Chapter 75: A Flickering Tongue-Lashing Battle

Confirming that the wound on his hand had closed, Father Dordon sat in a chair. The four people sitting around the circular table began the process of verifying information to organize the current situation.

(Let’s organize the situation. First, the perverted priest tried to attack Oakley-senpai, and Senpai managed to escape at the last second. After that, the priest let his guard down, let slip the comment about touching his balls, and then the Orthodox executive and Marietta-chan showed up at the worst possible time. —Well, Father Dordon will definitely lie, and he’s going to clash with Oakley-senpai’s story.)

Alex watched the scene at the circular table intently, holding his breath from a gap in the ceiling. As he expected, Father Dordon began fabricating stories, claiming it was an organization of facts.

Oakley, rolled into the priest’s scheme by his artful blending of fiction and truth, could only assert himself by trying to block the priest’s narrative. His thinking was shaky due to the cocktail of paralytic poison and sleeping pills, and at this rate, his impression was only going to worsen.

In fact, Pomett’s impression of Oakley was already somewhat poor—though her assessment was in complete chaos based solely on the fact that they might have met in the past.

According to Father Dordon’s messy account: While he was eating dinner, Oakley suddenly went berserk and bit his left hand. He, having been cornered in the great hall, tried to fight back, tearing Oakley’s clothes to pieces in the process. Just then, Pomett knocked on the door, saving him.

In short, the priest claimed Oakley was the one who caused him to lose his finger. In addition, he added the suspicion that Oakley was a Heretic, claiming that a piece of flesh belonging to a Heretic executive was adhered to his left hand.

“—So, Dordon, you mean to say that the young man Oakley there is the same person as that Oakley, the confidant of the great Heretic executive?”

In this world, “Heretic Hunting” exists. It is not uncommon for events to occur where someone is branded a Heretic to isolate them from their surroundings or drive them out of their community.

Therefore, the priest calling Oakley a Heretic carried significant weight. It wasn’t something that could be dismissed as a joke. Pomett’s blue eyes gleamed sharply.

“Yes. He is hiding his left hand now, but if you look at it, I think you will understand that he is a Heretic. He likely intended to cause the same tragedy in this city as he did a year ago.”

“…That seems to be the case, but should we examine Oakley’s left hand after hearing his side of the story?”

“…No problem. Now, Oakley-kun, it’s your turn.”

Pomett said this with a calm demeanor, and Dordon followed suit.

For Father Dordon, if he could peel off the black glove on the left hand here, it would be a complete reversal. If he could reveal his identity before Oakley was given the right to speak, his credibility would fall to the ground, and everything the priest said would become the truth. The hidden truth would be brushed aside, and he would ensure his position remained unshakable.

(Even though Pomett is a person who values fairness, the reason she’s trying to listen to Oakley-kun, who has a bad impression, must be because of my own slip of the tongue. I haven’t been pressed on it yet, but I need to think of an excuse…)

Father Dordon glanced sideways at Marietta. Unexpected situations happen one after another. He had tried to be as friendly as possible to women he wasn’t interested in, but Marietta wasn’t saying a single word to support him. Not only was she not on his side, she was even defending Oakley.

Even if her heart wavered after hearing dangerous remarks, it is standard in this world to want to take the side of a priest who acts like a saint. An savior of life versus a saintly priest one is usually close to. If Marietta hadn’t taken Oakley’s side, the atmosphere would have been in Dordon’s favor, but the girl didn’t even care about the priest. Her chaotic eyes were locked onto Oakley.

(This is bad. To think Marietta would choose Oakley-kun over me. …A little girl like you could never be a match for Oakley-kun! It’s useless to appeal to him. Go be satisfied with some boring man around here, you brat!)

Father Dordon directed a look of envy born of twisted affection at Marietta. In the midst of this, Oakley, on the verge of tears, told the story of what had happened to him.

He told everything: how Father Dordon had been repeating the murder of boys for years, how the relative of a victim was killed today, how he was on the verge of being violated by Father Dordon, and how he had bitten off the finger while resisting when he was about to have his tongue cut out.

Marietta’s beautiful face twisted in response to the vivid content. Pomett, without losing her expressionless look, rested her elbows on the desk and pondered.

When Marietta gently supported the back of the youth, who was trembling in fear, the young man’s shaking stopped. Father Dordon’s right hand clenched so hard it looked like it would spray blood, and it began to rattle under the table.

