But the Church was different. Although they were supposedly a diversionary force, unlike the mages, who had simply come to gather information and attack in scattered groups, the Church had sent a sizeable number of people. Besides gathering intelligence in the first wave, the Church had one more condition for victory than the Mage Association.
Eliminate all heretics!
Compared to the Mage Association, the Church had a more unified power structure and greater cohesion. But for that very reason, they had to pay the price elsewhere. For instance, even though the Mage Association's territory had been attacked, the Church, as the Dead Apostles' sworn enemy, was taking it even more seriously than the Association—
After all, if the Dead Apostles truly gained momentum, the Church would be the one in the greatest hurry.
One by one, the Executors climbed back to their feet amid the ruins and gathered together. They exchanged glances, then fell silent.
Of their squad of several dozen, fewer than ten had survived in the blink of an eye!
In unison, they looked toward their leader, Kotomine Kirei, an Executor of the highest caliber. He watched as the crow in the sky unleashed another storm of dark wings in a different direction. Suddenly understanding something, he fell silent for a moment before shaking his head. "Continue clearing the area. Stay spread out, and avoid anything that might draw attention."
"Send one person to inform the other Executors," Kotomine Kirei said calmly. "The Black Winged Duke is probably responsible for clearing the outsiders who invaded this city. That attack just now was nothing more than a casual strike."
"But they..." An Executor looked at their dead companions on the ground and clenched his fists.
"Clear away the bodies. Don't give the Dead Apostles a chance to turn them into Living Corpses," Kotomine Kirei said coldly. Then he glanced at the Executor again. Anger and hatred flickered in the man's eyes. One of the dead was clearly his partner or friend.
"Don't think about getting revenge. Our opponent is one of the Dead Apostle Ancestors." With that, he turned and continued deeper into Cornwall.
"But we can't just let him keep attacking us, can we?" another Executor suddenly said.
Kotomine Kirei didn't even look back. His figure slowly disappeared into the depths of the street. "That isn't for you to worry about."
But soon, Kotomine Kirei's voice came again. "The Burial Agency is on its way. Someone will keep him occupied when they arrive."
Meanwhile, at the Clock Tower—
"The White Winged Duke has appeared. It seems he never left Germany, and he's barely made a move." In the Lord's conference room, alongside a handful of Lords, more than a dozen familiars of various kinds had also appeared.
"Looks like the White Knight and the White Winged Duke failed to reach an agreement?" a hoarse voice asked. "That's good news."
"More importantly, Judith, shouldn't you pull back some of your Executors? At this rate, I'm afraid they'll all be wiped out—" Liddell's familiar suddenly spoke in a clear, crisp voice. At the same time, a view from a young mage's familiar on Rimuru's side appeared before everyone. The image showed the Black Winged Duke leading a flock of birds as they rampaged through the area. Whenever he swept over a group of Executors as a streak of darkness, nothing was left but a dozen or so corpses. "To deal with the Black Winged Duke, you need at least a Lord-level fighter. The next Lord on our side won't arrive until tomorrow morning at the earliest—"
"..." The Church's representatives sounded grim. "This is somewhat unexpected. Something seems to have gone wrong with the Burial Agency, but it's been dealt with. They'll be here soon..."
"Oh? Something went wrong?" the old fox Trantbellio asked with a smile. "What kind of problem?"
"Nothing much. A member of the Burial Agency... defected, that's all."
Chapter 61: You're More Like the Demon King Than I Am, Rimuru
The defection of a Burial Agency member wasn't exactly news to those present. Though such information was one of the Church's secrets, the two organizations had been at odds for centuries. Each had long since planted moles and informants in the other's ranks, and both sides knew it.
Since the Burial Agency had to deal with inhuman beings, its selection criteria put strength above everything else. A person's background, personality, and character all came second. On top of that, once someone joined, they couldn't leave; anyone who did was considered a traitor. It was inevitable that the organization would see personnel changes and defections every few years.
But to defect at a time like this... That was interesting.
Seeing the suspicion in everyone's eyes, the Pope found himself at a loss for words. After all... that damned Burial Agency was less a special tribunal subordinate to the Church than an assassin organization so powerful that the Church had been forced to tolerate it and maintain a working relationship with it!
The members of the Burial Agency had the right to execute first and report later—even when it came to dealing with the Pope. For him, it was a Damoclean sword forever hanging over his head!
At the thought, the Pope let out an almost imperceptible sigh. That sigh made everyone present exchange glances before falling silent.
It seemed the Church wasn't all that united internally, either.
Liddell's familiar remained motionless, but her thoughts were already stirring.
Could this be good news for Rimuru?
In the dark of night, in the shadows of an alley somewhere in Cornwall, a figure nimbly avoided several wandering Living Corpses. Faint Concealment Magecraft gave off a dim, shadowy glow, masking his living presence. The moment several Living Corpses emerged from a house, he climbed swiftly to the second floor. After patiently watching for a while, he spotted two Dead Apostles talking and fixed their positions. A tremendous force suddenly surged through his arm!
Crash!
