Dragging the limp Heathcliff along, I hurried my steps toward the third floor.
Along the way, in a corner of the central area, I found another [E.G.O gift] in a place called the Purification Site.
<······.>
A skull, glittering brightly.
Surprisingly, it was an [E.G.O gift] obtained by passing through the Purification Site.
The Purification Site was a strange place.
Or maybe grotesque would be a better word.
Inside it, various vividly preserved human body parts were stored in glass tubes.
They seemed to be the intact parts torn from prosthetic-body holders by N Corp's Inquisitors.
While I was looking over which body part might be worth taking, I pulled out what looked like the best one: a human skull.
I wanted to take other parts too, but the structure seemed to be such that once you chose one, the others closed off, so I couldn't take more than one.
Well, that's enough of the trivial explanation. Let me talk about the bigger things that happened after that.
Past the Purification Site in the central area, at the third gate, beast-shaped heretics stood guard at the door.
The moment I saw them, I took a combat stance, but strangely enough, they didn't seem to have any fighting spirit.
"Th...is. is. a place. only. spe...cial. ones can enter."
"To pass... you must. show. your qualifications."
Qualifications, huh...
There was one thing I could guess.
The things we had obtained along the way, proving our purity according to their intentions.
Maybe the seals were the qualifications they meant.
"...You may pass."
When Dante showed all three seals, the beast-shaped thing said that.
"Take this, and go..."
Then it placed something in Dante's hand and quietly stepped aside.
Soon after, the prisoners passed them and headed for the door leading to the next room.
After staring blankly for a moment, I hurried past them before their attitude could change and headed for the room with the stairs.
"Ugh..."
Ms. Rodion let out a drained sound and hid behind me.
-Wriggle.
-Sssrrrk.
So she hates snake-like things too? That was news to me.
The reason I'm saying this all of a sudden is because there was an Inquisitor in front of us whose body had been transformed into something snake-like.
That bastard had been hit by E.G.O corrosion, Abnormality corrosion, or whatever else you wanted to call it.
Strictly speaking, it wasn't that he had become a snake; rather, his left and right arms had been transformed into snake-like appendages, and snakes were crawling out through the holes in his armor everywhere. That would be more accurate.
"Hiiik!"
Every time it flicked its tongue and looked this way, Ms. Rodion clutched my collar tighter.
...What kind of Abnormality corrosion turns your whole body into what looks like dozens, maybe hundreds, of snakes?
The question was a primitive one, but there was no time to leisurely think about it.
"Krrk..."
It had noticed us.
"Everyone, battle stations! Form up!"
With Ms. Otis's command, our personalities were set in place.
Ah... combat is exhausting.
Can't we just be done already...?
The battle wasn't in much danger.
Just the usual: three or four of us died along the way.
Aside from the fact that stabbing barely worked, it was disgustingly tough, attacks would suddenly stop landing without warning, or it would suddenly spray poison over all of us, or, even after it seemed to have had its throat cut, it would drag one or two more of us down in its dying struggle, it was a battle with no major problems.
...There are way too many of these. Seriously.
So, after finishing that miserable battle, we were slowly descending to the third floor, where our final enemy waited.
Of course, the process of the clock turning back came with it.
Ah, you're asking what happened to Heathcliff?
"I'm going to kill you!!"
The moment he revived, he tried to swing a bat at us exactly as expected, with not even a hair's breadth of deviation...
-Whistle!
"Ghk..."
But at the whistle that rang out at just the right moment, even he, burning with rage, had no choice but to freeze.
The high, sharp whistle echoing through the underground always had the effect of making us instinctively shrink back.
If that sound rang out during battle, the Inquisitors' morale would rise too, and that often led to annoying situations.
So Heathcliff must have stopped the bat he was about to swing at us on instinct.
"...Just you wait till you get out."
Unable to actually kill us in this situation, he left behind a line fit for a third-rate thug and then settled down again.
A remarkable improvement.
Until two missions ago, he would have tried to smash our heads in regardless of success or failure.
