Rebirth of the 8th-Circle Mage

“...”

Following the Pope’s beheading, a heavy silence hung in the air. While his betrayal had been extremely shocking, it was his death that shocked everyone the most. They almost couldn’t believe it.

Henry snapped his fingers, causing the boulder and the majestic stone tower behind him to disappear. He then waved his hand once again, slowly and gently lowering Herarion, Hoosler, and Saint Irenae to the ground. It was as though the three of them were descending on a sailboat of wind.

Henry took a step back for the Saint, allowing her to look at the corpse of the monstrosity that had once been the Pope. She gently brought her hands together and prayed in silence. Despite his fall into darkness, the things he had achieved during his lifetime couldn’t be ignored.

As the Saint was praying, the Holy Knights came back to their senses, although still a bit in shock, and quickly followed suit. After they all finished praying, Irenae looked up at Henry and bowed.

“I would like to express my sincere gratitude to you, Archmage. And I would also like to apologize.”

Henry couldn’t help but smirk at her remark.

‘Smart.’

A simple ‘thank you’ would’ve been enough, but the Saint chose to apologize as well. Given that she had the most authority after the Pope, she was essentially apologizing on behalf of the Church of Peace for making Henry go through all this trouble. Of course, Henry realized that her apology could be more than just a formal statement. She probably felt genuinely sorry.

She also apologized because she noticed the old Warlock next to them, realizing that Henry had been forced to deal with him by himself.

At this, Henry waved his hand.

“Look at me, Saint Irenae. I just did what I had to do.”

“Even so, Archmage, it was the poor decisions of our Church that have caused you so much trouble. You’ve saved us from a terrible crisis that almost led to the dissolution of our Church, and for that, I don’t think that bowing and thanking you a hundred times would be enough.”

She was certainly an eloquent orator. As she continued to express her gratitude while bowing repeatedly, Ananda and Logger hurriedly joined her, bending a knee to Henry and showing him the utmost respect.

“I, Logger, the commander of the Holy Knights, express my utmost gratitude to the Grand Archmage.”

“I, Ananda, the leader of the monks, express my wholehearted gratitude to the Great Archmage.”

The most influential figures from the Church also bowed to Henry, establishing a clear hierarchy between him and them.

Seeing everyone like this, Henry smiled and replied, “Please, you two get up as well. Since everything seems out of order at the moment, I believe it’d be better to quickly clean up this mess and hold a meeting about the leadership of the Church. While we may have dealt with a traitor, he was just one enemy out of many more to come. We still have a lot to discuss.”

“Thank you for your consideration.”

With the most urgent matter having been taken care of, everyone had to deal with the aftermath. After the Pope's corpse was taken away, those in charge immediately held a leadership meeting.

***

In front of the table stood the three most influential figures within the Church of Peace, along with Henry, Herarion, and the seemingly out-of-place Hoosler, the highest Warlock.

Henry spoke first.

“As I mentioned earlier to the Saint, this man was the leader of the Church of Nephram, which the Church of Peace supposedly purged before the last religious war.”

“A church...? Then a Warlock...?!”

“Hmm...!”

Logger and Ananda were visibly uncomfortable at hearing the word ‘Warlock.’ At this, Hoosler flinched, clearly scared of them. However, Henry disregarded his reaction and instead focused on the two Holy Knights.

“Sir Logger, Sir Ananda.”

“Yes?”

“Have you two participated in the campaign to purge the Church of Nephram led by the Pope?”

“Yes, we have.”

“Then why did you spare Hoosler here and that boy, the Messiah?”

“That...”

“Well....”

The operation to wipe out the Church of Nephram had taken place before the religious war, several decades ago. At that time, Logger and Ananda were just individual Holy Knights, not the influential figures within the religious order that they were now. In other words, they had no other choice back then but to unconditionally follow the orders of their superiors.

Furthermore, they hadn’t even been aware that the Messiah and Hoosler had been spared, since the Pope had secretly been behind it.

However, it was well known that one of the absolute rules of the Church of Peace was to severely punish those who dabbled in black magic. Thus, even though Logger and Ananda had merely followed their orders and hadn’t even been aware that those two individuals had lived, they had technically violated the number one rule of the Church for political reasons.

That was obviously absurd, but one could argue that they had been accomplices, and they wouldn’t be necessarily wrong.

Realizing this, Logger and Ananda groaned in frustration. They both prided themselves on their unwavering faith, and that had been compromised by the Pope’s diabolical scheme.

‘I think this should be enough.’

Henry smiled as he looked at the two. Even though he knew that pointing out to them what Irenae had said about the Church being responsible as a whole, Henry had addressed Logger and Ananda first in order to officially keep Hoosler, the Warlock, alive.

As Henry finished what he had to say, the tension dissipated a bit. The Saint, aware of the situation from what Henry had told her earlier, refrained from speaking. Even though the two Holy Knights weren’t as influential back then, they still had violated the rules, even if unwittingly, and they would clearly receive a punishment.

Logger and Ananda shifted their gazes at the Saint. Both of them were aware that with the Pope being headless, she was now the most powerful figure within the Church.

Even though Hoosler wasn’t saying anything, he was carefully reading the room, and he was aware that this tense meeting could very well determine whether he lived or died.

The room was plunged into silence for a while, the two Holy Knights deep in thought.

