Chapter 308: Tell Them (2)
“Purifying the plague is more urgent than treating those in critical condition. May I entrust that part to you?”
“Yes, yes!”
The bishop pointed toward the place where the plague victims had been quarantined. “Hero?” But some of those fulfilling their duties here recognized the Hero.
“…Archmage. Inquisitor Daniel.”
“Did you… did you kill him?”
Well, those few were the people the Hero had personally brought here, so there was nothing remarkable about that. Though the Hero’s face stiffening at one of their questions might have been unusual.
“Later. I will tell you later. Right now, we have to save people….”
“…Understood.”
But the Hero awkwardly changing the subject, the person accepting that answer wearing a gloomy expression, and even the Archmage caught between them flinching before ultimately focusing on her work—
when the entire situation was considered, these were nothing more than trivial details. Beginning with the head priest, they all moved busily to fulfill the duties that took precedence.
“Bishop, are you truly going to stand by and allow it…?”
Yet during that process, the priest who was practically the bishop’s right arm asked the question discreetly. There was no need to ask about the omitted subject.
The bishop briefly gripped his empty shoulder. The arm upon which only provisional measures had been performed with bandages and hemostatic agents was still bleeding, eating away at his remaining life in real time.
“Do you wish to do something more here?”
“What?”
“Is there anything more you can do?”
But when he looked around, more than half the people had already reached the end of their lives. Unlike him, who remained alive and breathing despite losing one arm, the area was filled with those who had died without even receiving the chance to survive.
“The priests will hold their tongues and each do what they can. Just as they have until now.”
How could they attempt anything more in front of those people? How could he insist that they had to oppose the man because he was the vessel of a demon?
“Do you mean…?”
“Furthermore, by what you can do here, I mean treating people or offering them comfort—not going out to hunt down a demon.”
In the bishop’s view, the words of Bemurchen’s head priest had not been particularly wrong. Rejecting demons was something God sanctioned, and it was true that the being outside was too dangerous to ignore.
But did that mean he wanted to follow those words? No. He was a person who considered saving people a greater priority than executing demons. If dozens had to be sacrificed to destroy a demon, he could postpone it until a later date. If compromise was possible, he was willing to accept that as well.
“Were you not wary as well, Bishop? Was that not why you remained until now…?”
“It is true that I waited here because of the possibility. But has it not now been proven otherwise?”
Of course, as someone who had opposed demons for his entire life, he simply could not lower his guard completely. Human-shaped or otherwise, he could feel Demonic Energy inside that being. What else was he supposed to do?
To him, the situation resembled a giant cockroach arriving with a mop, scrubbing his house clean, and shouting, ‘I am not your enemy.’
It was unquestionably doing something helpful and had shown no hostility, but he felt a visceral revulsion. All the more so because a swarm of other cockroaches had just invaded his home and left it in ruins.
“If you still wish to say more, do so after every urgent fire has been extinguished. I will not stop you then.”
But, difficult though it truly was to believe—
that giant cockroach—no, that being containing a demon—was clearly friendly toward them. Friendly enough to help humans rather than harm them, enough that the Hero and the Master Artisan both stood behind him so firmly.
“Though I cannot say whether the Hero will agree with you.”
In that case, should this side not find some way to endure as well? They did not possess the strength to subdue him anyway.
“That is because the Hero is still young….”
“Being young does not mean one is ignorant of love and justice.”
More than anything, the bishop rather liked what the Hero had said.
She would save one person even if it meant relinquishing her position. Did that not reveal with perfect clarity the youthful recklessness and unweathered goodness particular to the young?
“Sacrificing the few for the many may certainly be efficient, but it would inevitably be a tragedy if the Hero were someone heartless enough to consider it natural. How fortunate it is that she is capable of saying such a thing.”
There was benevolence in the commandments God had given humanity, and thus it could only have been inevitable that one who understood it well had become the Hero.
“The justice and love the Representative speaks of cannot differ by so much as a single point from those proclaimed by God.”
“Your Holiness, you must flee at once—!”
“The sanctuary of God has been invaded, and the lambs of this land continue to die. Where would you have me go?”
Meanwhile, as one person uttered words that might become reality, another postponed a ticking bomb as long as possible, and yet another took comfort in the Hero’s humanity, a woman clasped both hands together in the western lands, home to the world’s second-highest and longest mountain range.
“Evacuate the deacons and young priests first. This old woman, who has lived long enough, will die alongside the demons.”
