The Crown's Curse

The train had stopped.

Bishop Aloken of the Blood Heaven Sect had been rendered completely powerless.

Metin dragged himself over on unsteady legs to examine the fallen Aloken's condition.

...A massive explosion caused by a sanctified zombie. Its power isn't even comparable to Exorcism.

The hellhound Aloken had worn into battle had vanished without a trace, and Aloken himself was spitting black liquid from his mouth, his mind entirely gone. The classic symptoms of a destroyed core. One whiff of him had been enough to tell. He would never use dark magic again.

I wanted to be the one to take him in.

In the end, the one who had captured Aloken was neither Metin the Inquisitor nor Lethe of Efnel — it was a necromancer. Feeling nothing but tangled emotions at that fact, Metin clasped the shackles around Aloken's wrists.

Meanwhile, Lethe — who had hogtied the female inquisitor and shoved her into a cabin — approached Simon.

"Well, I suppose I have no choice but to acknowledge your skill this time."

"..."

Simon was sprawled against the train's ceiling, gasping for breath.

"You saved every single passenger on this tra— huh?"

Lethe stopped mid-sentence. Something was wrong with Simon. He had set the crown down as if it pained him, and his whole body was trembling violently. Soon his shaking hands reached for the crown again, trying to place it back on his head.

Thud!

Simon set the crown down with superhuman restraint. Beads of cold sweat dotted his forehead.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Don't come near me!"

Lethe froze at Simon's shout, taking an involuntary step back.

It's the first time I've ever seen him yell like that, all force and desperation.

"Take this and get away from me!"

Simon hurled the crown. Lethe caught it in a scramble, hugging it to her chest, her face utterly dumbfounded.

"Why? You have to at least tell me what's going on!"

"Ghh...! No time to explain! Get back! Now!"

She wanted to cast a recovery spell on him, or at least a calming blessing, but Simon kept insisting she stay away. She edged backward — then spun around and bolted.

What is with that crown?

Simon couldn't hold out any longer. His eyes rolled back white, he let out a beast-like roar, and then, running on all fours like a wild animal, he lunged at Lethe.

"...!"

He caught up to her in an instant. When Simon's hand shot toward the crown, a startled Lethe clutched it tighter and twisted her body away.

CRASH!

A deafening impact. Simon went flying, tumbling across the train's ceiling.

[Knew it. I called it.]

Prince was approaching with a hand resting on his hip, his expression utterly indifferent.

"You...!"

As Simon tried to rise again, Prince pounced, seized him by the hair, and slammed him into the floor with a resounding bang. Lethe shrieked in horror.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing!"

[Priests stay out of this.]

The violent shock seemed to have drained the fight out of him — Simon's body went limp. A hollow laugh spilled from his lips, and his golden eyes faded back to their original color.

"...Thanks, Prince."

[You're laughing?! If you push yourself and get hurt, *I'm* the one who gets an earful from Pier!]

"The opponent was too strong. I couldn't help it. Oh, and take the crown back. It's driving me insane."

At that, Prince turned and walked toward Lethe.

When ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠she looked back and forth between Simon and Prince with the crown clutched protectively against her chest and her guard up at full, Simon nodded as if to say it was fine. Soon enough, she held out the crown with a sour look on her face.

Prince snatched it away and placed it on his own head.

[Call me the moment anything happens. Got it?]

"Yeah. Thanks."

Ssssss—

Prince's entire body, crown and all, turned pitch black, and like a soul departing, his form dissolved into smoke. What remained in his place wasn't Prince at all — just the body of an ordinary zombie.

"H-he vanished?"

"He just went back to where he came from."

Simon groaned and slumped down where he stood. Only then did Lethe hurry over in a fluster.

"Are you alrightsh? Should I use a healing spell or...?"

"No recovery magic needed. Just something to put some vitality back in me."

Lethe cast a long-duration blessing over him. Only then did Simon manage to stagger upright. Lethe supported him from the side and spoke worriedly.

"Ah, don't push yourself. If you're that worn out, why not just sleep?"

Suddenly, Simon shoved Lethe away with such force that it rang out with a sharp smack.

Thrown off balance, she landed hard on her rear. Her eyes went wide, her expression flickered with hurt, and then she exploded in fury.

"I went out of my way to help you up, and this is—! I'll kill—!"

"No need for such a forced act."

She turned around. There was Metin, the Heresy Inquisitor, walking toward them, dragging Aloken's bound body behind him.

"In the name of the great Goddess, I swear that no harm will come to you or Priest Lethe."

"..."

But Simon only touched the bitter mask on his face once, still refusing to reveal his identity. Lethe racked her brain, unsure of what to do. Should she deny any connection to Simon? Or should she help Simon and drown this guy for good?

Then Metin spoke.

"You are a necromancer, and yet you risked your life fighting for the people of this place. You saved hundreds of lives in the end. We Inquisitors were pathetic. I admit it — we couldn't measure up to a single necromancer."

