Chapter 82
Chapter 82
11. A War Without Faith - 2
Do you know the night? The night has many faces. On the darkest of nights, even the sound of your own footsteps on the way home can startle you, and it feels as though someone unseen is doggedly following you. Every alley seems to have eyes, and under the bed you wonder if there are blood-soaked hands.
The meaningless anxieties I'd shaken off long ago, back when I was a snot-nosed seven-year-old, came boiling over in an instant.
And the terrifying part is that this unmistakable change isn't "visible" at all.
Night is coming.
[-> Download Slot 1: 『■■Gaze』 (Downloading⋯⋯ 1%)]
An intangible pressure that couldn't be seen with the eyes. This, too, was a gaze. But it was of a different nature from the Serpent-Subduing Young Lord's.
If his gaze resembled a snake eyeing the nape of one's neck, this one was⋯⋯ closer to dominion, to subjugation. Even though it was merely a sidelong glance, settling in place without any clear intent, it felt as though the entire world was being warped.
Andersen's fingertips trembled faintly—and the bishops couldn't keep still either, shaking their legs or biting their nails. Yet they acted as though such a state was perfectly natural.
Even with anxiety so clearly stoked, there wasn't a trace of doubt on their faces. The gaze of 『Moon Shadow (月影)』 had seeped in softly, without anyone noticing.
No "words" could be heard. Which meant all of this was caused by a single finger—a stray fragment of Moon Shadow's consciousness. The most vicious mental-disruption attack I'd ever experienced.
I sent a message immediately.
[Noah Won : Andersen]
[Noah Won : Moon Shadow's power is twisting our minds. Be careful.]
She flinched.
Andersen gave a small twitch of her shoulders, then sent a light hand signal to show she understood. I could see her slowly, discreetly drawing up her holy power. I also wrapped myself in magic power to resist.
⋯⋯So then, what was Bishop Bento's goal?
Did he intend to start a fight? If he'd meant to sow confusion with Moon Shadow's power before an ambush, he should be making his move now. But for that, Bishop Bento's holy knights were acting far too relaxed. As if combat wasn't part of the plan.
Were they still underestimating us? That didn't fit either—the vote difference was nearly threefold. If the Binder Faction and Serpent-Subduing Young Lord Faction brought out boons granted by higher hunters, our side's strength would be superior.
Was it to extract information? Saintess Andersen spoke to Bishop Bento, who had stepped forward.
"Our side's votes are already overwhelmingly superior. Bishop Bento, are you saying you'd rather resort to bloodshed than accept the result?"
"Saintess, you have erred twice in a single statement, so I would need to deny it twice to reply⋯⋯ but I doubt you wish to hear it twice. So I shall say it only once. No."
Swish—
As Bishop Bento extended his hand, the priest who had seemed to be attending him removed his hood and revealed himself. It was Antonio, the Binder Faction bishop I had driven out of the conclave using Hunter Alliance records.
Bishop Savidero frowned.
"⋯⋯Why has a man under disciplinary confinement come to this place?"
"Why else? He came to the place where the vote is held, so naturally he came to exercise his right to vote. Show them, Antonio."
Bishop Antonio walked to the center of the 『Grand Sanctuary』 with a swaggering expression and tossed a paper ballot into the golden bowl. Savidero sneered at the sight.
"Ha, do you think we'd recognize a vote cast by a bishop under disciplinary confinement? Even adding one measly vote, our Holy-God Faction still has far more! This is truly idiotic—"
Whoosh—!
The ballot blazed up in dark blue flames, and a single emblem of Moon Shadow was engraved into the planetarium above. The conclave's Holy God ritual had recognized Antonio's vote.
"Ah, no, th-that⋯⋯ that!!"
"Think carefully about the conditions of the vote. Who holds the right to vote?"
"Obviously, the bishops, the Saintess, and His Holiness the Pope!"
"Correct. But⋯⋯ how are those bishops created, I wonder. Dull-witted Savidero."
"You——!!"