The Temple that Dismas, the repentant thief, had devoted his life to building embraced her like a cradle.
Prepared for that cradle to become her grave, she recited a prayer. Each time a pillar of light surged upward, new wrinkles were carved across her cheeks and neck. They were wrinkles more shriveled and sagging than any bestowed by the years.
“Goodness, Your Holiness turned into an old crone in the few moments we were gone.”
But before wrinkles could cover her entire face, the door opened with a boom. The several figures who entered through it bore faces well advanced in age.
“Why haven’t any of you left?”
“If we leave, who will buy time for the little ones to escape?”
“We thought our Pope might be lonely if she died by herself, so we came.”
“Tsk. Take your time coming, take your time.”
Without a single holy knight accompanying them, they found their places as though everything had been arranged in advance. The circular formation created by the Pope and twelve cardinals began radiating even more light than before.
“This is… quite a burden.”
Yet the stronger the light became, the worse their expressions grew by the moment. More people now shared the burden of the power, but the total load had also increased.
Their muscles cooked, their flesh blistered, and their organs began to dry out. The outward aging was merely a consequence. They began to rot and die from within.
“I’ll go fir….”
Thud.
At last, one of them became a mummy and died without managing to shed a single drop of blood.
“I will go as….”
That person was not the last. One died, then another. Five positions emptied in the blink of an eye.
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“Demon, what do you hope to gain by targeting those who have yet to grow? Come here. The old ones you seek are here.”
Even so, they did not stop. They recited prayers, called upon God, and drew down the light.
The darkness surging toward them with ferocious force was driven back and shattered each time. It was like waves striking a shoreline. Powder scattered in all directions like sea foam as light and darkness collided.
Thud.
In the meantime, another cardinal collapsed. Watching it, the Pope lowered her eyelids. In the distance, she felt the wave of light that had been driving back the darkness crushed beneath something’s forepaw.
Crackle. With each step it took, a bitter chill descended. Its labored breath held no light; it was simply white.
[O you who do not fear death, what value did you think your sacrifice would possess?]
A beast with a wolf’s long face, a lion’s mane, and the cold of a snowy plain exhaled strands of frost as it gazed at the Pope. Its eyes seemed to pierce the Temple built from white stone and look inside her.
[The true god has now manifested upon this land. If you desire a painless end, bow your heads and submit at once.]
“The God I serve is not your master, and your master is certainly not the true god. Why, then, would I bow my head? Hand over the ruin and destruction you brought, then begone.”
[I counseled you with mercy vast as the sea, yet you reject it and drink from a poisoned cup. How foolish.]
But they stood at opposite poles that could never blend.
At the Pope’s rebuke, the blue wolf spread its long jaws wide. Breath burst from the pitch-black mouth, felling two cardinals who had barely held on and freezing the light.
Flap!
A bird with black-and-blue wings flew down over the frozen light. Each beat of its membranous, featherless wings ignited the ground with a rumble. The fire burned without heat and caused things to decay without leaving ash.
Cough. With that sound, another cardinal perished.
Only two cardinals and the Pope remained.
[Still you endure.]
But the instant a white leg stepped onto the marble path, even the remaining two dried up and died. Khhk. The Pope herself coughed dryly and collapsed forward.
[Marvelous. I expected you to struggle like insects before being crushed. It seems I underestimated humans too greatly.]
As she clutched her throat and choked, the horn-crowned being approached along the path, each step ringing sharply. Nothing stood in the way. Humans and walls alike had been annihilated by his faithful lion and peacock.
“Khhk, cough.”
[I shall praise you. Your final struggles moved me to gesture one more time.]
Even the deacons and young priests who had been fleeing under the guidance of the holy knights and Inquisitors—
[But, O struggling one, every effort you made has come to nothing. Your struggles possessed no meaning.]
As the Pope realized it, tears streamed from her eyes. They were red rather than clear.
“How could you do that even to those children?!”
[Hmm?]
“How can one who calls himself a god be so cruel? How can you be so cruel?!”
[Cruel. Cruel, you say.]
Eyes the color of minerals, neither greenery nor the sea, tilted beneath long lashes.
[You say something strange. Your god also reigns through loveless severity and inequitable equality, so why do you condemn me? Because I am a being wholly outside providence and order?]
“My God and you stand in different positions!”
[How amusing. You say one form of cruelty is permitted merely because it belongs to a god.]
Ssssh. The veil that swayed with the movement of his head shimmered in many colors beneath the light that touched it, like a fragment of the rainbow said to clothe a god.
