Ch.527From the Sickbed

The Church of Volberg, which had occupied Barseva and declared war on the Church of Ceres, unleashed their ultimate weapon recorded in their traditions against the holy armies of the Churches of Ceres and Saulite.

A miracle that summoned Valkyrie, the war angel of Volberg, using the blood and death of warriors as catalysts.

An angel with a winged helmet, armed with a storm spear and gray round shield, descended in the middle of the battlefield. The summoned Valkyrie spread her raven-like wings wide, gliding through the air while piling up mountains of corpses.

The high-ranking Paladins of the Church of Ceres fought back, pouring out all their miracles such as “Death Sentence” and “Black Funeral,” but while their forces were tied up with the Valkyrie, Wolfgang and his Crusaders cut through the holy army’s formation like fish in water.

Death was rampant everywhere, with Paladins, Crusaders, Priests, and soldiers being swept away like barley at harvest time.

The Valkyrie eventually perished, turning into particles of light, but by then both sides had already suffered near-annihilating casualties.

Perhaps it was inevitable that massive casualties would result when the Church of Volberg, which considered dying in battle a virtue, clashed with the Church of Ceres, which worshipped death itself.

“This war ends here for now…”

Wolfgang, the Cardinal of Volberg, confirmed the Valkyrie’s disappearance and retreated with his surviving Crusaders.

Unless Cardinal Rosoff was among the enemies, there was no meaning in rampaging alone on a battlefield where Rosoff hadn’t even appeared, only to meet his end.

“Tell Rosoff this! Don’t die of old age until I return!”

The holy armies of the Churches of Ceres and Saulite couldn’t pursue the retreating Crusaders.

Everyone was exhausted to their limits, and the damage suffered in a single engagement was so severe that recklessly pursuing could lead to complete annihilation if they were counterattacked.

The remaining forces of the Church of Ceres had dwindled to a countable number, and the reinforcements from the Church of Saulite had also lost nearly half their forces.

Instead of risking danger to track the retreating Crusaders to the end, they focused on rescuing the critically wounded who still had breath in them.

As long as they hadn’t lost their lives, they could somehow save them with healing miracles. Having suffered casualties far beyond the commanders’ expectations, they needed to save every person they could.

—-

The Church of Volberg was expelled from the main pantheon.

The eleven main gods became nine, and the Church of Volberg lost its authority and rights as a main church of the Holy State.

While the church’s existence was still permitted, it was effectively demoted from being a church of humanity’s main deity to the level of an ethnic religion for the Dane people.

In truth, they were merely expelled rather than designated as heretics because doing so would likely provoke resistance from the entire Dane population, for whom the church was essentially the national religion. Otherwise, they would have been branded heretics and worse.

The whereabouts of Wolfgang and his Crusaders who abandoned Barseva and retreated remained unknown.

Many theories circulated about their whereabouts.

Some claimed the Crusaders were hiding scattered throughout the Holy State, waiting for the day to rise again. Others insisted they had infiltrated the holy city to launch a suicide attack targeting Cardinal Rosoff, arguing that security in the holy city should be strengthened.

And those capable of making realistic judgments speculated that Wolfgang had led his Crusaders to seek asylum in the Kingdom of Dane.

It would be much safer to flee to Dane, full of worshippers of the war deity, and rebuild their church there, rather than remaining in the Holy State and risking capture and execution.

And so, with Carnius’s death and Wolfgang’s defeat, the Holy State’s winter finally came to an end.

The Holy State finally regained stability after months of bloodshed and chaos… but the strength of each church had already been significantly weakened.

The Church of Grimnir was destroyed, and the Church of Volberg was expelled and fled.

The Church of Ceres lost most of its forces, and the Church of Saulite lost several high-ranking officials including the Cardinal, along with the cities they governed and a third of their holy army.

The Church of Imela also suffered considerable losses as they jointly governed Arvil with the Church of Saulite.