Henry eventually broke the silence.

“I understand.”

“Pardon?”

“From what I heard, the only survivor from the Church of Nephram at that time was the Messiah.”

“Not two...?”

“Yes, just the Messiah. However, even though a Messiah has great abilities, it seems like they’re rather weak when it comes to survival. Thus, the Pope had kidnapped Hoosler, an ordinary man, and forced him into becoming a Warlock in order to take care of the Messiah.”

“...?”

The two frowned in confusion, but they quickly caught on to what Henry was trying to say.

“Hoosler is not a Warlock. He's just a poor man who had lost his good and honest life to that treacherous Pope. How can the laws against Warlocks be applied to someone like Hoosler? Isn’t that right, Hoosler?”

“Y-yes!” Hoosler answered promptly, his voice shaky.

Hearing that, Logger and Ananda’s expressions quickly changed as they looked at Hoosler again.

“You... You’ve done well up to this point,” Logger said reluctantly.

“You’ve been suffering this whole time, haven’t you...?” Ananda asked ruefully.

Henry looked at the two with a smile.

“Of course, even though Hoosler was kidnapped and forced into becoming a Warlock, the Messiah has been undoubtedly brainwashing him with the demonic ideology for a long time. Thus, I will personally take responsibility for Hoosler and rehabilitate him into a normal person.”

“You’ll be doing that yourself, Sir Henry?”

“There is no need for you to take up such a tedious task, Archmage...” Ananda trailed off, quickly realizing that they were in no position to argue.

The consensus eventually aligned with what Henry had in mind. At last, he officially absolved Hoosler of his sins and placed restrictions on his movements while having full control of him. With this, the problem with Hoosler had been taken care of.

Satisfied, Henry shifted the meeting to the next item on the list.

“Now then, let’s proceed with the next issue.”

All eyes focused on Henry, eager to hear what was next.

With that, Henry said, “As for the next item, I’m currently researching the religions of the past that fell into obscurity following the religious war.”

A new deity—Henry was yet to find one to help him fight Arthus.

***

“Sir Vulcanus, how are you doing?”

“Oh, you’re here!”

After finishing the leadership meeting at the Church of Peace, Henry returned to Monsieur. The first person he sought out upon his return was none other than Vulcanus, who greeted him warmly.

“Sir Vulcanus, I’m sorry to once again cut to the chase so abruptly, but I have a favor to ask of you.”

“Of course, if it’s something I can do! Don’t you worry about asking for favors. I’m always willing to help. What is it this time?”

“I need armor.”

“Armor?”

“Yes, remember how I asked you for a large armor made of black gold some time ago?”

“Oh, you mean that armor? The one that was questionable whether a person could actually wear it?”

“Yep, that one. I need that kind of armor again.”

“Haha, what on earth do you need that kind of armor for? Is it for the same reason as last time?”

“No, it’s a little different than that. This time, someone else besides me will be involved in making the armor... Let me introduce him to you. This man was kidnapped and imprisoned by Warlocks for decades, eventually becoming one himself. His name is Hoosler.”

Henry introduced Hoosler, who was standing behind him. After hearing his introduction, Vulcanus looked at Henry and Hoosler back and forth with wide eyes.

“A Warlock? Henry, are we talking about the kind of Warlock we both know of?”

“Yes, he’s exactly that, but I can assure you that there’s nothing to worry about. Hoosler here is the only Warlock on the continent that can move freely, as the Church of Peace has pardoned him.”

“Haha... A Warlock pardoned by the Church of Peace... Just when I thought I’d seen them all...”

But Henry didn’t end his introduction there.

“And there’s one more person I would like to introduce to you.”

“What, another Warlock?”

“No, Sir Vulcanus.”

“Then?"

“That would be me,” said another voice.

The moment Henry was about to answer Vulcanus's question, a blue spirit emerged from Henry, answering on his behalf.

Thud!

“AAAHH! Wh-what the hell?!”

Vulcanus was so startled that he fell on his butt. Hector continued speaking to him.

“Why are you so surprised? You did a nice job with my last armor, but unfortunately, it broke during my last battle... So this time, I’m trying to make a request to you myself.”

“He-Henry, what on earth is going on?!”

Unlike Hector, who was calmly explaining his situation, Vulcanus was ghastly pale as though this was the first time he saw a spirit.

Having no other choice, Henry decided to have Hoosler use his power to turn Hector into a Death Knight. Hector had agreed to it because Hoosler had said that he would be able to unleash his full strength if he were to become a Death Knight.

However, the issue was that while Hoosler knew how to make a Death Knight, he did not know how to make the armor that would become the body of the Death Knight. Thus, after pondering on this problem, Henry decided to have three people work on this project: Hector would be the soul of the Death Knight, Hoosler would perform the spell for the transformation, and lastly, the best blacksmith in Monsieur would craft the body of the Death Knight.

After Henry explained the whole story, Vulcanus smiled awkwardly.

“Haha... So this is where we’re at currently,” said Henry. “If this isn’t too much of an inconvenience, I would like to entrust you with this, Sir Vulcanus.”

“Hahaha... I never thought I’d be making Death Knights during my career...”

Although he was visibly uneasy, Vulcanus accepted Henry’s request. Still, he couldn’t help muttering to himself with an expression of disbelief.

Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om