What's This Doing Here?
Exactly two days after Karl and his companions attended the memorial for the fallen, articles like these began pouring out across the Empire as if by prior arrangement.
Every newspaper, every column, every reporter in the land was in a frenzy shouting the same refrain. There shall be light in the Empire. It is the will of God. All of it a vast and holy blessing. Variations on that theme, and nothing else.
And stamped dead center in every last one of them was a single name.
"No… no… what on earth is this…"
Nobody was going to believe him, but Karl — who had, by genuine accident, gotten swept up in yet another incident — clutched his hair in both fists and kept muttering the same thing under his breath.
The start of all this? Yes. You had to go back to the very day the memorial ended.
"To meet you like this, Brother Karl Adelheit."
The memorial had wrapped up, and we were in the middle of exchanging greetings with the various dignitaries when we ran into a heavyweight. Not just me — the usual four and even Selena sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of him.
"I never imagined I would find myself in the presence of Your Eminence in a place like this."
Just as there had been religion in my past life, there was religion here too. The one difference was that here, the Empire, the Kingdom, and even the elves all believed in the Goddess of Light — and that the Bright Light Church, which served that great being, stood at the center of it all.
Our Empire, the largest of the nations, was home to the Church's First Parish through its Fifth. The south fell under the Fourth, and Cardinal Beolant — the man who might as well have been called that parish's sovereign — had appeared at the memorial out of nowhere.
"Did the sight of this old man startle you? Heh heh heh. Then the operation was a success."
"Your Eminence?"
"The truth is, I heard Brother Karl would be attending the memorial, so I hastily rearranged my schedule to come. Seeing you so surprised, it seems the secret was well kept."
"I… why would you…"
Short of the Pope himself, a cardinal was the highest authority in the Bright Light Church. And Cardinal Beolant was a bishop-rank cardinal — the head of an entire parish, which put him a full step above the priest-rank variety.
As I understood it, a cardinal who governed a parish received treatment equal to a Marquis of the Empire, if not better. Even the dukes — the highest the nobility climbed short of the imperial family — exchanged formal honorifics with cardinals and observed a very real mutual respect. Put simply, the man was an enormous figure.
For someone like that to drop, without warning, I came here because of you was more than a little bewildering.
"With a heart full of righteous spirit and deeds of real courage, you made the greatness of 'humanity' known far and wide. Even through hardship and ordeal, Brother, you never lost the Light. Is that not proof that the Great One loves you, and has personally lit the path before your feet?"
"Ah."
I understood him at once. It was a kind sentiment — and, at the same time, an answer loaded with political intent.
As I said, the Goddess of Light and the Bright Light Church were the dominant faith on this continent, but other religions existed too. They were simply so small they barely registered. The Church and those lesser faiths lived as nations do — sometimes at peace, sometimes snarling at one another, always oscillating between tension and calm.
In the middle of all that, Luzens — who had been at odds with the Empire for decades — picked a fight with the Bright Light Church as well. The reason? The Church told them, more or less, that both sides ought to stop fighting and give a little, and Luzens shot back, You're siding with the Empire because you're humans too, aren't you? Disgusting.
Those Gganf bastards even went so far as to spew that the Bright Light Church, for insisting its own doctrine was the only truth, was nothing but a servant of the Empire. Thanks to that, even those gentle, charitable priests started going, "Elves, you say? Hahaha. You mean Gganf, surely."
Wow! Luzens again? Amazing! Luzens! Amazing! Gganf!!
Heigens, for their part, took one look and decided this was not right — this was really, truly not right — and cut Luzens off on the spot. After that they parked themselves in a kind of neutral gear. Their native faith mattered, of course, but that did not mean they intended to abandon the doctrine of Light. They never shook off the Church's outstretched hand.
In the end, that proved to be a masterstroke. The Pope of the Bright Light Church openly referred to the Heigens, who were fighting Luzens, as friends. The Empire, elves though they were, could place a firmer trust in those who shared the same doctrine of Light. And that, in turn, became an alliance with a certain solidity to it.
Religion carried real weight in this world, and the Bright Light Church — the largest of the faiths — wielded an influence that was nothing short of overwhelming. The Luzens bastards had underestimated it badly. Either that, or they had somehow deluded themselves into thinking they could actually win the war.
"There is a great deal I would like to discuss with you, Brother Karl. If you can spare the time, I would be grateful if you would walk with this old man."
"I would be honored, Your Eminence."
"Heh heh heh. I do worry this old man is stealing time from a young hero."
