The Second Sin (1)
The Five Sins.
The worst villains destined to either destroy or rule the kingdom in the future.
Pride, Greed, Envy, Wrath, and Sloth.
These five Sins would become the antagonists who helped bring about the world's ruin—enemies the player absolutely had to defeat.
Key figures tightly bound to the game's endings.
Because of that, under normal circumstances you could want to meet them all you liked and still never manage it.
Unless the main episodes had begun and the story was forced into the framework of “coincidence,” encountering them was practically impossible.
Unless you were born under a star of spectacular misfortune—or spectacular luck.
So why do I keep running into them?
Is my luck just that rotten?
Maybe I should’ve asked the Dark King for a fortune-telling.
No, fine. Meeting them is one thing.
But why the hell does this one have to be with a band of bandits?
Evan stared with a complicated expression at the Sin standing among the raiders.
Pride.
Compared to the regal figure who had once reigned like a king in the game, this was pitifully shabby.
Whether prisoner or slave, the body was bound tightly in ropes.
If this one had been the leader of the pack, he might have accepted it.
This was even more dramatic than his first meeting with Lapis.
“Hey! You there! You want that carriage smashed to pieces?”
“Get out here right now!”
Thud, thud.
He couldn’t spare Pride much attention for long.
The bandits were clashing their weapons and gear together, threatening Evan.
Thanks to Unit 5 pulling the carriage, they couldn’t approach easily—but how long would that last?
Meanwhile they muttered among themselves, clutching necklaces and offering prayers with excessive piety.
As if they were actual devotees of some god.
…These guys don’t seem like ordinary bandits. Are they heretics?
Why they looked like bandits was simple enough.
Because they half were.
Fallen believers.
People forced to hide from the Empire’s eyes—what else would their daily lives look like?
Beggars, mountain bandits, thieves, pirates, and so on.
Illegal work was all that remained to them.
Unfamiliar with the sea, most of them stayed in the mountains.
Robbing passing travelers or nobles, occupying villages.
That was the best they could manage.
So heretic and bandit were practically synonyms.
In the regions where a bishop held sway, they were even called the chieftains of the green mountain strongholds.
The problem was that he had never heard of them appearing in this area.
In the game it had originally been that way… but this was the distant past, so things were different.
My luck really is trash.
Of all the people to meet, why these?
Just as Evan heaved a deep internal sigh—
“Evan, Evan.”
Crunch, crunch.
Lapis, munching on a cabbage leaf, tugged at the hem of Evan’s clothes.
“Should I kill those people?”
“……Kill them? Please don’t say such bloodthirsty things.”
“Okaaay.”
Ugh, that gives me the chills.
Evan stroked Lapis’s head in a gesture meant to calm her.
Lapis narrowed her eyes as if annoyed and kept staring outside.
Hmm.
At this rate the heretics are going to be wiped out completely.
Having them all die would be inconvenient.
The heretics were more important than they looked.
Not to the player.
But they were valuable experience for his ally Arthur.
Arthur was a holy knight who followed the will of the Moon.
There was a reason he followed the Moon’s will.
His only blood relative—his younger sister—was the shaman of the Full Moon Church.
She had suffered from Divine Illness until she received a divine descent from the Moon God and was saved.
To repay the grace his blood kin had received, he swung his sword solely for the Moon.
The Knight of the Full Moon, Arthur Modriter.
Even after the divine descent, however, the shaman continued to suffer.
Whether her vessel still had room after receiving a god, or other gods simply coveted her, other deities kept targeting her.
That was why every heretic had to die by Arthur’s hand.
For his sister’s salvation.
Just leaving isn’t going to work, is it?
Thump, thump!
“Hey!”
“This is no good. Maybe we need to set the carriage on fire to get that heavy ass moving?”
Apparently not.
The Sin of Pride was right there among the heretics.
Was there any way to extract just that one?
“Mmm…”
There was an easy method.
Slaughter them all.
A few golems and Lapis would probably finish it in a snap.
If there had been a bishop-level figure among them, they would have overturned the carriage already.
However.
I just don’t want to watch it.
How terrifying was it to see people getting cut down right in front of you?
It absolutely wasn’t because he was a coward. His stomach just wasn’t feeling great today.
Really.
