The Hero Becomes the Duke’s Eldest Son

Chapter 124

To the east of the Empire lay a desolate wilderness known as the Wasteland of Death.

A vast expanse where scorching heat blazed during the day, and bone-chilling winds scattered dust at night.

Monsters fought fiercely for survival in this harsh environment.

Trolls, orcs, ogres, death worms, and so on…

They were always hungry, ferocious, and desired lands better than the wasteland, longing for the world beyond.

Because of this, every year, the monsters of the wasteland embarked on a grand migration, a monster wave, searching for food and a place to live.

However, they never succeeded in occupying the prosperous lands of humans.

This was due to a single black steel spire rising in the middle of the western wasteland.

The Slaughter Tower.

Since the emergence of the Slaughter Cult, this steadfast structure had stood as its sacred and unique base.

It served as a bulwark against the flooding of monsters from the Wasteland of Death.

Around the Slaughter Tower, countless monster skulls and bones formed mountains, where wasteland eagles roamed, searching for food.

Each skull was a head of a monster hunted and slaughtered by the priests of the Slaughter Tower.

“Graaaah!”

“Kaah, kaah! Kaah!”

From within the Slaughter Tower, the sound of constant screams echoed.

Inside the tower, numerous monsters were imprisoned in iron cages.

Most of them were the leaders of monster groups that had tried to cross the Wasteland of Death.

“Kutila, aka! Kutila aka…!”

A high troll, pierced with stakes all over his body, desperately screamed.

“Kutila aka” meant “Please kill me!” in Trollish.

Around this troll stood several priests of the Slaughter Cult, dressed in black priestly robes.

They were all exceptionally beautiful, like angels.

“Hahahaha!”

“This is your punishment for ignoring our warning, Mr. Troll! To lead over a hundred of your kind and try to sneak past our eyes, how audacious!”

“We know very well that you find humans the most delicious! How much of a feast were you planning to enjoy? Hahaha!”

“Kutila, aka…”

“You are not worthy of the blessing of death, nor of becoming a sacrifice to the Slaughter God! You shall live and continue to repent!”

“Kutila aka! Kutila aka! Aka! Aka!”

“Haha! This is too noisy! I suppose we’ll have to burn your vocal cords, Sister Karen!”

“That’s a good idea, Brother Taion! Bring the heated iron at once!”

Soon, the sound of flesh burning with a ‘sizzle’ accompanied the troll’s tearing screams.

The priests watched the scene with angelic, benevolent smiles.

Similar scenes unfolded elsewhere.

It was a brutal sight, as if angels were torturing demons.

This was the everyday scene of the Slaughter Tower, also known as the Wasteland’s prison.

One day, at some point, it happened.

“Children of the Great Slaughter God, heed my words.”

A voice spread throughout the entire tower.

It was clearly heard as if whispered right next to their ears.

The priests torturing monsters, those preparing monster meat for cooking, and even those patrolling outside the tower, all heard it.

Everyone on each of the seven floors and all the priests outside the tower heard the voice.

“Huh?”

“This voice…”

“Ah! It’s Saintess Spica!”

They quickly understood that it was the divine telepathy of the Saintess, and everyone stopped what they were doing to listen.

Spica Lunier.

She had killed the previous Saintess, Merida Lunier, known as the Blind Saintess, and seized her position.

Due to this rare ‘achievement’ in the history of the cult, she earned the name, ‘Usurping Saintess Spica’.

The new ruler of the Slaughter Tower, Usurping Saintess Spica, spoke to all the priests through divine telepathy.

“We are the servants who punish those who commit unjust massacres. However, the previous generation indulged in peace, forgetting our cult’s essence.”

The priests momentarily tilted their pretty faces in confusion at Spica’s words.

They couldn’t understand what she was saying.

“You are aware, aren’t you? That beyond the eastern horizon lies the greatest group we must punish, the ‘Grey Army’, on the ‘Grey Land’.”

“…!”

Her words made all the priests’ eyes widen in astonishment.

The Grey Army stronghold, the Grey Land.

It was a place where over a hundred high troll lords and high troll shamans commanded an army of ten thousand trolls.

