Penalty Time (8)
The only reason I'd asked for an investigation into the Church's corruption in the first place was Phoebe.
Back then, she had looked like she was wavering, so I'd planned to feed her the truth bit by bit, softening the blow of what was bound to land on her sooner or later.
That plan of mine was blown to smithereens thanks to Nakrad's trolling. The bastard went and shoved the red pill straight down Phoebe's throat.
The one genuine mercy in all of it was that Phoebe hadn't broken, even after learning everything.
She'd absorbed the whole truth and then stood right back up, calm as you please — a person who fell nothing short of worthy of the title of Saintess.
And yet, even after the anxiety surrounding Phoebe had settled, I kept pressing Alsaetin to continue gathering dirt on the Church.
Because by that point, I'd finally realized something. Even if all the Church's sins were stored in my head, it meant absolutely nothing without tangible evidence to back it up.
As long as I was Armadi's Apostle. As long as I was Phoebe's friend. The day would come when I'd stand opposed to the Church — and when it did, what good would shouting accusations do with nothing but my word behind them?
A claim without evidence isn't an accusation. It's just a conspiracy theory.
So I kept asking Alsaetin to carry the investigation forward.
Once the business at Menesteil was wrapped up and Karia joined the effort, that information-gathering picked up serious speed.
Alsaetin's master, the former Shadow of the Kingdom who had once spun her web across every corner of the continent, lived up to the woman who had once stood at Benedict's side — she unleashed her terrifying abilities in full.
And at the end of that thread lay an orphanage from the distant past — the one where Phoebe had grown up.
'It wasn't even that hard. One of the nobles who cooperated on that project was practically bursting at the seams, dying for someone to let him brag about his contribution.'
The man was so intoxicated by the fact that he'd helped manufacture a Saintess that he'd been itching to spill a secret that should have gone to his grave — and in the end, that prey flew straight into the spiderweb Karia had spun.
'My plan was to ride that guy and slowly dig out intel on the Church side. Haah, but those Main God Church people are sharp. The moment they caught the faintest whiff of something off, they clamped his mouth shut for good.'
Still, there hadn't been much inside that particular morsel.
Before she could extract anything substantial, the parasites nesting inside their host had killed the meal and scurried away.
Karia said that she'd still reeled in quite a haul, and that if the investigation kept up, something interesting was bound to surface — then she made me a single proposal.
'I know it's not a story you'll enjoy hearing, boss. But wouldn't it be worth testing what kind of person the Saintess really is?'
She was uneasy about the fact that Phoebe was a made saint.
Phoebe was a product of the Church's upper echelons, Karia argued — couldn't that become a problem at the worst possible moment?
Knowing full well how upright and earnest a person Phoebe was, I found the very suspicion distasteful — but Karia was stubborn.
She wouldn't believe a thing unless she witnessed every scene with her own two eyes.
'I'm simply making her face, today, what she'll have to face someday anyway. Boss.'
In the end, it was my side that threw up its hands.
My powers of persuasion simply weren't enough to budge Karia once she'd dug in, no matter how many insults I hurled at her.
And even Halbae, who would have backed me up in any other situation, sided with her.
"Do not assume that everyone possesses the same steadfastness you do, child. Ordinary humans are weak."
'Phoebe doesn't exactly strike me as weaker than me, though.'
"If that is so, then surely she can face her own nightmares and remain standing."
And so the plan to bring Phoebe back to the orphanage where she'd been raised was drawn up — and now, several days later,
watching Phoebe stagger upright, her face so pale that even the dead of night couldn't hide it, I could not have felt worse.
This was the girl who, through trial after trial, had risen again and again; who had stood against the corrupt Church; and who, at the end of it all, far from punishing the ones who fabricated every lie, had forgiven them.
This was Phoebe, tagged with both the label of a frustrating do-gooder and boundless kindness in equal measure.
A person so noble it made a degenerate like me look like a roadside pebble.
How could someone like her ever be the subject of suspicion?
Since none of them know the Phoebe from the game, I suppose I can't blame them for doubting.
But come on — the Apostle of the Chief God is personally vouching for her here.
Why won't anyone trust the judgment of the Chief God's own Apostle?!
This is a genuine miscarriage of justice, I tell you!
"My lady."
I had been directing my fury at Halbae, who sat in stony silence, and at Karia, who was peeking at us from far off — but at the sound of Phoebe's trembling voice, I whipped my head around.
"I know it is shameless of me, but there is one thing I would like to ask of you."
It wasn't the first time I'd seen Phoebe trembling with fear.
She had already wavered any number of times under the truths that had been forced on her far too soon.
But watching her now — unable to suppress even her own shaking — set my thoughts churning.
...The second this is over, I'm going to destroy Karia and Halbae both. Thoroughly.
"Will you come inside the building with me?"
She was telling me that she was too broken to take the first step on her own. Instead of answering her, I pushed open the orphanage's door.
I didn't want to throw even the smallest jab at Phoebe right now, so I simply kept my mouth shut.
How did she take that silence? Phoebe glanced up at me, then came over to my side with an awkward little smile.
"It will not be a pleasant place."
The moment I stepped inside the orphanage, the smell of blood wormed its way into my nose.
Not the simple metallic tang of fresh blood, but a vicious, accreted stench — blood upon blood, layered and soaked in over years until it had become part of the walls themselves.
This room, whose reek would have made me double over and retch back when I was still new to this world, described better than any word what had been done here.
