Allen’s neurotic behavior startled Marianne, who had just let out a sigh of relief, nearly making her jump on the spot.
She stared at her young master in horror, her eyes as if checking whether he had lost too much blood and caused his brain nerves to short-circuit.
Greeting an empty wall? Had the young master’s madness escalated?
On the other side of the wall, inside the dim and grim monitoring room, the air froze instantly.
Several Inquisitors in pitch-black uniforms with skull emblems on their chests completely lost their composure.
How did Allen de Laval know someone was watching him?
They exchanged glances, their eyes filled with an absurdity beyond belief and a faint, barely detectable chill.
A young Inquisitor even unconsciously touched his collar, as if an invisible gaze had burned it.
All confused gazes eventually settled on the imposing old man at the center of the room, whose mere presence commanded authority without anger.
The old man wore a meticulously tailored deep purple robe, its edges embroidered with golden threads depicting wheat ears symbolizing abundance and star rays indicating direction.
His gray-blue eyes were as deep as a cold pool, and at this moment, through the one-way mirror, they were locked firmly onto the black-haired young man with a mischievous grin in the hospital room.
He was the Archbishop of the Northern Diocese of the Kingdom of Lorraine, the former Grand Inquisitor of the Inquisition Tribunal, Archbishop Lucien—Albert Morel. A man whose name alone could silence the most arrogant nobles of the kingdom.
After greeting, the black-haired young man nonchalantly turned to his maid and began complaining that the hospital gown’s fabric was too rough and uncomfortable.
Then, as if nothing happened, he started chatting about everyday matters.
“Marianne, have you eaten?”
“What did you eat?”
“Bread and milk.”
“You actually ate something so normal? I always felt they’d serve something suspicious like corpse starch.”
“Master, that statement alone is enough to brand you as a heretic.”
“You don’t understand heresy. Speaking of which, when the Inquisition Tribunal interrogates suspects, do they provide pork cutlet rice?”
“What nonsense are you talking about now?”
“True. Sigh, lately I’ve been craving rice, but it’s too expensive. The kingdom doesn’t produce rice, so it’s all imported, and the price is so high even nobles don’t dare eat it as a staple.”
“There’s actually a bit of rice left at home. If you want to eat, I’ll make you Imperial-style risotto when we get back.”
“Wah… Marianne, you’re so good to me. I was truly blind before. Oh, and if you plan to poison me, remember to use a slow-acting one. It’d be a waste of precious rice if I died halfway through eating.”
“Do you only feel uncomfortable when you’re not annoying people?”
Allen’s relaxed vibe, like chatting in his backyard while basking in the sun, was utterly incongruous with the cold, oppressive, and soul-crushing atmosphere of the Inquisition Tribunal.
He seemed completely unaware of his dangerous situation, even having the leisure to teach his maid how to make omelet rice.
It was hard to imagine that this carefree noble young master had just probed his watchers in such an eerie way.
“The most troublesome type,” a senior Inquisitor muttered. “Either his mental fortitude is extremely strong, or he’s naturally missing a few screws.”
“More terrifying is that he didn’t even flinch when he saw the blood transfusion bag,” another Inquisitor added.
This was too abnormal! In an era where bloodletting was considered orthodox medical treatment, wouldn’t a normal person be terrified out of their wits at the sight of blood flowing into their own body through a thin tube, screaming witchcraft?
Yet Allen de Laval showed no surprise at all. His reaction was as calm as receiving a glass of warm water.
This boy must not be allowed to live!
A cold killing intent surged in the hearts of almost all the Inquisitors.
To the Inquisition Tribunal, the unknown was the greatest threat!
No matter what the Inquisitors thought, the final decision rested only with the silent old man.
Archbishop Lucien finally spoke, his voice calm but striking like a gavel:
“You still let him get away.”
The “him” in the Archbishop’s words referred to the Flesh Priest who had escaped from the underground nest in the slaughterhouse.
