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They received a report from the Missionary Order on the frontier, sent with the utmost urgency. It wasn’t brought by a messenger bird, but by a light-armored knight traveling as quickly as he could on horseback—something important enough for him to risk attack by demigods or xenobeasts along the way to deliver. The head of the Missionary Order, Walt Dickson, immediately sought an audience with the Dominus Doctrinae.
Walt ordered the exhausted knight to change into more presentable clothing, and then the two headed to the Great Cathedral to see Justin Chambers. There...
“...Your Holiness?” Walt frowned, stopping in place.
Justin looked exactly as he always had, and the interior of the Great Cathedral hadn’t changed, either. But there was something else there, something Walt hadn’t seen before.
“Father?”
The speaker was a young girl. Fifteen or sixteen years old, perhaps. Short, even a bit of baby fat here and there. And she was standing right next to Justin’s chair.
She had shoulder-length silver hair and crimson eyes, along with glasses—a vision aid that was catching on in the capital. It all gave her a distinctive appearance.
“Who are these people?”
She pointed at Walt, who found himself at a loss. Who was this girl, exactly? Justin Chambers wasn’t supposed to be married. There were rumors that he was involved with some alchemist woman—but even if that had been true, and even if their union had produced a child, he would never have had the audacity to have her attend him in the Church’s central cathedral.
“Captain,” the knight asked with a look of bafflement. “What in the world...?”
“Curiosity can kill more than just the cat,” Walt told him, pushing aside his own questions. There were some things he didn’t need to think about. He just had to do his duty.
“Captain Dickson,” Justin said. “I hear we have an urgent message.” He completely ignored the child’s question, as if to say that the girl calling him “father” didn’t exist.
“Yes, Your Holiness,” Walt said, falling to one knee. “I’ve come with the report.” The knight accompanying him imitated his gesture. “As a matter of fact, two of the civilizing expedition units stationed in Aldreil, the Ninth Brigade and the Seventh Brigade, have sent a message that’s difficult to believe. Shockingly, they report that we’ve lost two of our guardian saint statues.”
“The statues...?” Justin narrowed his eyes ever so slightly. Perhaps he was surprised, and it was no wonder. To lose two statues at a single stroke should not have been possible. They were the Church’s ultimate weapons, capable of felling an erdgod. A successful attack on even one of them would require a hundred soldiers, and half of them would die in the attempt.
“What was the cause?” Justin asked.
“It was—Go on, tell His Holiness.” Walt gestured to the missionary beside him. The man bowed his head once more, then began to explain about the place where the problem had occurred—a frontier village called Friedland.
He told how this town had been reported as successfully converted by the Sixth Missionary Brigade, but how it now appeared that the Sixth Brigade’s guardian saint statue had also been destroyed. He spoke of how Friedland seemed to be turning into a center of anti-Church sentiment, and he told how there was someone there who was venerated as a god. Most importantly, he said...
“Eyewitnesses to the battle claim that the ‘Blasphemer of Blue Steel’ was there...!”
The words sent a shock of anxiety through Walt. The Church considered that name taboo, and although a handful of people above a certain station did know about it, simply mentioning the Blasphemer could get you into serious trouble.
Walt thought this might provoke displeasure, or anger, from Justin. The current Dominus could not be happy to suddenly hear the name of the Bluesteel Blasphemer. But...
“Is that so? Is that so indeed?”
Justin didn’t shout or snarl, but a thin smile twisted his lips.
“Your Holiness—”
“So that’s where he’s been hiding...” Justin nodded eagerly, then looked at the girl beside him.
“Father...?” The unidentified child cocked her head. It almost seemed she didn’t understand the meaning of the conversation she’d just heard.
“Be joyful,” Justin said in a gentle tone. “It seems the day has come for you to fulfill the reason for your existence.”