Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 775

◈ 775. Can You Assassinate Him?

Lyidal was suddenly pushed and almost fell forward. He managed to regain his balance, but still stumbled.

The giant centipede swung its massive body at Lyidal.

“Eek!”

One of the children screamed at the sight.

Paladin 1 grabbed Lyidal and rolled on the floor, crashing into the wall.

“Damn it. It’s hard to use my sword because of that poison,” Paladin 2 muttered, grinding his teeth. The cabin was small, and there was nowhere to run. On top of that, the centipede was huge.

Although the centipede’s movements were fast, they weren’t unmanageable. He could probably manage to cut it somehow, but the problem was the poison that came out when the centipede was cut.

If that giant centipede spewed poison everywhere in this small space, the children would definitely get hurt badly.

“You! Stop pushing!” Paladin 1 yelled, pushing Lyidal towards the children and warning Wider.

Wider bit his lip and stepped back.

“Behind you!” Lyidal shouted at Paladin 1, having regained his balance. In the brief moment Paladin 1 was distracted, the giant centipede was lunging at his back.

In that critical moment, Lyidal felt a strange sensation—a feeling that he could move something.

Holding onto that feeling, Lyidal reached out towards Paladin 1.

Just before the giant centipede struck Paladin 1’s back, it was as if it had hit something and bounced back, retreating.

Lyidal’s eyes widened. *Did I do something?*

Lyidal tried to gather divine power in his hand again.

However, the sound of the door crashing open scattered his concentration.

“Aaaah!” The children screamed in surprise.

“Are you okay?” Fortunately, the people who appeared were not monsters, but the Lumenas novice priests and paladins who had come up.

“What are you doing inside?!” Paladin 6, who appeared, asked the paladins inside the cabin, then cursed when he spotted the centipede. “Damn it, what is that?”

Paladin 5 shouted as he saw him draw his sword, “It spits poison when you cut it!”

At that moment, a child peeked out from behind the paladin.

The purple-haired child was Lapsus. Lapsus stood by the door and reached out towards the monster clinging to the roof.

The monster was instantly flattened as if pressed by a giant palm and fell straight down.

“Aaaah!” The children who were standing against the wall screamed and writhed as the giant centipede fell in front of them.

The plump centipede was scary, but the flattened centipede was just as horrifying.

A paladin quickly pulled Rembrary, who was about to be trampled by the children, to safety.

The flattened centipede looked gruesome but didn’t move anymore.

The children were making a fuss and running around, but they belatedly noticed this and stopped.

“Lapsus must have done something,” someone said.

When people’s attention focused on him, Lapsus’s face turned bright red, and he tried to step back.

“You did that? You’re really amazing!” However, another child shouted loudly before Lapsus could leave.

“How did you do it?”

“Lapsus, you’re really strong!”

“Lapsus did it?!”

At that, the children swarmed around Lapsus.

Lapsus couldn’t even lift his head properly.

“I don’t know. I just did it,” Lapsus muttered and tried to slip behind the paladins, but he noticed that Rembrary was gone and asked, “Where’s Rembrary?”

“He fainted. He must be weak in real combat,” Wider answered, grumbling.

“You have to be good in real combat. That’s why you’re a high priest, Lapsus,” another child said, looking at Lapsus with admiration.

Meanwhile, Rembrary woke up from his faint. Rembrary asked the paladin who was struggling to open the window to understand the situation.

“What happened?”

Lapsus was listening to the children’s and paladins’ praises when he spotted Rembrary and stared intently.

He was proud that he, not Rembrary, had been the one to shine this time.

Lapsus expected Rembrary to look at him with an envious face.

However, Rembrary listened to the paladin’s story and then moved as far away from the monster’s corpse as possible, sticking to the corner.

Rembrary didn’t even seem to be trying to find Lapsus.

“What’s wrong?” One of the children asked as Lapsus stared intently at him.

“Nothing,” Lapsus turned his head and spotted Lyidal. Lyidal was looking down at his hand with a thoughtful expression.

Seeing this, another child said, “Come to think of it, Lyidal was trying to do something too. Right?”

“That’s right. When Lyidal reached out his hand, the monster went backward.”

Lapsus understood why the highest priest had said that his rival was Lyidal, not Rembrary.

*The halo is interesting, but it’s nothing special. It looks good, but it’s useless if you can’t use it in real combat. And the healing wasn’t done with Rembrary’s ability, but with some kind of item.*

Lyidal regained some confidence in his own way and felt hopeful.

*I think I have divine power too. The monster showed some reaction to me.*

Wider stared at Lyidal with his lips tightly shut.

* * *

Three months passed quickly. Rembrary, who had come to the central mansion at the age of seven, turned eight and returned to the Florandia Temple.

“Lyidal! I missed you!” As the children who had gone to the central mansion got off the carriage, Lyidal’s followers rushed out and shouted.

“Did you have a good time?” Lishuer deliberately approached Rembrary and asked first.

“Yes, I did,” Rembrary answered confidently.

“You seem a little taller?” Lishuer said, pointing to the top of Rembrary’s head, and one of the children who had gone with him said in a teasing tone, “Anyone would grow quickly if they ate like Rembrary.”

Rembrary quickly moved away from Lishuer, hoping he wouldn’t ask about the homework.

