## Chapter 573 – Nice to Meet You, Friend

The execution began when the day dawned.

Everything that could be done during the night was taken care of. The paladins were experts at this kind of work. The average villagers couldn’t withstand the coercive investigation carried out by killers hardened by faith.

All the crimes were exposed, and the extent of the damage suffered by those detained was also clearly confirmed.

Out of a total of 37 villagers, 13 were sentenced to execution. The rest would be sent to Isbanter.

We used the materials from the destroyed village chief’s house and the surrounding houses to build a simple execution platform.

“Verde! I shall now begin the execution of the wicked who disturb the balance of the scales!”

Barkerel knelt the bound prisoners down and shouted fiercely in a stern voice. He was like a rabid dog.

“They claim they were threatened by the heretics to commit human trafficking!!! Yet, for their own convenience, they cut off the ankles of the victims and exploited them, treating them worse than slaves!!”

Just hearing it is horrifying…!

“Tee, teehee…! Teeheeheehee!!!”

I felt like I was going half-mad and tore at my hair. People. Cutting off people’s ankles and selling them. This should never happen.

This was an atrocity beyond imperialism, a revival of the Congo nightmare. The cruel Belgians severed the limbs of the Congolese people purely for fun, holding a festival of blood.

People are the same everywhere; this kind of thing happens even in another world.

“Saint! Calm yourself! It’s alright! They will be executed now!”

Seeing me in such pain, Eliza grabbed my wrist and shook it, waking me up.

“Kuh…! Right!”

There won’t be any more victims… or maybe there will be.

Unless the heretics are exterminated, victims will continue to appear indefinitely.

Even if all the heretics are exterminated, this kind of thing will happen again. Evil repeats itself. I remembered Saint Kadia saying that it was impossible to eradicate evil.

“A sin that can never be undone! The appropriate retribution for that sin is beheading!”

—Swish!

Captain Barkerel drew his sword.

“Long live Verde!”

—Thwack!

The blade of judgment fell like lightning. Swordsmanship honed to the extreme. A strike created solely to eradicate the wicked severed the prisoner’s neck.

The splattered blood stained the pure white, snow-covered ground red.

It was as incongruous as ketchup sprinkled on shaved ice.

“…”

The villagers who were not sentenced to death seemed to feel a sense of relief as they watched. Were they thinking that they had survived?

I don’t know their future.

They have only survived for now.

—Thwack!
—Thwack!
—Thwack!

Barkerel skillfully severed the heads of the prisoners.

“Ugh, uaaaaaaah!!!”

The last remaining prisoner screamed.

“You, you fucking bastards! How are you any different from those heretic bastards!! How are you different, you fucking bastards!!! Father!!! Brother!!! You fucking bastards! I’ll curse you! I’ll kill you all!!! I’ll curse you!!!!!”

He was the youngest of the prisoners, a human trash who belonged to the core executives of the front company created to kidnap people.

“The heretics and you paladin bastards are the same!!! You sons of bitches!! We were trying to live!! We did it to live!!! So whyyyyyy!!!”

He was the one who presented the deals at the forefront, deceiving the victims and bringing them into the village.

A heavy sin.

“Hmph…! So you’re saying we were the ones who should have died…! Why us! If we had refused there, the heretics would have killed us all! Are you saying that we should have ended up like this from the moment the heretics came to the village! You’re the same, you fucking bastards!!”

It was a heavy sin, but I couldn’t understand why he was making such a fuss. As expected, humans tend to think only of themselves.

People usually don’t know their own sins.

That’s why they need to be awakened.

“Eliza? What the hell is this bastard saying?”
“…I can’t understand it.”

Eliza, her pupils constricted, said in a chilling voice.

“Are you pretending not to know what you did, or do you really not know?”
“Uh, uh…”

Her fist, holding the mace, was trembling as if she was about to execute him herself. The young man, who had resolved himself to die, avoided her gaze as if he was intimidated by Eliza’s approach.

“You know very well that you have no right to say such things.”
“Uh, what do you mean, no right!!! How are we different! What’s the difference between us selling those bastards and you massacring all the people in our village!!”

Suddenly, the guy retorted to Eliza’s words.
He was just screaming.

One of the paladins drew his sword, but Barkerel stopped him. He seemed to be watching the situation.

“I asked if you were pretending not to know, but it seems that’s the case. Have you forgotten cutting off the victims’ ankles?”
“Th, that’s…!”

The young man avoided her gaze again at Eliza’s cold accusation.

No matter how much they pretended to be wronged, the fact that they had acted like crazy dogs wouldn’t disappear.

“If you had simply succumbed to threats, you wouldn’t have done such cruel things. You were just blinded by money, or you didn’t want any trouble because of the ‘merchandise’. That’s what you did. Do you understand?”

Eliza was a hundred times right.

Once you start doing bad things, you become insensitive to other things. Since you’ve committed a big crime, you think it’s okay to commit more crimes, and a collective moral decay occurs.

Even more so if no one knows and responsibility is dispersed.

It’s right to kill all these fucking bastards.

“It’s a crime worthy of death. You must die. You should be grateful that the Verde God has shown mercy by letting you die in pain.”

Eliza continued to speak in a low voice, endlessly rebuking the prisoner.

“Now, pray to the Verde God.”
“Wh… what!”
“Thank him for granting you a merciful execution.”
“…!”

In fact, these bastards should have bowed and thanked us for killing them so cleanly, as Eliza said.

But instead of bowing, he chose something else.

“Fuck! Shut up! Shut the fuck up! Why did my family…! Why did the people in our village!!! Uaaaaaaah!!! I’ll curse you! God! Please punish these sons of bitches!!!”

