Judgment Upon the Apostates
Screeeeeech—!
The metallic shriek split the air. The massive wheel, beginning to turn with agonizing slowness, picked up speed in time with the cultists’ stomping feet.
The old man suddenly whipped his head around and fixed his gaze on Hina.
“At first, watching is enough! But if your love for Urare feels as though it will tear your chest open, you may join the worship whenever you wish!”
His eyes then shifted to Minel and Chori. The look sharpened, and his voice dropped lower.
“However… unbelievers must never take part in the worship. You must receive baptism first. Otherwise the tainted blood will stop the wheel.”
Even if you told us to, we wouldn’t.
The same thought rose simultaneously in both Minel’s and Chori’s minds.
As if he could no longer contain himself, the old man shuddered violently, spun around, and leapt down toward the turbine below. Intoxicated by the fervor of the service, he seemed to have forgotten Minel’s party entirely.
He plunged into the throng nearest the turbine and bellowed in a voice larger than any he had used before.
“Louder! Faster! Urare desires it!”
At his cry the cultists’ breathing grew ragged. Some wept as they stamped; others already had knees torn open and streaming blood. Yet their frenzied worship never once faltered.
Rumble—!
As the turbine slowly began to turn, lightning erupted from the enormous electrode fixed at one end, bursting outward like an explosion. The dazzling flash carved across the ceiling of the chamber; the cultists dropped as one to their knees, both hands thrust skyward, while the old man roared so that the entire space seemed ready to shatter.
“Urare’s heart is beating! When we stamp the floor, that power gathers and births a great flame! That is the breath of the goddess, the lightning of purification! All of you! With your very lives, receive Urare’s lightning!”
Some stamped as though seized by epilepsy; from the pores of others blood began to seep. Still the mad worship showed no sign of stopping. Pain itself seemed to have become a deeper rapture.
Rumble—!
As the turbine gathered speed, the entire floor began to quake as though a monster’s heart were thrashing beneath it. At the tip of the giant electrode a small spark first leapt with a sharp crack. Moments later the sparks tangled together and swelled into a vast blaze of light.
“More! More! More!”
The old man’s cry drove the cultists to pound their feet like madmen. The turbine now spun too fast for the eye to follow; lightning licked along every spoke and made them shudder.
Zzzzzzt—!
KRA-BOOM!
At last a colossal bolt of lightning exploded as though tearing the ceiling apart. In the instant white radiance swallowed the entire space, the cultists’ bodies convulsed as one and their arms stretched toward the heavens.
“Ah!! Ahhh!”
“Uwaa!! Ahhh!”
Screams and cheers tangled together. Though their limbs jerked as if struck by thunderbolts, they howled in ecstatic bliss. Lightning flickered across faces plastered with blood, sweat, and tears. For a single heartbeat it seemed every one of them shared the same hallucination.
The madness climbed to its limit. With each descending bolt their souls, rather than crumbling, burned deeper still. No longer did human voices leave their throats—only the howls of beasts, or sounds even uglier than that.
They neither sleep nor eat. Do they live solely on the Wildness that builds during worship?
Minel delivered a single, merciless verdict.
“It’s a cult.”
Hina narrowed her eyes and studied them carefully. Even as the lightning seared the kneeling bodies, every face wore a rapturous smile—faces that had abandoned even the instinct to survive.
Her voice carried a note of resignation.
“They’ve completely lost their reason. They won’t listen to me anymore.”
Chori, terrified beyond measure by the incomprehensible scene of madness, pressed even tighter against Minel. For someone who had never truly belonged to any society, the sight of the fanatics at worship lay far beyond the bounds of understanding.
“A-are those really people? No matter how I look, they seem like monsters.”
Just then something pale and wispy began to rise from the cultists’ heads. At first it looked like steam from sweat evaporating under the lightning’s heat. But as the wisps drifted strangely toward the turbine and were sucked inward as if absorbed, it became clear they were no ordinary vapor.
“It’s as if they’re absorbing souls. Look carefully. The smoke has taken human shapes.”
Minel, too, narrowed his eyes and watched intently. Exactly as Hina said, the steam rising from each head mirrored the person’s form. The instant the shapes left the scalp they collapsed and vanished into the turbine, which was why they had been hard to see at first.
In the Backrooms anything was possible; extracting human souls was not out of the question.
Minel thought for a moment. Weighing every circumstance and the old man’s words, it seemed dozens of people had been thoroughly brainwashed by the cult and now turned the turbine like machines once every hour. Being struck by the lightning it produced plunged them into a kind of ecstasy, and that ecstasy became the motive that made them repeat the same act forever. The turbine, spun by the labor of dozens, generated a certain amount of electricity—and in the process stripped something soul-like from the people.
