Chapter 3:
Flip the Board and Take the King
OH, HI! Rudeus Greyrat here. You might be wondering how this happened. There I was, surrounded. Eight upstanding knights all in gleaming blue armor on all sides.
But before we get to that, let’s get to know our contestants.
First off, the one right in front of me was Therese. Therese Latria. That’s right, my aunt, and a member of the House of Latria. She’s a bit of an odd one out amongst the expulsionist Temple Knights. She accepted me, even with all my demon friends, but it went further than that. She didn’t really seem to care much at all about race or blood.
She was usually pretty laid-back around me, but this time? Well, she was wearing a helmet, so who’s to say?
Let’s go around clockwise. Next up was the knight on her left.
He wore a helmet shaped like a skull, and there was a scratch on his armor near his heart. I remembered that mark. I didn’t know his real name, but this had to be the knight known as Skull Ash. Given the skull helmet, pretty good guess.
The guy next to him wore a helmet shaped like the trash cans on Millis street corners. He was the only one of the eight wearing a red cape. The Blessed Child really liked that cape. She was always wiping her grimy little hands on it. He had the truly unfortunate appellation Dust Bin.
Next, a helmet with a flat face-plate, engraved all over with the phrase may you rest in peace. This guy was over two meters tall. He lifted the Blessed Child up onto his shoulders so that she could pick fruit from the trees. She called him Grave Keeper.
The fourth man’s helmet looked like he’d stuck a broomstick on his head. His armor didn’t have any particular identifying marks. Okay, brooms…cleaning…
Ah! Trash Sweeper.
There were three more, but to be honest I couldn’t tell them apart. They all had names to do with death or graves or whatever and got all swelled up with pride every time the Blessed Child called on them, but as for personal identities, names…
They were all cringey, edgelord code names. I remembered that much.
Ah, that’s right. Black Coffin, Burial Shroud, and Funeral Procession. Pretty sure that was it. Now what was the whole team called? Wait, it’ll come to me… Um…
“Let the inquisition begin! I am Therese Latria, captain of the Keepers of Anastasia, and I shall serve as inquisitor!”
The other seven knights around me shouted their assent, beating their swords on the ground again.
Right, Keepers of Anastasia, that was it. Therese had told me once before.
“I shall now commence the interrogation of the accused! Any objections?”
“No objections!”
“Objection! I move that he be executed on the spot!”
“No objections!”
“No objections!”
“No objections!”
“No objections!”
“No objections!”
“All objections are overruled!”
Aw, poor widdle Dusty’s all disappointed. But I mean, when everyone else is like, let’s find out more first and you’re like, nah let’s just do it, you’re gonna get overruled… I’ll remember that, though, buddy. Don’t you worry.
“Rudeus Greyrat stands accused.”
Wait, wait. I’m not following this. Can someone catch me up on what happened last time?
I gotcha! Iiiiit’s recap time!
Our hero Rudeus, trying to rescue his mother, Zenith, went and hung out around the Blessed Child and the captain of her guard, Therese. Then one day, he went to the church headquarters to see Therese, only to find himself trapped inside a King-tier barrier. His captors told him he stood accused of heresy for plotting to kidnap the Blessed Child.
And now I’m all caught up. Don’t I feel better.
Like, okay. I admit I had, at one time, thought about doing some light kidnapping. But I ditched that plan! Instead, I got Therese on my side and had her negotiate Zenith’s return for me. There had to be some mistake. Either that or someone was spreading false information. I’d kept that kidnapping plan close to the vest. Aisha, Geese, Cliff…oh, and the pope. The pope was the most suspicious one on that list, though it was also possible Geese had been captured and they’d tortured it out of him…oh. I hoped Aisha was okay.
“The inquisition shall now begin! Answer truthfully, Rudeus.”
“…Got it.”
I didn’t understand one bit of what was going on. When that happened, the most important thing to do was to stay calm. If I flew off the handle now, everything I’d worked for so far would be for nothing.
“Rudeus Greyrat. Do you admit that you handed out writings denying that demons are evil to lead the hearts of believers astray?” Therese asked.
So they’d done their homework. But then, the pope knew about that, so it was probably in their database.
“I do not,” I said.
“Please answer truthfully. We have evidence.”
“I didn’t ‘hand out’ anything. I made sure everyone paid me.”
“Was the price you asked not remarkably low for a book?”
Damn right it was. I wanted to get that book in the hands of as many people as possible.