[That is no different from saying that position determines qualification.]
The royal scepter held in his slender hand struck the earth with unfading light and unbreakable jewels.
[If that is the law, then naturally, I shall seek the highest place.]
Tap. Drops of water rose upside down from beneath the earth, gathered into a puddle, and became a lake.
The land where the Grand Temple stood was submerged in the inverted lake and began to float.
“No! Arrogant one, you will fall without ever reaching the heavens!”
Within it, the Pope, who was barely drawing breath, shouted one final act of defiance. [Insolent wretch.] The lion that had remained quietly behind its master secretly bared its teeth. White breath froze the Pope’s body.
[I could have burned her.]
[Cremation is a funeral rite that sends humans onward with due courtesy. How could we show respect to one who insulted the Sovereign of Heaven?]
After speaking to the featherless bird, the lion bowed its head to its master. [Please grant me the punishment I deserve for acting without an order.] Pride, who had been smiling like a painting, finally spoke.
[It is well. How could I punish loyalty directed toward me?]
Instead of punishing the lion, he lightly tapped the surface of the lake with the royal scepter. Beneath the inverted lake, a pitch-black shadow began descending through the empty air that had once been the sky. It was a long, enormous dragon.
GAPE!
Plummeting downward as though rising toward the water’s surface, the dragon opened its immense maw. SPLASH! At last, it passed through the surface of the inverted lake in a tremendous spray, swallowing the frozen body whole.
Only the ripples and foam upon the lake slowly testified to what had just occurred.
[My personal campaign ends here.]
Within it, Pride quietly lowered his body. Rustle. The immense scales that entered through the waves spread beneath him like a throne and supported his body.
[Then, you who were forged from snow and fire, prove your loyalty to me. The one who brings me the most blood and flesh shall receive my favor.]
[We uphold the command of the one and only Heaven.]
[We uphold it.]
The beings who had been granted the reason and wisdom to discern right from wrong spread their wings and extended their legs.
[With this, the West will meet its end.]
But even as all the others departed, there was one who did not join them.
The blindfolded shepherd wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and braced a wooden staff against the ground.
[Have you accomplished all that you desired?]
[As for the fall of the West, yes. But a foolish beast betrayed my expectations.]
[…Did it fail?]
[It accomplished the objective of fixing their attention, but it died. Thus, I cannot say that the exchange benefited us.]
[How unfortunate….]
While expressing regret at his master’s words, the shepherd bent toward something. Rustle. The hem of his robe seemed to sweep the ground for a moment, and his empty hand picked up something that had fallen there.
[This is….]
[Scripture.]
[Haah. So it is. Such barbarous creatures. They might at least have left the books untouched, yet they burned everything without distinction.]
[Every book here would be devoted wholly to the god of this land. Why do they interest you, my shepherd?]
[My Heaven, I chose knowledge as the sacrifice with which to fill my emptiness. Even if it is heresy, how could I restrain the desire to place it within my mind?]
With those words, the shepherd opened the scripture he had picked up. In place of the eyes wrapped in cloth, his fingertips carefully swept across every page.
[Yet, my Heaven, if the god of this place knows neither benevolence nor generosity and functions solely as cycle and order, why is it written in this scripture that the god delivered commandments?]
It was clearly an overstepping of authority, but continued under tacit permission.
[Why did he speak of honoring one’s parents and cherishing one’s family? Why did he command mercy toward one’s neighbors? To nature, murder, adultery, and theft are nothing more than trivial happenings. Without benevolence, how could the god of this land command otherwise?]
The shepherd, Abel, overstepped his station once more with his eyes closed.
Pride’s eyes narrowed, and his smile deepened slightly.
[Because it is humans who write scripture.]
[……?]
[Impersonating the words of a god to establish law—the first human was truly arrogant, was he not?]
There was no way to know whether he smiled at the presumption of being questioned or at the content of the question itself.
[In the end, love and justice are conceived within human hearts, not by a god. Thus, only humans can decide what is right and wrong in human affairs. Not a god. Only humans.]
But his eyes, like gems from a dawn star, gazed steadily at his shepherd as he extended his cloak of wings. Rustle. The first feather forced Abel’s chin upward. Though the shepherd had repeatedly wiped it with his sleeve, a faint bloodstain remained.
[And so, my shepherd, why did you surrender your life to a mere doll? For what reason did you dare break the collar I had fastened around it?]
The shepherd, who had held himself rigidly as though he knew no fear, trembled for the first time.