Even the Slaughter Cult, known as the strongest combat religious group, found it challenging to deal with this monster faction.

Because of this, the Slaughter Cult had merely kept them in check for hundreds of years.

The trolls of the Grey Land also refrained from crossing the wasteland, wary of the Slaughter Tower.

This stalemate had continued since the era of the previous saintess, even further back to the very first saintess.

“Children of the Slaughter God, holy servants. How long will you merely watch the ones you must punish?”

As they listened to the Saintess’s voice, the priests’ eyes began to tremble.

In their eyes, a question lingered, ‘Could it be?’

Spica, the Usurping Saintess, delivered the final blow.

“Prepare yourselves. We are about to wage a ‘holy war’. Cut off the breath of the wicked trolls. Decapitate every high troll in the wasteland. Turn the Grey Land into a land of red blood.”

A declaration of a holy war against the troll army.

This was the first time in the history of the Slaughter Cult.

The high troll stronghold in the Grey Land, with its invincible army, was so powerful that even thinking about fighting them made one’s mind reel.

Everyone should have been trembling in fear.

After the Saintess’s proclamation ended.

Brrrr.

Sure enough, the priests’ shoulders began to shake.

Silence.

A moment of quiet spread throughout the tower…

“Waaaaaah!”

“It’s slaughter time!”

“Kyaahahahahah!”

A tremendous cheer erupted, almost shaking the tower to its foundation.

The beautiful faces of the priests were filled with the unchained desire of beasts.

It was as if Pandora’s box, which should never be opened, had been unleashed.

“Blood sacrifices for the God of Death and Slaughter…!”

“It’s a holy war!”

The mad priests, drunk on blood, fervently raised their hands and cheered.

Hearing the shouts and the laughter filled with madness, the monsters in the prison trembled in fear.

Now that the leader of the Slaughter Cult, the Saintess, had proclaimed it, nothing could restrain or stop them.

They would kill.

They would slaughter.

They would spill blood across the wasteland!

They would charge into the heart of the Grey Army stronghold, slaughter everything in sight, and continue to offer blood sacrifices to their god.

Even if it cost them their lives.

Even if every member of the cult died.

Even if the Slaughter Cult itself crumbled into ruins.

“So! That’s why I came here! Yum.”

“……”

Priestess Lunia, after consuming about five servings of food at the temple and savoring bread for dessert, began to explain the situation.

Hearing her story, Aden and the rest of the party fell into a deep silence.

“Wow…”

“That’s… wow…”

– Whimper…

“I knew your cult was a bit peculiar, but…”

“That’s incredible, in so many ways.”

Everyone had a dumbfounded expression, as if they had heard a story from an unknown, forbidden world.

Even Choco, who was merely a dog, looked incredulous.

Have you ever seen a dog look incredulous?

It was quite a peculiar sight.

Aden, pressing his eyebrows tightly as if to relieve a headache, finally opened his mouth.

“So…”

“Yes! Please, go ahead!”

“So, the entire Slaughter Cult has turned into a suicide squad, leading to the collapse of the cult?”

“Yes!”

“And before the previous Saintess Merida sent you, Priestess Lunia, on a pilgrimage, she left a prophecy foreseeing this event?”

“Yes, exactly!”

“Hah…”

Aden let out a dry laugh in disbelief.

He knew that the group was filled with lunatics, but he never expected something so absurd to happen.

‘No matter how strong the Slaughter Cult is, they can’t possibly annihilate the Grey Land or the Grey Army.’

The high trolls, numbering in the hundreds, shared their lifeforce with the ten thousand trolls under their command.

Thus, unless each of them was chopped into pieces and burned to ashes, killing them was impossible.

That was why, for hundreds of years, the Slaughter Tower had merely kept them in check.

‘It’s certainly a mutual annihilation at best, no matter how positively you look at it.’

It was literally a suicide mission.

He couldn’t comprehend the actions of the Iron-Blooded Saintess Spica at all.

His expression hardened.

‘Why on earth is she doing something so insane, Spica?’

From the beginning, it didn’t make sense that she couldn’t wait a few years and usurped the position of Saintess, which she was already solidly chosen for.

