Evidence (11)
“So what do we do now?”
In any case, once they finished searching for ways to secure his safety from the temple, Meister abruptly brought it up. Whoooosh. The dust-laden wind sweeping across the barren earth seemed only to deepen the hollowness of his words.
“Wait until they get here?”
“…That does not seem a wise choice.”
The reason he had simply watched the Inquisitor leave was the faint hope that, in the process of recovering through demonic power, her mind might yet change. Separate from the guilt he felt toward her, a life was still a life.
Even if he had known she would not reverse her decision, it would have been much the same. After all the fierce deliberation over whether she would live or die just moments before, watching her borrow a demon’s power would only have thrown her into deeper turmoil.
It was not that he failed to trust the Inquisitor; he simply did not want to heap further burdens upon her. So he had no choice but to let her go. Even if he had wanted to show her his resurrection scene, the demon had whined that it hated gambles, so it would probably have failed anyway. In any case.
“We go first. There is no need to waste their manpower pointlessly.”
That aside—had his life still been hanging by a thread as before, it might have been different, but waiting around in perfect health for healers to arrive simply would not do. The last glimpse he had of Munmunt’s condition had been far from good, which made the decision even clearer. The personnel they would send to treat him were precious resources there; he could not let them make a wasted trip.
[You really going to—]
Shut your mouth—!
He ignored the clamor inside his head, which was gradually becoming familiar.
“Fine by me. Not like I have a choice.”
Meanwhile, why did Meister have no choice… Ah. Because he was powerless.
He cast Meister an oddly lingering glance for no particular reason. Was it the man’s fiery temper, or the fact that he had seen him thrash people with that foul mouth and savage fists a few times already? Somehow the fellow never felt like a weakling. That was the impression.
“…I shall escort you with all my strength.”
“Isn’t that obvious? The second I die, you get a wanted poster.”
“Right.”
He brushed off Meister’s snide remark. With his current power, the only way he could fail to protect Meister was if something on the level of a Great Demon showed up.
Of course, planting a flag like that sometimes made them reappear… But surely not?
“…Is the state of the walls that bad?”
“Pretty much. Saw a lot of dead.”
“…I see.”
He regretted the flag-like thought for a moment and grew solemn once more at Meister’s words. Were Licha and the young lord all right? Because people he knew—or rather, people Pasha knew—were there, his concern only sharpened.
“By any chance… never mind.”
“Don’t start talking and then stop when it pisses people off.”
“…I merely thought it better to see for ourselves once we arrive.”
Above all, even if the young lord were one thing, Meister was unlikely to know anything about Licha’s safety. He sealed his lips tightly.
Hey, got anything like a travel skill?
Instead he prodded the demon a little in his mind. Now that he was cooperating with the demon—under duress on its side—he wondered whether he might receive something that would free him from walking everywhere.
[…You think I’d have that?]
If not, forget it.
So nothing of the sort, then. Regardless of whether the demon was fuming, he took only the answer he needed and pondered for a moment. Must they truly walk all the way back to the city?
“Oh right. Hey, what’s this thing made of?”
Just then Meister’s curious question reached his ears. Following the man’s arm, hand, and fingers, his gaze finally settled on the white mass quietly clumped on the ground.
“Earlier it was spitting out a sword and stuff too.”
“This is……”
He told him the materials the demon had revealed while refining the idea that had suddenly struck him.
Hey.
[You ignore every single thing I shout and then expect me to answer when you only ask questions—]
You said this can freely change shape. So can it be made into a vehicle too?
[…I told you to exercise creativity and you bring me something truly bizarre.]
Yes or no. Just that.
[…It will consume a lot of demon energy, and you will have to fine-tune it in real time.]
Ah, then no problem.
Even if it burned through a lot of demon energy, it still beat several hours of walking. Setting the minimum reserve of demon energy he had to keep, he altered Latel’s form.
“What is this?”
“A bike.”
“……?”
Ah, I just cannot stand modern objects showing up in a fantasy setting.
“O Representative, he—that existence—”
“…Even after he saved the city, is it still impossible?”
Tears suddenly welled in the Inquisitor’s eyes. They were of a slightly different texture from any she had shed until now.
“Because he carries a demon, because he is a vessel for a demon—can he never receive recognition or salvation no matter what merit he earns?”
Harsh goodness. Merciless justice. Ruthless righteousness.
“He saved the city.”
If You were going to be so cruel, if You were going to act so heartlessly—
How then did the scriptures speak of love? Why did You command reverence, fraternity, and mercy?
“He saved the city.”
Why on earth did You urge us to forbid sins such as murder, adultery, and theft? The command not to sin can only spring from loving-kindness, mercy, and compassion.
“He is burning himself, reducing himself to ash in order to save people. For one such as him, is there truly no right to be saved?”
Surely that is so—yet why are You so cold toward him alone? If You truly laid down the commandments out of love, then they should apply equally to him as well.
He is but a human being; the philanthropy granted to so many humans ought to be granted to him too……
“Had it not been for him, we would not even be standing on this land looking at this scenery. And yet, for the single reason that he carries a demon. Because a demon parasitizes him. Because he unwillingly became a demon’s vessel.”
