Gambit (2)
August's footsteps, walking ahead of us, seemed lighter than ever.
Even after humiliating the paladin order, crushing their authority, and threatening them outright, the cardinal maintained an attitude of generous benevolence.
“I nearly failed to recognize the prophet. Please forgive this lowly one’s oversight.”
“......”
I felt something ominous in this completely inconsistent behavior.
Light and pure white.
What on earth could be hidden beneath the Holy Kingdom of Elysium—a place that could be summed up by those very words—to make a man like him suddenly so obedient?
“Prophet? Aren’t you overpraising me?”
“Didn’t you say you received an oracle? On top of that, if you know about ‘Eden’ sleeping down here, there’s only one possible answer.”
With a smooth spin, August turned to face me directly. His expression was so pleased it looked like his mouth might split to his ears.
“You too must have received the call from □■□■ □, just as I did. That would explain why you chose such extreme measures.”
──Scratch. Scratch.
The moment August uttered those words, an eerie scraping sound echoed inside my skull before vanishing.
It was like larvae devouring leaves. The horrible, grotesque noise of something gnawing at my brain made me shake my head violently.
It had been the same when I faced the Blood Knight, the boss of the first chapter.
Something filtered the meaning in the middle, layering it with noise until the original intent became completely incomprehensible.
It’s best not to know right now.
I had asked Damian, who knew the future, but he had given an answer similar to what Yuho would say.
“Shade, do you believe God truly exists? Or, to be more precise, do you believe He is alive and breathing?”
When I slowed my steps slightly, the cardinal posed a question that sounded like outright blasphemy.
“...What’s your angle?”
“Exactly what I said. Isn’t this world filled with evil? The Demon King, demons, monsters… and let’s not forget all the criminals and the trash living in the slums.”
“A priest who believes in God calling the merciful evil? How absurd.”
“Surely you felt the same revulsion, didn’t you? Shade, the king who completely rewrote the order of the slums.”
As August spoke, he led us deeper into the grand cathedral where countless people came and went.
Like the saying hide a tree in a forest, the darkest secrets of the Holy Kingdom seemed to be concealed in the very place where the symbols and statues of the Heavenly God Aurea stood.
“No matter how much you pray, God never answers. The proof is the Hero and the Demon King. They should have been able to break this eternal cycle.”
Whether the paladins heard or not, August freely spat out words and actions that a cardinal should never utter.
The ones following behind us must have known what ‘Eden’ in the underground was.
Otherwise, they wouldn’t have stayed silent at speech that should have prompted them to draw their swords and strike the cardinal’s neck immediately.
…Is even the papacy in on this?
A horrifying thought flashed through my mind. If that were true, it would align with them officially recognizing Leivi as a saint.
It had been strange from the beginning to elevate a heteromorphic human with crow-like features to the position of saintess.
Especially when records clearly stated that the First Saint had been purely human.
“Shade, do you know how long ago the First Hero was active?”
“According to the documents, several hundred years. That legacy continues all the way to Damian now.”
The names of every hero in history had been erased, leaving only the fact of their existence.
It was as if someone had taken an eraser and violently scrubbed the paper until only faint traces remained.
Would Damian’s name eventually disappear the same way? I glanced at the Hero secretly, but the moment our eyes met he flinched and quickly looked away.
“Yes, that’s correct. Even before this grand cathedral was built—back when everything existed only as dust and ash—the same history repeated itself.”
“So, Cardinal, are you trying to say God doesn’t exist? Simply because He never intervened directly in the fight between the Demon King and the Hero?”
“No. It’s the opposite.”
God exists. It is simply that there is an eerie, colossal being from the stars so vast that even the god who created this world cannot touch it.
──Clank!
August pulled a lever in front of a statue shedding golden tears.
The moment the hidden lever behind the Heavenly God Aurea’s statue was activated, the circular plate on the floor rose slightly into the air before stopping.
And through the gap, I saw the scenery of another world and became certain that things had gone terribly wrong.
This was an elevator.
The fact that a massive platform leading down to an underground city was hidden inside the grand cathedral—behind a statue of the Heavenly God, no less—was utterly horrifying.
“...This is the Eden I discovered, Shade. Though it is self-proclaimed, we call it ‘R’lyeh’ according to the words recorded in the scriptures.”
Eden. R’lyeh. A being that blasphemes against God.
No matter how I heard it, these were words I should not approach any further. Yet I recalled what Yuho had said in the nightmare and had no choice but to step onto the platform.
I definitely knew these words. I had a memory of seeing them somewhere. But my consciousness was hazy, as if shrouded in thick fog.
It felt as though something kept blocking the truth in the middle, as if I still wasn’t ready to accept it.
“Ugh… my stomach feels awful… blegh…”
“I suddenly have a nosebleed… What is this? I haven’t lost sleep or overworked myself…”
“There’s a high-pitched ringing in my ears. What the hell is down there to cause this?”
