The New Master of the Round Table
Abeloff looked at him and spoke.
"Pope. You who concealed the Goddess's death and took the hand of an Outer God. We have returned from the underworld ourselves to make you pay for your sins."
"You insolent brutes! Do you even know where you are?!"
"Show some respect to the Knights of the Round Table!"
The cardinals' necks bulged with veins as they shouted.
The Pope raised a hand and restrained them.
There was something far more important right now.
"Wilhelm. Is he alive as well?"
"That shouldn't be what matters."
"……So he is not alive, then."
Hooo.
The Pope let out a deep breath.
His face was one of disappointment.
From Abeloff's answer he had immediately grasped Wilhelm's death.
Of course—if Wilhelm still lived, he would have come himself rather than send Abeloff.
"Then who is it that moves you now?"
Still, he was curious.
The Round Table could be moved by Wilhelm alone.
They were his hands and feet.
That they lived at all was astonishing; that they would storm the Holy Capital itself meant they were surely acting under orders.
Yet Wilhelm was dead.
With Wilhelm dead, they too should have fallen apart—that would have been natural.
In that moment—
"Me."
Shhk!
The man who had stood at the very rear of the Round Table.
The presence who until now had only quietly watched the situation unfold.
"I am the new master of the Round Table, Pope."
He removed his helmet and stepped forward.
"Y-you……!! Aaaaaaah—!!!!"
Someone suddenly let out a scream that was almost a wail.
Twisting his entire body, tears streaming from both eyes, he dropped to his knees.
A reaction utterly beyond comprehension, beyond all common sense.
"You who are the Goddess's will itself!!!"
It was Aron.
The man newly elevated to cardinal poured every expression he possessed into reverently greeting the one who was the Goddess's will made flesh.
It's been a while.
"The one who carries on the Goddess's will……?!"
"Could that man be……!"
Aron was not the only one whose reaction bordered on seizure.
The other cardinals, too, seemed to have guessed something from Aron's hysterics.
Anyway.
……Aron.
Why is that guy here?
The very heart of the Papal Palace.
A place where only the Pope and the cardinals gathered.
I last saw him at the Tower of the War God.
Before climbing the Tower of the War God, the brat's arrogance had pierced the heavens.
A few lessons afterward had corrected him, but to think he would be seated at the center of the Papal Palace.
Did he get promoted that fast?
It was a promotion that went beyond radical and into the realm of catastrophic.
The cardinals of the Goddess Sect were all people who had been recognized as priests over long years.
But Aron was young.
A greenhorn who had only just become an adult.
Aside from being the son of Cardinal Johansen, he had not a single achievement to his name as a priest.
"Your Holiness! It is him! The one who awakened the Goddess's love in me! The one and only being beloved by both Goddesses, the hope and the light of the Goddess Sect!"
"That man……."
The Pope seemed briefly flustered.
Anyone could see that Aron's appearance was that of a pure fanatic.
But he soon collected himself and asked again.
"……Are you the one who kindled the flame of holy power in Cardinal Aron?"
The flame of holy power.
Apparently that was how they described the strengthening of divine power.
Aron's holy power, ever since he began believing in and worshipping me, had indeed grown incomparably stronger than before.
So that's why Aron became a cardinal.
Only then did I understand how Aron could have risen to the rank of cardinal.
After the deaths of the two Goddesses, the Goddess Sect had stagnated.
No children inheriting the Goddesses' names had been born, and the holy power of the priests and knights who followed them no longer grew stronger.
Instead it only continued to shrink and weaken.
But the holy power of the Aron who emerged from the Tower of the War God had been overflowing.
The sole person in a long-stagnant Goddess Sect to experience a strengthening of divine power.
Convenient.
No doubt Aron, upon returning to the Goddess Sect, had madly preached my story.
Judging by the reactions of the Pope and the other cardinals, the content must have been truly mythic.
In that case, playing along wouldn't be so bad.
"I am the one who received the call of the two Goddesses."
"Aaaah……!!!"
In that instant—
Drip. Drip.
The Pope suddenly began to shed tears.
I had only given him the answer he wanted.
……A more intense reaction than expected.
This is different from what I anticipated.
The Goddess Sect had been corrupted.
They had not announced the deaths of the two Goddesses and had taken the hand of an Outer God.
I had become certain of that through Hypnos.
A man who had once been an Eye of Destruction.
When I developed his domain and awakened Hypnos's divine majesty, he spoke of the corruption of this world.
That present-day Pangenia seemed to be filling the vacancies left by the old gods with evil gods or Outer Gods.
Especially that the nature of those who followed the two Goddesses had been greatly corrupted.
That was because the Pope, the foremost apostle of the Goddesses, had accepted an Outer God.
He had filled the Goddesses' vacancy with another god, so the nature of those who followed without knowing the truth could not help but change.
That is also why Priest Andrew fell.
And so, at present—
Fallen priests were continuously emerging from the Goddess Sect.
Priest Andrew had been one of them.
It was impossible for a priest of the Goddess Sect to fall simply by harboring evil thoughts.
The Goddesses were icons of compassion and forgiveness.
To those who followed such Goddesses, the word "corruption" could not even exist.
And yet they had fallen.
The Pope had hidden the truth, and so I had intended to appear before him as a Punisher.
But the reaction of the Pope when I revealed my identity was unexpected.
"You…… you……!"
"Y-Your Holiness?"
"You must not move so suddenly!"
The cardinals cried out in alarm and tried to stop him.
Regardless, the Pope forced his heavy body upright.
And with that, the truth was revealed.
"……He has fallen."
Serengeti murmured softly.
A black tail swayed between the folds of the Pope's robes.
The Pope was no longer a sacred being.
He crawled toward me and wailed.
