“Are you really satisfied with that?”
After leaving the interrogation room, Rina followed me and asked that. I frowned and replied.
“Satisfied with what?”
“Uh, I mean, that was a guy who kidnapped humans and did such things. Is it really okay to just let him be as long as he cooperates?”
What kind of expression did I have for her to hurry up and finish her sentence like that? Normally, no matter what I did or how I felt, she would never be intimidated and would only look annoyed. That must mean my expression revealed my feelings too clearly.
“I never promised anything other than letting him live.”
“…Huh?”
Rina looked at me with a somewhat flustered expression.
“But didn’t you say you’d treat him like a person?”
“I said I’d treat him like a person, but I never said I wouldn’t treat him like a witch. And like I denied at that moment, the Geneva Convention doesn’t apply to him. Even if I treat him as a person, he’s still a servant of the demons, and he’s committed a ton of crimes. Are you seriously thinking that the victims ended with the ones rescued this time?”
“Uh, yeah. No, that can’t be.”
When I spoke seriously, Rina kept nodding her head repeatedly.
“I’m just postponing the death sentence for now. Once we extract information, it’ll be a matter for the Central Church’s tribunal. Of course, I have no intention of making the victims apologize to that witch. If they want it, that’s another story, but for now, just facing them will be too shocking.”
“….”
In the end, Rina seemed to choose to just keep her mouth shut.
“Anyway, everything I have to do is what’s ‘obviously necessary in light of the sins committed so far.’”
Rina didn’t respond to my words. Jian said he’d like to look at the witch a little longer, and Andrea mentioned she had a few questions for the witch as well.
Despite hearing that she might be with Jian, who cut off his own ankle, the witch’s face turned pale, but I couldn’t care less. Frankly, I appreciated it that she was stepping up to help.
“…Well, I can roughly guess what the captives must have gone through.”
At those words, my feet, which had been walking quickly down the hallway, came to a stop.
“….”
I was about to ask something but kept my mouth shut. If someone had gone through such a thing, just asking them would likely trigger their trauma.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t go through it. It would have been a real problem if I did. You know, high-ranking demons can’t use holy power, right? If I broke, there’s no way to fix me until a new one is made.”
Rina shrugged her shoulders as she spoke.
“But they did show me what could happen if I resisted. You may not know, but creating a demon that can react like a normal person like me is quite difficult. To create a demon with this level of intelligence means that many failures have to be produced.”
She twirled the ends of her hair with her fingers, glancing to the side rather than at me.
“Still, making the appearance wasn’t that difficult. There have been quite a few failures that looked just like me, but with slightly lower intelligence. That… was good enough to show me as an ‘example.’”
“….”
This time it was my turn to be silent.
“I have one question to ask.”
“…Yes, go ahead.”
“Do I have a soul?”
At Rina’s question, I recalled the reason I had set up the setting that I was a soul. To put it bluntly, that setting was created almost entirely because of Rina. I haven’t been writing since then, so I have no idea if any other character has died since, but one thing is certain: Rina was the first regular character to die.
And after that, unable to deal with the overwhelming feeling, I inserted a twist that said, ‘If I die and go to heaven, we can meet again’—this was the setting that souls are eternal.
So, no matter what Rina’s identity is, she is a being with a soul.
“Yes, you do. Definitely.”
When I said that with conviction, Rina’s expression showed she was momentarily lost in thought. She seemed to be contemplating whether it was okay to ask this or not.
“Then, what about those beings that were there at that time?”
After pondering for a while, Rina asked, and my words got stuck again.
…I don’t know.
I did create the setting that souls exist. I also created the concept that people have souls.
So do other beings have souls?
From demons like Rina, who can think and talk, to the failures that died right in front of her, to the soulless beasts and demons consumed on the battlefield, or the animals that come to dinner tables every day, and plants that are definitely classified as living but are strikingly different from animals, tiny insects, and even bacteria or single-celled organisms invisible to our eyes.
I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t want to know either.
Considering that I didn’t believe in the existence of souls in my previous world, there was no need to think about it. Moreover, since it was merely a setting from a novel, there was no reason to delve that deep. Back then, I just wanted to shake off my gloom.
“….”
As I struggled to find an answer, Rina seemed to shrug her shoulders once, processing it however she could, and then started walking again. Unlike earlier when she followed me quickly, I seemed to be trailing slowly behind her now.
“Well, if you can’t answer, there’s no need to. You don’t need to know everything in the world.”
Rina concluded that refreshingly.
“Well, I just have one thing I want to say.”
“…What is it?”
When I asked back, Rina turned toward me and smiled broadly.
“Just, good job. If you just left a guy like that, you’d be the one who’d get punished.”
“I guess so.”
