“Eeeek, monsters! You witch! You all ought to burn at the stake!” Paris wailed as I approached him.
Such a pitiful, pathetic sight. It suited him. He deserved the fate I was about to serve him.
“Shut up already. Do you want to die that badly?” I asked. The Toxic Swarms’ stingers glinted dangerously in front of his face.
“Wh-What do you want?!”
“To make sure you meet the same fate you forced on innocent people.”
Sensing my will through the collective, the Toxic Swarms picked Paris up and began dragging him away.
“Let go of me! Let go, I say! Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?! I’m the right hand of His Holiness, Pope Benedictus III!”
Paris continued to scream as he was carried off.
What a stooge.
The pope’s right-hand man? What good was a right hand if it served only to kill people? We might have been grotesque monsters, but this man had ordered the deaths of his own kinsmen. And on top of everything else, he had murdered Isabelle. That wasn’t something we were about to forget.
It’s all your fault Isabelle had to die in agony.
♱
“Everyone!” I exclaimed before the citizens of Saania. “This man has burned your family members, your friends, and your loved ones at the stake for false accusations! But now he has neither power nor authority! He is nothing but an impotent coward! If you wish to exact revenge on him, be my guest!”
Upon hearing those words, Paris’ face went pale.
“I hear he’s the head of the Department of Punition...”
“My wife was killed because of him!”
Gradually, hateful curses bubbled up from Saania’s people as they emerged from their houses and filtered into the streets. Every man, woman, and child fixed Paris with a hostile glare, proof of how much he was universally hated.
“Now, do as you will with him!” I shouted, then had Paris thrown into the crowd.
“It’s all your fault! It’s because of you poor Maëlys had to die! All she ever did was worry about her parents, and you punished her with something so terrible!”
“This man is the real heretic! The God of Light is supposed to be a merciful god, but this man executed anyone he felt like! There isn’t a sliver of mercy in him!”
One of the people in the audience was Frederico, the owner of the bakery that once served sugar buns. He still carried a grudge from having to watch Maëlys—whom he’d seen as family—burn to death. There were plenty of other people in the crowd who had witnessed the deaths of their loved ones at the hands of the inquisition.
“Burn him at the stake! This man is a heretic!”
“Burn the heretic!”
The crowd dragged Paris over to the main plaza, where the stake was.
“Wait! I-I didn’t! I was only following orders! Really! It wasn’t me, you have to believe me! I only wanted to win the waaar!” Paris hollered.
But the people ignored his words and tied him up to the stake.
“Burn him! Burn him! Burn him!”
The masses chanted and shouted as Frederico approached him, torch in hand.
“Stop! Please, stop! I beg of you!” Naturally, Paris’ cries fell on deaf ears.
Frederico set fire to the stake, which was soon enveloped by flames.
“Aaaah! AaaAAaaAhhh! Help me, somebody save meeee!”
Paris’ body burned in the fire. His clothes were quickly eaten away, and the skin beneath broke out in painful blisters that sizzled and popped. He thrashed around in an attempt to break free, but there was no escaping the flames, and the smoke was gradually suffocating him.
“My God... O, merciful God of Light... I beg of you... save... me...”
Then, Paris Pamphilj breathed his last.
“He’s dead!”
“The heretic is dead!”
Saania’s people cheered, reveling in his death.
“They feel the same way I do,” I muttered.
I had considered killing all of Saania’s citizens after this, but I decided to call it off.
“What will we do now, Your Majesty?” the Toxic Swarms asked me, cocking their insectile heads to one side.
“Change of plans,” I said, turning to look at the Popedom’s great basilica. “We’re taking over this country.”
♱
I advanced into the heart of the Popedom with the Toxic Swarms in tow. The guards had all been driven out beforehand, so I was able to go deep into the building without any resistance. If there was anyone left to fight us, I wouldn’t mind killing them, but I tried to avoid meaningless bloodshed when I could.
At that moment, I was feeling merciful. Sandalphon had said that even in situations like this, I shouldn’t forget my human heart. Thus, I did my best to abide by the promise I had made her.
At last, I reached a room at the very end of the building.
“Pardon my intrusion,” I said, stepping inside.
“What the...?! Monsters!” cried one cardinal who cowered within.
“Be calm. She will not harm us,” another said coolly.
In this room, there were cardinals infected with Parasite Swarms and cardinals who were not. It was only natural for the former to be so calm.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Grevillea, Queen of the Arachnea. I am the one who leads the Swarms that have tormented you so. I believe this is our first meeting, but I know you all too well, gentlemen.”
Having used the Parasite Swarms to observe the cardinals, I knew what each and every one of them wanted.
“I’ve come here to advise you to surrender. As you can see, I’ve already beaten your last line of defense. Metatron is dead, and there’s nothing left to protect you from my army. If you surrender peacefully, we will allow you to live as our vassals.”
“W-We will not submit to monsters!”
“So in the end, Cardinal Pamphilj was beaten...”
I watched the hope in their eyes flicker and die out.
“If you won’t willingly surrender, we’ll just have to destroy this city and the towns around it, killing every last innocent. You only have a few towns left, but those people are still your precious citizens. Are you going to just let them die?”
If they chose to resist, I’d turn all their people into meatballs. I’d learned a bit of mercy, but I wasn’t totally gracious.
“You would dare use the townsfolk as leverage?”
“But their lives are important. We cannot abandon our people...”
Both the infected and uninfected cardinals discussed my ultimatum.
“We should surrender,” Pope Benedictus III said, sighing in resignation. “We haven’t the means to fight anymore. The Nyrnal Empire is attacking us from the south, and there’s nothing we can do.”
“That’s wise,” I said. “Seeing as you’re out of a military, surrendering is a sound decision.”