Traditional Festival Revival: Resurrecting Forgotten Culture — Veronica Upon the Altar
The lawless rabble stripped me of my clothes and bound me upon a broad, flat stone. And yet they left my veil in place — an inexplicable courtesy from which the stench of filthy lust rolled off so thickly it turned my stomach. This slab was, I realized, meant to serve as a mockery of an altar. The gall of these filthy heretics!
"The phallic idol may have been smashed, but the symbol was never what mattered!" a bespectacled whore cried, her voice ringing out to whip the villagers into a frenzy. "It was nothing more than a crutch — a visual aid for ignorant souls like us, so we might more clearly behold the object of our worship! If the genuine article stands among us, what does it matter if the counterfeit is broken?"
She was not wrong. In matters of faith, idols and paintings are of no true consequence. What matters is the truth that dwells within them. It was a sermon a priest might well have lent an ear to — and the fact that I was hearing it from the mouths of filthy whores and heretics made it all the more unbearable.
"That's right! What really matters is right here beside us!"
"Ahh♥ My pussy's starting to throb. Hey, husbands~♡ Now that the fake cocks are gone, the only things that can guide our lost little cunts… are your cocks, and yours alone♥"
"Please, take out those splendid cocks of yours and drive our fears away♥"
I did not want to hear this.
These were women who, only days ago, had come to me for confession over nothing more than an indecent dream — women of genuine piety. And now they were kneeling before men, writhing with every cheap, wanton trick they possessed. Worse still, the men answered them in kind, shedding their clothes one after another and baring their members for all to see.
The sun hanging in the sky is the Eye of Light. I could not help but fear that Eye would furrow in disgust at the grotesque spectacle unfolding beneath it.
The air itself was ripening toward an orgy. The women panted with their tongues lolling like dogs in heat, and the only reason they had not already flung themselves upon those cocks was obvious: their master's command had not yet been given.
"A moment of composure, if you please. This is an hour of patience. The deeper the forbearance, the sweeter the release. Restrain that urge to spend yourselves — just for a little while — and look upon the altar."
At the so-called emcee's direction, every gaze lifted toward the stone. But it was not me their eyes sought. When the faithful look up at an altar, it is the officiant they are meant to behold — not the sacrifice.
"Our hero! Our high priest! The man who did more than anyone to free us from the witch's wicked teachings! Please welcome Lord Yujin with a thunderous round of applause!"
"WAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!"
A storm of clapping and cheering crashed against my ears, loud enough to shake the village from its foundations. For the benefit of those who did not know who Yujin was, the emcee launched into her explanation all over again: that he was a native son of this very village. That he was the last surviving heretic of Shaimin, the cult the Light Church had once put to the sword. That he had risked his life to infiltrate the village, charged with the sacred mission of restoring Shaimin and repudiating the teachings of the Light.
And I never even knew!
I felt like a bird that had incubated a cuckoo's egg. I had cherished and raised the very creature destined to bring about my ruin. The time I had spent caring for Yujin had not been long, it was true. But in that brief span I had treated him with a sincere heart, and I had believed he had done the same for me. What I received in return was the basest betrayal.
"Ohh, incredible. I had no idea our village had a history like that."
"Then that means he's the rightful high priest who was meant for us all along, doesn't it? It's like something out of a hero's epic."
"Damn the Light Church! They commit atrocities like that and then have the nerve to rewrite history!"
In the villagers' eyes, this vile deception had taken on the shine of a hero's glorious homecoming. The injustice of it sat in my chest like a stone. I could barely breathe for the frustration.
"Yes, exactly! Under High Priest Yujin's guidance, your village has cast aside the Light's false teachings and set forth toward true happiness."
The emcee poured her feelings nakedly into every word, her voice designed to seize the hearts of those who heard it and swell them to match her own.
"And so, here and now, I declare it: the chains of oppression that went by the name of chastity have been shattered completely!"
The people roared. Some among them even wept. Seen through my own cold eyes, the whole display was so absurd it drained the strength from my limbs. So this village was finished, then.
In truth, the fear that heretics like these might rise up and throw the world into chaos was an idle one. The Light Church is mighty, and we are hardly the only established faith working to steer this world toward righteousness. What truly frightened me was the possibility that my brothers and sisters would look upon this village as a cradle of negation and put it to the sword without a shred of mercy. They would have been happier, all of them, if they had simply taken my lashings and been brought to heel.
"And now, we shall perform the rite of purification — a declaration that Shaimin has overcome the Light Church, and that it shall continue to prevail."
So it had come at last. I closed my eyes and accepted my fate. If this was the lot appointed to me, I would receive it as it was.
"How does it feel, Priest Veronica? Thinking of praying to the Light for help?"
"Spare me your nonsense and do as you please. If prayer alone could resolve every hardship, what would be the point of it? Prayer is a request for the strength to exert one's own power, and that is its limit. To beg for miracles beyond that is to treat God as a convenient tool."
"Boring. What kind of god is that? Why believe in a god who won't even help you when you need it?"