In an instant, the house's window shattered into a spiderweb of fragments with a sharp crash. More than a dozen wandering Living Corpses immediately noticed the uninvited intruder and let out roars and snarls. The figure swiftly vaulted through the window. A flash of cold silver passed, and with a wet sound, one Dead Apostle's head was severed from his body. Blood gushed from his throat, spraying across the entire table.
"Damn it..." The other Dead Apostle's pupils shrank at the sight. He instinctively summoned blood familiars while baring his fangs and lunging forward at tremendous speed—but even so, the figure nimbly dodged to the side. The instant he seized the Dead Apostle's arm, he spun around and thrust a Black Key into the man's chest—
Thud!
The silver blade pierced his chest. The Dead Apostle felt a pain in his heart, and as his life began to ebb away, he struggled desperately, trying to turn and bite his attacker's neck in the hope that drinking blood would heal his wounds. But his opponent gave him no chance. In the next instant, a magical inscription appeared where the Black Key had pierced his chest. Golden light burst forth, blowing the Dead Apostle to pieces with a bang.
Blood and chunks of flesh filled the entire room.
"Pathetic..." After killing the Dead Apostle, the Executor coldly surveyed the room and muttered to himself, "A Dead Apostle turned from a commoner. He can't even use the most basic Magecraft."
He glanced at the bowls on the table, not yet cleared away, and raised an eyebrow. "He's still keeping human habits... He also has a poor grasp of combat awareness."
"Other than controlling Ghouls, he's useless... No threat at all."
At that thought, the Executor couldn't help wondering: what was the White Knight's purpose in turning them?
Even if he needed a city of Dead Apostles, turning commoners of no value into them seemed like a waste. They would have been better off as food—
Just then, roars came from outside the door. Nearby Ghouls and Living Corpses had already rushed inside. He had to put his thoughts aside and casually drew six Black Keys, crossing them in his hands. Shrrk!
He infused them with magical energy, and silver blades flashed out from the ends of the six hilts. With a swish, he hurled them away!
In an instant, several Ghouls and Living Corpses were killed. The Executor then walked to the window, warily glanced at the Black Winged Duke rampaging across the sky, and quietly vanished into the darkness once more.
He was Kotomine Kirei.
Ever since realizing that the Black Winged Duke's job was to clear out the invaders, he had stuck to an assassination style. Instead of clearing the area with a group and using exorcism spells, he now operated alone, gradually eliminating the enemy with Black Keys!
It had to be said, his choice had been the right one. He had discovered that the Dead Apostles hiding in Cornwall—the ones everyone considered the real threat—weren't scheming at all. Their combat abilities were... well, aside from controlling Ghouls and having stronger bodies than ordinary Living Corpses, they were surprisingly weak.
Although they could retain their own consciousness, they were actually easier to deal with than the beastlike Living Corpses!
"They really are pretty weak." High above in the endless night, Rimuru watched it all and couldn't help murmuring, sounding a little helpless.
The fog drifted, shrouding all of Cornwall and bringing the entire city within Rimuru's perception.
But it wasn't surprising. Rimuru chuckled and shook his head. After all, only a tiny fraction of these Dead Apostles had been transformed from former soldiers. Most had been commoners who knew nothing about the world of the supernatural, and had only managed to transform because they possessed a little Magecraft aptitude.
Rimuru knew this, which was why he'd let them act freely. Of the more than thirty thousand Dead Apostles in Cornwall, aside from the few thousand who had come over with Altrouge's faction at the start, almost eighty percent of the rest were useless.
Cheap manpower, nothing more.
Though Rimuru didn't care, there was someone who was very displeased about it: Altrouge.
More than once, she had watched Kotomine Kirei assassinate Dead Apostles, and each time, killing intent had seeped from her.
"Can't I act yet, Rimuru?"
"Be patient a little longer, Your Highness." Rimuru watched Kotomine Kirei attack another Dead Apostle, completely unaware of anything, and spoke softly. "You've already ordered the Black Winged Duke to intervene. Can't you stay calm for a little while?"
The Black Winged Duke's intervention wasn't actually Rimuru's idea. It might make the Church decide to withdraw temporarily—but Her Highness cared deeply about her people, so there wasn't much he could do.
Fortunately, it seemed the Executors had no intention of retreating. They had merely split up to act alone, and their movements had become more covert.
"As the saying goes, a king faces a king, and a general faces a general." Rimuru smiled. "If you act now, all you'll do is put us at a disadvantage."
"I understand all that..." Altrouge puffed out her cheeks in a huff, then let her face fall. "But you're just going to let them slaughter my people?"
"I wouldn't exactly call it a slaughter." Rimuru blinked, looking helpless. "If we're talking about who's taking the bigger losses, then of the more than two hundred Executors, fewer than a hundred are left. Clearly, they've lost more."
"Besides, they're not your people, Your Highness."
At that, Rimuru paused. A cold look appeared in his golden eyes as he explained, "Have you ever looked into the strength of the Mage Association and the Church?"
