The Bargain Behind the Baptism
The next moment, hurried footsteps came echoing from the far end of the corridor, and Serina flinched, breaking into a frantic run down the hallway.
She swept her surroundings, resolved to wedge herself through even the smallest gap, but it was no use. The fact that her light still refused to answer her spread through her as an unbearable urgency.
The footsteps drew closer and closer, and clinging to her last hope, Serina flung open the assembly hall door that stood slightly ajar.
"H-Help—!"
Her desperate cry cut off abruptly, mid-word.
"Ngh, ah, too deep... haah...!"
".........What is this."
In the very center of the hall, a dozen or so worshippers stood circled around a single nun.
"I had no idea the Saintess would be so pleased by the baptism ceremony."
Serina turned her head, her face awash with shock. The man who had been with her in Cardinal Frai's room had a hand resting on her shoulder.
"Ah, forgive my late introduction. I am Father Ervan. I have been in charge of preparing your baptism ceremony, Lady Saintess. I will be overseeing your education as well, so I expect we shall be seeing a great deal of each other during your stay here. But tell me—"
He leaned his upper body in, peering into her face.
"Why so startled? To my eyes, that nun appears to be serving with admirable devotion. Does she look like something else to you, perhaps?"
Straightening his posture, Ervan reached out with careful deliberation and fixed her face toward the front.
"It would do you good to take a long look in advance. His Eminence the Cardinal is fond of worshippers who prepare themselves thoroughly. I am certain that if you prepare properly, Lady Saintess, it will remain with you as a valuable experience."
Serina lowered her gaze slightly.
Another nun lay collapsed on the floor—one she had failed to notice, her eyes stolen by the nun lost in the orgy. So much seed had been spilled over her that the nun, lying naked, was coated in it from head to toe.
Serina's shoulders slumped. Even now, at this very moment, the Goddess was granting her no miracle.
"If you had stayed in the office, every question you had would have been answered by now."
Serina stared blankly down at Ervan's hand as it kneaded her breast. The thought that she ought to shove him away came only afterward—and even then, she could do nothing. The impossible scene unfolding before her seemed to have paralyzed her mind entirely.
Ervan shouted something out in a loud voice, then seized her head once more and dragged her gaze upward. Serina flinched hard, her eyes wavering. Countless stares were converging on her.
She stumbled backward on pure reflex, but Ervan caught both her shoulders and drew her helplessly back. In the meantime, the man who had been rocking his hips against the nun from behind shoved her aside and was the first to start toward them. One after another, the rest of the men followed on foot.
They came on wearing all manner of expressions, yet one emotion stood out among them all. Lust—the hunger to devour the Saintess. Men seeking nothing but the sating of that single urge closed in on her, stroking their cocks, not a stitch of clothing on their naked bodies.
Serina somehow wrenched herself free of Ervan's hand and backed away—only to be blocked by the man standing at her back. Heavy hands closed around both her shoulders.
"Lady Saintess. Where might you be rushing off to in such a hurry? Could it be you feel a call of nature?"
The moment Serina realized this was Cardinal Frai, she whirled around in horror.
"How are you already—?"
It was beyond belief. This was the man who had taken the Goddess's light-infused strike head-on. Even if the surrounding priests' light could heal him, he should have struggled to so much as move for some time—that would have been normal. And this man was not the Hero who bore the Holy Sword...
"Ah..."
She had been overlooking a crucial fact. In the first place, it was this very Order that had commissioned Lean. They had, without question, learned the means of nullifying her light from him.
"Does it dawn on you at last? Why I conceded your virginity to a vulgar hero like Lean."
"You... insane... bastard..."
"Your correction can wait for the baptism ceremony. For now, resolving the Lady Saintess's questions takes precedence."
The Cardinal, head bowed, curled his lips into a grin.
"Immediately upon sensing the demons' assault, I struck a bargain with the hero. That he rescue you from Cardinal Gelf Arium's grasp and deliver you safely into our care."
Serina could no longer make her mouth move. It was as though something invisible had stuffed her throat, choking off even the sound of her voice. The rest of her was no different. Her whole body had gone rigid as stone.
