Chapter 85 – Desertion (2)

With just a few flashlights, there were people running through the dark underground passage.

It was the Apostle’s group that had escaped from the memorial hall.

At the front of the group, a young awakened one was running with a flashlight, and right behind him the Apostle was following while clutching a book to his chest.

Behind the Apostle, those he had established as believers and those who had followed him from before were following the two.

The line of people running through the underground passage was quite long.

Though they had entered the underground passage together, the line had lengthened while running through the passage.

Those who brought family or were elderly couldn’t keep up and gradually fell behind, but the Apostle and young awakened one at the front showed no consideration for them.

Though the distance from the front was gradually increasing, people followed silently.

Those falling behind wanted to ask those ahead to wait, but they couldn’t bring themselves to shout.

Because right now they were secretly escaping outside the sanctuary.

Moreover, they were fleeing with the Apostle who should protect the sanctuary, carrying the holy artifact maintaining the sanctuary.

Though others probably couldn’t hear them now that they’d reached the underground passage, the fleeing people had no time to think about even that.

The monster’s roars could be heard from above, and stone dust was falling in the passage as flames erupted and the sanctuary shook.

With the passage seeming ready to collapse at any moment, they could think of nothing but running.

The people running at the front still had room to think other thoughts.

“Damn! Damn! This all happened because people didn’t believe in me.”

However, most of the Apostle’s thoughts while running were resentment toward others.

“This is surely God’s punishment.”

The Apostle, who had been hiding in the memorial hall in fear, could sense the giant monster before it reached the sanctuary.

As the holy artifact’s contractor and sanctuary’s manager, he noticed the sanctuary’s crisis in advance.

The moment he sensed the monster, the Apostle knew the sanctuary couldn’t stop it.

For him who had believed the sanctuary would never break, it was a moment of broken faith and despair.

But the despair didn’t last long.

His faith that never gave up in any situation raised him up.

“This is a trial given by God. He wants to see his chosen one overcome the trial. And through this opportunity, He wants to select those who will follow Him.”

His belief and faith gave him strength to rise even in desperate situations.

To the Apostle, it no longer mattered whether this situation was really God’s trial and selection.

Since he already believed it was so, that must be the truth.

So he had taken the holy artifact and run here with his followers.

Moving through this underground passage, they could exit at a train station far from the sanctuary.

They would surely be safe for a while, getting far from the corpses surrounding the sanctuary and the big monster.

The corpses and big monster would be too busy destroying the university after holy power disappeared to pay attention to us.

“Surely, God sent the devil to weed out those without faith.”

The Apostle kept muttering while walking.

He didn’t realize he was speaking aloud.

“While they receive judgment, I will go to the paradise God has prepared with the believers.”

So he didn’t notice the young psychic’s expression darkening hearing the Apostle’s words.

He didn’t notice him suddenly stopping either.

“First we’ll make the government complex into a sanctuary and then find paradise. Since we survived even without a sanctuary, we can last much longer. And… ugh.”

The Apostle only realized he had stopped after bumping his head into his back.

“Oh, have we already reached the station?”

The young awakened one, Ihan, shook his head at the Apostle’s urgent question.

“No. Something seems wrong with the passage. We should retreat.”

The Apostle frowned at Ihan’s words.

Rumble.

Though the passage was shaking severely, it had been like that when they entered too.

“What are you talking about? It’s just shaking from the monster!”

Though the Apostle shouted angrily, instead of listening Ihan placed his hand on the wall.

“That’s not it. The vibration is different.”

At Ihan’s continued words, the Apostle frowned but listened carefully to the sound.

Rumble rumble rumble.

The vibration was definitely different somehow.

The previous sound was from the monster destroying the sanctuary.

Though the sound and vibration were big, they had come at regular intervals.

But the current sound and vibration were different from then.

The sound was continuous and kept shaking.

Rather than the monster striking the wall, it sounded like something breaking through the wall.

“What’s this sound?”

At the Apostle’s words, Ihan looked up and spoke.

“Though different from sounds I know, this is definitely the sound of digging through earth.”

Simultaneously, with a tremendous vibration, the passage ceiling collapsed.

Boom!

Fortunately, the ceiling collapsed in front of where the Apostle and Ihan were standing.

Fortunate indeed. If they had kept walking, they would surely have been buried in the falling earth.

“That was close, very close. God helped us.”

Of course, the Apostle’s safety was entirely thanks to Ihan stopping him.

Though Ihan could have said something to the Apostle talking nonsense, he kept staring at the collapsed ceiling.

“Fortunately the passage isn’t completely blocked. Let’s move quickly before more collapses.”

The Apostle urged Ihan looking at the half-blocked passage, but Ihan just kept looking at the hole in the ceiling.

“Why do you keep staring up there?”

As the Apostle shouted at the motionless Ihan, someone else answered instead.

“Who else but the person who made the hole would be there?”

The small sound coming from the ceiling hole quickly approached, and a person fell through the hole and landed on the ground.

He was a blonde man in armor, the knight who had come from outside the sanctuary days ago.

