Ch.234Episode 12 – The Strongest Mage in History

# As Soon as I Heard About the Accident

The place I rushed to immediately after hearing about the accident was a village located on the outskirts of a city.

A picturesque village like a painting—snow gently covering the ground, a small stream flowing under a stone bridge, and a train running along the path between quaint brick houses.

The commotion arrived like an unwelcome guest to this elegant village.

At the center of that commotion were Lucia, a man, and a small child.

“Father.”

“Yes, I’m here.”

The man facing Lucia was a clergyman.

Beneath the thick coat he wore to block the biting wind, his black priestly garments and pure white clerical collar were clear indicators that he was a member of the clergy.

In contrast, Lucia, dressed in white priestly robes—said to be worn only by the Pope and saints—gazed steadily at the clergyman standing before her.

“Why did you attempt to conduct an inquisition?”

“Because I am an inquisitor.”

He was an inquisitor.

A talent chosen from among the most devout. A guardian of faith who protects belief, teaches correct doctrine, identifies heretics, and punishes them.

“Inquisitions are not bound by time or place, and conducting an inquisition in foreign territory is not problematic under church law.”

Lucia, who had been listening attentively to the inquisitor’s words, suddenly posed a question.

“Who gave you permission to conduct an inquisition?”

“The Director of the Inquisition Office, Peter, and His Holiness…”

“That’s not what I meant. Who gave you, Father, permission to conduct an inquisition here?”

The inquisitor’s mouth closed. Lucia carefully began speaking with an expression that seemed to say, “Surely not…”

“…Did you attempt to conduct an inquisition without permission?”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“Father.”

Lucia pressed the inquisitor in a low voice that sounded almost like a groan.

“While I am ignorant of the internal laws of the Inquisition Office, I do know that conducting an inquisition without permission is clearly grounds for disciplinary action. Surely you were aware of this?”

“That is correct. And I am not unaware that conducting an inquisition without permission is grounds for excommunication.”

However,

The inquisitor continued in a resolute tone.

“If there were unavoidable circumstances at the time that made it impossible to obtain permission, then despite not having received authorization for the inquisition, neither excommunication nor disciplinary action applies. It’s an exception clause, you see.”

“Even if the inquisition was to be conducted on a child?”

Before Lucia could finish speaking, the child flinched and trembled.

The dirty-looking child retreated behind Lucia as if diving under a blanket to escape lightning, and Lucia, perhaps trying to protect the child, slightly extended her arm to shield them.

However, the inquisitor merely looked at Lucia without even glancing at the child.

“If that child is a heretic, then yes, that is correct.”

“…”

As Lucia remained silent, the inquisitor quietly spoke.

“At present, before your canonization, Saint Lucia, you have no authority to intervene in the inquisition I intend to conduct.”

“…That’s right. Because that’s what church law dictates.”

Lucia nodded with an expression of resignation or acceptance.

However.

“But even though I have not been beatified, I do have the authority to confiscate your Bible. So, please give me the Bible you’re carrying.”

“…Are you serious?”

“I am serious.”

Lucia looked at the inquisitor with slightly hardened eyes.

As I watched Lucia staring intently at the inquisitor and the inquisitor remaining silent, their gazes crossing in mid-air, I asked Francesca, who was standing beside me with a puzzled expression.

“…What’s going on here?”

“I can’t answer that even if you ask me, Sir.”

What in the world is happening.

## Episode 12 – The Most Powerful Magician in History

I rushed over as soon as I heard about the trouble from the church side, only to witness a strange scene. An elderly middle-aged priest and Lucia were arguing.

Seeing Lucia arguing with a clergyman was confusing enough, but with other clergy members who had appeared from somewhere, cautious citizens coming to watch, and a child who suddenly started crying loudly, it was completely overwhelming.

Eventually, the military police stationed nearby had to disperse the crowd before we could properly assess the situation.

“There was an inquisition in the village?”

“To be precise, there almost was one. It didn’t actually happen.”

Lucia summarized what had occurred, relaxing her tensed shoulders.

“A child was trying to pray to the northern goddess when a passing inquisitor witnessed it. The inquisitor tried to conduct an inquisition without prior permission, and I stopped him. What you two saw earlier was just a verbal disagreement that occurred during that process.”

“Ah, so that’s why you were arguing…”

“It wasn’t an argument. It was merely a disagreement due to differing views.”

I let out a small exclamation and smiled.

