Chapter 65

I saw Monastrell in front of the Miller Orphanage.

Her towering height, curly black hair, sharp fangs, and wild-dog-like aura made it impossible for me not to recognize her.

Monastrell.

A fellow student from Winter Winslet’s academy days, a dragon disguised as a human, and for some reason, an NPC harboring deep hostility toward Winter Winslet.

It was an encounter I hadn’t expected in the slums.

My first thought was suspicion

Was she following me?

“Why are you—”

I almost finished the sentence with “here,” but barely managed to hold my tongue.

Because right now, I wasn’t Winter Winslet. I was Nice Goodman.

Monastrell and I locked eyes.

Would she recognize me?

“You little shit. You never seen someone doing drugs before? Mind your damn business.”

I let out a sigh inwardly.

Of course not.

No matter how crazy she is, thinking she’d track me all the way outside the academy is pure delusion.

She’s always been the type to indulge in debauchery and corruption.

She probably came to the slums to obtain drugs.

That’s the assumption I decided to go with.

I turned to leave, glancing back once along the way—

But Monastrell didn’t follow me.

Andrew and I headed deeper into the slums.

“Mr. Goodman, you’ve really gotta be careful from here on. That sign right there? Once we pass it, we’re in Gray Chapel.”

What Andrew called a “sign” was really just a random plank stuck in the ground with some scribbles on it.

It was likely a mark left by the gangs to define their turf.

The dark, greasy-looking liquid used for the drawing definitely wasn’t ink—

More like dried blood, with a few flies buzzing around.

Andrew carefully scanned the area before choosing a path without any gang markings.

“Alright, this is Gray Chapel. Feels a bit different, doesn’t it? Just look around.”

High Chapel, Gray Chapel, and Low Chapel. These three neighborhoods together made up Chapel Street, and the further back you went, the worse things got.

So far, Andrew and I had been walking through High Chapel, the most livable part of Chapel Street. It was quiet, densely packed with shacks, and relatively calm.

Aside from that, there were only a few small shops or street vendors selling low-grade meat, poor-quality food, or basic necessities to the impoverished.

Even those only operated during safe hours, and they’d shut down hastily before sunset.

Then there was Low Chapel.

It sat at the heart of the slums.

In people’s minds, it was considered the most dangerous area. But in truth, as long as you followed a few rules, it could actually be safer than Gray Chapel.

That’s because it was under the control of the Thieves’ Guild.

Lambart may have been a city ruled by a king, but in Low Chapel, the king was the guildmaster of the Thieves’ Guild.

And so, the locals were careful not to cause trouble in the guild’s front yard.

Of course, from their perspective, stabbing a passerby and running off wasn’t exactly considered “causing trouble”.

Finally, there was Gray Chapel.

Caught between High and Low Chapel, its location was as ambiguous as the kinds of people it attracted.

Thugs who wanted to join the Thieves’ Guild but lacked the experience, smugglers and thieves who wanted to sell in Low Chapel’s black markets but didn’t have the connections, scammers and fugitives hiding from the city, and every other kind of petty criminal….they all ended up here.

Rough and chaotic, but filled with opportunity.

It was the kind of place where people with skills and nerve came hoping to hit it big, and where the taverns were filled with others ready to sell them booze and information.

If you want to hide a tree, you hide it in a forest.

If you want to hide a person, you hide them among people.

Gray Chapel was also an ideal hiding place for spies—

In fact, of the four Longsoniere bases I remembered, three were located right here.

In other words, the real exploration of the slums was just beginning.

As we walked, Andrew suddenly muttered,

“This is weird. There’s barely anyone around. It’s already midday, but every window is shut tight. That’s not normal for this area… Usually by now, we’d at least run into some punks trying to shake us down for ‘toll money.’”

“Andrew.”

“Yes?”

“Your mouth is the problem.”

“…Ah.”

Just as he spoke like clockwork, the thugs appeared.

“D-Don’t worry, Mr. Goodman! I’ve got a tip for you. How to survive in the slums, lesson one: don’t make eye contact!”

Andrew immediately bent his neck at a 90-degree angle and locked his gaze to the ground.

As he cautiously backed away, a shout erupted from up ahead:

“Hey, you down there with your eyes on the ground. Get your ass over here!”

“Ugh…”

Turning his head, Andrew asked in a trembling voice,

“Wh-What do we do now?”

What do we do?

As a veteran of Candela of Judgment, I decided to give this greenhorn a real survival tip.

“In Gray Chapel, there are three times a day when it’s best to avoid being out in public. If you run into some random lowlifes without knowing when those times are…”

“…If I do?”

“You don’t have to do anything.”

“So I just… stay still?”

I nodded.

Andrew gave me a look that said you’ve gotta be kidding me—

When suddenly, a strange sound echoed from the distance.

“One, two! One, two!”

“Integrity! Diligence!”

“One, two! One, two!”

“Proper! Behavior!”

At first, I thought it was the military.

With eerie chants, a formation of men came running toward us, keeping their lines sharp and perfectly aligned.

