Chapter 15. Golden Cow Monastery (7)
“A secret room? What is this, some kind of movie?”
No matter how much Sia narrowed her eyes and stared at one spot, all she could see was an ordinary wall.
“Your training is lacking. Squeak.”
“What am I supposed to do if I can’t see it…?”
Sia wanted to argue, but he wasn’t exactly wrong, so she tightly shut her mouth.
Feeling refreshed after hitting her with such a brutally accurate fact, Valefor approached the wall and carefully examined it.
Then he suddenly jumped up and grabbed onto a faintly protruding section of the wall.
“There’s something here. Looks like a handle. Squeak!”
Sia’s eyes widened.
She hadn’t actually expected there to be a door.
Thinking about it carefully, Sia and Valefor had only discovered this place by accident while running around trying to escape.
And judging from the surroundings, it didn’t look like a path the believers frequently used.
Maybe this really is the perfect place for a hidden room?
Sia reached toward the handle Valefor was hanging from, then suddenly flinched.
“Ah, sorry. Squeak.”
Valefor climbed down from it.
Sia repeatedly tried to convince herself that that thing wasn’t really a rat, but she still didn’t want to touch Valefor while he was transformed into one.
“Huh? This isn’t a handle.”
“Impossible. Check properly. Squeak!”
“I’m telling you, it really isn’t.”
There was nothing to grab and turn or move like a normal handle.
It was simply a blunt piece sticking out from the wall.
“Ah! Maybe…”
As though realizing something, Sia pushed the protruding section.
Click.
The piece sank inward like part of a puzzle and didn’t come back out.
A moment later—
Rrrrrumble.
A hidden entrance slid open like a sliding door.
So it wasn’t a handle.
What Valefor had been hanging from was actually some kind of button.
It was almost impossible to notice from the outside, so it was understandable that they had mistaken it.
Valefor briefly looked inside before letting out a relieved sigh.
“Doesn’t look like there are any traps. We can hide here until Mikael comes to save us. Squeak.”
“Y-Yeah. But… will that guy really help us?”
Mikael had already been firmly categorized in Sia’s mind as an obnoxious bastard, so the idea of him coming to rescue them felt strangely unnatural.
“He will. His social skills may be terrible, but he’s fairly responsible. Squeak.”
Even while quietly praising Mikael, Valefor felt uncomfortable.
An evil spirit praising a priest… Is this really right? Squeak?
His sense of identity was starting to shake.
Still, Valefor headed farther inside.
“Why are you standing around? Let’s get inside before the believers find us. Squeak.”
Valefor entered first.
Sia pushed away her unnecessary thoughts and followed him.
Once both of them were inside, the secret room slowly concealed itself again.
Rrrrrumble.
“Eek! Why did it close?!”
“It probably closes automatically once someone enters. Squeak.”
Valefor stared at Sia pitifully.
Thanks to her extreme nervousness, calmness had become something completely foreign to her.
Good grief. And this is supposed to be a priest. Squeak.
The more Valefor learned about Sia, the more flaws he seemed to discover.
Wooooong—
At that moment, a blue light appeared deeper inside the dark room, faintly revealing the surroundings.
There was a cylindrical stainless-steel machine resembling a blender, with an opening at the top where ingredients could be inserted.
“A refining machine? Is this some kind of winery? But if it’s just for making wine, why would they hide it?”
After spotting what looked like a machine used to extract juice, Sia tilted her head in confusion.
Unlike Sia, who still couldn’t properly see her surroundings because of the darkness, Valefor noticed several hoses connected to the refining machine.
Every time something flowed through those hoses, the machine emitted a blue glow.
Wow… This is actually worth learning from.
Now this is what I call evil. Squeak, squeak.
Valefor followed the hoses with his eyes.
Then he saw them.
Priests were hanging against the walls.
The priests were frighteningly thin, almost nothing but skin and bones.
Breathing apparatuses had been attached to their mouths, seemingly using their auras as a medium.
And then—
“Mmph! How could they do something like this?!”
Sia covered her mouth when she realized that the priests were being consumed as nutrients for the refining machine.
If she screamed in shock here, there would have been no point in hiding at all.
Sia bit her lip so hard that blood appeared.
Even then, she kept biting down harder to suppress the scream trying to escape her throat.
“You did well holding it in. It looks like this machine is maintaining the barrier. Squeak.”
“Maintaining the barrier? Don’t tell me…”
Only then did Sia understand what the hanging priests were being used for.
Looking around the room properly, she saw six priests hanging from the walls, three on each side.
Their auras were continuously being drained from their bodies.
Speechless at the horrifying sight, Sia began looking around the floor.
“What are you doing? Squeak.”
“Looking for something useful. We need to smash that thing.”
It was exactly the kind of idea one would expect from the daughter of the muscular Jungon.
Startled, Valefor hurriedly stopped her.
“And what are you going to do if it explodes?! Squeak!”
At those words, Sia slumped down.
“Then what am I supposed to do? You expect me to see something like this and just ignore it?”
“Yes. What else can you do? If you cause trouble and the believers catch us, then everything is over. Squeak.”
While Sia and Valefor argued back and forth, one of the priests hanging against the wall heard their conversation and started coughing.
“Cough, cough… K-Kegh… H-Help…”
The priest was so terribly thin that it was difficult to guess his age, but he appeared to be somewhere in his forties.
Perhaps because of the breathing apparatus, even breathing seemed painful for him.
He looked as though he were already dying.
“T-Take this off…”
The priest didn’t specifically point toward anything, but Sia immediately understood that he was talking about the breathing apparatus.
Just as Sia reached toward it, Valefor whispered,
“Wait. If you take that off, he’ll die. Squeak.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That hose is draining his aura, but it’s also keeping him alive. Squeak.”
Valefor could faintly see the flow of energy, which was why he understood what was happening.
Caught in a dilemma, Sia hesitated.
“He’ll die if I remove it…?”
But after hearing her mutter, the priest struggled to speak.
“It’s fine. I won’t die immediately. Pull it out.”
Sia froze when she saw the determination in his eyes.
The priest nodded, telling her it was okay.
Sia slowly reached toward his mouth.
Pop.
She removed the breathing apparatus.
Freed from it, the priest immediately sucked in a huge breath.
“Huuup… Haaah… Thank you. Ugh! Uweeegh!”
The sudden removal of the device put a heavy strain on his body, causing the priest to dry-heave.
“Water! Do you have any water?”
“I’m sorry. We’ve been running away too…”
“Haa… It can’t be helped.”
The hollow-eyed priest swallowed dryly.
He looked between Sia and Valefor before noticing the other priests hanging from the walls.
“Ah… Aaah… Siyeon… Junsu! This can’t be. This can’t be happening…”
Apparently, the other priests hanging there were his companions.
He cried out in grief.
Unfortunately, unlike him, none of the others showed any signs of waking up.
