The Priest of Complete Dispel ~ Every Time I Save a Cursed Beautiful Girl with My Status Abnormal Cure Skill, For Some Reason Her Dependence on Me Maxes Out ~

Chapter 55: Reset

“――Lord Bulldog. It seems the temple knights are on the move. What will you do?”

“Kuh…”

The moment he received the report from the black-hooded man――the empire’s spy, Samuel――in the office, Bulldog realized he was cornered.

The temple knights were the organization one must never make an enemy of in the kingdom.

Their numbers, their faith, and the unique abilities only those selected as temple knights could possess.

Each one’s combat power was said to surpass that of kingdom knights.

“Where did the gears slip… Just a few days ago, everything was perfect…”

“There was the incident where Lady Dorotheia fought in front of the mansion. Something must have happened there.”

“We had a report of intruders. But no traces remained. …A single missing ledger wouldn’t be enough to move the temple knights.”

Bulldog ground his back teeth and slammed his fist on the desk.

The dry sound sliced through the room’s silence.

He could not end it like this.

If subjected to the Inquisition, he would almost certainly be found guilty.

――But that depended on having evidence.

“Lord Samuel. You have served me well until now. However… it seems we have no choice but to reset this city once.”

“…You mean, that magical tool?”

“Yes. We have no other options. I will erase all evidence and make a comeback while holding this position.”

“Understood. It feels a bit wasteful, though.”

“――Thank you for your cooperation so far.”

At Bulldog’s words, Samuel quietly bowed and left the room with his black hood on.

But he stopped with his back to the door and let out a small laugh.

“The time has come, has it… Honestly, after all the fun I’ve had here. ――Humans really are incomprehensible creatures.”

In the next instant, the air warped, and Samuel’s form vanished.

No――what had been Samuel faded away with a fearless smile, slipping into the darkness as if seeking a new playground.

◇◇◇

“――Mariel, thanks for everything.”

“…I still want you to keep working here.”

At first, Mariel had half-forced him into it, and he had started working at the clinic just to gather information. But now, there was no reason to stay.

He had finally made time to meet the guild master, whose name sounded like hamburger.

From his mouth came the news that the purge operation would go ahead.

From what he had heard along with Glen and the others, their role was small.

――But he could not say there would be no need for them.

Behind the scenes, the demon Dorotheia lurked in the shadows.

No matter how elite the temple knights were, they could not easily counter her.

That was why they had to prepare.

She would surely target Glen and the others again. They would run into her if they showed their faces.

So he would just act with them and meet Dorotheia head-on.

He had not told Mariel anything about Bulldog.

Given the faction she belonged to, she would not easily believe it.

He did not know what she would think when this incident ended.

But Mariel would――keep walking as a holy servant, with her beliefs in her heart.

And so, the day of the purge operation arrived.

――Or it should have.

◇◇◇

Purge operation execution day――that afternoon.

The roughly one hundred temple knights stationed in Hares took up their weapons and began marching to surround Bulldog’s facilities and mansion all at once.

But at that moment, the golden bell atop the city hall tower rang out with a gan, gan, gan――a sound that shook the whole city.

The sudden alarm bell left residents confused, and the streets buzzed.

No one knew what had happened.

The only certain thing was――in the past, this alarm bell had rung just once.

◇◇◇

――Right before the bell rang, a C-rank adventurer party rushed into the adventurer guild with pale faces.

“Is the guild master here! This is bad! Monsters are spilling out from the dungeon!!”

The leader’s shout echoed through the guild.

In an instant, the receptionist and adventurers all stood up, and the air grew tense.

“The numbers… at least ten thousand! It’s more than this city’s population!!”

――Adventurer city Hares.

The reason this city was called an adventurer city was not because there were many adventurers.

It was because a massive cave-type dungeon, the largest in the kingdom, yawned open on the city’s west side.

—

Chapter 56.1: Dungeon Break

“――What the hell happened!?”

Shu, Iris, Medina, and the members of Silver Blade waited at the adventurer guild.

A pale-faced adventurer burst in and shouted so everyone could hear, breathing hard.

“――A dungeon break…”

Glen muttered, holding his breath.

“Th-That…! The last dungeon break was decades ago, right!?”

“This timing… No way…”

“Archbishop Bulldog? But even if so, how could he cause something like that…?”

Everyone pondered Garo and Erina’s words.

It seemed too obvious to blame Bulldog, but it felt too unrealistic.

Still, it was too perfect to call a coincidence.

“Wait, does this city even have a dungeon…?”

“Yeah. The reason Hares is called an adventurer city is the massive cave-type dungeon on the west side, the biggest in the kingdom. It splits into multiple layers, and the deeper you go, the stronger the monsters and rarer the materials. Adventurers dive in for that stuff.”

Shu nodded at Glen’s explanation while his mind overlaid the dungeon concept from his past life. The logic matched up pretty well.

“And a dungeon break is when monsters that should stay inside suddenly flood out all at once for some reason…”

“So the closest city――us――gets hit.”

“…Exactly.”

Hares would be attacked.

And the report said over ten thousand of them.

Shu’s <Perfect Clear・Reversal> only worked on enemies in his line of sight.

――Honestly, taking on that many was impossible.

“I heard the last break half-destroyed the city.”

“Here, huh…”

“Yeah. It took a long time to rebuild. So this time, we have to stop it no matter what.”

In the middle of that talk, heavy footsteps thumped down the stairs, and a loud voice boomed from above.