The Evil God of Darkness (5)
When Phoebe first heard Lucy's plan, she never doubted it.
After all, this was the Apostle of the great Chief God. This was Lucy, the girl who had turned countless impossibilities into everyday common sense.
No matter how absurd the claim, if it came from Lucy's lips, there was bound to be evidence behind it more trustworthy than anything else. How could a girl like Phoebe ever presume to doubt her?
Yes — Phoebe believed in Lucy.
But that faith pointed at Lucy and Lucy alone. It never spread to anywhere else.
Simply put: Phoebe never believed in herself.
"Pathetic Saintess. You're the center of this plan. When it comes to working the Perverted Chief God's miracle, nobody does it better than the pathetic Saintess, right?"
M-me? You're not going to perform this miracle yourself, my lady? I'm the one who has to do it?
Even with Bishop Johann assisting me, I'm... I'm a fake. A person manufactured by the Church, nothing more. For such a blasphemous existence to reproduce a miracle — that could never be permitted.
Phoebe suppressed the flood of thoughts churning up from within and let only her lack of confidence show.
But Lucy was stubborn. Halting her explanation mid-sentence, she walked right up to Phoebe, looked down at the cowed girl, and smiled the same smile as always.
"So what you're telling me right now is that my judgment's wrong?"
"...What?! No! That's not what I—!"
"Pfft. Hey. Loser Saintess. Who'd ever put their faith in a total wreck like you? You're supposed to put it in me — divine, adorable me."
After Lucy jabbed a finger into Phoebe's forehead and walked away, Phoebe never once brought up her own anxieties again. She simply resolved to repay Lucy's faith, and threw everything she had into preparing the miracle.
When she woke in the morning. When she sat through class.
After classes let out.
Even when she practiced so desperately that she collapsed like a felled tree.
Again. And again. And again.
And yet, even standing at the moment when all that effort would finally bear fruit, Phoebe could not entirely shake her doubts about herself.
If this were the past —
If this were the days when she'd believed, without a shred of question, that she was a true Saintess.
If this were before she learned she was a fake, born atop the deaths of her friends from the orphanage.
Before she'd fallen into the Evil God's bewitchment.
Phoebe would have gladly repaid Lucy's faith. She would never have doubted that a miracle would take place, for she was one who acted in God's stead, carrying His will out into the world.
But now was different.
Too many things clouded Phoebe's mind for her to carry on with that pure faith of the past.
"Saintess. Focus, please."
"...Yes!"
Perhaps because of it, the process of weaving the miracle into the orb steeped in the Chief God's divinity was sluggish and halting.
"That portion must curve upward from the right."
"I'm sorry!"
Mistakes she had never made in practice piled one atop another, and doubt began to pool in Phoebe's heart.
What on earth am I even doing?
The young lady brought me here because she trusted me. What happens if I ruin everything?
- As if it could ever go well.
That was when she heard the voice.
- As if a figure symbolizing the Church's corruption could ever work a miracle.
- That would only prove the fraud was real all along.
Phoebe tried to ignore the voice, but once it had taken root in her mind, no amount of shaking her head could dislodge it.
- A child born drinking the blood of her friends.
No.
- A child born of resentment and agony.
No, I'm not.
- A child born of corruption, fraud, and greed.
I said I'm not!
- Let me ask you something.
Please, just shut up!
- When you screamed and screamed — what did that so-called Chief God ever do for you?
Phoebe surfaced from the reverie, breathing hard.
Cold sweat streamed down her. Her legs, strength draining away, trembled beneath her. Her eyes, staring blankly into the air, were as frantic as those of someone gripped by terror.
"Saintess?"
Sensing something wrong, Johann called her name urgently — but his voice never reached Phoebe's ears.
The word doubt had already flooded her mind to the very brim.
Phoebe. Calm down. Please! Phoebe! We can't ruin everything here!
"Pu-hahap♡"
What pulled her back from the panic was a voice — vivid and beautiful — cutting straight into her ear.
Phoebe, who had been staring blankly at the floor, turned her head toward its source.
Standing there was Lucy.
"Aw gee?♡ Is that all?♡"
One eyebrow twisted in pain. Blood trickling from her lip. Trembling arms.
