Game Mind of a Medieval Modern Person - Chapter 188



Only Noblemtl

188. Cardinal Martyr declares severance of ties.

Even at first glance, you could tell that he had some kind of conviction despite his strange personality. But the time and place were just off.

Just looking at the ceiling covered with countless thorns and the altar covered in blood, one would suspect human sacrifice.

If you saw the flesh that was placed behind the altar, pierced by thorns and unable to move, just writhing, you would be completely convinced.

There is no reason to be intimidated by an opponent whose identity you already know.

I asked, nodding to the flesh pierced by the thorns.

“You brought me all the way here just to talk about that? In front of that disgusting lump of flesh?”

Even the most insensitive people want comfortable scenery.

There are so many beautiful things in the world, so why do we have to face a skewered, flailing, bleeding lump of flesh?

When I revealed my unpleasant feelings so frankly, Cardinal Martyr smiled happily and made the sign of the cross.

“Unlike you, Your Majesty, we lack intuition and need evidence. Fortunately, that serves as a witness.”

“What is that?”

“This is exactly what I was hoping for. Your eyes, filled not with pity, compassion, or fear, but with pure contempt, scorn, and disgust, even though you had vaguely guessed at the sight of that grotesque mass of flesh! This is truly the appearance of a guardian of humanity!”

The afterword of the ecstatic Mater sent shivers down my spine.

But the moment I heard the identity of that lump of flesh, my thoughts changed.

“That was a foreign species.”

“?”

“The stigmata, especially the more powerful ones, pulsate more intensely… they are living, breathing compasses.”

A race of different races. The old rulers who served the old gods of Ise and ruled over humans as livestock and slaves.

As far as I know, it was like that.

But this is a different race…

The first alien race I encountered in my life had a much more grotesque appearance than I had expected.

Of course, I’ve met elves, but honestly, they’re indistinguishable from humans if you cut off their ears, so this new race with its unique appearance looks more like a different race.

But no matter how much I looked, I couldn’t see any eyes, nose, or mouth, so I was about to ask if this was slime.

Matter looked away from me and back at the flesh.

“As their god demanded, they refused to die forever and were transformed into tools to hunt the sword of humanity.”

Metal thorns protrude from the ceiling like stalactites and pierce the altar.

As he looked at the flesh throbbing like a pulsating heart, fixed in place and pierced by the thorns in every nook and cranny of its body, Mater revealed one emotion.

“Normally, it is no different from a corpse, but the closer it is to someone who has been blessed with the strong light of the human world, Lux Stella, the more intensely it flutters. Sometimes, it even sprouts eyes, a mouth, and hands and points directly at people.”

It was compassion.

There was clearly sympathy and compassion in Matter’s unfocused eyes.

As I was wondering about that fact, Mater noticed my question and answered it first.

“It changed before my eyes.”

That mass of flesh is said to have been the last official survivor of the half-man, half-horse Centaur race.

It was a child who looked like he was about twelve years old in human terms. It was said that he looked so young that it was difficult to even tell the difference between a male and a female.

However, the church maintained a policy of ruthless, zero-tolerance extermination only towards other races.

It was so desperate that they could not even allow a single possibility of giving victory to Ise. Even if others criticized it as paranoid madness, from the church’s perspective, it was a justified act.

There were no exceptions.

Eventually, the Centaur child became the last survivor after losing all of his kind to the knights dispatched by the church, and he became a tool to pursue the stigmata manifester in response to the demands of a now forgotten god.

I don’t know if it was to avoid death or because I was consumed with revenge.

This strange mass of flesh could not be harmed by any spear or knife.

Even if it was burned by fire, it did not suffocate or drown when it fell into water.

It was just constantly moving towards the direction of the stigmata manifester, floating or sinking to the surface of the water.

“An eternal curse left behind by the forgotten gods. Their last holy relic is this unholy lump of flesh.”

The Church has prepared several seals to neutralize this ever-living, breathing compass.

After repeatedly cutting and tearing it to its limit, I discovered that it cannot divide infinitely, and that it has its own muscles and tissues that cannot move properly if pierced with a skewer.

And he built an altar with a ceiling covered with thorns and adjustable height.

In the deepest part of the catacombs where the nameless martyrs are interred together, determined to guard and protect without end.

“Matter spoke in a faint, trembling voice.

Revealing the bright blue stigmata covering the back of his hand.

“The souls of the unbaptized belong to the realm of the old gods that once ruled this land. The different races that each worshipped their own gods cannot be saved by the starlight of Lux Stella.”

Thump-.

Only after hearing the story and looking at the vigorously pulsating flesh could I understand.

Why does Mater pity that disgusting lump of flesh that keeps swelling and collapsing without any regard for the blade?

Why are those eyes unfocused and floating in the air?

…guilt.

Martyr harbored guilt over the demise of the Centaur race, which he had personally witnessed.

“oh my god.”

Karina, who learned the whole story, was no exception.

Karina covered her mouth with both hands and began to shed tears as she looked at the words of the alien race that once roamed the plains.

of course.

“That’s unexpected.”

I had a slightly different opinion.

“Why do you feel pity?”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“There’s no need for you to cry, Karina.”

Royalty.

Anyone who has ever handled ink cannot possibly not know how dogmatic the phrase “the age of man” or “the world of man” is.

As expected, Cardinal Martyr kept his mouth shut, just like the other priests who accompanied him in silence.

At least for a while it seemed like it was going to work out.

But soon, Matter removed his lips with difficulty and said:

“When those beings that we thought should be erased looked up at us with sad eyes, when they struggled to protect their young and compatriots just like us, I too felt the hatred within me fading away.”

