Gargle gargle I bet I’m the only one who uses holy water for gargling.
Hmm… Besides, it seems like I made this holy water myself. It’s been almost a month; is it still okay? I mean, holy water has sterilizing properties, so it should be fine… right?
With this sturdy body of mine, I wouldn’t die just from eating something spoiled a little bit.
I was almost clinging to Jian—no, to be exact, I was being carried along with him—but Rina isn’t as immensely strong as Jian, and she was about my height, so I couldn’t cling to her as much.
At least I think drinking holy water helped me a bit, as I regained some strength in my weak legs, so having Rina support me was enough.
Even after meeting Rina and Andrea, Jian was still focused on creating the path. Blasting away the narrow space where Rina and Andrea came from caused the walls to reappear, and he continued to smash through them… It appears he doesn’t get tired. But if he does get tired, that would be a problem, too.
“What’s his deal?”
Looking at Jian, Rina asked incredulously, but I was curious about the answer as well. Who knows, maybe he’s the protagonist of this world. I mean, I designed him as the protagonist. And he’s the strongest in this worldview…
It’s quite funny that even we, using the strongest protagonist’s sword energy like a bulldozer.
“Ah.”
Rina, following behind Jian, suddenly muttered, “I think I found it.”
“Huh?”
When I asked back, Rina smirked.
“I suspect a witch is nearby.”
“…You can tell that?”
“What kind of question is that… Never mind.”
After letting out a long sigh, Rina spoke to Jian.
“I think it’s right ahead. Be careful when you blow it up.”
As she said that, Rina simply pointed to the wall in front of Jian with her little finger.
“Can’t you just blow it all away at once?”
Jian grinned and made a joke. Hmm, that doesn’t really suit him. Isn’t it more fitting for him to charm the witch into his harem instead? Of course, I hope he doesn’t do that. It’s not like he’d have any reason to.
“I’m just checking something.”
“I want to see too. The last witch was far away.”
“You said you couldn’t even exchange a single blow.”
“I just want to see if that fear still lingers.”
“Ha, well, fine. Do as you like…”
With Andrea’s steel-like response, Rina let out another sigh, and this time turned her face toward me.
“Don’t do anything foolish. I think he can handle this alone.”
“Are you worried about me?”
“What are you talking about?”
When I asked with a grin, Rina shot me an annoyed look. If she really were a tsundere, she’d be blushing as she said that! Of course, I knew that if I said such a thing, Rina would just throw me out without hesitation, so I kept that thought to myself.
“By the way, doesn’t it feel like the obstacles are piling up much slower than before? We’re right in front of them.”
“Maybe they’re trying not to get spotted being here. Or—”
While Rina was speaking, a bang! resounded from afar. It wasn’t as strong as Jian swinging his sword, but it sounded like something was exploding.
Hearing that sound, I could guess who it was. It was likely Selena finally coming to her senses. She must’ve unleashed some magic.
“I knew it.”
At least this time, what Jian said sounded very protagonist-like.
“Does that mean you didn’t trust me?”
As Rina smiled wryly and asked, Jian chuckled briefly.
“I’m just looking for the more urgent matters first.”
“……”
Rina glared at him, as if to say, ‘Then how did you know to come here?’ but Jian just turned his gaze away without answering.
Once again, a bang! echoed from afar. She must be really angry now. What in the illusion did she see? Well, it must be something related to Jian. Anyway, thanks to that, it seems the attention was diverted elsewhere. While Jian’s sword strikes are powerful, they shoot straight ahead, but Selena’s explosive magic has a broader range.
If it were a solid steel wall, that could make sense, but piling up obstacles should be almost impossible to block. Now that Selena woke up, the others should have started to regain their senses too. If the Paladin is back to his senses, the witch must be in chaos as well. Not to mention, the worst problem is coming straight for us.
“Well, as long as the results are good, it’s all good. Let’s just finish this quickly. I feel like my clothes will start to stink soon!”
Nodding vigorously at Rina’s words, Jian smirked.
Then, with a firm grip on his sword, he said, “Alright then, here I go.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, he struck down toward the pile of obstacles.