“As you’re well aware, Therese, I—”
“The accused shall not speak except to answer the inquisitor’s questions.”
Don’t be like that. Ask me why I was sucking up to Ruijerd, I thought. But Therese was asking questions she knew the answer to. I’d told her about it before.
“Rudeus Greyrat, you worship the demons and hold them up as gods, do you not?”
I was silent for a moment.
Okay, this one I can definitely deny.
“No, I don’t believe in gods.”
“Liar!” The other knights all roared at me.
“The accused is lying!”
“Lies!”
“All lies!”
“Liar!”
“I judge the accused to be lying!”
“Yeah, lies!”
When they were done, Therese announced, “The majority has decided that you are lying.” And so it was decided.
Majority rule, huh. How very democratic of them. All right. I guess that’s how inquisitions work.
“This is the final question. Rudeus Greyrat, do you admit that you plotted to kidnap the Blessed Child, the symbol of the Holy Millis Church?”
“I do not. I did make a bad joke along those lines once, but I never plotted anything.”
Not that it was a joke when I first blurted it out…but I never acted on it. In the end it might as well have been a joke.
“Liar!”
“The accused is lying!”
“Lies!”
“All lies!”
“Liar”
“I judge the accused to be lying!”
“Yeah, lies!”
Oh, good. I was starting to find the whole thing kind of funny. I wanted to do an inquisition where no one was allowed to laugh. You replied to basic questions with obvious lies, and whoever laughed first got slimed.
That was really the last question, huh…
“The majority has decided that you are lying,” Therese intoned solemnly. The other seven knights beat their swords on the ground again. It was pretty intimidating. If I hadn’t spent the past month looking at what lay behind those helmets, I might’ve been freaked out.
“This inquisition finds Rudeus Greyrat guilty of heresy!”
“No objection!”
“No objection!”
“No objection!”
“Objection! I can’t be here chin-wagging with you fellows when there’s rice to be reaping! Hold it! Take that!”
“…No objection!”
“No objection!”
“No objection!”
“No objection!”
Piping up in the middle got me a good glare.
Sorry, it was your turn, wasn’t it?
“This concludes the inquisition. I sentence the defendant to full disarmament!”
“What’s that? Some kind of death penalty?” I asked. I didn’t expect an answer but figured I’d try anyway.
“No, we won’t kill you,” said Therese. “Your arms will be cut off. Then, to ensure you never wield magic ever again, they will be wrapped in a cloth woven through with barrier magic, then sealed up with earth magic.”
Huh, she actually answered. Not sure how you’re gonna make that happen, though, when neither of us can get at the other right now…
They had sealed me in. They probably had all kinds of stuff prepared for when the barrier came down and the fight started.
Disarmament, though, really? They were going to chop off my arms, seal them in a barrier, then encase them in concrete as well so I could never use them again. No more magic, no more swords, no more arms… Hence the name. No more fondling breasts for me, either. I’d have to go back to a prosthesis. The Zaliff Prosthesis had decent sensory input, but they were less than ideal for the partner on the receiving end. As you might imagine, hands are no good unless they’re warm and soft.
“Therese, you’d take away my joy in life?”
“Murder is your joy in life?”
Ugh… Is that what she thinks of me…? That if I’ve both hands free, I’ll go off killing people? It was actually the opposite: I liked making people.
“What? No. I meant: without my hands, how am I supposed to hold my wife?”
“Excuse me?”
“I, um… I want to, um, hold my wife again,” I said. After being forced to repeat the same mortifying statement twice, all I got for it was an impatient click of the tongue from Therese. Rude…
Well, whatever. I wasn’t keen to get into a “Hold your wife? What do you mean?” “Let me show you~” ero-doujin type scene.
“No matter what happens, you guys don’t plan on letting me go, do you?”
“That is correct.”
“So that joke of a trial wasn’t just you messing around—it was the real deal?”
“That is correct.”
“The Blessed Child would be able to confirm my innocence, if you called her,” I said. “Doesn’t the Blessed Child usually attend inquisitions?”
“Provided at least seven are present, the Temple Knights have the authority to pass judgment on heretics in basic inquisitions.”
“So you’re not going to call the Blessed Child for me.”
“That…is correct,” Therese said. I couldn’t see her face behind her helmet, but her voice shook slightly. So she wasn’t doing this because she wanted to—she was an unwilling participant.
