Tortured Statue

"Lord, it seems there's no sound anymore."

Servant One's quiet reminder reached his ears, and Colin finally snapped out of his daze.

The second floor—no, to be precise, the entire Church had fallen silent, as quiet as a morgue.

"Is that so? It's finally over."

Colin rubbed his temples, feeling that he had been zoning out badly. It felt as though his brain had turned into a paste of flour and water.

Still, the task was finally over. He could finally return to the Wooden Cabin and get some proper sleep.

But Colin had not expected an accident to occur at this moment!

Just as Colin was about to wrap up the task, his expression suddenly stiffened as he looked at the question mark on the Parchment's Task List.

"What's going on? Didn't we kill them all?"

A flood of questions surged through Colin's mind. When he opened the Task List, the progress bar appeared to have exceeded ninety-nine.

That seemed to mean there was still one last "Wailer" remaining.

One more.

Yet Colin clearly had not heard any Wailer make a sound.

This was obviously very abnormal. Nearly all the Wailers had been awakened earlier, yet one had slipped through the net.

That straggler was clearly special.

Otherwise, there was no way to explain the current situation.

Colin simply could not convince himself with excuses like that Wailer just happening to be hard of hearing, or having impaired hearing and failing to hear its companions, so it was still asleep.

A vague instinct told Colin that things had gotten serious.

"Lord?"

Seeing Colin's increasingly grave expression, Servant No. 2 seemed to realize the severity of the situation as well and could not help saying quietly,

"If the matter you wish to handle is too dangerous, please leave it to Number One and me. We are ready to sacrifice ourselves for your will at any time."

"It hasn't come to that yet."

Colin chuckled. The oppressive feeling in his heart was dispelled considerably by his two subordinates' resolute words and gazes.

The feeling of having someone trust you unconditionally, remain loyal to you, and willingly brave fire and water for you was truly heartwarming.

Even if you knew perfectly well that this loyalty had been preset, that it was compulsory in some way.

But honestly, if not for these two, the pressure of walking alone through the mist would have been far too great.

In a place like this, psychological collapse could happen in an instant.

"Maybe we missed it. Search carefully, and we should find it."

Colin raised the Hurricane Lamp in his hand and took a look:

[You believe the blood in the Hurricane Lamp can continue burning for another 33 minutes.]

"Has it almost been an hour?"

Colin remembered that when they came in, there had been over an hour and twenty minutes left. Now, nearly an hour had passed.

However, the blood collected in the Inventory added up to more than a hundred milliliters, so there was no need to worry about time for now.

They searched back from the end of the second-floor corridor, checking every corner of every room, behind doors, the ceilings, corners, and even outside the windows. When they finished, they had found nothing.

[You realize that you have thoroughly searched the second floor. You have not found the last "Wailer." Perhaps it should be somewhere on the first floor.]

"Somewhere on the first floor... The only place I barely checked is around the Lectern at the back of the Church hall."

Colin recalled his exploration of the first floor and realized that although the Wailers had all been running around like idiots, there really had been fewer of them the farther back one went.

As if something even more dangerous existed there.

Not long after, Colin led the two Servants into the first-floor hall and quickly made his way to the deepest part of the Church.

At the end of the red carpet stood a Lectern, and there was nothing on it.

When Colin arrived, he found no trace of any Wailers, not even a pile of Bones.

Everything seemed perfectly ordinary.

Yet that ordinariness was the most abnormal thing at the moment.

There was nothing blocking the path from elsewhere to this place. Given a Wailer's habits, it was impossible for them not to set foot here.

Colin became increasingly convinced that his guess was correct. Something had indeed existed here before.

That thing was very likely the final monster in the task.

"Lord, look at this."

Colin turned and followed the direction Servant One was pointing. It seemed to be a lifelike statue, though only its base was visible.

He slowly raised the hand holding the lantern and looked up along the statue. An image with overwhelming visual impact came into view.

Colin's eyes narrowed involuntarily.

It was a statue of a naked, disheveled, emaciated man bound to a thorn-covered tree in an exaggeratedly tortured pose.

His hands and feet had twisted and mutated into growing thorny vines, merging with the spiked tree behind him.

Yet despite such an exaggeratedly agonizing posture, the man's face was filled with serenity. His gaze lowered as if he were looking kindly upon Colin and the other two in the hall.

The instant Colin's gaze met that of the statue's man, his breath caught, and he felt an immense pressure for no reason.

At that moment, an incomparably distant yet majestic male voice suddenly rang out beside his ear.

"My sins are grave..."

The voice was illusory and ethereal. As it appeared, Colin felt as though the man before him could come alive at any moment.

[An extremely tortured statue. You believe it is related to "suffering," but you cannot understand the purpose of his actions. You only know that he is not the Mother of Suffering and Thorns you know.]

The hand holding the lantern trembled slightly. Colin looked away and drew two deep breaths as though gasping for air, forcing himself to calm down again.

Only then did Colin realize that, in that brief instant, his back had been drenched in cold sweat.

Yet for some reason, once he calmed down, Colin found that aside from still seeming somewhat strange, the statue no longer gave him the same terrifying feeling as before.

Everything felt false somehow.

[It appears strange, but you believe it truly is only a statue.]

Seeing this prompt, Colin relaxed a little.

The prompts had not deceived anyone so far. They either gave useless information, or the information they gave was definitely accurate.

He looked around, but the Servants did not seem to be acting strangely. They probably had not heard it.

"Still, it looks like the last monster isn't here."

There were not many places to hide behind the statue. He searched the entire area and found nothing.

"Could there be some kind of puzzle to solve?"

Colin frowned. He hated games that required thinking, especially when his mind currently felt like mush.

"Number One, Number Two, do you have any thoughts on this?"

More minds were better than one.

The two subordinates froze, somewhat flattered. They had not expected Colin to ask them, but they knew little about such matters and could not offer any useful suggestions.

In their fixed impressions, evil things usually happened in basements.

Dragons hid treasure in basements, bad people did bad things in basements, criminals were imprisoned in basements, evil cults held dark rituals in basements, and wealthy people hid the riches they had plundered in basements.

So they thought...

"...A basement?"

Colin raised an eyebrow. If this really was just a game, then it was not impossible.

After all, it was a classic element.

But if there really was a hidden basement...

Where would its entrance be?

[By following the direction of the statue's gaze, you have noticed that the stone bricks beneath the Lectern seem unusual. You boldly speculate that this is the basement entrance.]

With the prompt, Colin immediately ordered Number One, "Move the table and knock on the stone bricks. See what's underneath."

Thump, thump.

A hollow sound.

"Lord, there really is a basement here!" Number One's face lit up with delight.

The Lord's eyes truly were sharp!

Sure enough, the corners of Colin's mouth lifted, and he felt as though the dust had finally settled.

This game—or the people of this world—were just too naive. Their level of knowledge really needed improvement. There was not the slightest challenge to it.

Colin shook his head and directed the two of them to lift the red carpet, open the stone slab, and find the path leading underground.

But at that moment, a chill suddenly ran down Colin's back.

"Big brothers, are you looking for me?"

Big brothers, please vote...