The Pope's True Face
The man's life had been a continuous downward spiral from the very beginning. His earliest memories started in the orphanage after his parents abandoned him. When he finally clawed his way out of that harsh reality and achieved his lifelong dream of becoming a professor, he had roared with uncontainable joy. He thought his dark days were over, that only light awaited him from then on.
But reality was cruel. Sirionella Private Academy. A place far more sensitive to wealth and background than any other magic academy. As a powerless professor with neither skill nor connections, he was quickly ostracized by his colleagues and students alike. Every night he buried his face in his blanket and wept in frustration, wondering why they had hired him in the first place. He told himself he would make them all acknowledge him and threw himself desperately against the wall of reality. Yet he could never overcome it. The stress eventually manifested as binge-eating disorder. In the end, he found himself praying to a god whose existence was uncertain, begging for salvation.
"O God."
The dream he had chased his entire life had never been a hopeful future. Instead, each day after achieving it was filled with nothing but despair. Even so, he could not give up. Having grown up in the orphanage with only that single dream to cling to, he knew no other path. The mere thought of fleeing the academy filled him with vague terror.
"Please, save me once more."
The situation only pushed him further into a corner. Not long after becoming a professor, the academy was already trying to remove him from his post. The Sirionella Private Academy board was merciless when it came to results. He had no colleagues to help him, no one to rely on. His only hope was a god whose very existence remained unclear.
And that god readily extended a hand to those who sought salvation. Enlightenment struck like lightning. A mysterious voice echoed in his mind. Faith surged from the depths of his heart. Amid the shock of his personality being overwritten, the last thing he saw was a single star twinkling in the darkness.
That day, Repli, the ordinary professor at Sirionella Private Academy, was reborn. A smile bloomed on his face, once filled with gloom. His mind, previously overflowing with negative thoughts, now brimmed with nothing but hope. It was as if he had become an entirely different person. As though someone else's personality had merged with Repli's original self and was now living his life in his place.
The figure who appeared beside Kain was a man whose build could never be called slim even as flattery. His belly protruded roundly forward, and folds of flesh hung beneath his chin. He wiped away the sweat pouring down like broth with a handkerchief, looking exhausted just from climbing up here. The seat beneath his rear creaked and screamed as if begging for mercy.
"I've always wanted to meet you, Death King. I thought it might be a good chance to clear up the misunderstandings between us."
"……"
Kain stared at him for a moment before abruptly turning his head away, clearly uninterested.
"Misunderstandings? What misunderstandings do we have?"
"Oh, there are plenty."
The man turned his back to Kain and wrung out the handkerchief he had been using to wipe his forehead. Water streamed down from how much sweat he had absorbed. He rubbed his shoe against the soaked floor, which looked filthy just to look at, then suddenly exclaimed as if remembering something.
"Ah! My apologies for the late introduction. Currently, I go by the name Repli at Sirionella Academy. I'm employed there as a professor, for now."
"Not that. Tell me your real identity."
Was he playing word games? Kain frowned at the man's evasive answer. Even now, a strong scent of death lingered at the tip of his nose. It was more unpleasant than that of any undead—a stench of death that clung not to the body, but to the soul. With his Evil Eye that could see death, Kain could see straight through the man's true nature with just a single glance.
"So you're the Pope?"
The first absolute being who had established the four disciplines excluding supernatural abilities and created a way for humans to wield magic. The Undead King. The Inner World known as the Church, which he had spread across the continent to twist people's perceptions in order to become a god. And this man was the Pope—the head of the Church, the single largest organization aside from nations and the underworld—and the ego the Undead King had left behind in the mortal realm before falling into the deepest depths of hell. In other words, a living corpse, a lich carrying on the Undead King's will.
"Never thought the Pope himself would be living like a parasite, latching onto other people's bodies."
This case was slightly different from the lich ego that had once tried to steal Kain's body in his childhood. The dark mage who had contributed to Kain's awakening of his supernatural ability had tried to kill his soul and take his corpse-like body. But this one had fused directly with a person's soul, accepting that person's karma as his own. Through the medium of "faith," he dwelled within the body through "belief" and lived alongside it. In a way, he was neither Professor Repli nor the Undead King's ego, but a third entity's mental form. It was no exaggeration for Kain to call him a parasite, given how he moved from host to host to build spiritual growth.
Should he admire the fact that this being had achieved spiritual growth after death, something that should have been impossible? Or should he look upon him with pity, wondering who would want to live like that?
'No wonder the underworld couldn't pinpoint the Pope's existence.'
If he had been a lich settled in a single body, he would have been easy to find. But this one was an existence that changed bodies constantly. The Pope's true identity was "the Church's faith" itself, seeking out those who prayed for salvation. In other words, to kill him, one would have to erase the very concept of the Church from this world.
'If I'm going to kill him, I'll have to move with real intent. How annoying.'