One of two possibilities: either a natural phenomenon that had arisen so they could adapt to the peculiar environment of the 3rd Floor, or someone had deliberately engineered this setup to harvest some benefit. The answer lay in those soul-like wisps that had just been drawn into the turbine. If they were merely steam dispersing of their own accord, deliberate design was unlikely; if they were intentional, then somewhere they were being collected and put to use.
Just as Minel finished the thought, Hina spoke.
“They look like monsters, but they’re still people. They simply can’t come to their senses…”
Her gaze settled on a child among the throng, a child who looked about Chori’s age. Seeing the little one already turned into a fanatic among the adults filled her with quiet sorrow.
Minel understood Hina’s heart perfectly well, yet he could not save anyone. It was impossible to begin with, and even if they did pull someone free there was no guarantee that person would follow. Besides, they had only just reached the 3rd Floor. Who knew what hardships still waited ahead? They could not casually take in another child.
“We have to go to the 4th floor.”
“……”
“Don’t think about anything else.”
At Minel’s quiet voice Hina nodded without a word. She was not the sort to turn from cold reality and chase empty ideals either.
One by one the people began to come to themselves. In stark contrast to the frenzy that had just shaken their bodies, their arms and legs now hung limp and their eyes were hollow.
“Come, let us return. Rest so we may be ready for the next worship. We must flee before the Sludge arrives.”
Even the old man’s voice lacked strength. It was hard to believe the same man had been shouting fit to bring down the world only moments before.
They gathered around the ladder. Starting with the old man, one after another leapt high and climbed onto the scaffolding where Minel’s party stood. From such emaciated frames came astonishing power; fewer than half even bothered with the ladder rungs.
Yet once they had all arrived they again moved as though on the verge of collapse, dragging themselves toward the three entrances. The jarring contrast sent a strange unease through Minel. He drew his weapon and gripped it firmly. He had just witnessed with his own eyes that, if they willed it, they could unleash monstrous strength. After all, they spun that gigantic generator turbine by human power alone. Without superhuman force far beyond common sense, the worship itself would have been impossible.
Then the old man suddenly fixed Hina with an unblinking stare. He simply stood there gazing blankly, and that alone was grotesque enough.
“Hm? Why aren’t you going inside with us? The Sludge might get startled for no reason.”
Hina glanced once at Minel and spoke softly.
“May I ask something more?”
“Of course, of course. Merciful Urare does not forbid questions. Though once you keep receiving Her love you no longer feel the need to ask. Still, a new believer should ask questions. Go on.”
He tried to smile gently, yet the right and left halves of his face twisted unnaturally, as if a machine were attempting to imitate a human expression.
“How do we get to the 4th floor?”
Hina asked lightly—and instantly regretted it. The moment the words left her mouth every single person froze in place and stared at her.
The old man’s lips trembled. When he forced them open, a faint yellow light began to seep from his pupils.
“The 4th floor? The 4th floor? How to get to the 4th floor? Why would you want to know that? There is no grace of Urare there! Why would you deliberately go somewhere without Urare’s grace? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?”
The yellow light in his eyes deepened. At the same time the same yellow light kindled in the eyes of every person around them.
Wildness was boiling up.
“Just answer the question.”
Minel extended Noise and leveled it at the old man. The elder’s face went ashen and his body shrank back.
“Almighty Urare, protect me with eternal lightning. Almighty Urare, protect me with eternal lightning. Almighty Urare, protect me with eternal lightning.”
He repeated the same words over and over. Now every person around them began to chant in perfect unison.
“Almighty Urare, protect me with eternal lightning.”
“Almighty Urare, protect me with eternal lightning.”
“Almighty Urare, protect me with eternal lightning.”
“Almighty Urare, protect me with eternal lightning.”
“Almighty Urare, protect me with eternal lightning.”
It began as the softest murmur, yet as countless voices layered upon one another the sound filled the space until the very air vibrated against the skin. Then, all at once, it cut off as abruptly as a child’s sob.
“……”
“……”
“……”
Even the echoes died, leaving absolute silence. In that choking stillness dozens of pairs of yellow eyes fixed on Minel’s party and flared as one.
The old man, who had been crouched so tightly he seemed ready to fold into himself, suddenly threw his head back.
Crack-crack.
Crack-crack.
Tiny sparks of static leapt between his bright-yellow eyes, then thickened into bolts of lightning.
“Judgment… upon the apostates!”
At his cry the same lightning erupted from every pair of eyes.
“Judgment upon the apostates!”
“Judgment upon the apostates!”
“Judgment upon the apostates!”
The entire chamber began to transform into a sea of lightning.