Just as Savidero was about to raise his voice to refute Bishop Bento's mocking words, Andersen lightly raised her hand and stopped him. Then she continued the conversation, probing for Bishop Bento's scheme.
"⋯⋯It requires His Holiness the Pope's approval and a majority of the bishops."
"Correct, Saintess. But our church has a provision stating that when an emergency arises in which most bishops are dead or injured⋯⋯ the Pope may reorganize the order at his discretion. And causing that 'emergency' was not difficult. A single document sufficed."
"Bishop Bento. The church is not foolish, and the Holy God even less so. The Holy God who presides over the conclave would not be deceived by such wordplay—"
"Yes. If He were sound, that would be the case. Haha⋯⋯"
Bishop Bento looked around the 『Grand Sanctuary』 with an expression that carried even a sense of liberation, like a man who had finished a long, long wait.
"Ever since the Holy God declined and Moon Shadow cast His gaze upon us, we have whittled away at it for generations. You seem to have missed it, but⋯⋯ did you not already know that this was not the first conclave?"
"⋯⋯⋯⋯"
Right. This vote was originally a ritual in which the Holy God granted the church's wishes.
In the days of His full power, it had been held as often as once a week. As the Holy God declined, the intervals gradually lengthened⋯⋯ and this time, I'd heard, it was being held for the first time in 77 years.
And the Holy-God Faction's decline had been underway for even longer than that.
"At the previous conclave, and the one before that. We changed the rules little by little, in our favor. Think about it. In the first place, bishops standing here bearing the power of Moon Shadow, the Serpent-Subduing Young Lord, and Master Binder—instead of the Holy God's power—is that not absurd?"
"⋯⋯So you're saying you corrupted a Holy God ritual that was originally sound."
"A god is a god, so we could not change it greatly. However, we changed it just enough to deceive His eyes, should Moon Shadow grace this place."
Time.
They had spent a long time weakening the Holy God and His faction, drawing in other factions to do their work. And now, after chipping away bit by bit, they had seized the opportunity. This was them playing their trump card.
Savidero cried out in fury.
"How can you commit such an outrage!"
"Haha, how amusing, Savidero. This was a joint effort by the Binder Faction and the Serpent-Subduing Young Lord Faction alike. The things you've enjoyed were also torn from the Holy-God Faction and stuffed into your mouth. You are truly shameless."
"⋯⋯⋯⋯!!"
And it didn't land at all.
But something was missing. I understood that Bishop Bento and the Moon-Shadow Faction had been steadily preparing this overthrow for generations, but if they'd been able to bend the entire Holy God ritual to their will, they wouldn't have gone through this voting process at all.
Simply commanding the Holy God to surrender all His power would have sufficed. This alone gave them no reason to roll the dice. Which meant they had one more prepared move.
"Above all else, the church's greatest authority has joined our side."
Plop.
Bishop Bento casually placed his hand on the Pope's shoulder. The Pope did not shake it off.
Then Bento produced a lavish parchment from within his robes and held it high, so that everyone could see the words written on it. The content was simple, but sharp enough to shatter every plan we had woven.
[All those belonging to the Holy-God Faction, Holy Knight Noah, and Saintess Andersen are excommunicated.]
"Even without pushing the scales to the very end, this much is enough to overturn the entire board. This document is already in effect. So long as you belong to the Holy-God Faction, you effectively have no right to vote."
"⋯⋯⋯⋯"
⋯⋯So the Pope had been won over by the Moon-Shadow Faction from the start.
Bento, who had fabricated an "emergency" with Moon Shadow's power, even if only temporarily, now held most of the personnel authority over the Church of the Holy God. The bishop under disciplinary confinement had regained his voting rights because Bento had borrowed the Pope's seal to cancel the confinement.
The votes we'd stacked up layer by layer evaporated in an instant. We'd gathered the people, but now they couldn't even vote.
And the even more fucked-up part was this.
"Come back. Savidero, Seldicto. And the rest of you bishops. You weren't truly moved by the Saintess's noble intentions, were you? I was deeply moved to see you all acting so grown-up, discussing profit⋯⋯ but we know. We know that if the Saintess seizes power, she'll carve off that flesh and share it with the citizens."