Crack! The obstacles cracked as he struck them. The sight was decidedly different from before, confirming that what lay behind was not something to be taken lightly. With every slash he made, cracks began sprawling across the randomly piled objects, and eventually, with Jian’s final swing, it all shattered completely.
“Eeek!”
A small sound came from beyond the crumbled wall.
That wasn’t exactly a sound a witch would make.
“Hmm…”
The first to react was Andrea. She seemed entranced as she stared at her own trembling hands. They quivered as if she were a child who climbed to great heights.
“Indeed, this ‘sensation’ isn’t something I can control at will.”
Clenching her fists, Andrea muttered.
The fear that humans feel when they see a witch or demons is instinctual. Unless they remain in close proximity to it long enough to completely numb that sensation, it’s impossible to suppress it. That’s the premise.
The reason deeply devout people sometimes become witches by crossing to the demon side is that they instinctively feel that fear and then develop a sense of awe.
In this world, while demons exist, gods do not, and no matter how deep one’s faith runs, unless they die or are in a catatonic state from witnessing a god, they rarely get a chance to feel that instinctive awe—where their body and face exude light, and they see the divine nature in them, to be more precise, the idea of ‘seeing.’
Thus, while it’s extremely rare, some pious individuals switch over to the demon side. Of course, in modern times, encountering a ‘real demon’ is a near-impossible situation.
Honestly, this was a setup I threw in while pondering how to express the witch’s overpowering presence in words. Conversely, for the goddess’s presence, I was also pondering how to depict the grandeur of the protagonist upon being chosen by the goddess. Now, I’m using that setup.
Thus, the sensations felt from seeing a witch, a demon, or a god cannot be felt beyond a recorded screen. Just as it’s hard to feel fear when watching footage shot from a high cliff or beyond the sky on TV.
In that sense, Cardinal Kwon In-Soo, who didn’t lose any bad feelings even after witnessing the goddess’ descent, is an incredibly unique case. Maybe it’s because I blatantly marked him as a ‘petty villain’ or something.
So, it’s only natural that Jian’s sword tip is quaking a bit too. After all, he’s still human.
Ironically, the witch wedged in that corner seems to be trembling even more than Jian.
That has to be a witch, right?
The witch, cloaked in black mana without a separate outfit, didn’t look too much older than us. At least she appeared considerably younger than the suspicious witch from last time. Although she still looked like an adult.
“Don’t come any closer! Stay back!”
Screaming like that, the witch sent magic our way. Several thick spears of magic, capable of easily piercing human heads, flew toward us, but they all disappeared midway.
The light from my outstretched right hand extinguished the mana in the air as if to nullify it. My hand, still wearing a slightly dirty white glove, remained extended in front of me.
The magic circles drawn on the glove shimmered softly. Oh, so this is how it works.
“You—”
“Nothing to worry about. This level won’t break.”
There was no deception in my words. It’s a miracle, but I’ve used it once—actually, I haven’t. I’ve only used it when praying while holding Rina’s hand. Everything else was mostly Ariel using my body to perform magic.
Well, considering that even when Ariel entered the funeral hall, my body didn’t break down, and later, when she descended again, she still managed to use her powers inside me for a while before the damage occurred, this level of miracle was within the permissible range.
As I said before, I have gloves on my hands. While it might be impossible to kill a witch in one go like last time, it should definitely be achievable without hurting those around me.
“Eeek!”
Seeing that her attack had no effect, Jealousy shrank further back into a corner, tearing at her hair.
“Why, why, why, how can this be… I clearly had a perfect plan. I investigated and prepared thoroughly. How did it end up like this?”
…Yet, her being a witch responsible for a faction of the demon army didn’t change how strange it was that she was falling apart like this. Her supposed preparations were incredibly sloppy. After all, if there were demons around, it might have been understandable. Did she think that even if they existed, they wouldn’t be useful, so she didn’t bring any?
Or perhaps, true to the Jealous Witch’s nature, she felt jealousy toward her subordinates and didn’t want them around her?
“That’s right.”
Rina muttered as she gazed intently at the witch.
“Did you notice something?”
