I Became A Squirrel Seeking For The Villain Chapter 83

The temple was originally so closed that ordinary people were not even allowed to enter.

 

Now, those heavy, massive doors were opening.

 

I took a deep breath, holding my pounding heart in Yohan’s pocket.

 

I have almost no memories of the temple, so it was almost like my first visit.

 

But this is also the place where I was born and stayed the longest.

 

A place I had to come to at least once to learn the truth about myself and my family.

 

I swallowed dry saliva.

 

This was the beginning.

 

“Due to the circumstances of the temple… this celebration event has been prepared more modestly than originally planned,”

 

The weak voice of the temporary representative was heard.

 

“First, let’s enter this area and offer a simple prayer at the central altar.”

 

He then listed off events like a banquet and refreshments.

 

Well, I wasn’t curious about that kind of schedule.

 

‘I won’t stick to that schedule anyway.’

 

Since I had already done a lot of work in advance, I didn’t have much to think about today.

 

Of course, that didn’t mean everything had gone according to plan.

 

Letting in the mysterious intruder that Rivena sent—that part went well.

 

The plan had been to follow the intruder and uncover solid evidence.

 

If someone had the skill to sneak into a temple guarded by the knights of the Duke of Hyrad, they were clearly after something important—either to destroy or steal it.

 

‘But… we failed.’

 

Just thinking about it makes me sigh.

 

“I’m sorry. We failed to track them.”

 

I had waited with high hopes, but the report was disappointing.

 

“They were faster than expected… We lost them midway. And we couldn’t catch them afterward— maybe there was a secret passage.”

 

We’d even set a trap, thinking it would be too inefficient to search the temple randomly—but we lost them right under our noses.

 

If Rivena had borrowed Theodore’s power, she would have definitely used one of the imperial knights, and if so, it would have been natural that they would have been more skilled than Duke Hyrad’s knight.

 

In fact, Duke Hyrad’s knights were a separate group from Yohan.

 

Yohan was on the battlefield alone and ended the war with the power of magic.

 

On the other hand, the Knights of Hyrad were people who had stayed at the Hyrad Duke’s house.

 

Naturally, their skills were inferior to those of the imperial knights.

 

“They weren’t even armed… so I doubt they accomplished anything too serious. Maybe just destroyed some evidence at most?”

 

That kind of “evidence concealment” could be serious.

 

The knight captain hurriedly bowed and added,

 

“But we had no choice. We opened a small door on the east side, near the Iret Hall, and found a path leading underground—but the door closed too quickly… and the priests arrived soon after.”

 

Honestly, it was just an excuse. They should’ve moved faster before the door shut.

 

“I went back again later… but I can’t figure out how to open that door….”

 

When Yohan heard the report, instead of becoming very angry, he smiled and said, “The Hyrad Knights are far less capable than my standards.”

 

But just because he was smiling didn’t mean he looked kind.

 

Even I flinched from the chilling atmosphere that followed.

 

“Once the temple ceremony is over, I will take charge of the management of the knights myself. I will make sure that they become excellent knights who are worthy of being war heroes.”

 

At those words, the knights’ expressions darkened instantly.

 

Only the adjutant chuckled quietly, muttering, “They’re done for now.”

 

Well, anyway, my first operation was not successful.

 

We’d lost the person Rivena had sent.

 

But it wasn’t a complete failure.

 

‘We lost them midway—but we do know where they went.’

 

The knights had lost the intruder, sure—but they knew the direction he’d taken.

 

It was just that the priests had refused to let us investigate openly.

 

So now, we would go there ourselves. Secretly. Without the priests knowing.

 

“Okay, then let’s go this way. Everyone is waiting in the square.”

 

When the temporary representative of the temple took the lead and guided Yohan and Roymond, they followed along quietly.

 

—Boom!

 

When we arrived at the door where the intruder had disappeared, all we had to do was have Yohan seal the passage with his magic.

 

* * *

 

When Yohan cast the spell at the place the knight had mentioned, he ended up completely cut off from the rest—the corridor behind him collapsed and was sealed off.

 

In other words, the other priests were now physically blocked from getting through.

 

“Everyone is waiting in the square.”

