TGBAP 44

“Ah, a child! A child!”

A familiar voice came from somewhere. Lucian and Dio pressed close together and turned around.

A battered Javier stood there, trembling, as if he’d found a savior.

“Huh? You were at the temple…….”

Lucian recognized Javier. Javier also realized that he had seen the two children in front of him at the temple that morning.

“H-ha, haha…… to think there’d be such a coincidence.”

Javier let out a hollow laugh only briefly before his eyes flashed and he grabbed Lucian’s shoulder tightly.

“Kid! Where on earth is this place! Please, tell me how to get out of this mansion!”

“Y-yes?”

“At this rate I’ll be killed by that monster! No…… could it be you’re the same as that monster……!”

Javier, recalling that Kaiser had been about Lucian’s age, went pale and stumbled back from the two of them.

Seeing him mutter that he wanted to live, Lucian and Dio felt something uncanny.

“I told you to stay still.”

“Kaiser!”

At the familiar voice, Lucian beamed. Kaiser had been wearing a cold gaze, but he paused when he saw Lucian and Dio.

Soon, he realized his hands were covered in blood and cleaned them away with magic.

“Children should be asleep. Why are you up now.”

“Dio woke me. He said he heard screams in the mansion.”

Kaiser grasped the situation with a single sweep of his eyes. He’d tried to hide it, but had it turned out like this.

Stalling for time to get information out of the bishop was a mistake.

He should’ve come up earlier and gotten rid of those corpses first.

‘It can’t be helped.’

Go to sleep.

Kaiser used draconic speech toward Dio. Dio fell asleep on the spot.

“Why is Dio……?”

“This isn’t something a kid should be seeing, so I put him to sleep for a bit.”

Kaiser laid the collapsed Dio down on the sofa.

“……Kaiser, what are these people? Why are they all dead?”

Thinking that what was coming had come, Kaiser squeezed his eyes shut.

But before that, there was something he had to deal with.

Kaiser hid Lucian behind him, then looked down at Javier.

Javier stared blankly at Kaiser and muttered.

“So you…… weren’t human. What happened to the bishop?”

“…….”

“I see. In the end…….”

Even though he hadn’t said anything, Javier caught on. Soon a hollow laugh spilled from his mouth.

“H-ha, haha…… how did things end up like this…….”

Javier sobbed for a moment, then lifted his tear-soaked face as it was.

“……Are you going to kill me?”

“It’s better than leaving you alive to cause trouble later.”

“Trouble later…… there’s no trouble to cause. What can a mere trainee priest do? And, even if it wasn’t you, I might have died at the bishop’s hands.”

The bishop had shown him too much of the temple’s hidden side. Unless he became completely subordinate to the temple, he would only be considered a risk, so after things ended, he likely would have issued an order of extermination.

He had devoted his entire life to the temple, served, and resolved to live only for the god—so what in the world had he been striving for all this time?

Watching Javier’s eyes grow emptier and emptier, Kaiser narrowed his eyes.

Then he walked up to Javier. Javier closed his eyes, deciding to die.

But he felt no pain at all. When he opened his eyes, some kind of pattern had been carved into the back of his hand. But that pattern disappeared in an instant.

“I’ll give you a chance.”

“A chance, meaning…….”

“I don’t know what it is, but it looks like your temple is scheming something. And it seems like you know the secret of this mansion.”

If he killed all the priests here as things stood, the temple would find it strange.

If suspicion fell and they sent people here again, it would be troublesome, so it was better to plant a spy in the temple.

“You must have realized today too, right? That the temple has an evil power.”

Javier recalled the ominous power the bishop had possessed.

“Go back to the temple like this and say you safely offered the sacrifice. And confess to me, in detail, what the temple is hiding.”

“I am a priest. How can a priest abandon the temple and follow you, whose identity I don’t even know…….”

“Can someone who knows nothing about the temple be called a priest?”

Javier flinched. Kaiser looked him up and down, then yanked the necklace hanging at his neck.

“A Möbius strip. It contains the temple’s doctrine, symbolizing infinity. What is the god you worship.”

“God is simply god. Always by our side wherever and whenever, always watching over us…….”

“So what you’re saying is, the god you serve exists only as words.”

He was left speechless.

It was a blasphemous thing to say, a doubt toward god, but for some reason it felt like being struck in the head.

The god the temple serves is simply god.

It doesn’t particularly symbolize anything, there is no form passed down in pictures or verses; it was merely spread widely through the empire beginning with the revelation god gave to the first priest.

God is infinite.

Humans are not infinite.

If you serve god with a faithful heart, god will be moved and bestow infinite power.

The infinite power spoken of here literally means power without limit.

It could be knowledge, strength, authority, or life.

Depending on what someone thinks, the meaning of infinity changes. But the essence is always the same.

Faith in ‘god’ spread widely because there was someone to whom god bestowed that infinite power.

Namely, the first emperor.

Everyone knows that the first emperor possessed power strong enough to unify the empire.

Thus, to obtain infinite power, and to worship the god who has infinite power, many people seek the temple.

The doctrine he had always heard and held in his heart since being born and raised in the temple.

But the fact that it might all be nothing more than an illusion shattered the faith he had built up until now.

Javier was confused, but Kaiser had no obligation to be considerate even of that.

“I’ll ask you once more. Will you die here as you are, or will you return to the temple and carry out my command.”

Javier’s hardened gaze flashed.

“……I will follow you.”

He had clearly seen with his own eyes the bishop’s evil power, and he had learned that things he didn’t know were happening inside the temple.

A life that would die anyway—at least shouldn’t he find out what is happening in the temple?

