Not a barbarian warrior.

Somewhere in the narrow, maze-like alleyways, there was a crouching woman. Repeating the name of her lost daughter, her clouded eyes had lost focus and were wandering somewhere. Someone approached her slowly, making splashing sounds.

The man who had said he would remember her daughter’s name. He knelt in front of her and held out something. An old dress that a little girl might wear. It was stained with red blood and torn in places.

Focus returned to the woman’s eyes. Her eyes looked at the dress. It was exactly the same as the clothes her daughter Laura had been wearing last.

“Where is my daughter…?”

To the question that couldn’t hide her anxiety, Eugene answered in a trembling voice.

“I’m sorry…”

“Wh-What do you mean… Where is my daughter?”

“…”

Eugene couldn’t bring himself to say it. That a demon worshipper had swallowed her daughter. That not even a corpse remained. That he was as good as the one who killed her daughter.

She lost her mind again. Blood tears flowed down her eyes, and she let out a scream as if her intestines were being torn out. Eugene got up and left the place. He turned away from her grief. There were still things he had to do before he could collapse together with her.

It was late at night. The priestess who had asked to look after the poor children couldn’t sleep. Inside the long corridor in the center of the church, she was praying with her hands folded while sitting on a long wooden chair.

In the space filled only with stillness, the sound of knocking on the door echoed. The priestess stopped praying and immediately got up to open the closed door. The candlestick she was holding illuminated Eugene’s figure.

He was covered in blood all over his body. The armor he had been wearing was dented and broken, reduced to rags, and he was precariously standing holding something wrapped in a robe. The priestess, who usually didn’t show her emotions outwardly, asked in great surprise:

“Brother? What on earth…!”

“…May I come in?”

“Of course. Please come in…!”

He dragged his limping legs inside. Three children standing behind him quietly followed. They were the children Eugene had temporarily taken in because they had nowhere to go.

The quiet corridor was so silent that even Eugene’s breathing could be heard by the priestess’s ears. The wheezing sound revealed that something inside his body was severely damaged. The priestess hurriedly approached to support Eugene, but he shook his head and refused.

Eugene slowly put down what he had been holding in his arms. Then he carefully removed the robe that was wrapped around it. The corpse of a headless child was revealed.

To the priestess who covered her shocked face hurriedly with both hands, Eugene spoke in a powerless voice:

“Priestess… Deep under the city, in the depths of the sewers… I encountered a demon worshipper… I killed him, but in the process, three children also died…”

Eugene had brought only two corpses. Before the priestess could ask about the whereabouts of the remaining child, he continued:

“There’s one child I couldn’t bring… Because that evil creature swallowed the child… I couldn’t even find the corpse… It was as if it had become one with that monster…”

The wheezing breath gradually became thin as a thread. The priestess approached Eugene to check his condition. His complexion was very poor.

“Brother… Are you alright?”

“I… I did my best… Please take care of that child left alone in the sewer… The child’s name is… Laura…”

“Brother…!”

Eugene collapsed on the spot after saying those words. His consciousness sank into deep darkness as if it would never return.

He wanted to stop now. He wanted to be at peace like this. Thinking that he wanted to let go of everything, he fell asleep.

After Eugene collapsed, many things happened. The priestess who heard his words led the city guards and church clergy to search the entire city’s sewers. And after a long time, they were able to find the corpse of the worshipper who had become a monster.

“We found it!”

“Wow… What on earth…”

“It’s horrible…”

Those who discovered the scene couldn’t close their mouths. The traces left in the sewer allowed everyone to guess what kind of desperate fight had taken place.

Amidst the rotten smell of blood emanating from red liquid and flesh splattered everywhere, lay the corpse of a monster with its head completely crushed.

“The passage is too narrow to move it whole.”

“Then we have no choice. Cut it up.”

“Understood.”

The guards cut the corpse of the monster that had become one with the child into pieces and carried it out of the sewer. They also carried out the withered corpse found at the scene and the corpse with a knife stuck in its neck.

Subsequently, the ledger and documents of Emir found among Eugene’s possessions revealed that children from the back alleys were being kidnapped. Upon hearing this fact, the lord of Carlisle was outraged and ordered all the guards:

“These sons of bitches… How dare they do such a thing in my city? What the hell were you all doing! Go and catch them all! I’ll hang every last one of them!”

Not only Emir’s gang, who had been running the business of kidnapping children, but also other guys who had been hiding like parasites in the back alleys and committing all sorts of evil acts were cleaned up together. Although they hadn’t completely eradicated the root, their evil deeds had to stop for the time being.

Several days passed like that. As the demon worshipper had said, God was merciless, and the world was cruel. Eugene’s consciousness, which had wanted to let go of everything, gradually escaped from deep sleep and rose upwards. Finally, at some point, he opened his eyes.

The first thing Eugene saw was neither an unfamiliar ceiling nor a familiar one. It was Lorena, who was looking at him with eyes full of tears. She immediately hugged him carefully as he lay there, shedding tears.

“Th-Thank goodness… I thought you were going to die like this…”

Eugene, who had resented God and this world, paradoxically felt grateful as soon as he saw her face. How sad would she have been if he had never opened his eyes again? Eugene slowly hugged her with his trembling arms.

Even after regaining consciousness, Eugene couldn’t leave the bed for a long time. When he was caught by the worshipper who had become a monster, not only were his bones and muscles throughout his body damaged, but even his vitality had been drained. Those who saw him regain consciousness all said it was a miracle. He had been in a state where it wouldn’t have been strange if he died at any moment.

While receiving treatment at the church with the help of the clergy, several people came to visit Eugene.

First, the comrades from the Brotherhood of the Sword all breathed sighs of relief when they confirmed that Eugene was safe, and Clea raged, asking why he had gone to such a dangerous place alone.

