Chapter 209

Chapter 207 – Lucifer who Leads Evil – 2

Upon hearing those words, Floretta unconsciously stood up. Her wavy, golden hair and sacred robe left a golden afterimage as she vanished and reappeared right in front of Stella.

“Again… please repeat what you just said. What was it?”

“A woman claiming to have been a holy knight 400 years ago has shown up, and she says she knows the way to the distinguished guest.”

Stella repeated the words she had just spoken without a single mistake. Floretta’s green eyes trembled slightly, starkly contrasting with Stella’s absolutely steady green eyes.

She already knew that the distinguished guest was alive. The sun and the moon had confirmed his survival, so there was no shred of doubt about it.

However, knowing where he was and how to get there were entirely different issues. No matter how much she sought an answer, the deity remained silent.

“I think the details should be investigated by Your Holiness herself. It’s not something I can judge. We cannot interrogate someone whose soul’s purity is uncertain and who hasn’t been deemed a heretic, right?”

“Have you confirmed the traces of divine power?”

“Yes. For now, there are traces of divine power remaining in her body. But, as the term suggests, they are so faint. Also, there were traces of a demon discovered… It would be better for Your Holiness to hear this directly. She’s the first person I’ve met who has passed the heretic identification test despite the discovery of demon traces.”

“Understood. Where should I go?”

“You should go to the Inquisitor’s Office basement.”

As soon as Stella answered, Floretta’s body vanished. In the next moment, the Pope of the Sun arrived at the basement of the Inquisitor’s Office. Her golden high heels clicked on the cold marble floor.

Every visible place was adorned with pure silver and marble, making the Inquisitor’s Office basement feel like frozen wasteland, with the bright golden rays of the sun blooming beautifully.

Click, with the sound of high heels, a warm aura overflowed, causing the serious-faced battle nuns surrounding the chairs to turn their heads in sequence. Selene was the last.

“Your Holiness of the Sun.”

Beginning with Selene, who kneeled to welcome Floretta, the other battle nuns followed suit. The only ones not bowing their heads were Pope Floretta and the same holy knight.

Selene raised her head and made way to the front. A woman sat there. She had brown hair tied in a ponytail, and her tanned skin was adorned with a yellow bikini.

“I greet Your Holiness of the Sun.”

The woman in a yellow bikini, Margarita, stood and paid her respects. It seemed she had completely forgotten the formalities, having not seen a Pope in 400 years, making her posture extremely stiff.

“Is this the attire of a holy knight?”

“Yes. It’s a bit outdated, though.”

Margarita tugged at the straps of her bikini; they were hanging by a thread. A mere touch could sever them. It was beyond what could simply be described as old.

This was the clothing that female holy knights wore under their armor. This yellow bikini was part of a color cycle that changed every 10 years, so yellow was included in that rotation.

Floretta calculated the cycle of that outfit in her head for a moment. About 400 years had passed. It seemed like she wasn’t wearing the outfit carelessly.

Nonetheless, Stella’s lack of comments on the attire was probably because such scraps of cloth could easily be mimicked if one put their mind to it.

“Please stay still, holy knight. I have something to verify.”

Golden divine power enveloped Margarita. However, Margarita neither felt pain nor struggled to escape the light. Instead, she simply submitted her body to the encasing light.

This was evidence that her soul had not yet been tainted. Floretta smiled gently.

“Your soul is untainted. You have done a splendid job, holy knight.”

“That’s a relief. Hearing that directly from Your Holiness makes me feel at ease.”

Margarita exhaled a sigh of relief. This meant that as long as she treated the physical contamination, she could function normally. And that also meant she didn’t have to die.

As long as there was continuous faith and belief, it’s always possible to heal physical contamination.

The atmosphere surrounding them had become much softer. Originally, they were on guard due to the sensing of demonic energy, but that was no longer necessary.

“Now, please start your explanation. You said you knew how to reach the distinguished guest.”

“Distinguished guest…? Ah, you must be talking about Delta. Distinguished guest? That’s why the divine power was so brilliant. Saying she’s from the empire, who would look at her and think she’s from the holy kingdom?”

Though the one concerned was oblivious, Margarita, slightly raising her likability with her earlier grumbling, began to explain.

She first recounted how she entered the holy war 400 years ago, failing and becoming trapped in hell, surviving by gnawing on demon corpses.

