episode_0069

*

It didn’t take a genius to predict that the first winter in a ruined world wouldn’t be easy.

It would be crazier to expect to live as we used to, or to have more abundant and fulfilling days than we did on the island.

But, surprisingly, we were enjoying a plentiful early winter.

The wild boar Lucia hunted was far bigger than we could have imagined, and the spices and seasonings Anna found rummaging through empty houses were more diverse than I expected.

Despite the sunshine and the slight chill of the cold wind, a wonderfully warm and filling meal awaited us at the dinner table.

Lucia, Anna, Sola, and even Elena.

Everyone seated at the table wore a happy expression.

It seemed I was the only one who felt uneasy, as if a thorn was stuck in my throat, knowing that this abundance ultimately came from the Devil’s power.

Of course, the problem of all the nuns under my care becoming connected to devils couldn’t be solved right away anyway.

Besides, Elena was leaving in a few days, and I didn’t want to make her anxious by telling her that devils had latched onto them.

I tried my best to keep my expression bright.

I couldn’t allow myself to be seen as a tactless old man who ruins the atmosphere with unnecessary words in a place where everyone puts aside their worries and enjoys their meal.

After a short prayer before the meal, we began to eat with relish.

“Lucia, you worked hard hunting. We’re living in luxury thanks to you.”

“Father… Hehe, it makes me feel even better that you’re happy, Father.”

“Anna, you worked hard cooking too. It couldn’t have been easy cooking this much by yourself.”

“Oh, it’s nothing.”

Sola chimed in, her mouth stuffed with meat.

“Aoo ooatzseue.”

“… What?”

“Amang-”

Sola held up her hand as if to say, “Wait a minute,” then struggled to swallow the food crammed in her mouth.

I could practically see her throat bulging and wriggling as she swallowed that much food at once.

Sola, having somehow managed to swallow that massive amount in one go, took a breath and said,

“I helped too.”

“… Okay, Sola, you worked hard too.”

“Hehe.”

Sola grinned, baring her teeth, her lips smeared with grease.

Anna shook her head, sighed deeply, and said,

“Sola, all you did was move it to the table. And even then, you almost broke a dish.”

“I didn’t break it!”

“Yeah, because Lucia caught it just in the nick of time.”

“Ugh,”

Lucia awkwardly soothed Sola, who was sitting next to her.

“S, Sola… dropped it… really easily….”

“Is that… a compliment?”

“Huh? Yeah… uh… yeah… it is.”

“Did you hear that?”

Sola looked at Anna with a triumphant expression.

Anna rubbed her forehead and continued eating without replying.

I squeezed my eyes shut and said,

“Please, don’t fight when we have a guest.”

Elena smiled and said to me,

“I feel this every time we eat, but the nuns are so… cheerful. Nuns usually pretend to be prim and proper.”

Elena’s words were practically a blatant way of saying, “They’re not very nun-like.”

But after seeing this spectacle, I had nothing to say.

I quietly nodded.

Elena glanced at me sideways and added one more remark.

“Well, after seeing you earlier today, Father… you have a slightly strange side for a priest…”

“What?”

No sooner had Elena finished speaking than Lucia turned her head sharply towards Elena.

It was so fast, I thought her neck might snap.

Anna and Sola were so startled by the force that they stopped their bickering and closed their mouths.

I reached out towards Lucia and said,

“Lucia, stop.”

Despite my restraint, Lucia glared at Elena.

Her eyes were blazing fiercely, like those of a wild animal.

I tried to stop Lucia as quickly as possible.

If those eyes started to turn red, I would be in trouble trying to explain to Elena.

But before I could even open my mouth, Lucia muttered quietly to Elena.

“Don’t say bad things about Father.”

“Ah…”

Lucia’s voice sounded distinctly different from when she spoke to me or Sola.

If a stranger heard it with their eyes closed, they certainly wouldn’t think the two voices belonged to the same person.

I said to Lucia in a gentle voice,

“Lucia, it’s not like that.”

Elena, who had looked briefly flustered by Lucia’s attitude, straightened her posture, gave a gentle, warm smile, and bowed her head.

“Father, I’m sorry. I misspoke.”