That was all I could say in response.
*
“Then let me ask.”
The interrogation room, which the saint had left, felt at least 5 degrees cooler. It made sense since the two beings left inside were glaring ominously at the witch.
The head of the Inquisition certainly felt fear. If she had the power of a witch, she might have been able to hold her own, but now that power had completely disappeared, and especially after swearing in the name of the Demon God Baal, it seemed her life could be at stake just from a beating.
Even if she got hurt, they would heal it instantly, leaving her unable to claim she was beaten anywhere. Whether the saint forgot or meant to do it, the binding still hung around the witch’s neck.
Moreover, it wasn’t just her. The man who cut off his own ankle, even though he clearly had a human body, was also a source of fear. I had heard the story, but I never thought it would be to this extent. Digging the ground with a shovel to follow the saint? I hope that’s just a joke, but if the one joking is the world itself, there’s nothing we can do about it.
“What did the beasts do to Sister Clara— what did she do to the saint?”
“I, I did nothing!?”
Just as she was about to say she did nothing, her mouth instantly snapped shut. As her teeth clashed violently, her tongue that had been moving in between got bitten off.
“Kugh….”
She tasted blood in her mouth and groaned. But that pain disappeared in an instant. Though the cut tip had not returned, the wound on her tongue healed swiftly.
Was it because I swore in the name of the Demon God? I didn’t feel any magical something. It felt more like some part of her mind instinctively worked to shut her mouth rather than someone forcing her to stay quiet.
An overwhelming sense of fear surged in her afterward.
The witch rummaged through her mind to quickly recall what she had done.
“B-before I killed her… I was trying to use her. But I couldn’t! I couldn’t do it! The guys who were supposed to bring the saint to me died for some reason! The saint must have done something!”
The head and the boy remained silently seated, but the witch spoke as if the two had blades at her throat.
“Yeah, I did hurt her a little to make her obey. But that’s the end of it! I really couldn’t lay a finger on her!”
“….”
The two sitting in the chairs stared at the witch silently for a while before finally nodding as if they believed her.
“That’s good to hear.”
The witch finally breathed a sigh of relief at the Inquisition head’s words but then—
“However, that doesn’t change the fact that you attacked the saint. Your custody will now be handled by our Inquisition. Even if you’re under the Demon God now, the fact that you were a heretic remains.”
“….”
She had no words to oppose that.
“It’s the saint’s will. Now that you’ve returned as one of the faithful, you must comply. Well, technically, there’s no option for you not to comply.”
As he said this, the head of the Inquisition glanced toward the boy.
“Do you have something you want to say?”
“…No.”
It was a concise answer, but inside that conciseness clearly lay a lot of unspoken words, the witch thought as she trembled.
*
“Ah, by the way, where do we send the collected samples? Do we send them to the government as usual?”
After washing up and changing back into my usual clothes, I slumped in a chair at the accommodation and asked, and Aurora answered right away.
“There are requests from the government, and basically, weapon development is led by the government, so we plan to send samples there.”
To there?
Does that mean some are sent elsewhere?
Seeing my expression, Aurora seemed to understand what I wanted to ask. No, it seemed like her sentence hadn’t ended yet.
“There are people researching related fields within the Church too. Although they’re few, there are Gnomes researching both magic and engineering.”
“Gnomes?”
The setup was that they were a peculiar race obsessed with engineering based on physical laws rather than magic, but it seemed they had now become a race fond of both magic and engineering as reality setting in. Well, given that hundreds of years can change things, it’s understandable that fields of interest might change a bit.
“Gnomes, huh. There’s going to be quite a commotion.”
Linea murmured like that.
“Commotion? Why?”
“Gnomes… they have a bit of a quirky side. It doesn’t matter if they’re outside or inside the Church. Thanks to that, their scientific abilities are excellent, but…”
Linea responded to my question.
“I haven’t met them directly, but I’ve heard they are incredibly smart people who research within the Church. It was those guys who proposed making the holy sword….”
“The holy sword?”
I reacted in surprise to the unexpected fact, and Linea nodded.
“Even now, holy water is still precious, but in the past, when the concept of holy power wasn’t established, and faith had not yet spread, those who could produce holy water were even more precious. So holy water itself was a very rare resource, and most of it was used for treating the injured. However, during that time, after seeing the quality of holy water produced by humans, one Gnome proposed to use it to temper a sword.”
I had never heard this before. I had set it up that swords could be made using holy water, but I hadn’t thought about the origin of that concept.
Seeing that I was interested, Linea continued her story.
“Naturally, most people opposed it. Those who survived were modern individuals living under a broken civilization, and only a few made swords by hammering iron. Moreover, tempering a sword with water is much harder than doing it with oil. They thought they could end up losing both holy water and not being able to make swords. After all, using guns or cannons in battle was far more stable even back then.”
