The journey to the Holy Kingdom surprisingly wrapped up quickly.
On the way, some minor abominations and demon beasts popped up, but they were no big deal. They ran away with just a bit of my aura being released.
The real problem started now.
It was time to sneak into the Holy Kingdom.
But no matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t come up with a way to stealthily enter the Holy Kingdom.
And why would I?
The only entrance to the Holy Kingdom was a gate right in the middle of the massive wall surrounding it.
And that gate was heavily guarded with strict inspections.
If it were just Elly, it probably wouldn’t have mattered much.
But the issue was Velly being part of our group. She was none other than the Saint of the Holy Kingdom. There’s no way there wasn’t anyone in the Kingdom who didn’t recognize her face. Even if we managed to gag the Holy Knights, it was certain that the Demon God would sense something amiss.
Naturally.
My idea of breaking through the wall was dismissed.
Setting aside whether I could actually break through, if I revealed my power at this distance, the Demon God would undoubtedly notice.
I was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
We had arrived at our destination, but were in a vague situation where we couldn’t get in.
Just when I was deep in thought.
The Saint manipulated the cart and headed towards a deep part of the forest.
It was a forest right next to the wall.
However, since it was quite a detour from the main gate, there wasn’t a person to be seen around.
[Where is this?]
“This is my escape route.”
Saying this, the Saint released her divine aura onto the seemingly ordinary ground. Immediately, with a rumbling sound, a hidden passageway opened up.
It was quite an intricate tunnel.
The connected caves were so smooth that it looked like they had some kind of coating, and the endless, massive tunnel was emitting a soft glow.
I could tell that everything was made of divine energy.
‘Did she coat the tunnel with divine energy and make it glow?’
Using the brightly shining properties of divine energy.
She had polished the excavated tunnel with divine energy and installed softly glowing divine energy at various points throughout the tunnel.
That wasn’t surprising in itself.
But the scale of the tunnel was beyond imagination.
“W-What on earth…?”
As we entered what looked like a narrow tunnel, we found ourselves in a vast cavern.
Just how much effort did it take to make this?
Divine energy took on masterful forms, imitating furniture you’d find in a house, and even in one corner of the cavern, there was a small pond.
“This was originally made to avoid the Pope’s gaze. Life was too harsh just to live under his scrutiny, so I created this secret hideout for myself.”
Not just any secret hideout, if you ask me.
There was an excessive amount of divine energy illuminating the cavern.
This was no amount that could be made in just a day or two, even if one were the Saint, a representative of the deity.
It must have taken an incredibly long time.
It was clear that she had put in a tremendous amount of effort over the years.
Heck, she even had to avoid the Pope’s watchful eye.
As if she could read my doubts, the Saint nodded readily.
“That’s right, it took about ten years to make this. But it was somewhat fun. I needed something to focus all my energy into back then.”
The Saint said this with a bittersweet smile, as if reminiscing about the past.
The reason for that was painfully obvious.
Elly and I fell silent.
We didn’t have anything to say.
We couldn’t empathize with what she had gone through, so any superficial consolation might just end up mocking her.
Velly looked at us and then broke into a bright smile.
“It’s all in the past now, so it doesn’t matter much. And do you know what the super important news is?”
[What is it?]
“It’s that… this tunnel is connected to the underground of the Holy Kingdom!”
[……!!]
That unexpected news made my eyes widen in surprise, and Velly continued explaining joyfully.
“For some reason, the Pope was extremely afraid of the underground of the Holy Kingdom. As a kid, I couldn’t understand why he was so scared, but thinking back, it seems he feared the Goddess.”
Since the Pope was a traitor.
It made sense for him to fear the underground, where the Goddess’s power was believed to be strongest.
That was how the young Saint was able to slip from the Pope’s surveillance and find a temporary place to rest.
That place was this one.
“Around the time I came underground, I got a bit greedy. I was curious about what the outside of the Holy Kingdom looked like.”
So she dug.
She completed a tunnel that led to outside of the Holy Kingdom over ten years.
For the young Saint, that was hard work.
But with the power of the very Goddess she hated, it wasn’t impossible.
Velly smiled brightly.
