The Land of Rot and the Priest of Abundance (3)
The day marked Raul’s sixth month since waking in Exeria, he happened to meet a crusader by pure chance.
She was the kind of extraordinary person who had awakened to divinity on her own, without any teacher’s guidance, and set out on a pilgrimage.
Her name was Celia.
A Saint gained skills by “seeing” the powers of other priests.
The two skills Raul used so constantly that they might as well have been part of his body, Holy Armor[Lv.1] and Holy Weapon[Lv.1], had in fact belonged to her.
They were clumsy, half-formed, baby-level skills at Lv.1, barely more than a first step.
And yet once those Lv.1 skills met the Saint’s unique power, Halo, their force became so absolute it could not be compared with any skill from any other class.
Raul had originally planned to approach Celia, who was still an inexperienced crusader, and help her grow stronger.
If a level-one skill was already this strong, what would happen once she obtained a crusader’s higher authorities or even level-two skills?
Surely they would reveal power even Raul, who had raised all eighteen classes and collected all fifty-four endings, could never have imagined.
Unfortunately, Raul’s plan fell apart.
One of the crusaders of Motala, hiding and operating all across the continent, had heard of Celia’s reputation and come looking for her.
-Raul. I’m coming to your room tonight. I need to talk to you about something very important.
That morning, after she had encountered the crusader, Celia had suddenly said that to Raul.
Or perhaps she had already met the crusader and was about to question Raul about his identity.
She had mistaken Raul for a fellow “pilgrim crusader,” after all, and had especially liked his holy power, white as a blizzard.
Still, what on earth had she meant to say that night?
Even now, Raul sometimes found himself wondering.
But he never lingered too long on the question.
Once she had made contact with a fully mature crusader, she would already have become Raul’s enemy.
And then, another half year passed.
Autumn returned to the world where he had fallen and opened his eyes, and at last Raul achieved the meeting he had long awaited.
“Will you answer me, Priest of Abundance?”
When Raul urged her to answer, the old woman with eyes gleaming deep jade smiled and bared her teeth.
“Heh heh heh... I was wondering who you kept calling priest, priest. You mean me? You magic user with no main weapon.”
“I take it you have no intention of denying that you’re a priest.”
“Denying it or not, I’m not such an impressive person as a proper priest-nim.”
Looking at the village chief, who smiled so often, Raul fell into thought.
“And yet you possess that much divinity?”
The chief denied it, but the deep jade sacred power flowing through the old woman’s entire body was not something one could gain in a year or two of training.
“The ground you stand on. Your arms and legs. Even up to the top of your head. Mimir’s divinity is overflowing everywhere.”
If one judged purely by quality and quantity, it was enough to surpass an ordinary priest and approach the level of a high priest.
Well, priests in this age hiding their identities was only natural, so Raul did not find the chief’s behavior strange.
“Fine, we’ve had enough mutual inspection. Just answer the question. Why are you leaving it alone? That filthy miasma. Isn’t it bound up in the underground by you?”
“Heh heh heh. I think you’ve got quite the misunderstanding there, suspicious fellow.”
“A misunderstanding?”
When Raul asked flatly, the village chief stared at him for a long moment before speaking.
“When this old woman was young, there were as many followers of abundance on this land as you’ve said. The grain was green, and the kernels ripened under the autumn sun until they shone like gold. This land had been fertile farmland for generations.”
Whatever memory she was chewing over, the chief turned her head south, and deep lines folded at the corners of her mouth.
Her gaze was steeped in remembrance, as though she could still see those golden rice fields with her own eyes.
“I was a war orphan raised in the Temple of Abundance. The priest-nims never taught me a single line of scripture. It was because of the Saintess’s prophecy that an especially dangerous age was coming for those who awakened their powers.”
At the chief’s self-mocking laugh, Raul briefly narrowed his brow.
This was nothing more than a hunch, with no basis at all.
And yet for some reason, Raul could tell there was not a single lie in what the chief was saying.
“Then the sacred power filling your body...”
“I prayed. From the time I was a clueless infant until today. Every single day, without missing one.”
“What did you pray for?”
“Was there anything special about it? I just prayed with both hands clasped for the peace of the village and the abundance of tomorrow. Still, seems this old woman’s efforts weren’t wasted after all. To think someone like you would come here and mistake me for a priest-nim.”
Heh heh heh.
The village chief laughed, and it seemed Raul’s misunderstanding did not bother her in the least.
This is the first time in who knows how long I’ve found sacred power of abundance...
