Chapter 21
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 21
Chapter Title: The God Who Doesn't Answer (2)
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She clasped her hands together once more.
"Heavenly Father above, hear the cry of Your daughter..."
She dropped to her knees, her voice trembling as she spoke.
"Grant us the strength to vanquish evil, and lend Your voice through mine so the world may hear..."
Even as the cold water gradually soaked her knees and feet, the saintess's prayer continued for a long while.
And when she finally finished her twenty-seventh prayer, she slowly opened her tightly shut eyes.
Clutching a sliver of hope, she looked around her.
She glanced behind her.
"..."
But the surroundings were dark.
There was nothing behind her.
Just the murky gloom of early dawn.
The twenty-seventh prayer had failed as well.
"...Why."
She gritted her teeth, a voice thick with rage spilling out.
"Why!!!!"
-Thud!
Unable to contain her fear and anger, she slammed her fist into the ground.
"Ow!"
A sharp pain hit her at the same time.
Startled, she looked down to see shards of a broken glass bottle piercing her right hand, bright red droplets falling from the wound.
Blood.
She quickly focused her mind and channeled power toward her hand.
A wound like this was nothing to heal.
She was the one who could heal and invigorate three thousand followers with a single song, after all.
But no matter how hard Erzena concentrated, the blood wouldn't stop.
Instead, the stabbing pain grew sharper, reminding her of one undeniable fact.
"Ah... Aah..."
She no longer had any divine power.
"No..."
The golden haze was gone.
No grass grew where she stood.
The face reflected in the shattered glass bottle was no longer that of a woman brimming with faith.
Only shattered confidence and hollow emptiness remained.
'Why? Why?'
She stared blankly at the unhealing wound, repeating the question she'd asked countless times.
It made no sense.
It had been four days already.
Four days since the Lord God had taken away her divine power.
Why wouldn't He respond?
This was something she'd never experienced since first receiving His grace as a child in the convent.
His divine power had always been with her wherever she went.
In her every breath, every step, every touch.
It was only because He showered her with so much love—more than she could bear—that she herself had been saved.
And because of that, she had been exalted as a saintess, able to spread His will to so many more.
But now, the only thing Erzena could feel was one thing.
Loneliness.
Her body trembled as if cut off from the world.
Instead of the Lord's warm sunlight-like aura, a midwinter blizzard of terror engulfed her.
'Why won't He answer me?'
She had done nothing wrong.
At least, that's what she believed.
Everything Erzena had done since being exalted as a saintess had been for the Lord God.
'To fulfill His will, I've given my all.'
She had sung until her throat bled, judged the false ones, and blessed the paladins who crushed the church's enemies.
In return, He had granted her divine power in such abundance that she could share it with everyone in the fields and still have plenty left.
But now, not even a crumb of it remained.
What was the problem?
A sudden thought flashed through her mind.
'What if the Lord God desires more?'
Maybe her acts of faith alone no longer satisfied Him.
Humans weren't so different.
Desires only grew as they were fulfilled.
What reason would a god have to be any different?
Until now, Erzena had devoted her entire body to praising the Lord God.
But now, He wanted something greater.
"Y-Yes! That's it...!"
She rushed to the drawer, yanking out the holy scriptures and relics in a frenzy.
She spread them all around her and scrawled scriptures on her forearms and shoulders with a pen.
Just like the fanatics did.
If He wanted more, she had to throw her entire body into it.
"Ugh, urgh...!"
Her hand shook so badly that the pen nib scraped her skin, leaving another gash, but she had no time to care.
Desperation and a thread of hope drove her on.
The scriptures mixed with blood oozing from the scratches, staining her skin a dark crimson.
"Haa... Haa..."
Once more, she endured the pain and clasped her hands.
And prayed fervently.
"Heavenly Father above, I beseech You so earnestly for Your response... Please answer this maiden's call..."
Silence.
"I understand now. I will gather more followers, offer more tithes, and strive to make our church even greater. So please, respond..."
Silence.
"Please, Your daughter begs You. Just once, just one more time, let me feel Your warmth again. I will devote myself even more to the church, so please...!"
Silence.
A suffocating stillness buzzed in her ears, miserable in its weight.
The god did not answer.
As if He never had.
"Aaaahhh!!! "
Unable to bear the horrific quiet any longer, the saintess screamed and hurled everything she could grab.
