Ka-boooom—!
A wall of the cathedral made a huge rumbling noise as it collapsed.
Bright streams of the sun’s light crashed into the cathedral that had been shrouded in darkness.
And there, standing in the cloud of dust…
“Shiro!”
“Shiro, you came!”
…was our head maid, Shiro Katou.
“Impossible—the cathedral walls are supposed to be impenetrably thick!”
“Nothing can stop me from reaching my Master,” Shiro replied coldly as she looked down at the recoiling high priest. “I break down all barriers to reach him, as I was taught.”
Balancing on her left leg, she twirled her right, and with her special metallic-heeled boots—
“By my duty as a maid—I destroy anything in my way!!”
Ka-booooom—!
The whole wall appeared to blow up as Shiro smashed it with some kind of spinning kick.
“A-awesome…,” whispered Tsukasa and I, totally dumbfounded.
I felt my crotch shrink back as I witnessed the overwhelming power of Shiro’s kicks.
Th-thank goodness she wasn’t using her kicks during that game of tag…
Feeling relieved in more ways than one, I put aside the windows around us and stood up.
“Mister Akutooo! Miss Juuudge!” I heard the princess’s lively bubbly voice calling out to us. “We’re here to help, toooo!”
A pegasus carriage flew through the huge hole in the wall. There were a few people riding in it.
“I shall not allow intruders!”
The end of Gilvert’s whip headed for the carriage. However—
“You’re too predictable!”
—Shiro kicked it away in midair. I heard a sharp snap! as the whip fell to the ground like a wriggling snake.
“You dare attack Princess Ecstasia with a sacred artifact?!” Ileana growled from the carriage.
“I recommend the death sentence for the accused, Gilvert Trinity!”
“I-I’ve come this far… Perhaps it’s time to take some hostages!”
Gilvert and his whip still moved to act.
“I won’t let you do that! What’s so scary about some holy whip anyway?”
Before anyone could stop her, the Judge crawled over to the whip…
“Order…,” she shouted as she swung her right fist. “…in my court!”
Whump!
Gilvert let out an “eek!” One of the whips he held in his hand had been pinned to the floor by Tsukasa’s fist.
It’s been a while since I saw Tsukasa bang the gavel.
But I couldn’t believe that she was able to anchor down a sacred artifact with her bare hands. Her risky behavior made me hold my breath.
“Ha-ha! Did you forget I have one more Holy Scourge? I’ll simply take you as my hostage, judge!”
As he shouted, he moved to swing the Holy Scourge he held in his left hand…
…but he couldn’t move it.
“Wh-what are you doing, you dirty old man?!”
At his left—
“Goburo!”
Gobta’s father, and Lyra’s husband, was clinging strongly to his left arm.
“You hurt Lyra… You made her cry!”
Seeing what was going on from the pegasus carriage, Goburo had gotten down off it and made a beeline for Gilvert.
“Excuse me?!”
“Gobta and I were waiting all this time for her to come home!” Goburo was clinging to the high priest’s arm with his whole body. “I was the one who got addicted to games in the first place! I’m the one who made Lyra worried! It’s all my fault! I’ve wanted to apologize all this time!”
“You’re in my way! Get off of me!”
“You use other people like tools! You should…apologize…to Lyra…!”
“Silence, goblin scum!” Gilvert swung his left arm. “Don’t touch me! You’ll get your filthy green color all over me!”
The whip flailed and lashed at Goburo’s clothes. I could hear what sounded like Gobta shouting “Dad!” from up on the carriage.
“Apologize to Gobta! You tore apart a mother and son for this entire year!”
“Silence! I don’t give a damn! Who cares about some inconsequential goblin family?!”
Gilvert Trinity: Violation of Oath Detected
Suddenly, the Scales of Judgment started to move.
Punishment: Transform body so that it may never again stand in the courtroom
The high priest’s behavior had defied his oath to the scales.
The body of the descending scales began to grow sharp tentacle-like needles…
…and cut through the air toward Gilvert.
“Tch! C-Counter!”
But the holder of the Holy Scourges was unable to move them with Tsukasa and Goburo still latched onto them. With an “Eek!” all he could do was raise the whip’s handle in his hand as he tried to protect himself.
Clang—! A sound like metal on metal rang out.
The oldest sacred artifact and the newest clashed together, sending out sparks like blinding fireworks.
As my vision cleared, I saw that both Holy Scourges were lying on the floor of the arena.
“The oldest sacred artifact…”
I walked toward them. They had a kind of gloss like a piece of art from an ancient civilization. But they were alive.
