I Became the Cult Leader (2)
Rowan, a commoner, showing proper respect to the noble cult leader’s family would have been called power-tripping abuse of authority in the world he came from. But here, it was simply etiquette.
Kneeling before Ellara, gently taking her hand, and pressing his lips to the back of it while murmuring, “May the overflowing milk of the women of Arcadia be upon you, by the grace of Wessel.”
Only then did Ellara’s face soften with satisfaction. She neatly gathered the voluminous skirt of her dress and sat down beside Rowan.
“Hey. Why do you always stare outside? Do you want to leave?”
“Yeah. It’s suffocating in here.”
“You can go out when we attend worship at the main temple, can’t you?”
“Being herded around under adult supervision? That’s even more suffocating.”
At thirteen, no matter where you went, you were treated like a child who couldn’t be trusted. There was no such humane term as “juvenile offender” here, but the inability to own property was the same. In other words, a legal incompetent. The decisive factor was that you couldn’t leave the grounds without an adult’s help.
Besides, unless it was for missionary work, evangelism, or diplomacy, the internal members tended to avoid going outside as much as possible. So basically, you could only go between the hermitage and the main temple.
“Dad said there are monsters swarming outside. Uncle Karl lost an arm during a missionary trip, remember?”
“Uncle Karl. He’s basically Shanks now.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
Rowan sometimes slipped in stories from his previous life. No one understood them, but it was probably his way of clinging to memories that were slowly fading.
“I’m not interested in the outside world at all! Once I get married, I’ll have to fulfill the role of Wessel’s mother anyway. I’ll just go back and forth between the hermitage and the main temple. I like it that way!”
“…Liar.”
“What? W-what do you mean!? Your eyes!”
When Rowan used his ability, his eyes turned red. The power to see through lies. It wasn’t like a profiler interrogating a criminal, nor did it send electric shocks like a lie detector. He simply felt it when someone was speaking or imagining something.
What state this child was in while talking—Red.
When Rowan first recognized this ability, the elders had tried to expel him from the order, calling him the devil’s child. But the second cult leader, Oberon, had a different opinion. He decided to take in Rowan, who possessed this unusual power. Even if it was a devil’s ability, using it was exactly what a true pseudo-cult leader would do.
“You want to go out too, don’t you?”
“W-what are you talking about!? I like it here!?”
“Liar. In twelve years, at the cult’s… wait a second. Now that I think about it, you weren’t there, were you?”
The older Ellara grew, the clearer Rowan’s memories became. During the Wessel Cult subjugation quest, every single death and survivor had been accounted for in the “rewards.” The dead were looted for items, and the survivors were stripped of their belongings. Yet there had been no blonde, bold young lady like Ellara among them.
“What? Are you trying to play prophet now? Only the cult leader is allowed to give prophecies!”
“No. I prophesy that you will want to leave. Before you turn twenty-five.”
“What’s your evidence? Want to bet on it!?”
“Do it or don’t. Your head’s always in the clouds anyway. When your mind is somewhere else, your test scores naturally suffer. What the hell are you even thinking about all day?”
“Y-you’re so weird! Saying strange things again!”
Ellara acted like a girl whose inner thoughts had been exposed. Arcadia was one of the seven kingdoms under the Terra Empire, which itself was one of the five great continents of the world. Who wouldn’t want to travel across such a vast world?
It was possible that Ellara had been outside the cult once, when the travel bug had bitten her. Ellara stood up from her seat.
“Hey! Rowan! I’m going to beat you on the next test!”
“Sure. Please do.”
Thirteen was still young. Hmm, Ellara… She was cute, like a princess. Well, she had been raised like one.
Rowan often thought that if he hadn’t lost everything on stocks in his past life, he might have had a daughter about half Ellara’s age. There was, of course, a status gap between Ellara, the cult leader’s daughter, and Rowan, a commoner’s son. The reason they could speak as equals was simply that, among the cult’s children her age, he was the only one.
The decisive factor that sealed it all was this: Rowan’s parents had been martyred for the cult leader. They had died protecting Oberon from bandits during a missionary journey. Moved by their sacrifice, the cult leader had allowed Rowan to live with the nuns who managed the cult’s household.
Because they were parents he had only met in the game, Rowan’s grief had faded in less than three days. They had been nothing more than NPCs without any dialogue. Or perhaps the bathhouse culture of this world—where mixed bathing was allowed until age nine—had helped him forget his sorrow. It was the one aspect of Arcadian culture Rowan considered its greatest advantage.
There used to be a rumor that Rowan was a clean boy who loved baths. In truth, it was because of the older sisters’…
Feeling blood rush to his face, Rowan decided to change the subject.
“Ahem! I suddenly feel like singing a hymn!”
“Huh?”
“To the cult leader we go! Like an eagle soaring on wings!”
“…What’s wrong with you? Have you gone crazy?”
