Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 861

861. Morso’s Concern

The acolyte, struck by the arrow, stared at Rembrary with disbelief before staggering.

“Lydal!”

A Camuel paladin, recognizing the name, shouted loudly and rushed to the acolyte.

However, before the paladin could support him, the acolyte collapsed sideways, twitching faintly, and quickly became still.

‘How could this be!’ Killing someone from the same temple! The paladins stared at Rembrary, mouths agape.

The paladin who had rushed to support the acolyte patted his cheeks, neck, and shoulders, then shouted, veins bulging in his neck.

“What are you doing!”

He looked ready to rush and grab Rembrary by the collar.

“As promised.”

Rembrary answered calmly, causing the paladin to look deflated.

“As promised……?”

A paladin who had been watching from the side stammered.

“Well, yes. Morso did give similar instructions, but you were too inflexible.”

“Lydal didn’t come from the side path! He appeared from outside! The High Priest told us to kill those who came from the side path!”

However, Rembrary only stared blankly as the two paladins shouted.

“I wonder.”

“What? You’re crazy!”

The paladin who had been tending to the fallen acolyte stood up abruptly, looking as if he couldn’t bear to watch any longer, and turned towards Rembrary. He looked ready to charge.

But before the paladin could move a step, Rembrary quickly nocked an arrow and shot it straight away.

The paladin, who had been about to charge, covered the area hit by the arrow with his hand and stared at Rembrary with wide eyes.

The paladin, sending a look of disbelief, collapsed. This time, no one spoke.

“Indeed.”

Seeing Rembrary smile contentedly to himself at the situation, the paladins felt a chill and glanced at each other.

The complete lack of any sense of unease made them wonder if he was really a High Priest candidate, making them feel uneasy.

But the most bewildered person was the spy watching this.

‘Morso… why did he bring such a kid?’ The spy unconsciously took a step back.

He had been guessing that Morso had noticed something and was trying to catch them. He also suspected that a trap had been set here.

When Morso instructed Rembrary to ‘treat anyone coming from the side path as an enemy’ and left, the spy had a rough idea of what the trap was.

But now, he had no idea what Morso had instructed. What did he say to make him shoot arrows so mercilessly?

Did Morso really instruct that? Or is that child excessively following instructions? Or is it a unilateral decision?

The spy swallowed hard in tension. Either way, the result was the same.

That crazy high-ranking priest will shoot anyone who seems even slightly suspicious without giving them a chance to explain.

The idea of ‘if we persuade him well, he might listen’ doesn’t work at all. He had to be more careful.

* * *

Morso couldn’t hear the commotion outside at all. The huge buzzing sound inside this space blocked out all other sounds.

‘Is this it…….’

He focused on the slender whirlwind-like force rapidly circling the giant summoning circle.

The power circling the summoning circle was magnificent, but the immense power felt beyond it was so great that it was impossible to even guess its size.

‘Will I succeed this time?’ Morso slowly closed his eyes.

A few months ago, after tracking several missing person cases, the Camuel priests discovered a place believed to be the enemy’s base.

Morso took excellent high-ranking priests and paladins and moved there. This time, they hadn’t just barely discovered it, so everyone was full of hope.

Morso found a similar summoning circle back then as well. It was a slightly weaker form of summoning circle.

The pearl-colored jewel in the center, the size of a human head, was smaller than it is now.

Morso raised his hand. Just like now. And…….

Morso opened his closed eyes.

‘I have always succeeded. I have never failed.’

But when he opened his eyes after succeeding, the summoning circle was complete.

If he had failed, he would have at least gone back to see what went wrong. But since the summoning circle was completed after success, he couldn’t even know where or what went wrong.

“This time, I will know the truth.”

Morso kissed the back of his hand and released the power he usually controlled. The black energy from his body took over the entire space where the summoning circle was, turning everything to dust.

* * *

From inside the cave, they felt a sound and vibration like a strong wind passing through.

The Camuel paladins, who had been focusing all their attention on the Redrin high priest, fearing what unexpected actions Rembrary might take, simultaneously looked in one direction at the sound.

The paladins tensed and went on alert.

Their gazes moved alternately between the direction Morso had entered and the side path entrusted to Rembrary.

‘Will it succeed this time? If it fails again, five summoning passages will be completed.’

There were five vast continents in the world. People did not have the ability to travel between those five vast continents in an instant.

By the time five passages were completed, humans would have to create a place to evacuate together instead of blocking the summoning circles.

At that moment, Rembrary, who had been quietly standing, suddenly began to move towards the side path.

“You can’t!”

“You were told to stay here.”

“Where are you going?”

The paladins simultaneously reached out to stop Rembrary.

“Inside there.”

Someone’s hand actually grabbed Rembrary’s arm.

“You shot arrows at other people, not giving them a chance under the pretext of following Morso’s orders, but you’re going to act as you please?”

The paladin gritted his teeth, giving Rembrary’s arm a force that almost broke it. He seemed to be close to the paladin Rembrary had shot.

However, Rembrary calmly advised, looking at the paladin as if he were a strange person.

“Think again.”

The paladin dismissed Rembrary’s incomprehensible words as nonsense and warned.

