“Your Highness Valen, what is there? As a bell of light, I’m ready not to be surprised.”
“Valen. What’s there? I can feel an alien energy; what should I say? Don’t just stare at the ceiling like an idiot.”
Ignoring my hesitation about whether to show this, Sererassie and Matheos approached.
I raised one hand to try to stop them, but it was already too late.
A gigantic, sludge-like slime was swallowing dozens of unfortunate victims, and among them hung a college student like a spider coming down on a thread.
The college student in a black priest’s robe manipulated the slime’s tentacles, using the collected waste floating in the underground sewer as nourishment to keep the victims alive.
At this humiliating sight, Sererassie made a complicated expression, and Matheos collapsed to the ground.
“I briefly hoped I could find research samples and return, but it seems I won’t be going back that easily.”
Sererassie muttered weakly, while Matheos shed tears.
“Dear God.”
I silently gazed at him.
Even I, who had seen everything, felt my face harden at such a sight, but it was clear that if I panicked too, morale would plummet.
There was always a need for someone to be calm or at least pretend to be.
“What did those young souls do wrong? Why must they fall into the hands of that wicked alien and suffer such humiliation?”
I lifted him up firmly and said, “You said you were ready not to be surprised?”
His reaction, different from that before the return, felt strangely unfamiliar.
The Matheos I knew would have shouted, “Burn them all. The Lord will choose!”
Reluctantly, I forced myself to say what had to be said.
“Sister, what kind of place is this in terms of magical array defense?”
Sererassie, who had been lost in thought for a moment, perked up and said, “If my calculations are correct, this is a place where offerings are gathered.”
“If it’s a place where offerings gather, does that mean it’s the center?”
“It varies depending on the purpose of the ritual, but the aim of these creatures is likely more about summoning or wishing than praising. If so, it’s the opposite; it’s the outskirts.”
Matheos asked in a hushed voice, “Are there more of these?”
“Yes. There should be at least four, maybe up to sixteen more.”
Sererassie tightened her grip on her staff.
Matheos turned to me.
In his gentle brown eyes lay fear and righteous anger.
“Your Highness, can you burn that mass of corruption and grant rest to my friend who was killed and those poor souls?”
Regrettably, I could only shake my head.
“No.”
“What?!”
“Why? Can’t I just strike hard and take it down?”
Sererassie even looked back at me with surprise.
I continued calmly, “Let’s say you smash that thing. If the gathered offerings disappear, do you think the infiltrators will willingly give up, or will they try to gather offerings again?”
Sometimes good intentions led to horrific results.
Unlike situations where bad intentions resulted in terrible consequences, one cannot harshly blame the originators, making it maddening for those responsible for the aftermath.
“Ugh.”
“God, does that mean we have to turn back knowing of such horrible atrocities?”
I nodded firmly, as if declaring an eternal truth.
“Moreover, it’s not something we can just destroy. We don’t know how big the magical array using this vast sewer is. If the infiltrators think they are under attack, they may hide deeper or go on a rampage. Neither of those options yields good results.”
“I was not taught to close my eyes to the injustice before me.”
Also, I needed to correct one of the facts this college student had stated.
“Is the one hanging there your friend Dismas?”
“Yes, Your Highness. That’s right. He was not a friend who should die like this. He was filled with the desire to cherish children and serve the poor and suffering women, embodying doctrine in his life. He volunteered here every week.”
Matheos responded, his voice trembling as he tried to hold back tears.
I sighed, closing my eyes tightly at the poignant friendship.
“That friend didn’t become an offering.”
“What?”
It took Matheos several dozen seconds to comprehend what I meant.
“Then, do you mean… Oh no. Even if you are a duke, you cannot say that to a seminary student.”
“Your friend manages the offerings so they don’t die while fused with the slime. Dismas has been corrupted and fallen.”
“…”
Matheos was silent.
I asked with a foreboding feeling, “You know this is irreversible, right?”
Please say it is so.
“It cannot be.”
Dismas listened to the argument unfolding before him and opened his closed eyes.
With a soft sound, the tentacle of the slime that had been inside him slipped out, and his senses were once again limited to the human body.
The sensory organs of the slime were different from those of humans; it was unsuitable for hearing and analyzing human speech.