"⋯⋯⋯⋯"
"You must think of the greater cause. To prevent the future apocalypse that will be triggered by the great beast, shouldn't our Church of the Holy God be the first to grow? Brothers, Moon Shadow does not monopolize."
"Ha, haha! Indeed! That's right, Bishop Bento! The Saintess's intentions are noble, of course, but ultimately, for the grand scheme, we need concentration!"
Now even the people we'd gathered were about to slip away.
Saintess Andersen was an unproven leader, whereas they had spent a long time banded together, eating their fill. If both sides held the same power⋯⋯ they'd side with the other camp.
The bishops who had declared their defection bolted in the opposite direction as if a fire had broken out. Since the excommunication order targeted only the Holy-God Faction, me, and Andersen, they recovered their votes through betrayal.
People gathered by self-interest scattered like grains of sand in an instant.
● Native God Holy God Faction (Total - votes)
-Serpent-Subduing Young Lord Faction 1 vote
-Saintess 1 vote
● 『Moon Shadow (月影)』 Faction (Total 13 votes)
-Moon-Shadow Faction 4 votes
-Pope 1 vote
-Binder Faction 4 votes
-Honorary Bishop 1 vote
-Serpent-Subduing Young Lord Faction 3 votes
Amid all that, one person remained. Savidero held his ground, trembling. I looked at him with fresh eyes, wondering if this man actually had some sense of loyalty.
"A-are you telling me not to go? Why?! By common sense, the tide has—no, ugh, m-my neck⋯⋯"
He couldn't leave because he was receiving the full weight of the Serpent-Subduing Young Lord's gaze.
Saintess Andersen, showing the greatest agitation I'd ever seen from her—looked at the stooped Pope with trembling eyes. The old man couldn't bring himself to meet Andersen's eyes and averted his gaze.
The Pope's drained voice rang out quietly.
"I'm sorry, Andersen⋯⋯ I-I. I thought this was right."
"I don't understand. Wasn't it you, Your Holiness, who taught me the Holy God's teachings? How could someone like you make such a choice?!"
"How far could you spread your wings under a god in decline? I⋯⋯ received a promise. Once the Moon-Shadow Faction seizes power, they said they would provide support⋯⋯ so that you would never lack for anything in caring for the orphanage."
"⋯⋯⋯⋯That's, what."
Andersen seemed to have fury rising to the tip of her tongue. But instead of hurling it at the Pope, she let it out with a sigh. Because it was meaningless.
The Pope knew nothing of how strong a person Saintess Andersen was, or what she could achieve. He hadn't believed in her. He had only seen his own failures reflected in Andersen.
I understood the wish for one's child not to become like oneself, but⋯⋯ he should have looked properly at what he needed to see.
And that extreme frailty—seeing Moon Shadow's ability now revealed, it might well be acquired anxiety cultivated over a long period by Bishop Bento. If so, then ultimately this wasn't a matter to be settled by wrangling with the Pope.
Bang!
Saintess Andersen slammed her palm down on the platform and spoke.
"I have already stated that I would guarantee your interests. I presented a new vision as well. Your wealth would only have grown, never diminished. And a way to confront the Gate crisis you speak of—we could have prepared for it step by step through exchange."
"That is, we also need to choose a certain method⋯⋯."
"Stop the bullshit. If you truly pursued the greater cause, you wouldn't be draped head to toe in gold and jewels. I'll ask you why. Truly, why on earth are you rejecting my proposal?"
She had been prepared to give them everything.
Saintess Andersen had no intention of purging the bishops right away. She knew that if a commotion broke out in the process, it would be the people below who shed tears of blood. She'd thought it would be better to just let them enjoy everything they had and die of old age.
So truly⋯⋯ the bishops would have received the wealth they were promised. In exchange, Andersen wanted only one thing. To use a portion of the church's riches to look after those in low places. No one would have lost in this arrangement. So why?
To that question.
