Master of the Divine Vessel (2)

At first, there was only one thought in my head: run. Take the Pope and try to escape, and if that proved impossible, stall for time and wait for reinforcements. However many casualties littered the area, he was still their Pope—and before ever coming to this place, I had already wrung a promise from the knights and priests still on their feet that they would send aid as quickly as they could. Stalling, at least, was something I could manage, I'd figured. No matter who that someone might be.

"I asked you what you just said."

"Hm? But I do believe you refused to converse."

I hurled a dagger into that smirking face, lips twisted into a sly grin. I'd expected ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his black aura to rise up and block it—surprisingly, nothing came. He simply caught the blade between his saw-like teeth.

He spat the blade out with a wet ptui and flicked a single finger toward me. In the same instant, a tentacle of black aura erupted from the ground and punched clean through the flesh below my knee.

A moan of agony tore out of my throat before I could stop it. Crumpling to the floor with the Pope slipping from my arms, the only sound that reached me was the crisp click of his leather shoes closing in.

"There now—isn't this a much better position for conversation?"

"You. Who are you."

"Haha! How admirable, keeping your bearing even in a situation like this!"

"I believe that's the third time I've asked who you are."

"Merely one of the many people who know you."

I put killing intent in my glare, as if to say don't lie to me—and his smile only deepened. Just as I was racking my brain for a way to pry his mouth open, his voice suddenly echoed inside my skull.

"Well, everything we discuss from here on is confidential as far as the world is concerned. Your thoughts carry straight to me, so don't mind them."

He must have caught me worrying about the Pope collapsed beside me. The old man seemed to have fainted from the pain, but there was no telling when he might wake. In any case, the channel was open now, so I decided to start with a question.

"Who are you, you fucking bastard."

A blade-edged tone, for once. My sudden profanity would have offended anyone—yet he paid it no mind whatsoever, flashing a frivolous smile.

"Haha. I am called Greed, of the Church of the Moon."

"...The Church of the Moon?"

"Yes. Our one and only goddess—"

"Don't care about any of that. How do you know about me?"

Perhaps because I'd trampled his lovely introduction of his goddess, he looked mildly stung—but it didn't matter. I needed information from him far more important than that.

That man had spoken of my life. He had asked which one I was on now. As if he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠knew I was being reborn, over and over.

No one knew that. Not once in all this time had I ever breathed a word of it to anyone around me. No one would have believed me anyway, and there was no one in my life I could speak to so freely about such things. So hearing it from another person was impossible—which left exactly one possibility.

"Did you hear it from your Church?"

"Not as a story handed to me directly. More like a superstition, passed down through the generations."

A god—or at least something close to one—had passed my story down. And not just any god. Solar, who had been directly involved in my cycles of rebirth.

"...A superstition?"

"Yes. Long ago, it was said, the one destined to become Lady Luna's divine vessel—"

"What?!"

My thoughts, flaring white-hot, must have transmitted exactly as they were, because he clapped his hands over his ears for an instant. Gritting his teeth, screwing his left eye shut, brows hiked high, he addressed me again.

"Why are you shrieking?"

"...The god you serve. It's Luna, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is, but—?"

That one answer settled everything. Why this man knew about me. Why he called me the master of the divine vessel.

Luna intended to descend upon this land wearing my body. That was why she kept me reincarnating. And before she was sealed away, she had made humanity worship her—so that when I, reborn again and again across the cycles, finally arrived in this world, she could seize me all the more easily and use me for her resurrection.

The divine vessel did not mean a mortal body. It meant, quite literally, the body of a god.

"...And that exalted goddess of yours was the one who passed it down?"

"Hm? How did you know th—"

He never got to finish. I had been all but certain anyway.

I threw another knife at his face. The difference from before: this one was no ordinary dagger. Napalm—a substance of aluminum soap mixed with gasoline. A highly concentrated fuel, ferociously volatile. And the surface of that blade was coated in it.

He caught this one too, one-handed, with the same maddening leisure—which was, for me, excellent news. The dagger I loosed in immediate pursuit flew not at his face but at the napalm dagger in his grip. I silently prayed for even a graze, a spark, an explosion—but his other fingers plucked it out of the air mere inches away.

Apparently convinced this was my trump card, he slowly shook his head from side to side.

"I've no idea what you're aiming for, but it won't wor—"

"No. It already worked."

"...?"

