Becoming the Wave

Meanwhile, the vast southern plains did not belong to the pilgrims alone.

"All units, halt! We hold position until the search detachment signals."

The Second Holy Knight Order, who had never loosened their grip on the chase, was marching across the endless plain, hard on the pilgrims' heels.

At Commander Kubian's word, several hundred soldiers reined in their horses and caught their breath.

"We're fine, Commander. Keep pressing the pursuit as we are."

"No. There are many wounded — they can't have gone far. We'll overtake them soon enough. For now, we rest for what's to come."

"Yes, sir."

Kubian watched his men for a quiet moment, then turned his gaze north and murmured under his breath.

"Mohaim... You, of all people — the most devout among us. Why did you betray us?"

It made no sense.

The First Knight Order was the sharpest blade of the Church. To this day, not once, not a single one of them had ever betrayed the faith or fallen into heresy. And yet how could they all become heretics at once?

He stroked his horse's mane and sank deep into thought.

The Pope has never been wrong.

Had she not always led them down the righteous path?

The conversation he had exchanged with Mohaim across crossed swords came back to him.

"There is another truth, Kubian. Everything the Pope says is a lie! The Lord God has withdrawn His divine power from her!"

The sight of him spitting out blasphemy without a flicker of hesitation had been utterly staggering.

And yet, at the same time, Mohaim's eyes were filled with absolute conviction.

His brother's eyes, devoid of even a trace of doubt — the memory of them remained vivid to this day.

Before long, Kubian shook his head and rested his hand on the hilt of his sword.

"I am her instrument. An instrument does not question."

He must not waver. Whatever temptation had lured the pilgrims into betrayal, the Second Holy Knight Order would not follow. To forsake one's faith — could there be a greater sin?

Sorrow and a sense of betrayal churned together within him.

Then it happened.

"Commander. A signal."

Kubian's adjutant narrowed his eyes toward the distant northern horizon.

"It seems the search party has found the heretics."

Just as he said, a red light was flickering at the far edge of the horizon. Twice, short. Once, long.

"They found them faster than expected."

However thoroughly the fugitives had covered their tracks, their destination had always been fixed. Having betrayed the Church, there was no place for them left in the South.

The Pope was right — just as the remnants of the Evil God Cult did fifteen years ago, they'll surely flee through the Crossline Kingdom to somewhere else.

He pushed the doubt away. How could a mere holy knight like himself presume to fathom the will of the Pope, who stood closer to the Lord God than anyone alive?

So the road we're on was the right one after all.

He had to believe that.

But something was strange.

"Hm?"

After that first signal, there had been no follow-up from the search detachment. The red light simply burned on, long and aimless.

The adjutant tilted his head.

"But... why aren't they sending the rest of the signal?"

When an enemy force was spotted, three signals normally followed. First: the enemy has been found. Second: their numbers. Third: whether they are alert or unprepared. Based on these, the main force would choose whether to pursue, shadow, or ambush.

Yet the moment the first signal arrived, the information had simply cut off. And that meant one of two things: either the search party had been discovered and attacked — or they had witnessed something so shocking that sending signals was the last thing on their minds.

...Even with catastrophic losses, men called the blade of the Church wouldn't crumble so easily.

At the battle of the Papal Court, when they had been completely encircled and fated for annihilation, hadn't they still managed to escape with more than half their number alive? For such men to bait a search party and strike back would be trivial.

As if reading Kubian's thoughts, the adjutant spoke up.

"I'll dispatch soldiers. It seems the search party has been hit."

But the Commander shook his head.

"No. I will go myself. Assign me a few men."

"C-Commander, yourself?"

If Mohaim was out there, Kubian wanted to offer him one final chance — to die an honorable death as a holy knight. The Second Knight Commander mounted his horse and murmured.

"Let's go. If they truly are heretics, then the proof will be even clearer here."

Only then would this nameless unease gnawing at him finally fade. Only with proof of real betrayal could he wrap the truth of cutting down his own brothers in the mantle of justice.

"Hyah!"

Praying it would be so, he dug his heels into the horse's flanks.

But the closer Kubian drew to the search party's position, the stranger the sounds reaching his ears became.

- ...!!!!

- !!!

Shouts, faint and ragged, carried on the wind. What... is that noise? It sounded like the battle cries of men locked in combat — and yet also like the ecstatic cheering of a crowd swept up in fever.

