Ch.1007Coming Out

“Repent! Your sins have reached the heavens and angered Him!”

Lacy, whom I met again, was unusually excited. In an extremely HIGH state, you could say.

“This is the baptism the goddess bestows upon sinners, a purifying fire that burns the flesh burdened with sin to lead your souls to salvation!”

Perhaps because the World Tree was burning and the dream of fairy extermination was about to come true, she seemed to have half-lost her reason, immersed in religious ecstasy.

“Confess your sins and sing praises loudly! Thank Elpinel with devout screams for extending a hand of salvation even to sinners like you!”

…It looks more like she’s extending flames, not hands.

With the screams of fairies burning to death behind her, Lacy spread her arms wide with a bright smile, praising the goddess.

“AAAAARGH!”

“AAAAAAH!”

Screams and wails echoed like hymns.

Objectively speaking, they were more like the horrific sounds of a demonic choir.

Fairies writhed in agony, crucified on crosses of light planted like pillars across the ground, engulfed in flames and screaming until their throats tore.

An impromptu mass of fairy extermination was taking place, illuminated by the forest set ablaze by the paladins.

“World Tree, why have you forsaken us…!”

The few fairies who hadn’t yet been captured lamented as they made their final desperate struggles.

Glancing at their faces, I noticed the guardian who had given up chasing me earlier was among them.

They were howling like beasts who had lost their young, burning with fighting spirit as they witnessed their kin being subdued by paladins and crucified on crosses of light.

But it was all meaningless struggle.

All spirits, including the “high spirits,” had been liberated the moment the World Tree met its death, and the blessings bestowed upon the fairy guardians were rapidly fading.

The guardians now were no longer mighty warriors that even heroes would struggle to defeat alone, but weaklings who could be overwhelmed by just two or three masters.

As time passed, they would grow weaker and weaker, eventually falling to a level where they could barely put up a decent fight against ordinary knights.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it all…! You, vermin…!!”

The desperate struggle of the two strongest remaining guardian fairies only demonstrated the fall of the fairy race all too clearly.

Guardian fairies who had lived for nearly a thousand years were being overwhelmed by high-ranking paladins, not even Ceylon or Perlien.

“They’re finished now. Already weakened to that extent.”

Ophelia muttered with a hollow laugh as she witnessed the scene.

“…By that standard, I was in that state from the beginning?”

Perneisia grumbled jokingly, asking what that made her if these fairies were considered finished.

Of course, this was just verbal grumbling. Her eyes watching the burning fairies were filled with entranced delight, and her mouth was stretched into a wide grin.

She was absolutely loving it.

She looked so happy that it would be difficult to make such an expression even if watching her parents’ mortal enemies burning alive.

“Sigh…”

Well, anyway, this didn’t seem like a situation where I could just stand by and watch.

“Prepare to advance! With the World Tree burned, the Great Forest is no longer an impregnable fortress but merely vast kindling! Burn everything and destroy everything!”

Lacy, as excited as a child tearing wings off dragonflies, was rallying the holy army’s fighting spirit by calling for the complete destruction of the Great Forest.

“We are completing the task that the old emperor could not finish! In the name of Elpinel, in the name of all the gods who protect humanity!”

Had I ever seen Lacy so excited before?

She looked so happy that I almost felt a bit sad about having to put some brakes on that happiness.

But… what could I do? Sad as it might be, I couldn’t change my mind for such a reason.

“Wait, Lacy. Stop for a moment. I have something to say.”

I threw the cigarette I’d been smoking into the fire pit, feeling conflicted, and approached her to announce my return.

—-

“My goodness…! You’ve returned, Lady Astika! I believed you would return safely!”

Lacy welcomed us very enthusiastically. Her reaction was almost like a girl meeting her idol in person.

From her perspective, it was a natural reaction.

With just five people, we had penetrated deep into the enemy’s capital, completely destroying it—an achievement that would be recorded not as history but as legend.

Alvheim, which collapsed overnight, unable to stop the assault of just five people.

This wasn’t even a war anymore. It was more like a complete set of natural disasters striking one after another.

And that wasn’t all. In the process, we had killed a demigod and even burned the fairy god to death, cutting off the future of the race.

If I were a believer in the Church of Elpinel, it wouldn’t be strange if Lacy tried to step down and elevate me to the position of saint or higher.

