Road to the Holy City, Part 9
"W-well, yes? Why do you ask so suddenly?" the Goddess asked, looking somewhat taken aback.
"That means there were several other Demon Kings besides that guy. In that case, wouldn't the current Demon King be massively buffed by the magical power or curses left behind by his predecessors?"
A modern Demon King inheriting the will of past generations to threaten the hero's party was a classic trope in the fantasy genre. Tension was written all over Yohan's face.
"What nonsense are you spouting? 'Demon King' is merely a title given to a specific demon who managed to amass an exceptionally powerful force during their respective era."
Fortunately, it seemed his worries were in vain. Yohan's tense expression relaxed the moment he heard the Goddess's answer.
"So it's not like the previous generation laid down a foundation for the next one or anything...?"
"Not at all. In the first place, demons are creatures that cannot even trust one another, constantly backstabbing and killing their own kind. Surely you have heard of this before."
What a relief. Yohan finally let out a sigh of relief.
He had previously heard that demons were thorough individualists. That was precisely why the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith kept such a close eye on the demons operating collectively under the name of Pandemonium.
After all, the two demons from Pandemonium that Yohan had fought had not only acted together but had even fused into a single entity.
"Goddess. Then, after subjugating the Demon King of that era, how did Teodoro IV ascend to the seat of the Pope?"
Annie steered the conversation back to its starting point. Yohan, who was also secretly curious, simply stared at the Goddess in silence.
"I do not know."
"What?"
What is she talking about now? Yohan and Annie tilted their heads in unison.
"At the time, the Goddess Justia focused solely on leading my believers to fight against evil. Therefore, she paid absolutely no attention to things like power struggles or political posturing among her followers."
So that was it. The Goddess's explanation made sense, so Yohan readily accepted it.
"W-wait a moment."
But for some reason, Annie looked deeply shaken by her words.
"Goddess. If what you just said is true, does that mean the current system of the Central Church was not established by your own hand?"
"Indeed. Long ago, those who sought teachings from the Goddess Justia established the doctrines and wrote the scriptures themselves, and Justia merely looked over them and granted her approval."
Ah, this was definitely a big deal. Yohan immediately understood why Annie was so shocked.
The core value of the Goddess Justia was undoubtedly justice. However, it was the believers, not the Goddess Justia herself, who had translated that concept of justice into scriptures and established the structure of the Central Church.
"So before being split in half, the Goddess of Justice was an entity that mechanically pursued nothing but justice."
"That is correct. The Justia in my memories and my current personality are vastly different."
The Goddess nodded in response to Yohan's question.
"In fact, I am now capable of laughing and crying like an ordinary human, and do I not interact freely even with an insolent bast—cough, mortal like you?"
This brat just accidentally let her true feelings slip. Yohan did not miss that.
However, now was not the time to sweat such minor details.
The conversation, which had started with Teodoro IV, the figure behind the festival, had suddenly traveled back in time to the past of Justia, the Goddess of Justice, and the very origins of the Central Church.
"Then let's use our brains for a second. After discarding her other half—the one carrying the value of patience—in some remote place where no one would find her, what on earth did the Primary God Justia do next?"
Yohan asked again. At this, both the Goddess and Annie fell into deep, serious thought.
"This is just my theory, but you weren't the only one who gained humanity when you were split in half."
"I see. You are saying that the very act of casting out me, her other half, was possible only because she had become capable of human-like thought."
"Exactly."
From the moment they split into two entities with distinct egos, neither goddess would have easily tolerated the presence of an equal standing right before them. At least, that was Yohan's guess.
"You are not entirely wrong. However, that is only half-correct. The Primary God Justia did not cast me out simply because she was jealous of my existence."
"Then why?"
"While the reason you mentioned played a part, it was more because she judged it to be more efficient as the Goddess of Justice."
It meant that even if she had acquired humanity, her core was still that of the Goddess of Justice. The decision to cast her other half out was the result of calculating what would be the most righteous course of action for the sake of justice.
"I certainly possess patience. However, I am neither brave enough to be called the Goddess of Justice, nor am I level-headed, often letting my emotions get the better of me and ruining things."
The Goddess suddenly poured out what sounded like a self-criticism.
"Goddess. May I dare to speak a word?"
Just as an awkward silence began to settle over the room, Annie, who had been quiet, spoke up again.
"Speak freely. Are you not my precious believer?"
At the Goddess's permission, Annie gave a light nod and continued.
"Among the priests of the Central Church who wield Miracle Arts, there are some who catch glimpses of the distant future through their dreams."
Prophetic dreams? Yohan thought to himself as he listened intently to Annie.
"The Miracle Arts granted to the believers of the Central Church are fundamentally aligned with the values of the Primary God Justia. The miracles of healing performed by the priests, and the light-shrouded swords wielded by the Holy Knights—all of them are ultimately meant to bring about justice."
"Then, are you saying that the priests catching glimpses of the future in their dreams is also part of the process to achieve justice?"
"The thought just occurred to me that it might be so."
"And what brought you to that conclusion?"
"That is because... there is a certain passage in the scriptures."
Annie suddenly picked up a pen and began writing a sentence on a piece of paper. It seemed like something she felt uncomfortable speaking aloud.
"It is this passage."
Setting the pen down, Annie slid the paper toward Yohan and the Goddess.
"And the priests who saw the future spoke: Justice, split in two and rendered imperfect, shall become one once more, surpassing even perfection."
