Penalty Time (9)
The hour when the sun hid beneath the earth and the moon took its place.
Karia, who had been feeling the warmth spreading outward from the orphanage, let out a hollow laugh.
As expected, our employer was right.
Whatever the Church's trash may have manufactured her into, it seems the Saintess had more than enough of the qualifications to truly be called one.
But still, you know.
Have those two forgotten what happened last time? They nearly got dragged before the Church's inquisitors for working a miracle, and now they've gone and pulled off something this big. What would have happened if I hadn't prepared in advance?
"Alsaetin."
"I had the perimeter secured from the moment those two arrived. Whatever happens here will become nothing more than a daydream shared among ourselves."
At the sight of her disciple shrugging his shoulders, Karia narrowed her eyes.
"...Did you expect this to happen?"
"Did you not, Master? Who was it, after all, who told me to prepare for exactly this?"
"Tch. You used to have a cuter edge to you, back in the day."
Clicking her tongue, Karia nonetheless couldn't bring herself to deny his words.
For all her needling and fault-finding, Lucy rarely spoke without substance — and hadn't she made it clear that she regarded Phoebe as a true saint?
Having witnessed the firmness of Lucy's conviction, Karia had anticipated things would turn out this way.
Even so, the reason she had pushed this whole affair forward was that she wanted certainty.
Certainty that when the day came and Lucy stood opposed to the Church, Phoebe would remain at her side.
Now that it was all but confirmed that the Church of today had lost the piety of its past, Lucy — beloved of the Chief God — would inevitably find herself on the opposite side before long.
And if, in that moment, Phoebe were to abandon her, Lucy would wear a composed face on the outside while suffering a deep wound within.
Because the Lucy that Karia knew was a child who was strong and fragile all at once.
Worried by this, Karia had imagined the worst-case scenario and forced the matter through, fully aware that she would incur Lucy's fury.
"Master. Do you regret it?"
"Me?"
"Yes. She's bound to grumble at you for ages, isn't she?"
"So what if she does."
Ever since her days working as the Shadow of the Kingdom, Karia had always planned for the worst.
So much so that even the king who trusted her had begged her, more than once, to show some restraint.
Having heard every kind of grievance imaginable in that line of work, a little grumbling from Lucy amounted to nothing more than affection.
"The young lady ought to realize just how worried about her you were, Master."
"Don't say pointless things. Go do your job."
"Haha. Yes, Master. Understood."
After Alsaetin departed to survey the situation on the ground, Karia shifted her gaze to Johann, still deep in prayer.
"Bishop."
"Yes."
"...Are you crying?"
"Ahem. Forgive me. Seeing that scene, I have come to understand just how foolish I have been."
Watching the old man — the same man who'd seemed as though not a single drop of blood would spill if you stabbed him — wipe a face streaked with tears on his sleeve, Karia pressed her lips together.
Has he lost his marbles in his old age?
...Well, honestly, at his age it wouldn't be all that strange.
"Karia."
"...Mm. Yes?"
Thinking it would be a problem if her collaborator fell apart on her like this, Karia forced out a reply.
"You would know. That the Chief God's divinity takes root in the wicked and the righteous alike."
"I do. It shocked me half to death when I investigated it, back in the day."
Contrary to what most people believed, divinity did not settle only upon the good.
The divinity spread across the earth cared nothing for a person's virtue or vice; it concerned itself solely with how desperately that person yearned for it.
This was why the corrupt members of the Church could cast holy magic without the slightest hindrance.
Because divinity, indifferent to any individual's background, was bestowed upon all equally.
It was the reason scum who should never have been permitted to become clergy could hold their positions at all.
When Karia had been investigating the Church's upper echelons, she had dismissed this information as utter nonsense when she first acquired it, long ago.
Divinity was a gift the great Chief God in the heavens granted to mankind — how could it possibly make no distinction between good and evil?
And so the Karia of those days had judged it a trap and gathered other intelligence instead — but those findings only lent credibility to the original information; none of it contradicted it.
In the end, Karia had been forced to concede that what she had first learned was true.
"Once that was proven fact, a great many discussions took place among the Church's leadership."
Why does the Chief God grant His divinity even to the wicked?
Before a phenomenon that shook the very foundations of the Church, countless priests offered up their own interpretations.
The prevailing opinion held that, as the scriptures taught, the Chief God merely treated all mankind as equals — but other theories existed as well.
Everything from the notion that He embraced the wicked in divinity so as to lead them to repentance, all the way to the extreme claim that the Chief God was simply indifferent to everything that happened upon this earth.
The priests did their utmost to interpret the phenomenon in their own ways, and Johann was no exception.
"I never cared much for the prevailing view within the Church. It struck me as indifference wearing the name of equality."
If the Chief God pays no heed to good and evil and treats all alike, then what reason is there to be good at all?
Because punishment would come someday?
What does that matter?
When countless people are screaming at the evil being committed this very moment, what meaning does some future punishment hold?
That is not equality. It is indifference.
If the Chief God were truly good, that could not be — it must not be.
