I Will Burn Up My Kingdom And Disappear

Pia's face regained its color after she saw the priest falling unconscious from my palm push. Her shivering was replaced by puzzlement.

"Your Majesty," said Pia. "What had just happened? What did you do?"

A few moments later, Varian, who was stunned after he saw Rayan's head flying to my side, began to walk towards me.

"Your Majesty," said Varian. "Are you alright? I apologize for not coming to your rescue earlier. I did not honestly know whether I could stand a chance against this priest after I saw what happened to Rayan." Varian kept staring at Rayan's head.

At least Varian is honest and somewhat wise; had he come to my rescue he would have lost his head like Rayan. Though I will need to teach him how to control his fear later on.

"Do not worry Varian, " I said. "I would have done the same if I were in your position. The priest will not wake up for at least a few hours, so rest assured both of you. Varian, tie up the priest with care, he will be valuable. And Pia, I want you to show me around the last two rooms in this church."

I avoided talking about how did I manage to push the priest all the way to the wall. They should not know about Regalia, for it is my last and final trump card against the Lorope Empire.

I followed Pia to the room on the left side of the main entrance room. It is the same room that the priest had come out from.

"This is the lodging room, Your Majesty," said Pia. "Since our prayers start from midnight till the sunrise we often fall sleepy. A quick rest allows us to return energetic to our prayers. But Your Majesty, I do not think I will be able to see all my friends massacred. It will be an image that I will never be able to erase from my memory. So you will have to excuse me that I cannot enter the room with you."

I nodded my head in approval of her request. She had gone through a lot today. So I stepped into the lodging room, alone.

The first thing that attracted my attention was the smell of stench. Nine bodies were piled up beside one another at the center of this rectangular room. The heads of the nine priest bodies were scattered; some were on top of the bloodstained beds, others were beside me and on the far corners of the room. Had I not experienced worse scenes than this, I would have thrown up and fallen unconscious on the spot.

After I have confirmed the status of the room and that the nine priests were, in fact, dead I left the lodging room. It is not healthy to stay in it any longer.

"I am done with this room," I said to Pia. "Let us move to the last one."

"The next and last room Your Majesty is the library," said Pia. "Lord Salam told us that after the Third-Year-War had ended, he acc.u.mulated every book and manuscript he could find about Salamander. Oh, and there is also a private room inside the library room that lord Salam does not allow us to enter. He said it is for his private research about Salamander."

Private research huh? Interesting...

"Very well, show me to this private room," I ordered.

"It would be my p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e, Your Majesty," replied Pia. "The key to the private from are upstairs in lord Salam's room that we had entered earlier. I will go and pick it up."

Pia ascended the stairs with passion. She seems curious if not dead curious about the contents of this private room. Well, it is human nature to love the unknown, and I would argue that ladies love the unknown more than men.

In the meantime, I walked toward the library room at the opposite end of the lodging room where I am currently standing. I passed by the statue of Salamander, and Varian who is still religiously tying up the priest and entered the library room.

Countless shelves were loaded with books, and the whole place smelled like old books. Parchments were squeezed between the books, and I could not find any acc.u.mulated dust on the shelves, nor on the large square table at the middle of the room. Four small statues of Salamander screamed terror at each corner of the large table, and a suspicious thick iron door was at the opposite corner of the library door.

Most of the parchments and books at this room were written by those terrified of Salamander. It is sad. Some if not all of them could not sleep from overthinking that Salamander could kill them at any moment.

But lord Salam, what killed you was not your god Salamander but your wrongful actions, and in the most common way, by a sword.

What I have done today will break the hidden cult of Salamander in the kingdom and outside. They will realize that there are more severe and more ethical matters that could also bring their death. They will realize that humans are in fact more dangerous than their god Salamander. What happened to lord Salam will shout to their whole belief system and re-organize it once again.

Now then, I returned my senses to my surroundings and thought of grabbing one of the books on the shelves.

I found one that attracted my eyes, titled "Daily Rituals to Ward off the Evil of Our Benevolent Salamander" by Lashim Kashim. It was written before even Lorope had discovered Salamander 500 years ago. It mentions that:

[Be sure to bless the benevolent Salamander in your heart while you are at animal markets. His evil is most active when animals interact heavily with humans.

Keep a small statue of the benevolent Salamander in your house at all times. Then sprinkle the statue daily with fresh animal blood that your pocket can afford. And if you do not have any animal blood use your blood. Do not keep Salamander waiting for blood, remember his great wrath.

Make sure you cry with tears for his superiority and majesty while you are covered in sweat and dirt. Our benevolent god does not like it when we humans, who are unclean, try to act against our nature.]

I would have tossed this book in a bonfire had it not been critical historically. It follows nothing but assumptions and abuses logic.

I heard soft footsteps heading my way to the library. It was Pia as expected, breathing heavily after sprinting through the stairs.

"Your Majesty," said Pia. "I have the key to lord Salam's private room. May I open it?"

"It is a room with s.e.n.s.i.t.i.v.e information," I replied. "I cannot let you enter the room or see any of its contents until I view it first."

Pia gave me these sad and 'you are cruel' looks as I snatched the key from her hand with a bit of force and walked to the mysterious iron door.

I unlocked and opened the iron door. It was much heavier than what I had expected.

No light could enter the room unless you had the door open. I have expected the private room to be full of books and manuscripts, or with weapons and gold. But there was none of that.

The whole room had only three items: a wooden table, a wooden chair, and three strange cubes on the table.

The three cubes were hexagonal, in green, red, and yellow colors each.

Lord Salam you bastard... now I regret killing you.