Find Henry VI

Benedict had neither gone to the location he told Lavender and Carolyn that he would watch, nor did he go to another of Henry's bases. For most of the time between his departure and return to the church, he was actually still in its vicinity. From his analysis of Henry, although he was cunning, he appeared to be somewhat of a perfectionist and refused to leave any critical steps of his plan to others. Therefore, whatever his true intentions, he would definitely be nearby his main objective to monitor the result.

Benedict had predicted that Henry would target the church; that was why he left despite knowing that Mike was a spy. He wanted Henry to believe that he was going on the offensive so he would be more confident in taking the bait, but Henry never appeared.

"So this wasn't his objective either."

Benedict had also checked the vicinity of the Wild Boar Inn after learning of the attack there, but Henry wasn't present. He only learnt of Henry's suspected appearance near Carolyn's location when he was on the way back to the church, but he didn't pursue it. He believed with high confidence that Henry really had been there, but he wasn't able to guess what he was trying to accomplish, so Benedict wanted to resolve the incident at the church first.

Compared to the other captains under Hanson, Benedict only had average combat strength. However, that still put him on the level of official knights, so the only thing he had to be wary of was being poisoned by drugs. While approaching the addicts, he wore leather gloves and a face mask to limit his exposure to whatever concoctions they might possess.

The addicts stayed focused on attacking the door no matter how close he got, so he picked up a couple of fist-sized rocks and started throwing them at the back of their heads. With each rock, he knocked out an addict. They were numb to pain, but they were still vulnerable to concussions. By the time he got rid of about half of them, the remaining fifteen finally noticed their fallen associates and turned to face him.

"Finally paying attention? Good. This sermon will be short."

Given their dulled awareness thanks to the drug, it would be easy to lure them to his fists one by one, but with Henry still at large, he wanted to end the fight as quickly as possible. As the addicts charged at him with their weapons, Benedict slipped out of their vision for a moment before reemerging with an uppercut to knock out an addict. Without waiting for his eyes to roll back, Benedict threw him at the other addicts to force them to separate. He then targeted the addicts on the left edge and focused all of his attacks on critical areas to subdue the men in at most two moves each. This approach wouldn't have worked if they bothered to block, but their addled minds made it impossible for them to consider protecting themselves.

Once all the addicts were on the ground either groaning or simply unconscious, Benedict dusted off his robes, removed his face mask and approached the door.

"My apologies for taking so long. Is everyone alright?"

After hearing Benedict's voice and seeing him from the window, the children quickly undid the barricade and welcomed him.

"Priest!"

"We protected the church while you were gone!"

"Wow! Did you knock them out?"

Benedict spent some time pacifying the children and hearing what happened in his absence. He then asked them for help in restraining the addicts using rope that he took from his office. While working, he glanced at Mike to glean any additional information as he simultaneously considered what Henry's end goal was.

'The first two decoys appeared almost simultaneously, so he couldn't have been watching both of them. But if he planned on doing something at the third location, then his preparations seem lacking. Given that he wasn't here or near Wild Boar Inn, could it be that we weren't his targets? Then who, or what, is it?'

It would be about an hour before Benedict received information that clued him in on Henry's horrifying plan.

Meanwhile, the man himself had just escaped from Carolyn. Although she was the most inexperienced of his pursuers within the city, in a pure chase she was likely the hardest to get rid of. If he didn't know of many secret passages throughout the city, it would have taken much longer to lose her. The fact that she had managed to detect him was also surprising since he was a few houses away from the decoy he sent. He had predicted that they would be able to find his most frequented safehouses, but only this one had any drugs, and he had set a trap to make the building explode if anyone opened the door.

If he had overestimated them, then the decoy would trigger the trap, and otherwise their attention would already be there, so he would have accomplished his main goal.

"Ah, the struggles I must overcome to save the people of this world."

Henry's real name was Anthony Willis, and he had been born into a family of doctors and pharmacists. He loved studying medicine from a young age and hoped to take over the clinic run by his family once he got older. However, before he reached 12, a terrifying plague struck his hometown, and the residents blamed his family for not being able to treat them. Of course, his family did all they could, but in the end those efforts led to all of the adults succumbing to the plague as well.

Anthony and a few other children were lucky to escape from the plague and were sent to another city as orphans. The officials had confirmed that they didn't carry the plague, but that didn't stop the orphanage staff from scorning and abusing them. Even then, Anthony hadn't given up his dream of saving people with medicine. Through his studies, Anthony was accepted into the Royal Institute of Medicine on a scholarship and left the orphanage when he was 14. The curriculum at the Institute normally took five years to complete, but he graduated in three with a certification from the Medical Association and was hired by a Viscount who had bought their title. Traditional noble families valued experience and prestige too much to hire a so-called genius, but that wasn't the case for the Viscount.

Anthony thought he could finally begin helping people with his knowledge, but the Viscount hadn't hired him just for his skill. This viscount was actually a slave merchant, an occupation that had been recently outlawed in the kingdom at that time. The Viscount wanted him to treat the slaves that were used as gladiators in his coliseum, which was exclusive for nobles of similar tastes. Anthony was reluctant at first, but the Viscount threatened that if he refused to treat them, he would simply let the slaves kill each other and create more from his territory.

Though Anthony accepted the job, he searched for ways to expose the Viscount. He had limited access to the outside, but he didn't give up hope, at least until he saw the guests that appeared at the coliseum. Judges, ministers, police, knights, doctors, people he recognised who should have been on the side of justice, proved to be no better than demons. Most would have resigned themselves at this stage, but Anthony was different. He was convinced that this couldn't be human nature; these people had to be ill. And as a doctor, it was his job to treat them.

The desire to treat these lost souls led him to create Serenity, a drug that made the person taking it slowly lose their emotions and senses. He wanted to use this drug to suppress the evil thoughts of man, but he knew that it needed to be refined.

He tested Serenity by using it as a painkiller on the slaves he treated, but while he was still gathering data, a large sample of it was stolen, likely because the slaves that used it seemed more powerful than before. Anthony hadn't thought much of it at the time, but unknown to him, the drug spread among the citizens of the Viscount's land. The distribution of this drug caused the supposed 'group suicide' incident that led to him becoming a wanted man. In truth, the incident was far more bloody and terrifying than the name suggested, but Anthony had never denied the charge. After all, it was true that those people suffered because his drug was incomplete.

Still, he hadn't given up decades later. Even after being caught and sentenced to death, he believed that there was still work to be done. And that most honourable personage proved him right by providing him with another chance to save people.

"It only lasts for a moment before eternal rest. But with my medicine the hearts of these citizens shall be cleansed of evil!"