Hero's Coffin Chapter 60

Chapter 60

Isaph had shown a similar attitude before.

'God's making one person suffer terribly.'

He had casually uttered words that no one in the Holy Empire would dare to say. And he had boldly said it in front of the holy knights.

But Isaph didn't seem to disbelieve in Solnium's existence or be indifferent to faith. If that had been the case, it would have shown in the temple or on the sky island, but he hadn't shown any such reaction.

Rather, Isaph was very detached.

Regardless of God's existence, he only looked at the path he wanted to take. It felt like he used necromancy not with the grand purpose of deceiving God, but simply because he needed that ability, and it just happened that the space was the Holy Empire. And he didn't care even if he was criticized for it being wrong.

In the past, when the cardinal had set out to capture Isaph, he had calmly listened to the cardinal's condemnation. Even when pointed at and asked if he knew how unrighteous and wrong the power he was using was, he just stared silently and then.

'So what.'

With just that one phrase, he subdued the cardinal with necromancy. Harenir recalled how the cardinal, who had returned in tatters that day, had raged in the temple, as he stared at Isaph.

For the past few years, as the Holy Knight Commander, he had often heard stories about Isaph. How many people had set out to capture him, and how they had been miserably defeated.

Harenir had never personally stepped up. The temple didn't give such a mission to the hero because it would mean the empire considered Isaph's existence that serious, so they didn't issue the order. Some high-ranking priests seemed to subtly hope he would step up, but he didn't feel the need.

In the past, to Harenir, Isaph was just a gloomy being using unrighteous power, nothing more, nothing less. To begin with, he had been busy looking into the Dium at that time.

He only found it peculiar that while other necromancers tried to form groups and show off their power, Isaph didn't do that at all. He even drove away those who said they would become his subordinates, calling them bothersome.

Then one day, as he was returning from inspecting the outer walls of the holy city, Isaph suddenly approached him.

'You, your soul is beautiful.'

It was a truly sudden approach. He had popped out as if he had been waiting for a very long time just to say that one sentence, and immediately after, he left abruptly. It was a bewildering first encounter.

The reason Harenir hadn't drawn his sword even though he had noticed the approaching presence was that he hadn't felt any hostility from the other person. In the holy city, there were often citizens who approached the hero expressing respect and goodwill, so he thought it was that kind of thing.

Considering that even then, there had been a warrant out for Isaph for using unrighteous sorcery, it was even more bewildering. For someone wanted by the Order to approach the symbol of the Order. Although the feeling now seemed a bit different from then... the point that he was an unpredictable being remained the same.

Even now, there was no hostility in Isaph's eyes as he looked at him.

Those accompanying him on this Encroachment Zone search didn't like Isaph, and especially Kalterik had strongly opposed at first. He said it was disgusting for a being using unrighteous power to be in the land protected by sacrifice.

Harenir had agreed to some extent, but Isaph remained calm despite these views. Sometimes he even reversed it, using the fact that they disliked him.

Perhaps because of such bewildering attitudes, Harenir gradually came to have no particular feelings towards him. It was close to mutual disinterest, as the other person didn't care about others. He knew Isaph's crimes and had brought him out, and they had to travel together for a long time, so there was no need to create conflict unnecessarily.

Isaph generally observed from a step away. He existed at a distance and provided definite help at unexpected moments. Though he seemed somewhat reluctant, his actions to protect the companions were surprising, and his attitude of asking for recognition for it was strange, but...

Always immersed in tired calmness, his abilities clearly trampled numerous problems.

So sometimes, Harenir thought Isaph was comfortable. He acted dryly, citing only interests as reasons, and his eyes looking at him were always indifferent. Those eyes held no admiration, respect, or belief towards the hero.

He just looked on dryly, and then suddenly approached at some unexpected moment. He tried to resolve the curse while enduring pain, yet still cited only future sentence reduction as the reason. He showed incomprehensible attitudes one after another, and then...

'...You must have been lonely.'

He was a strange being who even said such unexpected things.

A subtle question settled in Harenir's blue eyes. He had been puzzled both when he first heard those words and now as he mulled them over. The words Isaph and loneliness seemed so far apart, yet there had been quite a deep trace in his voice as he uttered those words.

Sometimes he thought that expressionless face was like a trace of emotions clumped together for a very long time. Traces so old that the emotions couldn't be distinguished, their very form all tangled and mashed together.

He just clung to dead beings, standing faintly in the place closest to death.

"You..."

Harenir's lips moved. Isaph was clearly a cruel person who had committed a massacre, so why did he feel this way? He had not the slightest intention of taking his side, thinking there must have been some reason. To begin with, Isaph didn't seem to want that, and moreover, he himself hadn't even made excuses for the massacre. Just recalling what he had babbled when caught was enough to show that.

Yet suddenly, he thought Isaph's undead seemed to cling to him instead. This too was probably just because Isaph had subjugated the victims as slaves, making them strangely loyal, but...

"Why do you start speaking and then stop?"

Isaph reacted indifferently. It had been a meaningless murmur that escaped while organizing his thoughts, but Harenir looked at him instead of shaking his head. He had suddenly become curious about something.

"After you get your sentence reduced later, what do you plan to do?"

Even after receiving a death sentence, he had quietly stayed in prison, and since coming out, he had acted as if sentence reduction was his only goal. Hadn't he directly said, even while sweating, that the reason he was helping was for sentence reduction? Though he didn't quite believe it, he was curious about his ultimate goal.

But Isaph hesitated at this question. He just blinked as if he had received an unexpected question, then slowly threw his gaze to a corner.

"...I'll have to leave, I guess."

"Leave?"

Isaph's silence was long. As if he didn't know how to answer, he moved his lips several times, and then even turned his head to the side. Rustle, his pitch-black hair covered his face, hiding his expression.

"No matter how much my sentence is reduced for helping the empire's hero, will people's perception of me change? So I'll just leave... and live quietly in a very distant place."

"Ah, are you going to pay for your massacre? Are you thinking of going to Klam Village to atone?"

"..."

It was close to sarcasm, but Isaph didn't say anything. For some reason, Harenir felt strangely uneasy. Even though he understood the reason for wanting to leave, he suddenly felt uncomfortable and sneered. He thought it was because it was absurd for someone who had committed a massacre to say they wanted to live quietly.

He was aware that his behavior of picking on this aspect was quite contradictory, given that he had originally offered the condition of reducing the sentence, and hadn't been particularly curious about his future until now. But still, he had become unpleasantly sarcastic, yet Isaph continued to remain silent.

"Why aren't you answering?"

"...What does it matter to you where I go or what I do?"

"What would happen to my position if a prisoner released due to my intervention for sentence reduction commits foolish acts again?"

He attached a plausible reason he had found. Harenir belatedly realized this and felt it was like an excuse, but since it was clearly correct content, he thought he had just been slow to recognize it because he was tired.

Isaph looked at him with bewildered eyes. "Is this probation or what?" His muttered voice was tinged with discontent, but he didn't seem wronged or hurt.

Just looking with those still unreadable, subtle eyes, and then.

"You don't need to worry. I won't talk about you anywhere else I go."

He spoke calmly, as if all the sarcasm until now had been because of this. The hero's half-baked recovery ability, disbelief in God, and minor things like having nightmares. The promise not to spread rumors about any of these didn't sound particularly like an affectionate promise to keep secrets.

It was dry, as if those truths and their current relationship held no weight for him at all. As if everything would end once this was over.