Chapter 81:Monster of Spitzenberg (8)

The church was in a relatively quiet area, even within the city.  

That didn’t mean it was deserted, though. As expected, there were always a few people coming and going from the church.  

“In the backyard of the church?”  

“Yes.”  

Keldric nodded, his face tinged with slight irritation.  

Before him, Garibaldo, the priest of Spitzenberg Church, seemed to shrink back.  

Since the chainmail he had left at the blacksmith’s was still being repaired, Keldric had borrowed a spare set from Baron Spitzenberg in the meantime.  

There was no way it would fit him properly. The slight tightness went beyond mere discomfort it was outright suffocating.  

Even so, he had come here hoping to find something useful. But the church, where the monster’s blood trail had supposedly led, didn’t seem to know anything about the creature.  

“That can’t be… The backyard is where the previous heads of the Spitzenberg family are buried.  

There’s no reason for a monster to hide there.”  

“A soldier claimed to have seen it.”  

“Couldn’t they have been mistaken?”  

Garibaldo’s reply was unconvincing, and his expression was anything but confident.  

Well, it wasn’t exactly a trivial matter.  

If a servant of an evil demon had been lurking right behind the church the very place closest to the word of God then it was a truly troubling thought.  

“Radomar.”  

“Yes, Sir Keldric. You called for me?”  

“Tell one of those soldiers from earlier to come up here.”  

Keldric summoned the soldier who had tracked the blood trail to this place.  

Radomar bowed respectfully and stepped out. A short while later, a soldier hesitantly entered the room.  

“I heard you followed the monster’s blood trail here.”  

“Yes, that’s correct, Sir Keldric.”  

“Explain in detail.”  

The soldier, who had been fearing a harsh reprimand, soon opened his mouth to speak.  

Following Keldric’s orders having been granted full authority by Baron Spitzenberg the soldiers had been tracking the bloodstains in teams of five since that morning.  

Each of them was eager to make some achievement, hoping to gain some kind of reward from the Baron. Thanks to that, they had followed the trail to its end rather quickly.  

“That place was the church’s backyard?”  

“Y-Yes. That’s right.”  

“So it seems.”  

“Then… ugh…”  

Garibaldo’s complexion darkened. His residence was a small rectory attached to the church.  

The thought that a monster had been hiding right behind him all this time that he had been sleeping and eating mere steps away from it was understandably unsettling.  

“What will you do?”  

Alyssa, who had been silently observing, asked.  

Garibaldo clutched the small cross hanging around his neck.  

“Hmm…”  

Keldric didn’t fully trust the priest.  

‘He didn’t know about this?’  

It was strange that he hadn’t noticed a monster lurking in the backyard or at least suspected something, considering it might have stayed nearby after its wounds stopped bleeding.  

Of course, the creature was covered in pitch-black fur and only appeared at night, so it was possible he hadn’t seen it.  

But the fact that he had never even questioned it seemed suspicious.  

It was simply hard to believe.  

“For now, why don’t we go take a look?”

“You’re right.”  

In the church’s backyard lay the graves of the previous Barons of Spitzenberg and other family members who had passed away early.  

There wasn’t exactly a good place to hide there, but even so, verifying the site firsthand was important.  

“Ah, come to think of it…”  

Keldric, who had been about to turn and leave, stopped and looked back at Garibaldo, his head only slightly turned.  

The priest blinked his wrinkled eyelids.  

This was a matter related to the church.  

Since it was difficult to trust Garibaldo blindly, it would be wise to involve another clergyman as well.  

Someone who wasn’t too closely tied to Spitzenberg Church but still had a valid reason to be involved in this situation.  

“Where is Brother Marcus?”  

“Brother Marcus, you say?”  

Yes, Brother Marcus would be a suitable choice.

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The church’s backyard was very close to the rectory.  

Between the church and the rectory, there was a small open space. Beyond the low fence gate, the graves stretched out on both sides.  

At the far end was a wall. It was common for noble family graves to be arranged this way within church grounds.  