Landing on the ground, the knight smirked at the surprised Apostle and shouted upward.

“Good work. We really weren’t late.”

Before his words finished, another person descended from the ceiling hole.

This time it was a beautiful woman with long ears.

The woman who landed in the passage wiped flowing sweat from her tired face.

“Being in a different world is really tough after all. We almost could have been late.”

“I’m scared to even ask how it would be in the original world…”

While the two who came down through the hole conversed, the Apostle gritted his teeth and glared at the two people, Zahina and me.

After a moment, the Apostle asked.

“How were you able to come here?”

That seemed to be what the Apostle was most curious about.

I pointed to my nose and said.

“I have a good nose, and our party has a good cleric too. We can easily figure out where the holy artifact is.”

With Yerim who could find holy artifacts and me who could sense and feel mana together, finding fleeing people was no task at all.

However, we hadn’t expected the fleeing people to be underground.

“We asked our party’s nature mage to dig a hole and came down here. Thought we’d be late but she dug better than expected.”

I had worried about having to break through monsters and undead to reach the marshalling yard station, but Zahina was confident she could dig a hole to the underground passage.

Though the old underground passage wasn’t that deep, it wasn’t an easy depth to break through, but fortunately Zahina managed to dig through in time.

At my words the Apostle asked again.

“Don’t tell me you came to stop me?”

It was an obvious question. I nodded matter-of-factly.

“There’d be no other reason to come all this way with such effort.”

The Apostle who heard my words glared at me.

“You’re an outsider. Why are you interfering?”

“I didn’t want to interfere, but reasons to interfere came up.”

“Did Yerim ask you? And you granted that request with unfitting chivalry?”

“Well, it’s not entirely unrelated to Yerim, but that’s not for you to know.”

I raised my sword, pointing it at the Apostle.

“What are you doing!”

When I raised the sword, the startled Apostle hid behind the young awakened one.

About to swing my sword, I first asked the awakened one.

“Will you block?”

The awakened one who had been looking back and forth between me and the sword sighed and stepped aside.

He raised both hands and said.

“I decline dying pointlessly. He’s not worth risking my life to protect either.”

He was different from before when he had charged at me boldly.

“Ihan! What are you saying!”

“The guard duty is over. I can’t keep holding onto a rotten rope.”

“How dare you! A rotten rope! You must protect me! If I die, no one will survive!”

“Well, everyone will die if the sanctuary disappears, but I’m a psychic so I won’t die easily. Like the Apostle said, I can just hide and endure at the government complex.”

At the young awakened one’s words, the grinding-teethed Apostle shouted at me.

“Are you really going to kill me! You know well what will happen if I die!”

At the Apostle’s words, I listed one by one what would happen if he died.

“If the cleric who created the safe zone dies, the contract will break and the safe zone will disappear. Undead will pour in, and everyone in the safe zone will die.”

The Apostle spoke to me with bloodshot eyes.

“See that. You know that yet still try to kill me?”

But I just shrugged at the Apostle’s words.

“It makes no difference if I don’t kill you.”

It really made no difference at all. If the Apostle took the holy artifact and left, this university would become nothing, let alone a safe zone.

“The safe zone keeps shrinking because the holy artifact is moving. Undead are probably pouring into the southern safe zone now?”

The Apostle who had been rolling his eyes wildly opened his mouth again.

“I am the owner of this holy artifact and this sanctuary. I’m moving house, yet you, an outsider, say you’ll kill me – do you think that makes sense?”

Now he didn’t even mention God’s will.

“The remaining people are those who rejected me, their owner, I’m just going elsewhere with my followers as the owner. Yet you stop that. Is that what a knight should do?”

He was just mixing various plausible-sounding words.

I raised my sword and approached him.

“You’re not really going to kill me, right? You’re just trying to scare me into going back? But I can’t go back. There are only people who hate me there. Plus, the monster will destroy the sanctuary. Come with me too. I’ll make you my right hand. You’ll be the Apostle’s first disciple!”

His words got faster as I approached.

Those words didn’t stop until I thrust my sword.

Thunk.

The sword deeply pierced his chest. The sword pierced through his heart.

As the sword pierced him, the Apostle’s surprised eyes looked at me.

The Apostle opened his mouth.

“I, I understand. I’ll, I’ll go back. I’ll return the holy artifact to its original place too, please, please spare me.”

Though he begged while bleeding, I shook my head.

“Too late. You’re a wartime deserter, and deserters face immediate execution.”

At my words, the Apostle looked at me with a dumbfounded face.

Looking at his dumbfounded face, I continued speaking.

“Also, you were relieved when Yerim couldn’t accept the holy artifact before, right? Actually that’s because someone had already contracted with the holy artifact. What do you think will happen when that contracted person disappears?”

The Apostle gaped at my words.

Blood poured like a waterfall from his open mouth.

I pulled out my sword and took the blood-soaked cross from his chest.

Unlike when I saw it before, the wooden cross was soaked with the Apostle’s blood.

The Apostle with his pierced heart died without recovering, and I held the cross, waiting for Yerim to come down.