“Sealed off, huh...”

Muen nodded. “Got it.”

“As expected of you, my lord. You look like you’d already anticipated something like this. Not even a little surprised.”

“Quit kissing up to me. If you knew what happened in there, you’d understand that no matter how severe the Church’s response is, it wouldn’t be excessive.”

After all, a Great Sister of no low status had died in that cemetery. Given the Church’s usual style, the fact that they hadn’t already locked down the entire district and launched a full investigation was practically the Kingdom getting off easy.

Of course, all of that assumed one thing—

that the Church currently inside this Saint Blancfazesiya was normal.

Once again, Muen thought of the cathedral he had seen earlier in that disaster-stricken city engulfed in flames.

That cathedral had clearly still stood beneath the Goddess’s radiance, and yet it had given Muen an intensely strange feeling. More importantly, when he had been attacked by the Witch of Repentance at such close range, the cathedral had shown no reaction at all.

It was as if Saint Blancfazesiya Cathedral—one of the Church’s nine great holy seats—had been nothing but an empty shell.

“There was nothing in Sister Edeline’s memories suggesting that the Church here had already been completely infiltrated by the Salvation Society... but that could very well be an illusion. After all, no matter how deeply a ‘spy’ infiltrates, single-line contact is always the safest method. Especially since Sister Edeline’s direct superior was the Holy Lord of Salvation himself.”

Leaning back against the sofa, Muen sank into thought.

“As for the cemetery, there are two possibilities. First, if the Church here is normal, then Krete of the Eye of the Saints and the Limping Priest, assuming they survived, can tell them the truth about Edeline’s betrayal. That would put the Church on alert and trigger a strict internal purge.

“The second possibility is that the Church here really is compromised. In that case... Krete and the Limping Priest are both in danger.”

Two possibilities. Two probabilities. And Muen had no way to verify either one.

Truth mixed with falsehood, falsehood mixed with truth. The situation was growing more tangled by the minute, like a ball of thread twisted into knots, and Muen was finding it harder and harder to grasp the full shape of things.

Wait...

Truth and falsehood?

Muen rubbed his temples, and suddenly a flash of insight crossed his mind.

Maybe he didn’t need to make this so complicated.

“Um... I don’t know what happened, but from what you’re saying, it sounds like that Krete guy and the priest got dragged into some trouble because of you, my lord... Shouldn’t we go save them?”

Tyron, who had been listening from the side, finally spoke. He was already eager to act, ready at any moment to prove his usefulness.

“No,” Muen said.

“Why not?”

“Because if my next line of reasoning is right, saving them won’t change anything.” Muen shook his head.

“Reasoning...?” Tyron looked even more confused.

“It has nothing to do with you for now.”

“...Oh.”

Though he understood nothing at all, Tyron was a tactful man. Seeing that Muen seemed to be deliberately keeping him out of whatever this was, he wisely chose not to ask any more questions and obediently retreated to one side to drink alone.

After surviving in a place like this for so long, he knew that when it came to certain things, not knowing was always best.

“Let me sort this out first. Strip away the overly complicated lines of thought. After what just happened, after brushing against death like that, what I know now should be enough to piece together a basic outline.”

In the silent room, Muen drew in a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.

He gathered together all the information he had collected so far and began to reason it through.

“First, based on everything I saw earlier, I can tentatively assume that the Saint Blancfazesiya that is currently being destroyed is the real Saint Blancfazesiya—the Kingdom’s true royal capital.”

Muen placed the detailed map of the Kingdom in his hand onto the table in front of him.

“And the royal capital I’m in now, which looks normal but is full of things that make no sense and follow no logic, is only a false image the Salvation Society constructed through some unknown method.”

He took out another map marked with the capital’s key districts and laid it over the first one.

Most of the lines on the two maps overlapped almost immediately. Only a few highlighted areas—different points of emphasis—showed discrepancies.

“Leaving aside how exactly the Salvation Society pulled this off, one thing is certain: this illusion is extremely real. Real enough to pass for the genuine article. It’s practically a full-scale reproduction of the royal capital, one-to-one. At least with my own senses, I still can’t find a flaw in it.”

Muen glanced at Tyron in the corner of the room. That two-meter-tall “tough guy” was over there drinking moodily while drawing circles by himself. Looking at him, it was honestly hard to tell whether he was real or fake.

“But...”

Muen let his fingers pass over the places where the two maps failed to overlap. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

“The fact that I can’t find a flaw doesn’t mean it has none.”

For example...

the corpses.

Those bizarre corpses.

What if those corpses were not the result of people inside this false royal capital dying strange deaths, but had instead... fallen in from the true royal capital, the one suffering disaster?

A falsehood could never truly replace reality. This false royal capital had to contain some kind of defect. Maybe during a tremor, or some kind of “system error,” a body that belonged to reality had accidentally slipped through and fallen into this fabricated world.

Just like Muen himself had “accidentally” fallen into the real world on the other side before.

If that were the case, then everything about those strange corpses would make sense.

Why they died so suddenly. Why they appeared so suddenly. Why anger, terror, and twisted agony still lingered on their faces...

They had witnessed that kind of disaster and died in the middle of it. Of course they would have died angry, terrified, and grotesque.

“So if that’s really how it is, then none of this side actually matters. Not the Great Sister, not the Church, not even the priest in the cemetery. None of them matter.

