Translator: Silver Editor: Namorax

「The Tajiento Crisis」

The peninsula that lied within the northern region of the Southern Continent was under the control of the Great Leburan Empire.

A port city, which was on the same scale as eminent cities within the mainland empire, had been built around a naval port on the eastern side of the peninsula.

A large church of the Hiruku religion sat on the same street as the city’s major piers. The priests and the holy knights had their own dormitories, while the cardinal lived within his own mansion.

There was a clear distinction be the mansion and the surrounding buildings. The elegance of the mansion was emphasized by red- and white-bricked mosaics and white, ornamental support pillars.

Within this three-story mansion provided by the church was the cardinal’s private room.

It was a large room with a high ceiling, an impressive mural painted on one wall and an expensive carpet covering the floor. There was plain furnishings within the room, which gave it the resemblance of a king’s private quarters.

In the center of the room sat a specially made king sized bed.

The bed’s canopy nearly reached the ceiling and was made of luxurious embroidered cloth, and there was a large shadow sitting behind it.

The large figure’s body was seemingly composed of numerous rolls of fat, a bald head with beady eyes, flabby cheeks, and an overall frog-like appearance.

This was the mansion’s master cardinal, Charos Acedia Industria.

He was currently eating from the bowl of fruit he usually kept filled beside his bed.

“This day was a peaceful one. The mainland has been silent since they sent that fellow here. Hmhmhm, giving him a measly hundred ghost knights was a simple matter. I am a genius?”

Charos’ large body jiggled as his laughing caused the bed to creak.

When he noticed the fruit juices sticking to his hand, he simply wiped it on the canopy.

“Simply spending time in bed is a wonderful way to pass the day. However, while this is true bliss, I still wonder if anything is happening in the outside world?”

Charos’ rolled on his back as he thought aloud.

As if wanting to answer his question, his door was suddenly banged on repeatedly.

“Charos-sama! It’s an emergency! Pardon me!”

After entering the room, a priest kneeled down a short distance away from the bed.

Charos was dumbfounded for a moment before displeasure began to show on his face.

But, the priest prostrating on the group was unaware of this as he began his report while looking towards the ground.

“According to our scouts, a group of almost twenty never before seen monsters have broken through the defensive wall and are heading towards the city! The governor has requested the aid of the holy knights to fend off those giant monsters!!”

When the priest finished his report he lowered his head further and asked on how to proceed.

Charos rose from his bed with a grimace on his face.

“Hh?, even if they’re monsters there’s only twenty of them? Why do they even need the holy knights? The governor should have two thousand soldiers at his disposal, right? There aren’t even five hundred holy knights, why does he need to rope them in?”

Charos walked towards the window which laid in the direction of the city. While the church and its lodgings could be seen, anything beyond that was blocked off by the church’s high perimeter walls.

The priest walked up behind Charos and stood on his toes to look past Charos’ massive body.

“Charos-sama, we can view the city from the church’s bell tower. We can grasp the current condition from there! Please!”

“Hmm??, though I do want to know what’s going on, I really don’t want to go up there. Besides, I really don’t want to deal with this annoyance?”

Charos puffed out his cheeks as he complained with a sigh and looked down at the prostrating priest before walking towards the door.

The priest rose his head and looked at the cardinal’s back as he left the room.

Feeling the stare on this back, Charos looked back at the priest who had yet to move.

“Hurry up and show me the way! I don’t normally climb the tower and therefore don’t know how to get there!”

“Y-Yes! Right away!”

The priest had a joyous expression on his face as he passed by the cardinal, like a dog going for a walk with its owner.

Charos hopped behind the priest with the speed one wouldn’t expect from someone of his size. It was like watching a giant frog in motion.

Before long, Charos reached the foot of the bell tower’s spiral staircase in that manner, gasping for air and wiping sweat from his eyes the entire trip.

“Haa, which fool decided to build this tower? They shouldn’t have put so many stairs in it. We still have to climb these......”

Although his large body shook and he complained the entire trip, Charos steady footsteps indicated that there was more than fat beneath his clothing.

The rather lanky priest accompanying him nearly fell over and was short on breath as they climbed the bell tower’s stairs.

A little above halfway up the tower the lanky priest went up to one of the ventilation windows and timidly looked out of it.

The windows were facing west, so the setting sun blinded the priest’s eyes for a moment. As soon as he got used to the light, he was able to look down at the city.

When he saw the state of the city, the priest turned around with a shocked expression and started to shout.

“Ch-Charos-sama! Here! You can see the state of the city from here!! It’s them!”

Even if this was the bell tower, the stairway wasn’t very wide so the priest’s echoed shout forced Charos to cover his ears.

“Okay, okay! I can hear you just fine, there’s no need to yell.”

Charos looked out of the window pointed out by the priest, all the while complaining.

The window was set right above the church’s thin, outer wall. Though the priest had been rather agitated by the what he saw, the window only offered a narrow field of view above the wall.

Charos’ large body pushed the priest aside as he looked out the window himself.

Charos smiled at first as he watched the setting sun until he realized multiple fires were burning throughout the city.

The fires were mostly centered around the city wall and were still a good distance away from the church.

A strange creature could be seen passing by a brick rooftop in the distance.

Back-lighted by the setting sun, the giant black silhouette didn’t have a head and the surrounding buildings allowed one to see just how huge it was.

The black-furred giant was easily able to destroy the roof of one of the buildings, grabbing something and pushing it into the huge hole that opened up in its chest.

Charos’ eyes popped open as he watched the chaos play out in front of him.

