"Satie Thanatos, you are hereby found guilty."
At once, the temple fell silent.
The temple in Hervis Town was not large. There were only a little more than ten rows of benches, yet today it was almost full.
Adventurers from the town, people from the guild, a few old women who often came to pray, and even some townsfolk who had watched Satie grow up were all packed inside. There were people standing even at the doorway.
Before the judgment seat at the front stood a man in a white robe edged in black, setting down the dossier in his hand, his expression hard and cold.
According to the vague memories left behind by the original owner, that was not something an ordinary cleric in a place like Hervis Town could wear.
From that incident until now, only two days had passed at most.
And yet an inquisitor had already been dispatched to a remote border town like this so quickly.
Only then, standing in the center of the hall, did Satie truly understand that the original owner had still underestimated this world's hatred for necromancy.
The dungeon had been too cold the night before. He had barely slept at all. His face was paler than usual, and there was almost no color left in his lips.
His hands were shackled in front of him with iron chains. The skin at his wrists had already been rubbed raw, and the slightest movement sent a burning pain through them.
Gazes fell on him from every side.
There was shock in them, disgust, and undisguised fear, as though they were looking at some monster wearing human skin.
Among the crowd were many familiar faces the original owner would have recognized.
The town baker. The old cobbler who had once patched the soles of his shoes. Hunters who had once come to the temple seeking treatment from the old priest. Those from the adventurers' guild who had drunk with him, joked with him, gone out on commissions with him. There were even a few who had once received his help.
But now, all of them stood among the crowd, looking at him with those same strange, guarded eyes, as if they were staring at some alien thing that had suddenly revealed its true face.
The inquisitor's voice was not loud, and yet it pressed down over the whole temple.
"You, as a subject of the Holy Terra Empire, once sheltered by the Church and later active along the border as an adventurer, secretly came into contact with and used necromantic arts, violating both doctrine and imperial law. Your crime is grave beyond measure. Do you confess?"
Every gaze in the hall turned toward the figure standing below.
Satie's face was deathly pale, but he still clenched his teeth and said,
"I do not confess. I am only an ordinary adventurer."
His voice was not especially loud, but in that suffocating temple it sounded exceptionally clear.
"I have never killed anyone, and I have never done some terrible crime worthy of being dragged here for judgment."
High above, the inquisitor's expression did not change.
He had seen too many heretics of this kind already.
At the beginning, they always looked harmless.
But the more harmless they appeared, the less one could ever lower one's guard.
Because the moment they touched necromantic magic, their souls had already begun to rot.
That they would one day bring about disaster was only a matter of time.
Before the hearing, he had deliberately looked into the background of the accused.
A border-born wretch, lingering for years in an adventurers' guild, surviving all this time by relying on some unspeakable little talent to handle foul business for others.
"Satie Thanatos, are you defending yourself, or merely avoiding what matters?"
Satie's lips moved as if he wanted to say something more, but the inquisitor had already raised a hand to cut him off.
"Whether or not you have committed other crimes is irrelevant."
"What matters is whether you touched and wielded a power that should never have been touched."
The inquisitor opened the dossier again. His eyes rested on the page for a moment before he closed it.
"Since you refuse to give a truthful account, then let the witness be called."
He lifted his eyes. His voice was still quiet, yet every word fell clearly into the ears of all present.
"Witness. Ror."
There was a small stir at the back of the crowd.
Ror stepped forward and stopped before the hall, lowering his head in a salute.
The inquisitor wasted no time on courtesies. He asked at once,
"What exactly happened two days ago?"
Ror was silent for a moment before he answered in a low voice.
"We accepted a guild commission to hunt a Split-Fang Black-Bristle Demon Boar. According to the guild's report, it was only a first-rank monster. It had injured some villagers and killed livestock now and then, nothing too difficult to deal with. But once we actually entered the forest, we realized the information was wrong."
His throat bobbed.
"That thing's strength was nowhere near first-rank."
"Not long after we engaged it, James was injured, Lina's divine arts were close to failing, and I was pinned off to one side and couldn't break free. If it had gone on any longer, we all would have died there."
The hall was silent.
Ror paused, then continued,
"That time, when we went into the woods, we also had to bring back the corpse of a villager who had been killed earlier. Satie carried that corpse the whole way, because he wasn't really a fighter to begin with. None of us expected him to help much in a direct fight."
"We told Satie to run."
"But just when we were about to break…"
His voice faltered slightly, as if some memory had surfaced, and his face turned paler.
"The corpse Satie had been carrying moved."
At once, a low murmur stirred through the hall.
The inquisitor lifted his eyes slightly and said flatly,
"Be clear."
Ror's fingers tightened a little.
"I saw it with my own eyes. That corpse, which should have been completely dead, was dragged up somehow, and then it tangled with the demon boar."
"That was how we got our chance to kill it."
When he finished speaking, the hall grew even quieter than before.
The inquisitor raised his gaze.
"So you are saying that you personally witnessed the accused driving a corpse to engage a monster in combat?"
Ror fell silent for a brief moment, then answered in a low voice,
"Yes."
"I saw him standing by the pit, muttering something under his breath. Right after that, the corpse started twitching and rose to its feet."
Another low wave of unrest moved through the hall.
The inquisitor remained expressionless and continued,
"At that moment, besides Satie, did anyone else touch that corpse?"
"No."
The inquisitor gave a faint nod, as though merely confirming a fact that had already long been established.
"So in your view, the one who drove the corpse and stirred deathly energy in Crow Forest was Satie Thanatos."
Ror swallowed. His face was pale, but he still answered in a low voice,
"Yes."
Standing in the center of the hall, Satie only felt his chest grow colder and colder.
By instinct, he wanted to speak.
He wanted to say that he had done it only to save lives. He wanted to say that if not for him, the three of them would already have died in that forest.
But his lips moved, and in the end not a single word came out.
He knew there was no point.
At this stage, nothing he said could change anything.
High above, the inquisitor closed the dossier. His voice was cold and flat.
"The testimony is clear. The facts are established."
"Satie Thanatos, by touching the forbidden, driving a corpse, and wielding necromantic arts, your guilt is confirmed."
He paused, his gaze falling from above onto the figure bound in chains below, as if he were looking at a dead thing whose destination had already been decided.
"By the laws of the Empire and the precepts of the Church, you are sentenced to death by fire."