They split into two groups. They blocked both sides of the alley where Andrew, the thugs, and I stood, cutting off any escape.

“Company, halt!”

Step, step.

Another reason they looked like soldiers was the uniformity of their appearance:

Skinheads shaved so close their scalps gleamed, and robes that resembled those of clerics.

The fabric was plain white cotton, though stained and dirtied in places.

Two men who seemed to be their leaders turned toward us with chilling smiles.

“Brother, do you see over there? Some lambs eager to join our flock.”

“How could we pass by such pure devotion? Let us welcome them into our brotherhood at once.”

“At your command!”

In Gray Chapel, it wasn’t the random thugs you had to be most wary of.

The ones far more dangerous… were the holy thugs who snatched people away.

***

The monk-like fanatics moving with military discipline—

The first thing they did was kidnap the thugs.

“What the hell! Which gang are you bastards from?”

“You looking for a fight?”

“Do you even know who we are—ugh!”

The kidnapping was swift and precise.

Not only were their numbers at least double those of the street punks, but even beneath their loose robes, their bodies were clearly overtrained and hardened.

There was never even a real fight.

The thugs, who had been standing around clueless, were suddenly seized by rough, iron-like grips and stuffed into large sacks.

“Whoa! Look at him thrash. This one’s got some muscle!”

“A fine catch indeed. Bag him.”

“Hey, one’s getting away! After him!”

“Where you running? You’ve got to receive the teachings of the church and live a new life!”

“Arrghhh! You psychos! Somebody help!”

Those who tried to resist too late met an even worse fate.

The burly, clean-shaven monks had trained in martial arts that matched their fearsome appearance.

The thugs were twisted and folded in all directions, and before long, they lost their will to fight and were completely subdued.

“Nine in total, Brother.”

“Not bad. Take Squad 1 and escort these eager new applicants to the monastery. Make sure the other brothers don’t play any rough pranks on them. They’ll soon be our new brethren.”

“Where should we assign their rooms…I mean, place them for temporary lodging?”

“Let’s see. We built a new training room last week, didn’t we? Use the basement there.”

“Yes!”

The monk leader commanded the group, making them shoulder the limp sacks.

“Squad, attention! March forward!”

“Integrity! Diligence!”

With bizarre chants, the monks vanished from sight.

With half of them gone, the remaining bald-headed monks turned their attention to Andrew and me.

“Brother, there are more people over here. What should we do?”

Thud.

That was the sound of Andrew collapsing. His legs had been shaking for a while now.

One of the bald monks, distinguished by his neatly trimmed goatee, began stroking it thoughtfully.

“Hmmm, well, they seem to be outsiders from beyond the chapel…”

“But didn’t Elder Brother issue a hot press order? We’re cutting it close on this month’s quota.”

“In that case…”

The monk with a goatee swept his eyes over us.

He glanced at Andrew, who was on the verge of wetting himself, then turned his gaze to me.

It was like how martial artists assess each other’s aura before a fight—

Likewise, I had already spread a detection magic field wide in advance.

Its range was thirty meters centered on me.

There were no magical reactions within that range.

At the very least, it meant none of them were magic users.

Nor did I detect any traces of divine power.

It might seem strange that monks couldn’t use divine power, but that was precisely the distinction between monks and priests.

Only those appointed under the authority of the Pope, the head of the Eternal Church of Aeon and the rightful ruler of the Holy Empire, can wield divine power.

Or they’re an anomaly, like Professor Sophia of the Theology Department at the Academy.

In other words, the ones in front of me were just ordinary muscleheads. No real threat.

That’s what it means to be Winter Winslet, a 7th-class mage and boss character from Candela of Judgment.

“Unfortunate, but let’s leave those two be.”

“Huh? It’s only two of them.”

“Brother, haven’t I already told you?”

“…As you command!”

A wise hunter never draws their bow at a beast they don’t understand.

Satisfied with completing their original objective, the thug-hunting monks of the slums chose to vanish.

“Integrity! Diligence!”

“Proper! Living!”

Leaving behind only their strange chants echoing in the street.

“Wh-Who were those people?”

Andrew who looked like he’d come back from the dead asked through chattering teeth.

After a brief moment of thought, I decided it was fine to tell him.

“They’re the Brotherhood of Silent Virtue.”

“Never heard of them.”

“Of course not.”

They likely hadn’t risen to prominence yet.

That religious order, which kidnapped thugs from the slums under the pretense of purifying the city, was connected to another major story boss in Candela of Judgment—

Paul Detouche, like me, one of the Heptangam society.

He was a fallen cleric and a former legendary inquisitor.

Now disgraced, he was quietly building his own power base in the slums of Laurencia.

The thugs taken today would, after a hellish ordeal of beatings and brainwashing, be reborn as fanatical followers of Paul Detouche. Just like the monks who had taken them.

To outsiders, it might look like a righteous priest reforming criminals…

But there’s a reason he was a main story boss.

“Still, since they left us alone, I guess they only go after bad people… right?”

“……”

“That’s it… right?”

Andrew’s cold sweat grew heavier at my silence.