It Was Your Mistake — 13
A few days later, Witga arrived at the underground temple. She left Isla behind—someone she valued, in her own way—and went straight to see Yasle.
Without one of the blessed present, I can't see. So, regrettably, I can't know exactly what happened. I do know that a quarrel passed between them. Most of the people who have received my blessing have sharp ears.
A faint shout. The sound of something splitting. Even with a wall between, things like that still carry. And above all, I could see it through Isla's own eyes. Witga's face, just after she finished the conversation and came out, was very bad. That was enough to know that whatever lay between Yasle and Witga had broken.
Little by little, a rift is opening among the people of the Church of Future Hope.
What will Witga choose now? Wait too long, and she won't even have a choice left to make. Andrew is already moving to seize this opening.
Exactly one blessed person sits in on the meetings where Andrew confers, so I know what he means to do. And, surprisingly, he intends to use this chance to negotiate with the Kingdom of Anselus.
The reason he resolved to negotiate is, astonishingly enough, Tisha.
Yes. Andrew knows what Tisha is. One of the blessed. A superhuman. That the Kingdom of Anselus took in someone blessed by an Outer God—that is why he is trying to abandon the Church of Future Hope.
He stirs the crowd, demanding to know since when Ksakssibal was ever the name of the god they believe in. Looking into the memory of Andrew's subordinate who was actually there, back when Andrew held power they simply said God. They sanctified it, insisting a name must never be spoken carelessly, and had everyone address it only by an honorific. And then he brought out a name he had never once put forward.
Miriga.
At the sight of Andrew crying out that this had been the original name all along, everyone beside him nods in agreement. Even the one who received my blessing is nodding. I can't read minds, so I can't be certain what they're thinking, but the odds are high they're manufacturing a memory.
Sometimes people invent memories that were never there, just to fill in the gaps. False memories are invisible to me. Memory ends at the moment they lick the light. After that, I can only watch.
But since when has my memory been this good?
The question flickered past, and it doesn't matter. Not while I'm already looking in on hundreds of people at once. I'm not a person anymore.
And so Andrew set his subordinates to preparing contact with the Kingdom of Anselus. Unfortunately, the one assigned to that work isn't blessed. I'll learn of it soon enough. The Kingdom of Anselus is already leading seasoned soldiers toward the Skard Rock Desert, and Tisha is among them.
The boy who hated the Church of Future Hope. Vengeance has turned into a calling. He is good by nature, and he would rather live for someone than hate someone.
A week must have been too short. Or else he has only grown more vicious. Because one person's mission kills more people than one person's hatred, doesn't it?
Hehe.
Put it this way, and you might think the Church of Future Hope is evil and the Kingdom of Anselus is good. That isn't actually the case.
Early modern average?
A good country to the people it holds in its arms, and to those outside, just a country. It moves with a faith called the Church of the Holy God at its center, but it would be hard to call this place a theocracy, a church-state. To put it simply, it resembles a medieval European monarchy.
So of course they'll drag the blessed in, experiment on them, and cut them open. And beyond the eyes of the blessed, I can see plenty of people worn to ruin by the Kingdom of Anselus's tyranny.
I'm only slipped a little way into the vast current of history. And from there, I mean to obtain the most important thing of all.
Warmth.
I had thought I might stay in this world for ten years, but it looks as if it will end soon. So I have to get my hands, somehow, on the knowledge that can summon me. I did wonder whether it might be all right to be captured and accept the work of pouring out blessings, but given Anselus's disposition, they'll more likely kill me for a monster of a heretical cult. I can regenerate through a fair amount. When it's time to die, though, I'll die.
This body itself belongs to Rebecca Rolf. If the vessel breaks, what's inside will spill out. I don't know what will become of this world after that, but I ought to be prepared for the worst.
And then, suddenly, I looked at Joanna beside me. For half a year she has stayed at my side and looked after me. Her skin has turned blue, and the whites of her eyes—what they call demon eyes—have gone black.