Don't tell me the search party is fighting!

But when Kubian spurred his horse to the source of the signal, he realized that every one of his predictions had been wrong.

"..."

"..."

"..."

The search party was fine. All six hardened soldiers stood without a single scratch. One of them was holding aloft the very red flare Kubian had seen — but that only deepened his sense of wrongness. Every last one of them had dropped sword and spear where they stood, mouths hanging open, staring blankly to the north.

"You there. Are you all right?"

Only at the sound of his commanding voice did one soldier finally come to his senses.

"C-Commander Kubian, sir."

"Why did you not send the remaining signals?"

The soldier's eyes were shaking, wrecked by shock and disbelief. He pointed north.

"Look, sir. Look there."

Kubian turned his gaze at once.

- ...!!!!!

- Waaaaaah!!!!!!

A roar like thunder crashed against his ears, and with it came music — a soaring melody sharp enough to split the sky.

"Good heavens."

That sound was no battle cry. It was the frenzied cheer of a crowd drowning in joy and wonder.

And beyond it, he saw it: the towering ramparts of the Crossline Kingdom's royal castle.

"Nngh...!"

Kubian's eyes narrowed. For some reason, a light far brighter and more brilliant than the sun hanging high overhead was blazing atop the castle walls. A familiar golden radiance. And then — a voice as familiar as familiar could be.

- We're only on the eighteenth song and no one's tired yet, right!?

It was the voice of the Saintess — and her divine power. The Saintess's performance, impossible to mistake for anything else once seen and heard, was unfolding in the distance.

Kubian spoke as though he could not believe his own words.

"...The Saintess?"

He steadied his thoughts at once. N-no. The Saintess is missing. They said the pilgrims abandoned her. This too is the heretics' scheme.

The woman up there is a fake.

It had to be so. Only then would the Pope's words remain true. That the heretics were the heretics and the Pope had been wrong — that was a thing he could not even begin to imagine.

But the harder he denied it, the more irreverent thoughts pried their way up through the cracks.

Then why is that golden power visible to my own eyes right now?

Divine power this intense, this unmistakable, belonged to the Saintess alone. What his eyes saw and what his mind believed were at war — and in the heart of the Second Knight Commander, doubt began to take root.

What if... the Pope is wrong?

The exact same doubt Mohaim had carried, one month ago to the day. And at the very moment he first questioned his own faith—

- Anyone with two good legs, anyone healed, anyone raised from the brink of death... RRRUUUUN!!!!

With that clarion cry, a wave of divine power — so vast it could not even be compared to anything the Pope had ever poured forth — washed over them in an instant. He felt that warm, gentle radiance with his entire body.

"!!!"

And at the same time, the Commander watched an old scar on his arm slowly close and heal.

Clang!

Just like the search party before him, Kubian dropped his weapon from his hand — swallowed whole by shock and awe.

"...The Saintess has returned."

He had seen the truth.

At the same moment, King Rio lifted his head.

"...What did you say?"

For the first time, his expression was stained with bewilderment. Not rage, not grief, not even the faint contempt he wore when his predictions proved correct — but pure, unadulterated disbelief.

On the documents delivered by the Intelligence Department was written the heading List of Holy Church Affiliates Within the Royal Castle, the names of hundreds of men and women recorded in dense rows beneath it.

But instead of reviewing the purge list for the coming month, Rio stared at the old friend standing before him — Incansus, who had sprinted here at full gallop and now stood panting hard, breath ragged.

"The Saintess... Erzena... has begun performing at the Southern Border."

His veil fluttered with every labored breath. And through its gaps, the dragonewt's eyes held the same shock and disbelief as Rio's own.

For a long while, Rio was too stunned to say anything at all.

Turning a blind eye to Erzena's presence in this kingdom as a temporary asylum seeker, and sending his own daughter into that same household — both had been tests of a single thing. Whether Central Officer Nathan Kell could truly reject the detested god's favor to the very end. Whether the man who had declared he would walk the path of humans could hold to that word no matter what came.

And so, when the pilgrims turned anti-Papal and were cast out, Rio had known in his gut that this would be the Central Officer's crossroads of choice.

Nathan Kell. How will you come out of this?

If ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he helped them, it would be read as an unmistakably political move — siding, of all things, with the anti-Papal faction. If he did not help them, he would be failing his duty as an immigration officer. At the border, there are no exceptions; every soul seeking entry must be received. Whichever path he chose, it would be a losing hand for the Central Officer — because either way, helping them or refusing to, he would appear to be acting for the sake of the very god Rio despised with every fiber of his being.

And yet the Saintess herself steps forward. This — I never ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠foresaw.

The Saintess revealing herself was no mere gesture. It meant casting off her own status as a temporary asylum seeker and leaving this place. Which was to say, it meant nothing less than taking the side of the anti-Papal faction.

"...That is suicide," Rio murmured, as though he couldn't believe it. "Now that the Pope has moved ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to purge them, showing her face is madness itself."

There was no way for anyone who defied the Pope's formidable will to survive in the South. The 'Church' was, in the end, a thing made by human hands — and beneath its faith, interests and desires seethed every bit as deep as any devotion. That was why, even after the trial laid the Pope's true face bare through the Lord God's own intervention, the Holy Church had not wavered in the slightest. The hunger for power rivaling faith itself. And beneath that, the sheer inertia of a belief that had been kept for ages uncounted.

No matter how loudly anyone shouts the truth, to those who have believed the Pope's word is truth and salvation for their entire lives, it will look like nothing but heresy.

And so there was nothing the Saintess could do. She had to lie low in silence beneath the Central Officer's protection, and simply wait for this storm to pass. If she revealed herself in such a climate, the far likelier outcome was that she too would be branded a heretic — or condemned as a fallen Saintess and executed.

But there was one thing the King had overlooked. The simple fact that Erzena was no longer the zealot who had offered everything to her god and begged for his grace in return. The simple fact that the woman who had torn off the blindfold of blind worship had lived beside Nathan Kell, and learned to live by the will of people rather than the will of a god. And, more paradoxical still by that very fact — that she had come to be showered with the god's favor all the more.

"Change is coming, Your Majesty," the proxy murmured, his voice trembling. "The Central Officer... is bringing change with him."

Rio could feel it himself. Even the Dragon Word alone seemed like more than enough. When the report had first arrived — of the dragon known as the Lord of the Volcano, and of the bond that had formed between that being and the Central Officer — Rio had already been shaken to his core. But it had not stopped there. Now the Saintess herself had begun to act.

The current was shifting. Moving in a direction he had never — not once — anticipated.

"What will you do?" Incansus asked his old friend quietly.

Rio held his silence ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for a long moment, turning over and over in his mind the name of the man who had seized his attention so completely.

Nathan Kell.

What in the world have you done?

How had he overturned every single one of Rio's predictions in a single month? Was it the god's favor — or the man's own will to remain human? Why did he neither crumble nor waver?

He had to know.

"Summon the Central Officer the instant this affair concludes. All developments are to be reported to me directly. And bring the Minister of Foreign Affairs to me now."

And now — just a little — he had begun to be curious. ...Did Elaine change too? The other child he had abandoned to sorrow. If the Saintess, once the very symbol of blind fanaticism, could cast herself down and return to the world of her own will — then perhaps the princess, thrown to the wolves of his own indifference and the Queen's persecution, had changed as well.

Perhaps...

Was there a better road than the one I chose?

He dared, for a moment, to entertain a thought that denied his own life.

Creak.

His grip tightened on the armrest of the chair.

To know all of this... I must meet the Central Officer myself.

Seeing the King's expression, Incansus bowed his head deeply.

"I shall summon the Central Officer as soon as the pilgrim affair is resolved."

Something like quiet joy was leaking into his voice. Rio watched his proxy's tail sway slowly from side to side.

And then it happened. From somewhere far away, a sudden scream rang out.

- WHY ON EARTH IS THE CENTRAL OFFICER SUCH A SON OF A BIIIITCCHHHH!!!!

- KYAAAAAH!! The Southern Border AGAIN!? AGAIN!? AGAIN, honey!?!?

Two sharp, agonized shrieks — one of an old man, one of a young woman — ringing out in unison. A cry steeped in despair, disappointment, and hollow futility echoed through the office, heavy with regret.

Incansus and King Rio's eyes met. For an instant, a flicker of shared sympathy passed between them.

"...That would be the Foreign Ministry."

"Hm."

Rio grasped at once what that meant, and gave a small nod. There were, after all, people in this world who did not welcome violent change.

Those were the screams of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cartion Grayson — and of the Director of the Intelligence Department, Melanie Lacroix.