I’m Quitting Everything and Selling Cola

Chapter 142

Chapter 142. Counterattack (3)

Within the End Order, there exists a rank known as Cardinal. A position similar to that of a senior clergyman in an ordinary church, yet their numbers barely reach ten.

Petsy, who bore sole responsibility for overseeing and managing the Northern diocese, was one of those Cardinals.

The hideout established within the Labyrinth Demon Realm was far from clean. The Order's chapel where she resided was likewise an environment unworthy of a Cardinal's quarters. However effective the perception-distorting barrier they had erected, the End Order remained a target for extermination by the Kingdom.

Yet Petsy was smiling.

"Hanbin Ainsworth."

Ah, at last, she had caught his tail. The Hero who had operated in the Kingdom's shadow, the Slayer of Dark Mages, Hanbin of the Secret Burial Unit.

When she had confirmed that he had donned the trivial mask of Jurgen and was playing house in Nortaris —

Petsy had felt elation.

This is a trial from the Great One. It was no different from a holy war where, the moment one overcame it, paradise was assuredly promised.

Although she had used Viscount Gilbert Thornton as a touchstone for clear verification……. He was nothing more than one among many throwaway pieces.

Over the years past, the Order had been quietly preparing its resurgence. The Order, whose very foundations had been burned to the ground by the cooperative operation between the Secret Burial Unit and the Church, had at some point succeeded in bringing several Northern nobles back under its fold.

"A Culinary Revolution, is it? What could he be thinking?"

Running a finger along the rim of her glass, Petsy scoffed.

Going by the materials gathered thus far, he does appear to be rather sincere about it. Has he perhaps fallen in love with his business partner, the woman called Penelope Rosemore?

Love does indeed make humans weak.

"Well then, let us see how this unfolds."

Still, her instincts had not gone entirely dull — for today, a report had come in from Belheim.

It was a message saying that Hanbin was growing suspicious of him and requesting support.

And so, she had dispatched the Order's elite assassins.

A light jab to gauge his abilities.

Surely he won't die from this? She was slightly worried, she had to admit.

He was no longer active, and moreover, he was now an Alchemist rather than the Knight who had slaughtered the Order. One against many — and in the most extreme sense, it meant he was vulnerable to assassins.

If he were to depart this world in such an anticlimactic fashion, that would be rather unsettling in its own way.

It was just as Petsy was leisurely awaiting the report.

The study door flew open urgently. The face of the devotee who had been standing by to deliver a report had gone completely white.

"Cardinal! A report has just come in!"

Petsy's face stiffened with tension.

"Don't cause a commotion. What is it."

"Baroness Hohenberg…… has been arrested by the Royal Guard!"

It was not the report she had been waiting for. Her head tilted to one side.

Hohenberg? Now who was that?

Ah, one of the lower-ranking nobles she had recruited long ago. One who had dutifully offered up donations claiming to want eternal youth, yet had been of no help whatsoever beyond that. A piece of low importance.

"Is this really a matter that warranted escalating all the way to me?"

"W-well, that is……."

The Order operates under a thoroughly vertical hierarchy. The pinnacle of absolute obedience to superiors — nothing like a mere military could compare. The devotee's face went white at Petsy's gentle tone.

"A foolish woman simply got herself caught. Send a 'Blade.' Before she can be handed over to those royal rats……."

"That is……."

How dare a mere devotee interrupt a Cardinal mid-speech? Petsy simply could not understand the sensibilities of these young devotees lately.

"It is already too late! Her arrest had been kept classified, and it appears she had been cooperating with the Royal Guard far earlier."

"What did you say?"

An ominous premonition grazed Petsy's spine.

"Cardinal! A report, ma'am!"

This time, yet another devotee came sprinting in, drenched in sweat.

In his hands were several sheets of documents.

It was a list of collaborators who had been seeded across the North in preparation. The seeds who were to rise up in unison on the day of the Grand Plan and shake the world.

But now, merciless red ink had been slashed across those documents.

"Over the past several days, seven of our key collaborators have been arrested or gone missing simultaneously! The Northern intelligence network is completely paralysed."

"Are you certain?"

"Certain! It was handled as classified, but it appears they were taken in far earlier than we realised!"

"Might there be an error in the report? Getting caught one by one in a chain simply because one person was arrested. All devotees are supposed to meet only through the Phantom Banquet."

Petsy calmly countered. The Order's security system is perfect. It is a secret society whose lineage has been maintained for hundreds of years.

There was no way the entire organisation would be shaken by a mere baroness's betrayal.

"This does not rest solely on the baroness's confession! The money laundering routes we spent decades painstakingly constructing, the covert communications network, even the Magic Stone supply routes…… all of it was cut off in a single night!"

"That can't……."

A chill ran down Petsy's spine.

The opponent is Hanbin. This cannot be a coincidence. A mere baroness would not possess information of that calibre.

He had used the baroness as bait, and through some means had filtered out the other collaborators.

"Cardinal! A report, ma'am! You must see to this immediately!"

The one who entered on the verge of collapse was the Bishop — the one Petsy had been waiting for…… the one overseeing the dispatch of assassins to Belheim's location.

"What is it?"

Hope surfaced in Petsy's eyes.

It was anticipated from the moment she used Viscount Thornton as a throwaway piece that there would be resistance. Yet Hanbin's counterattack was far swifter and sharper than expected.

But as long as Hanbin died, it would all be worth it.

Despite Petsy's expectations, the Bishop's face was even graver than the previous reporters.