"...I suppose the prayers will have to wait."
Phoebe forced herself to look composed despite the stench, and with that same stiff smile she led me from room to room.
"This was the dining hall. We always had to recite long, droning prayers exactly as the adults commanded before we were allowed to eat. There was never enough food, and the children's stomachs were always growling."
"This is where we studied scripture. During the day, we were locked in here without fail. Everyone did their absolute best not to doze off. It was hard not to, when you could hear screaming from right beside you."
"This is... the room the adults used. The facilities were better than the children's quarters, so plenty of us used to say we wanted to live somewhere like this someday."
"This was the bedroom where we slept. Dozens of us had to sleep in this cramped little space. Back then, I thought that was simply how the world worked. Looking back on it now... it wasn't, was it."
The deeper we went, the harder Phoebe shook.
Her lips, which had strained to shape smiles, soon grew too heavy to open at all; the trembling in her hands gathered strength with every step; her feet, meant to carry us onward, only slowed.
Anyone could see it plainly: Phoebe was coming apart, piece by piece.
"And this is..."
Even so, she had pressed stubbornly onward, her narration of the orphanage steady to the last — until she stopped dead at the foot of a staircase leading down into the basement.
"This place is—"
Phoebe didn't need to explain. I already knew what had happened in this basement.
I knew it better than Phoebe herself, the one who had lived it.
So I gently caught the hand of Phoebe, who was fighting to force the words out past chattering teeth.
'It's okay.'
"If you can't say it, you don't have to. That's the norm when it comes to a pathetic scrub like me, after all."
Phoebe stared quietly at our joined hands for a moment, then drew a deep breath and found her voice again.
"...No. I'm all right, my lady. I only needed a moment to gather myself."
The farther down we descended, the thicker the smell of blood grew — proof that the source of the stench saturating the entire orphanage lay here.
"...It's locked. One moment — the key, it was just here—"
'You don't need any of that.'
"Forget it. Why would I need a key to open a flimsy door like this?"
I don't need a mace to smash through a hunk of iron like that, either.
Stepping in front of Phoebe, I poured divinity into my fist.
With the rank of my divinity risen, I had grown far more adept at handling it — no longer did I have to strain to condense it.
Why should I have to struggle, when the divinity moves exactly as I will it to?
When the condensation was complete, I drove my fist forward. The layers of protective magic embedded in the iron door burst apart first, and then the door itself shattered, hurling its fragments down the bleak corridor of the basement beyond.
Turning my head at the resounding crash, I walked over to Phoebe — who stood there, dazed and blank — and took her hand in mine once more.
Only at my touch did she come back to herself. She looked down at me, then managed a brittle smile.
"This is the place the adults called the prayer hall. It's where we were brought every evening — the place none of us wanted to come. Because once you were brought here, you were taken into one of these rooms, one by one, and tortured."
Phoebe forced herself to sound matter-of-fact as she described what those sessions had looked like.
Having a friend tortured in front of you, and then being made to heal the wounds you'd watched being inflicted.
Being injected with some unidentified drug and left to burn with an unquenchable thirst.
Being made to scream the name of God through unbearable pain.
"The children in this place, they say, envied the friends who found eternal rest rather than mourning their deaths. That was the kind of place this was."
As Phoebe surveyed the chamber, still marked with the traces of torture that had never been erased, her face held more emotions than someone like me could ever hope to fathom.
What was she thinking right now?
Did she hate the adults who had tormented her?
Did she resent the Chief God, who never came to help no matter how she prayed?
Was she grieving for the friends who had been forced to die in agony?
"My lady. There is something I must ask of you."
Hearing Phoebe call for me, I stood quietly and waited for her next words.
Right now, I could grant her anything she wished.
If she wanted revenge on the adults of this orphanage, I would gladly carry it out for her.
If she demanded to know how such villains came to carry divinity within them — why the Chief God granted them nothing but that power and never once lent them aid — I would gladly tell her every truth I knew.
If she asked me to take the Chief God's place and receive her bitterness in His stead, I would listen to her grief without a word of complaint.
Because right now, I was free of the Mesugaki skill's influence.
Because whatever she asked of me, I would do it.
"Stay beside me while I offer my prayer here. Please, listen to my prayer."
But Phoebe blamed no one.
She hated no one.
She thought only of those who should have been allowed to sleep in peace.
Even though she had not yet become a true Saintess.
Even though she could not know the will of God.
Phoebe. You give the same answer, every time.
Ha. Honestly.
I don't care what you think of yourself — to me, you are a Saintess right now.
So noble that I almost feel she's wasted on a pathetic excuse for a Chief God.
Smiling back at Phoebe's smile, I drew her hands together in one place, laid my own over them, and closed my eyes.
Before long, Phoebe's soft, heavy voice began to flow.
"O Chief God who dwells in heaven—"
Before long, a warmth that had no business in the dead of night settled into her voice.
"—look down, I beseech You, upon the place where Your Apostle stands."
A gentle heat spread outward from Phoebe, pushing back the foul stench of blood.
"—hear the voice of this irreverent child, who became, without knowing it, an insult unto You."
At some point, the entire frigid basement came to hold the warmth of a summer morning.
"—behold those who yearned for Your salvation and received none, and faded away."
This was.
"—embrace the grief of these poor souls, who never knew Your care—"
Beyond any doubt.
"—and save their souls, I pray."
The prayer of a Saintess.