Something was drawing me to them. I reached out my hand.
“Don’t touch them, you commoner!”
I ignored Gilvert’s words and knelt to take them into my hands…
And my vision went black.
Every nerve all over my body felt like it was being invaded by some foreign body. My pores were prickling.
Somewhere far away, I heard everyone’s voices…
“Akky!”
“Master!”
“Mr. Akuto!”
It felt like blood was spurting from the back of my head.
But my eyesight was still completely dark. I couldn’t tell what was happening to my body.
But…I’m still okay. I can take this!
I concentrated on the something flowing into my body through both my hands. I needed to understand this.
I sensed that if I couldn’t understand this, then there was no way for me to understand this world or its people.
“Pfft, ha-ha! You fool! Were you so drawn to this power that you now attempt to become its holder?! Go ahead and have your mana sucked away and die, then! Such power is not so simple to acquire!”
I shut out the grating sound from the outside.
In its place, the origin of everything started to come into view.
I saw the mana in the atmosphere. Still young, and sparse, and not yet adapted to this world.
Everything was rust red.
The world was covered in red rust, with no signs of abundance in sight. Lonely, and empty. A world in ruin.
This world, on the cusp of withering away, was about to change.
A flicker, then life began to grow.
The cycle of destruction and rebirth, sparked from what can only be assumed to be powerful forces from another world, repeats. Among this exists the Holy Scourge.
The Holy Scourge time after time held the existence called the Demon King in check. And eventually, humans began to prosper.
As they did the Demon King, humans feared the Holy Scourge, knelt down before it, and worshiped it. The oldest sacred artifact was passed down for three thousand years, vanquished innumerable monsters, and likewise put innumerable humans to death.
The whip was in complete control. It could humiliate every hole in the human body, or rend a mountain in two and bury a goblin village in an instant. I saw visions of all races crying out in suffering.
These scenes were from the Holy Scourges’ memories. They flowed without any concept of time. The amount of data was impossible for my brain to fully hold. Within all this was the memory of exchanges between the previous king and the high priest…
I want it.
I spoke the word:
“Acquire.”
The two Holy Scourges in my hands began to tremble with heat.
I felt invisible tentacles crawl through my veins and become one with me.
“Support.”
I chanted the word and visualized it. The veins throughout my body pulsed, and the Scourge naturally imitated their shape.
“I understand now. This truly is God’s scourge.”
The whip had taken the shape of a human vascular system of the same height as me. The figure, colored a reddish black, became a sort of human chair and held me up in the air as I sat on it. It was a flexible power. In that case…
“This mud…”
I extended the tip of the whip and dug it into the earth of the arena. Within the earth, I stretched out the whip again in the shape of my veins and again returned it to the surface.
“Fix it in place,” I commanded, holding the mud vertically in place.
The pillar of mud now standing in the middle of the arena didn’t move an inch. It looked sturdy enough to act as a stand-in pillar for a building.
“Our examination of evidence is complete. Basically anything is physically possible with this whip. We can acknowledge that much.”
A special power bestowed by God. With this in my possession, I felt like anything was possible.
“Akky… Your hair…!”
That made me realize.
I grabbed the hair at the front of my head. It had turned a beautiful white color, and it was hot, like my hair follicles were burning. I could tell my whole head of hair had turned white. I narrowed my eyes and saw my eyelashes looked white, too.
Tamamo and Goburo also gasped in surprise.
“Akuto, my boy…”
“Mr. Assistant…”
The back of my head was caked with blood. It must have been a strange sight along with my hair instantly turning white.
“I guess this was unavoidable in order to acquire it.”
But changing my hair color was a small price to pay in exchange for possessing the strongest of the sacred artifacts.
“R-ridiculous!” Gilvert cried, his voice trembling. “You say you’ve ‘acquired’ it?!”
Still sitting on my creepy human chair made in the shape of my own veins, I looked at the man with the same white hair as me.
“I get how you feel now. This really is a special power.”
In my left and right hands, I could feel my body getting used to the feel of the two Holy Scourges.
“Though I didn’t get to meet God, holding these things really does make you feel like you naturally belong above all other humans. Especially since that’s how you’ve treated it for these past three thousand years.”
“S-so you really…saw it, didn’t you? Those three thousand years, and the beginning of everything?!”
“Gilvert.”
I sat there, and he stood. I moved the human chair to come to eye level with him.
“So it’s okay for the holder of this thing to rule over other humans, right?”
As I spoke, I held out the handle of the whip to show him.
“Ah—so now you wish to become the proxy of God yourself?!”
The people around us began to murmur restlessly.