Ch.89Chapter 89. The Truth Revealed Along with the Stripped Mask

Originally, Agreus was a devout priest who faithfully served the goddess.

Born as the third son of a fallen noble family like Luciana, he joined the religious order to reduce the family’s burden. He had a natural aptitude for theological studies and good deeds.

Diligently helping and educating people, he found himself becoming a cardinal at a remarkably young age.

“He’s practically been chosen as the next pope.”

“How could someone of such low birth…!”

However, such rapid advancement inevitably attracted jealousy and envy.

Unsavory rumors began to circulate about the young, handsome cardinal.

“I heard Cardinal Agreus uses his looks to seduce female devotees for casual pleasure. They say he deliberately goes to remote areas for missionary work because there are fewer consequences.”

“No, I heard he enjoys relations with men.”

“They even say he prefers to be submissive!”

Despite Agreus’s tearful denials, the rumors persisted.

Though he kept his position thanks to the protection of the current pope and Kasti, a new knight, Agreus became increasingly withdrawn and self-conscious.

That was when it began—his obsession with divine power.

“If the goddess acknowledges my devotion and purity by granting me divine power, surely people will accept me too.”

But no matter how much he sacrificed himself in service to the goddess, divine power never came.

As rumors intensified and disappointment continued, he grew weary.

“I… am a sinner who abandoned my homeland to live alone,” confessed a priestess during confession.

She said she had left her crime-ridden hometown to survive.

“I too am selfish, having dedicated myself to the goddess merely to avoid starvation.”

What began as words of comfort gradually turned into an outpouring of his own loneliness and sorrow.

Before he knew it, Agreus found himself not hearing confession, but sobbing in the priestess’s embrace.

“We’re alike. In our solitude.”

The girl named Diane, with her beautiful brown hair, was also a devout priestess, yet the two quickly crossed the line.

The morning after they comforted each other, while conducting dawn mass with other priests, Agreus felt a power welling up inside him and manifested divine power.

“My goodness!”

“Divine power! It’s divine power! Truly bestowed by the goddess!”

“All those rumors were lies!”

Overjoyed, Agreus rushed to Diane, only to find her glowing with the same divine power.

“It’s a power I’ve had since birth. I wanted to heal your wounded heart, so I’ll give you half my power every day. Because you’re Agreus, no one else.”

Agreus immediately recognized that Diane was a saint of their generation.

Only saints could use divine power, either born with it or chosen by the goddess.

The timing was right, as there had been a long gap since the three heroes.

However, he hid Diane from the world.

He was determined never to send her into dangerous situations like a hero’s party.

This woman was surely the partner sent by the goddess.

Agreus cherished Diane deeply and used the divine power she gave him to perform good deeds and bestow blessings.

Then, on the day Agreus was confirmed as the pope’s successor, Diane tearfully confessed she was pregnant.

“The pope must be the goddess’s shepherd, embracing all her flock. For the sake of impartiality, having children is forbidden.”

Agreus wavered between his beloved’s distress and the papal position.

Diane then revealed her firm decision.

“To seek the goddess’s forgiveness and permission for this child, I wish to return all my divine power.”

“Absolutely not!”

Agreus shouted with surprising force.

Diane saw his face contort hideously.

“It’s because of the divine power that I could become pope! The goddess wanted me in this position, so she gave me divine power through you!”

That day, Diane realized with great shock that Agreus loved her divine power, not her.

As signs of miscarriage appeared and her swelling belly drew unwanted attention, Diane had to make a new resolution.

“I will not give up my divine power.”

“Diane, you finally understand me!”

“Instead, I will transfer all my divine power to the baby.”

“What?!”

“Agreus, the baby is in pain. Our child is suffering in the womb. I cannot lose this child.”

Despite her tearful pleas, Agreus felt betrayed.

Trembling with rage, he shouted fiercely.

“How dare you!”

“Agreus!”

“It’s mine! Given to me by the goddess! You’re just a conduit, a mere medium! A medium for delivering divine power after I endured sufficient trials!”

“Ugh!”

Heartbreak and betrayal clawed at the young woman’s tender heart.

But Diane had already transformed from a woman into a mother.

Hastily fleeing, she continuously infused divine power into her fetus even as she hemorrhaged, running desperately.

“Kasti! There’s an impious priestess who conceived a child with a layman! Capture her immediately!”

Panicked at the thought of losing divine power, Agreus ordered Kasti, his right-hand man, to pursue her.

