Chapter 16

Hieronymus faltered when he heard my greeting. I could hear him turning the situation over in his head, trying to get a grip on it.

"Yes, Lady Rebecca. I came because I was worried whether you were well."

Oh? Shouldn't he be asking whom I met here, and what we talked about? I couldn't tell whether he already knew everything and was only pretending not to, or whether the two of them had been on the same side all along and this was a test meant for me.

So I put no lie in my mouth. I answered only what I had been asked. Today made five days. Between Hieronymus and me, there is only a single contract. And so that is exactly as far as it goes.

I simply stared at him. It felt like five minutes. In truth, maybe one? After the time had passed, I asked him.

"The warmth?"

Is there anything else I would ask about, besides food? The goal is a skim across the surface. A plan? I don't have one. Anything else I know? Nothing at all. From his point of view, I truly know nothing. I simply came here, and I covet warmth. And aside from that, all I do is give blessings.

In truth, I made one mistake. Joanna was the first bait set ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠out for warmth. Even so, I built a warmth harvester, because I wanted to try another method. But Hieronymus will know now. He will know that eating a blessing and eating warmth are not the same thing. There is a good chance he has realized I am not simply the being he hoped for. And if something happens, the one he will suspect most, after me, will be Joanna.

Oh dear. Now that I think of it, this is my fault. If I had just gobbled down even that low-grade warmth back then, he wouldn't have grown suspicious. No. Then I wouldn't have learned about blessings. Hmm. Set risk and possibility on the scales, and now comes out better. At the time, I didn't know I could lay a blessing on anyone at all. If I had simply taken the warmth as it was handed to me and eaten, I never could have gathered five more people of gentle warmth.

Hehe.

"Please wait just a little longer. I will bring it as soon as the preparations are complete."

He bowed his head. Keep it lowered, and the face stays hidden. But when he raised it again there was a trace of revulsion, faint as anything.

Well, of course. People ought to loathe an animal that eats people. Shut it in a zoo, or drive it all the way to extinction, and only then let fall a single false tear—oh, we shouldn't have done that. That's how it's supposed to go.

Am I a beast, you ask? Yes. I am a beast. I have become a beast that eats people. And so? You're asking where my humanity went? It froze. So I'll set this dull little fact aside, and move for the sake of warmth.

"Yes. I understand."

I answered. I had asked for what I wanted, and that had not changed. It really is a shame. I want to give a blessing to one of them—Andrew, or Hieronymus. Then I could at least watch one side of whatever lies between those two, and enjoy it. The fog of war lies very thick. Feeling my way through a place like this ought to be fun as well, shouldn't it? Wouldn't it be nice to enjoy myself in the intervals, while I move for warmth?

There are quite a few sparks for that. Wide, for instance, who is fervently preaching about me, and who is even now showing off his power in a place packed with Warriors of Faith. A great many people admire Wide, and think that they, too, might receive a blessing like his.

Next there is Tisha, who wants to escape this cult. If he manages a proper escape, I have a feeling that someday he will attack the Church of Future Hope for me, and take pleasure in it. But that is very likely a long way off. For now he is focused on growing his own strength.

Next, still uncertain, there is Andrew. There is a fifty-fifty chance his relationship with Hieronymus is a bad one. Hieronymus came running in such a hurry that the odds of it being bad are just a little higher. And I have tucked into a corner of my mind the possibility that someone deceived Hieronymus's surveillance—whether by cutting the sound, or by stopping the image itself.

"Then I will take my leave. Should anything arise, you may reach me through Joanna."

He said as much and went out without waiting to hear my answer. Little by little. Very little by little, the manner in which he treats a person is changing into the manner in which he treats a beast. If I were merely a dangerous animal, I would be put down. But as it happens, I have proven that I am useful.

The strengthening of the church's people. Bring them before me, click, and it's three a day, free of charge! Sometimes you roll a dud, but none have turned up yet, so it is nothing more than a means of enhancement.

What worries me is the chance he will stop sending people to receive blessings. Not until he has prepared Sacrifices to supply the warmth. It would be a problem if he came to think of it as that sort of transaction. Because for me, both are as good as a meal. A blessing is farming. Obtaining warmth is gathering it on the spot and eating. So I wish I had a chance to make that case. Was showing him too much of a stupid, childlike face a failure?