“When I was young, I often sighed, wondering what on earth I was doing. Ultimately, it turned out to be a good thing!”
[Good job.]
“Hehe.”
I crawled over and patted Velly on the head.
As if that was enough.
The Saint smiled brightly, fitting for her age.
Clap!
The sound of applause gathered attention.
Elly felt the gaze on her and shouted.
“Okay! Now shall we hurry and finish this?”
“Sure.”
[Yeah, let’s get it done quickly.]
In the end, all we needed to do was present the Goddess’s token in the underground of the Holy Kingdom, and that would be that.
I enlarged my size a bit more.
A snake that would originally be the size of a palm was now big enough to easily carry two adult women.
“Can you really get that big?”
[Yeah, now that I’m moving around like this, I’ve learned a bit about how to handle my body.]
More precisely.
I had figured out how to disperse my aura into nature.
Normally, the divine energy flowing through nature couldn’t be perfectly dissipated by any means. If there were any beings of a similar deity level, they would inevitably sense the faint divine energy quietly existing in nature.
So, during the journey in this cart.
What I focused on was scattering my divine energy.
If I went below a certain size, I would inherently have to scatter the divine energy into nature, so I researched how to completely hide the residual traces of divine energy.
The result was successful.
I was able to perfectly merge with nature and divine energy.
At this point, even if it were the Demon God, it would be hard for them to notice.
[Let’s go.]
Carrying both of them, I moved slowly.
The enormous tunnel was so long that it was hard to fathom how deep it went. It’s no wonder Velly said it took ten years.
It was astonishing to think that the Saint had excavated such a massive tunnel.
I cautiously advanced.
I didn’t want to give any meaningful information to the Demon God by speeding up unnecessarily.
Technically, this was the ‘remnant’ of the Demon God, and compared to the original, it was likely a far inferior existence. However, even so, the innate detection abilities of the Demon God and their wariness towards me would still likely be present, so I moved as cautiously as possible.
The cave was silent.
Naturally, a tunnel dug underground wouldn’t be noisy, but it wasn’t just that simple.
[…It’s quiet.]
“Yeah?”
At my words, Velly tilted her head.
Of course.
Such a tunnel wouldn’t be noisy.
But it was strange for me to find it ‘quiet.’
My senses had already transcended the norms of the world.
Without constraints of the laws that formed the world, I could hear the happenings on the opposite side of the planet.
With a simple gesture, I could sweep away the world.
The reason I couldn’t do that was due to the countless contingencies that made it impossible in this world.
Even the primordial deities couldn’t casually manipulate the contingencies that made up this world.
The reason the Demon God wasn’t currently materializing in the human realm was also due to this. This world was intricately structured.
Interconnections that bind one to another.
Treaties made to protect the planet were shining brightly.
Therefore.
I usually kept my senses highly restricted.
But even that limited perception defies ordinary common sense.
That’s why I felt this sense of alienation.
It was certain that the magical barrier surrounding the Holy Kingdom had something to do with it.
A divine protection existed in the wall.
I thought that because of the presence of that wall, I was unable to hear anything.
But now.
As I burrowed deeper.
And now that I was nearing the core of the Holy Kingdom.
I could hear absolutely nothing.
The laughter of children that should be ringing out, the sounds of merchants buying and selling goods, the prayers offered by people looking at the Goddess’s statue.
All those sounds.
Were suffocated in a silence that felt like noise was erased.
What existed was a stifling stillness.
[…Proceed with caution.]
“……”
“……”
Finally, realizing my intent, the two gulped.
Something strange was happening.
Recognizing this fact while passing through the endless tunnel, we finally passed through the transparent wall that the Saint had stealthily made.
“Ah….”
What lay beyond was.
Endless darkness.
A pitch-black, without form, presence smeared the vast underground, causing even the Goddess’s statue to crumble into the abyss.
The remnant of the Demon God was nowhere to be seen.
Where he had gone was indicated by the shattered gates above.
And by the sticky, tar-like black ooze.
The Demon God was not targeting us.
Rather, it was the opposite.
With the Goddess’s power now vanished, what he aimed for was the ‘Holy Kingdom’ itself.
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