The Cardinals of the Churches of Elpinel, Kranus, and Menes were all amicably exiled—one to a place of banishment, another to the afterlife, and the last to a place unknown to anyone in the Holy State.

Thus, of the eleven Cardinals, only five remained.

New ones would eventually be elected after the cleanup, but for the time being, there was a significant vacancy in the Holy State’s decision-making system.

The storm that swept through the Holy State—led by Lacy and wielded by Haschal.

The only churches unaffected were the Church of Ausrine, which quietly supported Lacy, and the Church of Vimos, which did absolutely nothing.

The Church of Vimos, remarkably doing absolutely nothing, suffered no damage whatsoever, thereby demonstrating the truth that when times are chaotic, it’s best to do nothing and stay quiet.

As always.

======[ Haschal ]======

Three days had passed since I woke from a month-long sleep, but I still couldn’t move my body properly.

Even my body, which had grown stronger after reaching the realm of a Hero, couldn’t withstand the backlash of a technique that far exceeded my capabilities. My depleted energy was recovering so slowly that I still couldn’t even hold a spoon.

The only thing I could pick up right now was, at best, a cigarette.

“Sigh…”

While Lena was briefly out, I pestered Leonore to hand me my cigarette and smoked it.

Normally, Lena wouldn’t care whether I smoked or not, but she wouldn’t tolerate a critically ill patient with a corpse-like pallor puffing away on cigarettes.

“You’re tough, really tough. How can you smoke mana herbs when you’re in that condition? Miss, that’s addiction, and a very serious one at that.”

“What’s the big deal? It’s not like it’s bad for my health.”

If it were like Earth’s cigarettes, which harm the body just by smoking them, I would have tried to refrain. But this was more like an herb that cleared the mind and sharpened the senses, so what’s the problem with being addicted?

Instead of answering, Leonore let out a hollow laugh, opened the window of the hospital room, and sat down on a chair beside it.

It seemed her physical condition had completely recovered, given that a month had passed since her severed arm was reattached. Unlike her, Nigel had to live as a cripple for over two weeks, so his walking was still a bit awkward.

“I have no choice but to lie in bed all day. Without this, how could I bear the boredom? I don’t even know when I’ll be able to move again.”

“Take this opportunity to rest well. You’ve been fighting non-stop lately without proper rest. Miss, you’ll age prematurely that way.”

…Though I shouldn’t bring this up, if I rest too long, I might not even have the chance to age gracefully.

—-

My free smoking time didn’t last long. Lena, who spotted the cigarette smoke wafting out the window, rushed to my room in one breath, snatched the cigarette from my mouth, and began a lengthy lecture.

I let Lena’s words go in one ear and out the other, making a mental note to close the window next time I smoked, but when she threatened to smoke them all herself if I continued, I had no choice but to give up smoking.

While it probably wouldn’t harm Lena’s body… let’s just say the visual impact would be a bit too much.

After putting out the cigarette, Lena cast a blessing on me to help recover my energy, warned Leonore never to give me cigarettes, and left the room.

Before I regained consciousness, she had been taking care of me full-time as I lay unconscious, but since I woke up, she only came by twice a day to cast healing miracles before leaving.

Apparently, she was practicing healing miracles all day out of concern for me, as I kept returning seriously injured.

While I was a bit worried she might be overexerting herself, it was actually a relief for me. It might be understandable if I were unconscious, but being tended to by Lena while fully conscious was quite burdensome.

I didn’t mind her feeding me food and water, but having her wash my body was somewhat embarrassing, and as for dealing with… bodily waste products, that was something I simply couldn’t ask for in my right mind.

Honestly, unless one were an extraordinarily perverted individual, how could anyone ask a girl who was like a younger sister to handle their bodily functions?

Lena said she didn’t mind since she had been doing it every day while I was asleep, but just hearing that made the blood rush to my head as if I might faint.

It would have been uncomfortable even if Nigel, Leonore, or Hush had done it, but the fact that Lena took it upon herself—even insisting that she would take care of her “big sister’s” body—made it both apologetic and truly embarrassing.