Singing hymns usually calmed excitement a little. It worked on the same principle as singing the national anthem.
“Ah! I should go take a bath!”
“Suddenly?”
“Don’t follow me!”
Three days after the cult leader left for his missionary journey, the returning party brought back a carriage carrying the corpse of Oberon Lumiere.
Oberon Lumiere, the very symbol of Wessel, was dead. He still had twelve years left before the protagonist was supposed to kill him. What did this mean?
It meant the story of The Seven Aegises had changed.
He wasn’t supposed to die yet. At least, everything had been following the storyline I knew until now. So why…
Oberon’s funeral was held quickly. What mattered to the followers wasn’t that Oberon had died, but that the position of cult leader was now vacant. They had to finish the funeral without delay and urgently install a new leader.
In the main temple’s auditorium, a long line of believers came to pay their respects before Oberon’s prepared body. Strangely, most of them didn’t seem particularly sad.
No matter how rushed it is…
The reason was probably the final verse of the third chapter of the Oberon Book that Oberon himself had written.
Even if I die, I am not truly dead. On the day the heavens are covered in darkness, I shall return with the One God in the form of an angel.
Some were even rejoicing. The weather was appropriately gloomy, and by their faith, Oberon had become an angel.
On the other hand, Rowan couldn’t stop his hands from shaking. The cult’s attendants hugged him to comfort him. Those attendants were the nuns—the very women who had been in charge of Rowan’s baths.
“Rowan. It’s alright. The cult leader has gone to Him. To Wessel…”
“Ah…”
“Poor Rowan. You followed him like a father… Come here.”
Sister Anna pressed Rowan’s face into her ample bosom.
“Aah, it’s warm…”
Though it was hard to breathe, Rowan didn’t exactly look displeased. What was that saying—mutual delusion?
The reason Rowan was trembling wasn’t because of Oberon’s death itself. It was because a sprout of hope had bloomed—the hope that the cult might collapse. A hope that, if left alone, it would naturally extinguish like spontaneous combustion.
Rowan could predict the changes the cult would undergo in the absence of a man like Oberon.
Oberon was a preacher famous for delivering humorous sermons. Sexual jokes, profanity, and unrestrained speech—he made the followers’ dopamine explode. Even Rowan had been completely hooked while listening to his sermons. The Sunday lunch service where he delivered the word was so popular that hundreds of outside believers attended.
But now that he was dead, didn’t that mean Wessel’s influence could decline?
Based on thirteen years of living in the cult, Rowan knew that those stuffy, salaryman-like assistant pastors could never replace Oberon’s popularity. The reason cults gathered followers was simple: no followers, no cult.
If the believers started leaving like this, the cult would eventually face dissolution, and naturally, Rowan would be able to leave. He buried his face even deeper into the nun’s chest to hide the smile threatening to break out.
Squish.
And he hugged the nun tightly. Once he got out, who knew when he’d get to be held like this again?
Squeeze.
Sister Anna only felt pity for such a Rowan.
“Rowan… you poor child.”
“Mmm!”
So soft… By the way, what should I do once I get out? Go back to being a magic swordsman like before? Or maybe a proper knight this time? Hmm, I have mana-related abilities too. Should I try being a wizard?
Whether he became a knight or a magic swordsman, all he had to do was pick a combat class, wait for the protagonist’s party, and clean up the remaining remnants of Wessel. Then he could live out the rest of his life in peace!
Whew, I guess this is goodbye to that little brat too.
Another reason Rowan was happy was that, if things went as planned, he wouldn’t have to kiss the back of Ellara’s hand anymore. The revival of human dignity and rights also played a part in his anticipation.
But Rowan’s thoughts didn’t last long.
“Uwaaaah!!”
Ellara was crying like a child—
That little brat. She’s wailing loud enough to shake the whole cult. It’s noisy as hell.
When the grand elder asked, “To carry on the cult leader’s will, you must marry early and make your husband the new leader. Is there any of the elders’ sons who has caught your eye?” she began sobbing violently, screaming “No! I don’t want to!”
When the troubled grand elder then asked, “Then is there a boy you consider your true love?”
With her tiny hand—
Point.
She pointed straight at Rowan.
“Rowan? You wish to marry Rowan?”
“Yes. Uwaaaaaang!!”
At the same time, every believer’s gaze snapped toward Rowan. His trembling stopped. He pulled his face out of that soft place. He had realized how serious the situation was.
“Um? Me?”
At Rowan’s bewildered question, the believers nodded.
“Wait a minute. This can’t be right.”
According to the rules of the Wessel Cult, a woman could not become the cult leader. Ellara was the only daughter. Unless a younger brother was born, the next in line would be Ellara’s husband, who would become the cult leader of Wessel.
In other words—
Ellara chose me, so I become the cult leader? Wait, hold on!
Rowan thought. He was supposed to escape the cult. But now he was utterly fucked.