“But ultimately, they succeeded, right?”
When I asked, thinking about the holy swords carried by knights, Linea smiled and nodded.
“Yes, and so it became the method used traditionally up to now. Of course, the technology itself has continued to evolve, and the craftsmen have increased, as have the tools, so the quality, speed, and quantity of the holy swords made now are vastly different from those in the early days, but even now, what was called the holy sword back then is still referred to as such. Some of the Gnomes who were enchanted by the holy swords completed in that era even came into the Church, and the tradition continues to this day.”
And of course, there have been Gnomes who regularly came into the Church afterward.
They definitely do come off as quirky when you listen to them.
A race obsessed with new technology.
… After hearing this, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that the enormous artillery from the WWII battleships outside was likely made by Gnomes who had read human history.
Ah, is this racial prejudice?
“Well, if they’re that sort of people, they’ll make good use of it.”
Worrying about it is pointless; the samples have already been taken.
Such things should be left entirely to the experts who know how to handle them well. I won’t be the one to go, “Ah, this is ○○” while trying to make guns and cannons in the medieval era.
I looked out the window. Soldiers and Church troops were bustling about everywhere. They were advancing under solid defense while receiving ample fire support, and the elite knights of the Church were facing the demons and beasts head-on, so the damage to our side was minimal. The first thing they destroyed was also the largest magic point.
The few injured that did arise were all healed by me afterward, so no one would argue even if I claimed it was a perfect game.
Though the sky was darkening.
… If things go on like this, I’ll really struggle to stay awake in class tomorrow.
Experiencing a rare mixture of pride and despair, I looked up at the sky.
*
Perhaps because of constantly being caught up in intense incidents, or maybe because people eventually become numb over time regardless of what they experience, I was able to smoothly reintegrate into school life without any issues.
The Inquisition was doing a good job of squeezing information out of the witch, and presumably, the research on the samples was also going well.
Especially with research, it’s better not to rush too much. It’s only been two weeks since we caught the witch, so it’s too early to expect results. If they’re making potions, they need to study the side effects, and if they’re making weapons, they must consider defect rates and malfunctions.
While chasing down the witch was indeed rewarding, it was also a seriously exhausting ordeal for mind and body. No matter how tolerable the pain was, I didn’t want to experience the discomfort of something entering my body and the sensation of blood dripping down.
To be honest, it’s creepy.
After all, the most precious part of an academy story probably comes from the ordinary everyday events that happen at the academy.
Peace really is the best. Hmm.
As I was basking in the rare sense of tranquility and gazing at the clear blue sky outside, Seo-A entered the room. It seemed it was already time for the morning assembly.
“…Oh?”
However, unlike usual, Seo-A wasn’t alone this time.
Following Seo-A was a small girl with dark brown hair. It looked like the peeled shell of a thorny fruit seen in the night. Her hair was braided back, and she had a somewhat youthful appearance with an incredibly lively impression. Whatever was amusing her, her face sparkled with a bright smile.
…Hmm, on closer inspection, it wasn’t just that she looked young. What to say, just calling her a child doesn’t seem right; there was something different about her vibe, as if she looked a year or two younger than us… something enigmatic.
“We should introduce her first, right? It’s sudden, but this girl is Roni, who’s transferring to our academy starting today. Now, let’s have her introduce herself!”
At that, murmurs erupted among the students. Everyone looked puzzled. “A kid like that? Sure, most here are around 15 years old, so they can still be considered young, but that girl is… huh, now that I think about it, she doesn’t seem that young after all.”
Still, she looked a couple of years younger, probably middle school age?
“Yes!”
The girl answered enthusiastically with a bright smile, raising one hand high as she walked to Seo-A’s desk before disappearing behind the podium. A mild laugh arose in the classroom. It was a warm sound, not from something ridiculous, but from seeing something cute.
However, the soft laughter was drowned out by a weeing mechanical sound.
Like a giant robot rising from the depths of a swimming pool, Roni’s face popped up above the podium.
“…”
Uh, was I supposed to laugh?
As I pondered seriously, the girl opened her mouth.
“I am Roni from the 11th District Academy! I was so surprised to see the samples sent by the saint that I applied for a transfer! I’ll be here in this academy until the saint graduates, so please treat me well, fellow students!”
And she delivered a self-introduction that completely didn’t match her words.
Uh…
Ah, right, I nearly forgot.
They said many Gnomes were quirky.
So, her small stature is not due to being young but rather a racial trait.
Looking at her staring at me as though lasers were firing from her eyes, it felt like the brief tranquility shattered with a resounding crash.
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