“No, it’s okay. Lucia, don’t take it so sensitively. Elena just…”

“Father,”

Lucia rudely interrupted me.

“Father is the most wonderful person I know.”

“Oh, th… thank you?”

“But ‘strange’? How is that… not polite?”

Lucia’s angry voice slowly began to tremble.

I stretched my leg under the table and nudged Lucia’s leg.

Lucia looked at me in surprise, and I quietly shook my head.

It was a signal to stop now.

Then, Elena quietly opened her mouth.

“Ah, well… earlier today, Father was, like, mistreating a cat…”

“…”

Hearing Elena’s words, not only Lucia, but also Anna and Sola, nodded at the same time.

“Ah,”

“Ah-,”

“Aha,”

*

After the meal, Lucia bowed her head and apologized to Elena for threatening her.

Elena smiled and replied, “You must really like Father.”

Lucia nodded, her face reddening.

“Hmph…”

Elena squinted at me.

Her face seemed to be asking, “You’re telling me you haven’t made a move on her?”

I sighed and shook my head.

“Hey, Father.”

Then, Sola tapped me on the back and called me in a small voice.

When I slowly turned my head towards Sola, she brought her palm up to my ear and whispered.

“Shouldn’t we tell Elena too?”

“… No, she’s leaving soon anyway. Let’s not say anything unnecessarily.”

“No, I mean, wouldn’t it be better if Elena was possessed by a devil too?”

“Sola… you!”

I immediately grabbed Sola’s wrist and left the room.

I didn’t stop walking until we were far enough away that small voices couldn’t be heard. Then I said to Sola,

“What are you saying right now?”

“But, well…”

“Do you know what you’re saying? Even if you don’t know much, you can’t just…”

Sola crossed her arms and replied,

“But, look at us. Me, Anna, and Lucia too. We’re possessed by devils, but nothing bad has really happened. It’s been more helpful than anything.”

“Devils are not convenient tools.”

I warned in a stern voice.

“Thinking that humans can control devils is a terrible arrogance and a foolish delusion. It’s a big mistake to think that way.”

“But…”

“No, there’s no room for argument, Sola. Even if you grew up on the island and don’t know much, you need to know this. No, if you’ve lived in the monastery your whole life, you shouldn’t say things like that even more.”

It was always like this.

There were always those who mistakenly thought they were standing above the Devil and were confident they could control the Devil like a servant.

And most of those people met a miserable end that was too awful to describe.

Even if humans are the wisest of animals, God taught us how to live in harmony with nature, and knowledge to dominate nature came from the Devil.

Heavenly wisdom cannot be fully understood by humans, and the knowledge of Hell is only transmitted to humans in a limited way under the Devil’s meticulous plans.

The Devil always has an evil plan when he helps humans.

Don’t forget.

The Devil deceives humans.

That’s also why I don’t believe that the affection Kunat shows me is genuine.

“Father, listen to me.”

However, Sola still didn’t seem to want to change her mind.

I sighed and said,

“Okay, I’ll listen. What do you want to say?”

“Elena’s leaving alone, right?”

“Yeah, she said she’s leaving the day after tomorrow. It’ll take a little longer if Paolo’s body doesn’t get better.”

“Elena. Alone.”

“…”

“Father. Don’t you understand?”

Sola grabbed my hand and continued.

“Elena alone, a woman alone, is going out there where those monsters are swarming.”

“…”

“I want to tell Elena not to go… because it’s dangerous.”

“Yeah…”

“You need the Devil’s power to fight monsters. Even if we try to live here, we can’t keep hiding forever, so we need to know about devils.”

“…”

“So… yeah?”

My head was spinning.

Sola hadn’t said these words without thinking.

On the contrary, she was considering more possibilities than I was.

As I kept my mouth shut, Sola slowly began to speak.

“Hey, you know. When I went to save Father, I was there too.”

“… With Lucia?”

Sola shook her head.

“All three of us went together, because we all like Father very much.”

“…”

“And I saw a monster for the first time that day.”

Sola lowered her head.

“Honestly, I was so scared. A really disgusting monster grabbed Father and tried to eat his head.”

