The Loyal Knight's Salvation
The dark attribute was known as magi. Simply possessing the dark attribute was enough to raise a Gate’s danger level, because to Hunters, magi was pure poison. That was especially true inside the Despair Gate. Surrounded on all sides by magi, Hunters couldn’t wield their full strength.
“If only it weren’t for the magi…!”
S-class Hunter Rubenka of the Church furrowed her brow. Black spiritual bodies darted through the fog-shrouded darkness. Dark Specters. Born from the grudges of the dead, these creatures were immune to physical attacks. Worse, the magi clinging to them rendered even magic power nearly useless. The only answer was light magic—the natural counter to magi.
But if it were that simple, this place would never have earned the name Despair Gate.
Even her relic, the Execution Sword Claymore, couldn’t display its full power here. Just slicing through a single dark ghoul drained her mentally.
Normally these undead would have been easy prey, but the magi of the Despair Gate multiplied the difficulty exponentially. Rubenka had only taken down twenty of them and already her breath was coming short. The other Church Hunters were in even worse shape.
“Get back!”
“Ugh…”
They were reduced to swinging useless physical attacks at the specters and waving crosses around—hardly the behavior of the Church’s elite.
Then, from beyond the fog, an unintelligible shout rang out, followed by the thunderous neigh of a horse. A headless knight appeared, its severed head cradled in one arm.
“D-Dullahan!”
“You’ve got to be kidding!”
The Church Hunters’ faces fell. A Dullahan was normally only B-class, but inside the Despair Gate it became a monster bordering on A-class.
“Clear the way!”
Rubenka stepped forward as the creature charged, swinging her Claymore. The clash between magi-clad lance and holy blade sent sparks flying. Red and white energies crossed again and again in a fierce deadlock. Rubenka bit her lip until it bled.
This isn’t going to work.
She had to break through somehow, but the magi wrapped around the Dullahan made it nearly impossible. The bishops chanted desperately, yet their holy magic dissolved the instant it touched the gate’s oppressive darkness.
“Where are the reinforcements?!”
“Still no word!”
Damn it. The Vatican’s promised support showed no sign of arriving. Simply holding the line was taking everything they had.
Just as Rubenka cursed inwardly, a shout cut through the chaos.
“R-reinforcements have arrived!”
She shoved the Dullahan back and spun around. Her eyes searched for the help she’d been waiting for. Instead she saw only a man in a black mask and a blonde girl. Surely these two weren’t—
“Where exactly are the reinforcements?”
“Right there! Those two!”
Rubenka’s expression froze. To think the entire relief force consisted of just these two.
“They were sent by Cardinal Francis. He says they are saint candidates and we can trust them completely!”
Even after the bishop’s explanation, Rubenka’s face refused to soften. How many so-called “saint candidates” had the Vatican paraded before? She alone knew of more than ten. Not one had ever displayed a genuine miracle. They were simply people with slightly stronger light magic, trotted out for propaganda.
She assumed this would be the same. They probably wanted her to handle everything herself again.
“Haah…”
Energy drained from her limbs and her sword dipped. She held no expectations for these two. So when the girl stepped forward, Rubenka didn’t even bother looking.
Then—
WHOOSH!
A brilliant radiance exploded outward.
“?”
Had the bishops suddenly awakened? Puzzled, Rubenka turned—and her eyes slowly widened.
“What in the world…”
It wasn’t the bishops. The light poured from the girl who had come as reinforcement. The glow was on an entirely different level from anything the bishops could produce.
Sssss…
The moment the girl’s light touched the magi, it evaporated like frost beneath a spring sun. Darkness peeled away in seconds. The fog recoiled. Rubenka, stunned by the miracle, snapped back to herself.
Her Claymore came down like a falling star. The Dullahan tried to block with its lance and was cleaved in two along with the weapon. Without its magi, a mere B-class undead was no match for her.
Staring at the now-cleansed space, Rubenka looked at the girl with pure astonishment.
“…Holy power? The saint candidate was the real thing?!”
This is a battlefield imbued with the connection of the saved girl, Joan of Arc.
All abilities used by Joan of Arc are increased by 80%.
Jeanne’s power had surged the instant she entered the Despair Gate. It proved the Gate was intimately tied to her.
“I still don’t understand why,” Jeanne said, looking puzzled.