“Evan. If you really don’t feel like it, I’ll go handle it quietly.”
Lapis made little whooshing sounds with her mouth and swung her tiny fists cutely.
“I can take care of it in a flash!”
“……Please calm down, Lapis.”
No matter how he looked at it, Lapis was the wrong choice.
She looked ready to start with murder rather than restraint.
These were precious experience points for the main ally who would progress the story in Evan’s place.
For now, just subdue them.
Ssshk.
“I’ll handle it.”
More precisely, his golems would—but he swallowed the rest of the words and tapped the floor with his staff.
He felt Unit 5 respond to the signal.
Right after, the golems that formed the staff split apart.
Small golems.
They weren’t just for carrying luggage; they were also capable of movements that targeted an opponent’s openings.
That was when it happened.
KRAAAAAAAAH!
A monstrous roar that froze every body in place.
Fear.
Looking out the window, he saw an aberrant monster that had no business existing standing there.
“We have no choice. We don’t have much time.”
“By the grace of God.”
“Grant us full bread and provisions.”
The heretics offered their prayers.
Between them stood a blood-colored living thing.
Uh-oh.
Its bulk was larger than most adults, and its thickness looked several times greater.
Crazy.
What the hell is that?
An organ monster?
Ugh!
Gross!
Bones were layered over the entrails.
Like an orc with only its skin peeled off.
Ugh, damn. That’s disgustingly scary.
If he wasn’t careful, the golems would get filthy.
Evan quietly sat back down.
That thing couldn’t be handled with golems.
No—he could catch it, but it would get extremely messy.
For something like this, consumables were best.
Grenades, for example, or magic threads.
“……Lapis.”
Evan spoke while rubbing his face from the tension.
“Would you mind helping me a little?”
“Yes.”
Lapis beamed.
Her eyes glowed even redder than the blood-colored monster lurking outside.
……Did I ask for the wrong thing?
“I’ve been waiting for those words.”
Shrrraaaak!
When Lapis spread both hands, magic threads sprayed in every direction.
Silver threads unfolding like a spiderweb.
At the same time the door opened smoothly and Lapis slipped out of the carriage.
“Wh-what?”
“It’s just a little kid! Kill her!”
“I’ll send you to God’s embrace to repent, little one!”
—KRAAAAAAH!
The heretics and the blood-colored monster charged.
Evan offered a silent prayer of condolence.
They had gone to the trouble of capturing a Sin, only to attack another Sin.
Honestly, shouldn’t that count as death by natural causes?
Fallen heretics.
Even so, they had once been a fairly well-known breed within the Empire.
In a bad way, of course.
—Believing in a god that no longer exists? Believing in the ones that do exist is already ridiculous enough.
—I’d rather believe in superstition.
A declining force that grew more pathetic with each generation, even losing its divine power instead of growing stronger.
That was the current state of the heretics.
Still, there had been hope.
Bishop Blake.
Called the master of the green mountain stronghold, a bandit who had pacified an entire region and one of the few remaining leaders of the heretics.
They had believed he would make their history flourish once more.
But even that renown had crumbled.
Only a few days ago.
The Knight of the Full Moon, Arthur.
That blood-crazed holy knight had swept through the stronghold.
—My son. Run. Only you… only you are the hope.
The bishop had fought him and burned out spectacularly.
Barely clinging to life with only his heart remaining.
The remaining forces had scattered in all directions.
Some to other kingdoms,
some into the Empire,
and some to the “corrupted ones” who had begun believing in other gods.
Blake’s son, Drake, decided to remain on the continent and dream of a comeback.
So he requested cooperation from the Bluebeard Count and the Alchemist Tower.
He had even handed over various precious relics.
A skull that spewed the “Smoke of Eternal Night,” which no ordinary curse resistance could withstand;
“Insects of Greed” that ate remaining flesh and grew in an instant;
and even “Fragments of Undying Corpses” that kept bones intact while continuously emitting a foul stench.
While waiting for results, he happened to notice outsiders visiting.
He couldn’t tell their identities, but the bizarre thing pulling the carriage suggested they had money.
So he decided to raid them.
The plan was to grab the money or anything valuable and get out fast.
If necessary, he was even prepared to kill the slave they had captured by chance.
