Chapter 74
Chapter 74
11. War of Faith -5
Kids are quicker on the uptake than you'd think.
You could say they have an instinctive ability to tell whether someone means them harm or not. And that remarkable ability is mainly used to find an adult who'll play with them.
"Sister! Play sword fighting with me too! Hurry!"
"Hey! I said I was going first! And you dummy! The honored guest is a guy, so you shouldn't call him Sister, you should call him Brother!"
"Brother⋯⋯!"
"M-me too⋯⋯ I don't want sword fighting though⋯⋯"
And so the orphanage kids had judged me to be an adult who plays well with them, and were swarming around me.
Of course, it wasn't my face alone that had won over the children's hearts. That was just a kind of priming pump. The content is always what matters.
A man is a creature who, upon seeing a well-shaped branch, instinctively wants to swing it around, and the same goes for little boys. And when two people with an overwhelming gap in skill get together, well.
"Hiyah! Wah!"
Tak-! Tatat-! Tak!
I could match the kids' wild swings with their wooden swords and keep a plausible rally going. Even when they flailed around, the swordplay continued like something out of a storybook knight's duel—how could any boy resist that?
Correcting their swinging form here and there was a bonus.
With this method, I won over the hearts of the orphanage boys in one go.
"⋯⋯⋯⋯"
"⋯⋯⋯⋯"
Even the older, more dignified kids were visibly dying to join in. The boy Joen, their ringleader, was fiddling with the handle of the wooden sword at his waist, clearly holding back the urge.
But for those kids, I planned to teach them proper fighting, not just play. If they were active on the front lines at such a young age, the more combat ability they had, the better.
"If you don't wait your turn, I won't play with you. No fighting—line up and wait."
I skillfully coaxed and soothed the children as I played with them.
Meanwhile, Saintess Andersen was holding a knitting class for the girls I couldn't cover. They were sitting in a circle knitting scarves, and from a quick glance, Andersen's skill was about on par with the sharpest kid's.
How could someone be so lacking in dexterity?
Around the time when the scarf Andersen had spent twenty minutes on was in danger of being cut in half because she'd missed a stitch and let one slip out, she let out a faint sigh and quietly said to one of the girls.
"Our guest seems hungry, so it would be good to bring out a simple snack."
"Yes! Ande⋯⋯ Sister!"
"⋯⋯Just call me what you usually do."
"Yes! Big Sis Andersen!"
Big Sis⋯⋯?
Was that how they normally addressed her so casually? The form of address didn't quite click in my head, and for a moment I wondered whether she had somehow pressured them into calling her their big sister.
Glare!
Saintess Andersen's cool gaze, like a fired ballista bolt, locked onto me.
"What kind of face is that, Noah Won."
"I apologize."
I quietly lowered my head to avoid her wrath. It's best not to try standing against a natural disaster like a landslide.
Come to think of it.
"Why do they call you Sister?"
"Ah, that's—"
Just then, Joen cautiously approached and whispered in my ear.
"Among the orphanage family, those deployed to the field or old enough to know better are aware of the Sister's true identity. But the young children only know her as a nun."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. Since the noble position of Saintess is too lofty, the young children might feel a sense of distance⋯⋯ so she asked to be called a nun as much as possible. I hope the honored guest will also be considerate."
How thoughtful.
Well, even a child knows the president is an important person. The orphanage director being a church nun versus being the sole Saintess of the Church of the Holy God, a massive religious organization wielding dominant influence across the entire continent—the feeling would be completely different.
She was someone who thought of the children even in these small details.
Unlike the image of her puffing on cigarettes in the church while fiddling with a gun, the Andersen spending time here had naturally relaxed shoulders. She looked quite comfortable.
For someone like this to have reached the point of saying, "I'm willing to start a war if it means avoiding something more terrible—I'll bear the price in blood," there must have been a great deal that happened.
Even that characteristic expressionless face, seemingly without a single flaw, might be an acquired face built over countless scars. Hardened to the point where she couldn't smile brightly even in front of children.
Compromise is this bitter.