Rina flicked her gaze at Andrea, but then reluctantly began to speak as if she didn’t want to share.
“You asked how I knew to come here, right? I followed the scent.”
“Scent? You can track something with a specific scent? Then can’t it be tracked by scouting beasts too?”
“Who are you comparing me to, a beast? The scent I mean isn’t something you can just smell with your nose. It’s a magical instinct. Obviously, a simple animal wouldn’t cut it.”
Rina continued to observe the still mumbling witch.
“I thought the scent was too faint. If it were demons or beasts, it should have a much stronger smell, yet the scent I detected while coming here was faint, almost like an echo. It wasn’t a smell coming from something as powerful as a living mass of mana. Rather,”
As Rina began to take a few steps toward the witch, realizing I was beside her, she clicked her tongue in annoyance. Why? I glared at Rina, but she didn’t bother replying, continuing her explanation.
“What can I say, it seems there’s a lingering scent. Anyway, before coming in, and even now, while standing right in front of the witch, I’ve sensed that lingering smell. It feels like someone who shouldn’t normally emit that kind of scent is giving it off. To be more precise—”
Rina looked around. She wasn’t looking to find people but instead gazed at the piled-up objects. Then her gaze fell on the witch’s room. The area where the witch was hiding had been cleaned and organized very neatly compared to the rest of this underground section.
Oh, it was clean, but it just wasn’t to my taste. The cleaning was impeccable, but it looked more like a princess’s room. Not one styled in actual historical fashion, but rather a hastily decorated, pink-laden little girl’s room wanting to become a princess.
Fortunately, only one type of scent wafted from within. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it smelled like flowers. That softly wafting floral scent pushed away the lingering stench outside, making it easier to breathe.
“Right, it’s like perfume. It feels like someone sprinkled perfume here. The scent I perceived isn’t the smell of ‘demons,’ but rather the ‘demonic mana’ scent bestowed upon you by the demon. Am I wrong?”
“Eek…!”
Seeing the witch react angrily to Rina’s words confused me. Why on earth would she get angry over that?
Rina’s deduction seemed perfectly reasonable. After all, witches wield enormous power adapted from their living human bodies. It’s through that mana that they create mana points and can even conjure demons.
Due to that mana, they could continue to live without aging or dying, persistently tormenting people.
If you think about it, it’d make sense to take pride in being a chosen human by the demons. How the other demons perceive that hasn’t been specified, so hearing about it through Rina had a refreshing effect.
“You! What do you know! I’m a witch! A witch that everyone should fear! The demons personally blessed me! What do you lowly demons understand to make such assumptions! You’ve never even seen the demon lord’s face, have you!”
Yet Rina’s words seemed to have triggered a switch in her. Seeing her come unhinged and ranting was almost pitiful now. Though, at the end of the day, she was still a witch and an entity that had killed many people throughout her existence.
Ah wait, if Rina is a demon—
While I thought that, I looked around. Andrea’s expression hadn’t changed, nor did Jian show any reaction. Both were hardly what you’d call ‘ordinary people,’ so their indifference seemed hardly surprising.
Still, I felt a bit disheartened that not a single person seemed shocked at all.
“Right, I’m just a lowly demon born from the witch’s hand. This is the first time I’m seeing a witch up close. But demons born from witches tend to resemble them in some way. Since I’m born from ‘Doubt,’ I’m fairly smart. I can manage decent grades without studying. Right?”
“Eh? Ah, yeah…”
As if mocking, or perhaps relishing in the rare occurrence of joy, Rina suddenly turned to me and asked, and I answered reflexively because it was true. After all, I was the type of character who could get decent scores without studying, despite just playing around.
“But you see, I’m actually more similar to demons. I’m a being born solely from a mass of mana from start to finish. The essence of me differs greatly from that of you, who wraps yourself in human flesh and pretends to be a demon.”
“Eeek…!”
Ah, now I get it.
The Jealous Witch, quite literally the witch of ‘Jealousy’. Bearing the amplified jealousy in her mind means she envies others’ strengths more than focusing on her own. Moreover—this witch even feels jealous of lesser beings like demons and beasts.