The giant grabbed a person and stuffed into its mouth as if it was just having a little snack. He was able to see four of these creatures from this window.

The citizen’s despite screams were carried on the wind to this location.

There were sweat stains on the window frame when Charos looked back at the priest.

“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!”

Charos merely shoved his face back out the window and began to scream.

“What the hell happened!? The city is under attack!? How did this happen!?”

After bursting into a manic rant, Charos turned to the priest again who had no answers for him.

Charos shook his head at the blank reply before he began shouting out instructions.

“The holy knights! Deploy every single holy knight at our disposal!!”

“Ye-Yes!!”

The priest bowed his head at Charos’ instructions. When he raised his head again, Charos was already making his way down the stairs.

“Ch-Charos-sama! Where are you going!?”

Charos answered the priest without looking back.

“Reinforcements! We need to gather reinforcements, quickly──!!”

Charos rushed pace caused him to trip as he answered the priest’s question, and proceeded to bounce down the stairs until he hit the support tower’s support pillar on the ground floor.

“Charos-sama!! Charos-sama!!”

The priest shouted down the tower with a worried look on his face. He caught sight of Charos standing up and running off to some place.

He’d just taken a fall equivalent to one from a fourth floor.

While the priest was surprised by Charos’ sudden recovery, he managed to pull himself together and headed towards the knights’ dormitory.

As for Charos, he made his way to the cathedral’s basement.

The dark stairway leading to the basement was extremely narrow, and at the end of the passage was a huge metal door that was sealed with a keyhole-less lock.

Because people rarely came down here, a thin layer of dust covered the door, and a unique fragrance leaked from behind the door.

Charos stepped forward and grabbed hold of the lock.

When Charos concentrated magic in his hand the metal shackle was undone with a loud click.

After Charos pushed the door open, he walked in the large, shelf-filled room, a place the light from the magic tools could not reach.

The shelves in the room were filled with an innumerable amount of wooden coffins.

These catacombs had been around since the city’s founding.

Charos paid no mind to the coffins surrounding him while his footsteps echoed throughout the room as he passed by the shelves.

“Why did this have to happen? Now Tajiento is on the verge of collapse.”

Charos would have continued to complain, but he stopped walking when he had a realization.

“Did that fellow from the mainland have something to do with this!? The pope wouldn’t object to using these guys here, will he!? Right.”

Charos reached his wits’ end as he stood shouting his soliloquy in the middle of the catacombs.

After a few minutes, Charos made his decision and quickly ran to the center of the catacombs.... when he reached the altar set up there, he grasped the black cube that had been sitting on it.

“Ah, this is so annoying! I’ll make sure the one from the mainland and the one in black will be dealt with!!”

Charos infused magic into his right hand as he made that declaration.

Light began to spread from the black cube when he slammed his hand on it. In response to his actions, the lids of all the coffins flew off at once and fully armored knights sat up within them.

As the warriors grasped hold of their weapons and moved about as if they were just waking up, Charos raised the black cube in his hand.

“Your orders are to subjugate the black giants! Don’t leave a single one alive!!”

All the armored beings within the catacomb began to move at once.

The catacomb had been built beneath the church and had a multitude of underground passages that connected the church to various locations throughout the city.

The undead knights’ used those passages to spread throughout the city at an incredible pace.

Whenever a group of holy knights noticed the mysterious army emerging from beneath the church they attempted to block the army’s way but were immediately overwhelmed and killed.

The undead soldiers numbered nearly ten thousand.

The arrival of an army one-third the size of Tajiento’s population appearing out of nowhere only added fuel to the fire of an already chaotic situation.

Only one person considered the situation as satisfactory.... and that was the priest who had been sent from the mainland.

Standing on the roof of a brick house, he watched with a thin smile as armored soldiers started pouring out of the church’s dormitories.

As the armored soldiers started pushing their way through the escaping citizens to head for the giants, he sighed while raising one of his eyebrows.

“Well, I don’t know how many residents will die in the confusion, but the giants will be dealt with at least. What you’ve done goes against the Pope’s will, but then again I’m better suited for your position as cardinal.”

The priest chuckled and praised himself as he took a round, shining crystal from his breast pocket.

The priest thrusted his hand into the air as perverted delight crept into his voice.

“Kill all the living! Kill everyone, and convert this city into a ghost town for the Pope’s sake!!”

As if reacting to his command, the crystal began to shine brightly and the movements of the armored soldiers around him stopped for a second. The next moment, they used the swords they were carrying to slaughter the city’s residents.

And then, hell was unleashed.

The corpses of the old and slow littered the streets in minutes. A father tried to protect his child only to have his head cut off and fall into his child’s arms. A mother held onto her weeping child as they both were ran through with a sword.

“Hahaha!! You will now become the Pope’s vanguard!! Weep joyous tears and thank me for providing you with──!?”

The priest felt something approaching him from behind.

When he looked back he saw a raven-haired red-eyed beastmen kneeling before him.

“Ah, it’s you. Killing the children and female giants to lead them here has provided excellent results. Go interfere with those fighting the giants near the wall.”

With a chuckle and a jerk of his chin the sent his servant to do is beading.

The beastma──, no, the ninja Sasuke simply nodded his head before he started leaping from rooftop to rooftop in the direction of the city wall.

Another smiled found its way on the priest’s lips as he watched the ninja fade into the distance.

“That one was a good find. Once I become cardinal, it would be best to ask the Pope for a transfer.”

The man rested his gaze on the hellscape beneath him as he spoke.