“I taste iron in my mouth. This isn’t good…”
Luna, Calliope, Isabella, and Damian each voiced their symptoms, complaining of abnormalities.
The atmosphere was gradually being devoured by fear due to the grotesque phenomena—nosebleeds, dizziness, nausea, taste distortion, auditory hallucinations, and visual hallucinations.
“Leivi, are you alright?”
“Yes. Do you have any idea what this might be?”
“I do.”
Watching the perfectly fine saintess Leivi, August, and the paladins following behind, one hypothesis came to mind, but I didn’t voice it.
It seemed the being sleeping below was rejecting the Hero Damian and his companions.
The First Saint? Or is there another variable? No matter how I think about it, it feels like the latter.
The current August mistakenly believed I had received an oracle from the entity underground.
That was why he was so willing to show me the place he called ‘R’lyeh.’
“Damian, are you really going to follow? You look terrible.”
I subtly offered my hand and asked.
Damian was the Hero who knew the future. Even if it wasn’t perfect, he understood what would happen better than anyone through his ability.
“If it’s behind you, Shade, I have the confidence to follow even to the depths of hell. So please don’t worry too much.”
Hell.
The Hero who knew the future called the underground of Elysium not Eden, but hell, and took my hand.
I felt the cold touch of steel, but his face was filled with relief.
It probably means it’ll be okay. Yuho wouldn’t push me into a situation where I’d die immediately anyway.
An Yuho was someone who cherished me enough to hide the fact that her surgery might kill her in a few days.
And since Damian seemed connected to her, there was enough reason to trust him.
After all, the other companions had come to Elysium by following the Hero, not me.
“Alright. I’ll trust you.”
I gripped the hand Damian held out and helped pull him onto the moving platform.
“I’m sure the others will like seeing Eden for the first time as well. It is a truly beautiful place… filled with ecstasy and joy.”
August even hummed a tune on the platform as he shared his impressions of the place we were heading.
No matter how I looked at it, it was ominous.
──Clunk. Clunk!
Once everyone had stepped onto the surrounding platforms, they began descending like an elevator.
Thus, August’s Eden—R’lyeh—began to reveal its true form.
“...A garden?”
“No, this is not a garden. It is Eden. For beautiful flowers to bloom alongside divinity in an underground place that should not receive even a single ray of light—is that not itself a blessing?”
It looked like an exceptionally well-maintained, enormous garden. Roses, lilies, tulips, rosemary, marigolds—every kind of flower was in full, extravagant bloom.
But something felt fundamentally wrong.
“I found a new light in this place. From a very distant universe… the Color that came directly to find us lowly beings.”
August’s mouth stretched so wide it looked like it would tear. Dark red blood already flowed from the corners of his lips.
The sight of different flowers mixed together like a bouquet—something that should have been beautiful—instinctively filled me with revulsion.
What is this? What the hell is wrong here? I repeated the question endlessly in my mind.
The massive platform that functioned like an elevator finally stopped. As my feet touched the ground, the appearance of ‘it’ became even clearer.
I realized.
These were not flowers!
How could something formed by different flowers tangled together like lumps possibly be called a normal shape?
Living plants could never do this!
“Please guide us as the prophet. The resurrection of the First Saint is imminent, Shade.”
──Thud.
August opened a book bound in some kind of leather and showed it to me as I began foaming at the mouth from realizing the truth.
It was human skin. The thick scent of blood told me the book was made from human hide.
There was no time to react. The information pouring into my brain had already reached its limit and frozen my reactions.
An intense pain as if the letters were tearing my eyes apart.
Along with it, my retina reflected the overall appearance of this grotesque yet beautiful city.
This was not a paradise like Eden.
It was merely a place where a gigantic entity with a cephalopod head waited for the day it would awaken and wield its power.
“Cough, ah, aaaaah, heuk, heuk…!”
Words were being forced into my head. Even if I tried to stab a dagger into my own skull, my body was frozen solid and wouldn’t move.
“Shade…!?”
“What the hell is that…?!?!”
“Kyaaaaaaaaah!!!”
“Th-this can’t be… What…?”
The voices of my companions sounded shocked as they looked at me. But I had no time to check on Damian or the others’ conditions.
──Rustle rustle rustle.
Just like in the nightmare where Yuho had appeared, parts of my body began transforming into flowers.
Horrible pain accompanied flower petals scattering across my vision.
Crumbling. Crumbling. Changing form by turning into flowers.
“A, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!! Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!”
As blood flowed from my eyes, my vision darkened to a deep crimson and I descended into madness─.
□
■
Tadak.
□■□■□■□
■□■□■□■
□■□■□■□
Tap. Tadak.
A familiar sound, like someone playing chess.
With that sound, a translucent chessboard appeared in my vision.
Mental barrier activating.
──Clang!
Are you alright, Ryu Harang?
The refreshing sensation of the parasites burrowing into my mind vanishing hit me alongside the sound of metal clashing against metal.
The status window.
The thing whose meaning I couldn’t understand at all since reincarnating into this world had just saved my life.