That’s because they’re closer to the beings she venerates and worships, the demons.
Demons are beings formed from enormous, naturally occurring masses of mana. Their essence inherently differs from normal living creatures. Conversly, demons and beasts are the products of artificial mana—like the difference between humans and animals. While they are smaller in scale and hence cannot give birth to demons,
Well, even if it were possible, they wouldn’t purposely make one. Just as humans don’t create other humans, high-minded demons wouldn’t desire to corrupt their divinity.
Humans have some resistance to mana, unlike elves who are more vulnerable to it. However, they also have no resistance against holy power. Thus, one of the results of wanting to absorb and counteract that which opposes them—the holy powers—led to witches being born.
However, because their core is fundamentally human, they can never become demons. No matter how much mana they receive directly from demons or how much their bodies transform, as long as they are born human, they will remain human until their last breath. That’s their destiny, just like how Rina can never be human.
“Now I understand why there are no high-ranking demons. They’d only feel jealousy. However, beyond that, demons would have no reason to intertwine with humans. Did you kill someone? They must utterly despise you. Was it that they wanted to monopolize their kind?”
“I’ll kill you…… I’ll kill you……”
If you casually let slip that fact, a person might end up dead.
Though the Jealous Witch was hurling a barrage of attacks like a lunatic, of course, none of them could land. The mana the witch wielded was the antithesis of holy power. Even though the witch wasn’t very affected by holy power, that likely made her angrier.
“……”
We silently looked down at the witch. Her figure, huddled on the ground and sobbing, appeared very miserable. The pleasant scent wafting from the room was in stark contrast with that sight, creating a sense of dissonance.
But I felt no sympathy. It was one thing she had called us to kill, yet it was unforgivable to use unconsenting children who hadn’t even reached adulthood for that purpose. Even though I’m not particularly noble, I’ve always thought that ‘there are lines you shouldn’t cross.’
“……”
We exchanged glances. Though we didn’t communicate verbally, we all understood what needed to be done next.
Jian raised his sword silently, but Andrea grabbed his arm.
“I’ll handle this.”
If someone were to ask why, it’s undoubtedly because Andrea likely thought Jian appeared too young. In terms of setup, she’s very concerned about right and wrong.
Jian lowered his hand without a word. Andrea smiled lightly at him, drew her holy sword, and approached the witch’s side. I extended my hand toward them, ready to act at any fleeting moment’s notice, for Andrea’s neck could be severed if I missed it.
Andrea slightly nodded at me, but still trembling, continued to take tiny steps toward the witch, who was still trying to retreat into the corner.
Finally, when neither had room to escape, without a moment’s hesitation, Andrea swung her holy sword.
Oh?
A stunned voice escaped from the Jealous Witch’s lips. Moments ago, on the verge of losing her head to that mad zealot, I could clearly feel the ‘touch’ of being threatened
“Eeek, eeek!”
The Jealous Witch groped at her neck with both hands. But it was still intact; there were no wounds.
“I-I’m alive?”
Muttering as such, the witch raised her head.
And she came face-to-face with a solemn sight. Intricate carvings engraved on a colossal pillar. Delicately detailed, to the point she doubted if it could even exist. Those elegant carvings covered an endless corridor that seemed to have no bounds.
Surely, this must not have been crafted by mere mortals.
It was almost like—
“No, unfortunately, you did not survive. Although you did live significantly longer than others.”
That sudden voice made her jump. She hadn’t forgotten the unhinged Saintess, still lingering in her mind like a nightmare. The woman standing there, lacking any outward hatred towards the demon, was using miracles while glued to its side.
A figure so beautiful and young, one that made her not want to let live—
However, when she turned to look, there stood someone entirely different.
A beautiful woman with golden hair, one she had never seen before in her life. Upon laying her eyes on the woman clad in a neat blue outfit, the Jealousy Witch’s jaw dropped.
No, she didn’t feel jealousy.
The sense of awe overpowered the jealousy that had just held her soul captive seconds ago.
The sensation of overwhelming, fear, terror, powerlessness— coupled with reverence.
The sensations she felt when first meeting the demonic beings.
