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The gaze of the Inquisitor flies towards me. It’s a chilling stare.

“What do you have in your pockets?”

“……”

I have no further words or excuses.

The plan has been discovered. The Inquisitor caught on.

Just as that thought crossed my mind, I had already pulled out my pistol.

I aimed the muzzle at the Inquisitor’s abdomen and pulled the trigger.

Episode 12 – The Strongest Magician of All Time

The muffled gunshot echoed across the low hill. Heated shell casings bounced, rolling across the snowy ground, while the smoke that had escaped late billowed from the end of the silencer.

Though shot in the abdomen, the Inquisitor was still alive.

Even a sturdy man would normally scream after being shot, yet this guy showed no signs of pain whatsoever.

The Inquisitor, who had fallen into the snow, attempted to push himself back up, and I quickly twisted my wrist, firing off a barrage aiming directly at him.

-ㅡ! ㅡ!

The image of him being shot was vividly clear.

The fired bullets flew straight, embedding themselves in his chest and shoulder, causing him to once again face-plant into the snowdrift.

Yet, he was still alive and breathing.

Without so much as a hint of pain.

“Dammit…!”

I squeezed the trigger again, and a muffled gunshot rang out.

In the blink of an eye, I had emptied the magazine, quickly turning around to swap out the spent magazine with another from my pocket, racking the slide.

In my life, I’ve never seen anyone get back up after taking multiple bullets unless they were strung out on drugs. But this guy—not under the influence—was getting back up even after taking more than ten shots.

This was abnormal. An ordinary person would be immobilized the moment more than ten bullets embed themselves in their body, unable to even detect the divine essence contained within the amulet.

In other words, he was no ordinary guy.

Or maybe he wasn’t even human.

Honestly, neither explanation made sense, but I couldn’t wrap my head around who this guy was with my common sense. It meant he wasn’t someone I could handle.

The moment such thoughts crossed my mind, I was already sprinting away like a madman.

“F*ck…! This sh*tty world…!”

Cursing wouldn’t change a thing, but I couldn’t bear it without letting out some curses. With each step, I plunged deep into the snowy path, running like a lunatic.

But someone was chasing after me.

Feeling a presence behind me, I turned my head to check, only to have to curse again.

It was the Inquisitor.

“That freaking bastard!”

He was still pursuing me. Holding a staff in one hand, a backpack on his back, and running despite being shot.

While rushing ahead, I stretched my hand back to fire off a few rounds in an attempt to slow him down.

However, the bullets fired without any aim neither hit him nor slowed his pace.

But it bought me a moment, a moment that allowed the Inquisition Officers who had sensed something amiss to arrive at the scene.

“Heretic!”

As the booming voice pierced through the wind to reach me, a flash erupted at the edge of my vision.

“What are you doing here?!”

“Stand back!”

Two Inquisition Officers blocked the path in front of the Inquisitor.

They were disguising themselves as civil servants to infiltrate the village.

As the Inquisition Officers began to confront the Inquisitor, another one shouted at me while I was dashing through the snow with my pistol in hand. He pulled out a holy scripture as he called out.

“Priest Rebecca is bringing reinforcements! We’ll handle this, so go!”

The situation was rapidly escalating, but I had no choice but to point my pistol at the Inquisitor.

I had to convey that he was a guy who was impervious to bullets. That fact had to be articulated.

Even as my chest felt like it was going to explode from the pain, I shouted with all my might at the Inquisition Officers.

“That guy doesn’t take bullets!”

The Inquisition Officer, gripping the silver dagger, recited a prayer.

“The words of the Lord are a sword; you shall wield the sword of the Holy Spirit.”

Faith expressed in words becomes a blade.

Much like a Knight’s sword, the Inquisition Officer’s dagger glimmered with a white light that formed like dew. Upon seeing the blade of light, the guy who’d been chasing with no response finally showed a reaction.

“…Inquisition Officer!”

The silver dagger, trailing with white light like a shooting star, was swung towards him. The dagger sliced through the air and aimed directly for the Inquisitor’s neck.

The Inquisitor, who had been charging with fervor, blocked the swing of the dagger.

He raised his arm to protect his neck and head, sacrificing his left arm instead of securing his vitals.

As the silver dagger passed by, a deep wound was etched into his flesh. The divine-infused blade sliced through soft tissue, trailing droplets of blood in its wake.

At that moment, for the first time, a death rattle-like moan escaped his lips.

