Chapter 3

"Forget it, I'll worry about it later!"

After careful thought for a moment, Herbert chose to give up thinking.

Running away may be shameful, but it really works.

Recovering memories, pure oaths, converting barbarians… too much has happened, too little can be done; obsessing over it is meaningless—just take it one step at a time.

"Since it's come to this, let's eat first."

Herbert had missed lunch while sorting through his memories; instead of going to the dining hall, he turned toward the kitchen.

This wasn't the duke's household—no servant would specially save food for him; the kitchen held only smoked dried meat and black bread.

Disgusting, but filling enough.

Though this act broke protocol, given the Albert family's long-standing generous donations to the monastery, no unwise monk would likely dwell on such a minor transgression.

"Come to think of it, if I'm tormented by keeping my oath, others must be too—how do they relieve the pressure when they can't hold on?"

As Herbert passed some ascetic monks, he nodded to them, noting details about their appearance.

Tattered clothing, emaciated frames, silent… yet surprisingly few scars on their bodies.

"So only a tiny fraction of ascetics resort to self-harm to suppress desire—how do the rest cope?"

As Herbert pondered this, he entered the kitchen, just about to pick up a suitable long loaf of bread, when his pupils sharply contracted.

Just now, he'd inexplicably twitched his nose and, amid the kitchen's complex odors, precisely caught a faint yet strangely familiar scent.

Heather fragrance!

?

Is this right?

This… this can't be right.

"Hss!"

Herbert fell silent for a long time; after building up his mental resolve, he finally summoned the courage to slowly look toward the source of the scent.

In a bucket in the corner, he saw a dead fish floating on its back, mouth wide open.

?

"Hss… it's a grass carp!"

Dinner was clear-simmered grass carp.

Herbert didn't touch a single bite.

Not only did he not touch it—he didn't even go to the dining hall.

He didn't want to accidentally ingest the fish broth, but he couldn't warn others, or someone who loved fish would surely notice.

No choice—I'll suffer a little; let them enjoy this blessing.

Chewing on dry, hard bread in his room was already quite good enough.

Chewing contentedly on bread hard enough to be used as a murder weapon, thinking of the tragedy in the kitchen corner, Herbert couldn't help letting out a soft hum.

"Heh, that guy's the same—letting Brother Carp die with his eyes open is bad enough, but why won't he even close the poor thing's mouth? So rude."

This is too sacrilegious.

Then again, if you're not a fish, how can you know the fish's joy? Maybe they were genuinely compatible…

After indulging in idle thoughts for a while, Herbert pulled his wandering mind back and fell into quiet contemplation.

He wasn't gossiping about the person's identity, nor did he intend to report it for favor from the monastery's upper echelons—he wasn't that bored.

He always failed to understand others' peculiar habits, but he respected and blessed them anyway.

After witnessing something so eye-opening, he suddenly realized: he'd accidentally stumbled upon a manipulable bug… no, a feature.

Is monk-fish taboo interaction sacrilegious enough?

More than enough!

Such an absurd act—let alone a monk who swore purity—even monks under other vows should suffer backlash.

A human cannot, at least should not.

Yet this utterly sacrilegious act occurred right there, unnoticed in a corner, with no one hearing the grass carp's lament.

Until now, everything within the monastery remained normal; Herbert had heard no reports of any monk breaking vows and suffering consequences.

"Is the news being suppressed? Or… is it like how 'the priest and the little boy had deep conversations' doesn't count as breaking vows? As long as it's not between man and woman, it's fine?"

Grass carp ≠ vow-breaking?

Tsk.

Damn it, even in another world, this damn inequality is still chasing me!

"…Heh."

While deeply baffled, Herbert also felt a flicker of excitement.

Not because he had any special fondness for slender boys in knee-high white socks—he truly didn't dig that—but this discovery gave him an idea.

His professional habit of exploiting loopholes had kicked in.

Hey, I've got an idea!