Hieronymus. His true name was Yasle. Leader of the Future Church, he closed the door of the room where Rebecca Rolf waited.

For an instant, the place from which he watched Rebecca Rolf went utterly black. The surveillance spell linked to Yasle—the one that looked down from the ceiling—had been torn away. Thinking the monster had run out of patience and done something, he rushed over, only to find Rebecca Rolf seated in almost the same posture as before the spell had ended, offering the greeting she gave every time he entered.

Faintly glowing purple, those eyes stared straight at Yasle. Honestly, Yasle found it unpleasant. It was like a beast he had tamed. A monster that coveted something he suspected had to do with the soul, a thing it called warmth. And yet, strange as it was, the monster did as it was told.

Yes. That was the strangest part of all. No one had tamed it, and still this monster, hungering so for warmth, knew how to endure. And Yasle knew what that meant. An animal that can endure like that is clever. All the more if it is a beast. And still more if it is ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a monster that could smash the little prison holding it and walk out whenever it pleased.

But to say it the other way, it also meant that the thing occupying Rebecca Rolf's body was faithfully keeping the contract. The one who had called first, and made that contract, was Yasle. If the other party was fulfilling it in good faith, then Yasle was obliged to answer in kind. Through more experiences than he could count, he knew that the side which breaks faith first is the side that comes to grief.

He would have to be careful. But he could manage her. What was harder were the ones slipping, little by little, out of the frame called management. Strictly speaking, they had not escaped that frame at all. They had simply always been that sort. Yasle had shaped them into the form of a refined church, but that did not mean the Church of Future Hope had never existed before. He had scraped together a rabble, swallowed other minor factions, and built the thing to this point. Not even ten years had passed, and for that reason above all, Yasle's rule was unstable.

He walked on, weighing what ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to do about those who showed signs of breaking away with power already in their hands, and what had severed the surveillance spell so suddenly just now. And then, ahead of him in the corridor, someone blocked the way.

A small stature. A girl's face without its mask, plain to see. And above all, a staff of skull and spine that would have named her even had the mask been on. Hyukeshuni.

Two days ago, she had gone to Rebecca on her own whim, without so much as a report to Yasle. After leaving the room, she had caught no one's eye. At least, not so far as Yasle knew.

"It has been two days, Hyukeshuni. You have something to say to me, do you not?"

This was no meeting of the two of them alone, so Yasle changed his manner of speech. But the moment Hyukeshuni tapped the ground with her staff, the surroundings turned black.

A faint violet drifted through it. Yet both the color and the aura were paler than the deep purple mist Rebecca used. Yasle went tense. This was a domain one saw only when Hyukeshuni moved to attack in earnest. She who bore the name Witch of Ecstasy held the class of high necromancer. By the nature of that class, she could raise a domain resembling the world of the dead.

Yasle, who in the days when he led the old faith had lost a great many subordinates inside a place like this, asked her calmly.

"So you've decided to betray me at last?"

At that, Hyukeshuni let out a little giggle. Then, as if to say she had no such thought, she shook her head hard from side to side.

"No. No. Yasle. Under our contract, there is something I am bound to report to you. I came because of that."

She spoke in a thoroughly crestfallen voice, nothing like the strangely excited one Yasle was used to hearing.

"You prepared even a shroud like this? Thorough. It isn't like you."

"Hahaha. Even doing this, I'm uneasy, if I'm honest. I don't want to believe it myself. But it's something you need to know, too."

Hyukeshuni lifted her head, looked Yasle straight in the eye, and opened her mouth.

"I told you before, didn't I? That that is what we call Ksaksibal."

"You did. Why? You looked into what it was, and it wasn't that after all?"

At Yasle's question, Hyukeshuni shook her head, remembering. Yes. Right up until she met it, she had been certain: a magic beast out of the negative dimension, or a monster come from the world of the void. But what she had pictured was nothing more than a simple monster. A wicked wolf out of a story, the kind that eats children who misbehave. What had been there was no such little monster. Beside it, the wicked wolf that means a death in a story looked like nothing but a puppy.

"It wasn't a monster, Yasle."