Kain's brow furrowed in irritation as he observed Professor Repli's death through his Evil Eye. Killing him wouldn't be difficult, but it felt like facing a game boss with an extremely tricky extermination mechanic. Still, one fact had been confirmed. Seeing an ego that moved between bodies through faith, it was clear that, just as Kain had suspected, the Holy Magic and the Church that had been built up were the Inner World the Undead King had left behind. An Inner World that had long been accepted as truth by the people, one that had begun as an individual's whim and completely assimilated with the world.
They said all paths eventually led to the same end. Kain let out a hollow laugh at the absurd feat of starting with dark magic and reaching the pinnacle of magic by constructing new laws for the world.
"So, why did you come find me?"
He had been hiding so well until now. What was the reason for deliberately revealing his identity like this? Even last night, he had only shown his gaze without revealing who he was. Now that Kain knew his true nature, tracking him would be far easier for the underworld, even if he abandoned this body and switched to another. In that sense, revealing himself directly was the worst possible self-inflicted wound. Yet there had to be a reason he had made this move.
"I wanted to persuade you."
Professor Repli met Kain's gaze and answered.
"Or rather, I wanted to redefine our broken relationship……"
"In short, I've been getting on your nerves lately, so you'd rather make peace?"
"Exactly."
Professor Repli clapped his hands and nodded at Kain's blunt, no-nonsense words.
"Honestly, I have my own grievances about making an enemy of you."
Tugwi, the Empress, the Magic Sovereign, the Ice Empress, and the Death King. The five absolute beings of this world. At the same time, they were the ones who would pose the greatest obstacles to his plans if they became his enemies. That was why the Pope had never intended to make them his enemies. Even during the war between the underworld and Yggdrasil, he had sided with the Empress but withdrawn before offending the Death King. That confrontation had been the result of careful calculation. It had arisen from the tug-of-war between the Church's ideology of opposing dark mages and the thought that he could not afford to make an enemy of the Death King. As the Pope had expected, it succeeded. He had sent seven cardinals to fight the Death King but avoided the worst outcome of being branded an enemy and bringing about the Church's destruction. Yes, the Pope had never intended to become the Death King's enemy from the start.
"To think that your sister would be sacrificed in the process of sending Karma to resurrect my main body. It was nothing more than an unfortunate accident."
Yes, an unfortunate accident. Kayen Grant had simply been caught up in a terrorist attack targeting unspecified individuals by chance. A catastrophe that occurred before they could properly investigate him based on the Death King's face. By the time the Pope realized what had happened, his subordinates had already caused a massive incident.
"My main body's only goal is to ascend to the seat of god."
World destruction or domination…… There were no grandiose goals like those of demon kings from fairy tales or novels. The Undead King's sole purpose was to obtain the system in its entirety. And Tugwi had joined hands with them out of a desire to fight a god, while the Empress sought to steal the Undead King's achievements and seize control of the system in his place.
"I swear it here and now. From this moment forward, we will never disturb your peace again."
Even after his main body ascended to godhood, the world would continue on as it was. Nothing would change. No, if anything, taking his hand here and now would earn him divine protection and allow him to live an even more peaceful life.
"Whatever you desire, I will grant it. If you don't want to become the next King of the Underworld, I can prevent that as well."
"You even know about that?"
He knew that Kain had been designated as the next King of the Underworld after the current one. Was it because the passages to the Underworld kept opening, strengthening the link with the Undead King? The knowledge he had just mentioned clearly exceeded what was permitted to humans.
'Perhaps the position of Pope was meant to be the next vessel prepared for when the Undead King eventually escapes hell.'
Constantly switching souls to raise his level was probably also preparation for the future. And that implied another fact. Unlike the Undead King's soul, which was stored in the deepest part of hell, his body had become completely mixed into this world in a different form.
'Did he leave his Inner World in this world in the form of a posthumous curse?'
Just as Tenma had been resurrected in this world without a body, only as a form, due to the posthumous curse left on the Masao family, the Undead King had preserved the Church, his Inner World, in the form of a posthumous curse to be reborn as a god in the future. Only then did Kain realize why the Inner World could remain in reality even after his death. He smirked and looked at Professor Repli.
"But if you know that much about me, why don't you know this?"
Kain's most basic principle of action was that he could forget favors, but he would never forget even the smallest grudge. Yes, now that his sister had died by this man's hand, negotiations were off the table. All that remained between them was a game of annihilation where only one could survive.
"I thought so."
Professor Repli smiled faintly, as if he had expected this. The man before him, the Death King Dark Heaven, was the being most specialized in killing others in this world. At Kain's firm answer, he smiled as though he had anticipated it.
"Well, then there's nothing more to hold back now."
At the same time, Kain's gaze shifted from Professor Repli to the virtual reality screen where the arm-wrestling match was taking place. It was the beginning of an anomaly that no one else had noticed yet—only Kain had.
"I hope that when you lose something precious again, you won't regret the choice you made today."
At Professor Repli's following words, Kain's violet eyes twisted savagely.