Larger churches or cathedrals would have more spacious graveyards, but in Spitzenberg, where land was already scarce, dedicating too much space to the dead would have been excessive.  

“There doesn’t seem to be anything strange.”  

Just as Alyssa had said, there was nothing particularly unusual about the church’s backyard.  

Keldric knelt on one knee and examined the ground. A soldier who had followed him pointed at a spot with his finger.  

“Over there. Do you see that red mark?”  

“Hmm…”  

At the spot the soldier pointed to, there was indeed a faint, dark red stain.  

It was lighter than a typical bloodstain, but that could be because it had mixed with the dirt.  

Keldric pinched a bit of the soil and placed it in his palm. Against the leather of his gauntlet, the dark earth made the stained blood color stand out even more.  

It wasn’t just water. It wasn’t muddy water, nor did it seem like paint mixed with pigment.  

Of course, producing pigments required quarries or mines nearby, and Spitzenberg had both hence, it had dye artisans as well.  

But the idea of a dye artisan randomly spilling pigment in the backyard of a church, where the baron’s ancestors were buried, was absurd.  

“This is blood.”  

“No way… That can’t be…”  

Garibaldo clutched his cross tightly, his face filled with shock.  

Judging from his reaction, he truly hadn’t known that a monster had been lurking so close.  

Keldric scanned the backyard once more.  

Aside from the fenced entrance they had used, the space was a dead end, enclosed on three sides by walls.  

It made sense to be suspicious of the backyard.  

Turning back to his soldiers, Keldric gave his orders.  

“Tell the search teams to form groups of three and thoroughly search the area around the church.”  

“Yes, sir.”  

Even if there was blood in the backyard, there was a chance the monster had left after its wounds stopped bleeding possibly due to some mysterious ability.  

Trolls, for example, had remarkable healing abilities that stopped their bleeding quickly.  

If this creature was anything like a werewolf, there was no guarantee it didn’t have similar traits.  

“The four of you, stay. We need to search this place thoroughly.”

One soldier departed, leaving the remaining four by Keldric’s side.  

Keldric divided them further, ordering two soldiers to stand guard at the backyard entrance along with Arno and Helga.  

The remaining two would accompany Keldric in searching the backyard.  

“We must search with utmost caution. We cannot go around digging up graves.”  

“Yes, Sir Keldric.”  

Behind the church lay the graveyard of the  Spitzenberg Baronial family. Even a single misstep could lead to disaster.  

Keldric could already picture the Baron of  Spitzenberg flying into a furious rage. Such an incident must never happen, and no sane person would allow it to.  

With two soldiers, Alyssa, and the unexpectedly included priest Garibaldo, Keldric meticulously combed through the church’s backyard.  

Whenever they found something suspicious between the graves, they carefully picked it up for examination. They ran their hands along the slightly overgrown church walls and the dark crevices between tombstones.  

After about thirty minutes of searching—  

“Hmm?”  

Keldric halted, narrowing his eyes.  

At the farthest corner of the backyard, hidden beneath the building, something was tucked into the low ledge of a drainage passage.  

But it was too dark to make out clearly. The churchyard’s terrain blocked sunlight, making it necessary to use a torch except at noon.  

’Wood?’  

As Keldric cautiously ran his fingers over it, he realized that, strangely enough, it felt like wood.  

“Priest Garibaldo!”  

“Yes, Sir Keldric.”  

He immediately called for the priest. Garibaldo, holding a wax candle despite the early hour, hurried over to Keldric’s side.  

“Did you find something?”  

“Shine the light over here.”  

Though the candle’s flame was small, the surrounding darkness made its presence all the more pronounced.  

The first thing that came into view was a short flight of stairs, barely three or four steps downward.  

At the bottom, they could stand in the drainage channel, which reached roughly up to Keldric’s shin.  

Since it was only used to drain rainwater occasionally, it was currently dry.  

At the front of this passage, like the rest of the area, the path was blocked by the church wall yet in that very wall, there was a narrow wooden door, its dark material blending into the shadows.  

