Between Glory and Faith (3)
"O~hoho! What a truly shabby little place! Far too cramped for a being of my exalted stature!"
A golden-haired, blue-eyed woman in white feathered robes poured out a laugh so grating it soured the mood just to hear it.
"……My apologies. ……Even if Her Holiness speaks that way……"
"Ah… yes… I've heard the general idea from my father."
Veronica apologized to me on the Saintess's behalf.
I already knew the Saintess talked like that — she'd been the same in Luke's Biography.
Baron Manfred had crossed paths with her on more than a few battlefields himself, so he seemed well aware of her personality. The moment she announced she had business with me alone, he left the matter in my hands and walked out of the drawing room without so much as a backward glance.
Four people currently occupied the drawing room of Baron Manfred's castle.
Myself, Veronica — captain of the Heresy Inquisition's Special Task Force — Saintess Emilia, and the Hero Sylvester.
Veronica and I sat side by side. Emilia faced me across the table, and Sylvester stood behind her.
"Truth be told, I wanted to come as your escort from the very beginning! I was simply far too busy to manage it! Such is the unavoidable burden of so noble a station as Saintess!"
"I see."
"Now then! Sylvester! First, present the young master with his compensation!"
"Understood."
Sylvester approached carrying a heavy casket and offered it with impeccable courtesy.
I took it and opened the lid. It was packed full of gold coins.
"Please accept this as our gratitude for the great service you have rendered the Church."
"O~hoho! Far too generous a sum for your meager cooperation, of course!"
"So it seems. I'll take it gratefully."
"It also includes our apology regarding the priest who fled."
Sylvester added a word about Father Patrick — the clergyman who had arrived as the Special Task Force's escort, only to abandon the mission and run.
"What became of that priest?"
"He has been stripped of his clerical status. A priest who ought to stand at the very front against the Undead King, fleeing at the sight of mere thralls — such a thing could not be tolerated."
The terror of seeing my creations had almost certainly played a part. There was no need to cover for him with that kind of excuse.
"Well then! Now that the compensation has been delivered, shall we move on to the main topic?"
So the Saintess hadn't come all this way just to talk about money after all.
"What business could so noble a Saintess possibly have with a country noble like myself……"
"O~hoho! You know your place! As if someone as exalted as I would take any interest in someone as lowly as you!"
"We received reports that you uncovered a dark mage at the mental hospital in Statia, and that you have since been resolving one curse-related incident after another with remarkable efficiency. Her Holiness holds great expectations of you as well, young master."
"S-Sylvester!"
The Saintess flushed and turned to stare at him. Sylvester closed his eyes and avoided her gaze.
Apparently embarrassed, she continued in a slightly smaller voice.
"Ahem. At any rate. Having received such reports, I instructed the Special Task Force that should they need to carry out a mission in this area, they were to request your assistance. Veronica! What was your impression of working alongside Young Master Karl?"
Veronica glanced at me, then answered the Saintess without much deliberation.
"……It was excellent. ……In truth, the young master resolved nearly this entire mission on his own."
"It wasn't quite that dramatic."
There was some exaggeration in there. I had played the pivotal role, true enough — but without the Special Task Force fighting alongside me, I never could have overcome that many of the Undead King's thralls.
"Oh-ho. More useful than I expected, then."
"……On top of that, he provided lodging and supplies, which made things far more comfortable. ……Her Holiness never offered us so much as a scrap of support like that."
"Ngh……! Th-that wasn't deliberate……"
"……I know. ……I was joking."
"Urgh……"
The Saintess flushed with indignation and chewed her lip.
"Anyway! Having recognized your considerable usefulness, I have come to make you a proposal!"
"A proposal?"
The Saintess sprang to her feet, planted one foot on the table, and pointed a raised index finger straight at me.
The motion was fluid yet precise, as if she practiced it regularly.
"You! Become a heresy inquisitor of the Special Task Force!"
"……Excuse me?"
"……Your Holiness?"
Veronica and I answered in the same dazed voice.
"I'm well aware of your circumstances! Born cursed, and Baron Manfred already has two perfectly healthy children! Your chance at inheriting the title sailed long ago, didn't it?!"
"……"
"Living out your days in this backwater with no glory whatsoever, then dying without anyone ever knowing your name — that is the life awaiting you!"
"……"
"And I am offering you a chance! A way to leave your name in history through faith! A path for someone trapped in so wretched a fate!"
"……Your Holiness, even so, the way you're putting it……"
"It's fine."
I stopped Veronica from trying to defend me.
I knew the Saintess wasn't genuinely trying to tear me down. But she clearly believed her position placed her above mine — and that was something I felt needed correcting.
"Your Holiness."
"What is it! Are you simply too overjoyed?! Then prostrate yourself at once and praise me!"
"It seems you don't actually know my circumstances very well."
"O~hoho…… Pardon?"
"I can hardly believe it myself, but I am set to become the second Baron Manfred. It's all but confirmed."
"What……? Th-that can't be……? Why would he pass over his healthy children to……"
"Because all of my siblings refused the succession."
