Chapter 257

Chapter 257 - Eugene's Return Method

Eugene, having slept soundly, stretched his arms and legs on the bed.

"Ugh-cha."

An indoor expedition into a place dark and infested with evil like a dungeonized monastery gnaws at the body and mind. If one is a commander who must care for and lead the entire expedition team, that effort goes without saying.

"Fufu. It seems you slept well."

"Yes. If you woke up first, you could have gotten up."

The golden eyes of Valda lying next to him are clear. She must have been lying on the bed the whole time, afraid she might wake Eugene.

"Then wouldn't you be unable to hold me when you woke up? At most, you'd drink a sip of water next to the bed."

"You have quite the confidence?"

"Then are you not going to hold me?"

When Eugene put on a stiff expression as if trying to hold out, Valda climbed onto his body and lay face down on top of him.

An incomparably soft sensation, a pleasant weight, and a fragrance swooped! down on him. A scent as if gathering only the best parts of grass, flowers, fruits, and trees.

'It's definitely a body filled with flesh and must sweat too, so how.'

He always felt this way, but it was fascinating. There wasn't any bad body odor that would likely exist even slightly as long as it was made of flesh.

Is it because she's a forest magician? He didn't know if this was also magic or management achieved through herbs and effort.

His wife's hair poured over Eugene like a golden waterfall. Eugene steadily held out even against the sensation tickling his chest and neck. Then Valda changed her strategy.

Sweeping the hair on both sides back, she revealed her long, soft ears. A representative action a woman does when expressing favor. When an elf does this, its destructive power is immense.

Limply drooping and fluttering elf ears like a puppy's in the morning. A seductive expression she usually doesn't show, as if saying, 'Are you still not going to hold me?'.

Warak!

Unable to endure it in the end, he hugged Valda tightly to his chest. Then, a giggling sound of victory was heard.

"Thank you for losing to me like always."

"I didn't lose on purpose, I just lost."

Jjok.

Valda's deep kiss touched Eugene's cheek. It's something he felt after marrying, but an elf has quite a lot of aegyo specifically towards their spouse.

Especially in the morning when starting the day, perhaps because it holds a special meaning, she shows faces unimaginable from her usual majestic appearance.

Kkomul kkomul.

Below where it can't be seen, Valda's two soles are playing around wrapping around the tops of Eugene's feet here and there.

Kung!

Just then, the sound of putting down a heavy load was heard from outside. They were in the midst of taking out valuable items from the purified Lyra Monastery.

When thinking of places where wealth is piled up, one usually thinks of a lord's mansion or a merchant guild's safe, but a monastery is also a powerhouse in this field.

They are artisans who have developed technologies like pharmaceuticals, publishing, brewing, and manufacturing various preserved foods over periods ranging shortly from centuries to long as dozens of centuries.

They owned land comparable to any decent lord and received tax exemption benefits in various fields. At this level, it'd be strange if they weren't wealthy.

"They aren't even people who enjoy luxury, so why do they work so hard to earn money? I know they spend considerably on charity, but even considering that, it seems excessive."

"Because it is written so in the doctrine. God's teaching to be diligent is the same for any religious order. At the same time, it requires frugality. Since faith is arbitrary, the process of gathering money is important, not how to roll it."

The commotion outside grew louder and louder. They were exclamations and evaluations of the various goods being brought out from the monastery.

"There wasn't just one or two items sparkling in the darkness while going down to the basement."

Eugene got off the bed rubbing his hands with an expectant expression.

"You go out first."

"Are you not going to watch it togAAether?"

"The roles and duties of a knight and his wife are different."

Valda said while combing her hair with a comb.

"Just as the martial prowess you show on the battlefield brings me honor, the posture I normally display becomes your pride."

The tribal maids who had been waiting entered the tent and bowed to Eugene. Unlike Eugene who only needed to wear armor when necessary, there was no getting off work on Valda's battlefield.

* * *

"As expected of Lyra Monastery. I heard apothecaries made that much money."

"Is it just medicine? There are few sanatoriums as excellent as this place in Roman. Families with some money would pay expensive donations and send their family members."