His open palm crushed shut into a fist—and the spell trigger fired. Red light and heat began to pour off the dagger he'd caught between his fingers moments before. The magic formula I had engraved into the base of the pommel ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠activated, and a small spell spat out with a whoosh. The most basic magic there is, the first spell any mage ever learns.

Fireball.

They said my mana control was second to none. And control of mana meant control of magic itself—which is to say, adjusting the trajectory of a fireball already in flight was an easy trick for me.

The flame, launched from the end opposite the blade, veered sharply and struck him dead-on. Or rather—to be precise—it struck the napalm dagger in his hand.

"....!"

"Die. Just die."

What followed was an enormous explosion. The fireball detonated against the napalm with a deafening boom, and in moments it had swelled into a raging inferno that swallowed his body whole.

What came next was not a scream but something inhuman. They say the worst pain a human being can feel is the burning kind, don't they? As his vocal cords melted away, the sound that came out was nothing anyone would ever mistake for a human voice.

His black robe burned off in an instant, and his white skin melted into a sticky sludge that ran down to the floor. And yet an inexplicable sense of déjà vu crept over me—because he simply went on burning. He did not fall.

The ones behind him not reacting was strange, too. Fine—they'd held back because he'd been standing in my way. But now that he'd been reduced to this, shouldn't they be doing something? Yet the two figures at the rear showed no move even to finish off the helpless Pope. As if they had no part to play at all.

As I stared at those two, bewildered, something entered my sight that made my jaw hang open.

A crimson skull was staring at me. He was walking toward me, still on fire. His whole body burned, and with every step strips of skin peeled away and slapped wetly to the floor. His black skeleton wavered inside the flames devouring it, acrid liquid dripping in fat, hissing drops—and still he came, striding toward me without a flicker of hesitation.

I tried to scramble backward, but nothing remained in my leg but pain—the black tentacle that had skewered it was still lodged there. I thought of cutting the leg off and dragging myself away, but it was already too late. His hand had closed around my throat and lifted me clean off the ground.

His hand wasn't even hot. Blindsided by that sudden burst of speed, I couldn't manage so much as a decent struggle before he had me restrained. Hoisted into the air, I looked down—and the fire that had ruled his body was gone, vanished to wherever. The acrid liquid no longer dripped; the melted flesh was gone without a trace. He looked exactly as he had before the flames ever touched him.

"Ho... khh... how... did you..."

"Hm, how shall I explain... You simply covet what you want."

"...?"

"Covet a new life. Covet new organs, new skin. Covet even the flames that burned upon my body. That is all there is to it."

He said it as though it were the most natural thing in the world—for him, anyway—but to me it was a staggering blow. Enduring the searing agony of your entire body ablaze, devouring the inferno whole in a heartbeat, then regrowing your skin and organs from nothing. It was a feat no human mind could accomplish.

"Are you... hu...man...?"

"Why, of course. I am ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠every bit as human as you are!"

"Ghk... khh..."

Without warning he let go and flung me aside—and what caught me was none other than his black aura. Having received me, it twisted itself once more into something like a rope of coarse twine and began squeezing my throat, just as before. And Greed came strolling closer, unhurried, as if to savor the view.

"Hm... outwardly, you look nothing special, I must say... Why ever, I wonder, did the goddess choose this man...?"

"Don't know... ghk... you... you son of a... bitch..."

"A foul mouth on him, too, and hardly a shred of manners."

The moment his murmur ended, pain bloomed in my abdomen. The feeling of something driving in, hard. Like having a fistful of hailstones pounded into your gut—was that what it would feel like?

Looking down, I saw a black tentacle jutting from his body, fused to my belly. The joined tentacle undulated once—and began feeding something into me.

"Well, still—this is to be the body that bears the goddess's flesh. It really mustn't hold anything unclean, must it?"

"Aa... AAAAAGH!!"

"Ah, don't worry. I shall devour every unclean thing inside your body, every last one."

Something had entered my body. Not one something—many. The skin over my belly bulged and squirmed as they wriggled this way and that beneath it, rippling like something out of Alien. And every time the swollen flesh moved, maddening agony came crashing in. It felt like giant ants taking hold of my nerves one by one, biting and tearing.

They say pain is the one thing you never get used to, no matter how familiar it becomes. As if to prove the saying true, a terror-stricken shriek burst from my mouth.

God, how I wanted to hack off my own limbs and escape—but at some point the rope that had been strangling me had seized my limbs as well, and I couldn't so much as twitch at will.

And then, before my body—left with nothing ahead of it but violation—something popped into being.