He tore the Inquisitor badge from his chest and threw it away.

"And so I will abandon your interrogation."

At this strangely sweeping turn of events, Simon and Lethe fell silent.

"You saved hundreds of lives, so you deserve to ascend to the Sky Island and receive a great reward. But you are a necromancer. Here, you'll receive nothing for it — and knowing that full well, you saved those people anyway. On behalf of every Heresy Inquisitor, I thank you."

Metin bowed at the waist.

"Thank you."

Hearing the sincerity in his voice, Simon finally withdrew the jet-black power he had raised. Not that he lowered his guard.

"Will you be alright, sir?"

Lethe said, looking at Metin.

"You might fall into quite a severe slump."

A priest's divinity flows from faith.

But the moment doubt takes root in that faith — the very thing that serves as the conduit for divinity — the doubt swells like a snowball, growing until it becomes impossible to turn back.

When some incident damages a priest's faith and leaves them unable to wield divinity as before, priests call it a Divinity Slump.

In the Holy Federation, countless examples existed of people who experienced slumps through war or a superior's unreasonable orders and abandoned the priesthood altogether. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠And the firmer a person's convictions and the hotter their zeal — like Metin's — the more easily they fell into one.

"That doesn't matter. Wrong is wrong, no matter what."

Metin said this, looking at Simon.

He had hoped Simon would say something — anything — but Simon's mouth stayed firmly shut. Thorough to the very end, Metin thought.

Simon turned and descended into the passenger cabins.

The situation had been more or less brought under control.

Lethe, with the absolute authority of an Efnel student, and Metin, the sole surviving Inquisitor, joined forces to calm the passengers and mop up the remaining Blood Heaven Sect remnants.

The captured cultists were trussed up tight and dumped en masse into the cargo car, while Metin personally sealed Aloken and the female Inquisitor with binding magic and hung them from torture wheels.

"Don't go anywhere, and keep a good eye on these things, Senior Ellen."

"Of course! Leave it to me!"

Ellen said, snapping into a salute. Lethe and Metin returned to the engine room.

"Ah, you've both arrived."

Simon — mask off, his robe flipped back to white, once more in his Apprentice Priest guise — greeted them with his palms pressed together.

"Oh, do you want to die? The absolute nerve. Seriously."

Lethe said, laughing coolly.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, Priest."

"Showing up all shame-faced after the fight's all~ over. Where were you this whole time, hm?"

"I only go where I'm needed. I was dealing with the stragglers in the rear car."

Watching the two of them toss lies back and forth so amiably, stone-faced all the while, Metin let out an awkward laugh.

"Now then, let's go in."

The three of them entered the engine room. It was clean — the corpses had already been cleared away. At its center stood a permanent divine magic circle that controlled the entire train.

"Priest Lethe. Do you think you can operate it?"

"Let me take a look."

To Simon, the magic circle looked complex enough to make his head spin just from staring at it, but Lethe seemed to think it was worth a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠try, and slowly began picking apart its structure.

Meanwhile, Metin started his explanation.

"We've retaken control of the train, but the threat from the Blood Heaven Sect isn't over yet."

Simon nodded.

"There's no telling when headquarters will send a pursuit force."

"Exactly. They intend to offer every passenger aboard this train as a sacrifice. Headquarters will have noticed the loss of contact with Bishop Aloken, so they'll certainly organize additional troops and dispatch them."

"So that's why you want to get the train moving and run."

"That's right."

Metin shook the bag in his hand.

"While Priest Lethe works on the train, let's go through this Blood Heaven Sect intelligence."

Inside the briefcase were the Blood Heaven Sect's classified documents. Simon's eyes went wide.

"Where did you get these?"

"They were in Aloken's subspace."

The two of them pored over the documents carefully, searching for anything that might serve as a clue.

With the papers spread out before him, Simon immediately caught something strange.

"Every directive here carries a bishop-level signature. But none of them are Aloken's — the man who claimed to *be* a bishop."

Every single directive was scrawled with the signature of some other bishop. Not Aloken's.

"But there's exactly one exception."

Simon pressed his finger down on the directive at the far right.

"A mission request for the hijacking of the Holy Train. This one alone bears Aloken's signature. And even this one had its approval granted by a different bishop."

"I see."

Aloken felt strongly like a figurehead. Either there were ranks among bishops, or — just as plausibly — Aloken was a newcomer newly seated in the bishop's chair, and had concocted this scheme in a reckless bid to earn glory.

Hmm.

Simon examined the materials at a measured pace.

Sarah Crawford was the traitor Inquisitor Lethe had captured. Even Simon knew the story up to this point, at least in outline.

He turned to the very next page.

Simon's hand froze.

What kind of garbage is this? Deliberately leaking information to the Inquisition Bureau headquarters?

Simon's expression turned sharply grave as he flipped to the next page.

...Wow. Just—

Simon felt his lips go dry.

Just how insane is the scale of this getting?