“These are all the corpses, my lord. Right this way.”

Tyron led Muen into a room in the basement. The moment he pushed open the heavy door, such a sharp chill poured out that even Muen raised a brow.

It was obvious that the room had been fitted with an expensive cooling array, one meant to preserve the bodies as intact as possible.

“You’ve put thought into this.”

Muen nodded in approval. Sometimes you had to admit that Tyron had not reached his current position by accident. The man really did have ability.

It was not just his personal strength—there was a reason they called him the giant beast of Bosis, and not for nothing—but also this drive to climb higher. When he handled even the small details this well... if a man like him did not rise, who would?

“There are thirteen bodies in total.”

The moment they entered the room, Tyron kept up his usual eager-to-improve style and thoughtfully began giving Muen all the relevant details.

“Nine were found in the western district, where my influence reaches. The other four turned up in the neighboring southern district, but I used a few connections and favors to have them brought here.”

“Only the western and southern districts?”

“So far, yes. I’ve already brought the matter up with the other gangs and warned them to stay on guard. I fed them a story that these strange incidents were dangerous and tied to some great noble house’s cleanup operation. Normally, anything involving the dirty secrets of a major noble is exactly the kind of thing they avoid like the plague. But aside from a few gangs in the southern district responding about these four corpses, none of the others have reacted.”

“Only the western and southern major districts...” Muen asked, stroking his chin, ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) “Could the others simply be ignoring you on purpose?”

“Probably not.”

Tyron grinned. Because of his enormous build, he had been keeping himself bent slightly at the waist beside Muen, but now a sharp edge flashed in his eyes, something he rarely showed in front of him.

“Thanks to you, my lord, I’m a man of the hour in the Kingdom’s entire underworld. As the boss of a gang that’s about to unify the western district completely, they’re not likely to treat my words like background noise.”

“Good...”

Muen lowered his gaze to the corpses covered in burial cloths.

If these bodies had not appeared at random, but had instead died somewhere in the true royal capital and then, for some reason, reappeared in the same locations within this false royal capital, then Tyron’s information was both good news and bad.

The bad news was that an entire major district might already have fallen to that raging sea of fire.

The good news was... the other three major districts might not yet have been completely lost. There was still time for him to save others.

But not much.

“When did these bodies appear?”

Muen began pulling back the white cloths one by one. Just like the earlier corpses, these people’s faces still carried traces of rage, fear, despair... all sorts of emotions like that.

The injuries on them varied too—blade wounds, arrow wounds, burns from fire—but they shared one common feature almost across the board:

before dying, they had fought and struggled fiercely.

Tyron thought for a moment. “Roughly... about two hours after you entered that cemetery, my lord.”

“Two hours...”

Muen’s eyes sharpened.

“So it really was that point in time.”

The moment he had entered the true royal capital and been hunted by the Witch of Repentance was also the same moment when, according to his theory, that “disturbance” had occurred.

At that point, the boundary between truth and falsehood may have become so blurred that some of the corpses from the true royal capital had fallen into this false royal capital. At the same time, the corresponding false existences in this false royal capital would most likely have disappeared, because under the operating rules of a perfect false world, a real world could never contain two completely identical people.

“So even the Witch of Repentance could only attack me when I, too, had entered that true royal capital?”

At last, Muen understood a little better why he had survived back then.

Because at the final moment when the Witch of Repentance moved against him, for some reason he had been sent back into this false royal capital. Naturally, the Witch of Repentance in the true royal capital could no longer attack him after that.

“I still don’t understand why I was suddenly sent back, but if this theory is right... then there should also be a Witch of Repentance inside this false royal capital.”

At the thought that there might be two of that troublesome old woman, Muen shivered on reflex.

Still, it was fine. Since the Witch of Repentance on this side had not continued hunting him after he returned here, that meant the one here was nothing more than a fake shell. The Salvation Society probably had not become absurd enough to mass-produce Crowned Ones.

“Should I just charge straight into the palace and take a look? After all, the Salvation Society in this world is fake. Hm... that sounds a lot like asking to die.”

Muen let out a self-mocking laugh, then quickly calmed down. After what had happened not long ago, he was no longer foolish enough to test just how much a Crowned One was worth.

If he drew the attention of the strong figures the Salvation Society had left behind in this false royal capital too early, he probably would not be lucky enough to survive a second time. There would be no divided world of truth and falsehood left for him to slip between.

So he still had to find the one supporting this place before that person noticed him.

“The fact that the Witch of Repentance in this world hasn’t moved is also evidence supporting my theory. In this real false royal capital, the Witch of Repentance is ‘normal’ too. Everyone is ‘normal.’ Which means the person the Salvation Society left here to uphold the false appearance must be ‘abnormal.’

“Because what is ‘normal’ for a false appearance is ‘abnormal’ for reality, while what is ‘normal’ for reality is ‘abnormal’ for the false appearance.”