"I…… I made the wrong choice. Believing that the Goddesses no longer loved us…… I accepted a petty Outer God."
"……Whom did you accept?"
"The bait the Balrog Cult cast! I should never have been tempted by that power……!"
The Pope was crushed.
A single wrong choice had brought irreversible consequences.
"Speak the name, Pope."
I was genuinely curious what the name of the one who had corrupted the Goddess Sect was.
Now that the Balrog Cult had appeared, I could never overlook it.
Then the Pope uttered an unexpected name.
"Its name…… was most certainly 'Sonora.' Aaaah……!"
The Balrog Cult and the Goddess Sect had gone to war.
But the Goddess Sect, having lost the Goddesses' power, was defeated.
Countless holy knights died, and the Saintess died.
Before the Balrog Cult's overwhelming might, the Pope could only despair.
It was a power he had never experienced before, so the Pope grew curious about the source of the strength they displayed.
And he discovered it.
He found the true form the Balrog Cult had hidden.
……Sonora.
"It was a vessel. A vessel meant solely to contain a god. Empty, and therefore the strongest vessel that could hold any god! The Balrog Cult drew power from it and worked countless miracles."
A sacrifice, a vessel to contain a god.
I looked at Abeloff and the other knights of the Round Table.
Originally they too had been children who would have been offered as vessels for evil gods.
If I had not uprooted them while playing as Wilhelm, the balance of the world would have been crushed by children who became vessels of evil gods.
……Yet it seemed I had not pulled them all out.
Sonora.
A clone born of the Derseian family.
She had been sealed at the boundary of the Abyss by the Desert Queen.
Isabella's closest friend and older sister, yet in the end she had gone berserk.
As a gamer I had thought I eliminated Sonora while taking Isabella's "Survival" quest, but she had remained alive at the boundary of the Abyss.
And the Balrog Cult had found her and used her as a vessel…….
The Desert Queen had also intended to use Isabella and Sonora as vessels.
She had planned to use them as vessels to pollute the city and summon the Demon Blood King from a ruined other dimension.
Sonora's body, left for so long at the boundary of the Abyss, would already have been perfected as a complete vessel.
Thus the Balrog Cult descended a god into Sonora's flesh.
An Outer God.
Something petty whose very name was unknown.
But the Balrog Cult deliberately threw the vessel that held the Outer God—Sonora's body—to the Goddess Sect.
Either they could not handle it themselves, or they meant to corrupt the Goddess Sect.
The corrupted body of Sonora I first saw in the Holy Capital was exactly that.
Her flesh was being transported while containing a fragment of Longinus's Spear.
The Pope had been seduced by that alluring power and made a choice he should never have made.
Yet what had already fallen could not be undone.
Even though I had restored Priest Andrew's holy power, he still remained fallen.
"At this rate the Goddess Sect will not endure. Already countless fallen ones are appearing…… If 'it' seizes the Goddesses' throne……."
The Pope trailed off.
But I could guess the words that would follow.
It would mean the end.
Pangenia would sink into chaos.
An Outer God occupying the Goddesses' seat. Every believer and priest of the Goddess Sect would fall and be corrupted.
Had I not already seen it once?
When I met the evil god of curses in the World Tree dungeon.
That evil god also tried to seize the Goddesses' throne.
It had sought to reclaim its name, resurrect, and become a goddess.
But essence does not change.
An evil god is merely an evil god.
If the evil god's intent had succeeded, curses would have been disguised as blessings and the world would have raced toward ruin.
Even imagining it was horrifying.
"Guide me to 'it.'"
"B-but no one who stands before 'it' can ever defy its words. No matter that you are the new master of the Round Table and the Goddess's will itself……."
"It is fine."
It was not that I felt no worry.
A being that had even tempted the Pope.
An Absolute that corrupted others and coveted the Goddesses' domain!
But it was fine.
I—
No, all of us had gained resistance against gods in the World Tree dungeon.
The "Divinity" obtained at five hundred Prestige points and the "Justice" obtained upon reaching one thousand were both abilities that allowed mortals to oppose immortals.
I looked at the Pope and spoke once more, heavily.
"Leave it to me. I will save every one of you."
Deep within the Papal Palace.
How far had we descended through the endlessly continuing underground?
Creeeak!
A door opened.
And beyond that door—
"So……nora……?"
Tremble tremble!
The instant she faced that presence, Isabella's entire body shook violently.
She too had the right to be present here.
The state of Sonora, who had become a vessel for something.
Perhaps they would have to kill the changed Sonora.
That was the only way to save the corrupted Goddess Sect.
The one who should face Sonora's end was, of course, only Isabella.
But when she actually confronted reality, she could not keep her wits about her at all.
"Sonora. How did you……."
She could not even form proper words.
It was only natural.
The being beyond the door—
"It's been a while, Isabella."
—was smiling exactly as she remembered.
Thud!
Strength left Isabella's body and she sank to the floor.
"Y-you really, really were alive, Sonora……!"
It was an unbelievable reality.
That she could hold a normal conversation!
"So you thought I was dead?"
"B-but I was certain……."
"I nearly died. But I didn't. I was only sleeping."
Tap. Tap.
Sonora approached and stroked Isabella's cheek.
"My friend, my little sister Isabella. I missed you. So much."
"Me too. I…… missed you so much it drove me mad."
"There's nothing left to keep us apart now, right?"
"But they said you clearly became a vessel for a god……."
"No. That's their lie. They've locked me away down here. If I had truly become a god, why would I be trapped in a dark underground place like this?"
It was a fair point.
Countless barriers had been erected around this underground where Sonora was.
So that whatever was inside could never come out.
Yet the Pope had said he "accepted another god."
Would one normally imprison a god one had already accepted?
There should be no reason to fear a sealed god.