"All contact has been lost with the entire assassination unit dispatched to support Branch Manager Belheim!"

"……."

Petsy could not say a word.

It was no ordinary assassination unit either.

Boldness and decisiveness that cast aside even their own lives without a second thought. An elite assassination unit that, in an emergency, would spray acid-converted bodily fluids like buckshot and self-destruct. An assassination unit so formidable that matching them one-on-one against a troublesome enemy was more than sufficient.

Seventeen of them.

The moment Hanbin Ainsworth began moving on his suspicions of Belheim, it was a trap set to either catch him or at the very least gauge the measure of his abilities. He would surely have been hard-pressed, and if his skills had grown rusty, they might even have been able to eliminate him on the spot.

"……He was this capable?"

Cold sweat trickled down Petsy's brow.

Everything prepared over more than a decade was crumbling within mere days.

What an ignorant and presumptuous notion it had been. Petsy had done nothing but flaunt her arrogance, believing a temple with its pillars collapsing to be a solid sanctuary.

Just then.

"So this is where you were."

A voice rang out that should never have been heard in this place. Petsy knew this voice.

More than a decade had already passed, yet it was a voice she could never forget even in death. The voice that had thwarted the Order's meticulously prepared Descent of the Avatar.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The echoing sound of boot heels was like that of an executioner's.

Everyone had likely arrived at the same thought.

This place was deep within the Demon Realm. Among all locations, a haven selected with the utmost care.

It should not have been a place that could be discovered in such a short span of time. And that was not all. The detection magic? The perception-disrupting barrier? The Order's elite soldiers who had been standing guard at the entrance?

"So it was you. Cardinal Petsy."

One man who entered with an air of ease while everyone else stood frozen.

His body bore not a single wound. He did not even appear to have expended anything at all.

The Order's greatest enemy. Hanbin Ainsworth.

"You survived by luck, so why not just lie low — why keep carrying on with this cult business?"

"Kill him!"

Petsy screamed as though in desperation.

The personnel crammed together in the narrow room lunged toward Hanbin like a flash of light, only to—

"Cough……!"

"Ugh……!"

They collapsed all at once, spewing blood. The devotees writhed and convulsed as though in seizure, dying like insects that had been sprayed with pesticide.

Pit. Pit. Pit.

Hanbin silently raised his hand and put holes through the brows of the suffering devotees. Every single motion looked as unhurried as scattering feed to pigeons.

"Hanbin…… Ainsworth!!!!"

Only now did Petsy sense what she had failed to notice.

The smell, the smell, the smell……. The smell of the air had been off for some time now. Along with a stabbing headache, something surged up from within her stomach.

"Cough……!"

Dark crimson blood soaked the front of her white garments.

"Just what did you……."

"There happens to be a spell well-suited for this kind of burrow."

This was not a spell cast just now. It had been deployed long ago, while Petsy was preoccupied with receiving reports.

As evidence of this, there was no catalyst of any kind in Hanbin's hands.

"Poison……."

He had simply seeped poison into the burrow and waited before strolling in at his leisure.

Petsy is a Cardinal. To be a Cardinal means to be one who has received the Great One's grace — one of the Order's supreme forces, capable of wielding hundreds of the sorceries known as 'miracles.'

A mere poison is detoxified with ease. Even if her throat were cut and her body carved to pieces, regeneration would not be difficult.

Yet Petsy could feel it. This was not something of the sort that could be recovered from.

Something most fundamental to the composition of the body had been thoroughly destroyed. If she devoted herself entirely to recovery, there might be a 30% chance of surviving — but that was impossible.

Before her eyes stood that very Hanbin.

"Cough…… Cough……!"

He had certainly been a fearsome existence.

Not the strongest, perhaps, but a hunting hound who always struck at the most vulnerable point with methods that caught one off guard and a cunning that was second to none. The Order's greatest enemy.

But now?

He had brought down the Order's foundations, built over more than a decade, within a single week. He had neutralised the 'ambushing' assassins in a single sweep. As if that were not enough, he had located in such a short time the hideout she had been confident could never be discovered. He had picked up Viscount Thornton and the other throwaway pieces and arrived here in an instant.

And then there was this force.

Only hours after routing the assassins in reverse, he had infiltrated the heart of the Order, guarded by dozens of the finest elite. In an instant he had broken through the tightest security, and now held the life of Petsy herself — a Cardinal — in his hands.

It was laughable coming from a Cardinal of the Order, but — this was already beyond the realm of humanity.

The Hanbin she had met again stood at an overwhelming height, too far above to even look up at.

"When did you…… become like this……."

"Worked hard at this and that, just doing my best to live. This is how things turned out. The Alchemy also happened to suit me."

At the sight of Hanbin shrugging his shoulders, Petsy felt a sense of absurdity.

"Well then, I'll wrap this up quickly. Thanks to you lot, the launch of the Braised Ribs restaurant has been delayed."

This cannot be. She could not die like this.

Ah, right. What about this?

"How is Vic faring?"

Petsy bared her blood-stained white teeth in a vile smile.

His comrade had been sacrificed in the past to prevent the Descent of the Avatar. Most people would have forgotten it by now, but Petsy, who had been 'observing' that absurd single move as it brought the meticulously prepared ritual to a forced halt, remembered it.

"If you return your comrade to how they once were……."

— Pshk

Something transparent pierced through the space between Petsy's brows.

"Did you think I would believe you?"

For the final moments of a Cardinal of the End Order — the organisation that commanded the fear of all — it was an end far too futile.