Raul, by contrast, could not hide the bitterness in his mouth.
At the level of the chief’s sacred power, he had expected she might surely be able to gain a mid-tier authority.
So rushing anything really isn’t good for much, is it.
Raul quickly shook off the hollow disappointment and looked at the chief, who had been rubbing something with a clean cloth ever since earlier.
“What’s that?”
When Raul asked, the chief took her hand off the gravestone, which was about her own height, and said,
“Someone like my mother.”
“You clean it every day?”
“Hah. You really are a suspicious fellow, so curious about everything. It’s nothing special. I’m just making up, now, for the filial duty I couldn’t repay in life.”
As she said that, the chief moved to the gravestone beside it and rubbed it in exactly the same way.
She maintained them with such diligence, such care, that no matter how much she scrubbed the white cloth, no dark grime ever came off.
Quietly, simply that way.
The chief was just an ordinary person who had not received so much as a crumb of the great god’s power in a world where gods truly existed...
Yet in Raul’s eyes, she was the first priest he had met in this world who truly looked like a priest.
***
The mystery has all been solved.
Raul mimed adjusting a pair of nonexistent glasses, then suddenly felt foolish and stopped.
The miasma had gathered there because of the village chief’s tireless labor.
She had not exactly been exercising her power with any particular intention.
Rather, each time she prayed, the sacred power of abundance moved on its own for the sake of the “peace of the village” she had asked for.
Something coiled deep underground.
The vile miasma it produced, and the village chief’s daily prayers offered in complete ignorance.
The precarious tug-of-war between divinity and miasma created by those coincidences upon coincidences.
That was the true nature of the strange phenomena plaguing Latina Village.
So, to put it bluntly, the path was still unknown, but if he found the passage leading underground and killed whatever had coiled there, the problem would be solved.
“Haah.”
Even so, it was impossible not to sigh.
He had finally met a priest, and there was no skill to be had.
Separate from solving the mystery, Raul had gone limp inside.
Besides, he did not even need to be the one to take the lead here.
Hadn’t more than twenty mercenaries and knights already been dispatched to deal with the matter?
I’ll give them a hint or two and let them handle the rest themselves.
Raul intended to dump everything on the knight, Rembrandt.
The man was a stubborn, impossible block of stone who never understood a word anyone said, but honestly, if the one who was untouched by demonic corruption turned on Raul in earnest, he was strong enough that victory could not be guaranteed.
So there would be no problem.
On the tenth day since he had taken up residence in this village, Raul sat down in the tavern Rembrandt favored and waited for him.
It was a tavern, but the irony of not being allowed to order alcohol was a bit annoying. Still, he endured it by clinging to the apple juice Yuna had handed him with a bright smile.
How long had he been waiting?
Bang!
The tavern door flew open, and someone appeared.
It wasn’t the knight Rembrandt. It was Sam.
“Raul! Sorry, but come now. Something’s happened!”
His appearance was somewhat unexpected, and when Raul looked at him blankly, Sam hurried on.
“Rembrandt’s been hit! He found their nest, but once he got splashed with that dark, rotten blood, he suddenly vanished!”
“Hmm? That means...”
“Yeah. Looks like he got cursed the same way I did.”
Raul shot to his feet and matched Sam’s stride.
When they entered the vigilante building, a dozen or so vigilantes were already armed and ready,
while five or six familiar faces trembled in a corner with expressions that made them look nearly broken already.
They were clearly the members of the Red Talon Mercenary Company Raul had seen before.
“Sounds like they were the ones who barely avoided getting covered in blood.”
“Lucky them.”
As he said that, Raul fixed his gaze on the mercenaries.
When he concentrated and filled their pupils with divinity, he could see that a little of the curse still clung to their eyes.
At that level, it wouldn’t lead to blindness.
Instead, they’d suffer horrifying hallucinations and phantom sounds.
Well, Raul thought they had had it coming, so he did not bother dispelling their curse.
“Let’s move. A huge cave was found on the far southeast edge of the forest. They say it runs pretty deep underground.”
Southeast. Underground cave.
At last, he had found the final piece of the puzzle.
Just before mounting the five horses prepared by the vigilantes, Sam suddenly asked Raul,
“Honestly, even after what happened last time, I can’t ever repay what I owe you. Still, sorry. Will you help us one more time?”
“You’re asking kind of late.”
“Ah, sorry. I’m all over the place.”
Watching Sam babble, Raul’s own curiosity rose.
“And what about you? Aren’t you fine? No one would blame you if you didn’t go, Sam.”