If animals aren't counted as objects of vow-breaking, could it be interpreted as… anything non-human is acceptable?

After all, this world has an astonishing variety of races!

Elves, treants, centaurs, merfolk, dragons, succubi… these diverse races could send any outsider into raptures.

Moreover, his current position as jailer gives him the perfect opportunity to test his theory.

Yet, amid his excitement, Herbert felt a twinge of hesitation.

The Holy Knight order has existed for centuries—he didn't believe he was the first lucky soul to discover this feature.

Human reproductive capacity in this world is absurdly high, second only to some green goblins, with no reproductive isolation from nearly all other races.

Although these alien races were on guard against by humans, even regarded as enemies, and contemptuously called demonic creatures, because of subtle reasons like racial wars and the slave trade, it was not at all rare for humans and alien races to combine and give birth to mixed-blood descendants.

Things like half-elves, half-orcs, dragon-blooded, half-changelings, half-demons, and so on; in some seaside legends there were even fish-headed, human-bodied merfolk…hm?

Uh, why does it feel like I've accidentally stumbled upon some kind of secret?

Although these mixed-blood descendants, spurned and rejected by both parents' sides, could not match the truly great races in numbers, their scale was enough to form their own clans, and some of the powerful ones had even established nations.

Reasoning from this intelligence, the fact that alien races could intermarry was definitely not something I should have been the one to have a sudden flash of insight and discover — someone should have noticed this loophole long ago.

Sure enough, when Herbert flipped open that scripture thicker than a brick and checked, he very easily found a wide variety of oath-breaking methods in all sorts of styles — or rather, case files.

Hiss!

Long ago there were brave souls who threw themselves to feed the demons, each one playing more extravagantly than the last, and each one dying more miserably than the last.

Perhaps because those who Knowingly Break the Law have their sins doubled, the ends met by these brothers were none too pretty.

These tough guys either died from the backlash of breaking their oath, or, if they survived, were hunted down by the Church's Tribunal and executed — not a single one escaped.

Truly "punishing"!

Now that has the flavor of criminal law!

Fine, this road is a dead end.

At this point, Herbert could only temporarily tuck away his somewhat dangerous little clever idea — a person cannot, because the precepts do not permit it.

Besides, taking a step back, those alien-race Young Ladies in the cells could crush him with one hand even while suppressed; trying to sell his looks carried the risk of being played to death.

Being a gigolo comes with mortal danger — this world is really too unreasonable.

Sigh, forget it, forget it!

"The big head controls the little head; figuring out a way to grow stronger is the pressing priority — don't go chasing those crooked paths."

Herbert now only hoped that he could, through his Holy Knight cultivation, obtain sufficiently powerful strength soon enough to resist the punishment for breaking his oath a little earlier, break free of the cage, and enjoy his free life.

"Freedom!"

Herbert stood up, stretched, and walked toward the main door, preparing to step outside and breathe in the sweet air of the free kingdom.

But just at the moment Herbert was about to push the door open, the holy mark on the back of his hand erupted with a searing, stabbing pain, making his whole body jolt and freeze abruptly before the door.

"……"

At that moment, Herbert felt an icy chill run down his spine.

On the very first day Herbert arrived at the monastery, he had been warned many times never to go out after midnight, and he had never once entertained any thought of a nighttime stroll.

But just now, he had almost walked out the door completely unguarded, stepping into the seemingly calm night.

What on earth…

Gulp.

Herbert swallowed hard, turned his head with difficulty, and looked at the mechanical clock beside him.

He saw the gilded hands had just finished sweeping through an entire circle —

Midnight had passed.

A difficult birth lasting a month, and finally it's been delivered (bushi).

Thank you all for your patience during this period, thank you—

In any case, I'm back! Please give me your full support, lend me a hand!

During the new-book period please be sure to follow and read on, this is even more important than directly sending me money!

Love you all!





(End of Chapter)