Chapter 238: Weapons
The chained woman was still under the effects of the debt she had acquired from Ryan.
However, forced to tell the truth... The holy knight woman’s statement clicked in the minds of everyone present.
What she was saying could result in a disadvantage the next time the group encountered those annoying holy knights.
But what exactly the trick was, the girls present there could not yet grasp.
"What do you mean our weapons can’t harm them?" Alicia murmured, taking a step forward with a frown.
The loyal wolf assistant could not believe what she had just heard about the church’s forces.
"Is that possible?" Mirian asked, looking at Ryan in surprise.
The archer then looked at her companions, trying to make sense of such a massive disadvantage for the heroes.
"What are you snorting about, you bitch..." Helen intervened immediately, baring her teeth with evident annoyance.
The black-haired warrior approached the prisoner with a sharp gaze full of hostility.
"And do you really think I won’t be able to damage them if I face them head-on?"
"...Well, it’s not that they can’t do it at all," the holy knight added, shrinking back against the wall a bit.
"But your weapons will lose their power immediately."
The woman swallowed hard with difficulty before continuing her explanation under the immense pressure of the debt.
"They would become like ordinary, everyday weapons. They would be rendered ineffective."
’Hmm... How interesting,’ Ryan thought in complete silence.
He assimilated the newly discovered information and began to piece the details together in his head.
’So this is the countermeasure the deity planned to prevent humans from rebelling against them.’
Ryan placed his right hand on his chin, thinking deeply about what this frightened girl had just said. If what she said was true, it really wasn’t something so surprising to imagine in the first place.
Those powerful entities that everyone called a deity were the ones truly responsible for creating the weapons.
They created the weapons and the system that humans currently used to defend themselves. And of course, they were also the exact same tools used by the rest of the heroes scattered throughout the world.
Ryan continued to analyze the big picture without saying a single word out loud.
If the deity went through the immense trouble of planning something like this from the very beginning, that meant something very clear to him. It meant that, deep down, those entities feared that humans might rebel and kill them someday.
And that was despite the fact that right now they only intervened indirectly with the world through the church.
Ryan smiled where he stood.
A small, cold curve formed on his lips upon discovering such a human weakness in the supposed gods.
’Then they are far more vulnerable than I had initially considered,’ Ryan thought to himself with clear satisfaction.
’But of course, that doesn’t mean we currently have the necessary strength to harm them. Does it?’
The constant murmurs of Helen and the other girls continued to fill the cold basement.
"Ha, it doesn’t matter anyway," Helen added with a voice full of heavy arrogance.
The black-haired warrior crossed her arms, trusting blindly in her own physical strength above any object.
"It’s not like sealing the magical abilities of my sword will let those weaklings defend themselves against my blows."
"But what are you..." The holy knight woman tried to voice her opinion, looking surprised by the heroine’s immense confidence.
But the prisoner immediately fell silent at Ryan’s sudden intervention.
"It is true," Ryan added, agreeing with Helen in a very calm tone of voice.
"Even though the knights can seal your abilities in combat. You can all still fight using your natural strength."
’In that case, the knights’ effect is very similar to my Deb Seal skill. I can also seal people’s abilities for a few seconds in the middle of a fight.’ Ryan reflected in silence.
"Even so, you would be at a massive disadvantage fighting like that," Ryan stated, looking directly at the proud Helen to bring her down a peg.
"If you don’t have your own skills to defend against their direct attacks, you’ll just be a simple boxing bag for them."
Ryan understood his skills well, and the advantages they granted him; surely, he would have no trouble facing a couple of holy knights who managed to stop the effects of his weapon.
But that condition didn’t currently apply to the women in his group, or the rest of the villa’s inhabitants.
"Boxing?" Helen asked immediately, frowning in heavy confusion upon hearing that unfamiliar word.
"What is that?"
"Nothing, forget it," Ryan replied instantly.
He brushed off his own comment, remembering that the terms from his old world didn’t exist here.
"The main point is that this weapon seal represents a huge disadvantage for all of you in a fight."
After making his warning clear to the girls in his group, Ryan lowered his gaze once again.
He focused his eyes on the knight woman who remained chained to the floor in front of him.
"You, woman," Ryan called out with a deep, authoritative voice.
"What is your real name?"
"C-Chloe..." she murmured with a broken voice.
The prisoner answered the question instantly, forced to be honest by the strong control of the debt in her mind.
"Chloe, huh," Ryan repeated softly, testing out the name of his new source of information.
He took one more step toward her, looking at her much more closely under the torchlight.
"Tell me something, Chloe. That sealing effect only applies to the weapons used by humans, doesn’t it?"
Chloe looked at him with evident intrigue on her dirty, tired face.
She blinked a couple of times, failing to fully understand what the enemy leader meant by such a specific question.
"I mean... If we forge our own weapons from scratch, or if we directly use demon weapons. Will that annoying effect used by the holy knights be completely nullified?" Ryan continued, explaining his point much more clearly to get an exact answer.