Chapter Ten: The Church of Suffering

Ahead, a towering cathedral stood amidst the withered forest, resembling a slumbering giant beast crouched within the woods.

In the thin and hazy light, Colin could finally make out the appearance of the cathedral. It was a spired structure in the Gothic style, its walls a pale gray-white, apparently only two stories high. Years of neglect had left the decorative patterns on the walls nearly peeled away, with a layer of lime accumulating at their base.

All of this made it clear that the cathedral had been abandoned for a very long time.

On closer inspection, the faded patterns on the walls appeared to be some kind of thorny vine, winding again and again across the surface—at once sheltering and binding.

“Mother of Suffering and Thorns…”

Colin couldn’t help but recall the words he’d heard in a daze before, repeating them in a soft whisper.

As the words fell, a nonexistent wind seemed to brush over him, making his skin prickle with goosebumps. The wind carried with it an overpowering stench of rot.

Colin gagged and hurriedly covered his nose and mouth, narrowing his eyes as he noticed, before the great wooden doors—three meters tall—a heap of raw meat piled high.

[Severely Rotten Wolf Meat x4]
[Severely Rotten Rat Meat x3]
[Moderately Rotten Deer Meat x4]
[Severely Rotten…]

The stench of severely decomposed flesh rose like a small mountain, and before it, countless shallow troughs—like buckets—marked the ground.

These, it seemed, were the traces left behind by the priest’s movements.

Unbothered, Colin began to collect the pieces of moderately rotten meat.

At that moment, he suddenly understood what the words he’d heard in Cadis’s dream truly meant.

The priest Cadis, transformed into a monster by his obsessions, was ever anxious about the children’s hunger. He had gone out, hunting other beasts again and again, bringing back their flesh and blood. Yet… he never dared push open the great doors.

Mechanical, numb, and futile, he acted out the compulsion in his heart, convinced the children inside were still alive.

But Colin, who had once entered the priest’s dream, knew that Cadis must have realized what had truly happened inside the cathedral before he died.

To bring the children final peace—this task was less a mission assigned by the system and more likely the last wish of Cadis, the priest who bore the wheel upon his back.

He could not bring himself to do it.

Gazing at the tightly shut doors, Colin hesitated only briefly before beginning to act.

“My lord, allow me to open the doors. Please wait behind me.”

As they approached, the first servant volunteered. After Colin nodded and reminded him to be careful, the servant slung the wheel—once a weapon forged by Cadis—across his back, then pressed both hands against the double wooden doors.

With a twist of his waist and a forward lean, the doors trembled on their hinges with a tooth-grating sound as they slowly gave way.

The dust-laden doors, locked for decades or even centuries, opened at last.

A heavy wave of putrid, corpse-like stench poured from within the cathedral, so overpowering that the reek of the animal flesh outside now seemed mild by comparison.

At the forefront, the first servant gagged violently. He’d prepared himself, but the smell was simply unbearable.

Colin and the other two, standing further back, fared a little better. The rotting flesh at the entrance had already acclimated them some, and the distance plus the thinning air softened the blow.

At this point, the doors had opened only enough to slip in two fingers.

Curious, Colin peered inside, only to find the interior just as shrouded in gray mist, visibility low.

With no light within, the cathedral seemed all the more terrifying and unknown.

“Push the doors open a bit more, let the stench out and the fresh air in, or we won’t be able to explore at all,” Colin instructed.

Though not completely sealed, the cathedral had surely accumulated noxious gases—like marsh gas—far more concentrated than outside. If they rushed in without letting the air clear, they’d likely collapse from poisoning before even confronting the “Wailers,” to say nothing of defeating them.

Compared to that, the stench was a lesser concern.

The human brain has a shielding effect against odors; after a period of intense discomfort, the mind adjusts and filters out the smell. It’s much like how, during a long squat in a privy, the stink seems to vanish—not because it’s gone, but because your brain has stopped registering it.

As the doors opened wider, Colin and his companions could now make out some of the furnishings within: a few scattered benches, a red carpet stretching toward the back, and several small, long-dead skeletons.

Without exception, each was coated in thick dust, looking bleak and forlorn.

Just then, as the doors creaked wider, a sudden event occurred.

At the threshold, several small, prone skeletons—faces pressed to the floor—suddenly lifted their heads.

With blood-red, hollow, and chilling features, they fixed their gaze on Colin and his party.

The skulls began to tremble, their jawbones chattering rapidly as if about to open wide.

“Attack,” Colin ordered, moving as he spoke; gripping his axe, he lunged forward.

With a resounding thud, his axe came down, shattering a skull.

“Abnormal—Children of Suffering—Wailers,” the name alone revealed their method of attack.

Colin would never give them the chance to open their mouths and attack.

What surprised him, however, was just how feeble these twisted monsters were—one swing of the axe and they were finished.

In less than ten seconds, the three of them dispatched the six skeletal corpses at the entrance, almost effortlessly.

Correspondingly, only nine units of blood were collected from the six remains—a pitiful amount.

As for the rest—decaying flesh, bones—Colin had long lost any desire to collect them. There were simply too many, and they were all but useless.

Afterward, Colin unrolled the parchment and checked it, frowning.

Six Wailers slain, yet the task’s progress bar had barely moved.

“At this rate, does it mean there are at least sixty Wailers inside?”

Colin sensed real trouble ahead.

Though the spired Gothic cathedral wasn’t enormous, it was at least the size of a typical department store—dozens, perhaps over a hundred Wailers scattered randomly within. Just finding them would be a challenge.

Yet he had come this far; there was no turning back empty-handed.

The only advantage was that time was not pressing. The blood he’d replenished before setting out would burn for quite a while yet.

Before long, the cathedral doors were fully opened.

In the darkness shrouded by mist, the rattling of bones echoed continuously.

“Let’s hope this mission ends safely,” Colin murmured, lantern in hand, as he entered to begin the “cleansing” of the cathedral.