episode_0007

*

“Humanity is doomed. Because of those monsters.”

I blew out a puff of cigarette smoke.

Doomed.

I wasn’t shaken by the devil’s statement, even though he nonchalantly uttered such a bold word that shouldn’t be taken lightly.

From the start, you can’t trust a devil’s words as they come.

Those guys can claim that even a crisis in a single village is a crisis for humanity, and they can deceive you by saying that a crisis threatening all of humanity is a harmless phenomenon that can’t even kill a child.

Of course, it’s certain that those monsters are dangerous.

That’s a truth I’ve learned with my own body.

Kunat is probably trying to exploit that truth cleverly.

Shaking perceptions based on the limited information humans have and steering the conversation in a direction advantageous to themselves –

That’s too easy for devils.

Being sickeningly aware of that fact, I calmly requested additional explanations.

“Doomed? Are you saying the only humans left on this earth are the four stuck on this island?”

“That can’t be true.”

Kunat smacked his lips regretfully but answered readily.

He seemed to realize I wouldn’t be easily fooled, so he gave me a sulky smile.

Even with the appearance of a cat, that brazen attitude was sickeningly disgusting.

“Right, besides this island, there are countless Seclusion Monasteries, and even if the small villages are vulnerable, most of the territories are surrounded by walls.”

“… Hmmm,”

“No matter how much stronger the monsters’ power is than humans’, it doesn’t seem like a crisis serious enough to doom humanity.”

Kunat tilted his head and said.

“Oh, I thought your God told you to have mercy on the weak. Don’t you count the small villages dying off as doom?”

“Don’t play with words.”

“Hee hee hee.”

Kunat wriggled and laughed.

“Sorry, I guess I got a little sulky because you don’t trust my words too much. I apologize.”

“…”

“But, Father Theodore, I didn’t lie to you. The state of humanity’s world right now is something you can call doomed.”

“Do you have any evidence?”

“Evidence that would pass your picky standards…”

Kunat spoke again in a serious voice.

“How about 90%?”

“… What?”

“Isn’t the fact that 90% of humanity has died off enough to call it doomed?”

I started to waver from this moment on.

Devils always tell lies, but they never play around with numbers.

They might interpret statistics arbitrarily, but they never change the numbers of the statistics as they please.

From the start, science and mathematics were things that devils provided to humans to steal spiritual inspiration from them.

A trick to divert human fanaticism from religion to other places.

A blasphemy that degrades God’s miracles into natural phenomena.

Numbers are the devils’ tools, so they don’t play around with numbers.

It’s as if artisans don’t play around with their own tools.

A clear number popped out of that devil’s mouth.

90%.

Ninety percent.

Nine out of ten humans died.

“Lies.”

“You know it’s not a lie.”

“Fuck off, eat shit. I’m not going to believe it.”

Even though I knew that devils don’t play around with numbers, I stubbornly denied Kunat’s words.

I couldn’t endure without denying them.

If those words were true, then you can only call it doomed.

“Father Theodore.”

The devil’s whisper plunged down on me as I was in confusion.

I tried desperately to calm my wavering heart.

This kind of moment is the most perfect timing for a devil to target its prey.

Calm down.

I have to calm down.

“Calm down,”

“…!”

“I’m telling you the truth.”

“That can’t be…”

“It’s not unreasonable that you can’t believe it.”

“…”

“The primal aversion you have toward devils… I understand. You’re a human and a priest, and aren’t you our enemy? It’s natural.”

Kunat coaxed me with an unexpectedly soft voice.

Even though I knew it was a trick, I listened to his low voice.

“But, at the same time, I hate you too. Countless of my compatriots and children have been torn to death by your hands, and I myself have been beaten and chased back to Hell eight times,”

“…”

“Even so, the reason I’m laying everything out to you like this is, as I said before, because you’re our only hope.”

Hope.

Could there be a word more unsuitable for a devil?

But for some reason, I can’t feel the aura of a lie from those words.

I don’t feel any signs of a nasty trick.

Am I already charmed by him?

Or is it really that he’s not trying to deceive me?

“Please, Father Theodore. Have a slightly more open mind. This isn’t a problem between devils and humans. Our entire world, including Heaven, Earth, and Hell, is being threatened.”

I blew out a puff of cigarette smoke.

The murky cigarette smoke was gradually filling the room.

After stubbing out the fully burned cigarette on the floor, I took out another cigarette and put it in my mouth.

Kunat waved his hand once, and a tiny spark ignited at the end of my cigarette and began to burn.

I nodded as I took a puff of the cigarette.

