Farewell, the First World — 9

The new religion took my title, in earnest, as its name: the Church of the Outer God. They had been using it in the shadows already, but this time they hung a proper sign. Under Rebecca's direction, the Church set about writing a scripture of its own.

First she called together everyone who had spoken with me. In a great assembly hall, with even the royal house of Anselus in attendance, they spent seven days putting my story in order. Yes. That's right. They were compiling the scripture of the Church of the Outer God.

One thing about it was strange. The emotion I could read on Rebecca's face was a murky black, and yet the doctrine of the Church was forgiveness and freedom—and its foundation was that when a person dies, I come to find them and lead them away. Far too soft.

If a religion is to grow, it needs forceful conversion. The Church of the Outer God did the opposite, and granted freedom of faith. They set down what I had said, word for word.

Look at Rebecca's emotions, or Dakota's, and forgiveness seems like something that ought never to exist. Yet the Church, just as the Outer God had done, urged people to forgive one another. The Outer God had blessed a person and carried off every one of that person's sins, and so you, too, should forgive others and release them from their guilt. That was the line of reasoning they built.

To my eye, a faith like that would be easy for heretics to push aside. And I couldn't see why they had made so much of the part about my coming when people die. If you had received the blessing of the Church, I would come for the last of the warmth left in you, whether you were man or woman, young or old. Nothing more than that, and they had set it at the very center.

Riddled with holes. A thin doctrine. A fragile way of winning souls. It was a religion with nothing but problems.

The religion, however, was not what I expected. In a flash it crossed the Kingdom of Anselus and spread into other countries, and the capital became like the mother seat of a faith. Little by little, people came to offer prayers in the square where the Outer God had died. A flow of people began. As their numbers grew, so did the number of those selling goods, and commerce slowly prospered.

The Church of the Holy God, of course, pushed back hard. This was the same church that had burned so hot against other faiths that it sent out orders to suppress them even in the middle of the famine. To root out the new religion, it stirred up the kingdoms around Anselus. As I said before, most of the countries east of the Skad Rock Desert believe in the Church of the Holy God. Put another way, they lie under its hand.

When the Kingdom of Anselus heard, it told the people at once and prepared for war. But not a single country answered the Church of the Holy God.

About a year and a half after the famine ended, the king who had collapsed from overwork managed, barely, to rise. He looked at a country changed through and through, and then at his own hair, and simply abandoned the Church of the Holy God. He said nothing to anyone—he didn't even speak to himself—so I have no idea what he thought.

The king went straight to the Church of the Outer God. Rebecca and Dakota, and seventeen former priests of the Holy God. Or, put another way: one person who resembled the Outer God, and eighteen of the blessed.

At first the king, too, mistook Rebecca for me, but once he heard the truth he understood. Then he told them the story he had heard from his grandfather, Tisha. A second great council was convened, and the scripture was revised once more. Honestly, I found it tremendously funny, but to those people it must have mattered. The faithful listened to the king with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠grave faces from beginning to end, and writing it back into scripture took them more than another week.

As the Church of the Outer God grew, the Church of the Holy God suddenly gathered its legion and came down upon them. Even calling it a war, the numbers were not large. Holy knights and priests together came only to two hundred. I wondered whether that wasn't far too few, but the knights of Anselus numbered about the same, so it was no small force after all. If anything, Anselus had fewer. Theirs were knights who simply put on armor and fought, with none of a god's miracles. Mages, around ten.

Watching them fight that way, I thought they were finished. Honestly—how do you defeat people who wield the power of a god? And yet they won.

Yes. I had sent down no miracle, and a miracle happened all the same.

At the start there was only the army of Anselus. Then the believers of the Church of the Outer God stood with it. Even so, up to that point the people of the Holy God were attacking from outside the capital walls, and citizens within taking up arms changed very little. But with each day that passed, the believers grew. They came from beyond the capital. By the time a week had gone by, believers from other countries had taken up weapons and joined, until so many had gathered that they surrounded the Church of the Holy God instead.

I had heard, through the Harvesters, that a holy knight could fight even at a hundred to one. They were human after all, it seemed. Once a number truly past a hundredfold had assembled, they lost the will to fight. The victory belonged not to the Kingdom of Anselus, but to the Church of the Outer God.

A festival followed the victory. It was not an execution festival, the kind where the defeated are bound and put to death. They forgave those taken captive, gave them food, treated their wounds, and prepared a place for them to rest. I thought it a foolish thing, and yet that alone was enough for some to cast off the Church of the Holy God. They would go on believing in the Holy God, they said, but they would not follow the Church.

