The Cult Leader in the Clergy Academy

Chapter 295

I could adjust the temperature of Marinette’s flames as I pleased. I could make them as hot as the hellfire, warm, cool, or ice-cold.

Thus, I made Marinette's flames very cold—instantly freezing the mercenaries in the room. Their bodies were frozen beneath their necks, so they wouldn’t be able to resist. All they could do was look at my masked face with terror.

"If you move, your body might shatter. Just stay still," I said as I walked briskly toward the door.

I then opened the door.

As soon as I opened the door, Yuk Eun-Hyung, who was at the front, tried to punch me in the face. I easily dodged it.

Yuk Eun-Hyung’s expression was fierce, with his veins bulging on his forehead. A look of surprise crossed his face as he stared at me.

"I apologize, sir. I thought you were an enemy..."

“It's okay. Come in."

I led Yuk Eun-Hyung and his mercenary corps members into the room. They turned their heads and looked around at the Ravens Mercenary Corps members.

Yuk Eun-Hyung’s mercenaries had their mouths agape in shock upon seeing all the Ravens with their bodies frozen below their necks. Only one person didn't seem all too surprised, and that was Yuk Eun-Hyung. He remained calm even after seeing the frozen Ravens mercenaries.

"Are you planning to extract information from them?" Yuk Eun-Hyung asked.

He was quick to catch on. I didn't immediately kill the members of the Ravens Mercenary Corps because even though I could, I still needed to extract information from them.

I wanted to know who ordered them to impersonate Yuk Eun-Hyung's mercenary corps and terrorize the local residents. I also wanted to know who their leader was, along with many other things.

I went to the person whom the mercenaries called their squad leader. He showed no signs of nervousness or fear, although he was drenched in sweat. Instead, he stared at me with piercing eyes filled with killing intent.

His eyes clearly showed a readiness to resume attacking us as soon as the ice covering his body melted.

"If you answer my questions honestly, I will spare your life. But if you refuse to answer or lie, you will die."

The squad leader chuckled and said, "That's a funny thing to say. How can you tell whether I'm lying or telling the truth?"

I also chuckled along and called Ogun. All the iron surrounding us trembled and glowed bright red. The guns and bullets that the Ravens Mercenary Corps brought, nails and bits of iron scattered around the building, and everything else made of metal gradually floated in the air and menacingly pointed at the squad leader.

"There is a method for everything. You’ve seen what I can do. Do you still not believe me?”

"..."

The squad leader closed his mouth when he saw the dozens of floating pieces of metal in the air. A hint of fear flickered in his eyes.

"If I lie, will those pieces of metal attack me?"

"Yes."

"Haha, that's quite a convenient ability. I heard that the Cult Leader of the Voodoo Cult can do anything. It seems that was true.”

I felt no need to respond to his words, so I just ignored him. Instead, I asked the squad leader a question.

"Who is your client?"

"Client? What are you talking about?"

"Who told you to pretend to be Yuk Eun-Hyung’s mercenary corps and cause a commotion?" I asked.

The squad leader glanced briefly at the pieces of metal glowing bright red while floating in the air with a very displeased expression and said, "We don't know. Only our leader knows who the client is."

"Is that so? Then who is your leader? No, where is your leader?"

"Haha! Just kill me."

"What?"

The man named the squad leader aggressively glared at me.

"I said, just kill me."

There seemed to be a strong determination in his gaze, but at the same time, it seemed to be devoid of anything. Those were the eyes of someone resolved to die.

He continued, "Our leader is the one who picked us up from nothing and made us useful. It's better to die than to sell out our leader."

“Hmm.”

I stared into his eyes and analyzed his expression and voice carefully. The man called the squad leader seemed to have no lingering regrets in his life. His loyalty toward his leader was also quite profound.

To find out their client's identity, I needed to know who the leader of the Ravens was and their location. However, it seemed unlikely that he would answer me.

I looked around and observed the faces of the other mercenaries. Each had a different expression. Some seemed resigned to their deaths, while others had their brows furrowed in extreme anger.

Of course, some were gripped by fear. I found a particular mercenary who seemed to be trembling with fear more than the others.

I approached him and said, "Excuse me."

The man visibly panicked and replied, "Yes? Oh, no. What can I do for ya?"

The man spoke with a unique tone and accent.

When I looked into his eyes, he kept moving his eyes without making eye contact with me. It seemed like he was extremely afraid to meet my gaze. His personality seemed to be completely different from the squad leader’s. The squad leader was someone who didn’t fear death and had empty eyes that indicated that he had nothing to lose.

In contrast, the man in front of me seemed to be extremely afraid of death. Unlike the squad leader, it seemed like he had a lot to lose.

"Do you know anything about your leader?" I asked.

The man didn’t answer. Instead, he avoided my gaze and glanced at the squad leader. Since he was in a situation where he couldn’t tell the truth and couldn’t lie, he seemed to think that keeping his mouth shut was the best move.

But it wasn't exactly a very smart move. After all, I could deduce a lot of things from his silence.

"You seem to know something, but you don't want to talk."

"..."

“I’ll kill you then. I needed someone to kill to set an example.”

I raised my fist. The man's body was frozen stiff, so if I used Bossou's power and struck him hard, his frozen body would shatter and collapse.

The resulting corpse would probably be a shocking sight. If I showed such a scene to the other mercenaries, they would be shocked, and it would become much easier to extract information from them.