"Heh, hehehehehahahaha!"
Bento burst into roaring laughter. Along with that laughter, he shed the skin of a benevolent old man. A strange self-righteousness gleamed in Bishop Bento's eyes.
"Do you truly not understand? That was precisely the problem. Why must you look after people? If it weren't for that alone, we would have gladly followed you, Saintess."
"⋯⋯What are you saying. That."
"Life living and dying is an obvious, natural thing. Even now, countless are being born, and countless will die and vanish. Why do you concern yourself so much with such worthless, unremarkable matters? What matters is not saving someone⋯⋯ it is what position you yourself occupy."
The god who walks the Hell Path, and the human named Bento chosen by that Moon Shadow—he spoke as though admonishing all creation from on high.
"Power comes from relative superiority. So if they climb too high, we cannot look down on them sufficiently, can we?"
"⋯⋯⋯⋯"
To maintain that sense of superiority, that gap of the ruling class—he had abandoned the countless citizens living on the planet.
Now I understood.
Andersen's planet had an extremely low Gate progression rate. Compared to Earth, it looked like paradise on earth. Even though the "ruin" of destruction hadn't even begun at this point.
They'd been shouting, as if for all to see, that the future apocalypse must be prevented. I'd thought they were fulfilling a prophet's duty. This planet was, after all, the mother world they would live on. I'd thought they were preparing for the future even for their own sake.
That wasn't it. They'd only wanted to fatten their own bellies using that as a pretext. They'd sold off everything else for power.
Without conviction, without vision.
This vote had been a war without faith from the very beginning.
Saintess Andersen ground her teeth. The chilling sound of her jaw joint grinding away kept coming. From that, I could gauge the weight of the fury she was suppressing. She spoke in a trembling voice.
"⋯⋯I should have just killed them all. Noah Won."
That lament.
Beyond the lament cloaked in fury, deep sorrow was seeping through. I thought that, perhaps, if it had been at the orphanage, she might have shown tears.
Even if we succeeded in wiping out those bastards before the vote proceeded any further, the Moon-Shadow Faction already had one vote cast. And we had no votes. It meant that if the ritual activated, the Holy God's power would be stolen even if we killed them all.
Think about it. The Saintess appears after killing all the bishops who participated in the vote, yet the Holy God's power has vanished. To anyone watching, it looks like she was abandoned by God. The religious authority and support she held would vanish like foam.
What if we stopped the ritual? Well, I don't know if there's a means to do that.
We were blocked.
The reason she stood without crumbling, the reason she remained in the form of the mafia Saintess without showing tears⋯⋯ was surely the result of sheer stubbornness—not wanting to show the enemy such a sight. To me, Andersen's back looked precarious.
The images overlapped. A situation at the edge of a cliff with nothing left but stubbornness—I'd been through that too.
When the System was bestowed upon me⋯⋯ when that colossal root appeared, tearing through the sky. I'd screamed and prepared for the end, but in truth, I'd desperately wished for salvation more than anyone.
Which was why I'd impulsively accepted the System's incomprehensible reinforcement request and ended up a debtor.
But compared to the System, I'm an exceedingly generous creditor.
"It's a debt. Andersen."
"⋯⋯Noah?"
"I'll handle it, so you'll be repaying this debt for a long, long time."
Let me show you, Andersen. It's not over yet.
Trudge. Trudge.
I walked past Andersen and advanced toward the bishops. At that, the holy knights standing at their rear began to arm themselves, one by one. From within the wall of knights, Bishop Bento sneered with feigned composure.
"Do you intend to draw your sword as a final desperate struggle, Holy Knight Noah?"
"Watch your words. Bishop Bento. I won't expect faith from a pack of jackals like you, but shouldn't you at least show some courtesy?"
"⋯⋯⋯⋯?"
Let's see how long you can keep smiling.
"Allow me to introduce myself. I am the hunter Noah Won. I belong to the same System as the gods you serve—the higher hunters—and I'm not much different from them."
"What, what do you⋯⋯ you?!"