Having blessed hundreds of people, I've come to understand a few things. The worse the body's condition, and the older the person, the more severe the mutation. One day a man near old age received the blessing. Like Joanna, his skin turned blue, his irises yellow, the whites of his eyes black. But he grew young.
From then on, it wasn't the believers at the bottom, or those who knew nothing, who began to receive the blessing. It was people who had held fairly high positions. Rejuvenation is a vicious temptation, and for those who receive it, a blessing worth boasting about. The ones made young bragged not only that they had their youth back, but that they were stronger now than they had been even then. And Yasle encouraged it. Do work that benefits her, she said, and you can escape any wound—even old age itself. Thanks to that, I came to know the Church of Future Hope in detail.
I've wandered off, but Joanna was the first to receive the blessing. The one who told me there was another way. And the one who has looked after me for more than half a year. Being cared for like that wasn't bad. But I have nothing to give her. Even so, I don't tell her to leave. No. Not so long as she is a believer of the Church of Future Hope. As if Rebecca Rolf would ever say such a thing.
Thinking that, I broke off my exercise, stood where I was, and looked to the right of the rising sun. Far off, the edge of the Skard Rock Desert. The place where rock and gravel end and grass begins to grow. There, just now, Tisha set his foot down. And the Church of Future Hope confirmed for the first time that the Kingdom of Anselus had invaded with this underground temple, out in the middle of the Skard Rock Desert, as its target.
Within about a week, Anselus's elite troops strike. The Kingdom of Rasbe and the Kingdom of Cogni have moved their armies toward the Skard Rock Desert as well. The reaction is too fast to explain as people simply coming and going and passing word along. There was a mage who knew a magic that could send thoughts within a hundred meters. She was a Sacrifice whose warmth I had taken. She knew nothing but that, but it wouldn't be logical to assume that, aside from it, this world has no technology like a telephone, would it? So I think they know about the Church of Future Hope.
But the Kingdom of Rasbe and the Kingdom of Cogni have not joined forces. They simply keep their distance from each other, kill the Church of Future Hope's people who get in the way, and push gradually south. Even now, those who received my blessing are vanishing one by one, and the villages betraying the Church of Future Hope are multiplying. A blessed one comes to collect the offerings and is killed by kingdom warriors lying in wait. Considering how many more villages the blessed never visit at all, I don't need to say how things stand. It is happening not only in Rasbe, Cogni, and Anselus, but in the smaller kingdoms as well.
In short, they have lost the people. The Church of Future Hope is collapsing like dominoes.
There is, however, one thing in which Hieronymus's plan has succeeded.
Ah.
It would be more accurate to say Yasle, not Hieronymus.
The superhuman corps led by Wide. Those who gained special abilities honed them with their own hands until they became specialists at fighting, and they mean to turn those varied abilities on the capital of the Kingdom of Anselus. I said so before, didn't I? From the time winter set in, everyone who received the blessing went to the Kingdom of Anselus. Well over a hundred ability users are, in themselves, no different from a nation's army. There are combination techniques, abilities suited to mass slaughter, and abilities that work a vicious effect on particular people. They should be more than able to break the capital.
If the Church of Future Hope falls, the Kingdom of Anselus will fall. Because Wide's hunger for power is piercing the sky.
Of course, most of the blessed follow the Church of Future Hope faithfully. But what happens if its core breaks? The people who give them orders disappear. The moment there is no one left to command them, there is someone who can offer a new blueprint at once. Many will follow him. And then Wide will found a new order of his own. As it happens, the royal capital under invasion is right there, isn't it? The perfect place to snatch up a lid that's come rolling free.
That does assume they take the capital. Honestly, though, when I recall how the blessed have fought so far, taking it doesn't look difficult. So there is a good chance Yasle's wish will come true.
When I came to this world, I made a contract with Hieronymus. A contract made entirely of lies. But if it is fulfilled, I could say I carried it out in good faith, couldn't I? If nothing falls, then there were only lies to begin with, so we'll call the contract void. However it turns out is fine by me.
So I'll watch from this place with an easy heart.