Kaiser explained to Javier what to watch out for, and also about the brand he had carved into the back of his hand.

That brand was designed to activate automatically if Javier betrayed Kaiser and take Javier’s life.

“If you don’t betray me, nothing will happen.”

Having heard the same threat twice within just one hour, Javier let out a hollow laugh.

“How will we keep in contact?”

“You work at the Grand Temple, right?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll come find you unexpectedly. Until I come, gather information.”

“Understood.”

“If the bishop is dead and you return alone, you’ll be suspected. Think up a good excuse.”

“……The condemned criminal we brought was a serial killer. I’ll say he went on a rampage and killed the bishop and everyone else who was closest.”

It bothered him that the bishop had an evil power, but Javier would handle the cover story on his own.

“Then, be on your way.”

Even after being told to go, Javier couldn’t easily move his feet.

“……May I ask one favor?”

“A favor?”

“I want to offer prayers for the four colleagues who died.”

“There were three.”

“……The remaining one was offered as a sacrifice by the bishop.”

Kaiser nodded, saying, I see.

“They were dragged in without knowing anything, just like me. It’s not that they wanted to take you away.”

“Hyung, let him.”

Even Lucian, who had been quietly watching the situation until now, stepped in. Kaiser groaned, and with no choice, floated the three corpses up into the air.

“Rather than carrying the bodies like this, it’d be better to turn them into ashes, right?”

“They’re all orphans anyway, with no family waiting for them.”

Taking it as permission, Kaiser cremated them by fire.

Javier prayed with all sincerity for them as they slowly turned to ash.

Soon, Javier returned to the tunnel he had come through.

Kaiser restored the ruined living room with magic. The smell of blood that had lingered at the tip of his nose had vanished before he knew it.

“Hyung, explain now.”

Lucian, who had waited patiently, wanted the truth.

Kaiser readily explained to him what had happened up to now.

* * *

Srrrk-

When she opened her closed eyes, she could see dawn breaking beyond the window.

[When on earth…….]

Just a moment ago, the sky had been full of darkness, but now it was morning.

She had lost consciousness again.

Ria looked down at her hands. The unstable feeling that had troubled her for days had completely vanished, and she was overflowing with strength.

Rather than overflowing with strength, was it that her soul felt more solid?

It was certain nothing like the past few days would happen for a while. If so, that was a relief…….

[Why do I feel so uneasy?]

Fear and anger, or perhaps sorrow. It was as if she could feel emotions that weren’t her own—someone else’s.

“Ria.”

At the voice calling her, she turned around.

Not only Kaiser, but Lucian was with him too.

“Ria, are you okay?”

Lucian came over and hugged Ria. Before he could pass through her body, she wrapped mana around her entire body.

[Lucian, so, this is what happened…….]

“I told him everything.”

At Kaiser’s words cutting in, Ria was taken aback. Lucian hugged her even tighter.

“I know you didn’t tell me because you thought I’d worry. But next time, tell me. I was all excited about inviting Dio without even knowing something like this was happening.”

[……I’m sorry.]

“Are you okay now?”

[Yeah. I think I’ll be fine for the next ten years.]

“In ten years, I’ll look after you, Ria. I’ll never forget what happened today.”

Lucian, who had only been childish, felt suddenly more mature.

Was it that shocking to him that she had vanished? Or was he upset that she had hidden it only from him?

She didn’t know which, but she was surprised that Lucian had matured overnight, and at the same time felt regretful, and sorry to him.

“I have a lot to tell you.”

Kaiser told Ria everything that had happened last night.

The more she heard, the more she could understand the seriousness of this matter.

[Ha, it wasn’t the imperial family, it was the temple?]

“The imperial family will be involved too. I planted a spy, so we’ll know soon. Still, it’ll be quiet for a while. You can rest easy.”

[Kaiser, are you okay?]

“Hm? Me?”

[You said you went into the basement. Didn’t the wraith you saw then appear again?]

It did appear. But this time, it only helped him fully.

-From now on, I can appear only once. Please, by the time we meet next, become even stronger so you can protect what’s precious to you.

‘……It’s unlucky, but that bastard is right. I need to become stronger.’

He didn’t know what kind of wraith it was or how it had come to be, but the power he’d seen when it entered his body was real.

Even among holy dragons, it would be hard to find someone with power that strong.

After finishing his thoughts, Kaiser brushed it off roughly and reassured the two of them.

[It feels like a big storm has passed.]

Lucian and Kaiser nodded. Even without saying it aloud, they could feel in their bones that their peace had been broken because of this incident.

“Umm, where is this…….”

Then, Dio, who had been sleeping on the sofa, rubbed his eyes and got up.

With bleary eyes, he looked around, then spotted us.

“What are you all doing there? Why am I sleeping here?”

“Whereas Kaiser, Dio doesn’t remember what happened yesterday?”

Lucian asked Kaiser.

“I erased his memory. He saw corpses right in front of him.”

[For now, pretend you don’t know.]

Lucian nodded and, smiling as usual, went over to Dio.

“You sleepwalk.”

“W-what?! Th-that can’t be!”

“What do you mean, can’t be? Then how else would you be here. We were all looking for you, and we found you here.”

“I-I…… sleepwalk……?”

Mm, she felt sorry for Dio, but there was no other way to cover it up.

[For now, shall we eat breakfast first?]

“Okay!”

Lucian cheered with both hands raised, Kaiser smirked and followed into the kitchen, and Dio, stunned, was dragged along by Lucian.

A huge storm had passed, but the place it passes leaves quiet behind.

For now, they decided to enjoy the quiet right in front of them, and prepare for a future where they didn’t know what might be waiting.