said in a serious voice.

“When we examined the rope, we found traces of black magic. We don’t know if the culprit died alone or was killed by black magic.”

“It seems that those targeting Rembrary have joined forces with black mages.”

Heather returned to his office and took out a pen and stationery.

He had to inform the Grand Temple of this.

* * *

It wasn’t just Heather and the lord who were alarmed by this news.

In fact, the person most surprised by this news was Duke Ladderun himself, who had requested the black mage to conceal Rembrary’s divine power.

“What are you talking about!”

Duke Ladderun glared at the messenger, his hand gripping his cane trembling.

“The bribed priests said that the inquisitor was coming to investigate them. So, I hired someone to cause a carriage accident, but the lord immediately intervened and caught the coachman and the culprit. I was worried about how to handle this, so I tried to silence the culprit by threatening his family, but the culprit died first. And traces of black magic were found on the dead culprit.”

The messenger looked at the duke with a fearful expression.

“The priests are telling me that the priests there now believe that the group targeting Prince Rembrary and the black mage are working together.”

Duke Ladderun was so dumbfounded that he couldn’t speak.

He had only tried to prevent Rembrary from gaining fame in the temple, to make him be suspected, and to live as a low-ranking priest.

So that even if Rembrary spoke about being his son, no one would believe him.

So that even if he happened to leave the temple, people wouldn’t believe the prince’s words.

But suddenly, he was being treated as an accomplice to black mages!

He had only hired him because he was a capable black mage. He didn’t even know what those black mages were doing.

When he heard that those black mages had attacked the Grand Temple, Duke Ladderun was as surprised as the Grand Temple staff.

“What the hell are those guys!”

The duke shouted, but a voice came from behind.

“I was going to explain it to you anyway.”

The duke jumped up and turned to face the messenger.

The duke gripped his cane and looked at the seat he had been sitting in.

A man with pink hair was sitting in the chair he had occupied.

It wasn’t the black mage he had worked with before, but a face he had never seen before.

The duke couldn’t understand how that man had appeared. The door was closed, and the windows were shut.

There wasn’t even a fireplace behind him. All that was behind him was a mirror.

The pink-haired man, who had taken his seat, smiled brightly and said.

“We got you out of trouble. So, we’ve come to get some help from you too.”

“Who, who, who are you!”

“You’re going to have to give up your house and estate.”

“!”