When Diane, heavily pregnant, was about to be caught, she cried out to the goddess.

“Goddess! Even if not me, this child is innocent!”

The goddess, hearing Diane’s cry, was greatly surprised and helped her escape from Kasti, sending her to the entrance of Sewage Alley.

“I’ll accept punishment for my sins, but please, just the child…!”

The goddess reluctantly nodded to the weeping saint begging for forgiveness and her child’s safety. Only then did Diane give birth in the middle of the alley entrance, transfer all her divine power to her daughter, and breathe her last as her strength failed.

What followed connects to the story of Sewage Alley that Lin and Rabin had shared.

“Fifteen years? Anyway, I’ve been searching for you for over ten years, Arsil. And finally, I found Sewage Alley and you.”

The pope, still with arms wide open, smiled at her.

“My daughter. At last I call you properly.”

“You loved divine power, not my mother! And you want my divine power, not me!”

But Arsil raised her clenched fists.

“Release these people!”

“Those people are already dead. But don’t you have more people to protect and save in the future?”

Agreus’s cunning words made Arsil hesitate.

Faces of loved ones flashed through her mind, leaving her frozen in indecision.

“Do you know what this is? Diane’s shinbone, vestments, and hair. With this forbidden magic, I can resurrect your mother and produce infinite divine power through her again!”

After Arsil’s betrayal of Luci, Agreus had already depleted his remaining divine power.

Impatience and anxiety drove him to madness, and the pope crossed a river of no return.

“The Empire cooperated with us! With infinite divine power, they’ll support us definitively this time, and your alley will immediately experience the miracle of having an academy built!”

“But wait, seeing the years of poor harvests, it seems the Church made the first mistake. Isn’t this the goddess’s punishment? Even if you resurrect Arsil’s mother, won’t the goddess immediately take back the divine power?”

“The current goddess lacks such power! If she were truly the goddess, the Church should have ended long ago! She’s not one to merely cause poor harvests. I must save her. I must save the world with divine power, and save the goddess.”

Rabin made an apt observation, which Agreus refuted with bloodshot eyes.

Rabin retorted curtly.

Agreus ranted.

And Arsil still hesitated.

Crack.

Lin disliked all of this.

“What are you doing, Arsil?”

Crack-crack.

“That person is your enemy! The enemy of your mother and the slum dwellers! What is there to hesitate about?”

Many of the chains binding his heart were turning black with corrosion.

“Arsil! You’re a saint!”

“Shut up!”

At Lin’s urging, Arsil finally covered her ears and screamed.

“I was never a saint to begin with! Even if I was, I stopped being one the moment I betrayed Luci!”

Crack-crack-crack-crack!

Countless chains corroded and broke away.

Uncontrollable anger began to envelop Lin.

“What do you know! I never wanted to be a saint! I just wanted to save my alley! My hometown people! For that, I did everything I could, everything that stupid me could do. Even if I couldn’t save everything, I wanted to save what I wanted to save!”

Arsil shook her head and clutched it in her hands.

Her hairpin still dangled precariously at the end of her hair.

“All I learned from the Church was combat skills and how to use divine power. I never learned politics, how to conduct myself, how to deal with people, or how to act wisely! I was just a killing machine that used divine power! I believed that if I just worked hard at what was put in front of me, I’d eventually be rewarded, and with that reward, I could save Sewage Alley! But now that I’ve come this far! Even betrayed Luci! Nothing has been accomplished!”

Arsil pointed at the pope.

“That man!”

Then at Rabin.

“That guy!”

And finally at Lin.

“And you! You all just criticize me and none of you try to help!”

At those words, his burning anger cooled into a blue flame.

“I know it’s my fault… but what about my efforts? They weren’t even for myself. They were for the alley…”

“The alley is gone now, Arsil.”

And Lin decided to show no more mercy.

“What…?”

“Five years ago, the year you left, knights from both the Church and the Empire invaded together and killed everyone.”

“You’re lying…”

“The Church wanted to hide that you came from a criminal group, or rather, looking at it now, they wanted to silence everyone who knew about divine power.”

“You’re lying! You’re just making up a plausible story based on what I said!”

“It’s not a lie, Arsil.”

Rabin supported Lin against her mindless denial.

“You asked about Jack and Lapham in Valtercrois, remember?”

Arsil shook her head, begging him not to continue.

“Jack’s throat was torn, and Lapham died with his stomach burst and his head gone.”

“…No, no!”

“Arsil! I barely survived myself!”

“That can’t be true!”