“Gyaaaaaah!”
“G-God! Why have You forsaken us!”
Until the cruel spectacle unfolded, it had been a perfect plan.
When the little girl swung her hands, threads like claws lashed out.
People whose bodies had been strengthened by divine power and who used magic were indiscriminately sliced apart by mere threads.
“Uwaaaaaaah!”
One heretic, his entire body stained with blood, stepped forward.
His eyes blazed red.
The price of consuming a drug that contained the power of the Sin of Wrath.
In exchange for drastically shortened lifespan, a special ability that grew stronger according to rage.
Against an ordinary enemy it would have been effective.
But the enemy was a girl born with the destiny of the Sin of Wrath itself.
Ssshk… thuk!
The charging momentum turned powerless as one leg was severed.
The heretic collapsed as if spreading out on the ground.
I-impossible…
Drake looked down at them with despairing eyes.
Comrades he had been with for so long.
Those who had barely survived Arthur were dying meaninglessly.
Because of just one person!
“Why isn’t God saving you?”
At that moment the bound slave spoke.
“You said God would save you, right?”
“……Yes. God will save us.”
“Really? Why?”
“Shut up, Superbia!”
Superbia paid no mind to Drake’s roar.
“To God you’re just small fry, aren’t you? Does He even bother paying attention to small fry?”
“……”
“If He did care, shouldn’t you have run away long before things got like this? Or gotten stronger?”
“……”
“This is what happens when you believe in something that has no substance.”
“You little brat, how dare you—”
“The stuff you normally use is just magic with a different name, isn’t it?”
“Gah!!!”
Drake clutched his head in confusion and shook it wildly.
The words Superbia whispered like a thorn kept planting the disease of “doubt” in him.
Ah! O God!
Why do You send me such a trial!
“I don’t believe in things without substance like your god. Instead, I can become substance and give you power.”
“……What kind of nonsense is that?”
“Untie my ropes. Then I’ll show you. The power to defeat that demon that has come for you.”
The Sin of Pride.
Still a child who had not yet awakened her power.
Yet the bud had not rotted at all.
It was ready to bloom at any time, and it was in a state that needed every kind of nourishment.
At Superbia’s sweet tone, confusion clouded Drake’s expression.
That was when it happened.
“You’re noisy.”
Whirrrrl! Shuk!
“Kh-khuk!”
Magic threads wrapped around Drake’s neck and yanked him upward.
Drake dangled like captured prey.
Though they gripped his neck, they even lifted his whole body and bound him higher so he wouldn’t choke—considerate, in a way.
“Oh? What’s this?”
Superbia’s eyes went round.
“You’ve got some really amazing power…”
“Shut up.”
Thwack!
“Kyah!”
Superbia clutched her forehead.
The knuckle sandwich Lapis had thrown.
It hurt tremendously.
“That hurt!”
“I hit you so it would hurt.”
Lapis said so and shrugged her shoulders.
Superbia glared at her.
The moment their eyes met.
Both of them instantly realized.
…Ah.
…Ah?
That each of them had been born with a “destiny.”
One the Sin of Wrath,
the other the Sin of Pride.
That they had been born with the fate to destroy this world.
What? I had a comrade?
While Superbia’s eyes widened,
Lapis was thinking something else.
This is… coincidence?
No way.
Just as Evan had found her (even if he hadn’t intended to), if he had found Superbia the same way?
Once might be coincidence, but twice was not.
This was inevitability.
Perhaps even destiny.
He anticipated all of this?
And came all the way to this distant territory?
Shiver!
Goosebumps rose all over her body.
It was closer to pleasure than fear.
Evan, you’re amazing after all!
In Lapis’s mind, the joy of “correct answer” exploded.
He intended all of this!
As expected of Evan.
The only savior who had stopped the destiny that would have rolled on endlessly—for Lapis alone.
She looked toward the carriage.
The gaze watching her from inside.
It was like the gaze of a god bestowing will upon a believer.
Yes, I understand. Evan, your will.
Lapis strode toward Superbia.
She knew what she had to do.
I have to teach this child what true destiny is as well.
Evan’s grand plan, playing atop the destiny that would destroy the world.
This vast flow of fate that even Lapis herself had not yet properly sensed.
She would bestow the honor of joining it.