Chapter 133
Chapter 133
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 133
Chapter Title: Apocalypse (3)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Knock knock. A knocking sound echoed through the quiet office.
I was in the middle of reviewing the church's approval documents. Without lifting my eyes from the papers, I replied.
"Yes, come in."
The door opened quietly, and a familiar presence stepped inside.
She approached my desk and spoke.
"Lady Eve. I've brought your dinner."
Esty set a bowl down on the office table.
It was soup, steam rising warmly from it.
Only then did I look up and greet her with a small smile.
"Thank you, Esty."
"......"
But Esty's gaze wasn't on me. It was fixed on one corner of the table.
On the wide office desk, several identical food bowls were pushed aside in a pile.
Untouched, they had gone completely cold.
Spotting them, Esty narrowed her eyes for a moment before turning to me.
"Lady Eve, won't you at least have a little this time? The head chef said it's made only with easy-to-digest ingredients."
But I shook my head.
"Sorry. I just have no appetite at all..."
In truth, lately even the smell of food made my stomach churn.
So these days, I was sustaining myself by using my healing powers to fend off hunger.
But it was fine.
"You know the effects of miracles. There's no issue with my health."
Esty's expression didn't improve at all upon hearing that.
"......"
She hesitated for a moment before speaking again.
"...It's been three days now."
Her voice trembled slightly, unlike her usual self.
"Lady Eve, it's been three days since you ate anything but water."
"Oh... has it been that long already?"
"......"
Her eyes looking at me were filled with worry.
Of course, I knew that.
This wasn't normal behavior at all.
I knew I was worrying everyone around me.
But... I really couldn't help it.
Just the thought of swallowing anything made me want to gag.
Even my healing powers couldn't fix this. It had to be psychological. If even miracles didn't work... time was probably the only cure.
So I just gave her a faint smile.
"I'm really fine. Thank you for always looking out for me, Esty."
"....."
Esty, still with a stiff expression, seemed about to say something but bit her lip instead.
Then she bowed her head weakly.
"I apologize for intruding."
As she quietly left, the office fell silent once more.
I glanced at the documents for a bit before giving up and letting out a sigh.
"Haa..."
I'd been pretending to work diligently for a while now, but in reality, I couldn't focus on anything.
Was what I was doing truly right?
Did the church's purpose justify sacrificing lives?
Such doubts kept popping up, disrupting my concentration.
Everyone said that in a position of leading a group, you sometimes had to make tough choices.
But you could never understand how heavy that weight was until you experienced it yourself.
"......"
Thinking of those sacrificed in the war... the unbearable heaviness still crushed me.
So I closed my eyes out of habit.
To clear my stray thoughts, I looked inward.
The vessel near my heart.
Still tilted, rotating clockwise in that form...
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ A year had passed since the war with the medical corporations ended.
Separate from the sticky regret lodged in my heart.
After our victory, the church's subsequent achievements were dazzling.
We had completely seized the two largest circles in Omega Detroit by land area and population: Epsilon and Delta. The lower and middle-class residential areas, comprising 70% of the city's total population, were fully under our control.
But looking back, that was the spark.
Our rapid growth greatly heightened the wariness of the remaining 100 major corporations in the Alpha Circle.
In truth, the city government's central council, the core of urban power, was still under corporate influence. Even if 70% of the population had joined the church as believers, in terms of electoral districts, we only held two out of the five circles.
But if we took even one more—Gamma Circle—the church could gain a majority in the seats.
Was that why?
The power holders in Alpha Circle, sensing the crisis, began imposing strict regulations on the church.
They used the city government cabinet to propose a new bill.
📰 Official Announcement "The Omega Detroit City Government hereby declares the 'Religion Ban Law,' prohibiting all political, economic activities, and use of force conducted in the name of religious organizations starting at 10 a.m. today." A law that wouldn't block simple faith activities like gathering to worship but would effectively make all other business and external activities illegal. It wasn't all that surprising.
We had anticipated it.
'Guessing their intent... they're probably not aiming for all-out war.'