You can't embrace everything. To cross the murky, rough sea called the world, the fiercer the storm, the more you have to throw overboard to keep the boat from capsizing.
Usually, morality becomes that cargo. Some people carve it away easily, saying it was never needed anyway, while others bring the knife to it with trembling hands.
Within the Church of the Holy God, the Holy-God Faction had declined. The powerful of this world have no interest in those beneath them. The clergy look only to the heavens, seeking to pull down the native gods and usher in some other great god to save the world.
How many times must she have turned the knife on herself, just to look down upon the earth with what little power she had?
For a moment, she seemed to be slumped over a pool of blood. As I watched that sight, I silently rolled the name of the organization she had built around in my mouth.
'Family,' huh⋯⋯
If what I'd heard wasn't an exaggeration, it was a massive organization overseeing the entire underworld⋯⋯
"⋯⋯⋯⋯"
As I thought.
Simply tipping the Conclave's vote isn't enough.
Even if we work hard to install the Serpent-Subduing Young Lord as the Lord God, the world won't improve. The priests will be busy following the Serpent-Subduing Young Lord's will, and the shadows will only deepen.
The odds of responding to the plant disasters would go up, sure. But a life bred in horrific conditions is just as terrible as death. Grand causes are always ruthless.
My client Andersen had requested my cooperation. To save this world / and to keep those dog-like upper-rank hunters from becoming the Lord God.
The latter is only a means; the former is the goal. She asked for my help to make the world a better place. If that's the case, then to achieve the fundamental objective in this world—
In the end—Saintess Andersen must stand at the top.
Could that happen?
Clatter.
"I've brought snacks. We worked hard making these doughnuts, so even if they don't suit your taste⋯⋯"
"⋯⋯⋯⋯"
"⋯⋯Honored guest?"
A war of faith.
A war of faith where votes are traded for each side's gain, huh.
Until now, I'd been thinking about what would happen if the factional fighting intensified and an actual war broke out. Because the Saintess didn't have the power to control or prevent that war.
Wasn't the Saintess's Holy-God Faction itself already shriveled up?
The current state of the Holy-God Faction was easy enough to guess. The very fact that someone who was a Saintess had gotten involved with the underworld meant she was practically expelled from within the church, didn't it?
If she'd had more power, she wouldn't have put the orphanage children to work. She couldn't even come out about being a hunter herself—even though hunters on this planet are treated as gods-in-waiting.
She'd said she hid it because she lacked ability and had no confidence of reaching C-rank.
But if the Church of the Holy God were functioning properly and she could receive their full support, would she really have hidden it? She kept her mouth shut because revealing it seemed like it wouldn't do a damn bit of good.
And this entire fight had started because "compared to the rewards the Holy God bestows, high-rank hunters give more generously."
If that's the case, what if we flipped the entire premise on its head?
—What if believing in the Holy God was the most profitable option?
"⋯⋯⋯⋯"
"Perhaps you dislike doughnuts⋯⋯"
"Joen. The honored guest seems deep in thought, so please step away for a moment and don't disturb him further."
"Yes, Sister. I'll do as you say. Kids, upstairs!"
Patter patter—
With the sound of the children's footsteps behind me, I ran the calculations in my head.
From what I'd confirmed while touring the markets and settlements not long ago, this planet periodically achieves brief bursts of civilization development beyond its means.
The trigger is the bait—artifacts, resources, and the like—that upper-rank hunters scatter across the planet. Most of it seems to get devoured by the bishops and their factions, but the leftovers they leave behind trickle down to the civilian population.
The cigars the Saintess smokes, the kind that need cutting, were also said to have come in that way.
Because of that, the people here have come to expect such handouts. The fervor is easy to imagine if you recall Team Leader Park's reaction when he witnessed the magic power generator. This was one of the reasons the Holy God's standing had been plummeting.
Hearing only this much, it might seem like a violent gap too wide for a debt-ridden nobody like me or an Andersen with no central power to overturn⋯⋯ but this structure has a fatal weakness.
'The Adjustment Law.'
A kind of tariff that prevents lower worlds from becoming playgrounds for upper-rank hunters.