Yet from this woman, she felt relief and comfort, warmth, and alongside that, the same reverence.
Jealousy had a feeling she knew who this woman was.
But the mana that had enshrouded her was already gone. Only after realizing that did Jealousy properly grasp the situation.
Ah, I’m dead.
With that realization, Jealousy fell to her knees before the goddess, and bowed her head in apologies.
“P-please forgive me…”
“For what do you seek forgiveness?”
Warm and gentle, devoid of any fury, the goddess’s voice asked.
“I denied you… I was deceived by evil beings, unable to believe in your power…”
“Evil beings…”
The goddess softly murmured.
Jealousy swallowed hard. After a silence that felt long, she felt a hand come to rest upon her head.
“I forgive you. I shall grant you my forgiveness.”
Tears welled up in Jealousy’s eyes. Having not shed any tears in hundreds of years, a torrent emerged as she regretted her life. She had once lived for others. Even if unacknowledged, she believed that helping someone was the raison d’être of miracles.
But that fleeting thought was abruptly halted at the moment she began to feel jealousy toward others.
There was a woman who sold her body. But that woman used the money she earned to save children and keep them alive. Despite being dragged to church and tortured with cruel whips, she never lost her faith, only to die after later performing miracles.
A Saintess born from the back alley. Jealousy had ultimately killed that woman who had valiantly lived through her own plight.
Even as she was dying in Jealousy’s hand, she still worked miracles that saved many people, and ultimately forgave Jealousy before closing her eyes.
“I cannot punish one who has already been forgiven.”
The goddess’s hand removed itself from Jealousy’s head.
Now, she felt no jealousy. She felt empty. The figure that had been her origin kept on influencing her even in her twilight.
“But—your sins remain.”
The goddess spoke, her voice dipping into a darker tone.
Jealousy carefully raised her head.
“There are those who cannot forgive your sins.”
With her palm turned upward, the goddess gestured behind Jealousy.
Shaking in fear, Jealousy turned her head, only to see a man casually slouched in a chair.
He was an exceptionally handsome man. You could say he showcased great beauty. With raven black hair and a complexion that could be described as pale to the point of being ghostly. His red eyes sparkled. Even through his black suit, well-defined muscles were apparent.
“Yes, I cannot forgive you.”
Jealousy found it hard to breathe. Even though she was already dead, a fear gripped her body, which clamored for oxygen.
This sensation felt similar to that of when she first encountered the demons, only amplified hundreds of times.
Suddenly, Jealousy had an inkling of what that ‘thing’ could be.
“You do not even deserve to be here, but— I summoned you due to my will. Be thankful that you had a chance to be forgiven by the Goddess. That alone was your last joy.”
His tone was devoid of any openings or weaknesses.
“Do you know who I am?”
His voice curled around her, causing Jealousy to tumble her head to the ground.
“P-please forgive me…”
“Excuse me? I’m asking. Answer me.”
Shivering from head to toe, Jealousy forced herself to growl the words out.
“Y-you… are… the Demon God…!”
“Did you say my name?”
“Yes! Baal!”
“Correct, that is my name.”
The Demon God looked down upon Jealousy, who knelt before him with disdain.
“I am the creator of the very beings you thought were gods—”
Jealousy’s blood ran cold at his chilling voice.
“And I currently hold considerable divine status recognized by humans. While I don’t often intervene or grant revelations to anyone since I detest intruding,”
The Demon God smirked before continuing, “I felt like leaving you alone would lead you to keep wandering about aimlessly, so I decided to give you a hint. How does it feel to be a bit ‘divine’?”
“Pl-please forgive me…”
“Realizing your wrongs is indeed a good thing. After all, I learned a lot from Ariel.”
With a subtle smile directed at Ariel, he continued.
“However, although I may appear this way, I hold grudges. I cannot forgive you for attempting to kill two of my few apostles at once. Had you asked for forgiveness earlier, it would have made your final days much easier.”
All Jealousy could do was tremble silently.
“I mentioned it earlier. ‘That was your last joy.’ Truly so.”
Beyond trembling, she could do nothing else.
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