"Having heard the Chief God's words in the past, I strove in my own way to interpret the phenomenon, but I could not manage it."
Johann had believed in the word of God and striven always for piety, yet a small seed of doubt had always lodged itself in his heart.
"It got so bad that I even wondered whether everything I had heard was mere hallucination — whether the Chief God did not exist at all."
Perhaps that was why he had grown so obsessed with outward appearances.
Johann had feared above all else that his doubt might show through the smallest crack in his facade.
"But an exception has emerged that no theory until now could explain."
Lucy Aln.
A blasphemous child who, were she not the daughter of House Aln, would long since have lost her head — or so it was said.
And now, a magnificent being who proved that the Chief God existed in this world and still watched over it.
Watching the miracles she worked, Johann had nurtured hope in his heart.
He had been relieved to learn that his faith had not been in vain.
"And now, before my very eyes, another exception has appeared."
A being forged amid mankind's evil deeds.
A person whose very existence was an insult to the Chief God.
A pitiable child whose faith alone was more unshakable than anyone else's in the Church of the Chief God — yet who had believed she could never receive His love.
The Chief God had not denied her existence.
He had not turned away from her.
On the contrary — knowing everything about her, He had taken her into His embrace.
"Karia. The world is changing."
"It is, Bishop."
"I do not know whether an old man like me will have a place in that world. But what this old man must do amid a changing world — that much is already decided."
Johann composed his face as he watched the divinity slowly subsiding.
"At the very least, when this life is spent and I stand before the Chief God, it must not be with shame."
In the very center of the basement chamber, now steeped in warmth, Phoebe gradually felt heat taking root within her.
Not the divinity she usually carried — but an energy that held warmth within its very self.
Phoebe knew what this energy was.
Because the divinity that Lucy, who was even now holding her hands, possessed was much like it.
O great Chief God.
Do You hear the prayer this blasphemous child offers up to You?
If You do, then there is something I must say.
There are words this child — an insult to Your name — has carried for a very long time.
Words she has always meant to deliver to You, each time she recalled the past.
This blasphemous child does not believe in Your omniscience.
If You had truly known everything that happens in this world, You could not have failed to hear our screams.
This blasphemous child does not believe in Your omnipotence either.
If You could do all that You willed, You would never have watched in silence as countless thousands died.
But Your goodness — that alone, I believe.
I believe that You did Your utmost to drive evil from this world.
I believe that in the moment countless despairs filled Your eyes, You must surely have grieved.
Because Your Apostle revealed Your will.
Because for the sake of a single life, she willingly staked her own.
Because You comforted this flawed and blasphemous creature, always.
I choose to believe that Your will is no different from Your Apostle's.
So speak to me.
Reveal Your failings to those who believe in Your will, and ask for their help.
Let goodness thereby spread wide across this world.
Let the sorrows that perished here never be created again elsewhere.
Let Your existence become a reason for hesitation, that hearts may turn to repentance.
You may remain silent to the plea of this blasphemous child.
Even if You do not reward my faith, I will follow the goodness I believe in.
Even without Your care, I will strive to carry goodness into this world.
As Your Apostle does now. As Your Hero did in the past. I, too, will hold fast to my conviction.
But if You intend to stay silent until the very end—
Then simply watch.
Do not turn away from the efforts of those who wish to be good.
— I'm sorry.
The instant Phoebe poured out every word she had held in her heart, an indescribable voice brushed past her ears.
It was neither high nor low. It was a woman's voice and a man's at once. It held severity and gentleness together in a single breath.
Phoebe had never once heard the voice of the Chief God — yet the moment she heard that unknown voice, she knew without doubt whose it was.
It was, without question, the voice of the Chief God.
— I am truly sorry.
The voice she had believed in, and striven to believe in, was speaking words of apology.
Recognizing this, Phoebe quietly watched the flood of words pouring into her mind like a sudden downpour from the heavens —
and within it, she found the words she needed to say.
...
O great Chief God.
Since You have forgiven this blasphemous child, I, in turn, shall forgive Your sins.
But remember this: that forgiveness is mine alone.
Remember, too, that this world is filled with souls who cannot forgive You.
— ...Yes. I will remember it all.
That answer was the end of it.
The voice, like a breeze on a spring day seeping into her ears, left behind only its will — and then was gone.
And so, with every prayer concluded, Phoebe opened her eyes. She saw the red eyes gazing up at her from below and tried to smile, but the tears spilling from the corners of her eyes would not let her.
"Y-young... my lady."
"What? Crybaby Phoebe?"
"Would you... hold me?"
Before the words had even left Phoebe's mouth, Lucy's arms seized her by the neck and pulled her in.
"And. Also. Please comfort me."
"Anything else?"
"Please tell me I've done well, all this time."
"Puhahah. Yeah. Finally, our little hypocrite Phoebe is being honest with herself."
Feeling Lucy's hand stroking down her back, Phoebe broke into the tears she had held back for so long, buried in her embrace.
Even as she vowed that once this day passed — until everything was over — she would never cry again.