Scribes holding ledgers bustled back and forth.

"Spit it out quickly!"

"This is all I know! Please believe me!"

Next to them, prisoner interrogations were in full swing.

"Are you kidding? For a monastery of this level, shouldn't there be something like a hidden secret space? I'm telling you to spit out more valuable information."

"No, how would a lowly outsider merchant know such things?"

"Oh, really? If you truly want to be escorted to the Apostolic State and go up on the stake..."

"Aigo, My Lord! Please spare me!"

Merchants who had traded with the pagans were strung up upside down completely naked, begging.

Considering the deeds they committed, being sold off as slaves could be seen as really lucky. If they received a trial from the priests, the minimum would be the death penalty, and even then, an easy death wouldn't be waiting for them.

The merchants desperately squeezed out every single brain cell and spat out what they knew about Lyra Monastery. Thanks to that, Eugene's subordinates were also able to search smoothly.

Not to mention the heaps of gold coins, dozens of rectangular gold bars were stacked neatly, reflecting the sunlight.

"You came. Have a look at this."

Marbas spotted Eugene and waved his hand. He was holding a golden candlestick in his hand.

"Doesn't it fittingly look like pagans who constantly performed sacrificial rituals? It's nothing but gold pieces."

The pagans exchanged the silver they plundered into gold through the merchants hanging over there.

The candlestick Marbas held was carved even more specially fitting a tool used in sacrificial rituals. An evil divine power could be felt from the golden candlestick shaped like a human hand.

"Is this by any chance a Hand of Glory?"

"It's better than one made by cutting off the hand of an actual death row inmate. Since there's no foul odor and it doesn't rot. To imbue the mystery of organic matter into inorganic matter. How on earth do they make something like this."

Marbas, who had seen a Hand of Glory a few times in the past, examined the candlestick with sparkling eyes.

"What function does it have? I've heard it is a powerful magic material."

"There is no one who desperately wishes for salvation as much as a death row inmate. The craving reaches its peak when they go up the scaffold and the execution begins. That highly pure prayer is comparable to a high priest demonstrating miracles."

Prayer beneath the guillotine reaches up to heaven. It's a famous proverb often spoken by priests who have attended executions.

"The Hand of Glory containing that craving is the best artifact for receiving God's will in the present world."

"Anyway, you mean it's expensive?"

Marbas looked at Eugene with dumbfounded eyes.

"If it's released on the black market, the asking price is its value. Professors at the magic academy would rush in with their eyes rolling back. Since it's an item that can be used again and again."

"I understand well, so please put the hand down a bit. If that thing that obviously looks like a pagan item catches the eyes of those priests, it'll get tiring."

Eugene pointed at the priests preaching while holding tOrches from quite a distance away.

In front of the priests, wine bottles, beer barrels, and various foods that were in the monastery were piled up as if facing a campfire.

"Brethren. All of these must be burned."

"Burn these precious foods you say!"

The food made in the monastery has a different look. Ham made by civilians usually lacks skill and capital, so they generally pour insane amounts of salt into it.

However, the ham made at Lyra Monastery was mixed with pepper and spices and stored in a cool basement. Thanks to that, the salinity is low, and the meat is incredibly moist, hard to believe it's ham.

"Do not swallow your saliva. They are items that were in the den of the evil pagans."

When Eugene's subordinates complained as if they were dying of wastefulness, the priests pulled out their ultimate move.

"We do not know what problems might occur if even a single bite enters your bodies, brethren. Do you want to be possessed by evil spirits?"

But they are warriors who have traveled the whole world following Eugene and experienced all sorts of things. Since their fear of superstition had largely disappeared, they didn't fear and calmly retorted.

"Sir Priests! I don't know about other things, but alcohol should be fine! It's alcohol, right? The magic of the pagans will naturally be like disinfecting germs..."

"No, are you kidding?!"

The mercenaries eventually surrendered to the glaring priests. Because their liege, Eugene, was taking the side of the priests in this situation.