"But Ksaksibal is a god."

"The god you mean is the sort of being we can hunt. Big, and powerful, and wise, and nothing more than a great beast."

And it was true. Gods could be hunted. The Church of the Spirit Wolf had raided savage tribes in just that fashion, slain their gods, and civilized them. They had brought people into the embrace of the proper god—not some piece of trash that demanded living sacrifices, but the embrace of their own god, who moved for nothing but the salvation of humankind. The arrow that first blew Rebecca's face apart, and the blade that took the neck of the Sacrifice turned monster, were works forged by that very art of god-slaying.

"That thing is different. A god. Yes. If it must be a god, then it's a god. But set it beside trifles like those, and the scale is nothing alike. A grain of sand against a mountain of stone. Shall I put it in a plainer word?"

With that, Hyukeshuni even leaned her staff against the wall and thought.

"It isn't an evil god. That thing doesn't weigh good against evil. It isn't a death god, either. I can swear this as a necromancer: it has nothing to do with death."

At those words, Yasle found himself asking back before he knew it.

"A monster that demands warmth—that demands victims—and you say it isn't a god of death?"

"Think back. Did it make a corpse? When it ate the Sacrifice's warmth, the Sacrifice turned into a monster."

At Hyukeshuni's words, Yasle recalled the scene he had witnessed that day. He had brought two of the strongest among the Warriors of Faith as escort, and one usable human from among the kidnapped. After the warmth was taken, it had turned into a monster, yes—but it had unmistakably still been alive. Had they not killed it beforehand, it would simply have been a monster, and nothing more.

"The moment something essential was taken from it, it fell into a similar shape. It's that kind of monster. But among the gods I know, there is nothing that fits."

As Hyukeshuni said, this world possessed no word that could give shape to Rebecca. And so she was making one now.

"Is she a monster that has to be called by such a name?"

At that, Hyukeshuni nodded slowly.

"That's as far as we can simplify it and still understand. Barely, with that. I pared it down until it could be ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠forced inside the frame of god and understood. I even scraped off every important piece of information and stuck on nothing but a shell."

Hyukeshuni went on, choking as if she could not hold the laughter in. The only soul who knew that this laughter of hers was born of terror—and how unkind, that it should be so at this hour—was Rebecca.

"Be careful, Yasle. I mean this warning with all my heart."

But Yasle could tell she was trying to warn him in earnest, and that only made him wonder. She loved it so much when a new monster arrived; she was probably rejoicing that her store of knowledge had grown. So why speak like that, so unlike the Witch of Ecstasy?

"An outer god, is it. Fine. If it's for the sake of revenge, a powerful god on our side can only be a good thing. I've become a heretic all the way through, anyway."

Hyukeshuni looked at him with dark eyes steeped in despair. Of course, being soaked in despair was her ordinary state. Even so, there was no other way to see him. She went back over what Rebecca had said, forcing the fear down as she called it up again, and the more she turned it over, the more a faint outline of the truth showed through. It was not a powerful god. It must not be looked at so logically. She swallowed the words. There was no road by which she could explain any further. And so she had no choice but to ask, one more time.

And her misfortune was this: the person standing before her was someone who did not know her.

"But, Hyukeshuni. You ignored what I told you and made contact with the outer god on your own, didn't you? Then this is your punishment. Go, and determine what sort of being the outer god is."

To Yasle, this was something close to kindness. If meeting a frightening being had delighted her so, then let her go and feel both the fright and the delight—punishment and reward, given together. Not knowing that he had just handed down the most horrific sentence of all, he forced the punishment on Hyukeshuni, who wanted nothing to do with it.

"You really are a damned bastard."

"You flatter me."

And the black shroud that had hung there vanished. Hyukeshuni trudged off like a cow being led to the slaughterhouse, and as she went she saw Yasle, not looking at her, bound for wherever he had been going.

"Hieronymus."

"What is it?"

"The one who twisted your magic was Andrew. You idiot."

Yasle stared at her in shock, and Hyukeshuni, wearing a satisfied look at the sight of it, turned her steps once more toward the place where Rebecca was. A dreadful order. Still, she really had needed to grasp what an outer god was.

On this one day, many hearts moved at cross-purposes.