“For something like that, you seemed quite angry. Though I haven’t known you long, this is the first time I’ve seen you snap at someone like that, Saint.”

Seeing Lucia, naturally gentle and peaceful, with such intensity in her eyes was unfamiliar, even strange.

Lucia, who had been making rounds at refugee shelters on the outskirts of the city performing healing and anointing the sick, dropped everything and rushed here as soon as she received a report that “an inquisition seems to be taking place in a nearby village.”

Given that she would use not only rest time but even meal and commuting time for relief activities, I could vaguely guess how urgent this was for her.

“I-I never threw a patient…”

“It’s just a figure of speech. Are you feeling guilty, Saint? You didn’t actually throw a patient while treating them, did you?”

“Of course not… Your joke goes too far.”

Lucia blushed with embarrassment and waved her hand. She also muttered about how she could never do something so irreverent.

“Well, anyway, it’s fortunate it didn’t reach the point of an actual inquisition.”

I lightened the mood with a casual joke.

After brushing off the snow accumulated on the windowsill, I poured hot coffee into three prepared cups. One for me, one for Lucia, and the last for Francesca.

“Here you go.”

“Thank you.”

Of course, neither this coffee nor the office we’re staying in belongs to me.

This was the place where Francesca, who was planning to repair the railway that runs through the village, was going to stay for a while.

“Someone who knows that is quite naturally taking credit using someone else’s things.”

Francesca frowned slightly in disapproval. To prevent wrinkles from forming on her fine brow, I tossed out a joke.

“Administrator, are we in a position to distinguish between what’s mine and what’s yours?”

“…”

For a moment, the corner of Francesca’s mouth twisted slightly.

To avoid the wrath of the descendant of the great magician, I used the (would-be) saint, who was sipping her coffee, as a meat shield.

Lucia, who had been dragged into this and was explaining the situation, tilted her head with an innocent, puzzled expression.

“Did something happen between you two while I was away?”

“It’s nothing. By the way, why did that man suddenly try to conduct an inquisition? It’s not common to perform an inquisition on a child.”

“Ah, about that…”

Lucia trailed off ambiguously, then let out a deep sigh. It wasn’t the long, lingering kind of sigh laden with complexity, but rather a thick, short type.

After that brief sigh, having composed her emotions, Lucia spoke.

“It was because of idol worship.”

And she added:

“On the surface, at least.”

*

“On the surface, huh.”

Saying something is the surface reason implies there are other reasons when examined in detail.

This expression is often used when there are complex interests entangled beneath the surface, or when there’s a story one is reluctant to share with others.

In this case, it was the latter.

“According to the inquisitors, based on the arrangement of objects left at the scene and the composition of offerings, there were traces suggesting an attempt to use sorcery, albeit weak.”

“Traces of sorcery?”

“Ah, I just realized this isn’t an official term. It’s an expression used for convenience within the Inquisition Office, so there’s no specific alternative term. How should I explain this to you…”

Lucia paused mid-sentence and looked at me with a perplexed expression. She seemed to be struggling with how to express a jargon used only within the church, specifically the Inquisition Office.

At the mention of sorcery, I shifted my gaze to Francesca.

“…”

“…”

Francesca, whose intuition seemed off, glanced at me and then spoke in a blunt voice.

“Why are you looking at me, Sir?”

“Well, when sorcery was mentioned, I wondered if you had anything to say. Theology and magic are areas I’m not familiar with.”

“…”

You only look for me when you need me.

Muttering that, Francesca gave me a disapproving look, but then, as if tired of arguing, she began her explanation.

“The ‘sorcery’ the church refers to has a slightly different connotation from the sorcery of the Magic Tower. It’s more, how should I put it, comprehensive.”

Francesca extended her delicate hand with her thumb, pinky, and ring finger folded, showing two fingers.

The alchemist, sitting askew with her arm on the backrest and legs crossed, wiggled her crossed leg.

“You know that the School of Sorcery is one of the three major schools of the Magic Tower, right?”

“Elemental School, Astrology School, and Sorcery School. Yes, I know.”

“‘Magical sorcery’ as defined by the Magic Tower usually refers to two things: defensive counter-sorcery and offensive curse-sorcery.”

The two fingers alternately half-folded and extended in sequence, like making a wave motion.

“But the meaning of sorcery that the Saint mentioned is closer to a much more primitive and comprehensive concept than ‘magic.’ It’s closely related to astrology… If we were to distinguish the sorcery the church speaks of from the magicians’ ‘magical sorcery,’ it would be more accurate to call it ‘religious sorcery.'”