"Hold yer horses! Please, spare me. I got a family, I tell ya. Two young 'uns dependin' on me!"

"Ah, where does your family live?"

"M-my family..."

The man hesitated, so I raised my fist again. Then, the man mentioned the area where his family lived.

I asked if he had an ID. He said it was in his wallet, so I took it out and checked. I carefully memorized the address. After all, I never knew when such things would come in handy.

The man had his mouth tightly closed while silently shedding tears.

He raised his head and said, "I said my piece, so are you gonna let me off the hook? Please, spare me!" the man said.

“If you give good answers to my questions, then you’ll live. If not, you will die... No, I suppose it will be better to find your family first.”

If I first found his family and used that to blackmail him, then I could extract more information. After listening to my words, the man dropped his head and shed tears.

Tears fell on his frozen body. The parts touched by the tears slightly melted.

"Sob... sob..."

Behind the sobbing man, the squad leader shouted, "Ah, you devilish bastard! Are you even human after doing that?!"

I walked over to the squad leader, lowered my head, and stared straight into his face as I said, "You could have just told me what I wanted to know from the beginning... You’re supposed to be the squad leader, so why’d you have to be so stubborn and make the situation so difficult?”

"..."

I thought it needed to be said, so that was why I said it. The squad leader closed his mouth.

I approached the man with the unique accent again. He was biting his lips so hard that they were bleeding as tears streamed down his face.

I just stared at him without saying anything until he opened his mouth. Well-timed silence was an effective weapon when threatening or coercing someone.

After a while, the man broke the silence.

"I-I’ll tell ya," he said.

His hollow, somewhat sad eyes, which continuously leaked tears, suggested that he had completely resigned himself to his fate.

"I’ll spill the beans and tell ya where our leader is and anything else ya wanna know..." he said.

*

We found out a lot by interrogating the man. He told us many things as he cried.

At first, the squad leader tried to frantically shout at the man to not tell me anything, but he also resigned and closed his mouth after seeing the man confess everything to me.

In any case, I found out that the leader of the Ravens Mercenary Corps was nearby. The identity of the leader of the Ravens Mercenary Corps was shrouded in mystery, and security was so tight that even the rank-and-file members did not know the leader's face.

Fortunately, the man I interrogated was not just a rank-and-file mercenary but also a somewhat important figure. Thanks to that, we found out the leader's whereabouts.

I melted the ice covering the man's body using Marinette's flames and used an advanced restoration spell on the frozen parts of his body that had suffered frostbite.

After being exposed to the restoration spell’s Voodoo mist, the man’s blackened and decaying skin returned to its original clean state.

Despite healing him, the man continued to shed tears.

"Sob, sob...!"

The squad leader criticized the man.

"We’re all dead! You, you! You have sent everyone here to their deaths!"

According to the information I had obtained, the leader of the Ravens held not only the mercenaries' lives but also their families' lives. So if they deified their leader’s will, their families would all be eliminated.

Because the man had revealed their leader's location, all the mercenaries present were now as good as dead. Why they were so afraid of their leader? After all, wouldn’t it all come to an end if I just killed their leader?

"Let's go catch their leader. Since we have to go to them and ask who their client is anyway, we might as well,” I said to Yuk Eun-Hyung and his mercenaries.

They initially showed fear at the thought of engaging in battle, but now they all nodded confidently at my suggestion. Their trust in me grew stronger after I used the power of the Loa in front of them a few times. That was good.

I also thawed the frozen bodies of the other Ravens mercenaries. Of course, I had anticipated that they would resist, so I tied their bodies with Granbwa's plant stems.

The squad leader continued to glare at me as if he wanted to kill me, so I punched his jaw.

Smack!

"Argh," the squad leader groaned.

Then, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed. Finally, it was time to restrain the man who had provided us with a lot of information and had a strange way of speaking.

The man looked at me with a pitiful expression and said, "C-Can't ya please take me along with ya too?"

His sudden request to accompany us startled me, so I stared at him and blinked.

The man quickly continued, "I’ll lead you straight to our leader."

"Why go to such lengths?"

"Well, I reckon I’m as good as done for. Now, now... I ain’t got no other choice but to wish for the death of my leader. If things keep goin' like this, me and my kinfolk are as good as toast anyway...”

Since he had already betrayed his fellow mercenaries, he must have figured it was best to stick with us and try to extend his lifeline. Bringing this man to our side would not only give us someone to guide us, but it would also open up a number of new strategies.

"Please do so."

I nodded and helped the man up.

So, we followed the man's guidance and moved toward the leader of the Ravens Mercenary Corps.

The man said that the leader of the Ravens Mercenary Corps was living in a temporary barracks nearby, but it was in a very remote location and would be difficult to find. Furthermore, he added that only a few people knew the leader's face, so it would be difficult to even distinguish who the leader was if it wasn't him.

The man had been fervently making his importance known to us so that he would be able to survive.

While following the man's guidance on the road, Yuk Eun-Hyung approached me and said, "Cult Leader, I have something to ask."

I nodded to indicate that it was fine to ask.

Yuk Eun-Hyung took a deep breath and said, "If that man didn't answer, were you really planning to kill him?"

"Hmm..."

I thought for a moment. If that man didn't answer, or if he had given false information to deceive us, would I really have killed that man? Would I have gone so far as to get his family involved to extract information from him?

"I'm not sure."

I didn’t know. Yuk Eun-Hyung no longer asked any more questions and walked away. I also remained silent and quietly walked on.

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