125 – In Destruction (1)

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It took Alice a whole week to return to the city where the Vatican was located.

For the first two days, I walked without rest.

On the third day, they barely managed to find a pack horse tied to a stable in a village that had been devastated by a monster, but even so, it was an old and sick pack horse from the countryside, far from a fine horse, so they could not expect it to be very fast.

But Alice had no time to complain.

Rather, Alice took advantage of the long travel time to spend time thinking nonstop.

In order to save as much time as possible, I prepared and memorized everything I had to report to the Vatican in advance, and planned a route to get the items I needed after the report.

Since I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to get a swift horse back into the forest, I created a time limit that took both cases into account.

In fact, no matter what the case, time was extremely limited, but if we could receive help from the Pope or the entire church, it would not be difficult to complete all preparations within the limited time.

In the remaining time, I constantly thought about formation and tactics while predicting the strength of the three people going to the Demon King’s Castle.

No matter how long it took to move, there was so much more to think about that Alice’s head was spinning without a moment’s rest.

Of course, her body was also being worked to an extent that was not inferior to it.

He went to bed only once every three days, and when he was about to collapse from exhaustion, he would force himself to rise again by infusing his divine power.

But when we finally arrived in the city where the Vatican was located,

Alice couldn’t help but feel certain that things wouldn’t turn out as she expected.

“…Oh my God, goddess.”

Where the Vatican once stood, only traces of the soot-covered pillars and walls remained.

Human corpses and monster flesh were strewn all over the streets, and all the houses and shops were empty or collapsed.

The only people who were occasionally found were those who were wandering around in a daze, out of their minds due to the grief of losing their families, and robbers who would attack them and steal even their small belongings, which were nothing more than clothes and a handful of dust.

Alice was taken aback.

Even if the report was put aside, it was clear that in this situation, it would not be possible to find a sword or armor, let alone a horse to return to.

Even the old steed she had been riding collapsed and died shortly after arriving in the city.

“… Is it too late?”

Alice muttered calmly in a distraught voice.

Even before the Demon King was resurrected, the country was already as good as destroyed.

Seeing that the Vatican of the Catholic Church, the center of basic common sense and ideas shared and cherished by the people of this country, no, the entire continent, has collapsed, perhaps it was not only the country that was destroyed, but the entire continent.

Only the cold feeling that it might be all of humanity passed through Alice’s mind, scratching roughly.

That was when.

“Alice.”

Alice slowly turned around at the voice calling her name.

Inside a bar where furniture was toppled over, someone was looking at Alice through a door that was rattling off its hinges.

The man slowly got up from his seat.

In his hand he held a large bottle of liquor, the inside of which was heavily soiled.

“…Eric?”

“Where have you been and why are you here now?”

“What the heck is going on…”

“Stop, be quiet for now… Let’s move first. Follow me.”

Eric put his index finger to his lips, making a gesture for her to be quiet, then nodded at Alice as if to tell her to follow him.

＊

Inside the tavern that Eric followed into, there wasn’t a single piece of furniture left in good condition.

The chairs and desks were all tilted with broken legs, and there was broken glass strewn everywhere.

A single corpse was sitting in a corner, its body hanging limply, like a decoration, and mayflies were constantly flying around the corpse.

Eric opened the door set into the floor behind the bar counter.

It was a space usually used as a warehouse.

Alice followed Eric into the cellar.

“Isn’t it cozy?”

Eric smiled bitterly, spitting out nonsense.

Although it was nice to see her friend cracking jokes in the midst of such a dire situation, everywhere Alice could see was a sight that was more a mess than a cozy one.

Alice didn’t bother to agree.

There was no time.

“What happened? The Vatican disappeared. What on earth happened?”

“What, I thought you knew what was going on since you weren’t wearing your goddess armor?”

“I lost my armor.”

“Is that why you were wearing such thin clothes?”

Eric chuckled and sat down on a large barrel.

