A Regressor's Bucket List

Chapter 215 : The Saintess (6)

After the death of the ancient savior, the ‘Messiah’.

There were those who claimed they were the very ‘ones who were sent’ that the Messiah had spoken of, that only they possessed the Authority of Resurrection, and that salvation could only be found through them.

The ‘false prophets’, whom the Messiah had directly mentioned in his prophecies, began to rise one by one.

Of course, for a long time, in every era, there had been those who appeared stealing the savior's name.

However, one of the eras with the most self-proclaimed Resurrectors was, indeed, immediately after the Messiah’s death.

And so, the group of people who had gathered to follow the ‘Messiah’.

The ‘Guardian Cross Order’ came to feel a sense of duty to determine the authenticity of such ‘false prophets’.

It was partly to punish those who led many people astray, but more importantly, if one of them was truly the one sent by the Messiah, they would have to verify it and follow him.

However, verifying and determining the authenticity of every self-proclaimed Resurrector popping up in different regions at any given moment was no easy task.

Now, the Order had the tremendous weapon of the ‘System’, and it had gained overwhelming control, ruling over half of the Upper Plane.

But back then, the Order was just one religion among many other cults.

In terms of both manpower and time, it was impossible to spread the Messiah's teachings while simultaneously vetting all the self-proclaimed Resurrectors who claimed to be the one sent by the Messiah.

…For this reason, the Order created a position at the organizational level to exclusively handle this task.

That was the ‘Inquisitor’.

Nowadays, the title ‘Inquisitor’ referred to the head of the ‘Exorcists,’ the Order’s special combat unit dedicated to dealing with the ‘Demonic Species’.

But tracing back its origins, it was ultimately the role dedicated to the ‘authenticity verification of self-proclaimed Resurrectors’ that was carried out in ancient times.

As if to prove this, records remain showing that the position, including the ‘First Inquisitor’ and up to the second, third, and fourth, did not particularly require any notable combat abilities.

Anyway.

Unlike now, where there are cathedrals and temples in every region, they had established a base in one location on the continent.

At that time, when a rumor that ‘a witch has appeared’ reached the Order's headquarters, it was common practice for an Inquisitor to go directly to the region to investigate the truth of the incident and determine its authenticity.

But as time passed, the role of the ‘Inquisitor’ grew immense.

As the Order's influence grew and the number of followers increased, so did the number of those who stole the ‘Messiah's’ name.

On top of that, they even had to deal with a new kind of problem: ‘witches’.

In truth, unlike the ‘self-proclaimed Resurrectors’ whose sins were clear, the case of ‘witches’ had an ambiguous side when it came to defining their crimes.

There were only hard-to-verify rumors like, ‘There is a witch who bewitches people,’ or ‘That witch devours young children.’

Rumors could not serve as evidence, and in the end, the only thing that could determine a witch's guilt was a ‘confession’ from her own mouth.

Based on such confessions, a new role for the Inquisitor was created: the ‘Witch Trial’.

And the term used mockingly by those who held a negative view of these ‘Witch Trials’ was none other than ‘Witch Hunt’.

It was a fact that most people kept quiet about, but.

The witch trials of that time were closer to a kind of ‘witch business’ than actual trials.

Of course, it wasn't that there were no individuals who had genuinely made contracts with demons and bewitched people during the witch trials.

After all, the concept of a witch trial could only be established because such people had existed since ancient times.

However.

Compared to the present, when the War against Demons was in full swing and the Demonic Species were truly invading, their numbers were far fewer.

Most witch trials targeted ordinary people who had no connection to such things.

The reason the witch trials were so successful despite this was simple.

The ‘Witch Hunt’ was necessary for the zeitgeist of the era.

Now, there was a clear enemy in the ‘Demon King's Allied Forces’, but back then, there was no such great, common enemy for the continent.

The need for religion was less about fighting a single great enemy and more of a support system for solving the many problems that arose in life.

Countless things that are now easily understood but whose causes were not clearly identified at the time plagued the people.

A great famine where countless people died helplessly.

The worsening economic and food situation due to the great famine.

Unidentified plagues, and the resulting death of livestock.

War.

And so on.

People began to search for a convincing reason for the successive misfortunes.

And the reason they found was the ‘witch’.

The one-dimensional idea that such unfortunate events were happening because a human who had contracted with a demon was among them was baseless and irrational.

But for the ignorant masses to believe, there was no logic more sensational.

Traditionally, since ancient times, the target of such logic had been the demon, but demons were invisible.

As social chaos accelerated, people needed a target that was not an invisible object of fear, but something more concrete and familiar.

A target upon which physical punishment could be inflicted.

That was the impure element called the ‘witch’.

By entrusting all the chaos and hardships of the era to a single target and executing them through witch trials, people found comfort for their hearts and began to rely on religion.

