Sound Doctrine Nurtures Faith (1)
After stepping out of the single-room, the group cast their teleportation magic once more. Their destination this time was a mountain village in the southwestern part of the continent, far away from the Holy Kingdom. Following the landscape Yohan pictured in his mind, they materialized right in the middle of a forest not too far from the village.
"Whew." Right after teleporting, Yohan took a deep breath. Instead of the mild, gentle air of the Holy Kingdom in the central continent, a somewhat dry and chilly breeze filled his lungs.
"We're back," Annie murmured softly, scanning their surroundings. She was right. Their long journey to the Holy Kingdom was finally over, and they had returned to their village. Yohan and Annie immediately began walking toward the settlement. The Goddess, seemingly delighted to be back, chose not to remain in her spiritual form and instead walked right alongside Yohan.
"I wonder if Falco and Billy did their jobs right while we were gone," Yohan said, looking around.
"Are you worried about them?" Annie asked.
"Yeah. Not worried about them, but worried they might've screwed things up." A battle-crazy elf who was completely unstoppable once her switch flipped, and a quarter-troll who was usually gentle and polite but turned into a force of nature when pushed too far.
"Hehehe. Do not fret. Are they not the believers who serve none other than myself?" the Goddess chimed in.
"..." Yohan had only meant it as a joke, but seeing the smug look on this blockhead's face made him genuinely worry about the villagers. Still, he couldn't help but feel a bit of anticipation. If the construction had gone according to his blueprints, the village would have transformed into a fortress surrounded by a dense wooden palisade. Beyond those thick walls, there would be an abundance of fruit rapidly grown through the power of the Dawn Dew Tribe's guardian deity... Since the beer they bought from Junk Town was almost gone anyway, maybe they could use the overflowing fruit to brew some fruit wine. Not a bad idea. Besides, fruit wine had its own value as a religious symbol.
"Walking for so long is rather exhausting," the Goddess complained. They had been walking toward the village for a while when she suddenly shrank back into her child form and held her arms out toward Yohan. It was her classic gesture demanding a piggyback ride.
"Fine, fine. I'm in a good mood anyway."
"Mmh, indeed. What a good Apostle."
Chuckling, Yohan hoisted the Goddess up and sat her on his shoulders. She kicked her legs back and forth in pure excitement. Come to think of it, Yohan mused, the longer I know her, the more she acts like an actual kid... Maybe spending so much time in a child's form had regressed her mental state to match.
Yohan looked up at the Goddess as she hummed a tune above his head. From what he had heard, the Unnamed Goddess had only developed her current, somewhat ordinary personality after Justia, the Goddess of Justice, split herself in half. Since she had been discarded underground at the edge of the continent immediately afterward, it was safe to assume that even if she retained memories of her time as Justia, she had barely spent any time interacting with actual people. Well, she might act like a scatterbrained brat for now, but she always showed her true colors as the Goddess of Justice when it mattered most, so it was fine.
Before long, the three of them reached the entrance of the village. At first glance, it looked like nothing more than a dense patch of forest. However, if one navigated in the correct direction, a village enclosed by a massive wooden wall would reveal itself.
"Oh." The moment they passed the entrance and stepped into the village, Yohan let out an involuntary gasp of admiration.
"My..." Annie was equally stunned. The two of them stared with wide eyes, taking in the sight of the village before them. The crude mud huts that barely kept out the wind and rain were completely gone. In their place stood sturdy, well-crafted log cabins reminiscent of the ones they had seen at the elven forest campsite. Lush plants and trees laden with ripe fruit grew between the cabins. It was the exact fantasy life Yohan had always dreamed of.
"Well, look who it is! Isn't that the Apostle?"
"What? It really is!"
Before long, the villagers spotted Yohan and Annie and began gathering around.
"The Goddess is here too!"
"Fuhu, indeed. Have you all been well?"
The faces of the villagers welcoming them were incomparably brighter and more energetic than before. They looked like genuinely simple, warm-hearted country folk. This was how the villagers were meant to look when they weren't being ruled by a pack of man-eating trolls.
"Yohan!" As Yohan smiled warmly at the sight, Falco, whose exceptionally sharp ears had picked up his arrival, came sprinting toward him.
"Hey, you're not dead!" Yohan waved back, glad to see her.
"Where's Billy—oof!" Just as he was about to ask what Billy was up to, Falco suddenly threw her arms around him, knocking the wind out of his lungs.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa..." Yohan instinctively started to grumble and push her away as he usually did. But for some reason, he couldn't bring himself to do it this time. After all, he had missed his companions just as much.
Soon, the group gathered inside Jack's—no, Billy's house, which had undergone a massive expansion. Inside the much larger log cabin sat a wooden table Yohan recognized. It was the four-person table Billy had crafted himself back when he lived alone in his cabin on the mountain path.
"That sounds incredible. The Holy Kingdom... I'd love to visit it myself someday," Billy said, shaking his head in awe after listening to Yohan's travel tales.
"Well, there certainly was a lot to see." Billy was talented enough in architecture to build decent log cabins entirely on his own. If someone like him got to see the grand architecture of the Holy Kingdom, he would surely learn a great deal. I should take him there for a tour if the opportunity arises, Yohan thought, nodding in agreement.
"Alright, now that we're done with that." It was time to wrap up the travel stories and get down to business. Yohan opened a dimensional portal, stepped into his single-room, and returned shortly after carrying a backpack filled with the Original Scriptures of the Holy Kingdom and various other books. "This is the reference material for the new Nameless Goddess Sect Scriptures we're going to write."
