Angela Jindel had always hungered for something.
Born the daughter of a powerful noble family, blessed with both looks and intelligence, she had become used to being better than those around her from a very young age. Indeed, the people around her recognized it—even sought to put her ahead of themselves.
Angela’s mother, despite being a woman, had pushed aside her less competent brothers to take over headship of the Jindel house. She often seemed to look down even on her own husband, who took the Jindel name. Angela’s father never objected to this; he was less a partner than a servant to her mother. In noble society, where men were normally more valued and respected than women, this was very unusual—but Angela’s mother was made of stern enough stuff to make it possible.
With these people for parents, Angela naturally grew into a capable woman who refused to be bested by any man, and her achievements showed as much.
She had originally entered the Missionary Order of the True Church of Harris to bolster her reputation. She had to show that she wasn’t just smarter than the men around her; she could beat them in matters of war as well. Hence, Angela had studied the martial arts since she was a child, and once she joined the Order, she never showed any fear of battle, be it with barbarian tribes or erdgods, demigods, or xenobeasts.
But the converse of all this was that there was a constant thirst in Angela. Something was missing. Unfulfilled. The fact that she didn’t know what it was only increased her anxiety about it.
She believed that when she finally figured out what this thing was, it would turn out to be very simple, a blunt force rising up from within her, unyielding precisely because it was so obvious.
But if she continued as she was, she would never find it. That much, she knew. So Angela threw herself into her Church duties as if to forget the longing within her. She memorized the scriptures and proclaimed how wonderful they were to all who would listen. Everyone around her could only marvel at her fervent devotion.
In due course, she surpassed all those moronic men; in the blink of an eye, she was a vice captain. Of course, it helped that she came from a famous family such as the Jindels, but she was able to gain the position at the tender young age of twenty because of her own competence and intense effort.
When she opened her eyes, however, she was in a dark room. The decor could have been generously described as minimalist; bare stone walls were all she could see. The room was humid and smelled faintly of mold. She presumed she was underground somewhere.
She blinked her almond-shaped, catlike eyes and sighed.
First, she should take stock of her physical condition. She moved her hands, feeling her face and then her body. This was not, of course, to ensure that she was unhurt. It was to check that this was not a bad dream—that it was, in fact, cold, hard, pitiless reality. She didn’t know how many days had passed since she had been imprisoned here, but this had become her ritual each time she woke up.
The dull pain of the blows remained here and there on her body, and pain lanced through a cut on her right arm, although the wound was shallow. She was not manacled, but her armor had been taken from her. Perhaps they assumed it would have a weapon hidden in it somewhere. Instead she had been given a completely plain one-piece dress, just a piece of cloth with a hole for her head. It was tied with rope in a few places. Practically rags. If she moved carelessly, her chest and behind would be on full display.
Maybe because it was underground, the room was warmer than it looked, and she had been given a blanket, albeit a ratty one, so there was no fear of her freezing. The only people who got anywhere near her room were the female mercenary and the girl who came to deliver her meals and empty her chamber pot, so Angela didn’t have to worry about being seen by any men, but that didn’t change the fact that she was embarrassed.
This was all a perfectly normal way to treat a soldier from a defeated army.
“Hrk...”
Friedland was a speck of a frontier town. And it was where Angela’s shining record had been besmirched for the first time in her life. The Ninth Missionary Brigade, to which she belonged, had been in the middle of a civilizing expedition. The True Church of Harris was great and powerful—but even the Church’s glory didn’t extend this far from the capital; this area was still home to barbarians who believed in local cults that worshipped evil spirits.
Specifically, the erdgod cults.
These so-called “deities” ate people. That was how they gained strength, returning a portion of that strength to the earth. That made the land abundant, allowing people to live in areas that would not normally have yielded enough to be habitable. Of course, the monsters called erdgods didn’t improve the land for the people’s sake. It was just a way of making sure there was a steady supply of living sacrifices available.
In short—and she felt dirty even thinking this—those beasts raised humans like livestock.
It was hideous. What human would acquiesce to be treated that way, even if it was for their own survival?
The glorious and honorable knights of the True Church of Harris had been dispatched to spread the Church’s precious teachings among those who clung to such awful faiths. It was they who would bring the true teachings, and it was the Missionary Order that had organized and militarized them.
Angela had come to the frontier town of Friedland as vice captain of the Ninth Missionary Brigade, along with her subordinates. Her sacred duty had been to announce the will of God to this place where monstrous beliefs had taken such root.
She had felt no anxiety about this. Her strategy had included not one but two of the statues of the guardian saint, the missionaries’ ultimate weapons, capable of destroying an erdgod in a single swoop. There had been no chance of defeat. Or shouldn’t have been.
But Angela and her forces had, in fact, lost. Her statues had been destroyed and her followers scattered, and she, their commander, had been captured and imprisoned.
She wasn’t sure how many days had passed since then. Her wounds had given rise to a fever that made the first several days after her capture fuzzy, and because no light got into this basement room, she didn’t know when it was day and when it was night. There was a window the size of the palm of her hand on the door, but only a flickering lamplight came in through it. She could judge the passage of a day only by how many times meals were delivered to her.
“This is the worst,” she muttered to no one in particular.
Born a daughter of nobility, hailed by all and sundry for her talents, made a knight of the True Church of Harris—there was no blemish or failure anywhere in her life. Everything had been ideal, precisely as she had imagined it.
Yet now she was subjected to this humiliating treatment.
Her wounds had been tended, and they brought her food. There was nothing that compelled them to treat an enemy, a mere defeated soldier, that way. From another perspective, it could be that the Friedlanders were keeping her alive because they sensed some advantage in doing so. Whether Angela liked it or not, she was going to be used by her enemies.
Just the thought made her want to vomit. What base humiliation. And it was all because of...
“That man...!” She could see his face in her mind’s eye. A white-haired boy. The reason Angela was in this situation. “The Bluesteel Blasphemer...!”
He was a monster in the form of a man. He had single-handedly destroyed a statue of the guardian saint and brought about the defeat of Angela’s unit. Of course, he’d had the help of the Friedlanders and the female mercenary, but those had been minor considerations in light of the power that man had displayed.
He had defeated the statue, the one that destroyed gods.
She couldn’t shake the image of him. It wouldn’t go away. She understood that she feared him on the deepest level of her being, and that was the most awful thing of all. In the bright light of the teachings of the True Church of Harris, the only thing the believer should fear was God above.
“Hrk...”
A tremble passed through her, nervous energy with nowhere to go. At the same moment, Angela detected the sound of footsteps approaching her prison.
She looked dubiously at the door. At first she thought it might be her meal, or a change of chamber pot, but these weren’t the footsteps she was used to. There were more of them than usual. Three people, probably. And one of them had a long stride. Someone tall.
And then...
“You?!”
The heavy door opened to reveal the one Angela had pictured so many times. The Bluesteel Blasphemer.