"The Mage Association has the support of nearly ten thousand first-rate mage lineages. The Church has nearly a thousand branches around the world, tens of thousands of followers, close to a million nuns and exorcists, and... more than ten thousand Executors."
"Our high-ranking Dead Apostles aren't weak, either..." Altrouge stubbornly wrinkled her nose and muttered.
"True, but they're not in Cornwall."
"You've seen it yourself. Dead Apostles turned from commoners have barely any combat ability because they've never had any contact with Magecraft. Granted, they must have exceptional aptitude to have transformed successfully, but we clearly don't have time to let them grow."
"And even if the few hundred Executors are all elites, that only means they're an advance force... The real army—thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands of Executors—will arrive soon."
"Then there's the powerful support the mages can bring: fortified territory, and a supply of magic potions."
"Do you think these Dead Apostles can stand against them?"
"Even if you protect them tonight, what about tomorrow? The day after? Once all those old monsters enter the fray, we might have to retreat according to plan—let alone them."
"..." Altrouge opened her mouth without a word, then stamped her foot in anger. "I knew I couldn't win an argument with you! I must be crazy to even try to convince you!"
"This isn't about winning an argument, Your Highness."
Rimuru helplessly rubbed her head and spoke softly. "Don't you understand, Your Highness?"
"The moment they gave in to the devil's temptation, driven by greed for immortality, they stepped into hell. They were already dead."
"Their only purpose is to fill this city and make the Mage Association and the Church believe there are thirty thousand Dead Apostles here, so they'll need a massive force to take it."
"...So Cornwall is a battlefield... right?" Altrouge finally understood. She stared up at Rimuru in shock, narrowing her crimson eyes. "As the saying goes, a king faces a king and a general faces a general. But when your side has no low-ranking troops and the other side does... even a battle between kings will have collateral damage that becomes..."
"Exactly... a massacre."
Rimuru nodded impassively and looked toward the outskirts of the city. "I told you, Cornwall's purpose was to hurt them. We were always going to abandon it eventually."
"From the moment you set foot on this land, the deaths of its 530,000 inhabitants were already decided, Rimuru..." Altrouge stared deeply at Rimuru. "You're more like a demon king than I am."
"If it means achieving my goal, what does it matter if it's 530,000 people?" Rimuru shook his head gently. "A million, ten million... What difference does it make?"
At that, Altrouge's face twitched, and she stared at him, dumbfounded.
That was true enough, but your goal was to protect humanity!
Your character's fallen apart! You really are a big liar!
Rimuru turned to Altrouge, who was looking at him suspiciously. As if he'd read her thoughts, he laughed. "I never said I was a saint, Your Highness."
"In fact, in some ways, I've always been a traditional mage."
"Then why do you want to protect humanity?"
At that, Rimuru smiled mysteriously, took a light breath, and met Altrouge's eyes.
"Take a guess."
"Argh... I don't give a damn what I guess!!!"
In the end, Rimuru never gave Altrouge a straight answer, because he himself didn't know the clearest answer to that question.
He was willing to carry out the Director's request, but that wasn't the key reason. The people he cared about were human, but Rimuru firmly believed that they belonged to the kind of people who could survive even if humanity went extinct.
Even so, the fact that saving the Human Order gave him a taste for a challenge and made things interesting was another factor he couldn't ignore.
So in the end, Rimuru could only give Altrouge an ambiguous answer.
"Maybe I just don't want the people around me to feel lonely in the future," Rimuru said with a smile. "If human society disappeared, wouldn't this planet feel so empty?"
"Oh..." Altrouge blinked. Then, as if something had occurred to her, she suddenly grew bashful. "Then the people around you... do they... do they include me?"
"..."
You're too much! Rimuru was speechless. He suddenly realized that in his previous life, he'd really misunderstood the protagonists in all those novels. Reality really was often more fantastical than fiction. Girls really did throw themselves at you!
The protagonists in those stories at least meant to flirt when they scored a direct hit. But he... genuinely didn't want to flirt!
Though he thought that, Rimuru's body answered with complete honesty the moment he heard the question. "Of course, my princess."
"Heh! What a playboy."
"??? Great Sage?!"
"Heh! Heh!"
"..."
Elsewhere, when the priest asked him to continue forward, the mage Rimuru had initially wanted to refuse outright. After all, his position as a mage gave him every reason to retreat—
His mission had been to cover for the young mages as they gathered information and confirmed the strength of the forces in Cornwall, as well as whether the White Winged Duke was there. But now that they had gathered most of the intelligence and the White Winged Duke had appeared in Germany, Rimuru could naturally choose to leave. Of course, moving forward wasn't out of the question...
For more money!
Having successfully negotiated a larger budget, Rimuru, with the Clock Tower's support, reluctantly agreed to help the Church's friends delve deeper into the city. The other mages promptly made similar demands, making the Director glare and sputter with rage in the conference room.
Of course, the most important reason he'd agreed was that... he'd sensed an opportunity!
An opportunity to temporarily leave the battlefield, plot to seize the Leyline, and summon Saber!
арадио
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