"Looking at it, it seems it would be fine? Though it's said the pagans perform various evil dark arts, I've never heard of them harming people with food. The wine bottles are completely sealed too."

"Because there is an 'if'. It's not bad to earn the priests' favor either."

Hwaaak!

"Aigoo!"

"Those precious things!"

As tOrches fell on the massive amount of food, an extravagant campfire began alongside the wailing sounds of the warriors.

Among the food, the only one the priests didn't touch was salt. Salt, which prevents food from spoiling, has been considered a gift from God containing the power of purification since ancient times.

Some priests, having reached the realm of fanaticism beyond devotion, wanted to destroy even the gold coins or gold-plated ritual implements tainted by the hands of the pagans.

- No.

- Your Excellency! Do not be dazzled by the radiance of the gold pieces. The evil desires of the pagans have infiltrated inside them.

- Gold is just gold.

Naturally, Eugene decisively cut off such things.

"Put this and this aside separately. Exclude this too."

Eugene went back and forth among the spoils, separately sorting the chests containing wealth.

"Send them to the Morad family. Including words of consolation for the dead and injured. Write the contents appropriately yourself."

"Understood."

The senior scribe bowed his head and withdrew.

"Good judgment. With this, Count Morad will also save face."

"As a vassal, I should do at least this much."

"What vassal..."

Marbas waved his hand in disgust.

"But isn't the amount too much? By convention, handing over just half of this would be enough."

"In things like this, you shouldn't give the impression of throwing it away condescendingly. It is right to take care of them to the point the other party is embarrassed."

"It's easy to say, but giving away the gold that has entered your grasp is a hard thing to do."

In Marbas's eyes, there was no noble with as unique spending habits as Eugene. While he terribly hated expenses arising from vanity or inefficiency, he readily tossed out large sums of money when it came to investments.

"Since the things that cannot be bought with money have already been siphoned off, there's nothing to regret."

In a way, the pagans are also monks. Forming an army, they too engaged in production activities like other monasteries and created various rare items.

Reusable Hands of Glory, tapestries imbued with pagan magic, hellish gems composed of substances that do not exist in the present world. Treasures possessing immense value in the shadows, even if they couldn't be traded in the light.

These were slated to smoothly enter Eugene's warehouse.

* * *

Among the spoils Eugene siphoned off were also books. In a world where paper is expensive and printing technology hasn't developed, books are precious luxury goods. Depending on the contents, they were more expensive than gold of the same weight.

"Let's eat and study!"

The book Maria is currently stroking the cover of with trembling hands is such a case.

"This is a forbidden book every doctor dreams of! I heard they were all burned, but I never imagined there would be a copy in Lyra Monastery."

"The title is quite unique."

"Because it's a gourmet journal left by a cannibal doctor who cooked and ate his dead patients."

"..."

Speechless, Eugene put on an astounded expression.

"The author of this book is a doctor who ran a hospital in the capital of Roman. He had excellent skills and professed charity, earning high prestige by admitting patients without families at a low cost."

"And the dead patients were moved to the kitchen instead of the grave?"

Maria nodded.

"Thanks to secretly processing them focusing on those without connections, he wasn't easily discovered. Eventually, he was caught and burned at the stake as a pagan worshipper though."

Murder is a sin of violating human laws, but cannibalism is violating God's laws. It is punished far more heavily than a serial killer who murdered several people.

"Although a cannibal, he was a person with a strong inquisitive mind for medicine. Since they died in the hospital, they were all people sick in one place or another, but the author performed detailed autopsies on their bodies."

"With his eyes while dissecting, and with his nose and mouth while cooking and tasting, you mean?"

"Being a werewolf, he had an innate talent in this field."

It's essentially the diary of a lunatic cannibal while simultaneously being an extensive autopsy research manual.

Piqued with interest, Eugene put his shoulders togAAether with Maria and skimmed the book. Regardless of its medical value, the contents were so stimulating that it couldn't help but draw the eyes. The sincerity of including illustrations of the parts he cooked and ate on every page could arguably be seen as ahead of its time.