Now, her actions seemed…

‘It’s like she’s trying to erase the cult from the world.’

That was the only explanation that made sense.

According to Priestess Lunia, the story went like this.

The Blind Saintess Merida, implying her own death, left behind these words:

“Long shall the beast that has eaten thorns remain hidden, and it shall usurp the throne of my daughter, becoming my false daughter.

The unfortunate usurper desires destruction.

On the day when the coldest winter wind blows, seek the one who cuts winter and calls spring.

He is the savior, chosen by the Sacred Fire.

He will awaken the ancient king pinned beneath the black stake, reviving him from among the dead.

On that day, the tower will crumble, and salvation will be achieved.”

Cryptic and seemingly nonsensical words.

But Aden had a rough idea of what it meant.

His eyes deepened.

‘A revelation.’

A saintess was like a bridge, spreading the will of the gods in this world.

The God of Slaughter and Death had left a warning through a revelation to his former saintess.

That an anomaly would occur at the Slaughter Tower.

‘The beast that has eaten thorns shall usurp the throne of my daughter…’

The beast that has eaten thorns likely referred to Spica, and my daughter referred to the Blind Saintess. The usurping of the throne meant that Spica killed the former saintess and became the new one.

‘The unfortunate usurper desires destruction.’

This likely indicated that Spica’s true objective was the downfall of the Slaughter Cult.

Though hard to understand, it couldn’t be interpreted any other way.

The former saintess, even after realizing her impending death through this revelation, probably couldn’t prevent it.

‘Because the usurpation was already predestined in the revelation.’

She couldn’t defy the fate set by the gods.

Instead, she sent Priestess Lunia out of the Slaughter Tower with a mission.

To find the savior mentioned in the revelation.

Priestess Lunia spoke:

“On the day when the coldest winter wind blows, seek the one who cuts winter and calls spring. He is the savior, chosen by the Sacred Fire! I searched for someone who fit this description!”

Then, not long ago, news of Aden defeating the Winter Queen and melting the Frozen Land in that area reached Priestess Lunia’s ears.

She also heard that he became an Apostle of the Sacred Fire.

“All the conditions match Prince Aden! Prince, you are highly likely to be the savior from the prophecy! Kyaa!”

“Well, this is…”

Aden shook his head in disbelief.

Though he couldn’t fully comprehend it, he roughly understood.

“So, you came to ask for help because you think I’m the savior from the prophecy? To save your cult, which is preparing for a collective suicide?”

“Yes! That’s correct!”

She nodded with a broad smile.

“It’s very inefficient for the Slaughter Cult to perish in mutual destruction with the Grey Land! We won’t have enough brothers to manage the Wasteland of Death!”

Her statement was indeed characteristic of a priest of the Slaughter Cult.

Aden carefully sorted through the situation in his mind.

‘This is definitely an opportunity.’

An opportunity to take revenge that might have been indefinitely postponed.

However, Aden didn’t accept it outright and asked her again.

“You think I can resolve this, huh?”

“Of course, because you’re the person mentioned in Merida’s prophecy!”

“Assuming that I am indeed the one in the prophecy, why should I do it? For free, I mean.”

Revenge was revenge, but Aden needed a benefit for taking action.

That was his principle.

“Kyahaha!”

Priestess Lunia burst into laughter.

“You’re absolutely right, Prince Aden! Yes, of course. It’s only natural. Even if it’s a prophecy, it’s natural for the Prince to think that way. You have no connection to our cult! Besides, it’s understandable that you might doubt whether you’re the savior in the prophecy!”

“If you understand that, then you must have prepared something, right?”

“Yes, that’s correct!”

Priestess Lunia nodded.

“After delivering the entire message, Lady Merida told me to say this to the savior! She said that if he truly is the savior, everything will flow ‘according to destiny’!”

“Hmm, then could you tell me what that is, Priestess Lunia?”

Aden’s face showed a hint of curiosity.

However, Priestess Lunia’s next words unexpectedly disturbed him, which was quite unlike him.

“‘The Mercenary King is alive!’ This is what she told me to convey!”