"……"
"Your Holiness is currently trying to snatch that glorious path away from me. With that in mind, would you care to start over from the beginning?"
The Saintess sat back down on the sofa. Folding her hands neatly on her knees in a posture of perfect deference, she bowed her head to me.
"I-I'm sorry for being so arrogant. I-I need your help. Please, join the Special Task Force."
The Saintess was a person perpetually tormented by guilt. Because she alone could receive revelations, she sent others into mortal danger while remaining in safety herself — and the shame of that ate at her. She also understood that this was the rational strategy, and that she could not afford to stay cowed forever. So she had chosen brazenness instead, and clung to that bizarre manner of speaking. Believing herself unworthy of anyone's affection, she deliberately invited people to hate her. And since she held the superior position in most situations, she figured it wouldn't interfere with her work.
But the moment that "superior position" no longer applied, she crumpled into abject humility.
"……You certainly know how to handle Her Holiness."
Veronica murmured. Anyone close to the Saintess probably knew.
"That said, I wasn't refusing. I simply want to discuss this further. Why do you need my help?"
"I… believe that to face heresy, one must understand heresy. That's why, under my authorization, I created a department permitted to study and even practice dark magic."
The Saintess spoke in a voice that had lost all its earlier confidence.
"The captain told me as much. The clergy refuse to defile themselves with heretical knowledge, so you gathered children already tainted by curses and formed the Special Task Force."
"It isn't as though no one volunteered for the Special Task Force. Mostly clergy from outside the Papal Court offered to join — but His Holiness the Pope blocked them."
"His Holiness is… rather tenderhearted. He has no desire to bring change to the Church. He dislikes anything that might foster a sense of crisis."
Sylvester added an explanation regarding the Pope.
So that was why they'd responded so passively even as the Undead King stirred. The internal matter Veronica had been reluctant to discuss with an outsider must have been about the Pope.
In Luke's Biography, the Pope was barely mentioned at all. I had no way of knowing whether the current Pope was even the same person as the one from the game's timeline.
"Even the official justification for forming the Special Task Force was framed as propaganda — proof that even cursed, abandoned children could still contribute to the Lumenic Church. His Holiness was willing to accept that much. As you said, he figured that children already defiled might as well get a little dirtier."
"……And because the justification was so thin. ……We've faced endless restrictions on how we carry out our missions."
I had seen it myself — the constant need to travel with an escort who could vouch for the cursed members' identities, and the complete absence of proper support from the Church.
"I want the Special Task Force to build a strong record. I want to prove that facing heresy requires understanding heresy. We are far too ignorant of it. But right now we only have three people……"
"I understand you need more hands. What I don't understand is why you'd come to someone with no connection to the Church whatsoever. Surely there are devout believers among the cursed somewhere?"
"……Being cursed doesn't mean someone wants to defile themselves further with heretical knowledge."
"Veronica……"
When Veronica spoke, the Saintess looked at her with pained eyes.
"……The more devout they are, the more true that becomes. ……The Church teaches that curses are bestowed by 'demons,' after all. ……With a body already tainted by a demon, they wouldn't want to diminish their chances of salvation any further."
Demons.
The enemies of the one true god, according to the Lumenic Church. In Luke's Biography, they appeared only as vaguely evil beings — no concrete lore had ever been provided.
Hearing that they were the source of curses brought back something the Goddess of the Black Swamp had told me. Curses, she had said, were the thrashing of her kindred in the Void, desperate not to be extinguished. Divine beings who had lost their faith and fallen into ruin.
Perhaps the demons of the Lumenic Church and the kindred the Goddess of the Black Swamp spoke of were one and the same. In the world I originally came from, "demon" had simply been the name victorious religions gave to the gods of the faiths they defeated.
Which would mean the Curse of Illusion was a curse that let one see demons. Which would also mean I wielded a power closer to demons than anyone else alive — since I could manifest their forms into reality.
That was probably why Karl had been called a demon-worshipper in Luke's Biography.
And now that same body was being offered a chance to become a heresy inquisitor.
What a peculiar feeling.
"……"
I looked at Veronica. She raised a finger to her lips. Even if the Goddess had come to mind, I was not to speak of her. The two of us had already agreed not to hand any information about the Goddess over to the Church.
"……That is the kind of people we are. ……Those who have given up on being saved by God."
"Th-that's not— wh-what I meant was, talent like yours is incredibly rare, young master! The current Special Task Force was practically conscripted, and we still only found three people…… and of those, Veronica is the only one who can properly counter dark magic……"
As the conversation darkened, the Saintess tried to steer it elsewhere.
I had no desire to hold her responsible for any of this. Emilia herself had been nothing more than a country farm girl with no connection to the Church whatsoever. She had simply been dragged into the Lumenic faith because she received a revelation.
"……Give me a moment to clear my head."
I had expected a quiet life in the countryside. Yesterday I was told to become a baron. Today I was being told to become a heresy inquisitor.
Career Choice
Decide whether to become a baron of the Laviart Empire, or a heresy inquisitor of the Lumenic Church.
I had asked for time to clear my head — and whatever this System was, it had already started pushing me.