The priest was surprised at himself for feeling such possessiveness. His crotch throbbed with pain, and he realized the magnitude of the prey he had let slip away. He really did like him, after all—the youth with the slightly dark, shadowed eyes…

“Hmm, you’ve both said your piece. What I wanted to know was the ’cause of the conflict,’ but this has become a serious matter, involving Heretics and murder… Well, it’s frustrating to decide which statement to believe.”

“—There is something I cannot ignore, Pomett-sama. The priest is lying.”

“Oh?”

“Have you forgotten his earlier statement? To my ears, it sounded like Father Dordon was pressuring Oakley-san with lewd words.”

The female knight, who was secretly enjoying this behind her poker face, and the brown-haired girl, who was also expressionless but exuded an aura of rage, advanced the discussion a step further.

“Haha, lewd words. …If I didn’t hear it wrong, the priest certainly was making sexual remarks toward the young man there…”

Pomett repeated it with a slightly nasty tone. Father Dordon bit the inside of his mouth, thinking, “As I thought, they heard it.” His nature of chasing after pleasure was coming back to haunt him. Was there no escaping the karma he had piled up throughout his life? Even though he still hadn’t had enough.

Assaulted by the most intense pressure of his life, the priest curled his body—well over 190 centimeters tall—and thought desperately.

If only Marietta hadn’t heard it. Or if she had shown an attitude of not pursuing it.

The mass murder of nineteen people would have been effectively written off, and Father Dordon could have been a hero of the world—but that future was collapsing.

“So, Father Dordon, explain your earlier remark. What is a ‘golden ball’?”

The room froze. Father Dordon swallowed dryly. Since the word “golden ball” had come up, didn’t that mean they had heard every detail? He had been caught by the Orthodox executive with an absolute weakness. A normal person would have lost their sanity, predicting their own end, but Father Dordon was not a normal person. Though his thinking nearly stopped for an instant, the old man managed to recover and began spinning an excuse with dry lips.

“—’Golden balls.’ Also known as ‘testicles’ or ‘testes,’ it is a part of the male genitalia. It is the organ that produces ‘sperm’ to make babies, and—”

“We are all aware of what ‘golden balls’ are. You understand without me saying it, but I want to know the intention behind the remark.”

“That is rude of me. …Uh, after the meal, I was trying to perform a special treatment to heal his body and mind. Oakley-kun’s memory is disordered, as you can see… so I burned some aroma, tried to relax him… and I was trying to… heal him… it was just a meddlesome act…”

Slurp. Father Dordon let out a desperate excuse. Alex, who had been looking down at the four heads from above, felt a simple question bubble up: “Are they doing this as a gag?” because of the bickering over testicles between grown adults, rather than worrying about the fact that Oakley’s identity was about to be exposed.

(Are these people all idiots?)

Alex looked down at the carnage below, feeling a painfully intense silence. Yet, even in a discussion like this, the lives of many people were at stake.

“Was it necessary to touch his private parts during that treatment?”

“O-of course it wasn’t! There’s no need to talk about it, this priest is a pervert!”

“Calm yourself, Oakley. …Father Dordon, if you have such tastes while entrusted with the care of young boys and girls, it is a major problem. If it is confirmed that you are also involved in murder, your evaluation will flip… you will fall to the bottom of the earth as a great sinner.”

Having heard Dordon’s slip of the tongue, Pomett had been arguing from Oakley’s side from the start. Furthermore, the priest in her eyes was far from his usual self. He had spat out strong words about Heretics and such, but he was clearly losing his cool and lying.

The outcome of Oakley vs. Father Dordon was already clear. Pomett regarded every statement the priest made as a “lie.” There was no chance of a reversal. Moreover, her suspicion toward him, having branded Oakley a Heretic, was rising.

“Pomett-sama, you can tell by looking at Oakley-san’s state. The previous remark was a slip of the tongue during the barbaric act that was performed without consent. In the first place, Oakley-san couldn’t be a Heretic. I know because I took a bath with him, Oakley-san’s left hand had no abnormalities at all. …The glove is just to hide the scars, it shouldn’t be to hide an executive’s flesh.”

Marietta’s eager remark was fired as support. But hidden within this statement was an assumption Marietta herself didn’t realize. Because she thought so much of her savior, the boundary between ideal and reality had become blurred. To be specific, what Marietta had confirmed in the bath was Oakley’s right hand. She knew Oakley wanted to hide his ugly scars, so her statement ended up slightly misaligned with reality.