“…”

Sola’s voice slowly began to tremble.

“There are monsters like that swarming outside, and if we just send Elena away… Elena doesn’t even have a group anymore,”

“… Sola,”

“If she goes out like this… Elena might die…”

“Might die” is an understatement.

She’ll probably die, in all likelihood.

I knew it too.

But the reason I couldn’t hold Elena back was because of her detached attitude, as if she had no more attachment to life.

As a cleric, I should stop someone who’s going to commit suicide, but after hearing her past story, it wasn’t easy for me to make the choice to hold her back.

Things that anyone would find difficult to endure had struck her in a period of less than a year.

And the perpetrator was clearly the Order I belonged to.

Therefore, as a priest of the Order, I couldn’t hold Elena back.

I could only stop at vaguely suggesting it.

Sola’s small hands, holding mine, slowly began to tremble.

I quietly squeezed the two hands clasped together.

Sola’s voice began to shake louder and louder, and soon it began to fill with tears.

“I know too. That the Devil’s power is dangerous… That Lucia and Anna will go to Hell…”

“Sola…”

“I know that even the Devil King can grab my soul and drag me to Hell… I know everything.”

I was very surprised and closed my mouth.

That was because I had never said such a thing to Sola even once.

I had warned Lucia and Anna about how dangerous it was to abuse the Devil’s power, and explained what kind of nature each Devil possessed, but I hadn’t done that to Sola.

Unlike Lucia and Anna, Sola hadn’t made a contract with the Devil of her own free will.

Therefore, her soul was still pure, and I thought all that was needed was to safely remove the Devil from her body.

A big shot like the Devil King couldn’t be chased away by simply beating him up, and a formal exorcism ritual was needed.

For that reason, I was gathering the necessary materials and items through exploration, preparing for the exorcism ritual.

I avoided talking to her about the Devil as much as possible, as I was afraid that Sola, who was still young and pure, might fear her situation more than necessary.

I strictly warned Kunat not to touch Sola under any circumstances.

But, despite all those efforts, Sola already knew about the Devil.

“How… did you know?”

“… I hear a voice in my head every day.”

“What?”

“It says my soul belongs to it. That it will drag me to Hell.”

“… Good heavens.”

I was complacent.

The one dwelling in Sola’s body was one of only six Devil Kings in Hell.

It couldn’t have been peacefully asleep.

Sola grabbed my hand and began to sob.

“It says it will do this to me… It says…”

“Sola…”

“It keeps saying… scary things…”

I didn’t know.

Because Sola was acting as usual, I didn’t realize it.

She didn’t say it properly, but it probably terrified and tormented her with all sorts of horrible words.

It explained torture so painful that humans couldn’t even imagine it, and threatened to do the same to her.

And Sola had been living like that as usual.

I was slightly in awe.

It wasn’t that Sola didn’t know about devils, it was that I didn’t know anything about Sola.

I hugged Sola and said,

“That won’t happen. I will definitely…”

“… Yeah,”

“But, Sola. What does that have to do with Elena having a devil possess her?”

Sola buried her face in my arms and said,

“I, even though the voice in my head is tormenting me, I’m not that scared of devils.”

“… That’s amazing.”

“Because I know Father will save me. That’s why I’m not scared.”

“Yeah, I will definitely…”

“But I was scared of the monsters.”

At Sola’s words, I couldn’t say anything.

“Because Father can’t beat the monsters either.”

“…”

“But if you have the Devil’s power, you can beat the monsters, right?”

“… Yeah, that’s certainly true.”

“Father can beat devils.”

“…”

Sola didn’t think of the Devil as a convenient tool, but rather as a dangerous weapon that I, as a priest, could control.

I stroked Sola’s tousled hair and said,

“Sola, that thought is wrong.”

“… Why?”

“I can’t beat devils. I can only chase them away.”

“… Huh?”

I decided to tell Sola what I had told Lucia and Anna.

Sola was a much smarter child than I had expected.

No, she was simply a more thoughtful person than I was.

From now on, I would stop treating her like a child forever.

I said in a quiet voice.

“I’m afraid of devils.”

“…”

“More than monsters.”