He even prayed to God in the end. The sight of him desperately ignoring what they had done and shouting that he was wronged was truly that of a heretic and a demon. And an imperialist and a Belgian at the same time.

—Thwack!

I immediately kicked him in the face.

“Kuhek!”
“Hehehe, even bullshit is a disease if it’s too much, you bastard. Well, criminals usually don’t know they’re criminals. No matter how much bullshit you spew, your dad and brothers are all dead, you moron.”

I squatted down in that state and gently pulled on both of his ears as I spoke, and he glared at me with fierce eyes.

“Y… you son of a bitch!!!!!!!”
“The dead don’t come back. Neither will you.”
“You fucking barbarian! God will curse you too!”

He, he’s cursing me!

—Thump!

“C, curse?!”

I immediately jumped up from my seat and grabbed my heart.

“Kuh… Kuhheueueuk!!! I’ve been… cursedaaaack…!”

Then I screamed in agony.

“Wh, what are you doing…?”
“I’m in so much pain because I was cursed because of you!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

I was just teasing him.

Soon his face turned bright red.

“Is a paladin teasing me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“Hehehe, did you just realize that, you idiot. Captain Barkerel. This bastard didn’t repent until the end. Please proceed with the execution quickly.”

There’s no such thing as a curse by God in this world.

If there was such a curse, those people with their ankles cut off would have poured it on this village a hundred or a thousand times.

“…It’s a pity. Morality has fallen to the ground, and people can’t distinguish between right and wrong.”

Barkerel swung his sword with a sad face.

“It’s all the heretics’ fault.”

—Thwack.

The severed head fell powerlessly. Even in the moment his neck was cut, he was glaring at the empty air as if he was so pissed off about something.

The execution was over.

We immediately gathered the corpses and placed them on top of the pile of wood that had been broken down from the buildings.

“…Saint.”

As I was doing that, Eliza approached and looked up at me with a blank face.

“If you do evil, you will be judged.”
“…”
“Such a simple thing.”

Her voice was somehow questioning.

“Why don’t people know that?”
“It’s because conscience isn’t common sense. It’s because they didn’t learn enough.”

Conscience and common sense are not universal.

It’s a pretty difficult concept.

There are too many bastards in the world who don’t know the obvious.

“Learning, you say. Then if everyone could receive an education, would this kind of thing disappear?”
“Well… it’s not up to us to judge that. What does Ijzermart say?”
“The God of Order didn’t say anything like that.”

Even modern Earth, where the education system is relatively well-established, is full of abnormal and inhuman bastards.

Just as evil cannot be destroyed by violence, evil cannot be destroyed by education.

This is completely like a brass sky paladin.

“Just annihilate them.”
“That’s enough. Just kill them all.”

We placed all the corpses of the prisoners on top of the pyre. Winia, who had been sitting quietly and watching the scene, came up to me. Well, the paladins said they would take care of setting the fire, so it seemed there was nothing else to do.

“Hey, darkie, are we going back now?”
“There’s still something left to do with the heretics. I think we’ll leave after we solve that.”
“It’ll take a while… Ugh.”

Winia stretched her arms out to me as if she was tired.

“Darkie, hug me quickly.”
“Hehehe. Come here.”

I naturally picked up Winia, who was smaller than me, and patted her back. Soon, she made a pleasant sound and rubbed her face against my neck.

Then Claudia approached.

“By the way, Katt, how are we going to distribute the spoils?”
“Ah. That.”

We got quite a bit of wealth from raiding the entire village.

It must all be wealth that flowed in from the heretics. We’ve gathered it all in one place for now. Distributing it will be a task.

“…”

But the fact that the heretics can pay the price means that they have a lot of money.

Money never arises or disappears on its own.

There must be a source of supply somewhere.

Whether it’s an anonymous sponsor or a business they run.
If we can raid that, becoming rich will be a matter of time.

But I really don’t know how to distribute this.

“Captain Barkerel said he would use some of it to help the victims… but there’s a lot more than that, so, well. I’ll talk to him.”

We finished cleaning up the village.

The remaining residents cooperated quietly, we collected all the hidden wealth and evidence of complicity with the heretics, and we completed the documentation of the circumstances and results of the execution.

“According to the testimony, there is no regularity in when the heretic human trafficking group comes.”
“Are you saying they come purely as they please?”
“That’s what they said. I’ve done a high-intensity interrogation, but no one seems to know anything about the heretics. They just hand over people to those who come and receive money.”

We couldn’t find out the identity of the heretics or their base.

From the beginning, none of the residents knew anything.

“But… it’s been quite a while since they came last time, so there were many opinions that they would be coming soon.”

That’s plausible enough. That must be why people were piled up like that. The villagers were really working hard to supply people for the heretics who would come again.

“So, I’m thinking of forming groups to escort the residents and victims to Isbanter.”
“Is that so? That sounds good too.”

The victims can be put in the carriages, and the residents can march with the paladins.

But is this telling me to go back?

“I would like the paladin to wait for the heretics in the village with me.”
“Yes. I understand. But what are you going to do if there’s no promise? We can’t wait too long.”
“Then we will give up.”

That was the conclusion.

We’ll form teams of five to escort the criminals and victims to Isbanter. The rest will wait in the village, waiting for the heretic human trafficking group that will come soon.

Of course, they may not come, but in that case, we’ll withdraw.

Well, there are a lot of supplies in the village, and the facilities are pretty good, so there’s no problem waiting a bit… Ah, fuck. I miss Karin, Risha, and Liztina. I’m going crazy with guilt.

“Ah, right. Captain Barkerel. What are you planning to do with the distribution of the spoils?”
“I’ve set aside the paladin’s share separately, so rest assured! Hahahaha!”

Barkerel, who laughed heartily, patted me on the back.

He’s a good person after all.