The Girl Who Hacked The Magic System

"And there she goes being scary again."

As I hear Ingela's voice, I look up from the paladin, only to then see that everyone in the room is staring at me.

"Hehe. Sorry, I went overboard again."

"It's okay. We're just used to it at this point."

"Yeah, and it isn't like he hadn't had it coming."

"I just hope I never get on your bad side."

Thank you, Yaci and Kwarah. And I don't think that this is the time for this, Ingela.

As I struggle to not snap a witty remark at Ingela's comments, she smiles, catching me off guard.

"I'm just messing with you, Aurea. It's not like I'm one to talk. These paladins are harvesting what they sowed."

:::

The paladin in this room is not the leader of the paladins in the temple, from what De Arlanda said. He was probably just the leader of the group that was allowed to do their prayers here in the nave today.

There are four regular corps of paladins, and we just defeated one of them. The High Paladin in charge of the whole defense has its own squad of Elite Paladins.

The leaders of the regular corps are Elite Paladins, according to the Church's hierarchy. So we must expect a fight against a group of guys as talented as the one I just killed when we fight the High Paladin.

From what my little friend told me, the High Paladin is probably in the area normally reserved for the Pontifex and the highest-ranking bishops, where Lovelace infiltrated before.

And, from what we can hear, there is already another group of paladins heading this way.

:::

"Stop where you are!"

We had just a quick time to adjust our strategy when an elite paladin comes rushing through the door at the back of the nave, followed by six others.

"Oh my… why should I?"

The man sees the bodies of his comrades on the floor while we stand without any sign of injury, and his face becomes pale.

Yeah, you just ran to your death, my boy. It sucks to be you.

"This is a sacred place of the goddess. It's not to be defiled by the likes of you!"

"Ohh? And what's she gonna do about it? Or you, for that matter?"

I admit, toying with the religious beliefs of fanatic chauvinists is just so fun… I can't get tired of doing it.

"I will stop you right now!"

"Will you, really? With which power?"

The man reaches his hand to the belt pocket where his holy book is, only to find it empty.

"What?"

Ingela is now holding two holy books in her hands. Our theory that we could use their sacred connection as the goddess' objects to disarm the paladins proved successful.

A second later, she is holding eight holy books, and then she uses a fire aria to burn them to ashes in front of the terrified paladins.

She should have spared one so we can use the same trick against the next squad, but we'll go through it later.

Without the ability to cast magic, the paladins are worse than normal soldiers, because most of their skills rely on the goddess' magic.

But, more important than that, is to break their spirit.

"Did you see that? We burned the holy book of the goddess at the heart of her very temple. And yet, we are standing, unscathed, while your friends are like this."

I make a theatrical gesture to the dead bodies.

"Do you want to join your friends? Or do you surrender?"

I am betting it all on the hunch that the goddess won't wake up until my birthday, the day of the hero summoning.

It would be very embarrassing if she were to wake up now and smite us right here, after all that boasting.

The elite paladin howls and launches himself at me like a madman, his eyes devoid of any semblance of sanity, and his subordinates follow him.

The madman's way of swinging his sword at me left him so open that his head rolled off when he hadn't even reached halfway. It was Lovelace's blade of darkness that did the job.

I didn't flinch or move or do anything. I just stayed there, aura farming, as the girls cut the remaining guys to pieces.

:::

Ingela went to one of the other guys who we killed earlier and picked up his holy book.

"You silly, did you really think that I would make that blunder? There are still some here."

I had just complained to her about also burning the holy book of the first high paladin, but she just showed me that she had better thoughts than that.

She took all the holy books we could find and stashed them in her storage space, and then we moved further inside the temple.

:::

On the way to the reserved chambers, we fought two more squads, and they went down exactly like the second one.

I don't like that Ingela keeps burning one of the books we secured every time, but that strategy is being very useful in making the fights very one-sided.

And now we are at the ever-lit room Lovelace had told me about when she first explored the interior of the temple.

And the doors that lead inwards are fully open.

On the other side of those doors there is a hall, guarded by the last paladin squad. One glance at them is enough for us to see that they are on a whole other level from the ones we fought until now.

Ohhhh, I want to get this high paladin alive.

I'm still a bit bummed that we weren't able to make any of the paladins surrender until now. So I really do hope some of these last ones have an ounce of sanity inside them.

But I don't have high hopes. To rise up in the ranks of the armed branch of a Church that fully advocates for slavery and chauvinism, you probably have to give up your sanity a lot early in the process.