There was no reasoning with him. This was why one could not talk to unbelievers.
"Further conversation is unnecessary. Do as you like. I can neither flee nor hide. But know this one thing."
The instant I made that declaration, the familiar pink-haired whore shoved her face in close.
"Ahahahahaha! There are actually people who say lines like that? Straight out of a doujinshi. I'm kind of moved."
"…And what, precisely, are you? For anyone other than the officiant to climb upon the altar unbidden… heretics, through and through. No breeding whatsoever."
The pink-haired whore answered with a crooked little smile.
"No, no. That's not quite right. I have a proper part to play in this ritual too. Think of me as the head chef? And I'm not the only one, either… you hadn't noticed?"
"……"
I looked again, and she was telling the truth. Several whores had ringed themselves around me, and every last one of them held a mage's staff in her hands.
"What is this? Do you mean to torture me? Frankly, I would almost thank you for it."
"Oh, no. How barbaric. We don't do vicious things like that — unlike the Light Church."
The whores leveled their staves at me.
"We're simply going to make you faithful to your instincts as a female. So there's absolutely nothing to be afraid of, you see?"
"…I don't know what you're plotting, but I will never yield. Do you think the title of priest was simply handed to me?"
"Yes, yes~ That's what they all say in the doujinshi."
Muttering something whose meaning I could not begin to parse, the pink-haired whore took the lead, and the whore-mages loosed their spells at me. I tensed every muscle, steeling myself for torture-magic — but the pain I had prepared for never came. Instead…
"Nnh!!"
My body grew hot. An itch bloomed in every corner of my flesh. A fog settled over my mind, and my heartbeat thundered in my ears. I had seen something like this once before — in a dream…
"Ahh, what an entertaining face. Is it because you're a priest? Your imagination is so terribly limited. You don't even seem to know that there are ways of breaking a person that have nothing to do with pain."
The whore sneered down at me, flushed with triumph.
"The truth is, pleasure is the finest method there is for making someone submit. Though I suppose that's exactly why it was repressed in the first place."
"W-what have you done to my body…"
"I already told you a moment ago, didn't I? You're becoming faithful to your instincts as a female."
Footsteps climbed the altar — clack, clack — and halted in front of Yujin. Something was passed into his hands.
"Thanks. The effects are guaranteed, I assume?"
"But of course~ It's a drug that synergizes with the pleasure-hastening magic already in her system, guaranteed to produce an ecstasy no woman could possibly endure~ There may be some aftereffects, of course~ But that won't be a problem, will it?"
"Of course not. If anything, aftereffects might be even better."
Even those fragments of conversation sent a chill crawling over my skin. I tried to steel my heart, but dread carved through my thoughts all the same. It was not anything else that frightened me. What frightened me was the prospect of becoming someone who was no longer myself.
"Now then — open your mouth for me. Once you drink this, the real preparations will be finished."
"Nnh…"
I clamped my lips shut and turned my face away. I knew the resistance was futile. I could not help but try.
And, of course…
"Let's help this pussy learn how to be honest with herself."
"Yeeees~♥"
At a single command from Yujin, the whores swarmed me. They pinched my nose until I was forced to gasp, then seized the muscles of my jaw so that shutting my mouth became impossible. A red liquid poured in through my wrenched-open lips. I fought with everything I had to spit it out, but with several of them clamping my mouth shut at once there was nothing I could do. In the end, that dangerous fluid slipped down my throat and was gone.
The reaction came swiftly.
"Nnh!!! Ah — aaaaaah! Aaaaagh!!"
My body, already burning from the magic, now felt like lava boiling over from within. The itch that had been scattered across my entire body gathered and concentrated in my extremities — my nipples, my groin — and Yujin's member, the one I had seen in that dream, began to flash through my mind again and again.
I was a wretchedly weak human being. In the end I took back every word I had spoken and begged God.
I beseech You, O God. Grant me the strength to endure this trial You have set before me. If You do not… if You do not, I truly do not know what will become of me…
"You look like you're suffering, Priest. They say someone once eased his hunger by staring at a fish hung in midair, don't they? Why don't you give that a try?"
Something warm and meaty settled onto my face with a soft thud.
"Ah… ah… th-this is…"
"This is what's called a cock. A cock. First time seeing one in the flesh, isn't it? You being such a chaste person and all."
The very thing I had seen in the dream…! And the dream had been accurate. Yujin's member was grotesquely, impossibly enormous — a monstrous thing utterly mismatched to his height and frame.
A visceral revulsion surged up in me, so fierce I wanted to bite it off then and there. And at the same time, my belly gave a deep, shuddering throb.
"Nnh… ahhh… ahhhhh…"
Do not be deceived, Veronica. This is nothing but a trick of the flesh, born of drugs and magic. It is not that his cock looks delicious. It is not that you cannot stop wondering how it would feel driven into your lower body. It is not that that foul smell has begun to seem sweet…
None of that is happening. None of it. It cannot be.