Put simply, in this false appearance full of normalcy, he had to find the single greatest abnormality.

“But while that’s easy enough to reason out, proving it is much harder.”

Muen let out a quiet sigh. After circling around so much, he had still ended up back at the original—and most complicated—question.

How, exactly, was he supposed to find the one upholding the false appearance in a vast city with a population in the millions?

How was that any different from searching for a needle in the sea?

And given how vile and cunning the Salvation Society was, the one supporting the false appearance absolutely would not be the King of the Kingdom, nor would they brazenly show themselves as some obvious member of the Salvation Society and make themselves a target.

More likely, they would make the one sustaining the illusion into someone inconspicuous. Someone no one would ever suspect. Or...

“Someone who, from their point of view, would be most useful to their plan.”

Muen’s frown deepened, and so did his thoughts.

Who would that be?

“My lord...”

“...”

“Lord Bruce?”

Tyron’s hushed call jolted Muen back to himself.

“Don’t interrupt me. I’m thinking.”

“N-no... my lord.”

Tyron leaned closer and said awkwardly,

“It’s not that thinking is a problem. It’s just... while you’re doing it, could you maybe put that cloth back down? It’s pretty damn creepy.”

“Hm?”

Muen looked at him in puzzlement. “You’re actually afraid of corpses?”

“Afraid of corpses? No way!”

Tyron immediately puffed out his chest. “Would the giant beast of Bosis have something to fear? It’s just... that face is way too unsettling. I’ll end up having nightmares tonight.”

“So you were scared after all.”

Muen twitched his lips, then lowered his head. Only then did he realize that while he had been lost in thought, his hands had never stopped moving. He had kept pulling back the white cloths one after another.

This was the last one now.

“I really don’t understand what kind of face could frighten a gang boss like y—”

Instead of putting the cloth back, Muen swept it all the way aside, fully revealing the face beneath.

Then even he paused slightly.

Because... it really was a frightening face.

Not frightening because it was especially ugly, nor because it had suffered such horrific damage that it was all blood and ruined flesh.

The face itself was perfectly normal. A man’s face. Square-featured, thick-browed, large-eyed, full of upright righteousness.

But the problem was... the expression on that face truly did inspire a powerful sense of dread.

First came rage—rage from the heart, as though he had wanted to tear at something or someone before him with his teeth and rip them apart with his claws.

Then came fear. In those dark, unfocused pupils was an immense helplessness, like a deep lake slowly rising until it swallowed you whole and left you unable to breathe.

And finally, in those raised thick brows and those eyes opened wide in fury, there was something violently released from within—

disbelief.

At the final moment of his life, this man seemed to have seen something so impossible that he could never have believed it, not in his entire life, to the point that the death rushing toward him had seemed almost trivial by comparison.

“This man... looks like he went through something far more unusual than the others. That’s why this expression stayed on his face.”

To prove his own bravery, Tyron stepped closer to inspect the body and even gave a serious little analysis.

“I know.”

Muen nodded grimly.

“And I suspect not only was what he experienced before death unusual—his identity itself was unusual.”

With a sharp motion, Muen yanked the burial cloth away.

A moment later, as the white cloth fluttered aside, the robe beneath it was revealed—a white robe even purer than the cloth that had covered it.

Though the robe was now tattered and soaked with blood, Muen recognized the identity it symbolized at a glance.

“Clergy...”

This was a member of the Church.

And judging from the holy cross pendant hanging at his chest, his position within the Church could not possibly have been low.

Based on what Muen knew of the Church, the man was at minimum a ritual priest responsible for ceremonies, receptions, and offerings to the divine—high enough in rank to be qualified for close contact with the Church’s true great figures, people like bishops.

“If even the corpse of someone high-ranking in the Church has appeared here, then that means...”

Had the cathedral in the true royal capital really already fallen completely?

No. That was strange, wasn’t it?

That was the cathedral. Saint Blancfazesiya Cathedral, one of the Church’s nine great holy seats. A true Archbishop personally presided there, wielding divine might that could even override royal authority.

By all logic, that place should have been the last fortress standing when the Salvation Society descended upon the royal capital.

So why had it fallen so quickly...

“Am I overthinking this?”

Muen desperately wanted to persuade himself that he was.

But for some reason, his mind once again returned to the cathedral he had seen not long ago while standing in the true royal capital.

Refined. Elegant. Magnificent.

When the Kingdom faced a calamity great enough to destroy it, that place should have borne the greatest pressure and the greatest responsibility of all.

And yet amid that vast, raging inferno, it had stood completely untouched. Not a trace of battle marked it. Silent and still.

Like an observer.

“Something’s wrong...”

As his thoughts turned, suspicions he should not have entertained began to rise. Muen picked up the holy cross pendant on the man’s chest, felt the lingering warmth of Holy Light still left within it, and murmured,

“I need to find a way to visit the cathedral. Whether it’s the one on this side... or the one on the other side.”