“Oh, ah…! The Goddess spills blood for the sake of the weeping children!”
“I don’t really know what you’re talking about, but that’s not it.”
I actually know well. The priests who believe in the Goddess of Love have split the broad concept of love into a few categories based on that doctrine.
Understanding divine love in a human body is difficult, so they have refined it into a form they can accept.
They have explored and practiced several types of love that suit them for a lifetime, but among them, there is one that is considered the greatest.
“Charity means you should be able to wipe away another’s tears with your own blood!”
“That’s not true…”
Charity resembles the Goddess’s love the most among the types of love humans can understand.
Yeah. I know. Even if I want to yell that it’s not true and to stop caring…
I know all too well what the priests see in someone who suddenly purifies Divine Power and saves lives with blood!
That’s precisely the last treatment they tried to aim for!
The idea that a heart that had once stopped could be completely deceived by another’s blood is just an afterthought added later.
The essence is that it’s incredibly cool when a person thought to be dead suddenly gets up after drinking the blood flowing from one’s hand (not!).
And this is clearly a setting put in mind of charity.
To heal another’s wounds with one’s own injuries as a pity for the suffering. How can one endure that?
But the problem is that the other person is none other than Karen.
She has received a blessing to see emotions and, based on that, once discerned my unconditional love for this world.
Yet, to show the miracle of charity (not real) right in front of me?
It’s enough for someone like Karen, a heretic inquisitor who is even more devout than ordinary priests, to lose her mind.
“Please don’t deny it too much. I can see the compassion and charity that the Apostle holds in the eyes gifted by the Goddess. Rather, please refrain from asking me to pretend I didn’t see it, even if it means making me blind!”
“No, seriously… this isn’t it…”
“If you’re worried about Priest Remilly, it’s okay. I had temporarily covered the eyes of those around us when I knelt.”
“Does that make sense from this close distance…? Ah, I guess it does since you are a heretic inquisitor.”
Heretic inquisitors are a bit different from ordinary priests.
They are those who hunt heretics with twisted faith like One Who Devours the Twilight. They learn different things than combat priests or paladins who just learned how to fight.
How to pierce through the lies of others. How to interrogate the truth, and having a fanatical yet upright faith that doesn’t waver even when witnessing the same Divine Power right in front of them, and methods to obscure oneself from others’ sight, etc.
Covering sight for a moment would not be difficult.
“Great Apostle. You who have come to this land after a thousand years. What should I do?”
“Could you pretend today never happened…?”
As I scratched the back of my head, struggling, Lydia, who had stepped out to protect me, frowned in perplexity.
“No.”
With that resolute statement, she completely hid me behind her.
“Jonah is not what you think. So stop tormenting him.”
She hadn’t drawn her sword, but her suffocating presence felt sharp enough to be seen even without motion.
“Uh.”
What a dependable knight.
I nearly fell for her strength.
*
Lydia looked at Karen, kneeling in front of Jonah with an eager gaze and voice.
While it was better than noticing Jonah’s connection to One Who Devours the Twilight and wanting to kill him,
it didn’t mean that the current interest and delusion were welcome either. Just looking at Jonah’s expression that was rotting in real-time was enough to confirm that.
After all, Jonah was an experiment subject of One Who Devours the Twilight.
Karen saw a love close to that of a goddess in him who was not human?
That’s precisely because the faith forcibly injected after collapsing even the slightest humanity. Jonah loves everything in the world, but that also means there’s nothing he particularly cares about.
Absorbing the heretics’ Divine Power to convert it into pure Divine Power?
One Who Devours the Twilight’s human experimentation sometimes produces results beyond imagination. There’s even a living witness near Lydia.
The hypothesis of the experiment performed on Jonah is whether even someone who doesn’t know love would receive the Goddess’s love. The answer would be, “Yes.”
Is it suspiciously well-versed in the methods of One Who Devours the Twilight?
Karen casually brushed it off, saying if Jonah was truly the Goddess’s Apostle, it wouldn’t be strange for him to know.
