Ch.0Deep Sleep

The night was noisy, even as the moon turned its back in avoidance.

There wasn’t much to see, but plenty to hear. Enough for the man trapped motionless in his room to paint a picture of what was happening in the corridor.

“Please, forgive our sins… save us from the abyss of darkness…”

Despite his trembling hands offering prayers, he couldn’t block out the sounds penetrating his ears.

In the corridor, commands rang out as guards assembled.

Shouts continued to rise, then suddenly cut off. Like people screaming as they fell from a cliff, they too.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Then a heavy metallic sound rang like a bell. The bell that tolls when burying the dead.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

His legs weakened, but the prayers didn’t stop. Thanks to momentum.

Why did soldiers endlessly repeat tedious drills? Wasn’t it to keep their bodies moving even when their minds went numb?

The Archbishop did the same. Prayer gave him strength. Dragging his plump body, he lit candles. With trembling hands, he pulled at the cabinet latch that kept slipping from his grasp.

Candles tumbled to the floor with a clatter. Unconsecrated ones. Muttering a curse under his breath, the Archbishop closed his eyes and bestowed a blessing.

It was an incredibly difficult task.

He had once blessed a wooden figurine offered by a scruffy commoner child. The child was covered in scabs from the plague. Though nauseated, the Archbishop had smiled and prayed for him.

He had blessed a noble young lady whose eyes were bluer and clearer than a lake. He’d almost glared at her impudently bouncing, plump bosom but barely restrained himself. When he placed his hand on her golden hair, the scent of cranberries had risen.

For warriors too. For inquisitors. For priests, nuns, and monks—countless blessings he had performed.

This time too, momentum moved his lips. The Archbishop’s body moved like a puppet. He placed candles throughout the room and quickly lit them.

But it wasn’t enough. The Archbishop’s room was as wide and tall as his authority. So he shattered a large mirror.

Setting aside the fact that it was a gift from the Pope, he hurriedly opened the wardrobe and pulled out all the clothes. He wrapped the broken mirror to illuminate the corners.

No sooner had he placed the last mirror than black smoke seeped under the door. Shadows. But they couldn’t penetrate the light.

Though footsteps and screams drew ever closer, though cold sweat poured from the Archbishop’s forehead, he was still reassured.

“Darkness cannot overcome light.”

– Yes. That’s right.

The answer came from an unexpected place. The smile disappeared from the Archbishop’s face. Mocking laughter. Giggling. Sounds of derision reached his ears.

It was absurd. All shadows had been dispelled. There was nowhere in the room for shadows to form.

– If you were light, that would be true. Archbishop.

“Ah. Aah…”

The Archbishop sighed.

Every part of the room was bright. Except for the Archbishop himself. It was his own body blocking the light. Between his feet, he saw a grinning shadow. White teeth, blinking eyes, swirling.

Just as the Demon King’s wolf pack had done.

They didn’t overestimate their numbers, fangs, or jaws. Like the Demon King, they too were careful and greedy. They waited for the moment their prey weakened.

When the prey’s own fear strangled its neck, broke its wrists, and bit at its ankles.

The Archbishop collapsed to the floor. He stretched out his legs like a child. Turning his rosary, he recited prayers.

“Forgive our evil deeds…”

But the shadow already cast whispered in the Archbishop’s ear.

– You know, Archbishop? Fear is just like a chick hatching. A chick can’t break out of its shell alone.

He ignored it. He had to ignore it. Listening to the shadow’s whispers would be the end. The Archbishop pressed his eyelids shut, focusing only on his prayers.

“Remember only our good deeds…”

– The mother hen must peck at it from outside. So even if you fear what’s outside, if your heart is clear, nothing will happen.

Thud

The Archbishop’s door shook. His eyes flew open as he gasped for breath.

Thud. Thud. Thud. The door, the door shook violently. Whatever was outside pushed against it forcefully.

‘It can’t break through.’

The Archbishop closed his eyes again. Lowering the mental latch, he declared firmly.

‘It’s a steel-reinforced iron-wood door, strengthened with layered and hammered steel. They said even a battering ram couldn’t break through. If I can just hold out until dawn…!’

– Of course you have nothing to fear. Archbishop. Right?

The shadow addressed him with feigned puzzlement.

– Was it last week, or the week before? Didn’t you say in your sermon: ‘Envy. Jealousy. Fear. Anger… sins are hungry beasts in your heart, feeding on attention and growing. So ignore them completely. Let them starve to death…’

A crashing sound of the door being smashed. The sound of guards screaming as they rushed forward. Driven screams turning into choking sounds, then suddenly changing to silence.

– It was an excellent speech. Archbishop. Predictable, but sacred because it came from your mouth. Truly sacred. Didn’t the men in the front row close their eyes and weep, while the women gazed at you with moved eyes?

“Do not count our sins…”

– So it wasn’t your fault that you saw their exposed bosoms. What sin could you have committed? It was the ladies who weren’t modest enough to wear such lewd attire to the holy Sunday mass. Isn’t that right? At least the Countess was somewhat better. Wasn’t the cleavage between her breasts pure white? That must have been because the sunlight didn’t put its unpleasant hands in to knead them.