“Grrr…!”

The Inquisitor, groaning in agony, clutched at his torn brown tunic and staggered back.

The Inquisition Officer, swirling the dagger skillfully, steadied himself for another attack, while the one with the scripture gripped its thin pages and shouted.

“Move ahead! We need to relocate the amulet!”

“…….”

At the mention of ‘amulet’, the Inquisitor’s gaze whipped around.

With eyes wide open, he glared at me as if he were ready to rip someone apart.

That terrifying look, so inhuman, left me frozen in place, not able to move a muscle. It wasn’t just a metaphor; even when I tried to exert myself, my legs wouldn’t budge. It felt as if something was pinning my shoulders down and gripping my legs.

Reacting to the change in atmosphere, the Inquisition Officer raised his dagger just as the one with the staff started to approach us.

Realizing that the situation had escalated, the Inquisition Officer gritted his teeth and tore a page from the book with a swift motion.

In that moment, a magnificent light illuminated the gloomy sky, driving away the darkness that shrouded the snowy landscape.

“Die, heretic!”

A blinding beam of white light shot forth like an arrow.

The light that burst from the scriptures split into multiple rays, soaring high into the sky against gravity, then suddenly changing direction and rushing down toward the ground.

For a moment, I was captivated by the scene that looked like a rain of arrows.

As the white light descended to the ground, it collided with the earth, creating a blizzard.

I staggered slightly at that moment.

“Ugh…!”

The impact was truly tremendous.

I had witnessed battles involving Knights wielding divine power before, but I had never seen an Inquisitor fight. I had come across documentation while working at the Information Agency, but I never imagined it would be at this level.

With such a degree of power, I had a gut feeling that even someone with a body of iron, capable of enduring gunshots, would find their corpse barely recognizable.

The firepower rivaled that of military-grade spells. Was that really the power unleashed by tearing up just a piece of paper?

The Inquisition Officer, still clutching the scriptures with both hands, seemed to peer through the cloud of dust, as if trying to confirm whether the heretic lay dead.

The one with the dagger shielded his colleague, positioning himself protectively as if he would not budge from that spot until the rising dust settled.

“…….”

Holding my pistol, I held my breath and listened for the reactions of the two. It suddenly struck me that the pressure weighing down on me had dissipated after the Inquisition Officer’s attack.

Yet my body still refused to respond easily.

As the two Inquisition Officers waited for the dust to clear, I struggled to twist my body and move my legs despite my resistance.

Then, the Inquisition Officer’s eyes, peering through the haze, went wide.

The first to react was the officer holding the scriptures.

“Damn it…!”

With a look of urgency so palpable it was almost visible from afar, the Inquisition Officer flipped through the pages with frantic movements, as if he feared burying his face in the paper.

Next, the dagger-wielding Inquisition Officer, who had been guarding the area, stepped back cautiously, lowering his body, as if facing an imposing beast and brandishing his blade forward.

At that moment, as I struggled to flee, confused about what was happening—

“……!”

From within the billowing dust and mist, a longsword surged forth.

The Inquisition Officer, on high alert, attempted to defend himself in haste, but the blade merely brushed past him.

In the next instant, the officer flipping through the scriptures attempted to tear a page, but just as the light-infused page was about to be ripped in half, the blade lunged toward him.

Like a flowing river without a hint of hesitation, like the wind blowing through, the longsword swept over the bodies of the Inquisition Officers. As warm liquid splattered onto my face, the officer with the dagger crumpled to the ground, and the one holding the scriptures collapsed.

The dagger and scriptures, now devoid of light, tumbled in the mud, while still-warm droplets of blood trickled down my face; yet I couldn’t turn and flee like before, nor wipe away the blood.

Honestly, I had no idea how this happened.

How he survived that attack.

How he managed to take down both Inquisition Officers at once.

Why the stench of decay was emanating from a living body.

And why I couldn’t even shift my own body.

But one thing was undeniably clear.

He had survived the attack, killed both Inquisition Officers, and my legs still showed no signs of moving, all of this occurring in less than two minutes.

And two minutes was, without a doubt, far too little time for Priest Rebecca and the Inquisition Officers to arrive.

By the time I realized this, the Inquisitor, dust-covered, was approaching with a calm demeanor.

“…Hah.”

Glancing at the legs of the figure I could barely see at the edge of my vision, I hung my head and let out a deep sigh.

“What a messed-up world.”

 

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