“Hoo… Okay, I’ll listen.”

“Thank you.”

I shook the lit cigarette in front of him and replied.

“Ha, I’m the one who’s thankful for the fire.”

*

According to Kunat, monsters suddenly ‘appeared’ all over the world about a month ago.

The expression ‘appeared’ that he purposely used bothered me, but after listening to the explanation that followed, I couldn’t help but nod.

Those guys weren’t born in places like wicked heretical rituals or secret and terrible research facilities.

They didn’t drop from the sky, and they didn’t spring up from the ground.

Cities and villages, deserts and grasslands, mountains and swamps.

They appeared in various places all over this world as if they had lived there from the beginning.

That’s why even devils couldn’t know where the monsters came from.

They couldn’t know the origin or base or anything like that, and they couldn’t find a place to hide from them.

Those pale monsters who covered every place they went to killed and devoured everyone they saw indiscriminately.

Kunat added that being eaten was ‘the lucky side’ while explaining.

The monsters vomit disgusting excrement and dirty vomit on the corpses of humans, and as time passes, squirming mold grows on the corpses covered in all sorts of things.

The mold eventually blooms into something pure white, and each of those things grows and develops into dozens of monsters.

When a new monster is born like that, the corpse that was there disappears without a trace.

The reason why you couldn’t find any traces of people in the village must be because of that.

I bit my lip, feeling nauseous from Kunat’s unnecessarily detailed explanation.

Certainly, it’s a hideous breeding method that you can’t imagine from a creature in our world.

I sighed and muttered.

“Are those guys using humans as hosts?”

Kunat pondered for a moment before slowly shaking his head.

“No, I think it’s a little different from hosts.”

“…”

“A host means the side that’s being parasitized. But those guys aren’t creatures that live by parasitizing humans or animals. Rather…”

“…”

“It’s closer to using human corpses as seedbeds. You don’t say that rice parasitizes the land, do you?”

Kunat corrected my metaphor.

Seedbeds.

One of the Order’s main tasks is to spread farming methods to underdeveloped rural areas, so I knew the word well.

Are those guys planting their seeds in human bodies?

“Disgusting.”

Nausea was carried in the cigarette smoke mixed with the sigh I let out.

If all of that devil’s explanations are true, I can’t even fathom how many monsters are living outside this island right now.

Kunat said that 90% of humanity has died.

If half of those corpses were eaten and the other half became seedbeds… the number of monsters would be an unimaginably vast number.

As if he noticed my thoughts, Kunat slowly continued.

“Ah, the 90% of humanity that died is just an estimate, after all.”

“Oh, so does that mean there’s a possibility that more are alive?”

“No, it means we don’t know.”

Kunat continued with a bitter voice.

“Currently, the devils haven’t been able to figure out the number of humans who survived. We can’t find them.”

“If what you’re saying is true, then the outside must be in complete chaos. Then wouldn’t it be easier to find corrupted humans?”

“Other devils might have found them, but I haven’t. I was busy watching someone.”

“Are you talking about me?”

Kunat gave a wry smile and continued.

“Yes.”

“… Ha,”

“As you said, there might be people somewhere. They might be hiding somewhere, or they might be left in other monasteries…”

“… But why couldn’t you find them?”

“Because we don’t have enough eyes.”

Not enough eyes…

Devils couldn’t walk on the ground with their own bodies.

This land, full of God’s blessings, was too bright for devils to walk on.

In order for them to come up to the ground, they had to either possess animals through a special ritual, like now, or take over the bodies of humans stained with desire and malice and use them as hosts.

“There’s no way there aren’t evil people in these chaotic times.”

“Those monsters don’t discriminate between good and evil when they attack. Good people die, but evil people die a lot too.”

“It’s a disaster.”

Kunat continued in an aggressive tone with a hint of resentment.

“One of the reasons was that I was busy watching you.”

“Stop praising me so much.”

“Praising you? Hee hee hee, you’re a person that devils have to watch out for.”

An Exorcist Priest is basically someone who retrieves bodies stolen by devils or, when it’s too late, kills even that body with them.

And for the past few years, the person who was doing that the best was me.

“All of the devils in this area, including me, were watching your movements.”

“…”

“Thanks to that, ironically, our nemesis has become our only hope.”

Kunat quietly shined his eyes and glared at me.

The slight playfulness that had been swirling around until just now scattered roughly, and a grim atmosphere lingered.

“Don’t think that I’m enjoying having this conversation with you.”

“…”

“I also hate this situation where I have to bring up these words to you very much. But, this is the only way, so I came here after being summoned by your crude magic.”