"How could you say such a thing? That could never be the case."
And it wasn't empty courtesy. I meant every word. This was a conversation with the cardinal who headed an entire parish, of all people. Setting everything else aside, for Friedrich County alone this was an extremely positive development. Even marquises supposedly found it nearly impossible to secure a private audience with a cardinal.
"I'm relieved to hear you say so."
Cardinal Beolant, wearing a kindly smile, left his escorts behind and walked the garden path with me. For some reason it felt like I'd been trusted more than the bodyguards again, and that made me a little sad. You're overrating me just because I stopped a terrorist attack. I'm not a bodyguard!
"I am told that toward the end of that dreadful war, you saved a great many lives."
"Ah. Yes. I was lucky."
"Surely luck alone cannot account for all of it. That too must have been the will of God. Did He not walk beside you, however faintly?"
"Now that you mention it, perhaps so."
I found myself remembering something the head of the Heigens envoy had said not long ago. That the things I had done were too extraordinary to write off as mere good fortune. That it meant God loved me — that He had lingered at my side for a little while, and then gone on.
I'd thought it was nonsense at first. Turning it over now, though, it didn't seem entirely impossible. Frankly, some of it had been so absurd it barely made sense. I had charged into a place crawling with Luzens — a forest where Gganf bastards were waiting with their eyes wide open — and I had come out alive.
I wasn't a devout believer in any god. But I did think one might actually exist. Remembering a past life was evidence enough on its own. And if I was being honest, looking back on the things I'd pulled off, it wasn't hard to imagine some transcendent being covering my back.
"A great many of our brothers and sisters lost their lives. War is a constant of this world, and yet these days were more painful than most. The enemy, after all, went so far as to cast aside even the Light, and called their own obstinacy faith."
"…"
Translated: We had a miserable time fighting those Gganf who called the Bright Light Church a servant of the Empire. Sweeping the lot of them away felt wonderful.
As expected. You could never afford to take religious people lightly, or for granted. The Empire and the Church were in perfect partnership now, but in the Empire's earliest days these were the same people who had openly clashed with the throne over parish appointments and the naming of cardinals.
"To have saved precious lives from such people — there can be no act more noble, nor more magnificent. Those who found comfort here today would surely have been moved by Brother Karl's deeds, and would have taken solace in the knowledge that no more of their fellows suffered as they did."
"You flatter me. I only did what I had to do."
I scratched my cheek, embarrassed, and the cardinal smiled and changed the subject.
"That aside, now that Luzens has been wiped out entirely, our parish is about to become very busy."
"The Fourth Parish, you mean?"
"Yes. There is work we have been unable to do all this time, on account of Luzens."
"…Is this about the holy relic that was lost, by any chance?"
The Bright Light Church hated Luzens — hated the Gganf — every bit as much as the Empire did, and it was not only because they had spat on the doctrine of Light. They had committed something on a similar scale. Perhaps worse.
"To our shame, yes. In the long history of the Church, it is the only relic ever to have been lost."
"I've heard of it a few times. The… Sword of Saint Louis, was it?"
The Church possessed several important artifacts it called holy relics. One of them was the Sword of Saint Louis, which had been kept in the Fourth Parish. Decades ago, when Luzens attacked the Empire, the Church's headquarters had burned with everything else, and the relic had been lost in the chaos.
It was an object of such importance that it needed to be found at once — but at the time the ground it lay on was occupied Luzens territory, which made recovery impossible. The Church had swallowed its tears and put the matter off for another day.
Later the Empire drove Luzens back and reclaimed every inch of the territory that had briefly slipped away. And now, in this very moment, with Luzens eradicated for good, the Church meant to take its relic back.
"You are well informed. That is correct. The Sword of Saint Louis. It is the reason our Fourth Parish must recover it — no matter how long it takes, and without fail."
For just an instant, a hard resolve and a faint anger sat together on the cardinal's face. I was not exactly a man of deep faith, so I could not claim to share the feeling with my whole heart. Even so, the simple fact that the Gganf bastards had been in the wrong was enough for me to answer, "May God be with you."
I wrapped up the meeting with the cardinal and headed back, fully convinced that my brief brush with the Bright Light Church had come to an end.
"Huh?"
That night, those damn four wouldn't stop needling me. Before I knew it I'd taken my greatsword to a few boulders — shuk! shushuk! shushushuk! — and smashed them to rubble. I thought that was all it was. Right up until a sword came flying out of one of them.