“God would not forsake him. He will surely help.”
“Stop being stubborn. I know from experience that some things cannot be done.”
“Why can’t a mage at least try?”
“Why does a seminary student sound like a mage only at a time like this!”
Dismas began to focus not on what the three were trying to do but on what could be done.
“Ah.”
The white-haired man and the mage both possessed tremendous mana, and the man who had been his friend also carried more grace than when he last saw him.
Could he fight and bring them all down to turn them into offerings?
The question flickered briefly in his mind.
He found the answer that he could.
He had met a new god, gained a new belief, and built a power that could not be compared to the past.
It had been a long, disillusioned period.
The church raised a destitute child into a seminary student.
The newly minted seminary student wanted to repay the grace received.
This world was agrarian, and professions outside of farming barely exceeded 1%, while land near the capital was limited, leading to an overflow of landless people in the capital.
The seminary student returned to his hometown.
To the darkest streets of the slums.
“P-Priest.”
“I’m not a priest yet.”
He gathered the sick with the grace of light, treating those injured in the conflicts among the slum gangs for free, building trust.
“If you don’t mind, how about putting the sword down now? You’re not planning to fight just because I’ll heal you, are you?”
“To survive, I have to fight…”
“I can’t add more burden to Teacher Dismas.”
Using his position as a seminary student, he raised funds from the wealthy outside the slum.
“Teacher, could you take a look at my son?”
“Why don’t you go to the church?”
“I’m embarrassed to say, but due to God’s curse, I cannot show myself outside.”
“Please, my daughter as well.”
He healed ailments easily mistaken for rare skin diseases, which were easily misunderstood as sexually transmitted diseases due to indulgence.
“I heard you’ve been skipping classes and doing weird things lately.”
A group that had been lingering around found him.
“Uh, what?”
“Please let us join in that weird stuff.”
They wanted to be a part of it too.
In this world, believing in God was not enough; one had to know.
Seminary students who had received the grace of light all wielded powers of healing and purification.
At school, they were told to save their power, never to reveal it carelessly, and to use it only for the genuinely devoted believers of the light until their ears bled from hearing it.
But for the young college students burning with the mission of being chosen, those words felt like stale nagging.
They wanted to run to every pitiable, troubled, and struggling person in this world and extend a hand.
A relief station operated by seminary students was established in the slums.
Those organizations that engaged in contract killings and the leaders of opposing gangs were mere patients or believers there.
Conflicts, infections, and critters diminished.
The murder rate and infant mortality in the relief station area of the slums plummeted.
“There’s a livable street.”
“They heal illnesses and share food.”
The poor began to flock there.
The slum population surged.
When many share limited resources, conflicts are bound to arise.
Normally, brawls would have broken out by now, and the poor would have scattered again.
“Share. Even a grain of wheat must be shared.”
But everyone knew of the seminary students’ hard work.
Oppressed discontent did not explode upwards; it spread sideways.
Crime in nearby slums, theft, begging, pickpocketing, robbery, and sexual assault surged fiftyfold.
“Crazy.”
The constable in charge of the area was stunned and summoned the young nobles of the capital to sell hunting licenses.
“Wow.”
“Long time no see.”
“It’s my chance to show off my bravery!”
Noble ruffians who were used to gallivanting in the capital gathered, escorted by knights, setting fires everywhere, shooting arrows, and swinging their swords.
The seminary students watched in dismay as the relief station burned and the poor died.
“What did we do wrong?”
They returned to the school and knelt before their professor.
“…Professor.”
The professor smiled kindly and said, “Return to class. I believe you have learned a lot.”
Dismas followed silently behind his companions, clenching his teeth.
He could not stand this absurdity.
Why was good will not rewarded?
In the light, everyone is equal; why did so many have to die in such a worthless and cruel manner?
He tried to find the answer to that question alone.
He remembered the sensations felt while bestowing power upon the people of the slums.
That feeling of being a savior.
In this world, God is not believed; He is known.
Literally chosen seminary students often hold an extremely arrogant perception the moment they deviate even slightly.
‘Only I can help them.’
Those who doubt the light and become intoxicated with their own powers, further believing that it is right and without question, find the past upon them.