The Central Church of the Holy Kingdom and the Church of the Unnamed Goddess fundamentally worshipped the same deity. The problem was that the modern Central Church had changed drastically from the past the Goddess remembered. To put it nicely, it had modernized; to put it bluntly, it had become thoroughly secularized. The scriptures were no exception to this corruption. After all, the higher-ups of the Central Church were the very people who had arbitrarily erased verses about the prophecy simply because they deemed them 'sacrilegious.' However, the Original Scriptures, untouched by the influence of the Holy Kingdom's ruling class, would undoubtedly be of immense help in compiling their new holy book.
"From now on, we aren't just a bunch of bums. We're stepping up to become a proper religion. Establishing our doctrine and writing our scriptures is the first step."
"We're not bums. We're a knight order," Falco corrected.
"Shut it." Yohan snapped back at Falco's remark, then flipped the backpack upside down, dumping out the books related to the Central Church onto the table.
"But we can't just go around distributing these scriptures blindly. If we do, those Holy Kingdom bastards will hunt us down and tear us apart." Yohan had visited the Holy Kingdom himself alongside Annie. Because of that, he was keenly aware of just how powerful and formidable they were. Frankly, if even a single company of Holy Knights were deployed here, this mountain village would be reduced to ashes in an instant, and every single villager would be branded as a heinous heretic and executed.
"So it's what you mentioned last time. Writing educational books that subtly weave in our doctrines and distributing them to the nobility of various nations."
"Bingo," Yohan replied, nodding at Billy's question.
"Furthermore, it is now my turn to take action directly," the Goddess chimed in, sitting on the edge of the table. The reason the Central Church of the Holy Kingdom had become so corrupted was that the high-ranking clergy had distorted the doctrines and scriptures to suit their own tastes while the Main God Justia was deep in her long slumber. In the past, Justia had never really interfered when her followers compiled scriptures. But this time, things were different. Yohan planned to establish the doctrines of the 'Church of the Unnamed Goddess' alongside the Goddess herself, using them to write both the scriptures and the educational books for proselytizing.
"And we have other things to do besides that," Yohan said, looking at Falco—specifically, at the ring she was wearing. By combining the Goddess's blessing with the power of the guardian deity, they could craft potions that would put the high-grade elixirs made by the Empire's top mages to shame. A scientific victory to go along with their religious victory.
"So, will we all be staying in the village and focusing solely on this work for a while?" Billy asked.
Yohan shook his head. "No way. With our personalities, we'd go crazy if we just stayed cooped up inside all day, wouldn't we?"
"Yohan is correct. Besides, punishing villains is something the Goddess herself desires, so there is no reason not to do it," Annie agreed.
At Yohan's answer, everyone in the room let out a sly grin. Though none of them said it out loud, they had all been itching for some action.
Ever since he suddenly heard the 'voice,' Pope Angelo III had completely driven out the mental demons that had plagued his mind. Not only that, but he had also begun to view his current situation not as a crisis threatening the remainder of his life, but as an opportunity to rise from an ordinary pope to a legendary figure who restored the glory of the Holy Kingdom.
Around that time, a major incident occurred within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Original Scriptures kept in the Secret Archive had been stolen. Yet, the Pope remained unbothered. In fact, he even thought of it as a blessing in disguise. The ones who stole the Original Scriptures were undoubtedly serving the 'impostor.' They clearly wanted to claim legitimacy by possessing the scriptures that held the very doctrines of their faith.
Indeed, had the Pope not heard the 'voice' himself, he would have been just as devastated as the Minister of the Congregation. But it was fine. The Goddess of Justice was still with him. Even if the 'impostor' pointed out the prophetic verses left in the Original Scriptures to criticize the current papacy, such criticisms meant nothing coming from a pretender. It could easily be dismissed as the wicked lies of heretics. Historically, it was common for hostile factions to fabricate documents or spread wild rumors.
Although he had ordered the Minister to dispatch Inquisitors across the continent, the Pope had no expectations of them actually recovering the Original Scriptures. Even if they did succeed, the scriptures would have already been defiled by the hands of the impostor. Once it had left the grasp of the Central Church, there was no need to risk everything to retrieve it. They could simply write a new holy book. As long as the Main God Justia existed, her 'voice' would become the content of their new scriptures.
"O Main God..." The Pope closed his eyes and offered a quiet prayer. Yes. All of this was undoubtedly part of the Main God's divine plan. It was indeed the fault of his predecessors to release scriptures with parts of the original text deleted under the guise of preventing sacrilege. However, the Main God had graciously forgiven those mistakes and provided an opportunity to correct them.
"I shall surely fulfill the role bestowed upon me by the Main God." The Pope raised his head and glanced at the bed sitting prominently in the middle of his office. The entity sleeping behind the curtains had shamelessly occupied his office, claiming to be the Main God Justia. At first, sensing her unique divine energy, he had truly believed she was the Main God herself, but that was nothing more than a wicked deception. Since the impostor had fundamentally split from the same source, it was only natural that a priest serving Justia would fail to distinguish between the two energies.
But the true Main God was with him in the form of the 'voice.' The Pope's faith was unshakeable. However, what to do with the impostor right in front of him remained a pressing concern. For now, she lay asleep without moving a muscle, but there was no telling when she might wake up again and try to rule the Holy Kingdom according to her own whims. The Pope rose from his seat and climbed the stairs leading to the top-floor terrace.
The moment he stepped onto the terrace and met the howling wind, the voice he had been waiting for so desperately echoed in his mind.