Betrayal Knight's Joyful Faith

Chapter 103

Arendt tried pushing the door with his hand. The door, which seemed unmovable, moved a little.“It’s not locked?”

“Could it be that Rebecca opened it just before she died?”

He gave such a response to Laius’ question.

Glenn tilted his head.

“Why? If you want to hide something, you usually just lock it.”

“I guess she thought it couldn’t be hidden anyway. If we continued searching, this space would have been discovered soon.”

Rather than let God see the scoundrels break down the door and enter, she might have thought it better to open the door and welcome them.

As he applied a little more force to his hand, the heavy door made a noise and slowly began to open. The group was left speechless as they looked at the space that was soon revealed.

The silver candlesticks hanging on the wall softly illuminated the interior, and the round, domed walls were filled with beautiful sculptures and murals, leaving no space empty.

At the center of the ornate spiral shape created by the black and white tiles on the floor, a stone statue made of black rock stood tall.

“This is…”

Glenn’s lips twitched involuntarily.

Although it was a building of this style that he had never seen before, he could immediately tell what its purpose was.

A temple.

There was a treasure trove of relics of the evil god that was defeated by the heroes of light in ancient times and erased from the world.

The first one to move was Arendt again. As he stepped into the temple, Laius overtook him and entered first.

“I think Rebecca lit this fire too.”

It was the best courtesy a believer who had turned her back on the world could show to her god.

As soon as she realized that her castle was about to fall, she rushed here, lit the temple, and unlocked it.

It was a faith so eerily pious.

Arendt walked straight towards the statue. It didn’t look so unfamiliar.

“It looks like god Luce.”

A small murmur drew Laius and Glenn’s gaze to the statue’s face.

The statue, which was a glossy black color, seemed to have been carved out of a single piece of darkness. With its androgynous appearance and flowing hair that reached down to the tips of its feet, it resembled the twin of Luce.

But that doesn’t mean they were completely the same.

Unlike the god of light who looked down on the world with his eyes wide open, Chernion appeared to be quietly looking up at the sky with his eyes closed.

Unlike Luce’s hand that had been holding a sword, Chernion’s hand was folded over his chest, and instead of curly hair, his hair was straight and flowed down his shoulders and back.

Unlike Luce, who felt lively and powerful, Chernion felt static and quiet.

Arendt, who had been staring blankly at the statue, turned his gaze toward the ceiling.

He saw a gorgeous ceiling painting that seemed to depict the night sky.

The depiction of the stars and moon, adorned with gold leaf, and the pitch-black sky were a perfect contrast to the temple of the god Luce.

Wherever they looked in Luce’s temples, there were gorgeous windows, spaces where sunlight poured down from the blue sky, but here, deep underground, they were surrounded by the night sky where not a single ray of light entered.

Arendt took a step closer to the statue without realizing it.

For some reason, he felt like he had to do that.

“Arendt? Is there a problem?”

There was a voice that called out strangely to him.

Arendt felt someone’s gaze intensely, and he instinctively realized who it was.

The statue of Chernion in front of him still had its head raised towards the night sky carved into the ceiling, but the being beyond it was calling out to him.

His outstretched hand inadvertently touched the statue.

At that moment, someone’s mournful voice dug into his head.

– It’s the same.

Arendt flinched and stepped back, looking around.

The colleagues who had been with him had disappeared, and his surroundings were enveloped in thick darkness.

– A child who is out of the flow.

The next moment, the voice was heard again, and Arendt unconsciously turned his gaze back to the statue.

– What are you going to do here?

Chernion murmured, standing silently as if he was one with darkness. At some point, the stone statue that had been staring into space began to turn its head slightly and look down at him.

As Arendt met those eyes, an instinctive aversion to the unknown stirred within him. He felt a huge presence that he could not explain in words, along with an obvious will to bind him.

His fingertips started to tingle and his spine felt chilly.

He felt like a mouse in front of a cat… but he clenched his fists as if to fight him.

“No matter what you do.”

He forced himself to open his lips, which were refusing to move, despite the strong pressure.

This was nothing.

Compared to the countless stares and the tension that made it hard to breathe that he felt when he first stood on stage.

Arendt opened his eyes and looked straight at the god who had borrowed the appearance of the stone statue.

“If you’re an audience member, just watch quietly like an audience member. It’s none of your business to be interfering.”

A cold voice filled the pitch-black space.

The beautiful face of the statue looking his way frowned as if surprised.

And then, in the next moment… Arendt came back to reality with a feeling as if his soul was back in his body.

“Arendt!”

Laius’ hardened face filled his vision.

Arendt, who had been blinking blankly, realized a beat later that he was half-leaning against the captain. If Laius hadn’t been supporting him, he would have fallen to the floor.

Arendt blinked his eyes blankly and regained his balance as if nothing had happened.

“Wow, man. This is surprising.”

“Are you okay? Your face is a mess.”

“I just felt dizzy for a moment.”

Arendt shook off Laius’ worried hand and straightened his clothes.

“And I told you before. I’m not okay.”

“I told you to rest.”

“Yeah.”

Laius tried to open his mouth again, but Arendt cut him off and silenced him.

“Hey, Captain. I barely got any sleep while I was here. I’m going to go rest. I think I’ve done my part.”

Arendt yawned as if nothing had happened, turned around, and walked out of the temple.

Laius, who had been staring at Arendt’s back with a stiff face for a moment, let out a deep sigh.