Alice nodded while looking at Eric like that.

“I thought what I experienced while I was away from the city would be one of the most amazing things in the world, but it’s no different here.”

“There’s nothing particularly surprising about this story.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The whole country is like this now.”

“…what?”

I had expected it, but it was still a different kind of shock when I heard it for myself.

It seemed as though this country was doomed.

“Where should I start…”

“…A riot?”

“yes.”

“What is the cause?”

“…”

Eric brought the large bottle of alcohol he was holding to his lips and drank it in one gulp.

It must have been a clear glass bottle at first, but now it is so cloudy and dirty that you can barely see the contents inside.

It certainly wasn’t a drink worth drinking, but it was probably the only drink Eric had available at this moment.

The taste was also terrible, Eric’s throat felt rough and creaky, unlike when he had been drinking beer a few months ago, and he would occasionally vomit.

“Hey, shit.”

Eric roughly wiped away the alcohol that had spilled over the corner of his mouth with his hand.

The smell of the alcohol that fell to the floor was extremely unpleasant.

Eric said, spitting the saliva that had collected in his mouth.

“Adversary.”

“…!”

“Ha, judging by the reaction, it seems to be true. Has the Demon King been resurrected? Or is he still dead? Or has a new Demon King appeared?”

“…How did you know?”

“Rumors spread. Well, I thought it was just some nonsense that came out because the world was so dangerous due to the monsters running wild.”

Eric let out a deep sigh.

The pungent smell of alcohol hit Alice’s nose.

“Actually, all the guys with good intuition felt that something really big was going to happen.”

“…”

“That’s true. It’s not easy to not know this atmosphere, right?”

What Eric said was true.

Until just a few years ago, the people of this world were living in a time when the Demon King was still alive and well.

That’s why I remembered it clearly.

The scent of destruction lingers in the air.

I may not have known the exact facts, but it was my instincts, not my information, and my skin, not my head, that felt it first.

“At first, people flocked to the Vatican and various churches. Thanks to you, the Catholic Church was very popular.”

“..”

“Then some crazy thief robbed the Vatican.”

Alice detected a sense of friendliness in Eric’s swearing.

The mechanical heart began to beat slightly faster.

Alice asked, barely suppressing her anger.

“… Are you a member of my organization?”

“It’s so fucking sad, that’s true.”

My heart started beating faster.

“You… ordered it?”

“No one ordered me to do it. It was just the act of some idiot who thought that if there were more people, there would be more donations.”

“…”

Alice bowed her head slightly.

Before I knew it, my clenched fist began to shake.

Alice took a deep breath and slowly released her hands.

Eric continued his explanation without paying any attention to Alice.

“But among the things that b*stard brought was a handwritten document from the Pope stating that the Demon King was not actually dead.”

“There will be chaos.”

“Ha, there’s chaos.”

“Did you spread it? Did you sell it to an informant?”

“Are you crazy? Of course I ordered them to keep their mouths shut, but I couldn’t stop some guys from drinking and talking nonsense. What the hell, even if you call it an organization, it’s just a bunch of Emchang people gathered together, so how could they keep their mouths shut?”

“…”

Eric said that and smiled self-deprecatingly before taking another sip of his drink.

“You probably know what happened next. Of course there was chaos. He was the Demon King. There was no way people would accept that such a huge piece of news was hidden.”

“The Pope…”

“He died. It must have been a secret even within the Vatican, because the priests took the lead in beheading him.”

“…oh my god.”

Alice covered her mouth in shock.

“All the statues of the goddess were completely destroyed, and hundreds of terrorist attacks targeting high-ranking people occurred every day. The nobles cried out every day without even knowing it, and their necks fell off.”

“How can ordinary citizens treat nobles accompanied by soldiers…”

“Those soldiers took the lead and beat up the nobles.”

I knew it.

That was the kind of being the Demon King was.