However, Marietta’s statement became a tailwind for Oakley. Stressed as if his heart were being squeezed by steel threads, Father Dordon grimaced.

(Guuu… My seventy-five years of life end here, then. It hasn’t been a bad life, but I wish I could have inserted it at the very end.)

Exposing his desires within, Father Dordon prepared to give up.

—In that instant, a “reverse” idea surfaced in the priest’s mind. Together with the enormous pressure on his heart, a brilliant idea, as if by divine providence, welled up.

(W-wait… There is still a chance for me to survive. I should have discarded my sense of justice. I am already old and waiting for death, but I don’t want to die yet. I haven’t had enough. I should have lived for my own sake!!)

Standing on the edge of a precipice, his philosophy of life shifted violently.

He didn’t need a sense of justice. He didn’t need to be a hero of the world. Since the world was forcing him to die, why not live selfishly?

Until now, he had acted not to tarnish his clean record and tried to push up his own position by handing over the Heretic Oakley to the Orthodox executives.

But, actually, that didn’t matter. It didn’t lead to direct pleasure. It’s obviously much more pleasant to do, violate, and kill than to be commended for executing justice. The question is, can sexual desire be satisfied by justice?

At the age of 75, his life philosophy awakened. Surely, this too was divine guidance. Father Dordon, thanking his inner god, began to cultivate the seeds of reversal based on his renewed way of thinking.

(Why did I get into a head-on argument with Oakley-kun? The one I should have on my side right now isn’t Pomett… it’s Oakley-kun! Pomett and Marietta don’t matter in essence! I must make him, the person involved, say it… make him speak the truth and fiction! With that, I can avoid the worst outcome…!!)

Since sitting at this round table, Father Dordon had been arguing to have Pomett and Marietta on his side to disparage Oakley.

He was wrong. This discussion was here to judge the two parties involved, Oakley and Father Dordon. If so, he just needed to bring Oakley in and make it so “nothing happened.” In the end, no matter how you look at it, this argument is a problem between the parties involved. It’s not such a difficult story; they are only delegating the judgment to Pomett because she happened to rush into this place.

(Marietta’s contradictory statement has also worked in my favor! I can survive!)

Therefore, Father Dordon prepared bait to reel Oakley in.

“…Come to think of it, Oakley-kun. You mentioned that you must go to the Holy Capital Sasfect, did you not? When these two return, I will provide aid for your travel expenses to the Holy Capital and your living expenses after you arrive.”

“…………”

“…I will say it again and again, I did not make any lewd remarks as you two say. The previous… remarks… were misheard… Marietta and Pomett-sama are just making a bit too much noise. You think so too, right, Oakley-kun?”

“I was wondering what you would say… are you trying to negotiate?”

Marietta tried to dismiss it, but Oakley reacted strongly to the priest’s words.

—It is no easy feat for a person with amnesia to secure a job. Moreover, being unfamiliar with common sense means it is harder to notice when one is being deceived. For the current Oakley, earning travel expenses to the Holy Capital Sasfect was a daunting task. It was a sweet offer made with an understanding of that difficulty.

Two months or so until the “Phantom Night Festival” in the Holy Capital Sasfect.

…Unless you have connections, it is impossible to find a job and earn massive travel expenses by then. Oakley realized that Father Dordon’s words were more attractive than he imagined.

While Oakley suspected that the proposal was a trap, he somehow understood his own situation and regained his composure. While being poked by Marietta next to him, saying “Let’s take off the glove and prove your innocence quickly,” Oakley placed his hand under his chin.

(Honestly, I don’t know what’s what, but… it seems bad if I’m recognized as a Heretic if my left hand is seen. At this rate, it’ll be a wash, and I’ll have to show my left hand, which can distinguish truth from falsehood in a way that’s easy to understand. Makena-san also said not to show that hand much, and Father Dordon recognized me as a Heretic the moment he saw my left hand… Well, what to do…)

Marietta has seen Oakley’s bare skin through the steam, so she must believe that there really is no abnormality in his left hand. From her perspective, revealing Oakley’s left hand is the simple way to determine the priest’s statement as a lie. That is why Marietta keeps asserting it.