Anyone could see it.
Lucy was in no way relaxed. She could collapse at any moment and no one would have found it strange.
Did Lucy herself not know that fact?
Of course she did. If anything, she knew it better than anyone — because every time their blades met, it hurt, and it was terrifying.
And yet Lucy smiled. Smiling, she blocked the way before someone else.
Phoebe knew that Lucy felt fear. She had heard it herself — that trembling voice, even as her eyes blazed.
Phoebe knew that Lucy hated pain. She had watched her whine and sulk whenever she sparred with Professor Kal.
Phoebe knew that Lucy did not blindly believe in divine miracles. Time and again, she had seen her look for nothing but the practical advantage, no matter the crisis.
Then... then what about you, my lady?
How can you raise that shield?
- Because it's...
Because it's obvious, isn't it.
Because it's something I have to do. Something I must do.
Listening to the clash of shield against blade, Phoebe took a deep breath.
Something that had to be done, regardless of success or failure.
What I have to do is exactly the same.
What good does doubt do anyone?
I do it. Even if I fail and the young lady calls me a hopelessly pathetic Saintess for it.
"Bishop. I'm sorry. Let me begin again."
"...Are you quite well?"
"Yes."
The slimy, dark voice still filled her mind — but it was all right now. As long as there was one small piece of warmth held in her heart, that was enough.
Phoebe, her composure restored, wove the miracle into the orb once more.
At a speed that would have strained even Johann to follow.
Without a single mistake.
She poured every ounce of the effort she had accumulated onto the orb's surface, and forged it into a single fruit.
And then — how much time had passed?
Looking at the orb, now packed densely with nowhere left to fill, Phoebe laughed without meaning to and then simply crumpled to the floor.
I did it.
I did it!
"My lady! All preparations are complete!"
When Phoebe cried out with a joy great enough to drown the darkness crammed inside her skull, Lucy came over, exhaustion written plainly across her face. She stared at the orb for a long moment, then smiled and gently patted Phoebe's head.
"Pathetic, sure. But a saint's still a saint."
Then she took the staff from Phoebe's hands and stepped in front of the orb.
"All right, everyone. Time to serve that gloomy, anemic piece of trash the humiliation it deserves."
The moment Lucy tapped the orb with her staff, the orb rose — up, up, and up again.
And when it drifted so far that its shape could no longer be seen —
Light burst forth from the very heart of the darkness.
Blindingly bright.
Vast enough to erase the shadows all around it.
Fierce enough to burn away everything foul and unclean —
And yet as warm as sunlight spilling through a window on some spring day.
"The sun."
Phoebe gazed quietly upward, then let out a long breath, clasped her hands together, and prayed.
For those who had never dared hope, entangled as they were by the Evil God.
For Johann, who had helped her to the very end, though it must have been suffocating.
For Kal, Alsaetin, Rina, and Terl, who had shielded her through countless dangers.
For the merciful Chief God, who had granted this miracle.
And for Lucy, who had believed in her.
The miracle we'd worked so hard to prepare did its job admirably.
As the miracle unfolded across the sky, the darkness steadily lost ground.
Watching the things that had tried to swallow Burrow Territory whole flee before the light, I caught sight of the original sun hanging in the heavens.
"Hmm. Weird. Why's the sun so tiny and pathetic?"
"Seeing it like this, doesn't ours honestly look like the real one?"
"Ha. As if. Who do you think made that thing?"
"Lady Karon played a major role in it, right? The Archmage really is something else."
"...Are you doing that on purpose?"
"Was it that obvious?"
Snickering at my light reply to Halbae, I looked around at the others.
Everyone was in rough shape.
The face-obsessed fox, who had gone toe-to-toe with Tariki in a contest of raw power, was on the verge of total collapse.
Kal and Alsaetin, who'd had to face Duke Burrow head-on, wore wounds of every description across their bodies.
Phoebe and Johann, who had sweated over the miracle, were both running on fumes, their divinity nearly drained.
And I wasn't much better off.
Getting beat around by Duke Burrow had restored a little of my divinity — but only a little.
My body was screaming from blocking attacks without divine reinforcement, and I'd thrown back so many potions that my stomach churned like I was about to retch.