After being crushed by helplessness at K Corp, having his spirit suppressed by Ms. Ryoshu's possessed tongue, and seeing Mr. Vergilius's majesty firsthand, it seemed even he had acquired the virtues of humility and patience.
Anyway.
...Come to think of it, I felt like I'd been smelling something for a while now.
"...Blood?"
My dulled sense of smell caught the deep scent of blood and the distinctive stench of corpses rising from below.
No, had I seen it with my eyes?
My nose had already gone numb from the foul smells of the first and second underground floors, but the stench rising from the third floor was strong enough to pierce straight through that numbness.
"······."
Perhaps sensing the situation below, the prisoners' faces also hardened.
-Clack. Clack.
As we slowly walked down the stairs and finally reached the end, what met our eyes was...
A never-ending hill of corpses.
At the top of the highest hill, something golden shone brilliantly, and below it, the Inquisitors stretched both hands into the air as if offering a sacred act of worship.
Where was Kromer?
Only after I narrowed my eyes and looked back at the [Golden Bough] did I finally notice Kromer beside it.
She, too, had placed the [Golden Bough] on an altar atop the highest hill and was reaching toward it as if in prayer.
"Her ego depth has already opened. She resonated with the [Golden Bough] before we did."
...What kind of thoughts do you have to live with for a thing like that to manifest as an ego through a [Golden Bough]?
"What the hell are you doing? What are you reaching toward?"
"...Prayer."
-Ding, ding, ding.
Suddenly, a bell rang out.
A sound I had heard often enough in my previous world to recognize instinctively.
Of course, it wasn't all that different in this world either.
"...What is that sound?"
"It sounds familiar somehow... why does my head feel itchy... and gross..."
The sound that gives any Korean a nervous breakdown just from hearing it.
"...That's the school bell. You must have hated school a hell of a lot."
It was the school bell.
...Why the hell is a melody like that ringing here?
"Ugh... I'm getting a nervous breakdown..."
······Unfortunately, because it was a sound I had heard far too often in both my previous world and this one, a headache naturally came creeping in.
Twice the amount of school-bell exposure, what kind of nonsense is that...
While the prisoners were chuckling, the atmosphere loosened with their respective jokes—mine wasn't a joke, though—there was one person who couldn't laugh.
The boy who had originally been the owner of that ego depth couldn't.
"N-no... I don't want to show it... my, my memories..."
But the will of one who was not the owner would not be accepted.
"Now then, everyone! Listen well!"
Separately from that, Kromer shouted loudly, drawing the Inquisitors' attention.
"The One Who Grasps speaks."
"The One Who Grasps speaks."
...The voices are clearly different, so why are they saying it twice?
"The heretics not only interfere with our sacred rite, but also covet the sacrifice that ought to be consecrated!"
"How unpleasant and impure."
"How unpleasant and impure."
"Go and die! Do not fear it!"
Crazy bitch.
"So long as there is a golden sacrifice, you will rise again infinitely!"
"With the One Who Grasps beside us, there is nothing to fear."
"With the One Who Grasps beside us, there is nothing to fear."
Are these people actually insane? Even we, who are practically an immortal army, still couldn't completely rid ourselves of the fear of pain.
Even with the limitation that resurrection required a sacrifice, the fact that they could spout that nonsense without the slightest fear of death was enough to make me stare in disbelief.
"And... Sinclair."
"Come here. You must be placed in my hand at once."
...Well, expecting common sense from fanatics was a luxury, I suppose.
"To be used by the One Who Grasps is the greatest joy of one's life."
"To be used by the One Who Grasps is the greatest joy of one's life."
As if on cue, the N Corp Inquisitors spewed their nonsense and crushed Sinclair's spirit.
But why are they really saying it twice?
Are the things those bastards worship not pure humans, but that famous person from the old world known for 폭●저그?
"I, I..."
I placed a hand on Sinclair's deathly pale shoulder.
...If this kind of thing could be fixed that easily, we would have solved it long ago and come down already.
Unfortunately, there was nothing else I could do, so I could only quietly pat his shoulder.
"Sinclair."
"You brought the coin, right?"
Then, with a chillingly lowered voice, the light from the [Golden Bough] began to illuminate the prisoner's past.