Of course, just as it doesn't fit the current image of the Guardian Cross Order.

These violent witch hunts perpetrated in ancient times have since been completely abolished.

That is why the Inquisitor no longer uses the term ‘Witch Trial’ and instead hunts a clear and specific target, the ‘Demonic Species’.

But it was an undeniable fact that the Order of that era had rapidly expanded its influence through the keyword of ‘Witch Trials’.

The Guardian Cross Order, originally just one of many religions, had made its name known throughout the continent through the witch trials.

The Saintess Hunt Project.

As one could immediately tell from the nuance of the words.

That too.

Was a name derived from the ‘Witch Hunt’ that had been carried out in ancient times, before the Order had established its place in the Upper Plane.

“…The Saintess Hunt Project?”

Nod-

At the Saintess's question, U-jin nodded his head.

Then he shrugged his shoulders and said to the Saintess.

“I’m going to ask a few questions. First…”

“……”

“Do you think it’s right for you to die?”

It was a question that an ordinary person would find difficult to answer.

No, it was a question that would make them shake their head at once.

But the Saintess nodded without a shred of hesitation.

“Yes.”

An unwavering answer.

Her firm gaze proved how sincerely she had answered.

However.

“…Then what about separately from the Messiah's prophecy?”

Flinch-

“……”

U-jin’s second question was not answered right away.

It wasn't for any other reason.

It was simply because she had never thought of it separately like that before.

“…I still think so.”

After a moment of thought, the Saintess came to a conclusion and nodded.

Even separate from the Messiah's prophecy, she thought it was right for her to die.

At that point, the corners of U-jin's mouth lifted.

“Why?”

“That’s because…”

“……”

“Because there is more for the Order to gain from my death.”

The Saintess truly thought so.

Even if, as U-jin said, she was a person completely unrelated to the Messiah's prophecy.

That is.

Even if she wasn't the ‘reincarnation of the Messiah’ or the ‘false prophet mentioned in the prophecy,’ considering the current flow of events and her own position, she believed it was right for her to be executed here.

The reason was simple.

“I thought so. There are probably many reasons you could list.”

“……”

“For the Order to reverse a verdict it has already made would be to forsake some of the divine authority it has maintained. And you probably think the very existence of your followers, who revere you more than the Order, is a threat to the Order's unity.”

Nod-

“…I believe it is important that we become one. There would be a severe backlash if I were executed now, but humans are creatures of forgetting. In the long run, it's better for a seed of discord like me to be gone as soon as possible.”

One reason was her followers.

Indeed, their numbers were not small, to the point that the UMC had to directly control them. And though it wasn't apparent on the surface, even at this moment, they were baring their fangs at the Order, trying to pinpoint the Saintess's location and launch a rescue operation.

“Also… to make it easier to hunt the Demonic Species that are running rampant in the Order Territory.”

“……!”

The Saintess’s eyes gleamed with a different light.

She had somewhat accepted that U-jin was a Regressor from their previous conversation.

But this was a separate surprise.

She couldn't help but be flustered by the flow of the conversation, which was as if he were looking right inside her head.

“I don’t know how much you’ve been told.”

Shrug-

“But it looks like you knew. How you would be used if the Resurrection failed.”

“……”

All of the Order's magic loses its power and becomes ineffective before the ‘Demon's Singularity’.

That was why the Demonic Species were particularly difficult to capture.

If they were determined to hide among people, it was difficult to reveal their identity with the Order's high-level Divine Magic.

But the Saintess's case was different.

Among the many Priests belonging to the Order, only the Saintess could ignore the Demon's Singularity and distinguish demons.

…To be more precise, it was the ‘Saintess's body’.

“The characteristic of ‘Black Mutation,’ which shows an immediate abnormal reaction and turns black upon contact with evil.”

“……”

“The Order wouldn't just throw that away because you're dead.”

Although it was not publicly known, pre-regression, after the Saintess was executed, her bone fragments were used as a type of divine relic, a tool to identify the Demonic Species.

“On top of that… if the Northern Subjugation War, which isn't far off, succeeds after your death, they can strengthen the Order's unity by making the ‘Black Blood Disease,’ cited as the biggest cause of the North's destruction, your fault.”

“……!”

“Am I right?”

That was the finishing touch.

Black Blood Disease.

That was something she hadn't even told the Order, something the Saintess had only thought about in her own mind.

To hear her own thoughts, which she had never breathed a word of, coming from the mouth of a stranger she had just met was quite a shocking experience.

Moreover, U-jin's next words.

“…What if all of that was part of the ‘Saintess Hunt Project’ planned by Isaac Einstein?”

“……!”

“Would you believe me if I told you that all the thoughts in your head were manipulated by someone else?”

“That can’t be…”

His words condensed everything from their conversation, delivering a single message to her.

“Those people you call your followers.”

Shrug-

“You've never met them in person, have you?”