“Was everything kind you did for me up till now just an act to get me here?” I asked.
“Of course not. The Blessed Child and I were very fond of you. You are the one who betrayed us, Rudeus.”
“I didn’t betray anyone. I came to you because I trusted you, Therese,” I said, then looked around to address all the assembled knights. “I came here wishing only to befriend your beloved Blessed Child.”
No one replied. I guess they weren’t interested in what I had to say.
Man… This really, really sucks.
I’d really tried to put everything out in the open this time. I’d controlled my impatience, kept all my desires in check, and opted for the slow but sure path to securing Zenith’s return. And yet here I was.
“Therese, what’s going to happen to Zenith?”
“I…I’ll make sure that Mother is persuaded. The matter at hand has no bearing on any of that.”
Hmm. That answer, after that tremor in her voice earlier. Therese definitely isn’t calling all the shots here. Is it the pope who’s behind this? Or the cardinal?
That’s the downside of being a servant of the church, huh.
“I know I’m not of the Millis faith, and I do have ties to the pope…” I began, “but you all knew that from the beginning, didn’t you? Why now—”
“Are you done asking questions?” Therese cut me off with an air of finality.
Her voice was cold. She wasn’t going to answer me. I guess this was never supposed to be a back-and-forth.
“One last question: the tip-off you received wasn’t from a god that came into your dreams with a message, was it?” I asked.
“No. A trusted source passed it on to me. The Temple Knights would never give credence to the words of an unknown entity like that.”
“Even if the god in your dream claimed to be Saint Millis?” I said.
No sooner had I spoken than the knights around me erupted in protest.
“Saint Millis would never send such messages!”
“God would never do such a thing.”
“His words are not for our unworthy ears, at any rate!”
“Exactly! Saint Millis would never appear to one other than the Blessed Child!”
“Millis is the one true god!”
“Only a demon would use God’s name falsely!”
Therese let the others finish. Then, standing up straight, she said proudly, “Well spoken, all of you. Our faith is absolute, Rudeus.”
“…Well, that is a relief,” I replied.
I wouldn’t find any disciples of the Man-God amongst this merry band of fanatics. They were all devout followers of Millis. That was all I needed to know to put my mind at ease.
I spread my arms out, letting my robe fall to the ground. It made a pretty sick swooshing sound, if I do say so myself. On my left hand I had the gear I kept on me for these moments.
“Arm, absorb,” I said. The stone of absorption activated, and the barrier at my feet vanished. The Temple Knights’ eyes went wide.
“All right. Let’s see what you’ve got,” I said.
***
“All units spread out!” Therese shouted. The other Temple Knights sprang away to put distance between us. In response, I sidestepped, creating Stone Cannons in both my hands as I did so. They were pretty fast, and they hit hard enough for a direct hit in the right place to be fatal. I fired. Who was my first target?
Dust Bin, I choose you!
“Support!” he shouted.
“Ngh!”
The two knights standing beside Dust dived out in front to deflect my two Stone Canons. They both carried shields that looked like semi-transparent membranes—Beginner-tier Magic Shields.
Wait, Beginner? My Stone Cannon really got stopped by novice magic?
“Dust, Grave, and Skull, flank from the right! Trash, Coffin, Burial, left! Funeral, attack at will with me!” Therese ordered, and three coordinated magical strikes came at me from both sides. Fire. Water. Earth. Three different magic disciplines at the same time… That wouldn’t help them, though.
“Arm, Absorb!” I said.
The stone of absorption disintegrated their magic, as I fired off another Stone Cannon back at them. It was deflected again, this time by the jerk with the Magic Shield who hadn’t joined in the attack.
“Let this smoldering flame burn bright with your blessing! Flamethrower!”
“Majestic blade of ice, I summon thee to strike my enemy down! Icicle Blade!”
Magic assailed me from both sides at once. Fire and water. Wait! That one had his hand on the ground. There were three types. It was an Earth Lance!
“Arm, absorb!” The fire and water disintegrated, while the Earth Lance was overwritten by Quagmire at its origin point, rendering it useless.
Crap, I was too slow to get a counter off.
I could move, though. I quickly stepped back to dodge out of the way of the magical attacks.
One kind of magic. Fire. From the size, maybe Fireball?
Why was it just the one? There were three guys over there. Why not three attacks? There was no time to think much about it. I pointed one arm at the left group and the other at the right and shouted, “Stone Cannon!”