In fact, the middle parts of her story barely counted as an actual explanation. It was just her enduring by eating corpses, building a house, and shivering in fear. That was the extent of her tale.

“…I had been enduring for hundreds of years when, one day, a black-haired man and a black-haired woman wielding a holy sword came to my house. The man said his name was Delta, and the woman holding the holy sword introduced herself as the Empress of the Empire, Kaiquilia.”

Peeking out, Margarita looked to gauge the Pope’s reaction. To be honest, she thought it was a ridiculous story herself.

“What happened next?”

But Floretta remained calm. There wasn’t even a hint of suspicion on her face.

Confirming that the Pope believed her explanation, Margarita disclosed the rest and concluded by stating that after they completed the transference device, the two of them first sent her back.

“Thank you, oh Sun…”

As soon as she finished explaining, tears streamed down from Floretta’s eyes. It was gratitude for the divine beings who granted such grace and relief that the distinguished guest was still alive and doing his tasks.

Seeing the Pope weeping, Margarita flinched, wondering if something was wrong, but Selene and the battle nuns remained unfazed. Awkwardly, Margarita returned to her seat.

However, there was one fact that Margarita hadn’t mentioned until the end: that the Empire’s Empress and Delta were lovers.

What reason was there to expose someone else’s romance? From the looks of it, they seemed to be in love, tangled up and petting each other, but it didn’t seem like someone else should interfere.

“…Did you say your name is Sister Margarita?”

Having finished crying, Floretta wiped her tears with her sleeve and met Margarita’s gaze.

“Your faith in that deity will surely please the sun and the moon as well. I, Pope Floretta Evangelina of the Sun, will guarantee that fact. You have returned well to the embrace of the deity, little lamb.”

Her head bowed deeply. It was an act of the Pope bowing to a mere holy knight, but nobody was surprised. This was only right.

After all, it was someone who had been trapped in hell for 400 years.

It wouldn’t have been strange had she lost her faith and fallen or been offered to a demon, yet still maintaining the purity of her soul was an astonishing feat in itself.

“Uh… thank you for the compliment?”

Margarita remained calm too, but her calmness stemmed from a slightly different reason.

Even if she looked normal on the outside, she was fundamentally far from sane. She hadn’t not been surprised; it’s just that she couldn’t be surprised.

“Lastly, you said you knew how to get to hell.”

After finishing her greeting, Floretta raised her head, her eyes shining. Now was the crux of the matter.

Margarita finally started explaining with even more passion than before, fueled by the desire to help her two benefactors and a desire for revenge against hell.

Although she had utterly failed when she invaded, now that Delta and Kaiquilia had half upturned hell, it should be possible.

Listening intently to Margarita’s explanation, Floretta, upon its conclusion, calmly looked at Selene.

“Inquisitor.”

“Yes, Your Holiness. Please speak.”

“Could you call the Pope of the Moon?”

Asking for the Pope of the Moon instead of her older sister Seraphica meant that a conversation was needed in the relationship between the Pope of the Sun and the Pope of the Moon, rather than a sisterly relationship.

Selene answered without further ado.

“I will comply.”

“And gather all battle nuns and holy knights. This is also an order from me as the Pope of the Sun.”

A sacred relic appeared in Floretta’s hand. A small sun shining between four pairs of wings brightly illuminated the entire basement. Margarita uttered a small “Oh,” in admiration.

“From now on, I will officially declare a holy war.”

“……I don’t get any of this.”

Lucifer stood with his arms wide open like a prophet spreading the law. He still showed no sign of attacking me.

“You’re talking about the true deity, right? That dragon?”

– Do not call him blasphemously.

‘Finally, we’re speaking the same language.’

Just moments ago, he had been rambling on, but now he was getting angry at what I said. Still, he didn’t entirely ignore me; he wasn’t one to only speak his mind.

“What kind of nonsense is this? I don’t even know that guy’s name.”

In the game, he had only been referred to as the Creature that Devours the World from start to finish without any other information.

– Then let me tell you. Consider it the first step toward true faith.

“What?”

Just as I was taken aback, he opened what could be likened to a mouth for a human, stretching it up and down.

From there, a grotesque root jutted out, wriggling like a worm.

– His name is….

As the root squirmed and made sound, an overwhelming wind pressure exploded forth.

“Ugh?!”

My body was swept away by the wind and lifted into the air, being pushed back significantly.

I pinned the wingless nightmare into the ground. I barely managed to halt my body just as my heels were about to slip off the edge of the cliff. Taking a sigh of relief, I raised my head.