And the believers who came to worship at the church often visited Eugene, whom they had never met before, to greet him. Following his great performance in the tournament, his fame for killing the demon worshipper reached the sky here in Carlisle.

Finally, the lord of Carlisle and other priests from the church came together to express their gratitude to Eugene. They praised Eugene’s courage and dedication, and bestowed blessings in the name of God.

“I didn’t know your honor and nobility shown in the tournament would be to this extent. Count Leopold will be greatly pleased! Thank you for eliminating the vermin that was eating away at Carlisle on my behalf!”

“Brother’s deeds will surely please God. We won’t forget that dedication of driving away the darkness of the evil god and saving the children!”

“…I don’t know how to repay you. Thank you.”

The lord of Carlisle and the priests competed to express their gratitude to Eugene. As if trying to claim Eugene’s achievements as their own, their words seemed like a competition disguised as praise.

The lord and the church had been waging an invisible war over influence in Carlisle for a long time. They each subtly expressed their greed over Eugene’s achievements.

However, Eugene himself knew nothing about this underground battle. Nor did he want to know. He just kept nodding with a soulless face.

Meanwhile, one priest took out a special item he had prepared. It was a well-forged sword.

“The church has prepared a small gift to repay Brother’s sacrifice and courage.”

Eugene, barely raising his upper body, respectfully received the sword offered by the priest.

“Brother, would you like to draw the sword once?”

Eugene gripped the handle and pushed it sideways from the sheath that had no special decorations. With a clear sound, a pure white sword was revealed. There was some inscription engraved on the blade, which Eugene read inadvertently.

“Even in darkness, there is light…”

At those words, the priest smiled and added an explanation.

“It’s one of the phrases from the scriptures. It’s an inscription engraved while thinking of Brother who eliminated the minion of the evil god in the sewer where not a speck of light enters. How is it?”

“…”

Eugene was silent. He looked at the inscription on the sword with darkened eyes. There was no light in the sewer that day. In the darkness, there was only deeper darkness.

If he had been the light illuminating that darkness, he should have saved the children from the monster’s hands that day. Therefore, he had no right to receive this sword.

“This is… too much for me. I don’t deserve to receive this…”

“No. This sword was made thinking only of Brother. Please accept it.”

“No… I…”

The priests almost forcibly passed it on to Eugene and left with the lord. Eugene looked at the sword for a while and slowly got up from his seat. He moved his steps slowly with his body still uncomfortable to move.

Standing in front of a small prayer room prepared in the corner of the church, he carefully knocked on the door. The priestess who was praying inside opened the door. It was she who had asked Eugene to look after the children in the back alleys.

“Your body must still be uncomfortable to move, how did you come here…?”

“I have something to say for a moment. May I come in…”

“Come in first.”

The two sat facing each other in the narrow space. In the quiet air where they could hear each other’s breathing, Eugene repeatedly opened and closed his mouth. Unable to look into her eyes while speaking, he finally opened his mouth with his head bowed.

“Priestess…”

“Yes, speak.”

“Why… Why does no one ask me about the dead children? Why they died, how they died… Why does everyone say nothing?”

“Brother… That’s…”

Before the priestess could say anything more, Eugene opened his mouth.

He confessed to her the secret that only he knew about what had happened in the sewer that day. She had the right to know about the children’s deaths. Because she was the one who had asked him to help the children.

“…It was the moment I crushed the head of that demon worshipper in the sewer. The head of the child who was standing still burst, and then the guy’s head regenerated. I… I tried to run away. But… But that bastard threatened me. He said he would tear the children apart if I ran away…”

He confessed everything in a voice that was becoming wet. This was also an excuse. It was a cowardly excuse that he had done his best, and that the children’s deaths were unavoidable.

“I had no choice. I couldn’t run away, and I couldn’t quietly become the creature’s sacrifice and die. So… So I crushed that monster’s head. Even though I saw the heads of the two remaining children burst one after another… I didn’t stop. The reason the child’s corpse had no head… was because of that…”

“…”

“Everyone praised me for that… Some priest just gave me a sword. It had an inscription saying it was the light illuminating darkness. What light am I… How can I be… when I couldn’t even save the children… All of this is a lie…”

With a plop sound, something fell below Eugene’s head. It was the sound of clear liquid dropping from his eyes.

“The fact that those poor children died like that… It’s ultimately because of me… I killed the children… If there is a hell, I will surely go there…”

The priestess looked at Eugene, who was still bowing his head. This lost lamb confessing his sins while shedding tears was trembling in the darkness. She quietly stood up and tightly hugged him who was crouching. Then, with her eyes closed, she spoke in a calm voice:

“According to doctrine, those who kill the innocent go to hell. But it’s up to God to judge the weight of that sin, so whether Brother will go to hell… we can’t know right now.”

She patted Eugene’s back. He was carrying too much on his shoulders. He was on the verge of collapsing under the overwhelming weight.

“Also, this tragedy cannot be solely your responsibility. The situation where you had to go down to the sewer alone, the people who entrusted the children to you, and the adults of this city who failed to protect those children… No one can be free from this tragedy.”

Eugene needed to unload that burden. It was something that needed to be shared with others. She was the first to move Eugene’s burden onto her own shoulders.

“Nevertheless, if God tells you that you must go to hell… Don’t worry too much… I will be with you. So… don’t blame yourself too much…”

“Huu… Huuu… Huuu…”

At her consolation, small sobs escaped from Eugene’s crouching body.

The priestess said nothing.

She just embraced Eugene’s trembling shoulders, hoping that his pain would be eased even a little.

The sad echo resonating in the small space slowly subsided.

In the empty space that was created, only gentle breathing remained.