I nodded and bluntly asked:

“So, it’s like primitive tribes in remote regions praying to animals or natural objects, that kind of feeling?”

“Exactly. How did you know that?”

“I studied history and went on many archaeological site visits.”

Francesca’s mouth opened slightly in understanding. A murmur like a sigh escaped from between her red lips. Then, as if she finally understood, she looked me over with pitying eyes.

“Ah, history major…”

“…Why are you looking at me like that?”

“No reason…”

“…”

*

Setting aside Francesca, who was giving me a strange look that might or might not be provocative, I turned to Lucia. Lucia, who had been quietly drinking her coffee, politely answered my question.

“Yes, what is it?”

“Saint Lucia, if what the Administrator just said is true, does that mean the child the inquisitor was trying to interrogate was caught attempting something sorcerous?”

“That’s correct.”

Lucia nodded, making a small sign of the cross.

I put down my coffee and let out a faint sigh. Lucia continued speaking precisely.

“Just as the Magic Tower teaches that magical energy resides in all things, the church teaches that all things in the world contain their own divinity. That divinity could belong to the Lord, or it could belong to another deity.”

“…”

“Occasionally, people without theological knowledge have accidents similar to today’s when they pray at home.”

“For example?”

In response to my question, Lucia gently closed and opened her eyes.

“Most incidents are just minor disturbances. Sometimes a bright white light appears in the house at night. These are usually temporary disturbances that are soon forgotten, and cases where people get hurt are extremely rare. But when folk beliefs get mixed in, it’s a different story.”

Lucia briefly mentioned cases of people who tried to worship folk deities and went wrong. There are instances where spirits appear and hover around, and cases where something similar to the miracles performed by clergy of major religions occurs before one’s eyes.

The difference between the stories mentioned earlier and the ones she was telling now was that the protagonists of these stories generally didn’t have happy endings.

“The woman who summoned a spirit had her body taken over and roamed the city for three days and nights harming people before she was caught, and the old man who spread heretical beliefs through his tricks, seeking wealth and perverted desires, was beheaded by an inquisitor. Of course, the followers of the false faith met the same fate.”

“Were all these cases resolved by the Inquisition Office?”

“Most of the incidents that occurred on the continent were. I’m not sure about the Moritan continent and the East, since they have their own religions similar to our church. Still, the stories I mentioned earlier are relatively better off. If they had accidentally summoned a demon, they would have needed an exorcist priest rather than an inquisitor.”

From what Lucia said, and from Francesca’s explanation, it seemed there were quite a few cases where people ignorant of theology or magic caused accidents by praying in this way.

“Do people at the Magic Tower also pray and such? I thought magicians didn’t believe in gods.”

“They don’t believe in gods, but they do conduct research, have accidents, and then discard objects anywhere. All sorts of miscellaneous creatures born that way accumulate in the underground sewers of the Magic Tower.”

Ah, so that’s why there were so many terrible things in the Magic Tower’s underground sewers?

I recalled the time when I led the quasi-military operatives of the Royal Intelligence Agency and Military Intelligence Agency through the underground sewers of the Magic Tower. Walking corpses swollen with water, creeping fog, vine plants that sucked the blood of rats…

It happened a few months ago, and I had forgotten about it due to many other shocking events that followed. But hearing Francesca’s words, it all came back to me as if it had happened just yesterday.

I probably won’t be able to sleep properly tonight.

“After hearing the circumstances, the inquisitor’s intervention with the child was the right action. Nevertheless, I couldn’t stand by and watch a priest trying to conduct an inquisition on a young child.”

“You did the right thing.”

“Thank you for saying so. But I’m troubled that such issues keep occurring recently.”

“Are similar problems happening frequently?”

“Yes.”

I asked Lucia with a puzzled expression.

“When did these incidents start happening?”

“When corpses were found in the rift…”

Lucia’s speech suddenly stopped. A momentary look of embarrassment crossed her face, as if she had made a slip of the tongue.

Lucia’s blue eyes rolled and then stopped, as if caught on her chin. At the end of that gaze was Francesca, sipping her coffee.

“Hmm.”

With a clatter, Francesca put down her teacup and gestured with a smile.

“I don’t mind, Saint. Please continue your conversation comfortably.”

“…Thank you, Administrator.”

Thanking Francesca for her consideration, Lucia continued her explanation.