The bill seemed reckless and extreme at first glance, but it wasn't really.
The church had already fully taken over the ODPD in Delta and Epsilon Circles. At that point, such a legal proclamation was meaningless.
Laws that couldn't be enforced were just empty words.
So if the corporations were truly prepared to erase our existence, they would have sent the military directly instead of making announcements.
'But since they didn't...'
They found full-scale war burdensome too, didn't they?
We had proven in the medical war that we could topple even giant corporations.
'Of course, if the top 10 megacorps went all out, or if a majority of Alpha Circle's conglomerates united, we couldn't withstand it...'
This city's power structure was corporate feudalism.
Corporations sharing power would unite for common interests but otherwise acted based on their individual profits and losses.
Companies whose business wasn't directly threatened by the church had no reason to go to war with us.
If we halted our expansion here and didn't challenge the city order further, there'd be no need for all-out war.
'So this measure... it's a negotiation tactic.'
Lead with a hardline stance, then offer concessions later.
The church leadership internally reached that conclusion and began preparations for talks.
But this incident took an unexpected turn no one could have foreseen.
"The city government must guarantee religious freedom!"
"Don't take away our faith too!!"
The moment the Religion Ban Law was proposed, citizens poured into the streets across the city.
The protests that began spread like wildfire throughout the city in an instant, beyond the control of the church or even me.
The cause was simple.
Before becoming Radiance Church believers, they were citizens exploited by corporations for decades.
And all that exploitation had been justified under the banner of 'freedom.'
Corporations had cunningly twisted the meaning of freedom to allow the sale of votes, and in the resulting social structure, they suppressed all dissent and continued exploitation under the pretext of citizens' 'free choices.'
But now, when that final justification no longer suited their tastes, they were trying to arbitrarily strip it away...
Decades of pent-up resentment finally erupted.
Social injustice, inequality, wealth gaps, hopelessness of upward mobility.
All the problems piled up beneath the city's foundation ignited at once from a single spark.
"Withdraw the Religion Ban Law!!"
"We've had enough of the tyranny from those rich bastards who suck our blood despite having enough wealth to live off forever!"
"They want us to go back to the days when one hospital visit wiped out our life savings and turned us into debtors?!"
True rage comes not when there's no hope at all.
But when the last glimmer of hope right before your eyes is snatched away.
And right now, to this city's commoners, the Radiance Church was that hope.
The final chance to live a humane life after a brutal existence.
Facing the loss of even that, everyone exploded.
Anti-corporate protests erupted across the city on a massive scale.
Even we couldn't contain it.
>
The church was merely the fuse.
Between the exploited commoners and the exploiting elite.
It was the clash between classes, built up since the city's founding.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ And so Omega Detroit was engulfed in flames of strikes and protests.
Even after weeks, the momentum showed no signs of dying down.
Not even the church could fully quell it.
Omega Detroit was a megacity packed with national-scale population.
Our church, which had embraced over half in under two years, hadn't yet built a system to fully control them.
Even within the cathedral, discontent boiled.
Believers who had tasted victory over corporations in the war raged at why we had to hold back.
The church had grown too rapidly; not all believers had witnessed my miracles firsthand. Newer urban converts had weaker faith in the saintess and identified more as citizens than church members.
Thus, the church began splitting into radicals and moderates, with some breaking off into cults. Inquisitors tried desperately, but fully policing the shaken interior was difficult.
In that chaos, disaster struck.
Alpha Circle ODPD forces dispatched for police support cracked down harshly, gunning down dozens of protesting poor in Epsilon Circle.
Many Radiance Church believers were among the casualties.
"....."
Right up to the moment before the incident, I'd been trying to negotiate with the corporations somehow.
If they just gave us a little more time.
We could calm the angry citizens and resolve things smoothly.
I believed that...
Tatata-tang-!
"Aaaah!!!"
Instead of negotiating, the city government poured in more troops and began massacring protesters.
"........"
A street in Delta Circle.