Those who desire the ‘power to change the world’ quickly become those who desire ‘the power to change the world,’ and then the ‘power.’
In an instant, the seminary student, who had dutifully entered the perilous slums to serve, was consumed by the past.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Finishing his short reverie, Dismas admired the new power and expelled the bodies that had become empty.
Those who could not even serve as offerings and those who were gravely injured since they were brought in had become nutrients or undead.
Raising the dead was the wish of countless humans, and animating corpses was a fundamental power bestowed by the old ones.
Humans agreed to call it the undead.
“This won’t end well. Sister, smash it.”
Bzzzzt!
‘Huh?’
And seeing the blue electric discharge illuminating the darkness, Dismas realized he had picked the wrong opponent.
When the undead is struck by electricity, its nerves and muscles burn, and the energy of the old one within either returns to its master or dissipates.
Seeing the black smoke return to the slime or dissolve into the atmosphere, I swung my sword.
Swoosh—!
The beheaded corpse fell straight into the sewer.
Matheos was still looking at Dismas with a face that seemed unable to believe.
“…I was shocked too. Humans should not die so worthlessly. I pondered why such a thing happened. I blamed many; the constable, the young nobles, even myself for not being able to do anything. But why are you here? What choice did you make?”
I lowered my voice, speaking calmly to Matheos.
“Why not cast a spell or step back? Ideally, both would be excellent.”
He seemed like a completely different person from the Matheos I knew.
Much younger, softer, yet still with hope and expectation of others.
Whether this was good for the imperial court or not would take time to determine.
“This… this isn’t right, is it?”
I noticed his eyes were half glazed over, indicating he wasn’t in a state to think.
Sererassie was the same.
Her blue and yellow eyes were solely focused on propelling the approaching corpses.
Both were reacting in exceedingly normal ways.
Normal reactions one might display upon seeing dozens of humans wriggling like fish caught in nets, brought up in a vomit-colored slime for the first time.
I felt the same.
“Ugh.”
The instinctive revulsion of being human and compassion towards the victims.
However, I was not someone who could only mind my feelings in the face of calamity.
I looked around to check if any other infiltrators were visible.
With a fight already begun with one entity, my companions must have felt something.
“Dismas must die and retreat. May peace rest upon the unfortunate.”
The future saint asked with a desperate gaze, as if grabbing at straws, and resolutely asked, “Can it be purified?”
I smiled bitterly and replied.
“I need to help you sever your attachments.”
Memories of the infiltrators only called forth further corruption.
“The light bestows power only upon those who truly believe, right?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think the old ones differ?”
“!”
At that moment, a long spear-like tentacle sprouted from the slime.
“Shit!”
I forcefully shoved Matheos aside.
I couldn’t afford to let the future saint, who might save the world five times, suffer even a single fatal injury.
Thud!
“Your Highness!”
Ah, it was my own folly to forget for even a moment that what appeared to be slime was anything but.
I bled from my pierced thigh and forced a bitter smile while hearing footsteps approaching in the distance.
I was familiar with the gait typical of the undead.
Those were certainly not the footsteps of the living.
“Valen!”
Bzzzzt!
Sererassie unleashed electric discharges, burning the tentacle.
I grabbed the bioluminescent moss-covered wall, steadied myself, and said, “Change of strategy. We’re retreating. We’ve found the infiltrator so the Black Iron Knights will take care of everything now.”
“…Yes.”
“Understood.”
Matheos skillfully supported me, giving the impression of a seasoned rescuer with experience helping the poor and the injured.
Sererassie, who had been shooting electric discharges from the rear, sharply shouted, “Valen, it’s an abomination!”
Damn it.
I sighed and replied, “Run for your lives! I don’t know who controls it, but we need to mix in with the crowds outside!”
*
The staircase at the entrance I came through was visible ahead.
Thanks to hearing the abomination’s footsteps early and the narrow underground sewer path available for the abomination, we had enough time to escape.
That was until Matheos suddenly stopped at the stairs below.
“Matheos?”
“If we run away, they will surely follow us, right?”
“That’s right.”
“What will happen to those caught in between? What about the child who, unlucky enough to be holding their parent’s hand, encounters that monster?”
I clenched my eyes shut with a sense of despair.
Facing such questions head-on was always bewildering and difficult.
