Water Magician - Chapter 410: Beyond the Conspiracy

Editor: Tseirp

“I’ve been rescuing a lot of male-female pairs lately.”

Ryo said while folding his arms in satisfaction.

What he recalled in his mind was the duo of Captain Bangan and Vice Captain Amalia of the Republic.

“That said, it’s not all over yet.”

“Right.”

Ryo said, and Niels nodded.

“Patrice and Guti, right? Can you find your way back to your friends?”

“Yeah… if it’s just walking… I have no problem.”

Niels asked, and Guti answered.

Patrice looked a little worried, but his gaze was ignored.

“Okay. Then we’ll go around to the left, toward the western countries of the Dark Continent.”

“Got it!”

Niels said, and the other three answered.

Then the four members of ‘Room 10’ started running.

Meanwhile, the arena, the main venue for the Pope’s inauguration ceremony, was in chaos.

“His Holiness the Pope has been stabbed! Archbishop Goon stabbed him!”

“Quickly! Cast Extra Heal!”

The Pope was left lying on the podium where he was stabbed.

Archbishop Goon was being held down by his side, his head on the floor with eyes out of focus, offering no resistance.

Surrounding him were mostly archbishops and above…

So naturally, they can use .

However…

“How come? is being rejected!”

“Is His Holiness’ body impervious to Heal?”

“It’s a serious injury. For the time being, we’ve got to continue casting and keep him alive.”

Amid such chaos, how many among the archbishops gathered around the lying pope noticed that a cardinal had slipped in?

The cardinal advanced to the right side of the lying pope, right next to his neck.

Then they took something out of their vestments.

It was an axe.

The axe wasn’t that large.

But large enough.

Enough to do what exactly?

Enough to decapitate a person lying motionless…

Slash.

“Eh…”

At that moment, no one fully realized what had happened.

An axe swung down and decapitated the Pope as he laid there.

Blood gushed out.

The head rolled.

Cardinal Camillo, holding the bloody axe in both hands, kneeling beside him, staring at the ground.

A world of complete silence.

“Why…?”

Whose voice was that tiny, little voice?

Perhaps it was one of the archbishops who had been working around the pope to revive him….

But that little voice triggered the ensuing chaos.

A roar of outrage.

It was the kind of rage unbecoming of high-ranking priests, but when the head of the Pope, the object of their loyalty, was chopped off right in front of their eyes, it’s understandable that some may not be able to maintain their sanity.

Priests running around.

Without even knowing the reason why they are running.

Some people walk around the room when they are frustrated. It was an intense version of that.

And some remained still.

That is probably the most common action taken by many people when something they believe in is suddenly lost…

The chaos was not limited to the arena.

The priests of the Western Church who were seated in the front auditorium… they too were embroiled in the chaos.

No, rather, with nearly two thousand people, suffice to say that they were in a more disorderly mess than the archbishops.

Screaming out.

Running back and forth.

Bursting into tears.

Generally speaking, they were no different from the archbishops in the arena.

But among the priests of the Western Church, some were not as confused as they appeared to be.

Eleven cardinals in the same arena.

However, they weren’t in their usual state, as might be expected.

All but one of them looked surprised or dismayed.

And that was Cardinal Sacharias.

Even he didn’t expect the Pope to be killed on the spot.

It wasn’t a question of having a replacement or being able to bring him back to life.

He was decapitated in front of a crowd of spectators.

And if that same person were to appear again… no, that can’t happen.

In other words, they can no longer use that pope.

At the same time, thoughts were flitting through Sacharias’ mind.

(Why did Goon…. Why did Camillo…)

Such thoughts repeated over and over again in his mind.

But then, all of a sudden, he had an epiphany.

The answer came to him instantly.

Cardinal Graham.

But Cardinal Graham also looked surprised, and his eyes remained wide open.

Seeing Graham like that, Sacharias immediately turned his gaze back to the Pope.

(I thought it was Graham’s plot, but… it wasn’t him?)

Naturally, Sacharias recognized that among the cardinals, Graham was the opponent they needed to watch out for the most.

But he had left him to Cardinal Camillo to deal with.

Only for Camillo to wind up beheading the pope, so he wondered what trick Graham had pulled, but…

He thought to himself, finally starting to be able to think ahead.

It had actually been three minutes since the Pope’s head was lopped off.

(At any rate, there’s nothing left for me to do. The magic power being sucked up from the auditorium will begin flowing into the underground magic circle and activate on its own without me doing anything. Then, it will immediately become Legna-sama’s sustenance…)

Thinking that far, Sacharias suddenly looked at the audience seats across from him.

The audience seating for the Central Countries delegation.

But there was something strange about it.

At first, he couldn’t put his finger on it, since there was quite a distance between the two seatings, but after staring at them for a while, he understood why.

The chairs were shining brightly.

It reflected the sunlight surprisingly well.

“Ice?”

Yes, they were covered in ice.

