Chapter 53 — The Goddess Comes to Me and Brings Words of Wisdom (4)
Chapter 53 — The Goddess Comes to Me and Brings Words of Wisdom (4)
"Goddess..."
"Laurecia, was it?"
Roan's quiet murmur was swallowed by Liron's sharp interrogation.
The treasurer was a lich. His body and the Goddess's power were fundamentally incompatible. Already prickly by nature, he now seemed sharper than ever.
Helen's expression, however, remained serene.
"Yes. That is correct."
"Did Laurecia tell you to change your mind?"
The treasurer's sneer sounded irritable, but Helen answered without the slightest hesitation.
Her manner was almost that of someone who had attained enlightenment.
"No. The Goddess..."
And her words were quite astonishing.
"She said that humans and demonkind alike are all her precious children. Therefore, I was to do what I believed was right."
The council hall sank into silence once more.
All sorts of thoughts followed.
From religious and political notions down to the absurd, like, 'If that's the case, then what is holy power that deals bonus damage to the undead supposed to be!'
But investigation and debate were for later.
For now, what mattered was that Helen had changed her mind. To prove that with the clearest possible action, Roan asked several questions.
The operations of the Church of Laurecia and the Holy Knight Order, the Merde royal family's related movements, and so on.
Even though Helen had already declared her intent verbally, the way she spilled everything as smoothly as a lie was indeed hard to accept right away.
'Did the Knight Captain issue some strange order?'
But no matter what, she did not seem likely to lie, even while invoking the Goddess's name.
Above all, the Affection value, the emotions Roan sensed through his "Attentive Hearing" skill—everything told him she was favorably disposed toward him.
'Could the Goddess Laurecia really have...?'
A world where a god intervened this directly in human lives. He knew this was a game fantasy world, but he could not help being freshly astonished.
Why would a god help the demonkind?
As Roan combed through his memories, a thought abruptly struck him.
'Is this connected to my magic?'
The two spells he had received as quest rewards.
Spells he had never found a use for.
"Starlight" and "Blessing of the Stars."
They were supposedly ancient divine spells.
At his next realization, Roan's entire body stiffened rigidly.
Though the Small Council, busy asking questions, and Helen, who was answering them, and Grünent, who watched the scene with tension, did not notice.
The power that activated those divine spells—
What was it based on?
'It isn't mana?!'
On the surface, the Demon King rested one side of his jaw on a hand and gazed leisurely at Helen, but in reality he was barely swallowing his shock.
'Truly, holy power? There is holy power inside me, and those spells were fueled by it?'
If so, he could understand why the Goddess had said demonkind were her children too. If demonkind could use holy power, and if it had manifested from within her.
Of course, there was also plenty of evidence to the contrary.
There were no priests of the Goddess among demonkind. As he had just thought, divine power—not just the Goddess's—was especially effective against undead demons.
For now, he could be certain of nothing.
Roan clenched the fist he had rested on the table. He would rather meet the Goddess or whoever directly and ask. In a dream, perhaps.
Once again, Roan's eyebrow twitched.
The warm voice from the dream he had heard just before inhabiting the Demon King's body suddenly resurfaced.
—My child.
Before he knew it, Roan had shot to his feet.
He only just managed to suppress an outcry.
"...Your Majesty?"
Grünent looked at Roan with concern.
She seemed worried that Helen might have said something amiss.
Helen and the nobles of the Small Council likewise stopped speaking, staring at Roan with tense faces.
Only after a moment had passed did Roan compose his robes with effort and sit back down.
"Ah, it is nothing. My thoughts wandered for a moment. Continue, Helen."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
The knightess, her voice cool, resumed her conversation with the Small Council.
"Therefore, the most important thing to our Holy Knight Order is the Order's Code of Law. The Code supersedes all else, and at times even takes precedence over commands issued by His Holiness or the bishops of the Church."
"Even over His Holiness, who would be the Pope? For example?"
"In a wartime situation, or on an active battlefield. During an operation to rescue someone, for instance."
At her last words, everyone wore subtle expressions.
But Helen smiled faintly.
'I am disqualified from the Order now.'
She had broken the Order's Code.
When captured by the enemy, protect your comrades in the Order and protect the organization—in any situation whatsoever.
Even at the cost of your own life.
But if she did that, she could not protect Grünent. As Grünent had said, was she to cling to the Demon King and preserve her life?
In that agony, Helen had prayed.
"You say the Code made solely for the knight order can take precedence over the Church's discipline?"
Minoreus asked Helen in a tone that suggested he did not quite understand.
The demon knight orders followed a single standard. They pledged absolute loyalty to the Demon King.
Whether the command was right or wrong.
The demon knight orders differed from human knight orders.
Human knight orders were typically composed of individuals more powerful than their lord. Thus, they were bound by all manner of complex snares—various rules and rewards.
But demon orders, the Demon King's orders, were different.
If a knight order displeased its lord one day? They could all be swept away like fallen leaves in an autumn gale.
Therefore, the most important thing a knight order had to prove was blind loyalty. Nothing else.
Having thought that way his whole life as he became a knight and led others, Minoreus found the Code of the Church of Laurecia's knight order hard to grasp.
"Is not the Church's law meant to serve your god? How can the law of a knight order, which is part of the Church, take precedence over the organization's higher law?"
"Precisely because our Holy Knight Order exists for the Goddess."
A faint pride colored Helen's voice.
"The Code is absolute. If there were exceptions to the Order's Code, no one would fear it. A rigorously enforced Code is like a scabbard. And I believe it is the single greatest factor in the Laurecia Holy Knight Order's strength."
'Indeed.'
Roan nodded.