I grabbed my throbbing head and pressed it hard.

I can’t completely trust a devil’s words, but assuming those words are true, I roughly understood the situation.

The scope is too big.

This wasn’t a problem that I, one person, could solve.

Even this story seemed to be growing even bigger.

“Let’s say the world is doomed. But what does it mean that Hell and Heaven are also being threatened?”

“Ha, are you really a Priest, buddy?”

Kunat answered with a dumbfounded attitude.

“What would we devils do without humans? Who would continue the faith if there were no humans?”

“…”

“God, humans, and devils can’t exist without each other. We’re enemies, but at the same time, we’re a part of this universe’s cycle.”

“Yeah, there was that hypothesis too.”

“Ah, I guess that was just one of the theories in your theology stage.”

It was clearly a remark mocking the slow pace of human development.

But now wasn’t the time to debate about theology, so I didn’t bother and changed the subject.

“Then what do you mean that I’m hope?”

“Ah, right. We can finally start a constructive conversation.”

Kunat straightened his posture and opened his mouth.

“Humans can’t stand against the monsters.”

“It seemed possible enough.”

“Weren’t you just barely escaping? The number of monsters is overwhelming. Their strength far exceeds humans’ too.”

Yeah, I know from experience.

I also feel like I can somehow take care of one or two monsters, but I can’t handle it if they come in droves.

I was just barely escaping today in a bloody mess.

“Besides, those guys are just creatures like that, they’re not particularly evil. So divine power doesn’t work on them either.”

“… That’s right.”

“But, we can kill them.”

“We…?”

Kunat opened his mouth.

With a slow and ominous smile.

“Devil’s power can kill those guys. For sure.”

“…”

I can finally see how the story is turning.

I asked with an unpleasant expression.

“So, you had this long conversation to tell me to lend you my body?”

“…”

“Those disgusting Satan’s sperms can’t break their old habits and eventually reveal their true nature like this.”

“Why are you getting so angry? Do you have a clever way to save humanity from those monsters?”

“I don’t, but at least you won’t find a stupid Priest in this doomed world who will fall for a devil’s words and lend you their body.”

I spoke almost growling as if I was screaming.

Kunat slowly shook his head.

“You’re mistaken. Well, I did call you hope, so it’s understandable that you’d be mistaken.”

“You’re falling back on your old habits again. Don’t beat around the bush and speak straight, you bastard.”

“We have no intention of snatching away your body. What’s so good about that Priest’s body filled with the Goddess’s piss smell that we would crawl into it?”

Kunat chuckled while comparing the golden divine power really disgustingly.

I let out a shout.

“So what are you saying…!”

“But, those girls you’re protecting aren’t that divine yet.”

“…!”

At the same time as Kunat’s words ended, I burned his eyes with the cigarette I was holding.

“Kieek!”

“Don’t even think about touching them.”

“Kieeaak,”

The cigarette contains herbs pickled in Holy Water.

It must be like cyanide heated up with fire for devils.

“If you even lay a finger on them!”

“Then what… Kieuk, are you going to do?”

“…!”

“Are you going to stay stuck on this island here and not even care whether the outside world is doomed or not?”

“Shut up.”

“Right, if you keep hiding like this, those girls will all be yours. You’ll have to replenish the doomed humanity, after all!”

“Don’t say disgusting things! I’m a Cleric!”

“So that was your intention from the start? You’re more impressive than I thought, kiieeek…!”

“I said shut up!”

I twisted the cat’s neck.

The cat’s body drooped down with only an unpleasant weight in my hand.

“… Haa, ha…”

I tossed the cat on the floor.

The cat, sprawled on the floor with its neck bent, soon started to slowly raise its body again while making a grotesque noise.

“Have you calmed down a little?”

“…”

“Whether you believe my words or not, there’s only one truth. That this is the only way.”

“… No way.”

Lend their bodies to a devil?

Eat shit.

I can’t do that.

But… what can I even do in this world now?

I threw the crushed cigarette on the floor and stomped it out with my foot.

“I’m going to go wash up. Stay here.”

“Isn’t the reason you filled the room with that disgusting cigarette smoke in the first place for that? Have a comfortable trip.”

Kunat gave a sly smile.

I frowned hard and opened the door.

“…!”

“Ah, Fa, Father…”

The girls were standing in a row in front of the door.

“Th, the thing is… you were suddenly shouting, so…”

“… Did you hear?”

The three were standing there hesitatingly.

Just as I was about to press them again,

Lucia nodded and answered.

“Yes… we heard… everything.”

“Ah, damn it.”