"When I heard the hero had been slain before ever reaching you, I was terribly disappointed. Gelf, a knight once, would surely have driven the hero to death's door—which means he could never have attempted to take anything beyond your virginity. That you escaped unharmed and made it here regardless is a true relief. The fruits of the research I pursued, at the cost of conceding even your virginity, have not come to nothing."
Only then did Serina feel she understood why the Cardinal had raged. The fact that she had been violated countless times had never mattered to him. He had been furious that Lean tried to monopolize her—resorting even to a sacred law that forced her body into heat.
"I trust you have already guessed. While he was escorting you here, I received a small transfer of light, which allowed me to examine the Holy Sword. Suffering your attack just now was merely a means of sounding your true heart. Which is to say—from this moment on, attacks of that sort will not be permitted."
Frai's wrinkled hand came to rest on the nape of her neck.
"Is it not a Saintess's true calling to perform healing? So that you may devote yourself solely to healing for the sake of all, I have laid a sacred law across this entire building—one that suppresses the aggressiveness your light carries. Do keep it in mind."
His hand wandered down over her skin to her waist, slipped beneath her clothes, and stroked across her belly. She felt utterly wretched, as though she had been reduced to his plaything. Even in this moment, with the whole of the vile scheme surrounding her laid bare, the reality that she could not muster even the smallest resistance was bitter beyond words.
Frai moved his other hand and caressed her lips. The instant he did, Serina regained command of her body. She tore his arm down with desperate force and loosed a scream steeped in venom, swinging her arms wildly to drive back everyone around her as she shrieked at Frai.
"How dare you do such a thing! It's absolutely impossible—Agh!"
Struck hard in the stomach, Serina was flung to the floor. The moment a crushing weight pressed down on the small of her back, her breath caught in her throat. Even so, she kept fighting—flailing her limbs wildly, trying to shake off the hands roaming her body.
"Lady Saintess. Why must you be so reckless? Carry on like this, and I shan't be able to set you free, now shall I?"
Some powerful suppressive force seemed to be at work. She realized her wrists and ankles were bound in tough rope. Judging by the warmth it gave off, it appeared to be made of light. At the sight of what had been stripped from her own self being wielded so freely against her, a flash of betrayal stirred in Serina's heart. After all, if things had been allowed to go this far, the Goddess ought to have done something for her. Anything at all.
Serina resolved to pour that festering resentment out at the clergymen before her eyes.
"Aaagh! Let me go! Untie me right now! You fucking bastards!"
Twisting her wrists where they were bound behind her back, she thrashed and writhed. Father Ervan, crouched down before her, let out a small sigh.
"Lady Serina. Surely a Saintess, of all people, ought to set an example worthy of the children's emulation? However startled you may have been by these sudden circumstances, what am I to make of you reacting worse than the children do?"
A chill crawled over Serina, and she froze mid-motion.
Children?
Serina gave him a pointed, searching look.
"N-No, right? That's not..."
"That's not what? Ah—if you mean those children, then your suspicions are quite correct. The girls not yet of age are caressed and cared for every single day under His Eminence the Cardinal's authority. Are you relieved now?"
Serina's mouth hung open. They had laid their hands even on the little ones? For this moment alone, more than for her own plight, she ground her teeth in a rage she could not contain at that unspeakable depravity.
Ervan moved far faster than her lips could. His large hand caught her chin and wrenched her face upward.
"But of course, have no fear. We have made it policy that their virginities are to be taken only after they have passed through the baptism ceremony. That should set your mind at ease, shouldn't it?"
"Sh-Shut up! And you still... call yourselves... human...!"
With both her cheeks squeezed in his grip, it was all she could do to force the words out.
"Hmm. Even the Saintess herself, in her childhood, would have struggled to survive without the Order's aid. And besides—if they follow their instruction well until they come of age, and keep in their hearts only the desire to serve everyone, we see to it that they live out their lives in comfort and plenty. I truly cannot see where the wrongdoing lies in any of that."
Letting a pained moan slip through the ever-tightening grip, Serina glared up at him with burning fury. Ervan held his expressionless mask a moment longer, then turned his head aside.
"Sister Fresian."