But Lydia knows. That it is something she knows well from either observing up close or directly experiencing it herself.
Moving even while knowing she might get caught is likely because she saw her past self in fallen Ian.
And what about Jonah’s attitude towards being associated with the Temple?
Karen seems to be trying to package it nicely as a noble intention she doesn’t understand.
But from Lydia’s eyes, it looks different. Jonah is terrified of having his past revealed.
That’s only natural. If things go wrong, he could be labeled a heretic like One Who Devours the Twilight, and even if not, his life before being kidnapped as a test subject could be revealed.
Lydia still vividly remembers the perfect manners of a high-ranking noble Jonah displayed and the furious thirst for revenge that seemed ready to engulf the world.
Instead of living comfortably as the Goddess’s Apostle, Jonah chose to endure and grow stronger through low and rough experiences.
The reason is simple. It means revenge must be done by one’s own hands to have meaning.
In this sense, the more covert the blade of revenge, the better. Only then can it pierce the most vulnerable spot deeply.
Perhaps Jonah’s obsession with surprise attacks and assassinations stems from such ultimate goals.
But does Karen think Lydia is a hindrance because she knows none of this? She began to draw forth her Divine Power against Lydia’s aura.
Even though she had already consumed quite a bit to save Ian, the remaining Divine Power was substantial.
‘She’s no ordinary heretic inquisitor.’
With resolve made internally, Lydia reached out into the air. Ready to draw her sword at any moment. But…
“Lydia, I won’t blame you for trying to protect Jonah. But I wish you would realize that such overprotection can sometimes be no different than locking someone up. Jonah will be doing much greater things in a much larger place.”
“No. You don’t know anything. I can’t entrust Jonah to such a person.”
“How presumptuous of you to act as if you are different. In the end, aren’t you aiming for Jonah’s body as the adult he will become, just like Ellie?”
“That’s wrong.”
Lydia shook her head, slightly turning to glance at Jonah who is hiding behind her.
A bewildered expression. Yet during this, he tightly clutched the waist of Lydia. As if to say he could overcome any adversity as long as he was behind her.
That sight reminded her of the forest from long ago.
Although it started as simple mischief, Jonah showed faith in her, and Lydia responded in kind.
Even if Jonah himself didn’t acknowledge it, the oath they made that day was real.
“I am Jonah’s knight.”
A knight is someone who willingly dedicates themselves to those who recognize them, and even if the world turns against them, they don’t change the direction of their held sword.
“A sword that cuts down enemies, and a shield that never breaks.”
Lydia’s heart beat heavily. The flow of her aura ignited fiercely like flames, and her distinct red hair glimmered dazzlingly.
The clear will often seen in humans who could burn themselves at any time.
“If Jonah does not wish it, no one can compel him.”
Lydia wanted to be a knight. To rebuild the collapsed household and to laugh at those who once mocked her.
Serving a high-ranking noble, making a name in battle, and even a bit of illicit romance—she enjoyed those things.
But above all, she wanted something else.
Lydia wanted the only thing she could trust in this imperfect and chaotic world.
What she believed to be right.
In other words, her conviction.
“Even if it’s the Goddess, that’s not an exception.”
A knight lives by conviction and dies by conviction.
And she was a knight more noble than anyone else.
“You…!”
Karen, as if suffering from blasphemy, clenched her teeth. Just as Lydia was poised to draw a rapier suitable for close combat from the air.
Peek!
Horning in between Lydia’s armpits, Jonah popped his head out with his usual playful voice.
“Karen, my inquisitor! Shall we not fight but rather be secret friends?”
“…Huh?”
“I mean secret friends. Just occasionally talk secretly and eat something delicious…”
Both Karen and Lydia froze at the suspicious wording. Jonah grinned mischievously and continued.
“And we can beat up heretics together.”
“……”
“……”
Lydia squeezed her eyes shut.
But what can she do? After all, he is her chosen lord.
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