Anyway, it seemed like there was nothing more to see in this temple.

Laius looked back at the statue of Chernion once more and gave a short order to the remaining two men.

“Let’s go up and join the others. We’ll have to investigate in detail later.”

Arendt was in the room where he was locked up, and the knights devoted themselves to cleaning up.

Just before the knights burst in, Rebecca seemed to have chosen to destroy the evidence rather than flee.

Most of the important documents had already been burned to ashes, and even the few that were salvaged were written in code, and it seemed like it would take some time to decipher them.

First, Arendt gathered all the remaining documents and thoroughly searched the temple, but there was nothing more to be gained from there.

He had hoped to find some records of the doctrines or scriptures of the devil, but he could not find any trace of them, as Rebecca had probably already burned them.

The next thing that caught his attention were the captured mercenaries.

They were temporarily locked in an underground prison, and at first they were busy pouring out curses on the god Luce and the Imperial Knights, but after a while:

“Who are you to lock us up!”

They continued to swear, but at some point the content changed.

Not only did they not recognize the Imperial Knights who had imprisoned them, they also began to act like their fellow inmates were strangers.

“It’s like this again. Their memories have disappeared.”

Diana muttered in a complicated tone as she watched them running wild inside the prison.

Although this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened, she couldn’t help but feel a chill down her spine when she witnessed this bizarre sight in real time.

“Was this also the power of the artifact?”

“Yes, Arendt said that it was, but it is not yet confirmed.”

“I’m sure he’s right. He may be a pain in the ass, but he’s not the type to talk nonsense.”

Diana answered Laius’ question plainly.

“As soon as they decided that the operation had failed, were they going to mercilessly erase their memories?”

“One of them escaped. He probably returned and reported the situation to his superiors, or maybe he reported it himself before Rebecca killed herself.”

In the end, it meant that there was nothing that the knights could find out from them.

“How about taking them to the palace for further observation?”

“I agree with that plan. It’s possible that their memories might come back.”

Judging from the cases so far, that didn’t seem very likely.

The two captains’ faces were filled with dismay as they watched the mercenaries making a fuss, banging their heads against the iron bars, and cursing.

The believers seemed to have their memories removed, as well as some of their reason and intelligence.

Even knowing this, they willingly surrendered themselves to the evil god.

“These days… sometimes I think Arendt was right.”

“Huh?”

Diana looked at him as he suddenly brought up the topic. Without taking his eyes off the mercenaries, the young knight commander continued speaking calmly.

“That guy often says that an honorable death is just a dog’s death.”

“Anyway, I said he’s a blasphemous guy.”

Diana grumbled briefly but said nothing more.

It was common knowledge that Arendt did not pray to God.

It was just one of the many shortcomings of the guy that were difficult to count one by one, so it was a fact that usually did not receive much attention.

Arendt merely snorted at the proud oaths of the knights who pledged their lives to the royal family. The man who spat out his words in his characteristically cold tone and sneered at them in a sarcastic and spiteful tone always found his own way to solve the problem.

He made fools of both his opponents and allies, and did so in ridiculous and flashy ways that left no trace of honor or pride.

The funny thing was that it was always him who took the lead.

‘In Arendt’s eyes, these mercenaries and the knights may not have seemed all that different.’

“What are you thinking, Sir Laius?”

“No. Nothing.”

Laius shook his head.

Even if he died, he wouldn’t be able to say that Arendt was right.

Sometimes, there were things more important than life.

Laius did not want to deny it, and could not deny it, because he lived like that his whole life.

‘And…’

Arendt always made people hold the back of their necks with his outrageous antics, but if they looked closely, there was one unchanging rule in his behavioral patterns.

If he had to suffer damage, Arendt was the one who took full responsibility for it.

If that bastard’s bad habits and Laius’s own boring altruism, as Arendt said, share the same weakness… then so be it.

Since Arendt had been dragging the Knights around for everyone’s benefit, it was time for him to help the upstart in his own way, even if all the responsibility was shifted in the process.

“I don’t know what you’re so worried about.”

It was Diana’s smiling words that brought the young captain back from his trance.

“Please don’t get any bad habits, Sir Laius.”

“Yes?”

“It seems like the Third Knights have already been defeated.”

Diana burst into laughter and put her hands in her uniform pockets.

“An unconventional way of thinking is the privilege of prodigal children. Besides, you know that he’s not really a child, and he’s a guy who can take care of his own interests and safety.”

“Ah…”

“And when things get too big for him to handle, that’s when the adults step in.”

“I don’t know if there’s anything he can’t handle,” Diana added grumblingly.

“Anyway, things are going to get really complicated from now on. And this time, this apprentice knight from the Third Knights will be branded as the enemy of the Evil Cult.”

Perhaps within the cult, Arendt von Eckhart’s notoriety may be greater than that of the entire Imperial Family and the Imperial Knights.

“And obviously, the arrows will turn towards you, his direct superior.”

“I am prepared.”

Laius nodded firmly.

“No matter what happens, I will take the lead.”

That way, the burden on the troublemaking apprentice knight would be lightened a little.

Diana burst into laughter after reading that resolution.

“I wish this senior could also get some credit. I’ve been feeling bad about being pushed aside by a mere apprentice knight.”

“I will do that.”

A faint smile spread across Laius’ lips.

It was a smile that somehow resembled Arendt’s.