“Count our good deeds…”

– So you did what the sun should have done. Was it in the confessional? Or in this room? If neither here nor there, was it in the small shed next to the stable? Oh, no. No. It was in the Count’s bedchamber. The day you went to bless him and pray for his swift recovery.

Bang! Bang! Bang! The Archbishop looked up at the ceiling and cried out.

“Even if I committed ninety-nine sins, if there is one good deed, remember that!”

– Ah. Truly, none of it was your fault. It was the Count’s fault for returning half-paralyzed from the battlefield with such a young and passionate wife. How bad must it have been that he couldn’t say a word even when you and the Countess were rolling around beside his bed?

“Have mercy on me, have mercy on me!”

– Because his tongue was cut out? Because he was blind? He wasn’t in a coma, was he? ‘Look at the cripple, veins popping on the back of his hand!’ That’s what you said, though I wonder if you remember. Seeing the lady convulsed with laughter at those words, you were even more encouraged… But how could that be your fault?

“Who can withstand your reckoning, who can pass through your judgment!”

– You merely blessed the wife and husband with body and soul. It’s not wrong. It’s not wrong, so it’s not a sin, and if it’s not a sin, there’s nothing to fear.

Thud… thud… crash!

Creak. The Archbishop’s eyes opened. Wooden fragments rolled across the room. After wobbling like someone forcibly woken from sleep, they soon stabilized.

“Ah… aaaah!”

And the Archbishop saw it. A steel gauntlet forcing its way through the torn door gap. Trying to widen the gap with cracking, splintering sounds.

– Nothing to fear. Archbishop. Really nothing to fear. Temporarily holding the wages of novice monks? Distributing their share to the newly arrived nuns instead and receiving a small “compensation”? Is that wrong? Isn’t that what everyone does?

“Have mercy on me, look down upon your servant!”

– Securing budget for ten guards but only hiring five? Everyone does that. Wearing a fake beard and frequenting brothels every festival night? Anyone would do the same.

“I only went where I needed to go, did what I needed to do, and accomplished what I needed to accomplish!”

– Witches. Witches. All those countless witches you personally judged! As you know, witches can only destroy, they have no power of creation. So to know if they were real witches or not, you had to know if they could conceive or not, right? It was your duty to determine whether they were real witches or just lowly ones caught from each village.

Bang!

“Have mercy on me!”

– You truly fulfilled your duty. You did good. But, Archbishop?

The steel gauntlet grasped the door.

The door held out until the very end. It did its job.

But the hinges couldn’t.

Neither could the stone wall that should have held the hinges.

Thus the door was torn away.

A knight surrounded by dark shadows stood tall, looking at him. He felt observed. He couldn’t see the eyes inside the helmet.

Shadows entered the room with glee. Surrounding the ceiling, encircling the walls, spinning round and round like bestowing a blessing. Strangely, it reminded him of the Countess’s petticoat.

– But why are you praying?

The shadow asked.

“I. I am. I am…”

– You’ve done nothing wrong. So you have nothing to fear. The only thing you should fear is God. Yet your hands tremble. You frantically turn your rosary while praying, lighting every available candle to drive away shadows. Why? Why are you sitting on the floor like a child, wetting yourself?

“I am without sin.”

The Archbishop stood up. It was difficult. Wet pants, stiffened legs, burning throat. But the Archbishop stood.

He who had never knelt even before the Demon King.

“I am without sin. I have fulfilled my duty. I have faithfully carried out the calling given to me. If there is sin in me, if there is fault in me! It stems only from sincere devotion, and judgment is solely God’s domain! You!”

The candles blazed like torches. Light and warmth flickered in the Archbishop’s right hand. It soon became a hammer the size of a person. Before becoming Archbishop, he had been one of the Heroes, and before being a Hero, he had been a Holy Knight.

“I do not fear the likes of you, mere specter!”

The armored knight still said nothing. He just stood there, watching him.

The Archbishop struck the floor with his hammer. He saw the shadows flinch and withdraw their feet.

Exhilaration, the passion of youth, the pure fervor of vanquishing evil once again entered the Archbishop’s body.

– But why pray? Why take up arms? If that is so harmless. If you don’t fear such a mere specter, why go to such lengths?

The Archbishop was horrified. The voice was coming from none other than his own hammer.

The light hammer distorted. The Archbishop dropped it. The hammer that fell to the floor spread like mercury. Soon faces emerged from it. Just as everyone seemed to be laughing and chattering happily, it turned into black smoke and dispersed.

– Can you no longer distinguish between light and shadow, Archbishop? Were you that tense?

The light did not respond. God did not respond. The Archbishop looked at the two-headed eagle emblem on the wall. The left one was dead, but the right one held its head up straight.

It was a symbol of God.

“Salvation…”

– No. No, Archbishop. That’s not it. You waited. You knew this moment would come. Secretly, you’ve been waiting for this moment, haven’t you?

The armored knight melted away. Soon he became a gray shadow. Like water flowing back through a drain, like smoke climbing up a chimney, it flowed beneath the candles toward the Archbishop.