This is where Mater’s guilt comes from.

There was just one thing that was different from what I had expected.

“It was a betrayal. It was no different from apostasy. It was a terrible betrayal that denied the lives of our ancestors who had hoped for a paycheck and all the people living under the paycheck! I sighed at myself as I watched the passion that would not bloom no matter how hard I tried. Was this all it was?”

The fact that Martha came to pity the other races, not the other races.

I felt guilty about that fact itself.

Mater knelt before the altar with the grotesque flesh on it and burst into tears.

“The other knights of the order, and those who shun the Order of Knights, are the same. They pity them, forgetting the earnest wishes and cries of their ancestors, and turning a blind eye to the fact that they have cruelly oppressed us.
Your Majesty, look! Our hatred has grown so weak!”

Now I understand.

The reason why Martyr supported and recognized me in the conclave.

“I will whip you until your limbs break, until your body is crushed, until blood gushes out, and still barely manage to squeeze out a handful of hatred!!!”

Even if we don’t know everything that Saint Ilenius said, we can guess what it was about.

I would have just said, in simple terms, that the lonely king hates Ise to the point of wanting to kill him.

In the meantime, as the wariness toward Ise decreased, attacks on other races naturally slowed down compared to before.

When Martyr and his fellow psychopaths heard the news of my return, they clearly thought I had returned to scold the weak humans.

Of course, most of it is true.

It’s not that I hate them, but it’s true that I think that keeping the alien race alive will only cause them to constantly pose a threat to humans, and now that I know that the old gods of Ise were not just goblins but actual enemies, I have no intention of leaving their followers alone.

but.

“Come, Your Majesty!!! Share the spark with those who have lost the flame!!!”

…..

“Cardinal, you seem to be mistaken.”

“…yes?”

“I came to seek a path of coexistence and harmony, believing that the various faiths and ethnicities scattered throughout the Morning Calm system can be sufficiently guided under the auspices of the church.”

I decided to just bring up here what I had intended to tell His Holiness first.

***

A new guide has been added to help with sightseeing in Saint Idea.

Her name is Karina, and she is a princess of very high rank.

Karina led me past large chapels to a quiet lodging where red cloaks floated about.

And as soon as he sat down on the chair placed for the guests, he opened his trembling mouth.

“Yes, what on earth does the word king mean? No, more than that!”

My feelings were extremely calm.

What was meant to happen has come.

I promised myself that I would be honest with my few friends, but that moment came much sooner than I thought.

Even I am embarrassed. I never thought that the day would come when I would become such a historically important figure.

Even Karina, who used to brag about how great she was back home, couldn’t help but be shocked when she found out about my surprising identity…

I was crossing my arms, wondering where to begin that tragic and magnificent story.

“More than that?”

What could be more important than the fact that I am the lonely king of a fallen kingdom?

When I asked back a question I couldn’t understand, the response I got was quite surprising.

Karina started to stomp her feet and pretended to cover her ears.

“No matter how different our political views may be, what if we openly express our opposing opinions in front of Cardinal Martyr?”

“Is there a problem if I have the same stigmata?”

“Just looking at him, he looks like he’s crazy… a bit of a fanatic!”

“hmm.”

It’s not easy to judge a person based on just a brief meeting.

I learned that it is a bad habit to make assumptions about someone based on first impressions or a brief conversation.

But I’m someone who drank alcohol even though I knew it wasn’t good for me, bit into a cigarette butt just to test it out, and ordered from a place that had a 1-star rating on a delivery app without telling anyone until I actually ate there.

“That’s why I told you to get out on purpose.”

“Cardinal Martyr, he is of the order of the knights. He often comes into conflict with the current Pope, but if he had met a Pope of the same disposition, he would have already been given the black mantle!”

“Do you just give out black shoulder cloaks to just anyone?”

“No. Uh, um. That. Right?”

Karina looked at me with a secret gaze and trailed off.

AC.

I was living a somewhat content life, thinking that the black shoulder cloak was precious, but there was a moment when I was seriously considering just changing it to a white shoulder cloak.

“First of all, Cardinal Martyr is not just any ordinary knight, he is from the most prestigious Order of Executioners! He is a Grand Master who rose through the ranks through skill! He originally declined the position of bishop, but was ordained a priest and immediately became a cardinal!!!”

“Grandmaster…”

Grandmaster.

It is a title used in many fantasy novels to refer to a master of swordsmanship, but I remember it as originally a title close to the abbot or commander-in-chief who leads an order of knights.

In this world where there is no mana, it seems closer to a word referring to status rather than realm, but it is not a weight that can be taken lightly.

Need I say more when I say that he rose to the rank of captain in a knightly order that dealt with foreign races?

Besides, his pupils are bloodshot, so when he hears the name Grandmaster, he chews on his memories and it’s clear…

If you look closely at Matter’s face, there is some evidence that cannot be ignored.

“Now that I think about it, you do look young for a cardinal.”

“Ah, well. You’re famous among the women of the saints, right… Huh? Huh?”

“…”

No matter how I look at it, it seems like that’s the reason Karina is reluctant to go to Mater, but I’ve changed my mind.

What is the fourth stage of the stigmata?

The cardinal, who was originally the head of an order of knights who dealt with foreign races, looks young…

At that moment, I am sure a color came to my face.

Karina and I looked at each other and spoke in unison.

“Could it be Level 4 of Devotion?”

“Are you good at swordsmanship?”

“?”

“Hehehe.”

A colorless crystal that doesn’t even show the tip of your nose, like a normal plaything, a saint.

If it weren’t for the problem with the Ethelred children, I would never have set foot in this place in my entire life, but it was somewhat worth it.