The headquarters of the Inquisition Tribunal was established in the Royal Capital, Lucien, where the Church’s most elite forces were concentrated.
There were only two possibilities for the Flesh Priest to escape the encirclement of Paladins, armored nuns, and Inquisitors.
Either he had hidden his strength, or the Inquisition Tribunal was incompetent.
Letting a heretic leader slip away during a purge right under the nose of the Kingdom Church headquarters?
That was like slapping the Inquisition Tribunal hard across the face.
Everyone lowered their heads in shame, no one daring to respond to the Archbishop’s words.
The Archbishop didn’t mind his subordinates’ silence. He continued on his own:
“Less than 5,000 meters from Saint Eliot Cathedral, there’s an operational base for heretics. A good-for-nothing noble brat like Allen de Laval knows about it, yet you… fail to notice it?”
The leader’s attitude of holding them accountable was already very clear.
Everyone present understood the Archbishop’s character. When he was dissatisfied with his subordinates’ incompetence, it was best not to argue with something like
“Allen de Laval is likely connected to the heretics, and he deliberately leaked the information to cover up a deeper conspiracy.”
They could only quickly find a way to make amends.
The current Grand Inquisitor of the Inquisition Tribunal, who was also the Archbishop’s former attendant, immediately stepped forward, adopting an extremely humble posture:
“Your Grace, after we destroyed the heretic base, we accelerated the net-casting operation and rounded up all other heretics already on record, not letting anyone else escape.”
“Moreover, we are intensifying efforts to crack down on the increasingly rampant heretic activities in the Royal Capital. The heretics’ arrogance will soon be extinguished.”
“Next, we will strengthen patrols and capture the fleeing heretic as soon as possible! We didn’t expect those heretics to be so audacious as to set up their base in the densely populated Lower City.”
“It was our negligence that led to such a grave outcome. We will immediately launch a self-inspection and rectification…”
The Archbishop raised his hand to stop his subordinate’s bureaucratic rhetoric.
These post-hoc remedies were meaningless.
The Royal Capital had been peaceful for too long, and the blade of the Inquisition Tribunal… had been left unsharpened for too long.
This failure, instead, was an opportunity to overhaul the atmosphere.
The Archbishop’s insightful gray-blue eyes remained locked on Allen’s lazy demeanor.
“Begin the interrogation.”
The white light in the interrogation room was blinding.
A trial judge with a face as hard as iron sat across from Allen, his eyes sharp as knives, trying to peel away every layer of the young man’s disguise.
“Allen de Laval, how did you know the heretics were planning to assassinate you? And how did you precisely locate their lair?”
The interrogation had been going on for a while.
Under the endless questioning, Allen seemed distracted.
He looked around, carefully examining the interrogation room’s padded walls.
To relieve boredom, he even tried to find hidden cameras.
Once he accepted that the Church possessed black technology, he no longer found it strange that they had things ahead of their time.
Since the Inquisition Tribunal had it, it was perfectly normal to also have a Mechanicus, right?
Previously, he had been anxious about how to deal with Livia, but now he had an answer.
‘I admit you’re strong, but can your body withstand a 7.62x39mm intermediate bullet?’
‘Can you?’
‘Eh, wait… she probably can.’
The story of Star Love Song only appeared to take place in a low-magic world, but in reality, it was not.
Livia’s star crest had an already terrifying upper limit. But in the original work, there were monsters even more fearsome than Livia, the Phoenix Overlord!
Not to mention anything else, just the fact that “God” might actually exist made the power scale of this world terrifying enough.
Thinking this way, the Church clearly possessed black technology yet chose to suppress it to hinder social development.
There had to be some deeper meaning behind it.
Seeing Allen looking around and refusing to answer, the trial judge slammed the table, making a loud noise.
“Are you pretending you can’t hear? Answer me!”
Snapping back to reality, Allen blinked his eyes, looking as innocent as if to say, “Why are you yelling at me?”