"Why!? Why!? Why!?"
Holy scriptures tore, furniture shattered, and sobs mingled with her wails echoing through the tent.
Without divine power, she was nothing.
Just a pathetic girl lost in blind faith.
No different from some country girl attending church.
It felt like everything she'd accomplished so far—and everything she would— was being denied.
This realization had turned the past four days into hell for her.
"Answer me!!! Why are You doing this to me, the one who gave everything for You!?!?"
Silence.
Even her final question was utterly rejected.
Only the sound of her sobbing filled the tent.
"Without You, I'm... nothing..."
The god did not answer.
Cruelly.
In the end, only after the tent was left in total disarray did Erzena's panic finally subside.
"...Haha."
A sense of emptiness, even greater than fear, washed over her, and she curled up on the spot, hugging her knees.
Her battered body throbbed.
Tears came unbidden from the unfamiliar pain.
The tent without its golden halo and sun-like warmth felt utterly alien.
But perhaps because she'd let it all out at once, Erzena's mind began to calm bit by bit.
"It definitely started four days ago."
She retraced events from the beginning.
The first change in her divine power had come during the Pope's rebuke.
-Just because your life was extreme doesn't mean you should view others' lives the same way. In the end, the world would be left with only allies and enemies.
-Do you want our church to treat even those lost in injustice and ignorance as enemies? Must everyone who doesn't believe be killed?
Words that struck at the heart.
She remembered her divine power fluctuating once from the emotional turmoil.
He had often told her she was too extreme.
'He said my way of showing faith was excessive.'
This time was the same. His words were a bit harsher, but the message was similar.
So the divine power that accompanied her might have withdrawn a little, but it should have returned soon enough with her mood.
It should have.
Until that one man blocking the church's path said those words.
-I will deny entry to the pilgrimage group—no, the holy war army.
A man defying the Lord God's will.
"...Central Officer."
She uttered his name.
"Nathan Kell."
A black man unlike any she'd seen before.
Not a humane black, but a cold, empty black like the night sky.
She felt nothing from him.
No mana, no divine power.
The claim of being a talent manifestation was a lie.
And arrogantly defying His will to his face.
"...Heretic."
If that wasn't heresy, what was?
The moment he stamped the denial, she felt it.
The golden halo enveloping her fading away, replaced by a terrifying, growing silence.
"It's because of that man."
Hatred sprouted.
If only he had obeyed the Pope's—the Lord God's—will.
"He never should have stamped that."
The Central Officer had blocked them, delaying their grand plan.
"The Lord God didn't like that."
That's why He punished her.
The saintess gritted her teeth.
"Because of that damned heretic...!!!"
To be swayed by some minion of the Evil God Cult.
For the church to be stopped by such an insignificant being—what a shameful disgrace.
"That heretic deserves heavenly punishment, how dare he, how dare he!!"
Having found her target for hatred, she clenched her fist.
Or tried to.
But a sudden thought pierced her mind.
"...Then why hasn't the Lord God punished the Central Officer?"
If the Lord God was displeased with the Central Officer, heavenly punishment would fall on him.
Not on her, the saintess who faithfully followed His will.
And after four days, if there had been punishment, rumors would have spread.
But there was no news at all.
And the one punished by losing her divine power was Erzena.
"It doesn't make sense."
In the midst of the silence, she began sinking deeper into her thoughts.
"Divine power is..."
She went back to the basics.
Divine power was based on faith.
Faith in the Lord God, rewarded by Him in kind.
The more devout, zealous, and sublime the faith, the greater the power He granted.
And if He was pleased, even more so.
But for Him to completely revoke it meant only one thing.
That it no longer aligned with His will.
In other words, her choices had been deeply displeasing to Him.
Almost in direct opposition.
"H-Hah, but I couldn't have done something like that..."
The only thing was calling the Central Officer a heretic.
"Nothing else happened during the holy war—"
Wait.
"Holy... war?"
A terrifying thought suddenly surfaced.
What if,
really what if,
'This holy war wasn't His will?'
What if the Central Officer truly was a talent manifestation, and through him, the Lord God had tried to stop us?
And we ignored it and pushed ahead with the holy war, enraging Him?
"N-No, that can't be."
The thought strayed too far; Erzena shook her head without realizing it.
This was too dangerous a notion.
For her, the embodiment of the Holy Church, and the Pope, closest to God, their will...