Yes, the reason the Holy Knight Order had its zealots,
and yet the reason the Church of Laurecia could still wield such formidable power,
was surely because it bound the Holy Knight Order relentlessly, based on a powerful Code.
Grünent had said that when the Holy Knight Order entered a war, the tide of battle could shift.
Because the Order was that strong, the Church could speak boldly even to the royal house.
And the complicated emotions in the voice of the vice-captain of that mighty Church of Laurecia—
Pride in the organization to which she belonged,
affection for the Goddess,
and bitterness at herself for having become a traitor.
"A sword is a thing that kills and cuts.
It is a mighty tool that performs ugly work on behalf of its master. Therefore, it requires no will of its own and need only focus on its function to achieve the objective."
"Its function, you say."
To the chancellor's query, Helen answered.
"The efficient destruction of the enemy."
Saintess Helen spoke mildly.
"The swift demise of the enemy. That is the most important goal to which the Code aspires. A blade's tip that is not focused cannot be honed sharp."
Then Helen's gaze turned toward Minoreus.
"What happens if the sword touches the wielder's own body? If you swing it about as freely as if it were your own hand and foot."
"You get hurt. Cut, rather."
In that instant, Roan sensed something off, lowered the arm that had propped his jaw, and stared at Helen.
Her deep blue eyes gleamed darkly.
Simultaneously, the presence of Minoreus registered through "Detection" shifted from normal.
"Then what is needed?"
"A scabbard. That is the Order's Code, then."
"Correct. A scabbard to protect the higher organization and the sacred name of the Goddess."
Roan frowned slightly and glanced around. Aranya and Liron, who also sensed the oddity, looked back at Minoreus and Helen with puzzlement, but found nothing to fault in their exchange.
Minoreus simply leaned toward Helen slightly, as if drawn in.
"If the wielder's body were to fester, say, with what must it be cut away?"
"A sword."
"That is why the sword must remain honed within its scabbard. There are times when a sword must carve out foes within the Church as well as enemies outside. For the knight order's master is not the Church."
Helen paused for a breath.
She looked directly into Minoreus's eyes and spoke.
"The Holy Knight Order is the blade of the Goddess."
"I see."
The pressure that emanated from her at that moment was tremendous. Roan watched as everyone who had been silently listening to the exchange between her and the Knight Captain found themselves nodding, unwittingly drawn in.
And when his reply was finished, Minoreus suddenly furrowed his brow. Realizing that he had unconsciously leaned toward Helen, he straightened his posture.
As if collecting himself, pulling back from the verge of being utterly captivated.
Roan realized what Helen's skill was.
A powerful presence that manifested when a high Wisdom stat combined with a Charm-based attribute.
A mighty force that made even the hardest facts comprehensible to others. A leader's skill.
'Charisma!'
Because Helen was a masochist, he had never imagined she would possess this skill.
[Message: Ding-dong-dang! You have successfully deduced the target skill. An additional buff is applied regarding the skill cast on the target character.]
[Message: Second Quest — Duplicate the skill 'Charisma' from the Kingdom's Saintess!]
A message fixed itself in the upper-right corner, confirming that Roan's guess was correct.
In the game, the effect of "Charisma" was shown through gaining more dialogue options or making a character follow your words more readily.
He had never witnessed a concrete scene like this.
So Roan looked at Helen with inquisitive eyes.
And Helen, too, met Roan's gaze.
As the skill's caster, she realized that Roan had been completely unaffected by her power.
'As expected of a monarch of a nation.'
Helen was impressed.
People in this world could not view statuses or stats like Roan did.
So Helen only vaguely understood that the skill she possessed was a power of persuasion, a power that could at times make even forceful words succeed.
Through much trial and error, Helen had come to realize
that her power did not work well on authoritative people with a strong presence, like politicians or leaders.
Of course, her power had grown alongside her.
Even the Knight Captain, the pinnacle of the nation's military might, had briefly focused on her words as if spellbound.
Had not even the chancellor and treasurer, both seasoned politicians, ultimately listened intently to her?
But the Demon King simply observed the conversation in silence, as if studying something.
Helen smiled faintly.
It was an expression close to a bitter chuckle.
'Now everyone will mock me.'
How absurd it must have seemed.
For one who had violated the Code and confessed everything to demonkind to now be lecturing about the Code.
But she agonized no more.
Above all, because the Goddess's will had been so unmistakably clear.
Helen recalled her conversation with Grünent the day before.
*
"It feels like I've gone back to childhood."
Grünent spoke with excitement.
"There were times when you came to my room, remember? Although I never once got to come to yours like this. Heh-heh, this is a first. Seeing where you sleep."
"Yes, Grünent. It was like that."
Helen remembered. It was a happy but painful memory.
A few times they had chattered away all night in her room, secretly fallen asleep together, and then returned to the Church at dawn.
She never told Grünent, but on unlucky days when a priest caught her, she had received sickening corporal punishment.
"I think I'm happier now than when I was little."
Grünent hugged a pillow and rolled about as she spoke.
At her words, Helen's eyes widened.
"Now?"
"Yes. My only wish right now is what His Majesty said—for the war to end quickly."
"...I see."
Helen could understand.
The Merde royal house had been a suffocating place for Grünent. She had many things she wanted to do, but the royal family obstructed her at every turn.
Now, as the Demon King's concubine, she was freer.
Helen had seen Grünent at work in the trading company. Though the workplace was hectic since she had just started, Grünent had looked happy.
That was why Helen's troubles ran deep.
"Neither demons nor humans can afford to yield..."
Grünent said this as if it were a pity.
"If Evirgio withdrew from the front, Merde would push down. And Merde..."
"Since they started the war, they wouldn't want to withdraw."
"Yes."
Grünent smiled softly.
"Unless a rebellion broke out from within."