What those bastards had tried to do to him and his family...
Even so, Raul found it strange that Sam had armored himself up and climbed onto a horse in such a rush, so he asked.
Then Sam spat to the side and said,
“Damn right I don’t have any intention of helping those bastards. Great Mother Christ. But Jack there said he’d guide their path in my place.”
“Jack?”
At Raul’s question, Sam pointed and answered,
“That pretty-boy bastard who keeps coming by to trade jokes with Yuna every damn day. I don’t like the guy, but Yuna seems to be pretty fond of him.”
“You’re a good father.”
“Just a stupid father, that’s all. Raul, next time you have a daughter, don’t just be a daughter fool. Be a daughter genius.”
“Wouldn’t it be more polite to ask whether I’m even seeing anyone first?”
“Well... yeah, I guess.”
Heh.
Sam and Raul shared a grin and set off immediately.
How far had they run through the deep forest?
The terrain the surviving mercenary had described soon came into view.
Whooooosh...
A valley and waterfall carved out as if by the hand of some immense, jagged rock formation.
Hidden beyond the waterfall was a steep cave.
But before long, the cave passage ended.
The dozen or so vigilantes split up and searched for the entrance the mercenary had mentioned.
Raul, too, spread his formless, scentless sacred power wide and explored the surrounding terrain.
That was when it happened.
“Huh?!”
Along with some idiot’s muttered cry, a shriek rose from above.
Keeeeeeek!
Spitting viscous saliva, those things were hanging upside down from the cave ceiling like bats...
“Z-zombies on the ceiling!!”
“Those aren’t zombies! That’s...”
“A ghoul! A higher form of zombie!”
“Tch.”
Raul clicked his tongue and made a quick judgment.
The moment everyone froze at the ghouls’ vertical dive, he alone drew his sword.
The grotesque, oversized teeth tried to swallow whole the head of a vigilante whose eyes had gone wide, but
Sching-!
At the same time, a single strike flew out, leaving behind a pure white afterimage.
The ghoul’s head was split cleanly in two and went rolling across the floor.
A white flash, and a ghoul dropped by a single sword stroke.
The vigilantes stiffened at the successive, shocking spectacle, but Raul barked at them so loudly their ears should have rung.
“Stop standing there and get ready to fight! Do you want us all to die?”
“Huh?”
“Ah.”
“W-we need to get ready!”
“Another one’s coming!”
Bang-!
The second ghoul, unlike the first, lost its balance and crashed to the ground.
But then...
Crack-! Crick?!
With joints bending in impossible directions, the ghoul rose in a grotesque four-legged stance.
“That’s fucking disgusting!”
Sam was the first among the vigilantes to kick off the ground.
His sword, carrying his full weight, slammed down toward the twisted ghoul’s neck, but
Clang-!
To his surprise, sparks flew where the sword collided with the ghoul’s neck.
“What the fuck?”
The sensation was like iron striking iron, and Sam’s hand went numb.
The natural reaction was for an obscenity to fly out of his mouth.
“Sam! Drop the sword and move!”
“Everyone, go for the wound Sam made and the torn joints!”
Fortunately, more than half the vigilantes had regained their heads by then, and together they finally managed to subdue the ghoul.
“W-we did it!”
“No time for that! There are three more ghouls back there—. What are you doing!”
Sam barked at a vigilante who was standing slack-jawed in the middle of a moment where every second mattered.
But even with Sam’s heavy shout, the stunned vigilante didn’t move, silently pointing at one spot instead.
“What the fuck are you—. Huh?”
Though he was still cursing from frustration, Sam turned his head, and then he froze with the same expression as the vigilante.
“W-what is that...?”
With that final mutter, every vigilante there fell silent.
Because where they were looking...
Not only the three ghouls Sam had personally confirmed, but more than ten ghoul corpses were stacked there like a mountain.
Every one of them had been decapitated.
And nobody here was ignorant of the ghouls’ “skin hardness,” yet the cut surfaces were absurdly clean and neat.
As though their throats had been severed with a single blow.
Then, the man standing alone atop the hill of corpses turned his head.
From the crook of his arm to the tip of his sword, a pale light surged and rippled, like the breathtaking white expanse of a snowfield.
He was lofty beyond measure, so pure it was almost unbearable.
It was Raul.
At this point, Sam had no choice but to understand.
“So he really wasn’t some reclusive pilgrim...”
However you looked at him, he was the iron hammer of this age, the one who overturned a desperate crisis in an instant.
The crusader of Motala.