From what I gathered, incidents like today’s had been occurring occasionally in the north since corpses were found in the rift.

“I really don’t understand why they’re doing this…”

“Hmm.”

From my perspective, it seemed like they had been diligently persecuting magicians, but now that they were suddenly suspected of murder, they were frantically jumping around in frustration. A kind of persecution, you could say.

No sane person would persecute inquisitors and holy knights on continental soil, but from the inquisitors’ perspective, that hardly mattered. After all, faith is a realm of value judgment, not factual judgment.

The problem is that the person who killed the Imperial combat magician was indeed a clergyman. The Director of the Inquisition Office himself made that official.

But if I spoke about this openly, it could harm not only Peter and myself but many others, so…

“Haah…”

“…”

I decided to remain silent this time as well.

Having resolved to maintain my silence, I wordlessly refilled the cup of Lucia, who was struggling with a headache.

“I don’t know how this happened. I really don’t.”

“Life has its ups and downs, I suppose.”

Describing herself as being in an awkward position where she could neither do one thing nor the other, Lucia placed her hand on the Bible on the table with a gloomy face. It was the very Bible she had confiscated from the inquisitor who had tried to interrogate the child.

I gestured with my chin toward the Bible she was fidgeting with.

“Why did you confiscate that Bible? Seeing that you took it from the inquisitor, it seems to be a significant item. Is it important?”

“Ah, yes, it is.”

“Hmm.”

I carefully examined the Bible on the table. At first glance, it didn’t look much different from the Bibles priests carry during Mass.

If I had to point out a difference, it was quite thick, which might make it inconvenient to carry? But since Bibles are normally thick, this isn’t really a significant difference. It might not even be considered a difference at all.

“It’s not just an ordinary Bible.”

What pulled me out of my contemplation as I examined the Bible was Lucia’s soft voice.

“This Bible is a special one produced separately by the church. Certain pages containing specific verses are imbued with divinity, and when torn, they manifest miracles described in historical texts. The forms vary, but sometimes they’re made like this, containing only a few essential elements for portability.”

“Why were such things created?”

“Because it’s a Bible used for special purposes.”

Lucia explained that this Bible was produced and distributed only by the Inquisition Office.

Specifically, it was given to those who must fight against evil, such as inquisitors, holy knights, exorcist priests, and combat priests.

“Of course, Bibles are made in different forms and ways according to their purpose. For example, inquisitors travel long distances and must rely on the help of nearby inquisitors and assistant priests, so their Bibles are made as light as possible. Holy knights, on the other hand, use Bibles only when they go on expeditions, so theirs are relatively heavier.”

“I see. Then Ferretti and other holy knights…”

“Ah, didn’t you see Sir Ferretti and the holy knights using them when fighting at the rift?”

“You mean that defensive wall-like thing?”

“Yes, exactly.”

So that’s what it was. No wonder they suddenly tore paper.

Come to think of it, something else came to mind. Stroking my chin thoughtfully, I met Lucia’s gaze.

“Um… at the rift. Just before the spider died. At that time, Saint, you deployed some kind of barrier, didn’t you?”

“Yes. You remember.”

Lucia took out a book and placed it on the table. Lucia’s Bible showed clear differences compared to the inquisitor’s Bible.

Compared to the inquisitor’s Bible, which had only a simple cross drawn on it, the cross on Lucia’s Bible was much more elaborate. The binding was also different. While the inquisitor’s Bible was designed to be flexible for portability, Lucia’s Bible was covered with a rigid material.

There were also minor detail differences, such as golden patterns engraved along the edges, but I had only one question I wanted to ask.

“Saint. You said this Bible is only issued to inquisitors, holy knights, and exorcist priests, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then why do you have one?”

Lucia’s mouth closed.

Lucia, who had been chattering like a bird announcing the morning, fell into silence, deeply contemplative.

“Saint?”

“…”

Wondering if I had said something wrong or made a slip of the tongue, I glanced at Francesca, but she also shook her head as if she didn’t understand what was happening.

So we waited in silence for Lucia to speak. It would have been impolite to press for an answer if she didn’t want to talk about it.

After maintaining silence for a while, her lips parted when the coffee in the teacup had cooled to lukewarm.

“…I inherited it from someone I knew.”

Lucia answered in a calm tone.

However,

The expression on Lucia’s face as she said this was so sorrowful…

I couldn’t continue with my questions.

=

The Bible of Lucia mentioned in the work is identical to the one appearing in the illustrations.