– What you’ve been waiting for isn’t salvation. What you’ve been waiting for all this time is ‘fear.’ Sin? Forgiveness? Revenge? Judgment? No. No. No. You have only one fear.

Smoke rose before the Archbishop. Soon it took the form of a knight. From within the steel helmet came a strange sound that was neither a human voice nor the creaking of metal.

“The fear of losing what was never yours to take.”

“How-dare-you!”

The Archbishop shouted. Forgotten by his mind but remembered by his body. The incantations of a novice holy knight, engraved through harsh beatings and hunger, came back to him.

“You dare defile a child of God!”

Flames of judgment rose from the Archbishop’s fist.

“You cripple, how dare you! This place is not for the likes of you! You and your woman should have lived like dogs in some rural backwater, breeding like animals! You! You!”

His fists pounded the knight’s armor. The armor dented, crumpled, and tore away. As expected, it was nothing.

“Just because you ate one sacred fruit, you could never have become a Hero! You could never have taken what was ours, what was mine! It was unfair! Unfair, unfair, unfair! It wasn’t justice! You unjust thing, you finally appear before me in this pitiful state!”

His fist knocked the helmet upward.

The helmet clattered to the floor with a clang.

With a creaking sound, the body fell backward helplessly.

“You, you’re not even worth a single bite…”

But the Archbishop couldn’t continue. Shadows gathered around the helmet. Rising with a floating motion, it regained its form. The armored knight took shape.

Only one thing was different from before. The sword in his right hand. A sword in its scabbard.

“A cripple who can’t even draw his sword dares to stand in my way!”

“Speak.”

The metallic voice rang out.

“Speak of what you have done. If what you have done is so righteous, show yourself before all people. Reveal what you have done and kiss the ground.”

“Fine. I will!”

The enraged Archbishop ran to the cabinet. Forcibly tearing off the lock, he grabbed the hammer. An object he had put away in disgust after returning from killing the Demon King. But the hammer recognized its master and shone for him.

“I will proclaim to the world that the lowly can only remain lowly! I will tell how a servant who didn’t know his place, who shared hay and fodder with pack animals, fell from grace! I will tell how unity was destroyed because of you, and how we forged it anew! I will add one more telling to the thousands and tens of thousands already told!”

The Archbishop swung his hammer.

The knight swung his scabbard. It was a sluggish motion, just as when he was alive.

The Archbishop’s senses already knew the answer. The hammer and scabbard would collide.

But with a mere scabbard, he could not withstand this massive hammer, this hammer imbued with God’s power. The scabbard would be knocked away, and the hammer head would crush his skull.

The knight pulled the scabbard toward himself. Though surprised by the sudden change in tactics, the trajectory of the already swung hammer couldn’t be altered.

What a futile act from a novice with no talent for swordsmanship…!

Creak.

Though his body had grown corpulent, his eyes remained the same. It was the Archbishop’s pride. Those proud eyes showed him.

The scabbard gently “pushing aside” the hammer.

The floor shattered loudly. He had missed. The hammer had destroyed the floor beside the knight’s foot. The helmet should have been smashed like that.

The Archbishop tried to lift his hammer. The next moment, the scabbard plunged down on the Archbishop’s wrist. Though as slow as a hesitant parent’s beating of a disliked child—

The Archbishop couldn’t block it.

“Aaaaargh!”

The Archbishop screamed and stepped back. Candles extinguished and hot wax burned the back of his hand. He hurriedly shook off the candles stuck to his trouser hem.

Click, click, the knight approached. Raising the scabbard, with sluggish movements, he struck down at the Archbishop.

Just once. In just one blow, his left shoulder was shattered. Though he felt like he might faint, the Archbishop raised his right hand. He showed his palm.

“I can explain, I can explain! Please, please just hear me out!”

Fortunately, the knight stopped. The metallic voice rang out.

“I will listen.”

With tear-filled eyes, the Archbishop’s chin trembled.

“Y-yes, yes! This, this is how it happened…! Aaaaargh!”

Again, the Archbishop couldn’t continue. The scabbard struck his palm. His fingers, bent backward, glared at their owner.

“I said I would explain, I said I would explain!”

“I heard.”

“What…?”

– Your screams will explain everything. Archbishop.

The shadows giggled. The scabbard rose like a sentence. The sluggish thing came down like a switch.

Like during his novice days. When his bones weren’t fully formed. When he couldn’t properly recite prayers. When he couldn’t wield the six-foot staff as instructed. When he failed to properly run errands for his seniors.

Yes. It’s all a dream.

The Archbishop finally understood.

That he was still a six-year-old novice.

Archbishop? Nonsense. Capturing the Demon King with his comrades? Rubbish. The child they buried with their own hands coming back to beat him to death with a scabbard? Madness.

What would tomorrow’s breakfast be? Boiled oat porridge? Fish bone soup boiled thick?

As his plump body rolled on the floor, the Archbishop thought one last thing.

I need to wake up early to sweep the corridor tomorrow morning.

Thud, thud. With the sound of emotionlessly striking living flesh as his lullaby, the Archbishop fell into a deep sleep.