The area near Lucifer warped, exploded, and turned black, mixing with normal space and vanishing in chaos.

His mouth closed, and the roots retraced, completely hiding the hole that had looked like a mouth. His voice rang out flatly.

– Do you understand?

“Not at all.”

What demon uses Draconic Language? I grumbled as I walked back to the inside of the island.

Draconic Language was said to embody the laws and truths of the world within that concept. Thus, even when facing the Creature that Devours the World boss battle, one must use Draconic Language.

Common sense dictated that if you didn’t restrain movement using Draconic Language, there was no reason for a dragon to come down and grapple with a human.

They could just shoot their breath from the sky.

If one breath wasn’t enough, they could keep shooting until they died.

‘The stronger the power contained within Draconic Language, the higher the rank, right?’

It was obvious what level the Creature that Devours the World would be if something as simple as speaking a name distorted and twisted space.

– You must have heard of the myths of the outside world.

Despite having offered me a goodwill gesture in informing me of the name, Lucifer’s voice resonated again as I showed no sign of moving. He must’ve been desperate to get my attention.

Whether that was the will of the Creature that Devours the World or Lucifer’s own intention was unclear.

“Myths of the outside world?”

– Excuses of not having heard of them will not work, follower of a false deity. You must be aware that the true deity’s salvation is being rejected by the false deity.

“……”

As I pondered what that meant, I realized it referred to the history of the holy kingdom. The holy kingdom’s deity was repelling the invasion of the Creature that Devours the World.

Due to unnecessary religious terminology, I had momentarily scorned it.

“Yeah. I’ve heard a bit about it.”

While I had heard about it, I hadn’t heard about it ‘in this world.’ I had seen it while browsing documents in the game.

Could he be mistaking me for a holy kingdom citizen, thinking that it would be obvious for me to have read my own country’s history since I’m from there?

– That myth is all lies, except for one.

“That one must mean the truth. What’s that one?”

I was slightly surprised. I had thought he would say it was all nonsense.

– The clash between the false deity and the true deity.

‘……Huh?’

The true deity he spoke of would naturally be the Creature that Devours the World, and the false deity would be the sun and the moon. Was that guy such a powerful dragon that he directly clashed with the creator deity?

Was the protagonist of Brightest Darkness 4 the one who had captured such a being?

‘What kind of monster is he?’

Although I had played the game, I had no idea what kind of being that was.

While I was seriously contemplating the power of the protagonist of Brightest Darkness 4, Lucifer began to speak again.

– The false deity has lost everything except for two worlds. Of those remaining worlds, one has already returned to the primordial nullity.

‘……Primordial nullity?’

I felt like I had heard a similar setting somewhere. What was it? My memories were hazy. Was it a setting from Brightest Darkness 3?

– Salvation is inevitable. The false deity has merely repeated fleeing. Countless worlds have received salvation. Now, only one remains.

This was a story I had never heard before. I concentrated closely. That could all be a lie meant to deceive me, but I could decide that after hearing everything.

– A mere human cannot reject a deity. Follower of the false deity. Open your eyes. Cast off your shackles and face the truth.

“……”

– Take hold of the outstretched hand. Don’t miss the opportunity to serve the true deity. Salvation is imminent in the world, and there will only be one darkness.

“……Let me just ask you one thing. What exactly is this salvation?”

To my question, Lucifer naturally replied.

– The extinction of everything. Nothing remaining. Everything that exists, including believers, merging as one in the bosom of the true deity. That is salvation.

“Are you insane?”

It was undeniably a cult.

I aimed at the wingless nightmare. Looking at the tip of the blade directed at him, Lucifer’s eyes spun counterclockwise.

– I will take this as you meaning to refuse salvation.

“Salvation? You’re just telling me to die. Am I crazy to follow someone like you?”

Even if my values were normal, I had no intention of accepting it, but hearing that made me even more unwilling. What value was there in following him if it only meant death?

As I categorically rejected him, roots from his right hand twisted together, forming a long spear.

– How regrettable. Why do you refuse the salvation of the true deity?

“Who’s true and who’s false is my own judgment to make, not yours. And if that’s salvation, I can give it to you right now. How about that?”

– Then perish regretting your own ignorance.

The long spear, rivaling a pike’s length, was aimed at me. Despite its absurd length, the spear had a thick handle like a cone.

He thrust the spear into the ground.