Of course, since we belonged to different churches, she would praise me but wouldn’t go that far.

“To think you really burned the World Tree and returned… Even seeing it, I can hardly believe it. Surely Menes isn’t playing a trick on me…?”

Lacy muttered in disbelief after guiding me to a temporary tent when I said I had something important to discuss.

“That’s impossible. It’s too vivid for a dream, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s not a dream…”

Lacy nodded in agreement, turning her head to look at the World Tree that had been shortened by fire, with a deeply reflective expression.

“Deicide… To be honest, even I thought such a thing was impossible. But that was just my foolish presumption.”

Lacy turned to me with a smile. It was a smile full of faith and admiration.

“Just because something is impossible for me doesn’t mean it’s impossible for you, Lady Astika.”

“I was lucky. There was a real monster hiding in Alvheim’s capital.”

I returned Lacy’s high praise with a humble response, concluding the greetings.

Rather than exchanging flattering pleasantries, it was time to get to the much more important main point.

“Lacy, you said before that after destroying Alvheim, you would preserve only a tiny fraction of fairies like animals in a zoo.”

“Yes. Not just fairies, but werebeasts as well. Dwarves and dragonborn… would be difficult, though.”

Lacy nodded.

While she couldn’t attack the dwarves who cooperated with the Empire or the dragonborn who had decided to collaborate with the Empire, she would devote her life to destroying and preserving fairies and werebeasts.

I clicked my tongue softly, let out a faint sigh, casually brushed my hair back, and then looked straight at Lacy and declared:

“I’m sorry to say this, but you’ll have to give up that dream.”

That dream would never come true.

“…Why?”

Lacy frowned, her smile completely gone as she asked.

“Because I don’t want that. While that approach might satisfy you, in the long run, it would only harm humans as well.”

“…Please explain in detail.”

“Please explain” rather than “Please explain to me.” The word choice indicated that Lacy’s favorability toward me had dropped significantly.

“Well…”

I explained the situation to Lacy as concisely as possible.

How the Empire thousands of years ago had done something similar. The problems that resulted, how they eventually collapsed, and how that karma had returned to haunt them.

“I think that was due to poor management. The mistake of those who failed to maintain control until the end.”

However, that alone wasn’t enough to convince Lacy.

“…The root of such corruption must be attributed to Alfodhr. Discrimination against other races stopped human growth and led to destruction? That seems like an unfounded leap to me.”

As expected of a proper saint, her verbal skills, except for provocation, surpassed mine.

“They actually collapsed because of that! Aren’t you the one trying to think only in ways that benefit yourself?”

“That can’t be. I’m a bit hurt that you see me as such an unprincipled person, Lady Astika.”

“No, that’s not what I meant…”

She was not only skilled at refutation through rational theory but also at emotional sophistry.

“Initially, my intention to preserve even a trace of fairy lineage was merely an act of mercy. If that’s such a dangerous act, it would be better to exterminate them completely rather than show mercy.”

“It can’t be that simple. Unless the fairies quietly stay confined to their homeland, if they scatter and hide across the continent, how could you possibly eradicate them?”

The physical differences between fairies and humans were limited to their long ears.

In other words, if those ears were cut off, they would be difficult to distinguish from humans on sight. They would have to wear hoods or earmuffs all the time, but still.

“Besides, if we try to completely destroy fairies or breed them like livestock, won’t other races recall what happened thousands of years ago? Calling it the return of Xanten.”

“…Well. Not all non-human races live for a thousand years like fairies, so I don’t think that possibility is very high.”

“Humans completely collapsed and left no records, but non-human races that didn’t might still have records from that time.”

For example, dwarves were likely to have preserved records about Xanten somewhere. They don’t easily forget grudges.

As for dragonborn, those who were born and remained dragonborn might not remember, but those who became dragons and lived for thousands of years would naturally remember what happened thousands of years ago.

To recreate something similar to what the Xanten Empire did in front of such beings?

It could potentially make all races except humans enemies of humanity once again. Whether direct enemies or potential ones.

“…So what do you intend to do? Surely you don’t mean to forgive them all, such nonsense?”

Perhaps finding some merit in my words, Lacy crossed her arms over her chest and urged me to share my opinion with a dissatisfied expression.