 

Which meant: All the temple personnel were currently gathered out there.

 

I poked my head out of Yohan’s pocket.

 

Sure enough, there was no one around, and a loud voice was heard from the other side of the corridor blocked by debris.

 

“What in the world is going on here?! What is this—!”

 

“Think simply,” Roymond said cheerfully, cutting off the panicked temple representative.

 

“Hasn’t the temple already collapsed? Now it’s no longer just a metaphor.”

 

“Your Highness!”

 

“Oh, are you raising your voice at me right now?”

 

With that, Roymond gently shut the representative’s mouth and called loudly in our direction,

 

“Well then, we’ll go ahead and enjoy the banquet. Find your way out when you can. Surely we don’t need to worry about a great wizard who’s survived on a battlefield.”

 

Yohan also responded insincerely.

 

“Yes, Your Highness. I’ll join you after I gather my magical power.”

 

Soon, the sound of footsteps slowly began to fade away.

 

It was the sound of Roymond’s footsteps heading towards the banquet hall rather briskly, and the sound of the footsteps of the priests reluctantly following him.

 

I just slipped out of Yohan’s pocket and climbed on top of his head.

 

Now that there were no more eyes watching, there was no need to hide.

 

‘The lower-ranking priests still remaining in the temple probably don’t even know what’s here.’

 

That’s why they left without suspicion.

 

Even if the person Rivena sent had already destroyed the evidence, we had to check—just in case.

 

Besides… Father might be here.’

 

What I feared most, now that things weren’t going as planned, was for something to have happened to Father.

 

‘They said he was unarmed. That knight wouldn’t have been able to kill my father.’

 

The fact that the intruder had no weapons was a huge relief. At least he probably hadn’t killed Father.

 

I placed my paw on Yohan’s forehead and calmed his magic for a moment.

 

He had used quite a bit of magic earlier to destroy the temple hallway.

 

“Okay, let’s go then.”

 

Yohan walked slowly and stood in front of a small door.

 

And indeed, the door just rattled and wouldn’t open.

 

“I went back later… but I couldn’t figure out how to open it.”

 

That only confirmed it more.

 

If this was Rivena’s secret place, then of course it wouldn’t open easily.

 

“Kyuung.”

 

Even the door was made of solid stone, so it was not easy to open it with force alone.

 

But I wasn’t too worried either.

 

—Bang!

 

When it was difficult to open with force, it was a matter of destroying it with greater force.

 

‘If human power doesn’t work, then magic power will do!’

 

As expected, when the stone door was destroyed by magic, a long, downward-sloping hallway appeared.

 

“Kyuung!”

 

I quickly placed my paw on Yohan’s forehead again and shouted in excitement.

 

It meant let’s go.

 

And so we walked for quite a while.

 

After descending the sloping path for some time, we came upon another staircase leading even deeper underground.

 

“Kyung.”

 

It was when we reached the bottom of the stairs.

 

An open space appeared.

 

A wide space stretched before us—far too large to exist in this deep underground for no reason.

 

However, it was not very clean, and there were obvious signs of use here and there.

 

“This isn’t just an empty room.”

 

Yohan narrowed his eyes and spoke quietly.

 

“It doesn’t seem like a completely abandoned space. More like it was vacated quite a while ago.”

 

“Kyuung.”

 

Even though Rivena sent someone, it was only one person.

 

There was no way one person could completely clear this large space.

 

‘Could this have been a research site for divine beasts?’

 

Five years ago, when the temple officially stopped distributing divine beasts, they supposedly dismantled everything related to them. If that was true, this all started to make sense.

 

Even if that’s the case, there’s nothing we can get from here for now.

 

It was an empty space, so there was no evidence or anything to find out. It seemed like it had been hidden a long time ago.

 

Yohan looked around and muttered.

 

“There are quite a few passageways here….”

 

And indeed, as expected from such a wide space, several paths branched out in different directions.

 

Of course, it would be good to take a look, but I had no idea where to start.

 

And then—

 

“Grrrrrr….”

 

A low growl echoed from somewhere in the distance.

 

Yohan and I exchanged nervous glances for a moment.

 

It was unmistakable— the sound of a tiger.

 

* * *