“If you disobey Morso’s orders and go inside, I will cut you down. Just like you shot my comrade. No excuses needed.”

Rembrary repeated the same words again.

“Think again.”

The paladin drew his sword, and several others reached out their arms.

“Wait a moment.”

“Stop it.”

“This isn’t something we should be fighting about.”

Still, when Rembrary walked towards the side path, the paladin didn’t just threaten but actually slashed at Rembrary with his sword.

Rembrary didn’t even change direction and kept walking straight.

The watching paladins were only thinking, ‘no way, no way,’ and belatedly ran, but it was already too late.

The paladin’s sword came down as if it would quickly strike Rembrary.

Just before the sword touched the white priest’s robes, the paladin barely managed to stop the sword.

The paladin who had struck down the sword was more surprised than anyone else and gasped for breath. He really didn’t expect Rembrary to ignore him and keep going.

Rather, only Rembrary was walking leisurely, not even looking to the side, as if he didn’t care about this commotion.

“What the…….”

The paladin muttered, wiping away cold sweat.

There was a big gap between the image of the rumored angelic High Priest candidate who even heals dying people and the sight they were seeing now.

At that moment, another paladin beside him muttered blankly.

“That’s right.”

“What!”

The paladin who had tried to cut Rembrary down got angry for no reason.

Then the other paladin said urgently.

“No, because you were criticizing him for disobeying Morso’s words, the priest kept saying that. Think again. Thinking again, Morso definitely didn’t say that the priest shouldn’t come in.”

“!”

“Did they talk about coming in if they felt power, or something like that?”

At those words, the paladin who had swung his sword kicked the wall in disbelief.

“Damn it! What did the two of you talk about? If that’s the case, you should have told us!”

* * *

Rembrary was walking alone, following the side path, no matter what they were whispering behind him.

He thought it was a bit dark, so he turned on the lights.

He thought that monsters might appear as soon as he turned on the lights, but all that appeared was the sound of bats fluttering away.

Rembrary continued along the path without any forks and finally found another passage in the side path.

‘Is this the path that leads to the passage Morso entered?’

Rembrary, who had been peering inside, soon leaned against it.

When he turned off the halo there, he felt a different kind of energy from the power of the demons or the Redrin [likely a type of monster or enemy] from the side.

It was probably Morso’s divine power.

Rembrary blinked blankly and recalled what Morso had said last night.

* * *

“Besides the enemies inside, there is a more difficult enemy. I think it’s an enemy with the ability to cleverly imitate people inside.”

“Are you sure?”

“Almost.”

Morso paced back and forth at the end of the sparsely decorated room with a serious expression.

“How do you distinguish them?”

When Rembrary asked, Morso stopped abruptly and answered as if Rembrary had asked a very rude question.

“I don’t know. If I knew, I would have caught them already.”

“Ah.”

“So keep an eye on anyone who seems strange to you based on your standards. Maybe when I’m distracted by blocking the summoning circle, they’ll do something different from the others. Naturally.”

“So, I just need to find someone who seems strange but natural?”

“Or someone who seems to be acting for me, for everyone, for you, but is going against my instructions.”

* * *

Rembrary recalled Morso’s words and looked alternately at the side path he had entered and the path leading to Morso.

Nothing special had happened yet.

Then Rembrary felt the energy surging in the direction of Morso rapidly subside and turned his head.

‘Is it done?’

When the energy completely disappeared, Rembrary crossed over to where Morso was.

Morso wasn’t there, and the summoning circle was broken here and there. The jewel in the center of the summoning circle was cracked and slowly turning to dust.

As he was thinking about whether Morso was outside the passage, he heard the sound of people moving in groups.

Before long, Morso and the Camuel paladins appeared there.

“You were here first.”

It seemed that Morso had solved the problem and then gone to get the paladins.

The paladins were delighted to see the summoning circle that was obviously broken.

“It seems we’ve definitely blocked it this time!”

“There’s no phenomenon of the summoning circle opening!”

While everyone was happy, one of the paladins who had almost cut Rembrary slipped out from among his comrades and approached Rembrary.

“I’m sorry. A little while ago, probably around the time the summoning circle was breaking, one of the people hit by the arrow turned into glass shards, and the other one transformed into a human-shaped monster. I’m sorry for getting angry without knowing properly.”

“It’s okay. What could you do if you didn’t know?”

“Morso told me to shoot arrows from the beginning. I was just getting angry…….”

“I only told you to watch.”

The paladin, who couldn’t even lift his head because he was sorry, widened his eyes and raised his head sharply at Morso’s casual words.

“Yes?”

The paladins who saw that scene burst into laughter. Perhaps because it was after the success, the atmosphere was much brighter than when they came to the cave.

However, Rembrary clearly saw Morso frowning in a direction that the paladins couldn’t see.

On the way back to the Camuel Grand Temple, Rembrary approached Morso and asked why when Morso was moving alone, separated from the others.

“What’s wrong? I thought you traded your sense for divine power.”

Morso indirectly admitted that he was indeed uncomfortable.

When Rembrary stared at him intently, Morso sighed and confessed.