Arsil roughly tore out her hairpin.

A few strands of hair came out with it.

“See this?”

Arsil held it up to Lin’s mask.

“This is my hope. A gift from the most important person to me.”

Her jaw trembled.

Her tearless eyes were filled with madness.

“They said they’d wait for me. The only person who believed in me from beginning to end. We were going to change the alley together when I returned from my duties as a saint!”

She gripped the hairpin so tightly that it cut into her palm, drawing blood.

“And now you’re telling me that person is dead!”

“Arsil…”

Rabin looked at Arsil’s behavior with dismay.

She hadn’t changed since five years ago, except for her fighting skills.

The girl, suddenly thrust into the world, had been neglected without proper education and had struggled her way here.

Though Rabin felt both pity and anger, Lin showed no mercy.

“So what? What can you do about the dead? They’re gone now.”

He was tired and had long abandoned kindness.

“You’re lying again…!”

“No, it’s true.”

A calm voice interjected between them.

Lin realized that Agreus had bought enough time.

“I ordered it directly. To Kasti, trapped in that glass jar over there. Sir Kasti completed his mission admirably.”

“…”

Arsil stared blankly at Agreus.

“You’re lying. You told me you sent relief supplies to the alley. The Empire even showed me ten carriages leaving through the city gates…”

“That, of course…”

Agreus had nothing left to hide.

“Was a lie, wasn’t it?”

“Heh…”

Arsil froze in place.

Neither her body nor her mind could accept this reality.

“How pitiful…”

The pope shook his head and turned away.

“But you know what? The magic has already begun. That’s why I deliberately stalled for time with conversation.”

Throwing Diane’s remains into a magic circle, the snake-like figure smiled maliciously.

“Now, let’s welcome her together. My Diane.”

The magic circle emitted a red light.

With a thunderous roar, the basement shook violently, and all three members of the hero’s party fell to the ground.

“Ugh…! Arsil, snap out of it!”

Lin grabbed the saint and shook her, but her eyes showed no response.

With no choice, Lin and Rabin held Arsil down and waited for the earthquake to end.

“Finally…!”

As the vibrations subsided, Agreus’s joyful cry echoed through the basement.

“Come forth, my divine power!”

However, what emerged from the thick dust was a slime-like mass of flesh composed of various body parts—a horrific amalgamation resembling a corpse slime.

Naturally, not even a trace of divine power could be felt from this monstrous creature.

“What is this?!”

Agreus backed away in shock.

“Demon god! You deceived me!”

At his cry, the demonic energy filling the chapel rushed into the basement.

The energy, moving as if alive, seeped into the flesh mass and slowly extended tentacle-like hands.

Then the middle of the slime split horizontally, moving like a mouth.

[Oh? You trusted the demon god? Even though you were planning to betray me too? How naive~. Is it because you were my sister’s child?]

“You traitor!!!”

[Go away.]

The flesh mass swallowed whole the screaming man who fearlessly charged at it.

[Ah, this will take some time to digest.]

After chewing briefly, the demon god’s flesh mass raised one tentacle with a grin.

[Shall we do some light exercise while I digest?]

The swung tentacle aimed directly at Arsil.

“Arsil!”

“What are you doing? Dodge!”

Arsil remained motionless.

Finally, Lin rushed forward.

BANG-!

“Argh!”

“LIN!!!!”

Lin’s shoulder was pierced by the tentacle as he pushed Arsil aside.

At that moment, Lin’s mask flew off.

The mask shattered against the wall.

Revealing the face of a black-haired man.

“Huh…?”

Arsil, witnessing his face from the side, regained her senses.

She couldn’t believe it.

He should be in the alley?

He should be waiting for her in the alley?

Why is he there?

Why is he there with an arm tainted by demonic energy and even a pierced shoulder?

Why on earth,

Is the person I’ve been treating badly…

“Issi…?”

Why is he the person I’ve been missing the most?

“ARRRGH!”

The shocking revelation wasn’t just for Arsil.

[Hello, Lin? Finally we can talk?]

Through the pierced shoulder and tentacle, the demon god’s thoughts flowed in.

It was as if an ash-colored girl stood before him, speaking directly.

Despite the pain, Lin’s mind went blank at the demon god’s next words.

[Did you enjoy the game I created?]

The excited demon god continued to whisper.

My only variable.

The ultimate medium.

My… Lin!

[You know, that was a limited edition—only one copy existed.]

The demon god’s innocent smile tore through his heart.