"So the Holy God didn't regain His power, and it wasn't an excavated ruin—a new god has been interfering⋯⋯?!"
Commotion spread among the bishops. I looked around at their shocked faces and declared.
"Here and now, I, Noah Won, will stand as a candidate for a new god."
"Even so, what changes⋯⋯ wait! Holy knights, now! Attack now!! Hurry!!"
Immediately after, Bishop Bento went pale. With veins bulging in his neck, he screamed at the top of his lungs. He seemed to have caught on, however vaguely, to what I was about to do.
But he was far too late.
If he was going to sense something wrong, he should have felt it when Savidero stayed on our side. He should have wondered why the Serpent-Subduing Young Lord had placed his bet on me.
[All those belonging to the Holy-God Faction, Holy Knight Noah, and Saintess Andersen are excommunicated.]⋯⋯ huh.
"And I, in the name of a new god, commend you greatly. You bishops have done me a great service by clustering together in one place, so conveniently ripe for the culling."
Clink.
I flipped a single gold coin onto my thumb.
『Download -2』 took hold of the guide. I had experienced the process of acquiring and losing skills tens of thousands of times. I remembered that flow.
At the same time, I focused to my limit. I squeezed everything out. The sensation of scattering broken skills to Hyejin and Earth's hunters, the sensation of communicating with the Glass Sword Lord, the sensation of receiving the Azure Wind Wanderer from Sky Roamer. I recalled every experience.
Most of my magic power was sucked into my fingertips. I had the feel for it. I was certain I could do exactly what I had in mind. I stretched the corners of my mouth up and smiled as viciously as possible.
Simultaneously with Bento's belated scream.
"Kill that pretender right now——!!"
"Hereby—— I, Noah Won, bestow upon you a worthless 『Skill』!"
Fwoooosh——!!
I imitated a bestowal.
Saintess Andersen saw it. He tossed a single coin as if giving alms, his white hair streaming, and the bishops fled in terror as though the coin were filth.
It was absurd. Weren't these the very people who so loved profit and gain? He had bestowed upon them the gold coin they so adored—so why flee?
But fleeing was meaningless. The light bursting from the coin spread in an instant, and more clearly than anyone—it seeped into the twelve traitor bishops. They were unmistakably bestowed with a worthless skill that had no effect whatsoever.
And with that, they belonged to Noah Won.
[All those belonging to the Holy-God Faction, Holy Knight Noah, and Saintess Andersen are excommunicated.]
And by the authority of the excommunication order now in effect, they immediately lost their qualifications as bishops.
● 『Moon Shadow (月影)』 Faction (Total 0 votes)
-Moon-Shadow Faction 4 votes
-Pope 1 vote
-Binder Faction 4 votes
-Honorary Bishop 1 vote
-Serpent-Subduing Young Lord Faction 3 votes
"The v-votes!!"
"The ones already cast?! They've been erased!"
"Bishop Bento! Surely you have another method?!"
"Cancel the excommunication order at once! Can't we just tear it up?!"
The bishops clamored, but it was already too late.
Not a single person in this place held voting rights—so the conclave, the Holy God ritual, failed to commence. The lights of the 『Grand Sanctuary』 quickly died down. Immediately, as if it had been looking for an excuse to stop from the very beginning.
The chance to devour the Holy God's power at the Fallen Star Site had gone up in smoke.
The plan had gone wrong, and it had become a disaster. Bishop Bento contorted his face, suppressing his rage. Veins bulged on his forehead. He had failed to prepare the offering promised to Moon Shadow. He would likely suffer a terrible fate.
Then. At the very least.
He had to prepare for what came next. He didn't know if he could survive Moon Shadow's punishment—but he had to secure his power. What happened here had to be buried here.
"Kill them."
"⋯⋯Excuse me?!"
"I said kill the Saintess and that holy knight bastard, and shut their mouths!!"
At that, the white-haired holy knight pulled out a strangely shaped shield and laughed refreshingly as he spoke.
"Go ahead and try, you little shit."
Now it was time to converse with sword and shield.