“I already told you, it was the Lord’s revelation! The great Lord couldn’t stand your dallying, so He gave me a dream!”
“Be serious! Your life is at stake!”
“I am serious!” Allen’s expression instantly switched to a saintly, compassionate mode, even taking on a hint of martyrdom’s radiance.
“You want to kill me? Go ahead! Dying for the Lord is my glory! But think carefully—killing a devout believer who received the Lord’s revelation, what does that make you? Accessories to heresy? Blasphemy? The Lord is watching from above!”
The trial judge: …
In his twenty years of service, he had interrogated the most cunning heretics and the maddest cultists, but he had never seen someone turn the tables so confidently, with such airtight logic!
This brat mentioned the Lord in every sentence, yet each word was a stab to the heart, each phrase a blow to the tribunal’s waist.
“Why did He give you the revelation?”
“What do you think?” Allen grew more excited, nearly spitting on the recorder.
“The Lord couldn’t stand it anymore! He bypassed you to give a revelation to a playboy like me, who isn’t even a believer! That means you’ve disappointed Him!”
“You take the tithes everyone works hard to pay, and right under the Church’s nose, you let such a big heretic nest take root. That’s proof of your incompetence!”
Allen was actually a bit angry now.
If the Inquisition Tribunal had taken his information seriously from the start, he wouldn’t have had to fight that False-Emblem Knight to the death.
Besides, judging by the trial judge’s attitude, they probably failed to catch the heretic leader and were trying to extract information from him while pinning some blame on him.
The mess created by the Inquisition Tribunal would have to be cleaned up by him!
These useless fools—no wonder they got soloed by Livia. Their operational ability was too poor.
“Anyway, please reflect seriously! Did you work hard? Huh? Efficiency? Sense of responsibility? Did the taxpayers’ money just go down the drain?”
The trial judge’s temples throbbed with anger, feeling his blood pressure spike.
Most people would feel some tension during interrogation, but Allen took a tough stance, even turning the tables and interrogating the judge.
It was a complete reversal of roles!
The trial judge suppressed his boiling emotions and calmly applied pressure: “What is your connection to the Crimson Spiral Order?”
“Those anti-human lunatics? I have no damn connection! The only link is that my family has a blood feud with them! I almost got stabbed to a sieve by them!”
“If the Lord hadn’t given me the revelation to prepare in advance, could my alcohol-drained body have beaten those drug-fueled madmen?”
Allen rolled his eyes. “Anyway, the source of information is the Lord! I’m innocent! What about you? Can you prove there’s no mole inside your organization? Otherwise, why were you kept in the dark for so long?”
Perfect logical loop—question me? First prove yourselves clean!
The experienced judge was thrown off by this combination attack, his mind involuntarily led astray.
Yes… why had the heretics been able to lurk in the Royal Capital for so long? Could there really be… a mole?
He felt a chill on his back.
The judge tried to abandon his doubts about the tribunal and continue the interrogation, but Allen suddenly demanded that the judge must present evidence to prove the Inquisition Tribunal was trustworthy.
This absurd demand infuriated the judge, but Allen completely ignored his blazing eyes and instead fanned the flames even more:
“I seriously suspect you are a heretic spy. Your eagerness suggests you realize I am a great threat to the Order. If you torture me, it will only be to extract a false confession. If you kill me, that would prove you intend to silence me.”
“I heard the Inquisition Tribunal is well-versed in various tortures. If you don’t mind, you can try them all on me! The more my body suffers, the purer my soul becomes. If I can’t withstand the torture and kick the bucket, well, I’ll go complain to the Lord.”
In the monitoring room, there was dead silence.
Watching the young man on the screen, whose silver tongue had confused the judge to the point of doubting himself, and then seeing his subordinate’s gradually dazed and self-questioning expression, Archbishop Lucien let out a light sigh, with a tone of disappointment that his iron couldn’t become steel:
“Enough. Let him come back. If we continue questioning, we’ll only embarrass ourselves.”