Contrary to her feelings, it was troublesome. It is a tactic to be stubborn and not take off the glove, but Marietta’s behavior was being manipulated by Father Dordon. Unless she could ride on the priest’s voice, her voice wouldn’t be erased.

A hopeless situation where Father Dordon waits if he advances, and the Orthodox executive Pomett waits if he retreats. But if he had to choose, the path of the priest had a higher possibility of survival. No, if he took off the glove and chose Pomett’s path, the probability of survival was zero.

To fully avoid the landmine of Pomett, which even Oakley himself didn’t know about, required a god-like intuition, like threading a needle consecutively.

(Do I take this trash priest, or do I take the clear and lovely female knight? …I really want to go to Pomett-san and Marietta, but my intuition is whispering, ‘If you go there, you’ll have a worse time than with the priest.’)

—And, Oakley possessed that god-like intuition.

The reason Arros did not abandon Oakley, who had lost his memory and become a shell of a man, was because he anticipated this innate characteristic he possessed.

Which one would a normal person choose, I wonder?

Father Dordon, the priest who had just tried to violate him, or the side where his close friend Marietta and the female knight Pomett, who is an ally of justice, were?

An ordinary human, succumbing to fear and a sense of security, would choose the latter. Without calmly thinking about the secret of his left hand, he would choose the path of execution without knowing it, and surely regret it.

But Oakley, even having lost his memory, was still an abnormal person. He chose the path of surviving alongside the murderer. He was able to choose it.

“—I’m sorry, it’s just as Father Dordon said. It seems I got too excited and acted abnormally… I’m sorry.”

“…Eh? Oakley, san…?”

The young man who suddenly became calm. Marietta, who let out a shrill voice at his abrupt change, opened her eyes wide, as if she had no idea what was going on.

“The three of us… were playing with fire.”

“…!?”

“T-three people…?”

The women’s group raised their voices in confusion.

“The priest and I, were together with the man… who is currently hiding in the ceiling… right now. We were making up stories to try and let him get away.”

“!?”

The speechless sounds of astonishment from four people—Pomett, Marietta, Dordon, and Alex—resounded.

Alex thought in an instant. Why did Oakley notice? No, perhaps he was caught by his presence when he was thinking, “Hide your left hand.” Having understood that much, Alex calculated the outcome led by following Oakley’s statement with high-speed thinking.

(—What I need is to avoid Oakley-senpai being exposed as a Heretic and dying. If I jump out here and decide that ‘there is a third party,’ the truth and fiction will be flipped from the foundation and Senpai’s left hand won’t be examined! In other words, the action I should take right now is—!!)

Alex deliberately made a sound as he climbed down from the ceiling to the circular table room.

“Wh—!”

Everyone stiffens. Marietta is stunned, and Pomett holds her head as if screaming that she can’t follow the logic. Dordon is also speechless at the intrusion of a suspicious person. Oakley didn’t know Alex’s true identity at all, and was honestly astonished that he had come out. Alex was the only one who understood this board.

“S-sorry…”

The long, long silence that dominated the scene. It’s natural, since no one knows who Alex is. In fact, Oakley is the most surprised. Since he had thought that the strange presence was just because there was a thief.

“I’m the one who injured the priest’s finger there, and I’m the one who tore Oakley se…san’s clothes to shreds… I have my reasons, and I thought if it was known that I was playing dangerous games, I’d be caught…”

“…………”

In the end of coincidence and necessity, Alex carried all the lies, big and small, with that one word. Once it came to this, even if there were some contradictions, as long as the parties involved were convinced, Pomett would lose the right to judge the priest or Oakley.

The criminal record of the saintly Father Dordon was nothing but a lie told in the midst of confusion, and Oakley’s glove was nothing but a glove to hide old wounds, having nothing to do with a Heretic. If the parties involved said “everything is a lie,” all the statements made up to now became lies.

In dubio pro reo. Even Pomett couldn’t intervene.

However, this had become troublesome in its own way. After all, not only did a third person come out, but each of their testimonies was too specific.

Especially Oakley’s statement regarding Father Dordon was strangely specific for a made-up story. It would likely leave deep doubts in the confused Pomett.

(I-I wanna go home…! If the contradictions are revealed, it’ll turn into something even more interesting! I’m gonna die…!)

Alex felt a sun-drenched feeling of being in the depths of despair, the kind that makes you want to return to the Heretic base and sleep for a while.