While the festival was underway, only then did I finally manage to hear, through a Harvester's ears, why no other kingdom had come invading, and why people had taken their side.

During the famine, the Church of the Holy God had seized food not only from Anselus but from every kingdom its power could reach. Across the whole region, those who hated that church multiplied, and into the gap the Church of the Outer God slipped. What is more, it embraced the Church of the Holy God. Strictly speaking, it showed no hostility toward those who believed in the Holy God. Just as it was doing now.

That, it seems, was immensely powerful. I had thought heretics would multiply; instead it worked to multiply the Church of the Outer God. Joined with forgiveness, it must have shown which side had the more generous heart.

The greatest surprise was the passage that said I would come for them when they died. Receive the blessing, and I come without exception. I never imagined this would stand as a guarantee of human universality. In a place I had not expected at all, the sense took root that every person is the same. I had scattered seed hoping for enlightenment, and it spread as religion instead. Is that the limit of a world whose society resembles the early modern age?

And in only ten years, the advantage between the Church of the Outer God and the Church of the Holy God turned over. The place where a god had sacrificed itself for people became a new holy ground.

In the midst of that, a prayer fashioned from the prayer of some religion spread across the whole world. It was the prayer of a religion that does not exist in this world. In it appears exactly one person: a vicious villain. Hyungkesuni, the Witch of Ecstasy. Dakota's enemy. And perhaps Rebecca's enemy as well.

Dakota hunted the witch without mercy. Even in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a religion that held forgiveness as its central value, and without anyone making a special effort, the Witch of Ecstasy alone was the exception. It was so obvious that no one questioned it.

It took ten years before I finally realized that Rebecca knew far more about me than I had thought. She had not watched from behind, the way I watch the Harvesters. There is a strong chance she saw the memories that form my core. Otherwise, how could she go beyond merely grasping my intent, and use it so perfectly?

Exactly eight years after the famine ended, the Church of the Outer God had already found the Witch of Ecstasy. On Rebecca's orders, they left her alone. It was the day Dakota fought with Rebecca for the first time. But Rebecca persuaded her.

"Killing her alone wouldn't be enough, would it?"

And that day, Dakota saw the emotion beneath Rebecca's skin—the one I had known all along. Rebecca explained that she, too, bore a grudge against Hyungkesuni. The sudden murder of her family, and the tearing out of her own heart, were Hyungkesuni's fault as well, she said. Dakota felt it with her.

But I know. That was not all of it. I have said so once before—telling only part of the truth is my specialty, isn't it? Rebecca had not told all of it, either.

The one toward whom she holds no ordinary grudge is not the Church of Future Hope. She is angry, of course, that Hyungkesuni, a remnant of that church, still lives, but what she truly hates is something else. I don't yet know what. I suspect it may be the world itself, but I have no real certainty that I'm right.

At any rate, this opened Dakota's heart to Rebecca. And Rebecca used it to begin wielding the Church of the Outer God with even greater zeal.

Then, one day, I found a breakthrough for proxies of the blessing, in a place I had never expected. Someone reading and studying the records written about me discovered a passage of contract.

He read the passage and answered that he would. Then he was connected to me. I dyed his light black and gave him a part of myself.

Yes. I had made it so a blessing could be given simply by having someone read.

Until then, the people who had seen those records were the royalty and nobility of the Kingdom of Anselus, and the former holy knights and priests, Martin among them. In other words, Harvesters. That was why nothing happened, no matter what they did after reading the passage.

This man, who might be called a theologian of the Church of the Outer God, was not a Harvester. Ten years had passed before the records were finally opened to the outside, and he was one of the first to come in. In a mere ten ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠years, I had found a way to scatter blessings. And in an instant, it rose to the very center of the Church.

And now the hair of the Church's people turns purple. For the present, only some of those living in the capital of Anselus—the headquarters of the Church—are chosen to receive the blessing. But they mean to release it widely before long.

I had thought that people, given a power like this, were the sort to keep it among a few and run things that way. And just as I thought, Dakota said that only special people ought to receive the blessing. Rebecca refused. Instead she gathered those who led the Church and laid plans to spread it far and wide.

Beneath the surface, I laughed. If I had hands, I would have clapped.

Soon the Harvesters will multiply beyond all measure. Rebecca really is wonderful.