Goodbye, First World - 8

The first world was changing, little by little.

Every Harvester was crowded into the Kingdom of Anselus, so I couldn't know every fact with any exactness. Even so, I could see well enough which way things were running.

In the Kingdom of Anselus, a movement began against the Church of the Holy God. Through the Harvesters' eyes, it wasn't that everyone in the kingdom clearly hated the Church. It was closer to venting. Two years of great famine had worn people out past all wearing, and they needed somewhere to put their anger.

They didn't storm the Church from the start. They only blamed it, in words. But the timing was far too poor. Of course, it was the poor timing that made people rise at all — and it was also a season when a great many on the Church's side had grown sharp.

Famine is a hard time for every living thing. The way a blow makes you angrier when you're already ill, the Church of the Holy God resolved to suppress every other religion on a grand scale. An edict carrying that intent arrived from Church headquarters for the king of Anselus. The trouble was that it described the Kingdom of Anselus as if it were an enemy country.

The king summoned every noble and opened a council. There, he spread the edict that had come from the Church. It demanded that the king and the nobles of Anselus offer up nearly everything they possessed as tribute, and that they thoroughly crush every religion within their borders except the Church of the Holy God.

The Harvesters, the king among them, were all in a bad ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mood. Which meant the chances were very high that everyone else was in a bad mood too. And in substance, the Kingdom of Anselus answered by ignoring the Church.

Even so, they had believed too long to simply erase the Church of the Holy God; many refused to break away from it. And it was ignoring only in the name. They still sent a portion of the tribute and bowed their heads, so it would be truer to call it acceptance. But the Church sent another edict, ordering them to bring exactly what was written. Several times. The last of them even spoke of excommunicating the Kingdom of Anselus.

From the king's point of view, there was no money to pay all of it. Rendering the tribute meant squeezing the nobles, and even I, watching from far away, knew that would bring rebellion. With the famine laid over everything, squeezing anyone at all had become impossible.

While he carried on diplomacy however he could and tried to settle feeling at home, the king — a Harvester — grew more haggard by the day. He ought to have had a body hardier than other people's. In the end he couldn't endure it, and he sickened and took to his bed.

To the Church, it seemed, this was none of their concern. At last the king's younger brother took the affairs in hand as regent, and the demands flew straight at him, exact, as if the kingdom had fallen into debt.

And what they demanded was not gold or jewels. It was food.

With no way forward and no way back, the Kingdom of Anselus could do neither one thing nor the other, and a year passed. The famine did not end.

The third year of the famine.

The forests had gone to waste, and not a weed was left in the paddies or the fields. From every region came reports of people eating people, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in the capital the dead of starvation began to appear. Then the brother serving as regent gathered the people in the capital square, made the Church's demands known, and declared that the kingdom could endure no longer. It was a declaration no different from ruin.

But the common people already had something to put in its place.

Yes.

In the resignation that nothing remained but hunger past all bearing, and now only death — a few of them. They reached me.

And I did say that people with special abilities would appear, didn't I? One person appeared who could turn stone into bread.

He had been a Harvester known only by quiet word of mouth, and only among people in the capital — a man who hid the ability with everything he had, afraid that if those above him learned of it they would take it away. He went before the regent and proposed that they serve a new god. But the regent asked him in return. He had seen the god die, that day.

The Harvester persuaded him. The blessing had come after the god vanished, he said, and the Outer God had not disappeared completely. The king's brother believed it, and decided to believe in another god.

Overnight, the state religion changed. It was already an age in which even the nobles were starving to death. The miracles of the Church of the Outer God spread like a wildfire.

But it didn't take the shape of a cult. These were people who had known the Church of the Holy God, so they borrowed the doctrine of that time, fashioned something plausible enough, and spread it. And the nobles — the Harvesters above all — smoothed that current and carried it farther, more surely.

Those who had changed nothing but the signboard, and hung Church of the Outer God in its place, added a few new myths on top. They had brought the words from the time I vanished out of the first world.

Yes.

You aren't saved because you believe.

They fitted these together carefully and made a religion that acted as if it existed to save other people.

A very funny fact — do you know who made this doctrine? The ones who set it down in perfectly clean sentences were seventeen people, Martin among them.

They had returned to the Church of the Holy God, only to be driven out to the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠frontier in the end because of that alien purple hair. They needed a new faith. And they reached for the faith in the Outer God, swollen in step with the famine.

I suppose this is why intellectuals are scary.

A heresy inquisitor who has stood on the front line against other religions brings a terrible force to bear when he turns and attacks his own.

