“Aaachoo!”
“Oh dear—rather a pitiful showing, don’t you think, Your Eminence? Of the two of us, you’re better dressed for the cold.”
As I continued incanting formulae, I teased the man standing at my side.
High Cardinal Salamanrius had brought me to the central mountain range that ran across the continent. Legends held that long ago, in the age of the Gods, now-extinct dragons had given shape to these mountains. Spirit Mountain, where we now stood, was the site where aether had initially been developed, and the mountain’s summit was awash with mana. I had climbed here, accompanied by a few guards, to deliver a little divine punishment in the Gods’ place.
“Please do focus on your observations,” I said. “I’m relying on you to aim.”
“But of course. It’s not every day a man gets to escort the Holy Saint.”
The cardinal’s targeting was infuriatingly perfect. As he gazed down to the foot of the mountain—farther than any human ought to be able to see with the naked eye—he provided not only the positions of the combatants at the temple below, but even whether they were monsters or devil-touched.
“I do feel for him a little...”
I myself had once trifled with the wrath of a God and lost my sight. I didn’t know what sort of expression the man below us had on his face, but I did have a measure of pity.
“By the way, will things be all right on the other front?”
My thoughts went to the opposite side of the mountain.
“Looks like the holy knights have arrived there,” the cardinal replied. “They probably won’t be able to drive the demons back, but they’ve at least got enough strength to hold the line.”
“Could you let Veil know of that as well?”
“Already have,” he replied with a self-satisfied air.
“Have you, now,” I sighed.
He spoke cheerfully, but it really had been a very close thing. I’d been ready to let them all be slaughtered save for Alicia, if it came to that; I was glad we’d made it in time, but still...
“One can’t exactly call this faith, Your Eminence.” I chided the cardinal, his insincere smile still plastered to his face.
He had been the one to propose this stratagem of combining his long-range surveyance abilities with my orisons to provide covering fire for our allies. From here, he’d said, we would throw both the western and the eastern fronts into disarray—with just a little intervention, the tides of battle would begin to turn in our favor.
“Unless you mean to tell me that those spectacles of yours can see the future, that is,” I continued.
To be perfectly frank, I loathed this man. That was the inescapable conclusion I had arrived at. I despised him for putting that girl’s life in danger, of course, but his habit of glibly entrusting everything to the Gods was vexing as well. As it happened, luck had been on our side, and both fronts of the war had still been salvageable. But with just a single misstep, either one—no, both of them could easily have taken a turn for the worst.
“That confidence of yours certainly isn’t born of piety, is it?” I couldn’t detect even the slightest trace of faith from him—that much was obvious without even using my power. “That poor girl has put up with quite a lot...”
These lightning strikes were among the most powerful orisons in existence. As I called them down upon the mana-swollen monsters, one after another, my thoughts went out to my Lord’s forgotten keepsake. Despite being born a demon, she had been cast out to live as a human; and the man opposite her, despite being born a human, had spent long years reforging himself into a demon. The two were perfect opposites, and yet their souls were pitiably alike.
“Such a cruel irony...”
Happiness and prosperity were things that every one of us fervently wished for. But due to the influence of a certain someone who had sought to change this world even at the cost of his own life, two of those he’d left behind were now fighting to kill one another.
“There aren’t any Gods out there,” said the pair of spectacles at my side. “That’s why we all still wander lost, never finding our way.”
It was a rather shocking remark from a man at the uppermost echelons of a body devoted to faith and worship.
“So you wish to anoint that girl as a God in their stead, then?”
Exile though she might have been, she certainly held the potential.
“Nope—that’s not it. That path only leads to the imitation devil down there.” Spectacles spoke as though he had already foreseen my thoughts. “I just want to save every single person I can.” The faithless worshipper smiled as he gave the coordinates for my next strike. “Loving thy neighbor’s what it’s all about—that’s the first step to love and peace. Don’t you think?”
I was beginning to understand this man just a little—just the slightest fraction.
“And yet you push all of that work onto others... What a deeply irresponsible creature.”
“Don’t you know? Humans are born sinners.”
As that girl faced the devil in the darkness below, I held her small figure in my thoughts and offered my prayers.