In a voice wet yet dry and hoarse, the Inquisitor opened the scripture within her heart. She laid before herself the doctrines she had read and re-read a thousand times.
“Is it right that, for such a reason alone, he becomes a sinner who cannot even receive salvation?”
Ah! All of this is the word spoken by the high heavens.
You shall revere Me, yet you shall not call upon My name.
I am the parent of every creature, yet I cannot be beside you in every moment, so you must, in My stead, honor the parents who bore you and cherish your brothers and sisters.
Moreover, since I cannot always protect you, you must become the wise who fortify your own fences by granting opportunity and bestowing mercy upon those beside you.
And again He said: Murder, adultery, and theft are not permitted. You must be honest toward yourselves and all others, never speaking falsehood, and with the humility that does not covet another’s, you must embrace only what is your own.
Yet in the process of embracing what is your own, do not be certain of the convictions and justice you yourselves have erected. You are not omniscient beings like Me, so you must always be those who test yourselves……
“Is that truly right……?”
No matter how many times she read it, His words were not wrong. The commandments that spoke of loving one’s surroundings, guarding against sin, and always reflecting could never be mistaken.
The most fundamental good, precisely because it was fundamental, could not be shaken.
“He who sinks into justice and casts aside reason shall become the greatest sinner of all. Those were the words spoken by the First Hero, the nameless saint and first pope, when he embraced the sinner everyone pointed at and discussed the commandments.”
Yet even if the commandments themselves cannot be wrong, what is wrong can still emerge from them.
“But why did that person cry out thus in that moment? Was it not because he regarded casting stones simply because everyone said so, without judging for oneself, as mere violence rather than justice? Was he not saying that justice, having no means to stop it, must be regulated and watched all the more carefully?”
That was all of them—those who interpreted the scriptures according to their own thoughts and then wielded their private “justice” based on it.
“Fitting rebuke for those who follow evil. Mercy tempered with patience for those who repent. A chance to explain for the wronged. Vigilance against sin for those who live ordinary lives. Endless self-examination for those who cry out for justice.”
And therefore, because they are not omnipotent like God. Everything they put forward can be wrong. That much alone is certain.
But can one judge which among their misinterpretations is more right and which is a little more wrong? Is there anyone who can distinguish which interpretation is correct and which is not?
“If we do not, then we ourselves shall become the sinners.”
“…Those are the words left by Dismas, the repentant thief and second saint whom the First Hero embraced.”
“If the nameless saint of that time had not personally demonstrated the true meaning of the ninth commandment through his actions, if Dismas had not thereby repented, if he had not devoted his entire life to building a temple upon the mountain to prove his atonement—would we of today ever have been able to behold the Great Temple, that grand sanctuary?”
There is no such person. Therefore everyone judges and acts as they please.
“Of course the bishop of Bemyurhen said that the depths of sin differ between Dismas, who was a mere pickpocket, and one who fled while carrying a demon. Yet is that truly so? Are Dismas, whom everyone stopped pointing at the moment the hero embraced him, and the Demon Knight, who even after receiving permission must forever endure gazes of surveillance and contempt, truly so different?”
If so, then there was no law saying she herself must not do the same. Having learned through this affair that she could never become a true hero, she could instead distort things as she pleased in a human fashion and pursue her own “rightness,” and not a soul could reproach her for it.
“If that is the case. If it is so. Then I shall renounce the title of Hero. I who did not even choose to carry a demon of my own will, I who cannot save even one person who is condemned despite endlessly performing good deeds—I cannot continue to wear the name of Hero.”
In the end, even her decision, if it was based on loving-kindness, mercy, and compassion, would still be one of the actions that followed the word of God.
“It was a title far too grand for me from the beginning.”
Therefore the Inquisitor cut away a part of herself with something close to relief. Only when the Demon Knight stood on the brink of death had she realized she was someone who could not abandon him, and so she discarded the opposite side.
Ah, what worth remained for her once she was no longer a hero? A brief pang stabbed her, yet even that soon passed.
Even if she ceased to be a hero she could still follow God, and above all, the Demon Knight at least would probably say nothing about it.
“O Representative……!”
“Young lady, you……”
After all, he had only joined their party to catch Satan; he had never once treated her as a hero. He had focused more on the fact that she could kill demons, and had rarely assigned any special significance to her being the Hero.
Thus, amid the wretchedness of becoming useless and the relief of being freed from the heaviest burden, the Inquisitor smiled faintly through her tears.
“Even so, I make this presumptuous request. Young Lord, though I am no longer a hero, would you please save my benefactor?”
Ah, Demon Knight. It is an arbitrary thought, but even if I am no longer a hero, you will still casually call me “idiot,” won’t you? I pray that you will. You never intended it, yet the way you consistently treated me like a greenhorn priest always made me glad.
“…Yes. I will dispatch them.”
The youth who had cut away the single greatest word that had defined her life laughed and wept at the young lord’s brief answer. Praying that this persuasion had not come too late.
“Wh-what!”
“……?”
Praying that it was so, she turned her head along with the startled people. The flow of demon energy she had missed while weeping struck her mind first of all.
“The Demon Knight……?”
The one she had thought would breathe his last was somehow drawing closer and closer.