A name that carries with it a fear so strong that it paralyzes human reason.

The reason people were so helplessly swept into the whirlpool of madness was the absence of hope.

When the Demon King was alive and well, even the warriors were alive and well.

But now there was no warrior.

There was no one who could defeat the Demon King.

Alice could now understand why the Pope had kept the existence of the Demon King such a secret.

“Oh, and your pig farm was completely destroyed, too.”

“… got released?”

“No, they all died.”

Eric stared at the remaining bottle of alcohol and then threw it on the floor.

The glass from the bottle shattered with a loud noise, scattering shards of glass in all directions.

“I told you it wasn’t just here that was causing chaos. What about the capital? Where would the anger directed at the higher-ups who hid such high-level information be?”

“king…”

“And wasn’t there a royal family in the pig farm too?”

That’s right.

The port town where we went to catch Balder.

There, he found the third prince of the kingdom, Veron Theorid, instead of Balder.

Apparently, he had been locked up in a pigsty.

“All those guys at the pig farm were just trash. People’s anger was sky-high. They all died horribly. Your pig farm must have seemed like heaven to you.”

“…under,”

“Well, thanks to that, your popularity was maintained a little. If you were here then, this madness might have died down a little.”

“…”

Alice wasn’t angry anymore.

It was just unbelievable how the timing could be so off.

There was no way to hold Eric or the organization he was part of accountable.

To begin with, it was to the point where I didn’t even know who was responsible.

The goddess cult that hid the truth,

Eric’s organization that spread the truth,

Alice is away.

No, it was Sylvia who was responsible for all this.

Because I couldn’t kill the Demon King, and I had to crush and tie up Alice.

But unfortunately, she was the only one who could resolve this situation.

If there was any hope for humanity, it was ultimately that damned b*tch.

“Okay, that’s it for the briefing.”

Eric looked at Alice with slightly open eyes and asked.

“Where the hell have you been and what have you been doing?”

“…”

Eric swore at Alice.

But even though his expression was harsh, there was no sign of anger towards Alice in him.

Eric would have known too.

That this situation is no one’s fault,

Or maybe they are not pressing hard enough because they know that their own organization is responsible for this situation.

Alice looked at Eric and tried to speak, but then suppressed her laughter.

I thought that if I told Eric this, he would be shocked, but the story he told and the scale of the situation were so great that my own story seemed a little trivial.

“…haha,”

“…?”

“… It’s nothing, Eric. I just found Ash.”

Eric’s drunken eyes opened slightly wide.

“… what?”

“You’re alive, Ash.”

“…”

Eric didn’t seem to understand what Alice was saying.

Was he surprised to find Ash alive, or was he too drunk to understand what was being said?

Alice looked at Eric and said.

“It’s not just Ash. Eric.”

“…then?”

“Before I tell you…”

“…?”

“The organization you were in. Is it still going strong at all?”

“No, it’s all a mess.”

“Hmm, then it’s just you in the end.”

“…?”

Now that the goddesses who would support her, the blacksmiths who would make her swords and armor, and the merchants who would sell them to her had all disappeared, the only one she could rely on was Eric, who was right in front of her.

Eric is a shrewd thief and excellent information dealer.

“A sword, armor, a horse, and information that requires investigation.”

“What? Are you asking me to save you?”

“Yeah, I need it, Eric.”

“If you have eyes, look, how can you get something like that now?”

“We have to figure it out somehow, you and I.”

“what?”

Alice took a short deep breath and opened her mouth.

“Ash is with Sylvia.”

“Who is that…?”

“I don’t know?”

“I know you have the same name as the warrior. But?”

Eric tilted his head.

Alice said with a smile on her face.

“Are you talking about the warrior himself?”

“…”

I could see the intoxication lifting from Eric’s eyes.

Alice felt a strange sensation for a moment.

The key to saving the world was in the hands of a few country girls and country bumpkins from that tiny goldfield estate.

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