Stepping back meant I had a good view of the situation. The Temple Knights had split into groups, with three on the right and three on the left. Two members of each group held a semi-transparent shield—they jumped out in front of my Stone Cannons. And blocked them. I’d made the Cannons harder and faster this time, but they still bounced off the shields like they were nothing. I’d seen this before: Water God Style. Impressive that it even worked with Magic Shields.
“Unknown God, answer my call and raise the earth up toward the heavens! Earth Lance!”
“O spirits of the magnificent waters, I beseech the Prince of Thunder! With your majestic blade of ice, slay my enemy! Icicle Blast!”
The two without shields sent magic at me, one slightly slower than the other. I could obviously counter both, but it wouldn’t get me anywhere.
Right, what’s the plan?
Three enemies on my right, three on my left. Two in each group were using barrier magic to block my attacks. I could only make two magical attacks at once, so they only needed two shields. When a magical attack came their way, the third member responded with magic of their own. As soon as the other team realized they weren’t targets, they dropped their shields. Then, with my defenses left wide open, all three of them attacked at once. They probably used three magic disciplines because they knew I could only use two. Too bad their information hadn’t accounted for the fact that I could neutralize all of their attacks simultaneously. The reason they’d only attacked from one side at the start was a mere matter of distance, I bet. If I’d been nearer, they could have engaged me at close range, then struck whenever I began an incantation. Each group had a member without a shield. I assumed they were in charge of close-range combat.
So long as I was in this safe zone, however, they wouldn’t move.
…They really thought this through. Okay, how do you like this?
“Fireball!” I shouted, making sure they all heard it as I summoned my magic. I created two burning orbs, each two meters across. Their size and temperature were Advanced-level, but they were slower than the Stone Cannons. So slow, it’d look like an eephus pitch. High arc, very slow speed. I released one at each group.
“Support!” came the call, and the shield-bearing knights moved out in front. But Magic Shield had a weak point.
“Disturb Magic!” I called. The spell wiped out the shields of both the knights on the left.
Almost all barrier magic eats up magical energy so long as it stays active. Even a Beginner-tier magic barrier. What that meant here was that Disturb Magic still worked, even though the incantation was finished. The group on the right would block it, but hey. Divide and conquer.
That was my thought until the instant before something came hurtling at me from behind. I whirled around with my right hand raised to block it. There was a loud thud, and something exploded into dust in front of me. A brown boulder, reduced to fragments that now flew past my face. I could still feel the force of the impact in my elbow. That was a Stone Cannon. I think it was the first time I’d had it used against me.
“Rudeus can cast a different spell with each hand!” Therese called. “So long as two of you counter him and one attacks, we’ll be fine! Every one of you, stand your ground!”
She had snuck up behind me, along with one other knight—the one who’d cast the spell.
I was totally surrounded. Had moving back at the start been a mistake? No, I had to assume they had a plan for close range, too.
The armor of the knights I’d hit with Fireball was smoking a bit, but they were otherwise unharmed.
“Rudeus, the eight of us are the strongest of all the Temple Knights,” Therese said. “You can’t win.”
“You think so, do you?” I retorted.
“I do. Over the past ten days, we took the liberty of studying how you fight. You’re so famous, it didn’t take long to put together a counterstrategy.”
Oh? In that case, why don’t you have your swords out? I’m weaker at close range.
Right now they were evading all my magic. I had plenty of tricks left up my sleeves, of course. It was possible they hadn’t braved close combat because they were wary of what I’d do. Given how they’d shut me out, it did look like their strategy was working for them. If they had to resort to a war of attrition, well, it didn’t speak highly of their research skills. But they’d gotten behind me.
They must have a plan, which meant I had to act quick.
“Please, Rudeus,” Therese called out to me again, “give yourself up! Before you try anything—we know you favor magic, and we have a plan to shut you down! I wasn’t expecting that device on your left hand, but I know how it works now!”
“Oh?”
“The entrance to the garden is sealed with barrier magic! No one’s coming to help you!”
Huh. Kudos, guys. This plan was pretty perfect. They’d worked out a foolproof strategy to catch me. No heat-of-the-moment counter-plan was going to break through that. It was thorough.
I wondered if I should try a few different approaches and see if I couldn’t break out. But if it got me captured, it’d be absolutely mortifying. I couldn’t afford to pull my punches anymore.
“Quagmire,” I said. It was time to get serious.
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