“My, my, I really don’t understand why kids like to run around playing with guns these days. Did you happen to think that you would have an extra layer of armour for your wimpy minds if you carried a gun? Sorry, but you’re still children from the standpoint of adults.”
“Aiming your weapon at his majesty is treason. What are you trying to do?!”
I sat on the bench and looked at the guards on the ground groaning. Alice and Nier restrained themselves more than ever. Nier beat them with her scabbard and Alice didn’t use her hands to tear them apart either. She just tore their armour and broke their wrists and ankles. The two of them stood in the middle of the group of guards sprawled out on the ground. They looked at the archbishop on his knees looking like he was going to wet himself and said: “His majesty is looking for you.”
“Your majesty… your majesty……”
He stood up while trembling. Alice grabbed him by his arm and dragged him like a corpse to bring him before me, and then tossed him onto the chair in front of me. I looked at him, nodded and said: “Long time no see, your excellency. No wait. It hasn’t even been a few days. But my visit this time is different to last time. Put it this way. Last time, you were running the place, but not this time. Alright, I’m not going to waste my time. Once I get what I want and find out what I want to know, I’ll leave right away.”
“Your majesty! You have no right to treat me this way! The church has not done anything wrong! The church is innocent! What you’re doing is just violence! God will curse…”
Giving no shits, I shoved my gun right into his mouth. I think I broke a few of his teeth. I looked at his mouth that slowly began to bleed and indifferently said: “I never said you could say anything other than answering my questions. You think I’m clueless? Aren’t your statues of god a little too salty? Mixing the salt into the plaster and then smashing it before soaking it to revert it back into salt. Not only is that wasteful, you also cut the price of salt. I could execute all of you for privately trafficking salt. I’m here to talk to you and you dare to curse me? God won’t curse me. God will curse you people. You committed all kinds of evil in his name. Do you actually think you still have the right to say you believe in god?”
I pulled my gun out along with a few teeth. He spat out a mouthful of blood as he looked at me while huffing and puffing. I put one leg over the other, picked up a cape on the ground that belonged to a guard, wiped my gun with it and asked: “First question, where are you imprisoning the elves?”
“What elves?! I know nothing about that! We haven’t fallen that low!”
“Alright then. Second question, where are the children from the orphanage?”
“I don’t know! They must’ve left.”
I looked at him and asked word by word: “Third question, who sent the assassins after me?”
He looked at me. Just as he was about to shake his head, Alice stepped forth, grabbed his wrist and twisted it. His cry of pain accompanied Alice’s twist and then his arm drooped down powerlessly like a noodle. Alice looked at him, chuckled coldly and asked: “Try keeping a lid on it. I know hundreds of ways to hurt someone without killing them. Where do you want me to start?”
“It was Castor!!”
The archbishop cupped his hand and shouted: “It was Castor’s Regent! It was her! She funded it! She recruited the people! We were just a medium! We didn’t take part! I still have the secret letter she sent me! It had nothing to do with the church. We just helped her smuggle the guns in and she promised to give us salt! It really was Castor’s Regent! She wanted you to die when you were in the elven lands then her majesty would attack the elves while she contacts the other vassal states to revolt! That’s what the plan was!”
“Very good.” I nodded and stood up satisfied. I then extended my hand out and said: “Give me the secret letter.”
“It’s been burnt already……”
“What do you have to prove what you said then?”
“The envelope! I still have the envelope! We were thinking of reporting it before it all went up in flames, but they actually did it! The envelope is sandwiched in God’s Words on the bookshelf in my room!”
I looked at Nier. Nier nodded and then ran toward his room. He knelt on the ground trembling. Alice kicked him on his back and coldly said: “If you had resisted until the end, I would’ve admired you as a man. But you divulged everything after just that. I look down on you.”
I then turned around to face the door and shouted: “Come in! Smash everything that can be smashed!”
“Your majesty! Why?! I’ve answered you! I’ve answered everything! Everything!”
“You didn’t.”
I turned around, looked at him indifferently and said: “You didn’t answer my first and second question. You imprisoned elves and the children. They should be underground if I’m correct. You think I didn’t know? When I crashed your carriage last night, the sound of the rocks impact when they hit the ground sounded different depending on where they landed. At first, I thought it was a sewer, but I smashed the ground around the vicinity of the church on my way here. It was hollow. You’ve dug underground, haven’t you? Since you didn’t tell me where the entrance is, I’m going to find it myself.”
The young men rushed into the church and looked at me excitedly. I walked up to a chair and sat down. I then waved my hand and said: “Smash. Smash everything that looks like it can be smashed. Just leave this chair I’m sitting on. Smash everything else! Most importantly, smash the statue of god! Of course, we’re smashing things, not stealing, so don’t let me catch you taking things. Go ahead and start now.”
Humans have unlimited destructive power. Alice grabbed the archbishop’s hair and forced him to watch his church get destroyed. Flower vases got thrown down from upstairs, the statues of god got pulled down, the colourful glass got smashed…… His eyes were filled with pain and despair as he watched the god he believed in get smashed and the building he lived in get torn down. I however, paid him no heed.
Nier then walked up behind me and softly said: “Your majesty, I’ve found it. The envelope has Castor’s royalty insignia on it. We can confirm it now.”
I took a look at envelope and stood up. I looked at the mess before me. The young men worked really quickly. They smashed everything here within a very short span of time. I stepped over the glass and destroyed bits of flooring littered on the ground. I looked here and felt something was strange. They’ve pried the floor as well, but I don’t see any mechanisms or entry points. It’s definitely hollow underneath the church, so why haven’t we found it?
“Where is the entrance to your underground area?”
“There is none!”
I guess he’s not entirely stupid. If he did tell me, he’d be dead-meat, but since he didn’t, I have no evidence against him. I kicked him away with frustration. I then shifted my gaze to the only statue of god that hadn’t been smashed, and that was the largest statue of that goddess. It wasn’t that I wasn’t willing to smash it but rather that I couldn’t. It was honestly too large.
I didn’t ask god, but a trail of smoke came from a crack in the floor underneath the statue.
“Alice.”
“What is it, your majesty?”
“Can you smash this statue?”
Alice raised her head to look at the statue. She warmed up her neck and wrists. She then smiled and said: “Alright then, please leave the church, your majesty. Otherwise, you might get hurt by accident.”
We then all left the church. A huge sound like a mountain collapsing came from inside and something dropped onto the ground like an Earthquake. Everybody nearby was shocked. Dirt from inside blew like a violent wind causing me to almost wobble. After it calmed down, we walked in to find Alice standing to the side, desperately trying to fan all the dirt around away. The once large statue of a goddess had been reduced to bits of stone on the ground in front of her. The head had been broken into fragments with one eye looking at me as if it were crying.
Underneath it was a dark entrance.
“Damn. This sort of job gets my clothes all dirty.”
Alice grumbled as she patted her clothes. She then walked up to the archbishop who’d passed out on the ground and asked: “Your majesty, do you still need him?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll……”
I heard the sound of bones breaking behind me, but I wasn’t keen on sparing it my attention at the moment.
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