“Okay, let’s go in,” Lishuer patted Lyidal and Rembrary on the back and smiled.

“Let’s go. We need to unpack and rest a bit, and submit our homework.”

“!”

* * *

During the three months Rembrary was training at the central mansion and the month he was returning to the Florandia Temple, Duke Ladderun lived very quietly.

He had made a completely losing contract by getting help from the black magician. The black magicians made all sorts of demands on him.

Duke Ladderun was helping them while hiding the fact that he was involved with the black magicians, to the point where he was losing weight rapidly.

*How can I get rid of those guys?*

Duke Ladderun’s recent goal was to get rid of the black magicians.

He was worried about Rembrary, but he believed that Marchioness Lusiche would somehow take care of it.

Because Marchioness Lusiche’s child had played a more decisive and bad role in the incident where Rembrary was kidnapped.

The temple also had a slightly more peaceful time than when incidents were rushing in.

The monsters continued to increase, but it was thanks to the fact that the black magicians no longer appeared in this temple or that temple to poke at them.

As the black magicians remained quiet for several months, some priests began to argue that the black magicians’ recent uproar was all their power.

As everyone became more and more relaxed, an unexpected event occurred.

* * *

One day, the head of someone in agony appeared in the Imperial Palace garden.

A palace maid who was trying to clean the hallway before the officials came in discovered it and screamed.

The palace maids and guards who appeared after hearing the scream gasped at the head placed on the railing.

The head was firmly fixed to the pillars and railings with its own hair.

But what surprised them was not this gruesome sight.

“Help me.”

The head opened its mouth and spoke to them.

“Bring a priest!” At the vice-commander of the Royal Knights’ order, several guards hurriedly ran down the hallway.

The Imperial Palace priest who was called in a little later examined the head with a serious face.

After sending divine power into the head, the priest finally stepped back from the bizarre head and said, “It’s not a person, but it’s not completely a monster either. There’s a dark aura on it.”

The emperor, who heard the report, came to the place where the head was.

“It’s dangerous, Your Majesty,” the subordinates said, wanting the emperor not to go near the head in case of an emergency. But the emperor stood facing the head and asked, “Who are you to be in that state?”

“I want to be forgiven,” the head muttered.

“Forgiveness?”

“I helped kidnap Prince Rembrary.”

Everyone who had gathered at the head’s words looked at the emperor in horror.

The emperor was Prince Rembrary’s father and had sent the prince to the temple because of the kidnapping incident.

But a person who only had a head left appeared and said that he had kidnapped the prince.

The emperor’s expression changed sharply.

“What are you talking about?”

“Please forgive me.”

The head couldn’t say much. After trying to talk a few more times, the emperor got angry and shouted, “Get rid of this head right now!”

However, the next day the head appeared again in the same place. It was the same even if they got rid of it again. For five days, the head continued to appear.

The head’s owner was always the same. There should only be one human head, but the same person’s head kept appearing, so the prime minister advised the emperor, “Wouldn’t it be better to call the highest priest to look at the situation?”

* * *

Duke Ladderun, who could freely come and go to the Imperial Palace, soon heard about this situation.

Duke Ladderun went into the palace early and checked the head, then quickly left the place before the priest came to remove the head.

Duke Ladderun returned to his mansion and went to the secret room to find the black magician. The black magician was reading a book while drinking coffee.

Duke Ladderun told him about the head that appeared in the Imperial Palace and asked, “Is this something you guys are doing? Only black magic can do that, right?”

The black magician put down his coffee cup and smiled soothingly. “I don’t know why you think that, but it’s not me.”

“The priest said that the head wasn’t a monster, but it wasn’t a person either.”

“I could create a monster of that form with black magic, but you said that the same person’s head keeps appearing? Even I can’t do that kind of application.”

The black magician pondered while holding his coffee cup and said, “In my opinion, those aren’t real heads. It seems like they’re tearing the soul into small pieces and then making them into heads and bringing them there. But to be able to do this, you need to have a level beyond black magic. You’d have to be a demon yourself.”

Duke Ladderun couldn’t properly eat his food throughout the meal in the dining room because his stomach hurt from fear.

*The culprit who kidnapped Prince Rembrary is constantly being insulted and tormented. I don’t know exactly what they’re doing… Someone is taking revenge on the culprit who kidnapped the prince. But who?*

Even the black magician, who uses such strange tricks, said that only a demon could use such tricks.

*I guess Prince Rembrary is related to the demons after all…*

Duke Ladderun lost his appetite. He put down his napkin and stood up.

Whether he was related to the demons or not, someone was privately taking revenge for the prince’s kidnapping.

The culprit was not only using bizarre tricks but also bringing the head into the heavily guarded Imperial Palace.

Duke Ladderun became anxious. Could the culprit’s revenge include his son?

If the culprit could easily enter and exit the Imperial Palace, they might also know about his child’s intentional silence at the time of the incident.

Duke Ladderun paced anxiously around the dining room with his hands behind his back and eventually went to find the black magician again.

The black magician was playing with a puzzle.

“I have a favor to ask.”

The black magician, who was putting in a puzzle piece, smiled, raising the corners of his lips that were revealed under his cloak.

“Anything.”

“Can you assassinate Prince Rembrary?”