And what Maria called a doctor's treasure wasn't empty words.

"A patient complaining of intense stomach pains died. No matter how much I search, I absolutely cannot find the cause."

Below the part Eugene read, an illustration of the dissected internal organs was attached. It's the part where the small intestine transitions to the large intestine.

"Just like the patient who died last time, an abnormality is confirmed in the protruding part at the end of the cecum in this patient too. Being covered in inflammation and emitting a nasty odor is a distinct difference from those who died of other reasons. It's not a part that particularly contributes to digestion anyway; what if I had cut it off?"

Surprisingly, this cannibal doctor had grasped the cecum and appendicitis and was proposing a specific surgical method.

"Keep this book."

"T-truly?"

"Anything else you want, too."

Seeing her rejoicing while looking at bloody drawings and contents, Maria too is not a normal lady. Is it similar to how magicians become radical in the face of mystery?

Nearby, the witches are sorting the expropriated books. This isn't the only forbidden book. Contrary to its good image in the world, Lyra Monastery seems to have dabbled in multiple dangerous experiments.

Those technologies would be cleanly passed onto the Mayer family's library to continue their legacy.

* * *

The Emperor's pagan subjugation army had already left, and the armies of the two remaining Count families also packed their bags.

"The Count is not present, you say?"

The one who greeted Roxanne, who came to discuss the future marching route, was Valda.

"He left the unit to move the Moving Castle. Since we are getting closer to the southern region now, the supply lines are getting longer. Among the western army that entered deeply, some are already experiencing disruptions in supply."

"By any chance, a single rider on a single horse?"

Since it couldn't be hidden even if they tried to hide it, Valda obediently nodded.

"There were many vassals dissatisfied with the Lord traveling alone, but he was stubborn about it."

"If His Excellency sets his mind to escaping, there will be no problems with safety."

"That's why the vassals took a step back too."

The sight of Might running across building roofs like the wind carrying Eugene was engraved on everyone.

That speed was at a level completely un-pursuable no matter what elite cavalry was mobilized. Seeing him ram and break stone walls, ambushes likely wouldn't be very meaningful either.

If fighting an enemy army, Eugene would naturally need an army to back him up too, but if moving solo, traveling alone would demonstrate the highest efficiency.

In reality, Eugene had already reached near the Moving Castle.

"Hey! Why are you charging so expensively just to cross a river once?"

"If you don't like it, go swim."

"You damn bastard who will get struck by heaven's punishment!"

Dududududu.

"The noble lords swept up all the boats, so other places charge even more... Huh?"

"Eh?"

The boatman and traveler who were squabbling at the riverside ferry turned their heads at the intense vibration felt from afar.

Over yonder, holding up tremendous dirt dust, a single cavalryman was galloping towards them.

"M-monster?"

"It's not a monster. A knight is riding it!"

Unlike the traveler who hurriedly lay face down in confusion, the experienced boatman recognized it wasn't an enemy.

The pitch-black monster warhorse dashed towards the hill rising beside the river mouth. Even though the slope was considerable, its speed didn't slow down a bit.

Ujikkeun!

Kkudeudeuk!

It even rammed and snapped the birch trees obstructing its front while passing through.

Reaching the edge of the hill in an instant, the monster warhorse leaped just like that. It was a movement closer to flight than a jump. A few birds that met its eyes midair were startled and fled.

Cheombeong!

River water surged up as if falling rocks had dropped. An outrageous jumping power, but because the river breadth was wide, it couldn't cross the entirety.

Kwaaaah!

However, because it was a short distance left, it slipped out kicking up a water splash with tremendous momentum. It was a sight as if a giant shark was popping out from underwater.

"Good job."

Soaked Eugene stroked Might's neck.

Steam erupted from the body of Might, who was gulping down river water with the momentum to drink it all away. At that absurd sight, both the fisher and the traveler merely gaped their mouths.

Teop! Teop!

The unlucky fish that were swept along when it kicked out of the water vanished into Might's mouth. Eugene could feel the wavelength of the Moving Castle rejoicing at his return from not far away.