And truly, in an instant, the Church of the Outer God spread in every direction. It became known that purple hair was the mark of one blessed by the Outer God, and it also came to light that among the blessed were people whose skin turned blue.

An alien difference, sometimes, gives birth to holiness.

The child named Dakota, who had been dying at Hyungkesuni's hands, survived.

I know, because I watched her with particular care — someone with the makings to put a blade in Hyungkesuni. At first people shrank from her, taking that vivid blue skin for a disease, but the color of her hair was just enough to let her live.

There were times she starved for dozens of days, and times she was beaten until the bone broke. Even so, with a vitality close to wondrous, Dakota survived all the way to the end. And when the age turned, she was raised up like a saintess of the Church of the Outer God.

Of course, she doesn't believe in the Church of the Outer God. I've heard the things she mutters on the occasions when she's left alone.

All this time, she has thought of nothing but the revenge she means to take on the witch. I knew, because I was listening even when she was alone.

She judged that sitting in this seat would help her take revenge on Hyungkesuni. So she sat there, and decided to play the saintess that people wanted.

When the famine — three years, all told — ended, and there was the smallest room to breathe, she met Martin. Not only Martin. She met everyone who had been present when the Outer God was killed.

But it wasn't that Martin, or the former holy knights and priests of the Church of the Holy God, had gathered out of some idea of their own. They had been half dragged there.

Because the Outer God had appeared.

What?

I haven't gone to the first world. Not yet.

I was watching, full of questions myself, when a familiar face came into view. A short girl with long blonde hair — though her chest was quite large. She introduced herself as Rebecca Rolf.

No. Why are you showing up there?

It's already been eighty-four years since I left that body. She ought to be nearly a hundred. Why is she still young, exactly as she was?

What is this? If you receive a blessing, can you live that long?

No. Rebecca never received a blessing in the first place.

Startled myself, I focused on the Harvester.

From the look of it, Martin and the former holy knights and priests of the Church of the Holy God had been all but dragged in, as people who had seen the Outer God from up close. They said the Outer God had truly returned. But Rebecca denied it. She was only the Outer God's vessel, she said.

I don't know what Rebecca Rolf is thinking. If she knows all of what I think, then she knows that I am a wicked monster. If she says it here, the facts I bent — only a little — might be set straight. What happens to a person when their warmth is taken, for one. Then the illusion of the Outer God breaks.

But I have no power to steer this. So there was nothing to do but hold my breath and watch.

And Rebecca told the truth, as she knew it. That the Outer God wants warmth. That she watches people through the eyes of the blessed. And that a horrific method was used to call the Outer God.

She told them everything that had happened in the Church of Future Hope, up until her heart was torn out and she died. And that the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Outer God, in leaving, had let her live.

Martin asked, stumbling over the words.

"Is that a resurrection?"

"That's right. Put your ear to my chest and listen. The heart won't beat. After I died once, I found I could not die."

Martin looked terribly burdened. More than once his gaze went to Rebecca's chest and fell away. Then Dakota turned toward her.

"I'll do it."

Rebecca, who had been watching Dakota closely, soon smiled wide and opened both arms.

"Oh my. A child? Good. Come here."

And when Dakota drew near, she took her into her arms. Dakota's ear touched her chest. In place of a heart beating, there was the sound of something spinning, round and round.

The heart I turned inside out, long ago, is still there.

Dakota put her strength into pulling away, but her body didn't draw back — not in keeping with the strength she used.

"What—"

She was about to ask. A whisper reached Dakota's ear, together with a thin breath.

Rebecca held Dakota close and whispered it, small, at her ear. You whose name cannot be spoken. So that would be me.

And at once she let Dakota go. Dakota touched her own ear, her face unwilling. Rebecca looked at her like that, smiled, and spoke to the people gathered there.

"Well then, children. Let us move, for the Outer God's sake. This body came here to do just that."

Everyone looked at Rebecca with unwilling faces. But soon, once she began to explain, the faces changed.

It was a method I know. She had taken the principle by which a religion spread in some other world and edited it to fit this one. And with that, a prayer was born. She took a prayer she had drawn on in order to torment Hyungkesuni, set me in that place, and revised it to suit the Church of the Outer God.

At the very least, she knows what I do, and she is moving in order to do it. She acts knowing that taking warmth is a bad thing for a person.

I don't know the reason.

Dakota didn't seem to know. But I found a fierce hatred in Rebecca's face. Perhaps she has come to hate the world.

Then that is enough.

I decided to keep watching, looking forward to however the first world would run from here.