“What matters is... I’m running out of time.”

The deeper he thought, the heavier Muen’s mood became.

He could more or less understand the Salvation Society’s objective in doing this. The Kingdom’s royal capital was too large. Even for the Salvation Society—even if it already controlled the Kingdom’s upper ranks—it still couldn’t swallow the whole thing cleanly in a short time.

So they created this false capital and used this layer of illusion to stall everyone.

Not just him, but the Empire, the Church, and anyone else capable of interfering from the outside had all been blocked by this false curtain.

And behind that curtain, the Salvation Society could take its time enjoying the feast!

“If everything is as I suspect, then I have to break through this false curtain before the Kingdom behind it is completely destroyed. Otherwise who knows what the Salvation Society plans to do with the millions of lives in the capital.”

Muen was absolutely certain that this false curtain was not unbreakable.

The reason was simple. It wasn’t just the flaws. The Salvation Society had also left real personnel hidden inside this falsehood.

Like Great Sister Edeline.

She was definitely from the real side. Otherwise she could never have summoned the real Witch of Repentance before her death, causing Muen to be hunted the moment he stepped into the true royal capital.

But one Great Sister Edeline was not enough.

To maintain something as enormous as this false royal capital, the Salvation Society had to have someone of even higher standing on this side as well.

That “higher-standing figure” might very well be someone with an actual Seat in the Salvation Society.

That was the key to everything.

“I need to find whoever’s here on this side and kill them. Once the person maintaining the illusion dies, then no matter how perfect it is, the illusion will begin to collapse.”

And once the illusion collapsed and reality was laid bare, the rest would be much easier to handle.

As long as the Salvation Society had not yet completed its objective, then whether it was the Empire’s hundreds of thousands of troops outside the city or the Church waiting in force, both would be able to smash the Salvation Society’s plot to pieces.

At that point, all he would need to do was open the gates and let the heavenly army into the city. What was there to fear from those Salvation Society vermin who only dared skulk around in the dark?

“Of course... this is still just a deduction for now.”

Muen was not so blinded by his own theory that he mistook it for fact. He understood that no matter how perfect or reasonable a deduction seemed, it could never compare to the truth.

He still needed proof.

Proof that he was right.

“Tyron!”

Muen suddenly stood up.

“Y-yes—” Tyron jolted upright. “I’m here!”

“What about the thing I told you to look into earlier? Any results?”

“Yes!”

Tyron nodded hard. “After you left yesterday, I sent people to keep a close eye on any unusual incidents during this period. And just like you predicted, we found more strange corpses that suddenly appeared.”

“Just as I thought...”

Muen narrowed his eyes. “That ‘disturbance’ caused earlier by the Witch of Repentance herself didn’t just affect me.”

“So what are you going to do next...?”

“Go take a look at those corpses. Right now.”

“Huh?”

Tyron looked reluctant. “Um... I had a few pretty girls brought in to welcome you back, my lord. Daughters from noble families—fallen on hard times, that’s all... Aren’t you going to relax a little first?”

“No.”

Muen put on his hat and stared at Tyron gravely.

“I am a very devoted man. I never fool around with random people outside, and I never pick up wildflowers by the roadside. Do you understand?”

“Ah... r-right, is that so? I see. I was being stupid, haha... I wonder which lady could possibly be lucky enough to become your wife...”

Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Tyron secretly thanked heaven that those girls had arrived a little late. If he had really tried to bribe a true gentleman like this with beauty, who knew what kind of thunderous rage it might have provoked?

As expected, anyone capable of becoming the legendary “Dark Emperor” had to be different from ordinary people!

“Let’s go.”

Ignoring Tyron’s wild imagination, Muen put away the maps and headed outside.

Time waited for no one. He had to move faster.

“Uh, m-my lord.”

But the moment he opened the door, Muen ran into the bartender from before.

He was standing outside holding that glass of hand-squeezed orange juice, trembling all over. And when he noticed Tyron’s gaze behind Muen, he looked even more terrified, his hands almost unable to keep the tray steady.

“Y-your orange juice.”

“I’m not thirsty. You drink it.”

“N-no... I can’t drink it, my lord. P-please, you have to.”

The bartender’s face was pale. Bent at the waist, he approached Muen in an almost pleading posture, as if the moment Muen refused to drink that orange juice, his own life would vanish from this world along with it.

He was humble, lowly, like an insect...

and real.

“...”

Muen turned back and shot Tyron a glare, signaling for him to stop scaring the bartender.

Tyron only shrugged innocently, indicating that he had done no such thing. The bartender was frightening himself all on his own.

Muen shook his head, then turned back. He was about to raise a hand and pat the bartender’s shoulder, to tell him that he wasn’t the sort of man to hold a petty slight against someone.

But after thinking it over, he felt that kind of hollow gesture would not be enough to clear up the misunderstanding. So instead, he °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° simply picked up the glass and drained the orange juice in one go.

“Th-thank you! Thank you so much!” the bartender cried repeatedly, looking as though a crushing burden had finally lifted from him.

“The one who should be thanking someone is me.”

Muen took a moment to savor it and found that the hand-squeezed orange juice really did taste quite good. So he looked at the bartender seriously and said,

“The orange juice... is sweet.”