"Whoa... This is..."
Yohan scratched the back of his head as he read the words. No matter how he looked at it, this was a prophecy foretelling a distant future from the time the scriptures were written—which was precisely the present moment.
The Goddess also seemed quite shocked, her eyes wide as she blinked in disbelief.
Annie suddenly tore off the portion of the paper with the writing and burned it to ashes over the candle flame on the table.
"The passage I just wrote is not disclosed to the public; it was expunged from the scriptures. It is a secret known only to high-ranking priests and Inquisitors like myself," Annie said, brushing the ashes off her hands.
"That makes sense. Frankly speaking, those words practically deny the legitimacy of the god they currently worship."
At Yohan's remark, Annie nodded with a heavy expression.
"It was indeed recorded in the scriptures, but it is extremely blasphemous. That is why the scriptures kept in the Papal Palace's Grand Cathedral contain no mention of it."
The scriptures of the Central Church were treated quite differently from the scriptures of the world Yohan used to live in. The scriptures carried by lay believers were not, strictly speaking, the actual scriptures. To be precise, they were merely summarized versions of the original text.
That was why they had risked the adventure of traveling all the way to the Holy City in the first place... but as it turned out, the Original Scriptures Yohan had been planning to steal were not the true originals.
"Annie. The reason you kept this fact to yourself and did not inform me until now is..."
"I-I had simply forgotten about it, as it was considered a minor and absurd detail. I knew that once you laid eyes on the scriptures yourself, you would immediately know whether the records were true or false. I swear I had absolutely no disloyal intentions!"
As the Goddess's voice trailed off, Annie quickly defended herself in a panicked tone.
"C-calm down. I did not mean to scold you. Yes, even you could not have imagined things would turn out like this."
Instead, it was the Goddess who stammered in embarrassment. Although she loved being revered by others, even she seemed overwhelmed by Annie's intense, fanatical devotion.
"I get it too. Honestly, one could easily assume some heretics secretly slipped some weird stuff into the scriptures at some point in the past," Yohan chimed in.
Only after Yohan offered a word of support did Annie's face finally regain its composure.
Priests who had prophetic dreams. Passages that were once recorded in the scriptures but intentionally erased. And finally, the truth that the Goddess of Justice had been split in two.
Setting aside the first two, the only humans who knew all three facts—including the last one—were likely just Yohan and Annie.
Furthermore, even Annie, who had known the first two pieces of information, had dismissed them as nonsense and half-forgotten them. It was only after directly encountering the Unnamed Goddess that she was finally able to connect the dots between all three.
"Well, anyway, if such a passage exists in the scriptures... doesn't that mean the Goddess of Justice splitting herself in half back then was actually a massive master plan looking far into the distant future?"
The entire process of a half-goddess, stripped of her name and pushed to the brink of starvation, miraculously reviving and raising a second church alongside her newly met Apostle.
"Perhaps. Even though I am her other half, I only remember the things Justia saw and heard; we do not share the same thoughts."
The Goddess lent weight to Yohan's hypothesis. However, Yohan could not bring himself to be entirely happy about this situation.
If the ultimate goal was indeed for the two split goddesses to fuse back together into a more perfect whole...
"..."
The moment they became one again, wouldn't the dimwitted Goddess he knew vanish from this world forever?
Discarding all unstable elements like humanity, she would once again become a mechanical deity pursuing nothing but her designated value.
Yohan suddenly harbored such doubts. After a brief moment of silence, he reached out and pinched the Goddess's cheek with his thumb and index finger, pulling on it for no reason.
"Ouch! W-what do you think you are doing?!"
The Goddess let out a sharp cry. However, noticing the unusual look on Yohan's face, her anger quickly subsided.
"Just... imagining you fusing with the Primary God of the Holy Kingdom. Like those demons we saw last time."
Yohan quickly relaxed his expression and tossed out a joke. The Goddess's eyebrows twitched in disbelief, but she soon let out a soft sigh.
"Hmm. At any rate, we'll need to adjust our plan of going to the Holy City to steal the scriptures."
"Yes. I know the location of the secret archive."
"Great. Then we'll head to where the real original is kept... *yawn*."
Yohan yawned deeply mid-sentence. His physical exhaustion had finally caught up with him, and he could no longer bear its weight.
"Man, I really can't hold out anymore. Let's get some rest first, and we can discuss the rest once we're back in the village with everyone else."
At Yohan's suggestion, both the Goddess and Annie nodded silently.
Regardless of the secrets they had uncovered about the scriptures, they still needed the Central Church's scriptures as a reference to write the new scriptures for the Church of the Unnamed Goddess.
And since they would have to travel to the Holy City on horseback rather than using magic circles starting tomorrow, it was best to sleep while they had the chance.
"Then, sleep well, both of you."
*Flash—*
Leaving behind a brief farewell, the Goddess assumed her spiritual form and vanished.
"Then let us rest as well. As for the bed..."
"*Yawn*... Forget it, you take the bed. I can sleep like a log even on the bare ground as long as my head is resting on something."
"A-all right. Thank you."
Yohan grabbed a blanket and lay down on the sofa. He closed his eyes, expecting to fall into a deep sleep immediately... but he couldn't.
*Bang!*
Beyond the curtained windows, flashes of light flickered repeatedly, accompanied by the continuous crackle of fireworks.
"Goddammit."
Yohan muttered a curse under his breath with his eyes shut tight.