Whatever the reason, it was fine by me. The light radiating from Jeanne—now close to her prime—bathed the entire Despair Gate. Every trace of magi on the undead was scoured away as if it had never existed. And without their magi, the undead were nothing more than ordinary monsters.
“What are you standing around for? Finish them.”
“Ah—yes, sir!”
The dazed Hunter snapped out of it and sliced a ghoul in half. The situation had reached the point where I didn’t even need to lift a finger.
“Is there anything we can do to help?” the bishops asked, crowding around me.
Thanks to Jeanne they had been rendered instantly unemployed. Their faces clearly showed they wanted to stay near the saint, but I doubted they would be useful.
“Please carry the injured outside the Gate.”
“…Understood.”
Leaving the disappointed bishops behind, we pressed deeper into the Gate’s darkness.
Jeanne sensed something after we cleared the third sector.
“It feels like someone is calling me.”
Her gaze rested on a door labeled Chapel. The boss room, no doubt. The Church Hunters took the lead, opened the heavy doors, and we stepped inside.
Beyond lay a magnificent Russian Orthodox chapel. Beneath the towering cross on the far wall, a figure stood with its back to us.
A person?
No. The chapel was visible straight through its hazy body. An undead. A high-ranking one wrapped in magi far beyond anything a mere specter could wield.
“It’s a banshee. Please stay back,” Rubenka warned, stepping in front of me.
The banshee slowly turned. The moment I saw its face, I understood exactly why this Gate carried Joan of Arc’s connection.
So that’s why.
The face was one I knew well.
The knight who had guarded her with unwavering loyalty. The knight who had burned with fury the moment Joan was captured. The knight who had roared in grief and rage at the betrayal.
The true identity of the Despairer was Gilles de Rais.
As the banshee’s darkness surged forward, Rubenka raised her Claymore. At that instant a small figure brushed past her.
“It’s dangerous!” Rubenka cried.
But Jeanne did not stop. The darkness reached for her like grasping hands. Rubenka lunged to intervene—then froze in place, eyes wide.
“What… is this…?”
Incredibly, the banshee did not attack the girl. Instead—
—it touched her light and began crumbling into ash of its own accord. The sight was so incomprehensible that Rubenka could only reach one conclusion.
The banshee… is choosing to die?
It sounded insane, yet nothing else fit. The creature was deliberately throwing itself into Jeanne’s radiance, as if it had been waiting for this very moment all along.
“Gilles de Rais.”
Jeanne stepped forward with tears in her eyes and embraced the banshee. A pure, dazzling light erupted between them. Held in her arms, the banshee smiled gently. Then it scattered into ash and vanished.
Within that brilliant glow, Rubenka saw it clearly—the stigmata rising on the girl’s back.
“A… stigma?”
St. Peter’s Basilica. The heart of the Vatican where the Pope resided, the sacred hall where the Council of State oversaw every major and minor affair of the Church.
One day before the Despair Gate was due to go into full rampage, Cardinal Francis had been summoned to that very council as a “sinner.”
“Cardinal Francis, why did you arbitrarily hand over a holy relic and essence?”
“Because I determined that she is a saint.”
“You recognized someone who has not undergone the miracle examination as a saint?”
“Correct.”
“Good heavens…”
“How could a cardinal possibly—”
The attending bishops let out hollow laughs. Not only had he unilaterally declared an unexamined individual a saint, he had even handed over an essence. It was an outrageous overstep of his authority.
The Pope, who had been listening in silence, finally spoke.
“Cardinal Francis.”
“Yes, Your Holiness.”
“Even if she is indeed a saint, giving her the essence was a rash decision.”
“I acted only for the sake of the Church.”
“By handing over the essence?”
“I judged her worthy of it.”
“With only one day remaining before the Despair Gate’s rampage?”
“Yes.”
Silence blanketed the chamber. Francis’s answers were simply beyond comprehension. The bishops were about to press him further when—
“Y-Your Holiness!”
A bishop burst into the hall in a panic.
“What is the matter?”
The bishop whispered urgently into the Pope’s ear. The Pope’s expression changed instantly.
“This session of the Council of State is now closed.”
“But Your Holiness, we still have the matter of the essence—”
“The Despair Gate has been cleared.”
“What?!”
The Pope’s announcement sent the bishops into an uproar. A faint smile curved Cardinal Francis’s lips.