Could not differ from His.
That would be heresy itself, a horrific idea she must never entertain.
"Y-Yeah, no. This isn't it. This really isn't."
She shook her head vigorously in denial.
Yet hypotheses clashed with doctrines in her mind.
Impious doubts collided with the faith she'd upheld for so long.
"But..."
He was the one who wove coincidences into the inevitable fabric of fate.
The process of meeting the Central Officer was coincidence upon coincidence forming inevitability.
And only now did Erzena realize she hadn't asked him the most important question.
"...I never asked if he was a talent manifestation."
She had merely assumed and judged him a heretic on her own.
A man she'd never seen before, emanating no aura.
A man like a hole in the world's canvas, or black painted over countless colors.
Just suspicion of our true intentions led her to label the Central Officer a heretic.
-Just because you see and feel many things doesn't mean they're all true.
But even so, this was absurd.
"If that were the case, He could have stopped us long ago."
Why now?
Why not during the great holy war fifteen years ago?
But in that moment, she recalled when she had been exalted as saintess.
Fifteen years ago.
When she was barely five.
And a new saintess being exalted meant the previous one no longer received divine power.
The failed purge of remnants, unable to cross the Crossroad Kingdom in the end.
The Pope who had pushed to carry out that will anyway.
History recorded that it had nearly led to war with the Crossroad Kingdom.
Though it failed once, the church had prepared and prepared again to complete its grand plan.
"...And now."
The saintess slowly recalled the events of four days ago.
The Pope's words as he tried to persuade the Central Officer.
-Won't you make way for the holy war, Central Officer?
Another attempt to cross the Crossroad Kingdom.
Another nullification of divine power.
The saintess's eyes widened.
A realization like being struck by a hammer.
She finally understood.
"This... this holy war isn't His will."
Only then did she remember the Pope's words right before departing on the pilgrimage.
-With this holy war, the church's enemies will be no more.
He had never once said 'His enemies.'
Always 'the church's enemies.'
"Wh-What have I done...!"
The Central Officer was innocent.
He had merely done his job thoroughly.
Even conceding a hundred times that he wasn't a talent manifestation, he had never claimed to be one himself.
It was all her overreach, her malicious treatment born of deeming him a heretic.
Her hands began to shake.
-1st Paladin Order, hear me! Our enemies have already taken root across the world!
She had nearly ordered the knights to kill him.
'Just because I judged him a heretic...'
How horrific her actions had been.
"This... this is my fault...!"
So many mistakes—no, sins.
Poured onto an innocent young man.
And then lobbying for the church's great cause.
-I will deny entry to the pilgrimage group—no, the holy war army.
And now, the Pope was one step away from crushing the examiner who hadn't bowed to authority.
Erzena knew what it meant to refuse the Pope's request to his face.
"I-I have to stop it! This isn't the Lord God's will!!"
There was no reason to hesitate any longer.
This pilgrimage had to stop.
No, this holy war had to stop.
She didn't know what lay ahead. If He had revoked her power twice...
The holy war might spark wars across the world like wildfire.
An innocent soul might die to fanaticism.
'Because of me, because I divided the world into enemies and allies...! Because I arrogantly thought I knew His will completely...!'
With such dreadful thoughts, the saintess's steps quickened.
Out of the tent.
To tell Mohaim this truth.
She pulled back the tent flap.
Or tried to,
But faster still, someone's hand slipped inside the tent.
"Ah, Saintess."
It was one of Erzena's maids.
"I heard screams and got worried. Are you okay?"
The moment she saw her, the saintess cried out.
"R-Right now, fetch Mohaim. Immediately!"
"...Right now?"
"Every second counts. This journey must stop. This isn't the Lord God's will!"
But the maid was strangely calm.
"My, what a mess this is."
The maid brushed past Erzena and entered the tent.
She clicked her tongue at the broken furniture and torn scriptures.
"What a disaster."
At the sight, Erzena pressed her urgently.
"This isn't the time! Hurry... No. I'll go myself!"
As she turned to rush out,
"But... Saintess, why can't I see your divine power?"
"What?"
"Looks like your god has abandoned you."
The unfamiliar voice came from behind.
Erzena slowly turned to look at the maid.
Instead of familiar brown eyes, purple ones gleamed eerily in the tent's darkness.
Shahal pulled a small vial from her bosom.
"Which means you have no master to protect you anymore."