Judging by its position, it seemed to lead either inside the church or into a basement.  

Keldric turned to Garibaldo, silently demanding an explanation.  

“What in the world is this…?”  

The priest looked genuinely bewildered.  

Furrowing his wrinkled brows, he examined the door closely, eventually running his fingers over the faint engraving at its top.  

“…Deus vincit (God is victorious).”  

It was in Latium, a language used in the Papal States and the southern republics.  

Since Latium was commonly spoken among foreign nobles unfamiliar with the Empire’s language, Keldric had learned some basics from Martin, the priest in Carlton village.  

“What is this? Why is such an inscription on the door?”  

“I—I do not know. I have never seen this door before.”  

Garibaldo seemed genuinely clueless.  

That the churchyard hid such a secret passage was already concerning, but even more alarming was the fact that Garibaldo, the one in charge of  Spitzenberg Church, was unaware of it.  

“Well, with time, even the church must have forgotten about it.”

Sensing a presence, Keldric turned around with a displeased expression.  

Standing behind him and his group was Brother Marcus the very monk whom Priest Garibaldo had called before they entered the backyard.  

“It seems we meet again sooner than expected, Sir Keldric of the honorable Belaf family, and Brother Garibaldo. I trust you have been well?”  

“I wouldn’t say that. We’ve just stumbled upon quite the headache.”  

“Haha, so it seems.”  

Brother Marcus appeared to know something.  

Without a word, Keldric stepped back half a pace, allowing Marcus to examine the door more closely.  

“This is…”  

“Do you know anything about this door?”  

Marcus ran his hands over the door with a serious expression. At one point, he pressed his ear against it as if listening for something, then tightly gripped his cross and began reciting a prayer in Latium.  

After finishing the prayer, he straightened up with a troubled look.  

Keldric and Garibaldo, who had also been bending forward to observe the door, straightened as well, waiting for Marcus to speak.  

“First, let us go to the castle.”  

“Shouldn’t we open the door and check inside first?”  

“The Duke of Spitzenberg must hear of this as well.”  

For now, Keldric decided to follow Marcus’s suggestion.  

He assigned four soldiers the two who had been guarding the entrance and the two who had been searching the backyard to watch over the mysterious door.

Additionally, he ordered the remaining soldiers to patrol the church’s perimeter at regular intervals.  

It wasn’t that he placed great trust in Marcus.  

However, he did agree that the Baron of  Spitzenberg needed to be informed first.

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There were five people gathered in the chamber.  

Brother Marcus, Father Garibaldo, Alyssa and Keldric, who had been at the scene.  

And, despite his busy schedule, Baron Spitzenberg, who had been forcibly dragged into the discussion.  

“You’re telling me that such a thing exists in the place where my ancestors rest?”  

“Yes. A door with an unclear purpose.”  

“This is outrageous. You didn’t try opening it?”  

“We did not act recklessly. Over there, Brother Marcus seemed to know something, so…”  

Father Garibaldo gestured toward Brother Marcus, who had been sitting quietly.  

As Baron Spitzenberg’s gaze fell upon him, Brother Marcus silently made the sign of the cross.  

“I am but a humble monk, Marcus. I have come from Lichten Monastery.”  

“Ah, yes. I remember now. Didn’t you arrive about a month ago?”  

“That is correct.”  

“Lichten Monastery, huh…”  

Keldric glanced at Alyssa sitting beside him, silently asking with his eyes if this monastery was of any significance.  

“I have no idea.”  

With no answers in sight, Keldric’s frustration deepened.  

“Are you familiar with the old tales of Spitzenberg?”  

Brother Marcus asked abruptly. He was not addressing anyone in particular, but rather the entire room.  

Keldric wore a puzzled expression. As someone who had grown up in the middle of nowhere, he had no answer to such a question.  

“I know nothing of the sort.”  

“Old tales? What exactly are you trying to say?”  

Baron Spitzenberg was just as lost.  

Brother Marcus continued.  

“This was during the time when Spitzenberg functioned solely as a fortress, in the days when it stood against the northern barbarians…”