Bloodstains splattered everywhere, broken picket signs and charred debris scattered about.
In that horrific scene, something caught my eye.
An abandoned teddy bear.
When I saw the bullet holes and dark red stains on it...
I instinctively knew we could no longer avoid it.
Another war.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ The Radiance Church, unable to stand by at believers' sacrifices, clashed head-on with the city central government's suppression forces backed by conglomerates.
With neither side yielding, the spark grew into a blaze in moments.
A war far larger than the Cineon incident.
Even each circle's ODPD split in half, fighting each other in a total war.
Enormous casualties followed, of course. Hundreds of thousands dead or wounded.
Eleos Medical Center became a field hospital, its beds overflowing, turning every cathedral into temporary relief centers.
The worship halls that once shared hope and praised the benevolent god...
Now echoed only with fevered groans, screams of unbearable pain, and prayers from the despairing.
I watched it all, unable to say a word.
Only one thought echoed in my mind.
'Why...'
Why had things come to this?
I hadn't created the church to bring about such horrors.
I just wanted to help people a little on the way home.
But...
Even if good intentions don't always yield good results, this... was too cruel.
It was too miserable to call coincidence.
That's why I finally realized, belatedly.
All of it had been a plan orchestrated by some will from the start.
The Religion Ban Law proposal that blatantly stoked citizens' resentment toward the government.
The protests that spread unnaturally fast, despite accumulated grievances.
The emergence of radical factions in cathedrals, ignoring the church's teachings of compassion and goodwill, recklessly inciting believers.
And the harsh crackdown authorizing gunfire on unarmed protesters, making war inevitable.
Behind all that... was Leviathan Industries, the 4th-ranked military-industrial complex.
Merchants of death selling weapons and military gear, profiting from war.
The same here. Once war broke out as they intended, Leviathan's weapons sold like hotcakes to both sides. The conglomerates controlling the city government and the Radiance Church alike had danced in their palms.
But knowing the plan now changed nothing.
Once blood was spilled, no one cared where the first shot came from.
They just fought and fought.
Eventually, as the war dragged on and Gamma Circle's industrial facilities were devastated, most corporations pulled out. Their principle is profit. If costs outweighed gains even in victory, they abandoned the market.
Thus, we won a victory of wounds alone.
What remained for the church was a ruined city.
All infrastructure destroyed, turned into a wasteland-like eyesore.
And atop it, millions of injured, starving refugees.
It felt like the apocalypse.
'If this... if this meager outcome is the end of goodwill... then what am I...'
What meaning did the miracle granted to me have?
The moment I questioned that inwardly.
The vessel holding faith.
After years of rotating, it finally completed one full clockwise turn.
And...
There was light.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ "....."
I felt dazed somewhere.
Like I'd just woken from a very long dream.
Through my somewhat hazy mind, a voice reached me.
"Let's wrap up the business talk here. If you have time, how about dinner with me tonight—"
Sleek black hair, intelligent gray eyes... a handsome young man.
A face I'd definitely met somewhere.
'...Who was he?'
After groping for the memory for a while, I suddenly shot up from my seat.
"......!"
I sprang to my feet.
"Miss Evania?"
I slowly looked around.
The place I was in now was some hotel.
A luxurious super suite meeting room, no less.
A place from my memories.
And the man before me... was also from my memories.
'Ronan Chriswell...'
Cineon Medica board member, but definitely... assassinated years ago.
Such a man was alive and well, blinking at me as I abruptly stood.
"Miss Evania? Is something wrong?"
"......."
But I had no mind to deal with him.
I was just confused.
'I came back...?'
Or... had I foreseen all that? Or was it all a dream?
It was too chaotic.
Was I Zhuangzi dreaming of a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming of Zhuangzi?
Had I truly jumped back in time to the past, or merely glimpsed the future in an instant?
I still couldn't distinguish.
But the vessel I'd instinctively checked inward... was no longer tilted.
Straight upright, as when I first saw it.
Only the faith that once filled it had vanished somewhere, leaving it empty.