“Of course not. Those who deserve death must die.”

I never intended to spare the guardians and patrollers who invaded the Holy State and massacred people. Those who actively ran human farms or knowingly allowed them to operate.

That’s why I left the Holy Army to capture and burn fairy guardians and patrollers while having this conversation with Lacy.

“But I intend to spare those who deserve to live. The Great Forest will soon become a complete desert, and neither the Holy State nor the Empire will accept them, so I’ll have to take them all to my country.”

“Deserve to live… By what criteria, and who decides that?”

“I do.”

I pointed to myself, saying that I would personally separate those who should live from those who should die, based on my own criteria.

“…Even for you, Lady Astika, that’s an excessively arrogant statement. Isn’t it only the gods in heaven who can define such criteria?”

Lacy let out a hollow laugh of disbelief.

“Even if I were to agree, not everyone else would accept such criteria.”

She continued, as if advising me.

Since I was merely a saint appointed by the goddess of order and justice, not the goddess herself, I shouldn’t make such decisions on my own unless it was Astraea’s will.

And while no one would deny that I was the greatest contributor to this war, others had also fought and bled alongside me, so everyone in the Holy Army had the right to oppose my overstepping.

“Showing mercy to those who should die and saving them is the work of the gods. Did Astraea tell you to forgive the fairies?”

“No, she didn’t.”

In fact, she hadn’t said anything since being silenced by the World Tree.

“Then it’s not right for us, who are merely representatives of the gods, to arbitrarily choose life and death. A saint’s duty is to follow the doctrines set forth by the gods.”

Lacy’s resolve was firm.

The goddess Elpinel had explicitly stated in her doctrine not to forgive fairies.

The goddess Astraea had also decreed that judgment must be passed on those who commit sins and bring chaos.

Therefore, unless the goddess specifically said otherwise, it would be an overstepping of authority for a saint to arbitrarily spare some of them, violating doctrine.

In short, if I wanted to distinguish between fairies to spare and fairies to kill on my own, I should receive divine revelation from the goddess.

In the theology that Lacy and the clergy had learned and practiced, only the gods, not people, could make such decisions.

“That’s simple.”

I smiled with something like a sigh.

Honestly, her argument seemed full of logical holes, but engaging in a doctrinal debate by poking at them would take a long time to reach a conclusion.

Although I anticipated considerable backlash for pushing my will, I had to choose a faster and more certain method.

“Pardon…?”

Lacy tilted her head with an expression that seemed to say, “What nonsense are you talking about?” Her face suggested she wondered if I was planning to receive divine revelation right here.

There was no need for that.

“If only a god can decide such matters, then that’s what we’ll do.”

“What do you mean…?”

Instead of answering Lacy’s question, I closed my eyes and once again awakened the divine starlight sleeping within me.

Since my strength had recovered somewhat on the way here, I could manifest the demigod form for a short while.

– Whoosh…!

A crown of thorns appeared as a halo behind my head, and the starry night sky became a robe that wrapped around my body.

The displaced air trembled, creating a gust, and a cross-shaped star rose in the center of my chest, burning brilliantly and dazzlingly.

This was my third demigoddess transformation today.

The divine starlight revealed itself before those who served the gods.

Lacy stood frozen with her mouth wide open.

An expression of pure shock. Her pupils had shrunk to dots, and her fingertips didn’t show even the slightest movement.

“How about this? Is there a problem now? As you said, if it’s a decision made not by a human but by a god, as the successor to Ausrine, the god of stars.”

I asked Lacy with a confident smile, in a tone that suggested, “As you said, a god has decided this, so can you accept it now?”

“……”

No answer came.

Lacy just stood there staring at me, not even thinking to wipe the drool flowing between her gaping lips.

…She’s fainted. This woman. The shock was so great that she showed no response even when I waved my hand in front of her eyes.

Even her heart seemed to have stopped from shock… wait, that’s not supposed to happen, is it?!

I frantically grabbed Lacy, laid her on the ground, and performed CPR.

While doing so, I called loudly for a healing priest, but even the healing priests who entered the tent fainted one after another upon seeing me.

“Kuh, huk…! Uh, cough! Cough! What, what is this…?”

Lacy finally regained consciousness after four healing priests had fainted in succession, falling like logs.