Honestly? I wanted to pass out right now and wake up staring at my dorm ceiling. But I couldn't. Not yet.
Because the most important part was still waiting.
I hadn't even laid eyes on the dungeon Tariki prepared yet!
All I'd done was deliver a lavish housewarming gift — there was no way I was stopping here!
If you give a present, you deserve a present back. That's just basic courtesy!
The instant I staggered to my feet, the others rose to follow.
Telling people this close to collapse to rest here and tend to the citizens would have gotten me exactly the same result.
"My girl. You can hardly just stand and watch when you can see plain as day how far everyone's pushing themselves, can you?"
"...I guess not."
"Coming from the masochistic pervert fox, that's quite the display of wisdom."
Convinced by that one line from the face-obsessed fox, I left the collapsed stragglers in the spatial mages' hands and headed for the Burrow Estate.
Some of the darkness that had tried to devour Burrow Territory burned away before our divinity — but another part of it had fled into the estate.
Which meant the estate was the real deal.
The dungeon Tariki had prepared.
A dungeon built for one purpose: to kill me.
It's fine. I can do this.
My body being in the worst possible condition? Not a problem at all.
Because I'm a hardcore veteran.
I was muttering that steel-cold resolve to myself as we drew near the estate —
"Boss!"
— and every last shred of it scattered the moment I saw Karia standing at the estate gates, waving with a grin completely devoid of tension.
...Huh?
Why is she here?
No — wait. No, it's fine.
Her being here isn't strange at all.
She infiltrated this place before, after all.
"Lady Karia. Stop right there, if you would."
"I trust you'll understand, Master."
At the sight of Karia approaching, Kal and Alsaetin hastily moved to block my front.
"I know, I know. I'm the suspicious one, right?"
"...Yes."
"Then what do you want me to prove it with? A secret passphrase? Or maybe the fact that our adorable disciple is barely holding back how happy she is to see me? Or perhaps that your boss's knight was just a tiny bit pleased with herself for acting like an actual knight for once?"
As the words left Karia's mouth, Kal's and Alsaetin's expressions froze solid.
Both of those were true?! Seriously?!
"Oh, and this too — I watched a sun hang over the middle of the city. Wow. That was something else."
The description that followed was extraordinarily detailed. So detailed that no one who hadn't witnessed it with their own eyes could possibly have told it.
Anyone who'd watched the miracle unfold firsthand couldn't have been ensnared by the Evil God, could they?
Kal and Alsaetin seemed to reach the same conclusion, and lowered their weapons partway through.
"...You might have led with that, Master."
"It's been a while since I met a normal person. Got a little carried away. Forgive me."
After tossing off that one retort to Alsaetin's grumbling, Karia stayed where she was instead of approaching me, and continued.
"Onto business, Boss. First thing you should know: me and the Art Order's Apostle cleared out most of that estate inside."
...Huh?
No.
Hold on.
What?!
You cleared out the whole estate?!
Regardless of my shock, Karia shrugged and went on. Piecing together her story: they'd exploited the chaos my miracle caused to launch a surprise attack — knocked out the estate's staff and subdued the Evil God worshippers with clinical efficiency.
"With the Duke and Burrow's main forces out trying to take you down, everyone left inside was small fry — except for the Evil God's Apostle."
...I'd have to see it with my own two eyes to be sure, but Karia's story was probably true.
Otherwise there'd be no explaining how she'd walked out of there without a scratch.
And that was a very, very good thing.
Everyone's stamina was already at its absolute limit. So the best possible outcome was that there'd be nothing left to fight.
So then why?
Why did my heart feel so hollow?
...
The dungeon.
Where did MY dungeon go?!
Where the hell is the dungeon Tariki prepared just to screw over one — one! — person?!
I suffered through all of this grind specifically to clear that thing, and now the main content's just gone?!
Who serves nothing but a pickled side dish and steals the main course?! What kind of meal is that?!
Return my steak! I want my steak back!
"Ah — in case you misunderstand, let me add one thing. We didn't take down the Evil God's Apostle."
"Then what on earth—"
"What kind of nonsense is that, you shameless old maid?"
"By the time you got here, Boss, the Evil God's Apostle had already hidden itself away inside the dungeon."