According to what I'd heard from the Glass Sword Lord, when a high-rank hunter projects power into a lower dimension, they must pay an enormous cost to pierce the Dimensional Barrier. The structure is such that if a C-rank or higher hunter sends 100, 90 gets taken as tax and only 10 arrives.
But what about us?
What Andersen and I scatter has no loss rate. If we were to distribute such "handouts" in the name of the Holy God, they would become 100% purely the Holy God's power.
Our opponents may be upper-rank hunters, but if we take this into a unit-cost war, it becomes a fight well worth having.
'The problem is the capital.'
I was a debtor, and Andersen lacked both the circumstances and the ability to earn Credits by running external Stages. And recruiting collaborators through the hunter bulletin board was out of the question—the average quality of D-rank hunters was far too low.
⋯⋯Capital, right.
If just one person helped, this structure could be established.
[Kim Sohye - Available]
Sohye's world had been driven to the brink of annihilation by the twin onslaught of the Zombie Virus and the Gates, but paradoxically, thanks to that, enormous resources remained as surplus.
On top of that, she had the backing of the military, and by inheriting my secondhand trading board and circulating the resources abandoned throughout the apocalypse to the outside world, she was on her way to becoming a tycoon.
1. Sohye invests capital in this planet.
2. Andersen uses that capital to seize control of the church.
3. And in return, holy water and purification abilities are exported to Sohye's world.
In other words, if I could secure Sohye's cooperation, this cycle could be completed.
Another point to address was manpower.
That wasn't a major problem either. Just as Joero had relocated beastmen for his own desires, we could pay Credits to dispatch hunters from Sohye's world over here. From what I remembered, that side also had hunters in a similar vein to Earth⋯⋯
If they came here, organizing a personal guard for the Holy-God Faction from scratch would be nothing. And what would ultimately remain in our grasp was—
Military force, financial power, and the legitimacy of the Saintess.
If it all came together like this, couldn't we make Moon Shadow, Master Binder, and the Serpent-Subduing Young Lord—all of them kneel beneath the Holy-God Faction's banner?
The only variable in this plan was one thing.
The gaze of upper-rank hunters, who for reasons unknown wanted to devour something here, was fixed on this place. Naturally, they would have already made their own investments. I needed to confirm just how much power they had projected onto their underlings.
The inside.
I needed to see the inside of the Church of the Holy God with my own eyes, and if the power they'd scattered around was something I could handle—
"What are you so lost in thought about?"
I emerged from my long reverie. Since Andersen happened to be right in front of me, I cut straight to the point and opened my mouth about the plan I'd come up with.
"Saintess."
"The children were quite startled when you suddenly went quiet like that. I don't mean to scold you, but if you've received some urgent personal news through the System—"
"Let's make the Holy-God Faction great again."
"Excuse me?"
At first, her expression said, what kind of nonsense is this?
But as she listened to my explanation, a glint gradually began to settle in Andersen's eyes.
First, the initial requirement of this plan was persuading Sohye.
It obviously couldn't be a structure where one side made sacrifices. And I had no intention of dumping that kind of burden on Sohye, my ally. Looking at it long-term—I believed this deal would help Sohye's world too.
[Noah Won : Sohye, if you have time, could you come by for a moment?]
[Kim Sohye : Huh?]
"Ahem."
I'd already set the whole farewell mood with Sohye, thinking she was about to move up to C-rank. But now that we had a reason to see each other again⋯⋯ I'd said all my goodbyes, so it felt a bit awkward, like a train whose departure got delayed.
But this wasn't a situation where I could skip calling her just because it was awkward, so I sent the invitation first. And I was about to explain the board I'd laid out to Sohye, but—
"I'll help with anything!"
"You don't need to go as far as 'anything.' Also, I believe this is ultimately a contract that benefits both sides. If you ask what your world gets out of this process—"
"It gets something? Then you take that too, Noah!"
"Let's start with you hearing out my explanation⋯⋯"
Like relatives during the holidays, she had no intention of listening to me and just kept trying to stuff things into my mouth.