There was only one possible reason.

They noticed the siphoning of magic power and tried to interfere with it.

“But unfortunately putting ice over it won’t be of much help. Magic power itself can penetrate the ice.”

Sacharias muttered softly but still felt uneasy.

Then, while paying attention to his surroundings, he pulled out a card-sized alchemy tool from his pocket.

It was an alchemy tool that allowed him to check the operational status of the three magic power siphoning tools installed in the arena.

Upon checking…

“Impossible…”

He unwittingly raised his voice louder than he meant to.

Of course, there was no one in his immediate vicinity, but he ought to be cautious.

Thereafter, he stepped away from the other cardinals and took another hard look at the card-sized alchemy tool.

“Yeah I didn’t see it wrong… all three units have stopped.”

Then he looked at the left and right audience seating, apart from the one in front.

Those seats were for guests from the Dark Continent.

However, there was no ice on them.

“So the delegation from the Central Countries intercepted it with ice, while the guests from the Dark Continent neutralized the first floor.”

Sacharias concluded.

If Neil Andersen had died, it would have shown up on the card, but it did not.

Besides, he had Holy Knights as escorts. So they wouldn’t get to him that easily.

“Either way, it’s too late.”

He muttered to himself and pressed the only switch on the card.

It was a switch that forced the magic power that had been sucked out and accumulated to flow into the underground magic circle all at once.

A switch that forcibly performs what was done automatically when the tank is full.

There shouldn’t be any problem even if it’s not full.

Now, there really was nothing left for Sacharias to do.

(The rest is according to Legna-sama’s will…)

In the corner where the cardinals were gathered, a group of people in black robes came running up to them.

They were the Inquisition.

At the head of the group was Stefania, the head of the Inquisition.

The cardinals, who had been staring at the Pope in surprise, noticed this.

The Inquisition officers surrounded Cardinal Sacharias.

Stefania stood in front of Sacharias.

“Chief Stefania, what can I do for you?”

Sacharias asked, smiling as usual as he casually slipped the card into his pocket.

“We would like to speak to you, Your Eminence, concerning the heinous acts committed against His Holiness the Pope. This is an official Inquisition.”

At that moment, a look of agitated emotion flashed across Sacharias’s face.

Then he glared at Graham.

He finally caught on.

Graham had set it all up, all along.

Yes, both Archbishop Goon and Cardinal Camillo were manipulated by Graham.

The surprised expression on his face earlier was a deception to buy time for this moment.

“Chief Stefania said it is an official Inquisition. Not even a cardinal can avoid being subjected to the Inquisition.”

Graham said in a loud voice, with a brazen display of boldness.

“Graham…! ”

As if mumbling, straining his voice… biting down…

The word leaked out of Sacharias’ mouth.

“For the past few months, Archbishop Goon, as well as Cardinal Camillo, have been working under the direction of His Eminence Sacharias. While I believe the Inquisition must also find this timing a little ill-fitted, they probably cannot afford to overlook it.”

Graham spoke again in a louder voice.

So that the surrounding cardinals could hear him.

And for the archbishops to hear.

The expression on Sacharias’ face, who had been biting his back teeth so hard that a grinding sound could almost be heard, loosened.

Then, he said in a low, quiet voice.

“Very well. I’ve already done my part anyway.”

Graham was the one who overheard him.

“Hate to break it to you, Sacharias. But, the magic circle in the basement is useless.”

“!”

Sacharias’ reaction to Graham’s words was fierce.

The look on his face as he turned to Graham was malevolent and hideous.

The look of a man on the verge of losing his sanity.

“Y-You, wretched… wretched… what did you do…?”

His low voice was like a whisper with a face like a malevolent spirit, but it wasn’t a faint voice that sounded as if it would break, but a voice with a danger of exploding with anger inside.

“We made it so that it wouldn’t be able to collect the Fragments of God.”

“That’s impossible… the test run operated just fine…”

“Yeah, I’m sure it did. Except it won’t run as so during the real operation. It was done by someone as adept at alchemy as you are.”

Graham spoke to him in a colder tone.

Sacharias got down on both knees and sat down flat on the ground.

Then he scratched his head.

“Unbel… unbelievable… what a blunder… Angel-sama… Legna-sama, my sincerest regrets… for not being able to prove useful to you…”

From that point on, his voice was so low that even Stefania, who was standing right in front of him, couldn’t hear him.

“I hereby offer my body to you as your vessel.”

Then he raised his hand, and plunged the dagger he had hidden in his sleeves into his own throat.

“Wha…”

Even Stefania was at a loss as she didn’t see that coming.

And then… the world exploded!

Author’s note:

A rare splatter gore development for Water Magician!

Well, the pope isn’t human.

So even if his head gets cut off, it’s safe.

…Come to think of it, there has been an appearance of someone’s head getting cut off.

Akuma Leonor.

Technically speaking, it should be quite difficult to cut off a person’s head.

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