It wasn't difficult for Criel to realize that the place where he had drifted was the world inside the Tirnanog RPG. First of all, the monsters roaming around were all creatures he had seen somewhere before.
Next was his appearance. He looked as if his last in-game character's graphics had been brought to life.
Although he wasn't pleased about being stuck with the Dark Knight class—a job that made you lose your mind the more you used its skills—he still had some hope.
In many game-transmigration novels, the goal was usually to defeat the final boss of the original work. Since he had some system-like thing that engraved skills in his mind, he believed that someday, after defeating the Demon King, he would be able to return home.
It didn't take long for that belief to shatter. He discovered that the Demon King Valor had already been vanquished by heroes long ago.
"Hero" was the title given to player characters in the game.
Criel tried to find a hero to get clues about returning home, but after the Demon King's defeat, the heroes' whereabouts had become a mystery.
There were many rumors about the heroes' disappearance. But Criel believed none of them contained the truth.
*They probably just went home.*
After a hollow laugh, Criel set "living healthily with a healthy mind" as his goal from then on...
[How many of the Seven Demonic Weapons are currently missing?]
"They're weapons that keep trying to escape even when sealed. Rather than counting the missing ones, it would be faster to count the properly sealed ones."
He was contemplating whether a life caught between a unicorn-headed ghost and a self-proclaimed witch could be considered healthy.
The unproductive debate continued with comments like "Why is the Holy Kingdom's management so sloppy?" and "That's because we're short-staffed trying to normalize corrupted spirits like you."
"Instead of arguing like this, why don't you just gather all the other saints and hold a discussion forum?"
Criel jokingly tried to stop their quarrel. He couldn't understand why these two were so desperate to get at each other.
[Oh.]
"Since we're all going together anyway... that might actually work?"
However, Orishin and Morgina took his joke seriously.
***
Criel was drinking water in a corner of the discussion hall. There was no place for him in a logical meeting based on decades of accumulated Abyss observation data, rather than finding the Abyss's location through intuition and sensation.
Morgina also quietly approached Criel's side. She looked far from the enthusiastic debater who had been passionately discussing spearheads and blade edges just moments ago.
"What's up? Done with the discussion?"
"It's at a standstill. We realized that since you've made such a big concession, we don't need to act separately."
Originally, the first task would have been to find the location where the artifact's main body was hidden. The reason the Priest King had summoned multiple saints was for them to spread out and search for the artifact's hiding place.
But thanks to Criel, they could now charge straight toward the artifact's main body without the troublesome search process.
"So everyone decided to prepare for whatever ability of the demonic weapon they think we'll face."
Criel gave a hollow laugh. After talking for a couple of hours, they still couldn't reach a consensus.
"Is it difficult even for saints to agree on something? Do you all get along during church dinners?"
"Have you ever been to the Festival of Light Birth? After all the festival events are over, there's a huge argument when we try to decide what to eat. Starting with whether fish or meat is better, then there are those who insist on abstaining from meat and eating only vegetables—"
Morgina's various complaints eventually led to boasting about the Church of Yv Caha.
"But our church doesn't have such annoying restrictions. Drinking and meat-eating as you please! Join now and you can even keep your Champion title?"
"Stop trying to convert me."
Criel brushed off Morgina's nonsense. The first time he heard similar words was on the battlefield.
He had known since she went around telling soldiers with blood-covered maces, "Join our church and get free strawberry jam bread every weekend!" that Morgina had no talent for evangelism.
***
Griekenkos's vanguard, Main Satraniak, gazed at the constellation map spread out in the void.
The constellations shining in the darkness differed from those existing in reality. The stars adorning the void were equivalents of the Abyss power structure.
The six constellations, each with its own color occupying the sky, were proof of this.
The symbol of the Great Demon.
The stars representing Griekenkos took the form of a scale. The scale-shaped constellation held power that nameless stars couldn't dare compare to, yet it seemed less impressive compared to the other five constellations.
Like all demons, Griekenkos wanted to disrupt the balance among the stars of the Abyss and become the unrivaled hegemon.
Satraniak had offered an ingenious strategy to realize his master's will: a method to mass-produce apostles of the Abyss using the Demon King's legacy.
According to the plan, fragments of the Seven Demonic Weapons should have gradually grown by feeding on the world, blooming on the soil of corpses.
But things went wrong. Despite scattering so many fragments, there wasn't even a single being that had reached the level of a demonic beast, let alone risen to the rank of Main like himself.
There were two possibilities to consider. Either the humans he had carefully selected were all so incompetent that they couldn't even kill a single family member.
Or, the plan had been discovered by fools who worshipped soulless machinery.
Satraniak flicked his fingertip. The constellation map disappeared, replaced by multiple screens showing various parts of the world.
These were screens connected to worshippers serving Satraniak. They all testified that the Holy Kingdom had "secretly" summoned saints.
*Humans are animals interested in each other's secrets.*
Satraniak's worshippers, not knowing—or perhaps deliberately ignoring—the identity of the being they served, brought secrets to him. They did so because the other secrets they received in return were sweet.
The summons for the saints. Satraniak sensed that the saints would be marching to stop his plan.
But even saints wouldn't have a good solution. When planting the fragments of the Seven Demonic Weapons, Satraniak had scattered them evenly across the world to ensure no pattern could be detected.
The saints who set out to track them might start from the branches and reach the trunk at most. But they would never reach the roots.
Satraniak turned his gaze to a mummy with a blade piercing its heart. The blade of the sword stuck in the mummy was skeletal. But with careful observation, one could see that the blade was regenerating as if flesh were filling in.
He had been restoring the sword through this mummy for years, but the limit was approaching. Even now, the regeneration speed of the blade had noticeably slowed.
Satraniak intended to abandon this hideout without hesitation once the sword consumed the last drop of soul remaining in the corpse.
Even if the saints' subjugation party found this place, nothing would remain.
"...But it would be better to put more effort into the disguise."
Satraniak selected worthless individuals among his worshippers to be sacrificed. He planned to summon them to this place, implant false memories, and disappear.
When the saints, satisfied with their supply of sacrificial lambs, forgot about this incident, he would continue his plan elsewhere. Next time with more capable worshippers, and more secretly.
***
"The main body of the Abyss seed is there." He pointed to a stone structure that seemed precariously perched beyond the cliff.
Criel had led the saints deep into the mountains. It was a remote mountain area difficult for people to access. However, a place difficult for people to reach didn't necessarily mean it was suitable for the Abyss to hide.
In this world, which had been at war with the Abyss since ancient times, monasteries or cathedrals were built in most mountains.
When a Main emerged from some mountain peak, a monastery would be built to purify the place after burying and burning the Main's corpse.
The place Criel pointed to was one such monastery. The saints' expressions hardened.
Such mountain monasteries regularly sent reports about their surveillance areas to the holy city of Temris. Despite this, the fact that the Abyss could be sensed from the monastery suggested either that the Abyss had infiltrated the monks to their very marrow, or that everyone inside had perished.
Either way, it was no ordinary matter—whether it was the collective corruption of the monks or some mysterious enemy who had isolated and silently annihilated the entire monastery.
"First, I'll—"
"I'll go too."
Before Criel could finish his sentence, Morgina added. Giving her a sidelong glance, Criel continued.
"...We'll disguise ourselves as wandering priests and scout ahead. If there's no news from us after 30 minutes inside, all of you should charge in."